Sasquatch

Just one more picture.

Having worked out what’s what with the lever frame for Queensbury East Box a rethink had me starting from scratch. Faced with making 40, levers a different approach was needed. First I made one of these. While that was cooling I nipped out to my woodwork shop and ripped a new frame from a scrap of Alder and sanded it with very fine paper. This time the levers were marked out on a piece of .020” O-scale freight car siding. .010”x.040” strip was glued 1.5mm from bottom back & front. .010”x.020” 9mm was affixed back and front from bottom. When dry a length 12mm was cut from the sheet and the tops were chopped with a fine blade then each lever chopped off in the groove with the Stanley knife. The plates on the front were also cut from the siding a little thick but all the same size. The assembly picture speaks for itself and shows how much better they look than my first attempt. The picture shows the complete assembly with two sets of levers on to correspond with clear signals for a Keighley-Bradford though working to correspond with the continuous loop on my layout plan and a Halifax-Keighley train. It's 01:30 so I'm off to bed.

Love that Crompton. I only ever saw one at Brighton in corporate blue. I have seen them at Newhaven, Hastings and Redhill! Did you know Dapol have announced 73s EDs for this year? (I have an old Lima one in EMU green. It looks great with green Bachy mk.1s.) :secret:

Have found this great image of Queensbury East junction with N1 class pulling a pair of Thompson 52' coaches on Bradford-Halifax service. Proof that the signal box was painted prior to the cessation of passenger services. It also shows I have missed off 1 row of panes in the door end window. Will look into changing that. Other details are the old station masters house and the catch point notice. also worthy of note is the distance to Queensbury! http://www.flickriver.com/photos/thanoz/2343392837/#large

There are rules????

About time for another Goathland pic. Here's N2 4744 reversing into the station sidings. She is an old Airfix/Mainline slogger repainted with a brush. Her condensing equipment has been removed and brake rodding added from beading wire. There's a Dapol crew and slim style Hornby coupling replacements. Signal is from the LNER kit by Ratio.

There's nothing wrong with good old Peco code 100! It's a good reliable system for a start. There is a great range of turnouts and accessories and when painted and ballasted nicely can look really old fashioned which creates the all-of-a-piece scene. I for one certainly would never find the time to build my own track. Other things are more important to me than scale trackwork. Super elevation is one, many a good layout picture can be let down because the trains are not leaning! regards Shaun

Need to check in here more often Al. There's just bucket a truck load of atmosphere! That box brownie shot is now adorning my desk top!

Have just checked the Peco site for double slips. The SL90 looks finer than the one I have. Also noticed that there wasn't an SLE-90. No electrofrog in code 100, that must have been the reason I opted for the code75 SLE-190. Hate dead frogs!!!!!!

Picture 4 is starting to look more like the real thing than the real thing dt! Nice work.

Here are the bits that I could never have worked out. 16.There is not a facing point lock but the bar is pulled with the point! 1,33,38. Release to ground frame. Didn't know there were ground frames! Two of these would explain the brick huts in the pictures! 38 will be spare for my period along with 27,34 &39.

Most locos stall on the example I have or worse derail! It might be the older version as it has pressed nickel switch blades that look very Double-O! I'm so happy with the Code 75 one , that the decision has been made to switch. Having said that there's all those Shinohara turnouts I brought but at 70 pence each I'm sure they'll fit in in the hidden sidings!

Kal. As regards Peco rail. To my mind if the gauge is 16.5 HO the sleeper spacing should be closer otherwise it won't look right. Most of us mere mortals run RTR locos & stock straight from the box so have to settle for HO trackwork. The only thing that's wrong with code 100 is that it looks wrong in HO scale so code 75 looks much better and gives the HO trackwork a scale longer look. The best improvement is to cut off all those ugly bits around the switches which means using different motors to the Peco ones but hey. Who uses them! Code 75 on left, ]code 100 on right Yes that's Atlas Code 100 and Peco double slip. I used the code 75 slip as the code 100 version is naff!

Measuring things on google earth I have deduced that there needs to be some compression but not as much as I thought! The corners come out at roughly 260 yards ,that's 10' in OO scale. I have 19' allowing 3' either end for the hidden curves I am left with 13'. If the track layout is built to HO scale (am using HO track anyhow, if that makes any sense) that reduces things to 8.75' allowing a nice run to the tunnel. First job is to adapt the signaling diagram Andrew has given me, to backdate it a little then I can rebuild my lever frame. Here is a Google Earth image from 2002 which shows the viaduct foundations before they became obscured by vegetation. The arch measured 35'.

Thank you Andrew. What a nice surprise!!!! Had I included the distant arms and got the down/up the right way around on the Halifax-Keighley line my example wouldn't be too wrong albeit having the sidings on the wrong end of the frame! Am very happy, thanks again!!!! Regards Shaun

Take it you haven't seen the signaling block diagram blunder on my thread. I understand it but am no expert, Really don't care what anyone thinks. My theory is that if you don't go there you never gonna know! It's a specialist subject for sure and unless you know the exact track layout for any given point in time or have an old plan then some of it must be down to guesswork. I spent hours to get as far as I did and know it's still not right but not even a single like let alone any comments has damaged my ego. Well at least a little bit!

That would be telling!

I must be going mad myself

the mini Squatch was a resized avatar. I'll see what I can do.

Having slept on it I realize that 6 distant signals have been left off my block diagram. They would of course be off stage! Also realized there should be 3 facing point locks. One other point is that I don't see any ground dolls or shunt arms on the posts in any pictures. Any help with this would be much appreciated.

That's the thing Jaz. There's not many pictures of the real thing so I can get away with murder on this project. Everything was gone by the late 60s. Am looking into building working GNR somersault signals for this project. that's going to be a real challenge!

From reading on the internet and looking at other block diagrams I have deduced the following. Please feel free to correct me or point out anything obviously wrong. Note: 3,4,23 & 24 are situated on the right!! #4 is pictured in the photograph above.

No that's not right. There weren't any facing points! Only 3 facing point locks. (Have seen what looks like one in one of the pictures) Some of the signal posts are sighted on the opposite platform. I'm gathering this was to improve the spotting distance on the curves as the station buildings would obscure them if they were placed on the left.

The signaling at Queensbury was controlled by three boxes as built. Each box was responsible for each of the three junctions and the block diagram and signal layout would have been quite standard. With each box accepting trains from its respective stem route and accepting and passing on trains to the other two. Queensbury south junction box had two sidings and the east junction box had two with passing loops. All pretty standard stuff. However. At some point in time the north and south junction boxes were removed. The east junction had its sidings lifted also. The frame in this box must have been big enough to accept control of the whole station. How many levers and to what arrangement they were laid out is beyond my limited capabilities of deduction. Somewhere around 34 30 is my closest estimate, with no room for spares. 10 signals 8 shunt signals 6 points 4 double points 4 facing point locks 1 catch point (on the up Halifax-Bradford line. Possibly to protect the diamond from runaways) But not in all pictures. And there could well have been detonators.</p> That'll teach me to sit and do the thinking before spending hours building up a lever frame as mine model has only 24. Should I make another piece of wood and 6 levers and redo the whole thing? Edit: getting confused over left and right (Haven't driven on the left for 15 years) or just plain stupid.

Here's what I've made but am unhappy. First is the sequence of assembly.