richbrummitt

I recall a photo in Stephen Williams Branch Line Modelling books that shows the inside of an engine shed. The lower part of the walls was whitewashed.

I think leaving the pillars suggests a much larger shed, otherwise it might be assumed that only the near wall is cut away (like you are viewing with your back to it). At the present time I personally prefer the viewing from inside the shed. With it's small size it might be best described as a working diorama. The amount of detail that one day will be present inside will probably be more interesting than the wagon movements! If you haven't read them already (or even just looked at the pictures) the GWR goods services books I think would be indispensable source material for you, especially part 2A. (I haven't bought part 2B yet)

Pre-grouping

I mentioned working on Masterclass brake vans in a much earlier post. The kits go together very well but then there are the handrails. I've been doing some other things to give me a break from bending and cutting wire before *ping* and it's out of the tweezers goodness knows where! I think you have become a seasoned model maker when you can make a valiant attempt to recover the small parts based on the sound of what they land on or against? I must have half a set of handrails in the carpet somewhere because it's often easier to start again. After about three evenings work the handrails are fitted to the first pair of vans. (It would have been much longer too if it were not for David Eveleigh's little wire bending etch and a couple of other 'jigs' that I knocked up along the way.) They are 20' variants and one has later style foot boards (from a refurbishment) The roofs are placed on for now because I still need to fit the brake standard and stove pipe. There are also many other details to add, but these aren't included on the etch so I can file the spares and scraps away and clear something else off the bench too. I have some later styles and also a 6 wheeler to do, at a later date. For now this pair allow me to finish of a couple of goods trains in a proper manner.

Haha. That's the tidy bit. I daren't show you my workbenches (just out of shot to the left). Andy, I didn't represent bridge rail in the sidings. Firstly because it's not available despite the fact large quantities could be used to construct fencing and cattle pens! Secondly after reading through source material again I suspect most of the yard was laid/re-laid after the conversion to standard gauge. Something will move soon Missy (and you can guess what ). I've boxed the controller and started wiring in anticipation.

Actually that's a lie because although last night saw the wagon turntable installed it is permanently fixed in line with the main siding. The outer slots are from when the turntable would have been broad gauge. Information that I have been able to locate suggests that the castings that formed the outer ring were hacked on site when the gauge conversion was made. The wood deck is removable for the moment to facilitate painting. It also requires the planking scribed in. The eagle eyed will notice that the crossing beyond has lost all it's rails. That is due to me deciding that they would not have been check rails in such a diamond and ripping them out. I need to re-fix just the running rails through in both directions. I'm still awaiting new raile supplies, but there are just the two sidings to finish laying now. I've sorted the wiring diagram (I think), and have started drilling for dropper wires.

After a frustrating Easter weekend trying in vain to produce TOUs to any design that might have the necessary pre-requisites I eventually figured something out. This has allowed me to get on with track laying. I'm not convinced that Easitrac is any quicker than soldered construction. It is undoubtably easier if you are scared of a soldering iron and will probably have improved appearance compared with solder blob chairs. However I am in no doubt that Versaline is the current daddy where appearance is paramount. This insight into the hobby room shows the mess as it currently stands. The project has consumed a whole 10m coil of bullhead rail and you will see there are still some areas needing rail. (The sand siding on the near left hand side, and the remainder of the back siding onto the near board). The whole of the main line is laid so wagons can indeed roll. Wiring and a control panel are next on the agenda whilst I await a delivery of rail.

I think there's a reasonable chance of a sensible offer it you were to place a 'For Sale' sign on it.

150 assorted hair clips, Rolson branded, from Maplins. About £2.99. I know them as R-clips from a teenage flirt with R/C cars. They are widely used for securing the thin lexan body shells. The cross drilled pins that they fit into were made on the lathe at work.

I now have the legs complete with stays and locking pins and I've had a clearout to allow the 'layout' to be installed in it's displayed state within the hobby room for work on the track and scenics. All the legs have adjustable feet on now too to compensate for uneven floors and my inability to cut eight legs to precisely the same length! I fitted a lower brace to the outer legs, improving stability, that meant the cassette ends had to be shortened a little. This was carefully calculated though and will still allow for cassettes with trains (a bit) longer than the platform to be accomodated. The legs for the cassette ends have to hinge in their centre to allow them to pass through between the outer leg bracing. Pictures should make much more sense: I am pleased with how stable the leg stays have made the structure. They are retained by R clips. There is a second set inside the legs that the stays are pinned to when folded. This shows the folding of the cassette leg. It has a locking hinge where it joins the cassette end. These are neat but have some play and despite being stiff I wouldn't recommend them as the sole means of leg fixing/bracing for a whole layout. You can also get an idea of the quantity of door catches that have been used to pin everything together when folded. A hinge in the cassette end leg allows it to fit within the folded assembly. The hinge on the left has had the pin cut out and replaced by an R clip to lock the leg straight. There are still no parts that require removal for transport other than the R clips, which are re-used when folded. Electromagnets (seep) have been fitted to the track sub-bed being careful to ensure that if needed they can be replaced. The track sub-bed has in turn been fitted to the folding frame. Current efforts are focussed on switch operation so that track laying can commence. Getting this far seems like a major point has been reached, but it makes you realise how much further there is to get in the next three months.

It's the gwr type. I'm just finishing off another one that will be cut in half because it is the stop for the carriage shoot in the end of the platform where machinery and horses could be loaded.

Yes. This meant adding the plain chairs either side of the centre uprights before soldering to the stock rails. The other chairs where the rails is three+ rails width are slide chairs with the inner chair cut off and then slid under.

I haven't given up! This evening I've put together one of the new range of buffer stops available from the 2mm SA. The etch folds in half to make up double thickness portions. A Z-fold makes the alignment of the three 'rail' portions to be joined quick easy. A choice of wood (represented by six thickness' of etch) or rail cross beams are supplied on the fret, but nothing looks quite as good as wood as wood itself. Using wood for the cross beam also solves the problem of isolating one rail from the other had the etched parts been used.

The weather eased for a few days at the same time as I had booked some leave. I had hoped that the two would coincide and must have got lucky. As a result a lot has happened to the baseboards, but nothing picture-worthy. What I have done is organised a lot of items for the layout. I have had a couple of orders of baseboard fittings arrive. These are all now fixed so the boards lock and peg together when folded. When unfolded the feet are adjustable in height. After a large amount of corrections and re-thinks to fit everything in the 150mm of space between the folded boards there are just a few of items to sort: 1. Stays for the legs on the outer scenic boards; 2. Pins for locking the additional hinge in the fiddle yard legs; 3. Castors for ease of transportation, although these aren't urgent until things get heavier. As a result of the large amount of corrections to get to this stage has taken far longer than envisgaed and I still haven't got track to baseboard. This will happen soon. The turnout operating mechanisms and electromagnets need to fitted next, along with the switches to operate them all. I need about another half a day of decent weather to router the electromagnet locations in the underside of the trackbed before it can be fixed permanently. Track laying can then commence.

I'm pretty sure I saw a peco tank wagon kit in a box when I was clearing through my storage boxes at the weekend. You can have it if I find it.

As Nick says wooden clothes pegs are good. You can drill them to take a kebab skewer through a block of wood see here. Looks good so far. I would like one of those kits (the early styles) for myself You should persist in burning your fingers until you can hold the parts by hand to solder! This is not so easy on brass, but quite possible on nickel silver. My temperature controlled iron was one of the best investments I ever made. I have the Antex TC-50 and also a 25W iron but I tend to use the 50W most of the time. Get a variety of tips too. I find that if you keep wiping clean regularly with a sponge and don't leave solder to sit on the iron that I don't need to use tip tinner/cleaner. The one I do use I got from Eileen's Emporium, but I've lost the lid off the container so can't tell you what it is.

I looked at the layout list for the show and wasn't sure it was worth the trip, but it is now!

I'd love to see this if I can find you at Abingdon on Saturday. I have to get some of those LEDs! I'm undecided whether my ground signals should be like this, or the earlier rotating can type of indicator that the GWR used initially.

Quite a bit has happened in the last two weeks whilst rmweb has been on it's travels. The weather to go outside and finish the legs, extensions and bracing on the boards has still not been forthcoming. I booked a couple of days off work to get extra daylight and the heavens sent rain (and snow). So instead I've been building brake vans and getting a sore throat. More on them another time. I figured that to make the short diamond a jig was in order so I figured out a way to make it on my little lathe. I broke a lot of these The rails were fixed to angled sole plates, in turn fixed to the 24"x7" longitudinal timbers. These were cut in one shot from 4 thicknesses of 20 thou nickel silver and attached whilst the rails were in the jig. The whole lot was turned out from the jig without problem (yet!) I then cut for electrical breaks (and gauge in one direction because of my Heath Robinson approach to jig manufacture in this case). A rail broke away and the more I tried to fix the more parts fell off. I composed myself and accepted that I had to rebuild half the crossing again. I did this free hand with judicious use of blu-tac and a highly calibrated Mk1 eyeball or two. Chairs were added and the whole glued to the timber base. It just so happens that two Easitrac timbers laid side by side are the right width, and I doubt anyone will see a join between the running rail and check after ballast and paint. I am considering rebuilding the whole because although it appears to function well enough with stock running through I think it could look better?

After a more off than on January I've finally got my backside into gear. I realised that I was getting behind (that's if I was ever up to date?) and have set myself goals on a monthly basis. The first of these is to have the track laid and operational at the end of February. So far all the rails are in the blocked crossing area that makes up the east end of the platform. I'm really impressed with how it has come out, and running stock through it appears I only have one tweak to make where the gauge is over on the entrance to the loop causing the wheels to bind back to back on the check and wing rails. I need to get it down on the board along with some of the surrounding track to test it more thoroughly. An overall view: The switches are all early type (the introduction of flexible switches by the GWR was later) using a check chair as a pivot. If these turn out to wear excessively or become unreliable I will have to uproot the switch and pin it through the track bed or perhaps substitute brass chairs. They seem like they may well be up to the job as they are. I made a little jig to prevent filing the foot of the rail when forming the taper on the running face. You may notice that all the stock rails are joggled. Although tiny on the prototype they are very distinctive so I wanted to include them. I made myself a jig to do this so the joggle is a consistent size and distanced correctly from the rail break beyond the switch toe. Some other detail views: Incidentally the van standing in the long siding is the LNWR dia 88 association kit. Now I have to get on with the two connections at the east end of the yard and the very short crossing adjacent to the wagon turntable.

After reading several times through the GWSG publication on GWR switch and crossing practise I felt ready to begin creating timbering diagrams for construction. I used the A3 photocopy to scan into CAD and then stretch and scale to size then drew over the top. This took much longer than I thought, and it would probably be quicker to recommend that anyone else thinking of doing things this way stopped after the initial splines and then added all other detail afterwards. There were two main areas of crossing work at Littlemore. A pair of connections at the east end of the station with a catch in between and then three further crossings that require through timbers at the east end of the platform. There is also a further catch near this area. The above shows the two formations quite well. With the whole thing being curved every crossing is compound. The timbering that has been cut is from one pack of Easitrac sleepers. I also realised that I did not have enough check or slide chairs from the 14 sprues I had purchased, nor did I have enough turnout operating units because I forgot to count the catches. This has now been rectified by a quick order and even faster turnaround by the nice man in 2mm SA shop one (Thanks Owen) and hopefully much track will be completed throughout the festive period.

Thanks! I <3 your backscene.

I planned to model a larger station on the line, but did not want to compress any of the track plan so settling for one of the smaller stations (although one with plenty of goods traffic) made for a much better option. The only wall longer than 10' in our house is in the living room and that is out of bounds for model trains. On top of this I have a small car, and if the layout was going to be portable then it had to be compact. I took the track plan from a map in a book and increased the size until the platform matched the length quoted in the text. I also checked that the station building was about the right size based on the elevation and plans available from the same source. I measured up the boot carpet from the car and worked out what would fit comparing to the plan. The prototype is on a curve and that has helped with fitting things in, but I still ended up with about 10% shrinkage from the prototype. I figured that this would go un-noticed. The baseboards are from ply of varying thickness. Most is either 3mm or 9mm with the track bed being 18mm (I think). The latter was cut from the reinforced parcel shelf that I built for my first car, aged 21, to house speakers. It has been knocking around for several years since and finally been put to good use. Shown below are the finished main boards with the track bed laid on. The idea is that the boards will not have any removable or detachable parts, travelling easily in one piece, without being to heavy and fold out transformer style. Two pictures below show the boards in their folded and unfolded state. The legs need some further bracing yet, and the catches and closures all need to be added. For the time being though attention has turned to other parts what with the reducing temperature and daylight.

I thought best to introduce what is to follow. I intend to keep the thread up to date with what is happening across my workbench (wherever that is in house or garden) but the primary reason for getting on with it now was to allow others to see how my layout Littlemore* is progressing towards that ever closer date in June when the 2mm Scale Association is celebrating it's 50th Anniversary in Oxford with a 2 day expo. I have kept a record of my completed (or near completed) rolling stock on Flickr for some time. A word of warning: My interest is pre-grouping Great Western and I am modelling a branch line. If you find this clich?©d or plain sickening then look away indefinitely *Littlemore is the name of the real location, however the layout may yet have another name that I am toying with.