Somewhere SW of London. Somewhen before today

Thanks Rick.  You have spurred me on to weather something.
Terry

[user=711]col.stephens[/user] wrote:

Thanks Rick.  You have spurred me on to weather something.
Terry

 :Happy

Today being a bad-weather Bank Holiday it felt appropriate to engage in engineering works. 

It may not look much but all ten sidings have been pinned down where previously they were loosely placed. So that’s about 20 yards of track. All roads have had uncouplers fitted to aid the removal of locos and a low retaining wall of black card has been installed to prevent anything falling onto the office desk below. 

It’s been a very long time since the “West Country” got to stretch her legs.  

Good work on the yard - these things may not be glamorous, but they need doing, and it all looks exceedingly neat.  Lovely West Country class out and about too.
Michael

Will give you lots of running options there rick!

And here we are almost ready to roll. A couple of point motors still to connect and still one short of a full set owing to the Great Peco Shortage. Its day will come. 

1 - 5 roads are for the electric passenger lines though will also offer and receive van trains at times. 6 - 10 roads are for the goods yard with 10 road used here for loco storage. This is not intended to be a permanent arrangement and was done for convenience on this occasion. 

It might seem odd having 1 road the farthest from rather than nearest to my workbench and desk but when operating the layout and taking the end-on view the roads are 1 - 10 left to right. 

That is looking very impressive now, Rick. Keep up the good work.

:cheers :cheers

Plenty of stock movements available there. Glad the wiring is getting where you want it to be.

[user=1753]Gwiwer[/user] wrote:

Finally a view across a busy goods yard which is (at last) powered and working without a short though at the modest inconvenience of having to “hand over” between controllers for a couple of moves 

 

 

Hi,

I'm interested in your (SR) Covered Ventilated Vans as seen in the yard, I can't find many RTR or kits, just PC 594 which has a different roof (I think). What was your source or were they non-region specific?

Regards,

Colin

Colin W wrote:

Gwiwer wrote:

Finally a view across a busy goods yard which is (at last) powered and working without a short though at the modest inconvenience of having to “hand over” between controllers for a couple of moves 

 

 

Hi,

I'm interested in your (SR) Covered Ventilated Vans as seen in the yard, I can't find many RTR or kits, just PC 594 which has a different roof (I think). What was your source or were they non-region specific?

Regards,

Colin

Hi Colin

 The first van in the rake seen here, which is the one I think you are referring to, is Bachmann item 38-082D and currently available.  Also available is 38-076D which is similar but metal-panelled rather than timber-planked.  

Does that help? 

Marty wrote:

Plenty of stock movements available there. Glad the wiring is getting where you want it to be.

Ah yes.  The wiring!!!  Always a bane of my modelling life.  It has required a lot of swapping electrofrogs for insulfrogs to get it there but as this has largely been a lockdown layout in terms of getting things up and running I have had no option but to do it myself.  

I do acknowledge the generous offers of help from a couple of RMweb friends in other parts of the world but it would have taken a skilled pair of hands and knowing eyes actually on the layout to have had everything wired with electrofrogs.  

In the end it hasn't made a great deal of difference to the operations; if I do find a short wheelbase loco pecks or stalls over a point I can always wire up a brake van to act as a runner and power-jumper.  Insulfrogs mean that I can run with four and not five electrical circuits and therefore one not two controllers but with the minor inconvenience of having both the passenger lines as a single circuit.  So no trains passing in the station - at least for now because there will be a way of splitting them again in the future.  

[user=321]SRman[/user] wrote:

That is looking very impressive now, Rick. Keep up the good work.

:cheers :cheers

Generous words Jeff for which I thank you.  Coming from a modeller with as much skill and experience as yourself in the same areas that is praise indeed.  :cheers

That's one heck of a yard Rick.  :shock:  I don't know why, but I imagined you were restricted to a plank 2 inches wide and 4 inches long …………………….   What is the overall measurement of the layout ?

Those Pacific kettles were quite something.  As a nipper I was always a big fan of the West Countrys,  Battle of Britains, Clans and Merchant Navys.  :thumbs  Looking at them, it seems silly to call them "Light" Pacifics ………….

Petermac wrote:

That's one heck of a yard Rick.  :shock:  I don't know why, but I imagined you were restricted to a plank 2 inches wide and 4 inches long …………………….   What is the overall measurement of the layout ?

Those Pacific kettles were quite something.  As a nipper I was always a big fan of the West Countrys,  Battle of Britains, Clans and Merchant Navys.  :thumbs  Looking at them, it seems silly to call them "Light" Pacifics ………….

The room is 14 feet by 10 feet.  Or about 4.5 x 3 metres for those playing in French.  The board used for the main fiddle yard is a mere 18 inches wide (yet accommodates 10 tracks as you can see) and while the sidings are of differing lengths according to the approach tracks and pointwork the longest holds 7 Mk1 carriages or vans - or a loco plus six.  

 The layout runs down one long and across one short wall of the room in an L-shape giving a maximum end-to-end run of just under 24 feet / 7.5 metres.  Not enough to run full-length express trains but plenty to offer typical outer-suburban 4-car passenger trains and short freights.  And plenty to have fun with in the fairly near future when the operational side is fully wired up.  

I think "Light" Pacific was the term used to get around WW2 restrictions on new-build locomotives.  The WC/BB classes had to be described as "mixed-traffic" locos to be approved when they were really express passenger types.  The MN was even more a top-link express passenger design.  That said all served their time on freights and secondary work with the as-built WC/BB types famed for trundling a pair of carriages through north Cornwall at a very sedate pace towards Padstow.  The rebuilt ones, the MN and the S15 class were all too heavy for those routes and were largely restricted to working east of Exeter.  

[user=1753]Gwiwer[/user] wrote

Hi Colin

The first van in the rake seen here, which is the one I think you are referring to, is Bachmann item 38-082D and currently available.  Also available is 38-076D which is similar but metal-panelled rather than timber-planked.  

Does that help? 

Thanks Rick,

I'd not spotted that one as it is from a later period. The ones I'm after were made in the 1930s to fit my setting, like this one on the Bluebell

SR Even planked 12T Ventilated Van - Bluebell Rwy

 this was an earlier design of the van you quote, and good news after further research, Parkside (Ratio) have a kit PC564 for it.
 Your 38-076D will probably be the later uneven plank version (1941-44), also available in kit form PC 591.

Colin

Thank you for those compliments, Rick. I'm sure I don't deserve such high praise.

On the subject of the SR vans: as you and Colin have said, Bachmann produce a number of variations on the theme, not always all available at the same time, and there are the older Ratio kits (now in the Parkside range), but there are also several RTR variants in the Dapol range, albeit with less detailed underframes than the Bachmann models, but they are also cheaper.

ColinW, the obvious searches would include SR or Southern Railway, but you can also find a few of these models with LMS branding, because they purchased some to the Southern designs.

Variations include even planking (earliest type), uneven 2+2 planking (later - perhaps during the war), and later still, plywood sides.

[user=321]SRman[/user] wrote:

…

 ColinW, the obvious searches would include SR or Southern Railway, but you can also find a few of these models with LMS branding, because they purchased some to the Southern designs.

Variations include even planking (earliest type), uneven 2+2 planking (later - perhaps during the war), and later still, plywood sides

Thx Jeff,

The LMS angle is helpful, it explains something I'd seen but didn't understand. I'm looking for some variation to what is presently too biased to GWR in my holdings! SR and LMS are the most likely externals to have turned up in my 'parish"

Q1 33032 arrives in Waddlemarsh yard with a train of short wheelbase vans 

Lovely vans Rick.  When are you planning go finish the loco …… :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol: