Carl

Thanks so much, that's exactly what I was after. The thread Dagworth linked to is great, and thanks Phil for explaining why it might happen on fairly mainline settings.

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone has any photos of cases where points have been partially removed from a in-service track. I have vague memories of having seen this, where the switch rail has been partially removed, and the crossing removed and replaced by straight track, but the sleepers haven't been replaced and branch is basically still in situ. Or something like that. I might have dreamt it. Can anyone help? Thanks, Carl.

A quick update. Following another thread I started here over the weekend and the advice I received there, I've decided it's probably worth actually planning my wiring and track laying (in terms of isolated sections etc) properly, rather than following the gung ho approach I was originally going for! I did make a start on the track laying, in the fiddle yard where the sections are pretty obvious. I'm using Peco finescale track throughout the fiddle yard. I covered the fiddle yard area with 3mm Plastazote foam which makes the whole thing look really tidy. I used Copydex latex glue to glue the foam to the boards, and then glued the track to the foam. The tracks through this section of the fiddle yard are at 1 inch spacings, which I realise makes it tight for actually fiddling, but I balanced the amount of storage I want vs the downside of that, and decided I am happy having to place stock onto the layout outside the fiddle yard - I have the Reddish branch which will allow me to do that, and trains will still be able to run around the layout while I do. I originally laid these tracks as full lengths of 1 yard, but fortunately I did add droppers on each end of them. I'm going to cut them down the middle, breaking them into two sections of about 450mm. I can add multiple occupancy detectors per block in TrainController, so I can have them act as though they are one block should that be necessary. Once my rather large order of Digikeijs modules arrives, I can start connecting them up. More details on that to follow!

Thanks @5BarVT and @Andymsa. I’ll reply when I get a few minutes to think about what you’ve written. I’m sure I’ll PM you too Andy, your personal experience will be valuable, thanks for the offer. Thanks again!

Hi James, Thanks for that, especially the points about having some kind of detection immediately before each road in the fiddle yard - that's exactly the kind of consideration I was after. Fortunately, I can easily do that. In terms of your questions : I'm aiming for full automation ultimately, although I will want both other options too (which I guess falls out of being having full automation.) Yeah, I do - I probably should have been a bit clearer with that, sorry. Most of the blocks in my diagram will have multiple occupancy detectors due to baseboard boundaries etc. I've read through this several times, but reading it again, it does explicitly say that the sensor which triggers the brake and stop must not be occupied by waiting trains, which I hadn't appreciated before your reply. That actually forces me to have some detection immediately before each road in the fiddle yard, as the distance to the previous sensor varies depending on where the train has come from. I am probably jumping the gun thinking about it given I've just started laying track and wiring it up, but I guess I am really checking that my goals are achievable. I think your advice of "add occupancy detection everywhere you can" and "don't conflate blocks and occupancy detection" are two things that hadn't clicked for me. Regards, Carl.

Hi all, I'm a little confused about the best way to organise my blocks for TrainController (I have TC Gold), I would appreciate it if someone could sanity check my plan. Below is a track diagram, my layout is N. I'm planning on each of the coloured areas being a block. My traffic is going to be a mixture of DMUs and long passenger/freight (which could be upto ~8ft long.). The long trains will be using both the mainline and the branch (which is singled in part.) Some DMUs will be stopping at Reddish South, and I envision them being able to wait for trains to clear the single track having left the mainline (waiting in the yellow block on the branch.) I think the branch line is just about long enough to hold (at least some of) my freights without fouling Heaton Norris Junction or the entrance to the fiddle yard, and would like them to be able to stop on the branch travelling in either direction - but they definitely will be longer than the blocks I have on the branch. Will that be a problem to setup? I understand it's possible to stack short trains in a single long block and have them move up to make space at the entrance end of each road, and this is preferable to many, short blocks in the fiddle yard. My longer trains (especially the freights) are about the length of the roads in the fiddle yard, and in most cases, they'd leave the fiddle yard, traverse the layout, and re-enter onto the same road without having to wait for trains to move up at threshold speed. For DMUS, the other trains in that block will be moving up 1ft or less. I don't really know the break down of long trains vs short I'll be running. In some operating sessions, I might prefer longer trains and in some, shorter, and wouldn't want to reconfigure either TrainController or the layout to suit, so I'd have all of the fiddle yard set up to work like that. Is my understanding of this "auto-move up" process correct? I guess this is my real question for this thread. Also, Is there any disadvantage to adding blocks to TrainController in the areas around the junction? I will wire them up anyway, I have plenty of block detectors available (I'm using DR4088s, and have three of them) but I'm specifically asking about adding them in TrainController. There is enough room for DMUs to stop in the four sections above the text "Slow-Fast-Fast-Slow" (which, when travelling anti-clockwise, might be useful if they have to wait for trains to move up in the fiddle yard), and there is quite a long section on the outer slow at the junction. But usually, I think I wouldn't want trains to enter the junction area without being able to immediately clear it. Can I set some blocks to be ignored by some types of trains? (Edit: just noticed I haven't coloured the four short roads in the fiddle yard as blocked, but they should be. They won't really be used for running trains regularly, just for holding trains awaiting setup or maintenance etc - they are next to my programming track.) Thanks for reading, Carl.

Today has seen the delivery of my code 40 track, and my DR5033 boosters. Look at the hilarious amount of sleepers! With the weather looking dodgy over the weekend, I should be able to get some track laid and some wiring started ...

I don't have a class 33, but I do have a nice, weathered 31 that I know were around Manchester Piccadilly that I really love - I don't know if they ran through HNJ or not, but rule 1 and all that!

Seahorse, Yeah, I tried various options to getting the junction and viaduct in the correct orientation. The practical problems were pretty much as Woodenhead mentioned - my main issue was that the Reddish branch ended up adjacent to the fiddle yard, and couldn't get the trains off the branch into the yard and leave enough length for the trains. But, the deciding factor was pretty much aesthetics, I wanted the main scenic areas to the in the corner of the room that you enter from (where I've taken the photo above), and I'm happy with reversing the junction to achieve that and permit the kind of operation I'm after. Thanks for thinking about it though, I was wondering if someone would come up with some way of organising it which fixes those issues!

I’m not sure of the ability of Autodesk Illustrator, but if it allows you to import screenshots, crop them and then flood fill, you ought be be able to use any font site which allows previews of their fonts to do your typefaces. For instance, visit https://www.dafont.com/mystical-snow.font?text=Ray+Von&psize=l Then screenshot it, crop it around the text, and then place it on a sign you’ve drawn. You can flood fill the background with your desired colours, then flood fill the letters accordingly. Might not be quite what you are after, but allows you a huge choice of typefaces.

I love the 304s, my favourite probably, and I had /completely/ forgotten they ran here. I tried to knock one up in N gauge a few years back without any great success, suppose I need to retry now! Thanks for reminding me.

I really love the run down 80s BR era, so I’m going for that feel. My rolling stock varies from 70s through to today, but probably mainly 90s. The whole area is relatively run down, even today, so I think it will be quite easy to make it work for non-specific time period. If you have any particular memories of the time you were there, I would love to hear them. And any photos would be gold!

Thanks Woodenhead for taking a look. I've knocked up a quick example of how the ladder might look, is this how you mean? I did want to avoid this to stop trains coming off the branch blocking trains leaving the fiddle yard onto the viaduct, as the branch line is borderline long enough to hold one of my freights without fouling Heaton Norris Junction. However, thinking about it more now I have a plan in front of me, I don't think that's an issue - a freight crossing Heaton Norris junction blocks the anti-clockwise traffic anyway, so some careful timing can mean a train emerges onto the viaduct at "yellow light" speed and they clear each other. I've used double slips in the ladder junction - having back to back points is too long for me, resulting in storage tracks too short. I may change them to simple diamonds and add crossovers on the running tracks coming off the viaduct to add a bit of interest up there, and thus allow trains to go between fast/slow in each direction (configured in the opposite direction to the crossovers at Heaton Norris Junction.) I'm not too concerned about trains crossing from up to down, most will be loco hauled, but I can fit some DMU sidings in that empty space to effectively allow them to reverse having come off the branch. Thanks again! Carl.

Hi all, After amassing stock over the past 10 years or so, I thought it's probably about time I start building a layout to put them on. This started by seeing that Tim Horn had a full circle of 1200mm radius x 1ft boards available and a couple of 4' boards to join them. The idea was to just have a simple oval so I can run some trains and mess about with some scenery. Unfortunately, the curved baseboards turned out to be 750mm radius which on their own would have been too small for what I want to run, but after a conversation with him and my partner, I've ended up with this - I think a much more interesting layout than the oval would have been! The model is based roughly on Heaton Norris Junction - enough to be recognisable to people familiar with it, but allowing me to chop and change things as the fancy takes me - and includes a short length of the branch through Reddish South towards Stalybridge. Perhaps more interestingly, it will also feature a near scale length Stockport Viaduct - I only need to drop two of the 22 large spans to make it fit. If you are familiar with the area, you'll notice Stockport Viaduct is actually on the wrong side of the junction - in reality, trains would cross the viaduct, then either branch off to Stalybridge or carry on towards Manchester. Hence the name, Heaton Norrish. I'll see how long it is before that name stops being funny to me. The reason for this is that it is more suited to layout of the room, so the scenery is viewable from the accessible corner of the room, and allowing a fairly substantial storage area for the scale-length trains I like to see. I'll be using British Finescale code 40 track on the scenic parts, with their concrete pointwork, and mainly Peco trackwork in the fiddle yard. The layout will be mainly computer controlled, using TrainController Gold. Anyway, here's the track plan. (Ignore the DMU Sidings label on the lower right, not sure how it ended up there!) I am happy with the track plan on the scenic boards - but I am toying with a few ideas. For instance, one would be to move the LNWR warehouse to the other side of the road it's next to, and add a station on the board it is currently on - based on Heaton Chapel, but called Heaton Norris. A kind of what-if Heaton Norris didn't close. I am having some problems with the off scenery part though. The Stalybridge line is mainly used by freight, but does have a once-a-week, in-one-direction-only parliamentary. In my version of reality, although the branch has been singled, it will see a fair bit of passenger traffic too. The main problem with this is that it means that trains coming off the branch have to cross the entire fiddle yard to be able to get back to the outside slow line. The track plan above has a 3% incline up and over the rest of the fiddle yard, which I have just enough room for, and allows for a full length freight train, and a few DMUs on each track. These trains can also run over the viaduct, so it allows for some variety in freight running over the branch, although you would end up with the same train coming from the same direction in close succession to get it into the main storage yard. The red DMU sidings are there to allow 2 car DMUs to avoid that problem, and look like they're returning from some destination down the branch line. The other two alternatives I've considered are : 1) Sacrifice the two scenic Reddish South boards and use them as storage roads, so the scenic break would be the horizontal road bridge. I think that would be a shame, I want to model that branch as being singled tracked with disused platforms/track. 2) To have the whole Reddish South branch on an incline, allowing for a few, longer storage roads above the main fiddle yard, which descend on the outside of the fiddle yard to the outer slow track. I think that would result in having to use some/all of the scenic board that comes off the viaduct above Reddish South station as storage since I'll lose a few of the tracks on the main fiddle yard on the right hand side - I'm not totally against that. I'd be very interested to hear if anyone has any thoughts on this! I'm kinda blind to alternatives at the moment I think. I need to make a decision on it, and whether to include a station on the main line, before moving to track laying. I'm waiting on a delivery from British Finescale before I can move forward with the track laying anyway, so am trying to take my time. I have plenty of buildings to start modelling in the meantime. Here's a shot of the boards built up, and with a cardboard/paper mockup of the viaduct, with a little building for scale. You can also see a 20-wagon train on the far side. Thanks for reading, Carl.

Poor/plain misleading reporting. 135 structures, 18 of which are to be demolished (and maybe two of those repaired instead.) Of the five bridges near me, one is in such a poor state of repair I'm surprised it's not demolished itself by now - it really is a welfare issue. Two others are small bridges over the old railway which provide access to a single house or field, and are to be infilled. Both have some rather large brick bridges (railway over road), close-by which are to remain. Removing some in-fill from under a bridge seems a trivial job compared to rebuilding a significant overbridge, so I don't see it as a barrier to even a footpath/cycle path should that ever happen (the lines themselves will 'never' re-open, there's just too much property on both alignments these days.) So if it saves us some money, I'm all for it.

Hi Izzy, Did you use a digital card/paper cutter to cut those? Very impressive!

Another run has been announced today : https://www.revolutiontrains.com/more-tea-vicar/ 30 will be on the way to me!

As per the title really. I’m after a CJM Class 59, in National Power livery. Regards, Carl.

Hi Trigger, The tender is still on my todo list unfortunately, hoping to get to it this autumn/winter. I will be more than happy to print one for you, when (if?!) I do.

I hope so too, registering my interest should it help get an idea of numbers ...

Thanks for those guys, they are brilliant. Ozzyo, those pictures will be invaluable I'm sure! I haven't asked Hachette about back issues, I just assumed they wouldn't have any given the age of the series, but it can't hurt to ask. I'll give them a call this morning. I hadn't realised the tender could be built keeping the body separate, that approach seems ideal as presumably it would ensure I end up with the correct dimensions. Peter, your offer to loan one of your unstarted ones is very kind. I think what I'll do is move to building the tender, see if Hachette have any back issues, and if not, print the tender body. I think I probably have everything I need to make an accurate enough version. If I have any problems, I will take you up on your offer. I'll start a thread when I start on this kit in anger, I'm still waiting on a few bits to turn up, I'll post a link here so you can see how I get on! Thanks again guys.

Hi Peter, Thanks for those, they're perfect! I didn't realise there was a small curve at the top of the sides, so thanks for mentioning that! I'll start to put together a 3D model based on the figures you've already given. I have an unbuilt Finney 1928 corridor tender kit, so I can copy the curved cut outs of the top front of the sides from there (I hope, I've not actually looked!) and I'll match the curves on the vertical front of the sides to those on the rear of the cab. I can compare the dimensions you've given to that kit too, hopefully they'll be identical! Also thanks for mentioning the tender that will accompany the Mallard partwork, you're likely to be right that the body of that tender will match, despite it probably being a non-corridor version (I assume they are modelling Mallard the day it broke the record.). I would hope to have the Flying Scotsman finished before the Mallard issue comes out, but I will definitely keep an eye out. I'll look forward to your photos! Regards, Carl.

I recently picked up a complete set of the Flying Scotsman partwork magazine, which had all the issues but was missing just the tender body which came with issue 88. I started the build only last night, but I'm thinking ahead to the tender already. Despite the Flying Scotsman being based on the DJH A3 kit, the magazine provided a injection moulded tender body. Fortunately, it had no moulded detail and I have a 3D printer, so I can easily create one. I think I can work out most of the dimensions of the tender body directly from other parts in the kit, but as a sanity check, could someone who has this kit (built or otherwise) quickly measure the length, height (both of the side wall and the maximum height of the back) and width of the tender body, as well as - perhaps most importantly - the thickness of the plastic? I'll produce the various curves from drawings of the 1928 tender, but I don't necessary trust the actual body dimensions to be perfectly to scale (and the thickness of the moulding will have an impact on that), and I don't want to run into the problem of assuming it is to find out later it's slightly out. I can measure the thickness of brass tender footplate and the beading, so if your kit is built and your measurements include the brass, I can work out the actual size of the plastic body from there. Thanks in advance for any help! Carl.

Do you know if the shop still open for business? I have used this stuff before and would like to order more, but I noted the site itself hasn't been updated for some time, it says 2006 in the footer. I sent Simon an email a few weeks back, but didn't get a reply, so ended up buying some stuff from Carrs instead.

The baseboards are taking shape, perhaps a little more slowly than I would have liked but a couple of stupid errors have slowed things down a bit, the biggest of which was briefly thinking I was modelling in 1mm:1ft! I've started by concentrating on the areas which sit below track level, and especially on the area around the River Irwell. You can see an aerial show of the area as it is now on Google Maps. View of the River Irwell as it flows under the lines just west of the station. To the right of the river is Victoria Street. To the left, you can see the current state of the road you take to get to the car park which is where the central area of Manchester Exchange station used to be. There is a lot of work to do there yet. A view of the same area, but taken from the car park road, towards Victoria Street. I've since fixed the rather obvious slope of the wall above the tunnel, I didn't notice it until I saw the photo! And finally, a view from the car park, down the slope towards the river. To help show you what I'm aiming for, here are a couple of pictures I took on a visit to the station in April 2009. Both show the Arena which now dominates the station.