richbrummitt

You're all too kind! It seems that my broadband is kind of back (speed is up, but still suffering drop out), and we have a reconditioned sky box that allows the telly to work again. I'm still managing to distract myself too much though. I have to go and cut some wood and see if the layout will actually go into the car... ...then I can carry on with other items like couplings.

I didn't know that you needed a controller to play push-alongs on a paper plan I'm glad that you have found something to be getting along with again. Will the other layout get finished now, or is it destined for the dump?

I have a pair of kits for coaches formed in B sets. They are from 5522 etches and have quite a lot of detail parts. You can have them for very sensible money if you would like, just drop me a pm.

My internet is broken somewhat broken, hence the lack of pictures. I am down to 18kB/s on up to 4Mb broadband! On top of that the Sky+ box died overnight, refusing to come off stand by. That said there is very little to see with the layout. I booked the week off work to do finish the to-do list so that the layout can travel, and would work. I even wrote the to-do list. This went something like: Finish power supply enclosure Build some cassettes Fit adaptors for the cassettes to fit to on the baseboards Fit stock with couplings Get a fuse and test the uncoupling magnets Attach rear fascias (back scene) Cut and make fit central transport panel It continued with a bunch of other items that I would like to get on to including the groundwork (which requires the completion of the road over bridge), track painting and ballasting. In my head this seemed like a reasonable list and I would then spend the final week of evenings before Expo finishing off some items of stock and doing other little bits. So far I have successfully managed one item in the three days: The power supply enclosure has the fan fitted and the lid on, meaning no more exposed mains. The cassettes are built, but are not consistently the same width, and the adaptors are only okay at the Oxford end of the layout. The problem is that I'm not good at finishing things. I have a shelf full of part finished stock and I like to pick at things as they take my fancy. This has resulted in the 295ft platform face having been pieced together from Peco parts, and the cutting of some pink foam for the near side of the layout, amongst other things. I've also been progressing a set of Worsley works four wheeled coaches too even though there is little chance they will be in a presentable state for the beginning of July. This afternoon I have made a start fitting the rear fascia panels to the layout. I could have done this outside but decided that if I slid the layout across the room there would be space to get behind it to put the clamps on. I worked out towards the door, out of the door, and now am stuck outside of the spare room due to the clamps. I am now stuck for something to do having cut most of the various bits of wood that needed cutting (but not the central transport panel) and having ground the jaws of a set of pliers for coiling couplings. I am just waiting for the glue to dry before I can remove the clamps with no TV and limited internet.

I had a solid guitar case punctured on a flight to South America. Something went right through the wood in a couple of places. This also happened to someone else I was travelling with. Luckily our guitars were okay. Oddly the third guitar that had been packed in an ordinary soft case wrapped in sweaters survived the trip far better. I'm not saying don't do it, or that it's necessarily a bad idea considering the limited options available to you. There is a chance they'll get hurt - or as you said, end up somewhere else! Of course we could just have been really unlucky.

See a previous posting with a pannier tank with one of these motors in (and a flywheel). It is a squash though and the flywheel is very visible in the cab. They are nice motors though.

Erm, at the moment it isn't. I think I said they were nearly finished. There are some holes on the sideframes that act as drilling aids for the fixing holes in the body. I haven't used them, prefering an alternative. The motors are 8mm because that is all that will fit without major butchery. It may not even be possible to fit a 10mm motor. (The 0-6-0T did have a 10mm FH on for a bit before fitting the body and that ran really nicely, but I took it out for a large number of reasons, including those given.) I don't know of any currently available 8mm motors that aren't coreless. I really like the Mashima flat cans, but even the smallest is too big for most 2mm models.

I'm still working on having things moving on the layout at Expo with under three weeks remaining. Several weeks ago a pleasant suprise landed in my inbox, an opportunity to test build two new locomotive chassis kits. A short exchange of emails later and a subsequent jiffy packet arriving through the letter box and we were away. The chassis are to fit the GF 57xx body and the Dapol 0-4-2T Also included was a jig for assembling the frames First the frames are bushed before inserting into the jig, which is easily folded up sqaure using the tabs and markers provided. It is best to open up the bearing holes first and use 1.6mm drills to locate in the jig. I found this out afterwards. Phosphor bronze and even PCB frames are much stiffer than etched under the pillar drill! Next up the pick up springs were added and the motor mount attached... ...followed by gears and wheels. I quarter wheels by hand/eye. Next up was the brake assembly. I wanted to make these removable so set about insulating them from the frames to allow a complete cross piece from 0.3mm n/s wire through the bottom. Short pins of microrod were added at the top of the brake arms to locate into the holes in the frames. Once painted they are insulated. Here the locomotives are pictured working and near complete. Both have 8mm coreless motors. The bodies have had no detailing, but there is some minor interior modification to allow fitment of extra weight. This is especially true of the Dapol body. I mounted the motor the easy way (into the cab) and have virtually run out of space for lead to move the balance forward to gain better electrical pick up and adhesion.

You could. The method described in the files area of the Yahoo! groups for making links for couplings could be adapted to make instanters. Unless you need the ears on the lower part to use a scale shunters pole? They could be problematic!

I have two questions: Best glue for pink foam? Can you please fix the wonky chimney tops? Otherwise this looks excellent.

Seconded.

Build the body etc up, then cut the spars. It should be strong enough by then to lose enough material for the motor shafts to fit through. If possible the motor should always be attached to the chassis rather than the body in my opinion.

It will be more complete than I can hope to be with my effort considering where I have got to thus far. Don't worry. Be happy.

I visited Littlemore recently to take some photographs of the site as it is today and better understand the topography. Here are just some of the pictures I took to help with the layout, along with some explanation to help make sense of them. The site of the station itself is now occupied by a fabricators. Here is how the approach looks today from the road: and the approach itself: The station buildings are long gone. The road is carried on an overbridge, mostly built up over the line, hence the slope down behind the station buildings and into the narrow yard. The ground here is generally falling towards the south. There is a shallow cutting of about seven feet on the north side of the line. A very poor vantage point, but the best I could get of the bridge without trespassing on the railway. Looking east from the road overbridge the station platform was on the right with the buildings at the end of the platform about where the first brick building is in todays scene: It is not clear from early photographs published whether the platform continued under the bridge or not. Plans suggest that it stopped short. The goods yard was beyond and eventually consisted a loop and an additional single siding, plus a loading dock. There were two cranes but never a goods shed despite it being one of the busiest stations on the line excepting Thame. The line in this direction passes through to Princes Risborough. From the bridge looking west the line passes towards Kennington Jcn. and then on to Oxford. There was a siding running alongside the branch on the right hand side for the length of the platform, under the bridge and on the right of this picture about 500 yards in the distance would have been the sand quarry. This siding seems to have often been used for stabling additional traffic that could not fit into the yard at the time according to photographs around 1920, the time period I eventually intend to represent. The line here seems to exist only to serve as far as Morris Cowley, whether it still serves the motor works there I do not know. Viewing inside the curve, as I intend the layout to be exhibited, the backdrop is formed of the buildings of the asylum. These buildings have now been refurbished and added to, being turned into flats and other housing. The hospital having been re-established across the road in 1998. This is one of the main buildings. Another building that will feature is the engineers buildings, which were built into the wall surrounding the asylum grounds The wall bounds the railway on the south side and there are semi-detached houses on the north that the railway seems to have been fitted between. This makes it an excellent proposition for a model because the baseboards can be quite narrow and have a reasonable goods yard to operate. Unfortunately the wall is about as far back as I can depict in three dimensions and these buildings must necessarily be incorporated on the backscene. Within the goods yard there was a turntable that allowed access through the walls for delivery of fuel into the asylum. I found the now bricked opening just along a footpath that seems to be in the direction of the technology park. There are a good number of things I learned from the visit, not limited to the wall changing to brick at this point, which I would not have otherwise realised.

Good to see some more progress. I've got to reserve judgement until colours can be seen in person because the camera always lies Watch the tubes don't get too hot. In a previous employment I've seen these Encapsulite Safety Sleeves recommended for this kind of application where broken glass is a problem. I've only actually seen and used the coloured ones though.

I thought I might get this far by April! On the positive I meet the requirements for GJLC entry now - just need to sort a few track gremlins and produce some cassettes. Sshhh. No, it was the first chassis I got working well (4th time lucky). Here's a naked pic:

I fixed the last of the wires yesterday evening. The layout has been electrically finished, but untested, for about a week. I just had to finish boxing up the controls and transformer. The controller is a Malcolm's Miniatures Pictroller housed in a Maplins box of appropriate size. This is the closest thing I could find to a Pentroller without the uncertainty of supply. The only major difference as a user is that the brake is not continuous - it has a pot to set and then the brake can be applied in three stages (roughly equated to some, more, and ooh eck!). The box is quite deep and suits my somewhat lengthy fingers quite nicely. The connection to the layout is from underneath. I had not used the controller prior to last night, and then only in direct control mode, so cannot really comment any further on it. The power supply is by a gaugemaster transformer that I have had in the draw for quite some time. Again housed in a Maplins project box. I have used one of the 16V~ outputs solely for the controller with a 1A self resetting trip and the other will provide the oomph for the uncoupling magnets and lighting (when I get that far) At the moment the lid remains off because I reckon it would get sweaty in there if used for very long. I'm going to find a small AC fan to put in the lid to keep things cool and power this directly from the second winding with the magnets and lighting. Aside from a few PW issues that I am already aware of, and some others that I am sure to be lurking still, I can play trains Here are a couple of (poor quality) videos of the trains so far: http://www.flickr.co...57594126202068/ http://www.flickr.co...57594126202068/

I've lost count of how much I've spent on wire, and yes it looks almost exactly like last time you saw it. It is however fully wired up. Unanswered questions still include: Why does it all take so long; and is it possible to make it neat? Here's a gratuitous picture from the other end of the layout. I have used 3PDT switches (a 4PDT in one case) to allow the track to be double isolated unless the correct route is set. This should, in theory anyway, work just like insulated turnouts - only better. When I built a previous layout with live crossings using just a SPDT switch for the polarity I regularly ran into a short circuit. The idea for the arrangement as described is to remove this as a possibility! The catch points are operated by a SPDT switch which knocks the feed out to one rail so you have to change these too. The cross baseboard connection is permanent (the boards are permanently connected. I made four four core cables up with lengths of heatshrink. Two for these and one each for the PSU and controller connections. The latter are plugged into DIN sockets on the underside of the small central piece with the middle legs on. Hopefully it will still fold up correctly!? I haven't tried it out yet, but am looking forward to playing trains on my own layout. Then it will be back into the garden for further woodwork, basic landscaping and some initial colouring.

There haven't been any entries recently and this is not due to a lack of progress. My main focus is on getting the wiring complete. This always takes me far longer than I would like, looks disorganised, costs too much, and generally fails to work quite as well as I hoped - hence there are no images to accompany this entry. Perhaps tomorrow will be a fruitful day and the TOUs (revision - I've lost count) will be installed and working and attention can turn to a pair of locomotive chassis that need finishing. I can then reply to Nigel with a definite yes for Oxford in two months time knowing that something can run. Maybe the weather will be nice and I will go to Didcot for the end of the 175 celebrations. That said I could always hold out for the 200 celebrations when I'm 53?

I'm still struggling with the reality that you have gone from bare boards to quite complete looking in approximately two days - good work.

Not yet but I did have a productive weekend wiring up track. All the dropper wires bar the vees and wing rails are now in place and soldered up. I used up some stranded wire that looked small enough without being silly with flexible insulation. The wire (pre-tinned) is passed through a hole drilled adjacent to the rail on the operator side. The wire is bent towards and then parallel with the rail, fluxed and then helod underneath the rail whilst the soldering iron (with a small pointy tip) is introduced to make the join. You don't have to be super quick, but prolonged heating will require a couple of localised fixes to the sleepering. Apologies for the latter photograph where the focus is beyond the intended subject matter. Once painted and ballasted I think these will go unnoticed. Work was also started on getting the switch blades operative. I really wish I'd made these another way using a jig, but I am where I have got to. A trip to the model shop for some telescoping brass sections turned up a Farish Macaw B. This is a model I have eyed for a little while, but had been told by the man on the Bachman stand at Ally Pally that there would be a delay in supply whilst they made some more . I only managed to source one, but it is a nice model that compares well with the kit built Macaw (from an earlier diagram) I have. A quick swap of the bogies to 2mm SA association ones is made easy because the bogie retaining pieces just pull off, although the holes need opening out in the etched bogie stretcher to fit the chuncks on the bottom of the Farish moulding. The pockets for the stanchions on the outside of the wagon are a little thick when compared directly, and the tie down rings are also different, but it is a very nice model. I intend to produce a load like that depicted early in Russels Freight Wagons and Loads... There was a timber yard/saw mill at Wheatley and I suppose that sawn timbers could have feasably been transported this way.

The top looks a bit yellow (probably the lighting). My experience is that ballast is always darker once laid. I'd definitely try to go about re-colouring by flooding the ballast with watered down paint.

Dean was especially inconsiderate in this respect with the mounting of his bogies. Thank you. I keep having to re-fix them sometimes after handling. They stick out further than the fixing area is tall. What I should have done (and may still do) is have the hanger bend under the footboard and flatten it well in some pliers. That would require a locomotive. Watch this space.

I found it was easier to do shorter lengths. My rail is off a coil and I was cutting 2-3 44'6" scale lengths. Fully de-burring the rail is paramount to easy chair threading. You have to make sure to get them the right way around too! (The fat part goes to the outside, the more sloped part inside.) I cut them from the sprue first and bagged them according to type so that I could have just the few chairs I needed for each piece of rail at once. I found that the easiest way to thread was to hold the chair down with a small file or the butt of a pair of tweezers on the base of the chair behind the chair jaws. That way it is held quite securely and you can ease the rail gently through the chair jaws up to the holding tool. After that it is easy to slide the chair down by hand and thread the next one. Probably quicker to solder, if you aren't scared Sleepers with chair plates are the same depth so I am told. I quite like the look of Easitrac compared to my previous soldered track. Don't worry. If you don't ask you may never know.

I have another like this with a 6 wheel u/f. I think the remainder have the later (relatively speaking) grab handles that form a continuous circuit and these will probably be easier to do. The side stanchions are well formed on the frets that I have assembled and went in with a small amount of force. I could foresee that maybe these could be bent during assembly and opening up slots in etches is not so easy. I hate building chassis because I struggle to align the outer overlays once they do not locate on the bearings and they always seem to take me ages unless they are simple like the swan neck linkage with one side brake blocks so maybe I am not the best person to ask. They are not beyond your reach though. I think I would rate it maybe a seven. There is a lot to do, but it's quite achievable. The thin foot boards on the right hand van have been re-attached more times than I can count so I'd recommend you fit the L shaped ones.