GWR/LMS OO Gauge DCC RR&Co

Thanks for all the kind comments guys. I think you are flatterng me (again :lol:) regarding the photographs …..they were rather rushed but I found it extraordinarily difficult to create a satisfactory image of a long train…….its probably DVD time!

Bob K wrote:

John Dew wrote:

I need to come to some sort of definitive solution because I will be  adding coach roof boards……..if I run two trains one will go to  Paddington and the other to the West Country. If its a long train as  shown it will definitely be to the West Country hence the two Southern  Coaches (I understand it was not uncommon to see these in Birkenhead  Woodside)

Right now I am thinking of Birkenhead-Granby-Bristol-Plymouth with two  through coaches to Penzance and of course two through coaches to John  Flann's Port Bredy……..the Southern Coaches were originally  diagrammed for Penhayle Bay……..but Rick's (Gwiwer) is mothballing  that layout when he moves to the UK.

Any suggestions/comments particularly about a Southern destination would  be most welcome. I know its all fiction but I would like it to be  credible fiction!

How about Dover? Maybe a boat train. I always remember seeing the Golden Arrow, if I recall correctly, pulling out of Waterloo.
Bob

Hi Bob…..good to hear from you. Thanks for the suggestion. I did think about Southampton but even there I am not sure if the the coaches would be attached to a Bristol train. I suspect they would go via Oxford. I guess I should put a set of 1947 Birkenhead timetables on my Christmas list!

Regards to all

John

As many of you know I am an RR&Co addict and enjoy developing automatic routines for my timetable.

The arrival at Granby of the Up West Country express presents some great opportunities.

At the rear of the train I can add a couple of through coaches from Manchester that had previously arrived attached to the regular Manchester - Granby service.

  I was able to download a 1947 GWR working timetable for the Wolverhampton-Birkenhead region…….absolutely fascinating. It was interesting how many passenger trains had joint terminii….Birkenhead and Manchester. Granby with is elastic location makes the perfect junction.

At the front of th train I may devise a loco exchange…..perhaps not entirely  credible but I like to alternate my Castles, County and Star.

However the current project is to doublehead the train over Granby Viaduct. An expert on another forum has written a detailed explanation of GWR practice……the second loco is known as the assisting engine…..never the pilot. Contrary to a widely held view the GWR did not require the assisting engine to be inserted behind the train engine, Provided it matched specified wheel arrangements the assisting engine could lead………great news for me it makes the routine very simple




It so happens that a 4-4-0 can assist a 4-6-0 from the front





A pristine 9003 waits in the loco spur for the arrival of its train. Technically a member of the Earl Class but known to all as a Dukedog.

Very appropriate loco for Granby located on the edge of Cambrian country








Mating a Bachmann loco with one from Hornby was probably not the best idea……talk about a colour contrast.

With RR&Co the actual mating (consisting?) is very very simple……one single command and the locos are completely synchronised. Its quite captivating to watch the contrasting wheel arrangements working in unison

Has to be my next video








I still have to work out how to get the Dukedog back but as the train is a roundy roundy I think I will just uncouple in the storage area and after a decent interval run it to Granby light engine









Regards from a cold but dry Vancouver


Edited to add missing photo and correct spelling

look forward to the vid John,have fun,,
:thumbs ;-) :cool:
Owen

Hi John,

Good afternoon from a bright and sunny Loire Valley and I must say that it's great to see an Earl assisting the powerful Castle class (or is it a Star?) and the consisting sounds a remarkably simple and handy task using DCC.

I discovered the other day that your Austin 7 AA van was in fact the only one the AA had, acquired in 1932 for assessment purposes, but not purchased in bulk due to being too expensive! There's a lovely photo of the Oxford Diecast prototype on this Austin 7 forum:

http://pub25.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=2099944454&frmid=5&msgid=1017941&cmd=show

I'll pick one up myself when I can and in the meantime, will look forward to your next video of the double headed assist over Granby Viaduct.

No pressure then, cheers,

Bill 

Looking good, Defiantly interested to see a video of it in motion.

Thanks guys.

Glad you like the idea of a video. Just got to get the coach boards sorted and I can get cracking,

Thanks for posting that link Bill…….my Austin 7 is Liptons Tea, I have the AA side car unit, Nevertheless I found the photos and comments very interesting…….who would have thought that Canada Post had a fleet of Austin 7s?

Kind regards

John

Oops, sorry John, it must be my age, as I now recall your Lipton's Tea A7 van with clarity and the AA combo of course. In my mind however, I'd superimposed the AA van in front of Granby Station! Apologies.

I rather fancy an AA cameo and will keep a look out for an AA A7 van, now out of stock, but one will turn up before long.

Good luck with your coach name board  destination research and the next episode of Granby's evolution. 

Best wishes,

Bill 

[user=1814]Longchap[/user] wrote:

Oops, sorry John, it must be my age, as I now recall your Lipton's Tea A7 van with clarity and the AA combo of course. In my mind however, I'd superimposed the AA van in front of Granby Station! Apologies.

I rather fancy an AA cameo and will keep a look out for an AA A7 van, now out of stock, but one will turn up before long.

Good luck with your coach name board  destination research and the next episode of Granby's evolution. 

Best wishes,

Bill 

Hi Bill

Spotted one in the 'Cheltenham Model Centre' today, so should be a few about online.

Aaron said:

Hi Bill

Spotted one in the 'Cheltenham Model Centre' today, so should be a few about online.




Thanks Aaron, I'm in the UK toward the end of next week for a while, so will look out for one.

Cheers,

Bill

Spent the last week setting up Coach Destination Boards for the three Passenger Expresses that I run…..18 coaches in all..

Took far longer than it should have done because, yet again, I couldnt make up my mind about the most realistic formations.

The aim was to create the typical GWR rake where it was rare for two coaches to be the same…….using only RTR stock I found that to be quite difficult 




The destinations were printed out using Libre Office……the free alternative suite to Microsoft Office……I prefer it to Word ….it has a wide font selection and smaller font sizes.

The strips were cut out and glued to plastic boards…….. Hornby supplied boards with the recently released Collet Bow Ended stock so I used these as a template to cut out boards for my other stock.

Not entirely successfully……They look ok if one applies the three foot rule (which I seem to be doing with increasing frequency)

Close ups show I have my boards a millimetre or so too deep. Doesnt sound much but proportionately its rather obvious.

 


Fortunately they are only secured in place with plasticene……which also shows on occasion :oops: So I may have another go in the New Year.

The font is Times New Roman, bold, size 7 which I think is a reasonable facsimile

Including Granby is a bit of an indulgence but with so few letters its a useful filler for the long scale 18' board. Proper sign writers spaced out both letters and their width……couldnt get the computor to do that 




Most of my GWR carriages are Bachmann models of the Collett Sunshine stock which I bought 15-20 years ago………the difference in standards between them and the Hornby Hawksworth above is quite marked. There is some question whether these coaches ever appeared in GWR livery……..but they are rather elegant..Rule #1   




Here is a Collet Bow end sandwiched between a Hawksworth and Collet Sunshine.

I have decided (I think :lol:) to split my 5 car rake of Hornby LMS Staniers and now they are being coupled with GWR coaches  I will definitely have to weather their all too pristine rooves



LMS used 12' boards. The font I used is Tahoma Bold 7……..close up the bold is a bit too strong but no bold was not strong enough.

3' rule and I can tell where they are going





Font Ariel Bold Size 7

Southern used 11' boards ……the length that BR adopted. I do wonder how the GWR guys managed with changing 18' boards, one would think it must have been a two person job.

Southen had brackets on their coaches for two boards. The second space being used for either destinations or the name of the train.

Apparently the " Pines Express" from Manchester to Bournemouth was quite well known…….so maybe Granby can run a named train after all.

Including , of course, a through coach  to my friend and neigbour John Flann's layout…..in Utah




The boards are a bit oversize and wavy but en masse and from a distance I think they add to the general atmosphere of Granby









It has become my habit to finish with a brief report on weather in Vancouver………..

This says it all

Those boards look pretty good to me John; in fact, the whole thing makes me think what a mess mine is. The weather looks good too. To a certain degree you can rug up in the cold, but when it's hot and humid like wot it is 'ere at the moment, there's only so much you can take off.  :)

[user=1120]peterm[/user] wrote:

Those boards look pretty good to me John; in fact, the whole thing makes me think what a mess mine is. The weather looks good too. To a certain degree you can rug up in the cold, but when it's hot and humid like wot it is 'ere at the moment, there's only so much you can take off.  :)

Yes they look the part John


And I too like that weather - I am a cold weather person, currently 11AM and is over 37c - change is coming…..

Well done John ,they look jolly smart.  I particularly like the LMS boards.

Destination broads looking good, envious of the weather, Just rain here.

Thanks for the kind comments guys :thumbs

Overall I think the boards do add something to the rakes…..a sense of direction perhaps. :lol:

After all these years my mind still cant quite get round the idea of it being mid summer in Oz!

Contrary to the general view of Canada……and despite being 15 minutes drive from the local ski mountains we dont actually get that much snow…….I guess we are 300-400 feet below the snow line…..so we normally get lots of rain instead :twisted:

Cheers 

Hi John,

Hawksworth coaches in GWR livery? Yes. Russel shows 4 as built, one with the coat of arms and GWR above (#796 Third), the second with Great Western but no coat of arms between (#783 Third), the third with Great [Coat of arms] Western (#855 Third), and the last with Great [Coat of arms] Western (#7252 Composite and "wearing the last GWR livery").

Nigel

Hi John,

"Including Granby is a bit of an indulgence but with so few letters its a  useful filler for the long scale 18' board. Proper sign writers spaced  out both letters and their width……couldnt get the computor to do  that"

There are a few tools in Word (Microsoft, presumably in what you are using as well if it's a faithful copy) to address character spacing. Kerning is only allowed for 8 point fonts and above (and you don't want to use that anyway for several reasons). There are several other tricks that can be used:

Scaling will reduce or expand the width of the characters.
Spacing will reduce or expand the space between letters while maintaining the font scale. You can use fractions of a point for exact adjustments to length.

I think the GWR dropped "And" for "&" before the terminus station when they switched from a serif font. That will give you more room to work with. Removing the dashes (which the GWR didn't use as far as I can see) will also give you more wiggle room.

Paddington Birmingham Granby & Birkenhead in Arial 8 point with the spacing expanded by 1 point is about 2.75" long, which would fit nicely in the 18' scale destination board (2.84") on those Hawksworth coaches.

One trick these boards is to print directly on 45 lb matt photo paper, no need for a backing strip, and to use "Tacky" glue from Michaels to attach. This peels easily off if you want to change anything and does not damage the paintwork. Plasticine or Blue tack if left will often discolor the paint work (especially the cheap rip-off brands). You could always attach some working brackets, or paint the back of the board with magnetic paint and attach a couple of magnets inside the coach…The sequence on the other side of the coach would often have been the reverse, eliminating the changeover at the termini.

The pictures I have of those late GWR Hawksworth coaches (some of which went into traffic at the beginning of December 1947 less than a month away from nationalization) show white lettering on a dark background (which may have been red or brown).

Reading through your latest posts Bournemouth/Poole to Margate via Reading would have been likely candidates for southern coast summer specials, with an engine change at Oxford (not necessarily a passenger stop). Newquay Wolverhampton Granby Birkenhead would be another (fictitious after Wolverhampton) summer special.Plus of course the Plymouth to Liverpool via Wrexham. Or the midnight flyer from Manchester, usually full of drunken sailors.

Nigel

 

Hi Nigel

Good to hear from you. Thank you for such a detailed and informative post. Lots of useful tips when I have another go in the New Year

I was uncertain about the Hawksworths although I knew they just squeezed into my time frame, perhaps I was thinking about the Brake Vans which Hornby produced in Chocolate and Cream but no crest or lettering?

A couple of questions about the boards………

Do you know when GWR changed to non serif lettering?   Would there be a mix of lettering styles in 1947/8 .

Any idea of the date of the photograph of the Hawksworth board  White on Red or Brown……..I wondered if they could be BR boards…. White on Red

Kind Regards

John

Hi John,

Egyptian serif to block sans lettering - post WW2 according to Brian Haresnape.

Dark background - probably red. Although I've seen more of the white background in photos. The first lot of Hawksworth Thirds probably ran with the new boards but with GWR livery well into 1948 or even 1949. Running those coaches with GWR livery means late 1947, unless Granby is in a time warp (although it's in Wales, so anything's possible).

Only the Thirds and Brake Composites were made in 1947, the Firsts, Brake Thirds and Composites were 1948 on (sez Jim Russell), so no GWR or shield. If you're feeling pedantic sell them, otherwise get some decals and ignore it. And use destination boards with black lettering on white. Looks nicer in my opinion.

Arial font is close, but unfortunately no cigar.

Nigel

Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year

Thanks  again to all who,  throughout the year, have read this thread and particularly those who have posted comments. As I have written before its incredibly encouraging  and morale boosting.

Well for what is probably the  final post of the year I am afraid there are no carefully crafted shots  of Gorgeous Green Locomotives and certainly no videos……..the reason  being I finally decided to do some much needed track work

The  xover at the South end of Granby has been an ongoing problem……I  inadvertently set up the tortoise so it was a millimetre or less too far  over so the switch blade just failed to mate with the stock rail.  Applying a little pressure to remedy this eventually sheered the little  tab that connects to the tie bar. Repairs with super glue (welcome to  bodgers junction) were less than ideal……resulting in a very limited  Up service from Platform 6.

Finally enough was enough:








 .




Fortunately I was able to use the existing tortoise rather than fit yet another surface mount







All done and dusted apart from ballast and a saw cut

The second venture was rather more radical…….. the down exit from the Storage Yard





Tucked away in the corner behind the Scalescene Warehouse is an old Fleischman Turntable







Its  a bit Heath Robinson but I managed to get this to work with DCC and RR  &Co. so rather than just roundy roundys I can run an automated out  and back service using the same loco.

The problem is access to the turntable is via this 3 way point






My  experience with 3 ways has not been a happy one. They are great space  savers but I have problems consistently reversing Tender Locos through  them….particularly the centre road. It may be due to some extent to my  dodgy track laying  but I wouldnt use them again

So the bullet was finally bitten and out came the 3 way to be replaced by two points set further back into the yard






Big  improvement all round. Totally reliable entry and exit to the TT. Two  locos can stand in the entry and exit roads and the third siding (  carriage siding/headshunt ) can now accommodate six carriages so I can  run trains to and from London.

Dont know why I didnt do  this in the first place. It means I can now go ahead and confidently  build the bridge to conceal the yard exit…….which was supposed to be  the main winter project.

Once again thank you for following my random scribbling me and providing so much encouragement 

PS  Still lots of snow……must be 2 feet at least. Digging out the  driveway is a frequent and challenging task for this old age  pensioner…..at least I dont have to go to work though…….commuting  is a nightmare.