Matloughe

So, I managed to achieve my goal set for today. After the kids were put to bed I grabbed some paper and folded it over - I am a big fan of using heavyweight paper or light cardstock opposed to a track rubber as it is abrasive enough to clean any dirt or scum off of the rails but is not-where near strong enough to take the top layer off of the rails which is a common cited criticism of track rubbers. Paper also keeps ahold of the dirt its taken off rather than deposit elsewhere. All in all it went well - one point was stuck, the one adjacent to the platform but after wiggling it free I then used the CDU and solenoid to free everything up and it is working well now. I have used Woodlands Scenics fine buff ballast as I wanted to get something the looked similar to the shingle on Eastbourne beach - famously the LB&SCR used the shingle from that beach as its ballast, I'm not in a position to go there so I have eyeballed it from several online photos. For some little lightheartedness - I have taken a short 1(ish) minute video showing off all the working track as well as the Kadees in action! Apologies for the speed this was a test rather than the prototypical operational speed. There is a high spot on one side of the board crossing I need to reduce. Please enjoy #40 "Brighton" bringing in her single coach tran and running around before departing. Most locomotives run this orientation with smokebox towards the Fiddleyard so that they can take coal from the small coal bunker between the tracks of the passenger and freight lines at the end of the station Headshunt. Enjoy! Kind Regards, Gary

As a follow up; I spent most of Sunday making a drastic alteration to the layout - I painted everthing in shades of grey!!! No, don't be silly - I didn't do that. 😃 I spent Sunday afternoon ballasting the layout - getting it into all the nooks and crannies bedded down nicely. Then after Sunday Dinner and putting the kids to bed it was time to commit - out came the sprayer, the PVA & washing up liquid and I just went for it. I soaked the whole lot and then drowned it in the PVA/Water mix. It looked terrible last night; but this morning it looked more normal. I'm hoping to clean the rails this evening after the kids have gone to bed and run a locomotive up & down testing everything. I manually moved the points about 10 mins after I glued everything then about half hour after that, and an hour or so after that and once again before I went to bed and this morning when I got up to make sure that I hadn't glued them in one position. I find it terrifying when you bite the bullet and commit to ballasting as once you've started you cannot change your mind. Well I definately said I wanted to finish some jobs this past weekend! Kind Regards, Gary

Tidying up Jobs I've felt rough this past week - I work in education and have a small and larger child myself so cough's & colds aren't a stranger in my household - usually I am the last to get poorly and recieve the least amount of sympathy! 😄 I haven't bought anything since my last post; and I have a nice dose of overtime coming through so I can pay the credit card down somewhat! Whilst I was poorly I did some research, the layout has moved location about five miles from Ifield Green to somewhere near Rusper. Since its inception it has been called informally Rusper Road Halt - I ordered some laser cut letters and as you can see below: The layout has been named, following on from this the informal history of the line is now that it was opened as a Light Railway under the Railway Regulations Act of 1868 - it was supported and latterly absorbed by the LB&SCR which is where we are now. The warehouse facility is assumed to be a non-standard form of Goods Shed remaining from the original railway company. To support this the sliding door has been repainted from Green to the LBSCR Maroon it is now assumed to be a generic facility rather than a specialised one. I am still writing the specific history and the specific location of the station, its retained its 'Road' suffix as a nod that it is near the Village but not necessarily in the village. I did give in; the letters are supposed to be white but after 6 coats of white they still didn't look sufficently great so I gave in and painted the letters in the cream colour the buildings are painted in and despite my initial reservations - it looks good. The four switches are off the photo to the left and you can just see the 4-Pin connector between the boards which carries all the power from controller - there is about six inches of wire on this connector and on the matching one with the Gaugemaster Combi. With my Kadee starter set having arrived; I set to work converting a loco and some stock with the 'easy' NEM couplings I had bought. The magnets were placed on the platform road for primary uncoupling and on the siding for goods wagons. I am pleased to report they are working very well: It know it may bot look prototypical for my timeperiod; but without some 'play value' the layout will just end up gathering dust. I quite like that it has brought an element of close coupling - here Brighton has a #18 coupling and the carriage has a #19 coupling - as a rough rule of thumb - the back of the 'palm' of the knuckle coupling is should be roughly in line with the greatest extent of the buffers - and this will prevent buffer lock. For a 'starter' I have enjoyed the revelation of hands free uncoupling and this is great. This brings me onto my last train of thought. I am often down that I havent achieved much due to finances/discipline/time/modelling mojo (delete as appropriate) - and I missed my planned finish date but I have achieved quite a bit: Layout fully wired up Isolating sections fitted CDU & Switches for Point Motors Painted Scenery - researched 'historically accurate' colours Built Kits for Station Buildings Built Rolling Stock Kits Magnetic uncoupling Some of these things I havent done before; and I am learning - I like Kadees and after baulking at the price for the adjusting pliers (£25!!) I bought some cheaper ones for £7 I think they are here to stay - I'll buy some NEM couplers each month and convert stock piece by piece. I have already decided that next time - I'll be trying electromagnetic uncouplers rather than fixed magnets. Which is fine its all part of the process. Building this has made me join a Model Railway Club and meet with likeminded individuals. I'll leave you with another photo, Brighton while testing the Kadees - I drove Brighton into the headshunt and isolated it, and left the controller on leaving the coach lighting on: I still think there is something special about it. Kind Regards, Gary

I really need to stop buying things!! Good Day All! I hope everyone is well - work has been progessing in the background. I have been working/playing with remote uncoupling trying to get all my ducks in a line before I pull the trigger that is ballasting. To be honest - I havent had much sucess; I've tried the Hornby and Peco spring loaded ramps each of them worked better & worse with different stock but they both performed badly in that they uncoupled stock which was moving and shouldn't have been uncoupled. I've decided to try Kadee Couplings - I know they aren't prototypical for the time timeperiod I model in however if the model doesn't operate as I want then its not going to hold my interest. I was fortunate as the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association sells a couple of different starter kits on their website so I plumped for the middle option that gives me some kadees, magnetic ramps, some maintaince tools etc I have also bought a small selection of NEM Kadees in a couple of lengths for some quick changeovers so I can test the products and see if it works for me. I only need two uncouplers, one on the platform road for after I have pushed my stock back ready to run-around and one on the siding - I like the idea of the delayed uncoupling so I am quietly excited for when they arrive and I can do some serious playing testing. 😁 In other news I bought my first locomotive kit, a Chivers LBSCR D3 - whitemetal body and etch chassis. I'll source wheels and other gubbins after its arrived. I also bought a reasonable sized collection of LBSCR wagons from Facebook Marketplace - provided my tests with the kadees go well these will be a fantastic first test of the #5 couplers which come with the starter set as these wagons don't have easily swappable tension locks in NEM pockets: I have been desperately after a Thomas Meakins wagon for quite some time, and was very pleased to see the Urry and Gasson wagons - there are two more unbuilt Open A's included in the deal as well. I also had a bit of a running session for my locomotives - I have a large number of Terriers and as you know sometimes you need to take them for a walk! So that is exactly what I did: A Dapol SE&CR Terrier, I love the firebox glow on these locomotives. Really smooth runner and fantastic livery application - I passed over the Hornby one for this as I believed the livery application was better and I certainly think it makes a lovely comparison to the LBSCR one: Both locos at rest on the layout. I do like this angle across the platform ramp - it shows up quite often in my photography. Brighton at rest with a short goods train, this Open A isn't a Cambrian kit - this is from @BlueLightning's Oak Hill works range, it needs a little bit moe paintwork doing to it before I apply the transfers to denote ownership. Please check out his range of kits - I am saving up to buy a couple more myself. Merton is a bargain basement aquisition, complete with certificate of authenticity itself. Here I attempted to play with the depth of field on my camera and get the impression of the locomotive looming tall. I really dislike the boiler join on the Hornby model... more so than the cab roof join on the Dapol model! Something alltogether a little more different this time! The Beattie Wells Tank from Kernow models - this was one of the last models I bought before I stopped modelling probably nearly a decade ago, its a smooth runner - I've never had any issues with it but it doesn't have much clearance underneath - its actually beached here, stuck on the point motor actuating arm that produces up through the tie bar. I need to run a file over these to smooth them down. But I like the framing of this shot, and the focus point is much further away resulting in the blurring of the foreground scenery. Now I haven't abandoned pre-grouping, however I have lots of SR stock as I originally decided that I was unable to model pre-grouping all those years ago so I would model pre-grouping in a post grouping era i.e. LBSCR Stock in SR colours - this Dapol A1X is my first A1X I have owned, and #2644 was originally named "Fulham" which is where I am from so I had to have a model of her. I love the differences in the tooling how the boiler top is now far busier with the A1X variant. Its a beautiful runner and will look great with my SR Stock I have as I may run the layout (or subsequent layouts - more on this another time). I think the board crossing here on the far side is slightly too high as it causes some locomotives to stall - I will have to have a look into that and maybe shave it down a little for clearance. The Terrier show continues! K&ESR Terrier Rolvenden here, this is a Hornby Model and I have to say the dark livery really hids the join I dislike - this was one of my under £60 bargains along with the LSWR Terrier previously shown - I love the livery, it doesn't always show up well against the blue background but it does look a lovely deep rich blue colour. Great runner - and I love the light-railway feel it brings to anything I pair it with. This one is very much out of time period and out of location! #13 Carisbrooke is a Hornby Terrier in BR Transitional livery being in Bulleid Malachite Green with British Railways lettering - this was a realtively inexpensive purchase and is an A1X but different to Fulham. I was disappointed, it was caked in dust and has two bent & broken handrails but I have never seen this loco in stock anywhere so I had to have it for the livey alone! Runs well, I suspect she was a display shelf queen and was damaged being packed up - I'll look at replacing the handrails on the front of the side tanks at a later date. Another oddity, and because I wanted to tinker with the depth of field again with a more colourful locomotive this is a Bachmann LT Pannier 57xx - now for anyone who doesn't know that I have modelled the London Underground previously in Boxfiles and added it to my Minories layout - a long time ago, I am still taken with Roxeth a small layout built on the footprint of three A4 sheets of paper laid end-to-end as an Underground layout but no plans as of yet to build anything. I think I will wait and see what happens with Radley Models coming back online after the death of Phil Radley. I think thats it with the Terrier excursions, there is only Leadenhall and the LSWR Terrier both of which have featured heavily here before. I probably wont post another update until after I have tinkered with Kadee Couplings, unless I get bored and have a go at ballasting the fiddlestick for some practice. I hope everyone is doing well - and I lookforwards to seeing your modelling efforts while I do some serious playing testing of my own. Stay Safe, Keep Modelling. Kind Regards, Gary

I have a (potentially) silly question to ask, and that is - what do you need to model in 2mmFS? Is it a state of mind, or attention to detail or desire for greater detail perhaps? I've dabbled in N Gauge and - I've kept the stock, but it never ran well. Whereas I have seen numerous layouts on here and YouTube where the stock runs seemingly flawlessly what is the secret? My inclination is that everything is to a consistent standard which causes it to work together properly - whereas N is a bit of a mash-up. If I were so inclined to give it a go, obviously first port of call would be the 2mm Society - but would a distinctly amature modeller such as myself be able to model successfully in 2mmFS? Keep up the great work - its inspiring. Kind Regards, Gary

If its any help at all, I use the following: Citadel Paints from Games Workshop, Screaming Skull is a good match for the cream and Khorne Red for the Maroon. They're very nice paints which cover evenly and dry without any real brush marks showing. They're about £4 a small tin however which I consider to be mid-range for paint - I'd probably scoff at the cost if they didn't match so well to be honest. Here is an example on my signal cabin on my BLT layout: Hope that helps even just a little. Kind Regards, Gary

I think it was a whim purchase I think, like you said Open Thirds vanished quite early. I've been looking at the later Cravens locomotives (for some variety) and the idea of a train from the 1850's/1860's popped into my mind. I have seen on shapeways prints for the Sharp Stewart 2-4-0T tanks Bishopstone & Hayling Island and the 2-2-2 Egmont and was considering one of those to compliment the pack of Terriers I have in IEG. I did wonder if I could use a modified older Hornby Terrier Chassis under Bishopstone or Hayling Island but havent done any more work other than pondering. Kind Regards, Gary

Good Morning All, I am here on the early shift, having suffered several nights of insomnia - my usual ramblings may ramble on further than I had anticipated! So whats happened; primarily I have finished off all of the wiring - the dodgy point motor wire has been replaced (more on this shortly) and I have wired up the 4-pin plug and socket to the layout and the Combi controller which is now able to be 'plugged in' for a session and 'unplugged' when its time to tidy up with no need to faff with screwing or unscrewing terminals. Now as I have mentioned previously the loop points only throw in one direction to make the crossing with the headshunt points they wont return to lay 'normal' towards the siding. I replaced what I thought the problem was with the black wire at the same time I finished up the last connections under the board - flipped it over and added a loco and yet again it will only reverse and wont return to normal... I'm fairly certain when I tested it last time I swapped over the feeds and the problem reversed itself - it would only return to normal not reverse to form the crossover. If my memory is right then that implies both sides of the solenoid work seperately and that the return feeds from the solenoid both work as well. Its a mystery! I'd be happy to hear some advice from others - I'm going to do a visual inspection of the point motor later so that might reveal some issue. I also painted the footbrige into some appropriate colours and sourced some extensions to raise its height from Scale Model Scenery thin platform ramps I had ordered previously but do not intend to use: I think they look quite good - I just need to brick paper them up to hide the brown undercoat. Aside from that I have bought a number of locomotives (too many!) I am not buying anymore until this lot is paid off. I wont spoil any surprises as of yet but they're all Terriers! (2x Dapol, 2x Hornby) I have also been looking for more Rolling Stock - I have taken advantage of a Hattons Bargain Hornby LB&SCR 4-Wheel Coach which can work with my Genesis LB&SCR 6-Wheel Coach as a 'through' service from London perhaps leaving my Bachmann Stroudley interpretations to be the branch set. I've also managed to get ahold of a Liverpool and Manchester Open Third for £16 from Bure Valley Models I'm not quite sure what I am going to do with this yet - I want to compare it to my 4-wheel coach book and see if its similar to a LBSCR Open Third. Wagon-wise I have bought from Facebook Marketplace a fairly large number of wagons from a private seller a mix of Private Owners as well as some built & unbuilt LBSCR Open A wagons - which I established much earlier from the Sheffield Park Goods Register made up 95% of the wagons on the register - this will bring my total number of Open A's up to six with an Open D under construction and one of the rare 8-Plank Minerals 'close enough' wagons I bought from Dapol awaiting painting. As a minor aside the Bachmann Stroudley Interpretations are features in LBSCR Modellers Digest #17 on page 101, there is some fantastic modelling on there from lots of contributors. The last thing I have been working on - and it is still very much a work in progess is the layout name: Since its inception the layout has been referred to by myself as 'Rusper Road Halt' which made somewhat more sense in its original shelf format - as a level crossing gate formed the end of the headshunt. However the name has stuck somewhat so I decided to order the letters from a supplier on my favourite auction site... you know... the one beginning with the letter 'E' 😁 Rusper is a village in West Sussex laying between Crawley and Horsham - my Primary School when I lived in Crawley was on Rusper Road and it was the long walk home up to Ifield West! Because I didn't measure before ordering 'Rusper Road Halt' wont fit on the layout, so I am left with a decision do I have Rusper and imply the railway is closer to the village than I think it is in my mind, or perhaps 'Rusper Halt' which sounds quite interesting and is the name my significant other prefers or do I use 'Rusper Road' and imply similar to Colonel Stephens style this station is somewhere near the village but not quite near enough and is on the road to the village. The idea was to make it look like an LBSCR running in board - I searched for a long time for a supplier who would laser cut serif letters, I was going for a look similar to Sheffield Park and I think I can make it work - I am half-heartedly wishing I had left it as white on black. As an aside this letters here have had three or four coats of white acrylic and still look washed out the laser cut MDF is just a sponge! They aren't fixed in place uet as I want them to have a few more coats of white before I attempt positioning them with glue added. The otherside with the switches I may paint white and attempt to signwrite what the switches do and hand-paint a faux signalbox diagram for some small amount of authenticity and usefullness. I have also been in contact with a laser cutter supplier who has agreed to laser cut me a custom platform slightly narrower than I currently have but with lots of details of planked wood surface, supports/upright details, a wider area to accept my platform shelter, built-in fence for the platform and a set of steps heading up to the platform from ground level - this will let me add some scenery around the platforms and infront of them to suggest the world outside. The current platforms are 62mm wide, I have asked for 50mm wide (12' 6" scale width) with a deeper 60mm section for the station shelter (15' scale width). Thats it for now from the Brighton BLT, I hope you all are having fun with your modelling and I hope to see you soon. Kind Regards, Gary

I must be a wierdo, brought up on Semi-Skimmed "Green Milk" as we called it. Whenever we have to buy Full-Fat "Blue Milk" I always complain that I am chewing my milk with the difference in texture. My partner is partial to some "Gold Topped" Milk occasionally and its so thick it turns my stomach! For those who might not be aware, the colours I describe the milk as refer to the coloured tops of the bottle or labels - I'm sure everyone knows that but just in case things are done differently elsewhere in the world. I didn't want people to think I was drinking Blue Milk like Blue Cheese! 😁 Kind Regards, Gary

Its alright its clamped on! Seriously though I hope the painting went well so its a job that doesn't have to be done again anytime soon!

It looks great! I used to live at Ifield West, so Crawley/Three Bridges is still home after all these years. I think you've already developed a great sense of depth and scale with what you've made already. Boxhill looks 'just right' infront of that engine shed. I've subscribed to see more - I am a big fan of the LBSCR and your choosen location being so close to my old home is brilliant. Also I am loving the look of that double-ended van, I am keeping an eye out for that! Kind Regards, Gary

Good Evening/Good Morning All, I just wanted to update that I've done it! The planned electrical upgrade is complete, power feeds are in, isolating sections are in and working, Point Motors, Switches & CDU etc are all in and working!! It is complete - its been a weight hanging over me a little bit - I needed to get it done so I can turn my attention topside to some scenery!!! I feel immensely relieved that it all worked more or less first time when powered up - its been fun. I have already been tinkering with some scenery I had pre-planned I have created my next favourite view of the layout already! The boardwalk is new, its a barrow crossing kit from a vendor on my favourite online marketplace - it was actually two crossings in one package I have used the second kit to add the boardwalk at the end of the platform and short section to the signal cabin. I was accused earlier on in the thread of spoiling the bobby - well I have only gone and done it again! I think its the angled boards heading up to rail level which causes interest which I like - it just needs a passengers are not permitted to cross the line here sign. Leadenhall and E4 597 both have been very useful engines - the spent some time on the club layout testing some connections on our exhibition layout earlier in the week and now are testing their home stomping grounds. E4 #579 has been working on the civil engineering side of things - testing the footbridge! I'm still adjusting clearances - the precarious base of stacked card is planned to be replaced by foamboard when scenery starts in ernest. Both are seen here on the Club Layout during a break of testing - its quite refreshing to see them somewhere else actually. Thanks for that @Ian Simpson I am certainly going to have a look at the PO's available on there and wing them an email over about availability for sure. As something special; I have attempted to produce a test video of the layout in action showing off something which has been lacking recently - movement! Here's the link below: Please excuse any camera wobble or inconsistencies with lighting - it was filmed without my tripod on the dining table under less than ideal conditions while I was attempting to film & drive at the same time. I did attempt to give some styling to the video but its the first one I have edited for nearly a decade! There is also only the background track of motor hum and the snap of a point motor or switch to liven things up. Anyway - I hope someone enjoys! I am off to bed, satisfied with progress and looking forwards to making more. Enjoy a BLT! Kind Regards, Gary

Good Morning All! I have actually been plodding along slowly with things; I haven't had much time to myself recently as I have been looking after my daughter whilst she is in the process of changing schools - its been fairly stressful - I have been working to time at work and then zipping along to pick her up and then homeschooling her to make sure we're not missing anything while we have a gap in the school year! But last night after some parcels arrived and everyone had gone to bed I did manage some progress! I managed to drill and fit these four switches - now I don't own a power drill so this was all done by hand drill and it seemed to take an age! From left to right we have two centre off sprung toggles, these are for the main point leading onto the board at the left hand side for switch 1, switch 2 us for the paired crossover again centre off sprung toggle - this will move both points together the power to these switches is already hooked up to the CDU - I just need to run the power to each side of the solenoids and the negative return. Switches 3 & 4 are on-off switches and these control the isolating sections, switch 3 is for the siding and switch 4 is for the station headshunt. I am pleased to report that thanks to Terrier Rolvenden being my test piggie (doggie?) The isolating sections work as intended - it is quite satisfying to be able to isolate a locomotive - I have also ordered a Peco ST-29 static uncoupler this will be somewhat hidden behind the platform ramp allowing me to automatically uncouple for trains to run-around without leaning over the platform details and potentially damaging them. When it arrives I will be doing a thorough test (play) session - including the isolating sections. It'll also be fairly nicely hidden from view. Installing this point motor was a faff!!! I actually broke the tiebar of the point that was here and have had to swap it for this unpainted one from the track box. So thats another job i'll need to undertake repainting this point to match the rest of the trackwork. I am rather fed up of the bareboards of this all now and am itching to get on with some scenery to relieve the boredom of different shades of brown! The boards are very thin MDF - you can see in the background the four bumps of the screws for the underside of the CDU which have penetrated through the board surface. This whole area will be changed - I have my lasercut footbridge to cover the toe of the points here and am planning a hill to gently roll down towards the curved trackwork covering all the brown boards behind on this side of the track there will be some grass hill as well but I want to bring the level this side down faster so I have space to potentially fit a starting signal and maybe a small p-way cabin of some sort and some generic clutter - not too much as this is Victorian & Edwardian times but some bits and pieces. I've also ordered some battery powered Gas Lamps for the station they will be wired to a small battery box under the board with a switch to turn on & off as needed. Kind Regards, Gary

Thank you for the signal info - I have gone and had a look. I am uncertain if I could build the Wizard/MSE models kits at the moment - but certainly for the future maybe! Although not the same, I am using some laser cut large pavers to form the edges of my platform and I am planning to infill with an aggregate of some sort, Pavers will also be under my small station building and at the entrace to the platform. But my station is no-where near as grand as this - its purely for some of the rural folk to go up to Lunnon or down to Brighton. I did consider planking my platforms - but I have enough shades of brown on my layout currently I don't want or need any more!! Update as/when you feel like, its your model. And you have a captive audience here to view your work. Kind Regards, Gary

If I may ask, what are the origin of your signals shown here? I am trying to sort out a starter & shunt for my own layout and I am trying to ascertain what others have used to represent LBSCR Signals. The layout is fantastic - I always enjoy a trip here. Kind Regards, Gary

It'll be LBSCR Goods Black, which is overall black 'LBSC' on the tanks and lined out in Double Red Lining Like this E1 from Plumpton Green. What I am trying to figure out is if I can afford another E1! I've got my eye on Marsh Umber... Kind Regards, Gary

Another mini-update today, this time focusing on the waybills for generating freight. So its a work in progress but so far the idea is that at the start of an operating session I will throw a number of dice to generate freight traffic to my station here. To keep things simple a roll of 1 to 3 on a standard 6-sided dice will generate 1 wagon of freight, and 4 to 6 will generate 2 wagons of freight - these numbers may change later on based on experience and to mix things up - for example there is no provision to generate no freight currently. I have the following categories made up and assigned a colour to them: RED Dice - General Mixed Goods Vans BLUE Dice - General Mixed Opens & Flats WHITE Dice - Insulated Vans GREEN Dice - Perishable Fruit Vans YELLOW Dice - Perishable Open Wagons BLACK Dice - Coal Wagons & Fuel Tankers ORANGE Dice - Ore Wagons PURPLE Dice - Special Workings If I shuffled my deck and it consisted of the following Cards, and then generated traffic by throwing the following dice: RED: 2 = 1 Wagon YELLOW: 3 = 1 Wagon BLACK: 5 = 2 Wagons I would have some idea of what freight would be heading to my station for the day. So working down the list, The GWR Vent Van would be needed to satisfy the Red Dice. For Yellow I could select eiher the GWR 4- Plank or the LBSC Open A. However I need two coal wagons to satisfy the black dice, so I would need to use the Open A & the Lowther & Cameron PO wagon for the coach traffic leaving me only with the GWR 4-Plan to satisfy the yellow dice, perishable open wagon I need. Loco + GWR Vent Van + GWR 4-Plank + LBSCR Open A + Private Owner + Brake Van Would form the morning freight service to my station - now an interesting take is my station can only accept three wagons at a time, so working this out the two GWR wagons would be shunted to the siding and the Private Owner would be put in the holding spot with the LBSC Open A returning to Three Bridges for the afternoon freight. I like to prioritise other companies wagons and private owners to avoid paying demurrage charges. Prior to the afternoon freight working I roll a dice to see what wagons have been unloaded during the day, I roll a 4 which indicates both GWR wagons are available to be removed by the afternoon freight so when it arrives with the Open A from this morning in tow, it will shunt out the two GWR wagons and then shunt the Private Owner and the Open A to be unloaded this afternoon/tomorrow. The less than or equal to numbers are to balance different wagons take different times to load/unload, its easier to use a trolley to unload a van stacked with crates than to shovel coal out of a 7-Plank wagon by hand! If by instance the GER Salt van replaced the GWR Vent Van and a three was thrown then the GW 4-Plank would still be unloading so the afternoon freight would remove the GER Salt van, shunt the coal private owner forwards to be unloaded and leave the LBSC Open A in the holding space available. As indicated wagons may also be used for different traffic - I might experiment with different unloading throws depending on goods carried. In the example of the Open A the Blue & Yellow spots might indicate bulk merchandise like wood planks or root vegtables rather than coal and the unloading throw for Blue & Yellow could be Less than or Equal to Three, leaving coal as Less than or Equal to Two. When I sat down and went through the wagons I had available I realised that 1. I didn't have that many & 2. Most of them are coal wagons!! I think I will be building some more wagons later on in the year once the scenery has been addressed! Here is my current deck of waybill cards - there is a mix of pre & post grouping as I was running out of cards to attempt to build a viable deck - with my available wagons. Companies are colour coded thanks to the useful page from wikipedia UK Railways Colours List the HEX Codes converted into RGB and then boxes ruled out in Excel to make the cards the cards are quite large at 75mm x 100mm and are printed onto stout 200gsm cardstock. I have standardised the fonts to try and make it look a little like handwritten forms filled out - again they have some flavour built into them with return locations being where the Private Owners were registered or known large depots on foreign railway companies soil. This weekend I am going to have a dig around to see if I can find some other wagons to make more waybill cards up with. I hope its not been too boring, I've bought a small tripod and am thinking I might attempt to make a video of a freight session in place using an old mobile phone to record on. Failing that I hope something interesting is coming out of this for people to read - I am writing an operations manual for my layout as I go along, detailing passenger & freight operations and will be added to and amended as I go forwards. Have fun, enjoy a BLT! Gary

Good Evening All, How is everyone doing? Well I hope? Firstly I want to apologise, for two reasons. 1. I havent posted anything in a while, this is because we have had several major things go wrong all at once - our car threw snapped its cambelt and wrecked the engine block. Our washing machine decided to spin its last spin and some more personal stuff and so I haven't posted because, quite frankly Model Railways were not the top priority. 2. I havent actually achieved anything of substance since my last post. This post is more of a "I'm still here and something is still happening" I never would have thought that I would have rolling stock from three Pre-Grouping companies on my model railway, let alone three RTR models at that! Thanks to @BlueLightning from Train Times at Eastbourne (my not-so-local, local model shop) for the SE&CR Exclusive van - it was here next day via Royal Mail and looks fantastic. In the background - the only tangible evidence of progress are some Locomotive Cards i've made up for my choosen operational method - I am hoping to do another shunting session in the future and document the operation using the cards I have been making. I have previously examined and have showed off some prototype cards off as above - but the next version I am working on is based on some trial and error operation with these Mark I cards. As a quick explaination, several different coloured dice are thrown to generate freight traffic for my station, the coloured blobs on these cards indicate what colour dice they relate so. So the GER Van can be used by two different dice throws, whereas EA Robinson is Black for Coal only. On the newer cards the return empty throw has moved and has a less than or equal to number. The layout is timetabled for a morning freight and an afternoon freight run and prior to the afternoon freight a dice is thrown and any wagon with a number less than of equal to the throw which was eligible to have been empty can be picked up - more on that in a later post. The last comment I have to make is about this next photo: Before things turned sour this last month I did splurge and bought from Kernow a LSWR 10T Brake van because it superficially reminded me of the LBSCR Panter van. It was only today I actually pulled out the Southern Wagons book and offered up the wagon and I was extremely surprised and relieved to see how very similar the two models are!! Certainly close enough for my purposes - the camera lense is making the Brake van look larger than the drawing becuase its nearer to the lense but to the naked eye they are identical in length and height. Its going to get a repaint into LBSC Freight Grey, I am going to look for some strapping to replicate the missing diagonals and I am going to order some transfers this month for the couple of wagon kits to make them a little more complete. Be safe everyone, I'm so glad I have sorted out my headaches for the past month and looking forwards to chilling and modelling ahead! Kind Regards, Gary

Oh my goodness; I've never seen a plastic injection kit of a carriage like that before - where has it come from? I really want a rake of them! Kind Regards, Gary

After seeing the shameless advertising and remembering I have a P Class (or two) on pre-order I thought I had best support my (not so local) local model shop and take one of these strange wagons from the company to the east of the one true way to the South Coast... They look great. Kind Regards, Gary

What hole? The wires connect to the inside loop via croc clips, to the Combi. The Mains power to the combi runs under the Bachmann Stock Boxes towards the radiator and through a gap under the rails where two curved sections join. Ideally I wouldn't have any 230v on the table next time I have a go at it - the wife was just pleased me & my daughter have time together :-) Kind Regards, Gary

Good Morning All, Not much to report on currently. I was feeling rather fed up; I had stripped the layout of its limited scenery and it was covered in wires, tools, connectors etc To be honest I was sick of looking at it, so I reached back into my bits box and pulled out some of the wiring I removed from the N Gauge layout that sat on this board - using what I had I have wired the layout up with the power leads connected together into a temporary bus bar and wired up as 'live' - I will amend the connections to go to the isolating switches in the near future. I feel like I need one of those signs that sparks put on fuseboxes: In my 'normal' method it is wired up so that the Black 'Negative' polarity is the one that is connected to the front most rails when viewing from a normal angle - this way it blends in and is hidden by other surrounding scenery, and the Red 'Positive' polarity is the rearmost one - and as my electrical training has kicked in the positive live will be the one which goes via the isolating switch leaving a negative common return. As can be seen here Black & Blue go together as they share the 'L' letter, and Red & Brown share the 'R' letter for easy fault identifying currently. (If you'll pardon the pun), I will wire these with the correct colours when the electrical installation is finished and will revert to Black & Red in their entireity as Blue is used for point motor wiring IIRC. The point motors when they are fitted, they will all have a common return via the negative wiring to the CDU and the positive will be via switches - the run-around points will be wired up as a mirror of one another so that they fire together and will face one another when switching from the normal straight to reversed. Meanwhile Leadenhall helped with the testing to ensure I had infact wired it all up correctly - I even got the polarity correct to the controller so that forward was indeed forwards! Minor victories indeed. In other news Leadenhall went to the model railway club on Friday and had an important job testing the track on the club layout; I think it enjoyed going round & around - I certainly enjoyed seeing it pull a 5-coach train without any issues on the layout. I think I am starting to understand the appeal of being a part of the club, I took my multimeter and managed to solve a problem on one seemingly dead section of track it was a nice experience to be able to help - and to watch much longer trains trundle around a layout. I will have to look back into DCC fitting of locomotives as the club layouts a predominately wired for DCC use - although can be DC. Planning for the future; I can see the end of the major work on this layout in sight. Once the points are wired up and switches sorted I can turn it back over and work on the scenery to my hearts content. The layout has a provisional invitiation to the club exhibition next year - provided we have an exhibition, and it is ready in time. And being a part of the club means I can run my wolf pack of Terriers great & small, a few are seen above. One step at a time; one project in my head running concurrently with the scenery is potentially a replacement fiddleyard in the form of another station to form a small modular style system. Equally last year, it was looking like I was set on the path of modelling in N Gauge rather than 00 so who knows: Pre-Grouping in N Gauge... madness surely? I am after a Corrall wagon in 00 though! Or perhaps something completely different who knows! Anyway I hope you enjoyed your trip to my little Branchline terminus, and thank you for entertaining my ramblings. Have a great day! Kind Regards, Gary

Whenever I see this @Nearholmer it brings me joy. I sometimes thinkg that we stress too much on everything being perfect and exactly scaled down. I can imagine just watching the trains going round is fantastic. I really like those Terriers. Can't wait to see more!

Good Morning All, I hope all is well - some minor work has been going on underneath the BLT this weekend. I have drilled all the holes in the board surface needed for power feeds and for the three point motor arms - underneath it is looking a little like swiss cheese with the new & old holes visible but not too bad. During this process I lifted all of the track, and added the the feeds & double isolating fishplates and replaced the track carefully ensuring the power feeds were pulled back through to the underside of the board: The small CDU here has some joint tails & IC chips on the underside so I bought a set of computer CPU stand-offs and have mounted it to the underside of the board. The holes in the CDU printed circuit board were allegedly M3 - but the M3 screws I had wouldn't fit so I have reamed them out to M3.5 and fitted small washers to secure everything in place. The CDU has four screw terminals for power in & out and points out & return - it has a capacity of 4,700uF (microfarad). In all honesty - I'm not 100% sure what that means. When looking at my point motors to fit I have thee Peco PL-10E motors - the two I had in stock already are actually the low-currentl PL-10WE versions so I will wire those up together as the points controlling the headshunt & siding as they will be thrown together, leaving the standard PL-10E for the first point on the layout. I have five more holes to drill when I've settled on the location of the switches for the layout's wiring, after that its fitting the point motors and wiring it all up - I am not allowed to use the soldering iron in the house so that will have to wait for a much brighter day than the rain today! Happy Modelling Everyone! I am looking forwards to completing this electrical upgrade!! Kind Regards, Gary

That's okay Andy, I am using point motors because I had two of the three in stock, I found an inexpensive CDU online and have a local hardware shop that sells the other electrical items for pennies. To use rods I would need to go and buy wood, equally I haven't seen wire coat hangers since I was a child all the coat hangers in the house are plastic and equally bicycle spokes would require buying a bicycle wheel - which probably costs more than what I've spent on the items I have. I just felt like I wanted a layout which has electric point control, the technical challenges of working it out and implementing it appeals to me - originally I was just going to move the points with the Hand of God. It does make me think about sorting out an automatic uncoupling solution as well! Ideally I would want the wiring worked out so that it is electrically interlocked requiring FPL switches to be thrown before points but that is probably a step too far for a 3-point micro. Kind Regards, Gary