North Marsh Road - Eastern Region - BR Blue - OO

[Jaggzuk]

Hi All,

 

After much procrastination and umming and ahhing I have decided to take a late plunge and enter the RMWeb 2010 challenge Not sure how far I will actually get, but the challenge has really inspired me to get on do at least something. However, my modeling efforts will have to be shared with a rather long running and fairly extensive house renovation project.

 

But for now here are the basic layout stats I am thinking of:

 

Layout Name

- North Marsh Road

 

What Type

- OO 4mm/ft - DCC

 

Where is it

- Eastern Region

 

When

- 1975 to 1995

 

Form

- Scenic section - 45''x12'' - Full layout including fiddle yard and continuous loop - approx 10' x 6'

 

Why

- The 2010 Challenge and for some fun

 

 

Introduction

 

North Marsh Road will be a fictitious station based somewhere in the Eastern Region and possibly on the section line running from Kings Lynn to Ely in Norfolk, the London & North Eastern line.

 

The track layout, scenic elements and typical railway operation will be based upon a mixture of the stations and surrounding areas at Wymondham, Littleport, and South Lynn (disused).

 

I have purposefully chosen to create a fictitious layout as I like to idea of 'creating' a plausible layout at a justifiable location with prototypical operations. This, I feel, adds to the challenge of creating a layout that looks believable and would require a bit more research. It also frees me up from having to find an exact location that fits the baseboard size/room space or having to heavily modify an existing track layout to fit.

 

What I have not yet decided is whether to locate the layout on an existing line such as the Kings Lynn line or to create a completely fictitious place. There are two schools of thought on this; one is to add a station as a 'what might have been' scenario, or make it fictional but to take on the look and feel of the line, local architecture, railway operation and regional railway style. I guess time will tell.

 

Inspiration

 

Having grown up close to Kings Lynn and spending my formative railway enthusiast years traveling out to such places as Ely, Cambridge and Peterborough, I now have fond memories of that region during the late 70s and 80s. The era that

I grew up with at this time was BR Blue and then Sectorisation. It was a time of loco hauled passenger trains and freight services such as Speedlink and local trip workings.

 

It was also still a time when many areas were ruled by semaphore signaling. From an atmosphere perspective everything looked run down; stations, track and infrastructure. Track rationalisation and modernisation had not yet really started either, so with many stations still retaining their old track layouts and disused sidings.

 

Research

 

Research, I think, is one of the fun parts about building a model railway. In fact I am sure many a layout idea gets researched but never built. I guess this is why I am entering the 2010 challenge, to actually move on from the armchair phase to the construction phase

 

I have been in the armchair phase for many years now, playing with plans searching the web and reading books and magazines. During this time I have come across many fantastic archive photographs on the web and these brought memories of BR days flooding back.

 

Some of the more specific web resources that I have found which have inspired this layout are as follows

 

• 
   
  
• This is a video that really inspired me on the Wymondham track layout and fright operation for my layout idea -
  
  
• I think some of these photos really sum up what East Anglia felt like in the 70s and 80s - East Anglian Railway Archive and in particular Cambridge- Ely- Kings Lynn
  

 

And of course I have found RMWeb a great resource and inspiration too

 

 

Anyway that will do for now, more details and plans to come soon...

 

----------------------------------------------------------------

 

I will be creating a blog to accompany my 2010 forum posts as I like the idea of Blogs and want to give them ago. But I will also post progress photos and text here as I will value your comments and input during the various stages of the build over the next 9 months.

 

I am really looking forward to joining in with this challenge and have enjoyed reading other people efforts so far. As I have already said, this challenge for me is about getting on with something rather than always dreaming about it

 

Anyway here's to having some fun...

 

Paul

[Jaggzuk]

Part Two - Further Idea Developments

 

The Fictional History

 

The station is located on a double track main line with a freight only branch line leading to local industrial facilities and a small port. At the station there 2 platforms, a good yard/loading facility, a good loop and some exchange sidings.

 

The modified 1946 OS Map below shows the location of the fictional station, the various freight lines, port and surrounding area.

 

 

 

After the end of the World War II and then with the privatisation of road haulage in 1954, the volume of goods being handled by the port steadily declined. As a result and as part of the Beaching cuts in the mid 60s, the railway dock capacity was cut back with the double track branch line becoming a single track. This actually lead to an increase in shunting movements at the station as more freight was now trip worked from the port and local industries to the exchange sidings. Here they were marshalled into longer trains ready to be moved to other parts of the country. The reverse operation took place for goods arriving and empty stock for incoming goods.

 

The track layout and sidings at the station were built to enable freight from the docks to be exchanged and marshalled. There were also facilities to allow locomotives to swap ends. These simple sidings also offer storage and shunting capacity for the small loading facility adjacent to the station. The original track layout at the station is still pretty much in tacked today.

 

This loading facility with hard standing allowed for the handling of such products as cement, arable goods and other van load items.

 

The track layout will be based on Wymondham Station in Norfolk on the Norwich to Ely line at the junction to Dereham. The current station track layout is show below.

 

 

Rolling Stock

 

The period to be modeled will be set between 1975 and 1995 and so the livery era will cover both BR Blue and the introduction of Railfreight Sector liveries. Passenger traffic will be formed by both loco hauled and DMU stock and goods traffic being formed from short wheeled based wagons including such formations as Speedlink short trip workings.

 

The key traffic types are summarised as follows:

 

Goods Movements

• Branch Line - Docks - Grain, coal, timber, steel and petroleum
  
• Branch Line - Local Industries - Food products (Campbell Soups), sugar, building materials and timber
  
• Station Goods Yard - Cement and agriculture
  
• Main Line - Anything within reason
  
• Typical loco types - 08, 25, 31, 37 and 47
  

Passenger Movements

• Branch Line - None
  
• Stopping at Station - Local stopping only - DMU (101, 108, 105) and short loco hauled (31 and 37s)
  
• Main Line - Loco hauled - 31, 37 & 47 with MK1, Mk2 coaching
  

 

The rolling stock will mostly be RTR with some kit built wagons. I hope, over time, that all rolling stock will be weathered as I think it looks so much better. I have not yet fully decided on the coupling system to be used on North Marsh Road but it will be either 3 link or an auto coupler like Dingham - See here.

 

As already mentioned the layout will be DCC, initially just for control purposes. But, ultimately, I would like to go the whole hog with DCC and taken advantage of sound and rolling stock internal lighting, but the cost is just too high for sound at the moment. I would like to install sound to a Class 37 and a DMU, as these do sound good so who knows.

 

Summary of Key 'Wish List' Elements

 

Scenic

• A set Period
  
• Semaphore signalling
  
• Run down feel
  
• Realistic
  
• Illumination - buildings, signals, etc
  

Operation

• Must be fun to operate
  
• To provide a sense of the bigger world outside of the scenic layout itself.
  
• Train movements to be based on typical prototype operation
  
• Continuous running (to allow for watching train go by) and shunting
  
• DCC
  
• Prime function - Single operator, Secondary function - two person
  

Construction

• Must be quick to build and also achievable in a short time period
  
• Test bed of modelling techniques, materials and experience
  
• Flexible - the layout design to allow future expansion
  

 

Part three "2010 Challenge - How to fit all this in." will follow soon once I have finalised my baseboard design and worked out how to make it work.

[Jaggzuk]

Part Three - 2010 Challenge - How to fit all this in?

 

"That's a lot to fit in 2010sq inches", I here you say Well here's the twist what I will try to build will be a very small part the Wymondham track plan yet give the impression, operationally and scenically, that it is part of the bigger layout.

 

Time is short, so I needed to come up with a layout design that I could build relatively quickly without too much cost outlay. I needed to come up with an angle that would achieve all this but still be part of the 2010 challenge.

 

After a little bit of sketching and some calculations in Excel, I came up with the following idea - how about modelling 2010 sq meters of real life but in 4mm / ft. This equates to 536.6sq inches of baseboard area and so a 45' x 12' baseboard (1.154m x 0.300m) would work quite well. As this would be the scenic board I would use the rest of the 2010 area to create a non scenic continuous loop layout and fiddle yard.

 

What this means is that the small scenic board will be a small window of what is a much bigger layout 'off scene'. The trick will be choosing the right bit of a track plan to put in the Scenic Window.

 

Taking the original Wymondham track plan and turning this in to North Marsh Road and then selecting the 'scenic window' area I have come up with this.

 

So the basic track plan I have come up with looks like this.

 

This is the early idea for the 45' x 12' 'scenic window' track plan.

(The track plan was drawn in TRAX2 and then modified in SmartDraw to add the scenic elements)

 

 

The overall baseboard dimensions are shown below, this all adds up to just under 2010 sq inches.

 

The green area is the scenic baseboard, the yellow are the non scenic radius boards and the blue will be the fiddle yard; which will in the longterm be a vertical traverse (thanks to Fen End Pit for the idea of a Vertical Traverser).

 

 

The next stage will be finalising the track design so that I can move on with the final baseboard design and then construction. Not sure at the moment whether to make the baseboards to buy them. To get me going quickly I could get the 45"x12" scenic board from a local company, White Rose Model Works, but not sure at the moment.

 

 

So there we are, a rather long introduction to my planned 2010 layout, but I hope an enjoyable read non the less.

 

I look forward to sharing updates and photos of the various stages of the build and I welcome any comments / feedback.

 

Paul

[2mm Andy]

Paul,

 

I look forward to seeing this develop into a working layout - once you've finished all your DIY of course!

 

 

The 'kit-bashed' Ordnance Survey maps are very good.

 

Andy

[Loxborough]

I like the idea, and I especially like the thought of a roundy roundy 'behind' the scenic bit. Does seem an awful lot of 'behind' for a verry little bit of scenic, but then I suppose that only increases your chances of getting the thing done on time!

 

Good luck with it,

 

George

[Jaggzuk]

Baseboard Construction

 

Well I have made a start on some baseboard construction trials. As the scenic board will require an underbridge, I need to be able to create some vertical depth to the scenery. I could achieve this either by having a raised trackbed or by splitting the baseboard level.

 

 

My initial thoughts are towards using the open framed baseboard with a raised trackbed method. I feel this allows for a more natural landscape to be created which the track runs through rather than on.

 

I have no intention to make this an exhibition layout, but it still needs to be lightweight and portable. It will be built in a converted attic and this space is used for other activities so the layout will not be permanently erected.

 

I have seen various type of baseboard on the exhibition scene and have always liked the composite girder/cellular type – two thin outer sheets of ply/MDF with internal blocks of wood. I found a useful "How to guide" on the web by John Chivers of Barry and Penarth Model Railway Club showing this form of construction Building Lightweight Baseboards

 

However, I decided to try out smaller sections and so my trial is made from two 100mm wide strips of 3mm MDF sandwiching 45mm x 12mm blocks at approximately 275mm centres. The joint are glued and screwed.

 

My first trial was 2" long and appeared to be OK, but being in a rush I wanted the glue to dry quickly and so I put in front of the log burner. Upon retuning an hour later my nice straight side was now curved like a banana!! So lesson 1 do not dry in front of direct heat.

 

My next effort was a 45" long side. This appears to be OK and very strong in the vertical plane, but it is possible to deflect horizontally with the MDF bending between each block. In guess the 3mm is a bit too thin. But with further cross bracing it should be OK.

 

My next test will be a radius board. I hope that the MDF will be more suited to this type of board, but time will tell

 

Anyway here are some photographs of the base board trials.

 

First trial - before I dried it into a banana

 

 

Close up of the corner joint

[Jaggzuk]

Baseboard Construction – Part 2

 

I've decided to beef up the scenic baseboard construction as I was not very happy with the flexibility of the 3mm MDF one. So I bought a 1200x600 sheet of 9mm exterior ply. This provided enough wood for 2 long sides, 2 ends and 2 stretchers bracings. Each 'girder' still measures 100m deep was built following the same method detailed for the MDF girder.

 

The build time was about 3 hours, which was a bit slow but it was after a full day of DIY on the house The result though is far better than the MDF one and I am really pleased with it; much stronger, more twist resistant but still very light.

 

Here are some photos of the built.

 

General view.

 

Close up of corner joint which was built the same way as explained by John Chivers and I think look very neat.

 

View showing how the stretcher girders can support track bed risers which I still intend to use.

 

 

Having now made the baseboard I could not resist in creating a bit of a mock with some cardboard, track and some building outlines. The following photos give some idea of how it might all look.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall I am quite pleased with it how it looks.

[Jaggzuk]

North Marsh Road vs King Lynn - 1946

 

Having now got North Marsh Road under way I though I would post where the fictitious map came from. I used a copy of the 1946 OS map of Kings Lynn and after quite a bit of 'photoshopping', well Paint.neting I came up with the map for North Marsh Road.

 

Here are the two maps - First the original Kings Lynn one (flipped) and then the edited North Marsh Road.

 

 

I have to say I quite enjoyed trying to create a map that firstly matched the track layout of Wymondham and then one that was plausible with road, bridges etc.

[Jaggzuk]

Rolling stock for North Marsh Road

 

One of the wagons I remember see round Kings Lynn during my childhood was the red curtain sided Campbell soups pallet wagon.

 

As these do not exist as RTR and so as a bit of a sideline I am looking into a wagon scratch building project, to this end I have just bought 8 blank wagon body shells.

 

I have created a new topic in the Kitbuilding & Scratchbuilding modelling Zone to record the build progress, it can be found here - Campbell Soups wagon - A scratch build project.

 

In the meantime here is a mock up of what it might look like, minus the underframe.

[Jaggzuk]

The Permanent Way Construction Begins

 

Well I have finally plucked up the courage and have made two out of the three turnouts. I say courage as these were C&L B6 tunrout kits and I have never scratch built any track before, so I did feel a little trepidation before I started.

 

The first one was a real challenge and there are a few minor glitches with gauge I think but it was a good learning experience. The second was much better and I found quicker ways of doing things like threading chairs on to rails before cutting them off the frets.

 

I think I can say that although they have taken a long time to build, about 3hrs for the second one, I have really enjoyed the build process and as they look so much better than RTR ones I am now a convert - mind you I think I will stick to using C&Ls flexi track for my plain line - too many chairs to thread!! .

 

One thing I did do before I tackled this part of the project was to read, and read. I found the books by Iain Rice very helpful, both "An approach to building Finescale Track in 4mm" and "A Pragmatic guild to building, wiring and laying PCB Track". I also found the various topics on RMWeb on the subject of track of great support.

 

Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the turnouts - I have yet to solder on droppers and weather.

 

The bottom one is my first attempt and the top is the second. The second will form the turnout to the sidings.

 

Test train with one of my recent purchase.

[Satan's Goldfish]

Nice work. Glad this one's re-appeared, I've had a lurking read through a lot of the 2010 entries and i still come back to this as one of my favorities, i really like the concept of the design (and was thinking of copying Wymondham myself until i saw this ) as it makes longer trains possible during operation and long trains through small scenes has always appealed to me visually. I'm going to be borrowing that idea and boards just wide enough for the tracks on non-visual to save space

 

Keep up the good work, look forward to seeing this one when it's 'finished'

[Loxborough]

It's a great moment, isn't it, building your first turnout. And it really does make an astonishing improvement on RTR. Keep it going...

 

George

[thirty2a]

Fantastic, I grew up in Wymondham and know the station well. It's a pity you could not work the foot bridge in as your scenic break as it is quite a bridge.

Good luck with this.

Tony

[Jaggzuk]

Progress update – well non really

 

My word how time flies and unfortunately modelling progress has not been made during this time.

 

I have spent a large part of my recent spare time working on home restoration work and my job has also taken up a lot more than just my basic hours, so with these two things added up, railway modelling has taken a very big back seat.

 

However, the repair work, plastering, woodwork, painting, wallpapering is now complete, the carpets are laid, the furniture back in place and one bedroom and new en-suite later I can say it is finished, well almost At work too there has been a substantial milestone passed with the submission of a major bridge inspection report I have been working on for several months now.

 

Yep that's me counting rivets in 12 inch to the foot scale!

 

So with both of these time sponges out of the way I finally find myself leavening work on time and getting home with more time in the evenings. I also treated myself to a bit of a celebratory purchase from my local model shop which has re-invigorated me back into 2010.

 

So what did I buy, well 3 things actually; a Bachmann Class 47, 47148 in BR Blue (32-803), a Ratio Provender Store kit and some grey ballast. I was well pleased with the Class 47 purchase as it was being sold at a very good bargain price so I could not resist getting it. But it is an early version of the 47 with numeric head codes and 3 radiator grilles, but a bargain is a bargain.

 

As 47148 was one of the 3 radiator grille versions I tried to do a bit of research into its history but could not find much on it and the only photos I found were all of it post conversion to the Serck radiator grille type. The best shot being 47148 at Llandudno Junction

 

If anyone could help out with some history dates as to when it ran in this version I would be most grateful.

 

Hopefully now some modelling progress will be made over the nest few weeks.

[Jaggzuk]

Sun, Surf and some Kit Building

 

As mentioned in may last post a some major work and home projects have been completed which meant that a much needed holiday was due. This was supposed to be spent up in Scotland, but a two week forecast of rain and gales put paid to that. So we ventured South West to Cornwall instead and found much better hot sunny weather.

 

As I also said in the last post not much has happened on NMR, so I managed to sneak some wagon kits into the campervan to make while on holiday; well I think building a kit is a bit like a reading a book on holiday - nice and relaxing.

 

So after nice long evenings spent watching the sun set into the sea I came back with the following competed kits (excluding painting):

 

1. 
    
   
2. LNER 12 Ton Low Sided 'Lowfit' Wagon - Parkside
   
3. BR Vanwide VEA Air brakes Wagon - Parkside
   
4. LMS/BR 16 Ton Steel Mineral Wagon - Cambrian
   
5. Class B Tank Wagon BP Wagon - Dapol
   
6. 20 Ton Cement Wagon - Dapol
   
7. BR FM and BR BD Containers - Parkside
   

 

These all came out of my stock pile, a draw full of wagon kits from all the different manufactures just to try them all out to see which one is the best, easy to build etc.

 

I would say that Parkside and Cambrian were all round very good; no flash, easy instructions and went together well. Both came with steel wheels and brass bearings.

 

The Dapol was not so good, although there were good instruction and there was a high level of detail on the Cement wagon when compared to the recent Bachmann RTR, but the level of flash, bowed and brittle parts meant that a lot of trimming a had to be done and lots of the finer parts kept snapping. Both kits came with only plastic wheels with steel axles, no brass bearings. (Note - these kits were about 4-5 years old)

 

So, RTR verses kit build? Well obviously RTR quality is now 1st class. A kit brings much enjoyment and relaxation in the building. So as I like building wagons but I am also prepared to buy RTR, I think from now on I will focus my kit building on those wagons not in current RTR production, like the VEA.

 

Here are some picture of the wagons built.

 

Bachmann Presflo vs Dapol Cement - Side View

 

 

Bachmann Presflo vs Dapol Cement - End View

 

 

LNER Lowfit and BR Vanwide VEA

 

 

Class B Tank and LMS/BR 16 Ton Steel Mineral

 

BR FM and BR BD containers.

 

I intend to use the two containers along with the Ratio Provender Store kit (the next build) to create an sort of railway engineering/PWay/S&T compound which will be just behind the signal box. These will be made to look run down and very aged, I hope.

 

On with the baseboard and track build next...

[2mm Andy]

Mmmmm! Wagons - nice!

 

Glad you had a productive holiday - I look forward to seeing some progress on the layout now the work on a certain bridge is out of the way

 

There is another recent thread on here about plastic wagon kits in 4mm scale.

 

Andy

 

 

[Jaggzuk]

Another 2010 deadline.

 

It looks like my 2010 competition layout is going to have take a back seat for a while, which is really disappointing, the reason, well our baby is due in December!! So not really that disappointing As we are still trying to renovate our house, I suddenly have a lot of DIY projects to complete before Dec arghh!!!

 

OK, so I might not have got anything ready for the 2010 competition, but with out it running I would never have even have started. So to Andy and RMWeb, I say a big thank you.

 

North Marsh Road will carry on, just not as fast as I would like. Plus my model railway space might end up becoming the baby's room

 

Anyway guys, I will continue to watch you all romp to the finish line and I looking forward to seeing all the completed layouts.

 

Paul

[Jaggzuk]

Any future posts will now be made on my North Marsh Road Blog

 

All the best and more hours in the day for those frantically trying to finish their layouts for the final, final dead-line. Looking forward to seeing the results and of course the winning layout!!

 

Paul