GWR/LMS OO Gauge DCC RR&Co

I could even say very excellent photo's  :)  Hope Canada day was good.

I have been avoiding reading any posts on layouts for some time now John - with Maxmill being somewhat "in limbo", they tend to increase my frustration.

Today, I gave in and have just read the last 5 or 6 pages of "Granby".  I was right to avoid such tasty morsels.

I'm sure the overall appearance of Granby is magnificent, but the thing that I find really inspiring is the way you create these wonderful "scenes" tucked into tight corners or spaces.  Most would simply lay some tarmac or grass and be done with it.  You must spend hours studying a given area before lighting upon some long forgotten scene from the industrial heartlands, where every inch of space was used for something.  Everything "fits" perfectly,  blending with the neighbouring building, be it railway related or otherwise.  Nowhere can I spot anything even slightly "unlikely".  There's so much to see in these little scenes that the overall scheme of things becomes almost irrelevant - it all becomes "further down/up the line" to be viewed later, once the eyes have feasted on the tiny detail in each scene, be it an old wire drum, a bit of discarded rail or cleverly placed vehicle with people going about their daily chores.  Each one triggering a memory as one of my ancient brain cells lights up and screams "I remember those", or similar "OMG, how did he remember that" moments.  To me, not only a delight to see but an absolute masterpiece in railway modelling.  A true recreation of the past in miniature rather than a representation of it.  I'm absolutely in awe but, given my current inability to progress with Maxmill - Get thee behind me Satan !!!! 

Hope you've shaken the flu off and that the peepers are on the way to recovery.  Our very best wishes to you and to Doreen form a very busy mid-season France …………

[user=269]MaxSouthOz[/user] wrote:

Happy Canada Day to you, John.   :cheers

I'm glad to hear that you are recovering from the "lurgies."

Excellent photos, by the way.   :thumbs

peterm wrote:

I could even say very excellent photo's  :)  Hope Canada day was good.

Max and Pete:

You are very kind about the photos…….I was in a bit of a rush and dispensed with the tripod and remote and just fired off a load of point and shoot ………selected the best and spent a bit of time with photo shop.

The light was good with sun streaming through the train room windows :lol:

So glad you like them.

Best wishes

John

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

I have been avoiding reading any posts on layouts for some time now John - with Maxmill being somewhat "in limbo", they tend to increase my frustration.

Today, I gave in and have just read the last 5 or 6 pages of "Granby".  I was right to avoid such tasty morsels.

I'm sure the overall appearance of Granby is magnificent, but the thing that I find really inspiring is the way you create these wonderful "scenes" tucked into tight corners or spaces.  Most would simply lay some tarmac or grass and be done with it.  You must spend hours studying a given area before lighting upon some long forgotten scene from the industrial heartlands, where every inch of space was used for something.  Everything "fits" perfectly,  blending with the neighbouring building, be it railway related or otherwise.  Nowhere can I spot anything even slightly "unlikely".  There's so much to see in these little scenes that the overall scheme of things becomes almost irrelevant - it all becomes "further down/up the line" to be viewed later, once the eyes have feasted on the tiny detail in each scene, be it an old wire drum, a bit of discarded rail or cleverly placed vehicle with people going about their daily chores.  Each one triggering a memory as one of my ancient brain cells lights up and screams "I remember those", or similar "OMG, how did he remember that" moments.  To me, not only a delight to see but an absolute masterpiece in railway modelling.  A true recreation of the past in miniature rather than a representation of it.  I'm absolutely in awe but, given my current inability to progress with Maxmill - Get thee behind me Satan !!!! 

Hope you've shaken the flu off and that the peepers are on the way to recovery.  Our very best wishes to you and to Doreen form a very busy mid-season France …………

Peter

As always you are far too kind. I think you must be Granby's longest serving and most enthusiastic fan :thumbs

I am so glad you approve of not only the individual cameos but also the scene in its entirety. I sometimes feel I have squeezed too much in and might have been better to leave more open spaces and then I remember the narrow ginnels and back alleys of both Liverpool and Oldham and all the buildings pressing in cheek by jowel and feel a bit reassured.

Another worry I have is effecting seamless transitions between the different cameos.  Some I am quite pleased with
like the busy station street merging via the pub into a row of railway workers houses.



Others are less successful and I am still prevaricating about the best way of linking Station Square with Richards
Wharf at the other end of the station



I have the Scalescene kits for a Hotel and Post Office…….its just working out the best way to squeeze it in. A fall project methinks.

I do sympathise with you about Maxmill being on hold. I so enjoyed your updates…..particularly having seen it in the flesh. Have you given any further thought to a plank that could be incorporated at some future date into the eventual grand design? Seems a shame not to run your stock particularly that lovely pannier! But then I shouldnt tempt you with questions like that in the peak of your season.

Fortunately the virus has now gone and I hope to be finally signed off by the eye specialist next week. The entire month of June appears to have been devoted to medical appointments……..and when I am not doing that the garden is flourishing and ever demanding in time. I think I got more modelling done in the summer when we had the boat

Thank you once again for such a charming and complimentary post.

Our very best wishes to you and Liz

John








 

John ,  your comment

I sometimes feel I have squeezed too much in and might have been better  to leave more open spaces and then I remember the narrow ginnels and  back alleys of both Liverpool and Oldham and all the buildings pressing  in cheek by jowel and feel a bit reassured.


Be reassured it is OK to do so, squeezing things in…

take a tour of this layout
The Franklin and South Manchester Railroad Photo Tour

one such example
The Franklin and South Manchester Railroad Photo Tour

Thanks Ron!
That makes me feel a lot better. That's quite the layout….I need to spend more time going through the entire thread….get some more ideas!

Best wishes

John

Having promised something completely different you may be confused by yet another shot of the low level branch :roll:





This is one of my "mea culpa" posts.

The turnout in the centre was laid some 8 years ago………before I realised the vital importance of at least 2-3 inches of straight connecting track! :oops:




The RH track leads to the canal bridge I showed last week. Its only used by Coal trains to and from Bersham and the Autotrain. There is an ugly jerk as these trains transit the point but provided the autocoach is propelled towards Cynwyd (as shown last week) all is well…sort of. If it is pulled however it derails. :twisted::shock: Not really a problem until recently

With the arrival of the Hattons 14xx I no longer need to hardwire the the loco to the autocoach and a very large stay alive. So now I want to reverse the train orientation so the autcoach is pulled into Cynwyd where it can be backed into the trailing bay. Between trips, as per the prototype the 14xx, can be uncoupled and shunt the yard.
 
So after 8 years of turning a blind eye…..the point has to be fixed.

The LH branch of the turnout leads round to the other side of the layout where there are  two storage sidings under Granby station








Underneath the double decker buses there is a Code 100 ( insulfrog) doubleslip……….hence all the observation ports. In reality loco exchanges in covered sidings proved far too complicated particularly with a dodgy exit turnout.

So once the turnout is fixed the slips will go and I will set up a simple low  coveredcircuit which will add to the branch traffic………fortunately I had the common sense to make the street scene moveable. :)

First things first……remove the track either side of the point



Watch this space for progress reports!

Meantime for something really different.

I may have mentioned that I recently had what is deemed to be a significant birthday.  My family clubbed together and bought me this rather splendid addition to Granby's LMS roster




At last the trainspotters at the end of platform 3 have something to get excited about:



Bachmann's LMS Stanier Mogul………….I guess if I have to keep waiting for a new GWR mogul this is a pretty acceptable substitute. :thumbs

LMS activity at Granby is mostly freight and suburban services but I do run one secondary express service ….perfect for my new loco

Best wishes from Vancouver where after over 4 weeks it is finally raining

One of the busiest layouts I have seen John ;-)

I can never see too many shots of Granby, John.   :cool:

It's nice to see others going back and fixing things.   :lol:

A good example of "a layout is never finished". There is always something that could have been done better 😉. Especially if it annoys you.
I have all of the points on the Henllan station board to pull up and modify for polarity to the frogs. On day.

Nice one John.

Marty

Thanks guys.

I must say that at times it seems a bit like painting the Forth Bridge. Apart from projects not even started and unfinished ones there seems an ever growing list of maintenance issues……….I know part of the charm of the hobby :lol:

Cheers

To start here is a shot of the autocoach being propelled over the dodgy point……..success! :doublethumb

The derailing problem problem was not caused solely by the poor rail connection (now corrected). It was cleverly situated over the junction of three baseboards……none of which aligned quite as precisely as one might wish :oops:. I did mention this was one of my earlier attempts at track laying! A considerable amount of time was spent shimming and attempting to create smoother gradients.



In consequence the under board peco motor was replaced by yet another  surface mounted motor……connected to a DCC Concepts polarity switcher  so I could retain the existing wired up electrofrog …….I would have  been infuriated if I had been forced to substitute an insulfrog turnout.




Signal Box stored in yard while track and sleepers were painted. The entire section is now ballasted but not yet PVAd. I want to give it time to settle while I try all the branch locos over both turnout directions………so far so good but I want to run the long coal trains through the junction before finalising. There is a slight rattle and roll but nothing too horrific…….it is, after all, a hardworking secondary branch line.





Last week I mentioned the LMS Granby-Birkenhead service which has been a bit neglected of late.

Here is the three car non corridor set approaching Platform 3. Its hauled by 1202 Ivatt 2-6-2. Its an original split chassis which I have had for nearly 20 years now……….total pain to convert to DCC but a brilliant runner.

As a boy most of my train travelling was on the Liverpool-Southport electric line. So great excitement when twice a day the Ivatt used to haul the "London train" (a couple of caches I recall) to and from Southport to Liverpool Edgehill where it hooked up to the Lime Street-Euston train

Weathering is the hot topic of the year on Granby but I am ashamed to admit the subtle covering of dust on the Ivatt had nothing to do with me……other than neglect.

By way of contrast to the Ivatt introduced in 1946, the relief loco in the foreground is an ex Lancashire and Yorkshire 2-4-2T built between 1889 and 1911! More nostalgia one of these apparently ran on the Wirral Railway…….before coming to Canada we lived about 400 yards from the old track bed…….long since converted to the Wirral Way.  







I have to bite the bullet and paint these coach roofs……I have done the corridor stock so these guys really stand out. I do wish Hornby would produce non corridor GWR stock of a similar standard. The only non corridor GWR RTR coaches are B Sets. The difference is so great I try and avoid running them together! 




Having completed a loco exchange the Lanky tank heads back to Birkenhead………actual the storage sidings where there is a duplicate train which is leaving for Granby. The two trains pass at the entrance to the sidings…..it was quite a complicated routine to set up with RR&Co……I keep threatening to do a video   :hmm





In the relief road my latest acquisition an ex LNWR 0-6-2 Coal Tank built 1891-7!  Quite authentic for Granby …they ran out of Wrexham (less certain about the Lanky tank but nostalgia rules)

Although designed to haul coal trains their performance was deemed inadequate for such heavy trains and they became general maids of all work including short haul ordinary passenger trips.



I dont really need another LMS loco let alone a tank but I couldnt resist this one. I find them quite fascinating. There is no doubt Bachmann have mastered the art of producing highly detailed LMS work horses.

There was some doubt about the pick ups fouling points but there is no problem with mine. She is run in,chipped, RR&Co profiled and ready to go. My second Ivatt will have a well earned rest and 7841 will soon be a regular performer on the Birkenhead run

Hope you enjoyed this overlong post……thought I would finish with this

Nice work, John.    :cool:

I've been following Michael Portillo's series on TV, and I'm getting a better feel for British Railways.  It all looks familiar as I look at Granby.

Thanks Max

Thats one of the nicest compliments you have paid Granby

I guess all I need is a brightly coloured jacket……do you think Green would suit me? :lol:

Regards

Nah.  I see you in a green shirt, pink trousers and a yellow jacket.   

:hmm  Have to think about that……Pink doesn't really suit me
 

Not "overlong" John, enjoyable as always   :thumbs

Don't think even Mr Portillo has worn pink trousers ……………….. red maybe  :lol:


Ed

So glad that the relay of that point worked out for you, it looks nice and smooth and you're obviously pleased with the  improvement on the original. 
Fascinating photos and descriptions of Granby and there was even a Pannier in the background. It took a sit down and a cup of tea to read through and thoroughly enjoyable.

Signals, I must get around to signals.

Marty

[user=1338]Ed[/user] wrote:

Not "overlong" John, enjoyable as always   :thumbs

Don't think even Mr Portillo has worn pink trousers ……………….. red maybe  :lol:


Ed

Thanks Ed glad you liked it……..I realised after I posted it that after some editing and pruning it wasnt really "overlong" after all :oops:

Red trousers are rather passe I believe ;-)

Regards

John

[user=19]Marty[/user] wrote:

So glad that the relay of that point worked out for you, it looks nice and smooth and you're obviously pleased with the  improvement on the original. 
Fascinating photos and descriptions of Granby and there was even a Pannier in the background. It took a sit down and a cup of tea to read through and thoroughly enjoyable.

Signals, I must get around to signals.

Marty

Thanks Marty

Panniers……well spotted……I have rather a lot (you can never have too many panniers :lol:) and they like to hog the limelight.

I dont envy you with signals in N gauge…….I find mine very accident prone even though they are only cosmetic :oops:

Regards

John