A layout in progress, slow progress...

S’mae Bill

Yes, we have to keep the Scouse flag flying….. By the way, how is the railway room progressing?  I’m getting worried, the season will be on soon, if it isn't already, and I’ve not seen anything on your thread of late. I assume at least you’re still amassing stuff for the layout… I’ve been doing that for years now, especially when loft time is severely limited (at the moment by Fflo, phones on fibre and SWMBLT who keeps going on about jobs I’ve promised to / could do….). When I have an idea for something on the layout I immediately make a list of what I’ll need and get it ordered. It then remains in the box on arrival, and is stored under the layout. Which is fine, but now there are lots of boxes…. so it takes forever to find anything…. it’s what I call a “system”…..Which sort of explains why the bike shed, bikes and bodies were not in the photo…. At least I’ve found the Metcalfe signal box kits – so I’ll probably start on them, before they get put back under the layout, and get hidden by the next box, whenever that may arrive.

… and tomorrrow my conact at BT is back from the Easter break, so that's tomorrow sorted…

Keith

Hi Keith. I have a passion for railway viaducts and bridges, and on model railways, they can distract the viewers eyes from any faults that were made. But as yet I haven't got a "man cave" or anywhere else to have a full size plan.Keep up the good work.   All the best. Kevin

Bonjour Keith,

Ah, the railway room. Well, I've cleared everything out and sealed the chimney against rain and beasts, moved some stock and materials in and then done no more on it, since other projects took much higher priority with holiday accommodation and keeping the bride happy, but hopefully more this year.

I have however not been completely idle, as besides collecting stock, yet more tools and a lot of books, I've been putting a test bed plank together, which will become a module to the layout between the terminus and fiddle yard and I've also been building some kits.

The lovely bride however, gave me a major diversion a few months ago and the rebuild of a little pre-war sports model, is almost complete and will enjoy some retro street racing this summer. Besides that, a recent broken wrist has ceased most physical activity, but after a final operation next week, I need to get fully fit again to return to normal service as soon as possible.

Glad you've found the signal box kits and keep working your system to locate everything else you have tucked safely away!

Yep, our first clients arrive early next month, so no more time to loose!

Very best,

Bill

   

  S’mae Kevin

  Yes, I like to see a layout on more than one level, so you get the odd bridge or tunnel, adds interest. I’m quite lucky to have a decent loft.

  Keith
  

  S’mae Bill

  Glad to hear about progress with the railway room, sounds like you’re getting it sorted. Must admit rallying was our bag back in the day – nothing to beat thrashing around the back roads and tracks of North Wales, the Peak District and the Lakes in the middle of the night… latterly in our Avenger Tiger – when the Mexico was the standard choice, remember them?

  Hope all goes well next week with the op, sounds like you did a proper job on your wrist, as to getting back to normal, I reckon something gentle to begin with, like a couple of weeks in the railway room….

  Just for a change, Fflyff, the other half of the demon duo has been in trouble, another dash to the vet, and a further delay in proceedings in the loft, she is on the mend now. Just prior to that I decided to start the signal box, so I tidied up my “workbench” (Brendan, please note)…..


   
  ..…yes, if I can see more than 30% of the cutting mat, then it’s tidy!

  Keith
  

  Right, Fflyff has now recovered, but as is always the case Fflo caught the bug from her sister, and of course starting from a fairly low ebb, she is much worse, so the cat ICU has been back in business big time, with the signal box build being progressed on an as and when basis.

  Right, this is fairly straightforward – two smaller signal boxes stuck together to make one large box. I decided not to simply stick the two together as it would look a bit odd when lit, a wall halfway down the cabin. So this is what I did.
 Start by cutting the walls of the cabin from both kits:


  

  ..all that’s left now is to remove the gable end from the lower right section and the tiny front section, with the red arrow, from the upper right section. Add the windows and assemble – I’ve used off-cuts, mostly from the windows to join the sections together – make sure they are squared off OK.



  

  The two floors of the new cabin will be a little short, by 2 x wall thickness, but you can cut a bridging piece from the print overrun of the floor sections. I’ve cut it short of the full width of the cabin for access for the lighting wires.



   
  On the other hand, the roof sections together are too long, as you’re losing two overhangs, but that’s handy because of the gaps for the roof pinnacles at each end. Measure up the total length needed (204mm, I think), cut and join.  One drawback here, the printing does not exactly match at the join, but once it gets the weathering treatment, it shouldn’t be too noticeable. Support the join with offcuts. Different sizes because of the inner front window tab, I’ve not fixed the roof as yet, lighting to complete, and it will only be attached with Tacky Wax, so it can be removed if necessary.






   

  Repeat with the base walls, the only difference here is continuing the rod/wire access between the two sections of the front wall, I’ve also covered the join on the outside with an additional section of brickwork, cut from the discards.


   

  Assemble base, the only change now is the cabin floor/base top, as with the roof the two floors are too long, so I just placed the floors in position and marked the overlap, and cut to give me two sections like this
  



  Then assemble the two sections as per the instructions, I have fixed the base floors slightly inside the walls, because of the extended rod/wire access – again these sections will be a little short, but I’ve left the gap for lighting wire access.


  

  All that remains is to glue the two sections together, add the bog and steps and we have one big signal box.



  

  There are a few more photos in the Gallery. As it stands now, the roof (still to get ridge tiles) and pinnacles are not attached, neither are the steps. I have still to put my standard lamp above the door, add my “Birkenhead no. 2” signs from SS, and give it the standard weathering treatment, but given what I set out to do, as ever with no idea how it would work out…… that’ll do.
   
  Keith
  

That is a nice long signal box, I need to do one of those at some point.

Nice work, Keith.   :thumbs

Thinking outside the (signal), box.   

Bonsoir Keith,

The op went well thanks, despite three loads of anaesthetic having little effect on tough Scouse stock! Fortunately, they rapidly pumped some crazy drug into me which sent me to a happy place and all the metalwork is out. After six weeks of frustration I can finally pull my trousers up  with both hands, slowly!

Sorry to hear your cats are poorly, we take our two girls for their annual jabs tomorrow and fully realise how precious furry family members are.

Congrats on finding sufficient cutting mat to produce such a splendid extended signal box. It's superb and I'm looking forward to seeing it insitu and weathered. Any thoughts on rodding? ;-)

Bill

[user=1798]Woodside[/user] wrote:

 S’mae Bill



  Glad to hear about progress with the railway room, sounds like you’re getting it sorted. Must admit rallying was our bag back in the day – nothing to beat thrashing around the back roads and tracks of North Wales, the Peak District and the Lakes in the middle of the night… latterly in our Avenger Tiger – when the Mexico was the standard choice, remember them?



  Hope all goes well next week with the op, sounds like you did a proper job on your wrist, as to getting back to normal, I reckon something gentle to begin with, like a couple of weeks in the railway room….



  Just for a change, Fflyff, the other half of the demon duo has been in trouble, another dash to the vet, and a further delay in proceedings in the loft, she is on the mend now. Just prior to that I decided to start the signal box, so I tidied up my “workbench” (Brendan, please note)…..





   

  ..…yes, if I can see more than 30% of the cutting mat, then it’s tidy!



  Keith

  

Oopps, of course I remember, but quite forgot to say how cool the tiggr colour scheme and boot spoiler looked on the Avenger Tiger!

Most of my fast driving was either on track or romping across Europe when you could reasonably speed along unmolested, so long as you kept it on the black stuff and didn't hit anyone or anything! Great fun and many crazy memories.  

So what finally happened with the Tiger?

Bill

Thanks everyone for the positive comments, forgot to mention the chimney pipe also still to be fitted, but that will happen once the roof is tackywaxed in position.

For the moment all attention on Fflo, who is really not well at all, new pills from the vet this morning, but at least we are manging to get her to eat a microscopic amount of food today.

Oh yes Bill, they made 500 of the yellow Tigers (can't remember the official name of the yellow) and 150 (I think) of the red ones - didn't fancy it in red at all. More on that, and the signal box, next time, but for now we've a patient to attend to…..

Keith

Hi Keith.   Signal Box looking excellent , could I have seen a box like that at Chester or Crewe? But anyway it does look familiar. I still can't find my "man cave " and the more I look makes it seem more impossible to find my dream, I have filled in my details on the channel 4 Location, Location, Location website for Phil and Kirsty, and on BBCEscape to the Country. All I seem to do is "Clock up the Train and Bus Miles". All the best. Kevin

A very effective kit bash Keith. Weathered and in situ it will look marvellous.
Geriatric cats eh?! I've got one on my lap at the moment. Healthy thankfully, apart from having lost the plot and becoming incredibly needy and demanding as old cats do. This one is 18 yrs old. Fingers crossed for your ff'ers. 

Cheers

Marty

Just a brief note, Fflo's condition worsened so we had to call out the vet this morning, and after giving us some time with Fflo, she sent Fflo on her way to that big cattery in the sky.The loft will be quiet for a few days while we keep tabs on Fflyff and come to terms with what has just happened.

Keith

Condolences Keith, your other half and of course Fflyff for your sad loss of dear Fflo.

Both myself, the bride and our various kitties send much feline karma to you all.

Come back when you're ready.

Bill 

Having a loved family pet depart is heart breaking, been there several times and will do again in the not too distant future. Our condolences. From the sounds of it Fflo had a great life and is now happily chasing mice in the big barn. Take care of yourselves.
Marty

  Sincere thanks Marty and Bill for your kind words and understanding – these pets do tend to rule our lives, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. The demon duo have been with us since we came down here back in ’99, courtesy of our removal man, so it will take some time to get used to just Fflyff, thankfully she seems to be coping far better than we are. Given that we have been nursing Fflo on and off, mostly on, since February ’15 all this spare time we have now is something else that will take some getting used to. Still definitely a bit raw, but with the occasional good day when I can get my grey cell thinking of something other than Fflo, life ever so slowly starts to get back to something like normal, so I have eventually managed to finish the signal box…..

  First of all the mandatory lamp was fitted above the door – I’ve mentioned this lamp idea before – just using a gow bulb and a small circle of 10 thou plasticard with a star cut at the centre – just feed the wires through, eventually the bulb which opens up the star and then paint.


   
  Sorry, a bit out of focus.  To be fair they are a bit overscale, would be better with g-o-r bulbs… but that may be a bit too fiddly for me. Doesn’t look too bad …


  

  Next a drain below the bog – I’m assuming the bog was plumbed in!


   
  Add the ridge tiles, chimney and pinnacles and all done..

Now for the weathering, steps not yet attached, again my standard method with watery black emulsion, a couple of extra drips of black emulsion added to the mix used for the small factory job – given that the box is opposite 6C – and there we are…


 
  I decided to add proper interior detail, using the Ratio kit 533, but this is seriously fiddly…. I don’t mind doing fiddly for something that works (signals, points and the like) … but just for decoration, my patience levels and finger dexterity do get severely challenged. So I’ll stop with what I’ve done – given the box faces the loft wall, and the interior can only be viewed through the door end, that will be enough. I have used just some simple balsa sticks, suitably painted, for Hooton box, and they don’t look too bad, provided you don’t look too close, so I’ll probably stick with that. Basically when it is lit an empty signal box does look a bit odd, so I have to put something in it.


  

  Then add the nameboards from SS, I did add a couple of bits of extra brickwork either side of the additional pillar I’d used to hide the join – just to give a flat surface for the main nameboard.


  


  
…and it is finished


  


  More pics in the gallery, but the box will eventually sit on a piece of the underlay which I used for the track…. And there’s still the lamp hut to add…. And once I’ve got the ballasting done, no timescale given, it’ll do for me.

  Keith
  

  Now some understandably belated replies…..

 Kevin, yes, the Metcalfe model is based on a standard LNWR design, which is why I chose it, so you could well have seen one in Chester. I’ve already used a single kit for Hooton Station (built before I got into this weathering lark, so still to be attacked). The other two boxes on the layout – one at the mouth of the tunnel down from Woodside – that’ll be a Ratio ex GWR box, just to be different (the line was LNWR/GWR joint back in the day) and Woodside Station which will be the Bachmann Type 15 (already in a box somewhere under the layout…), which is very similar to the BR box at Woodside which replaced the original box back in December 1955 and was used until closure in ’67 – so covers the period  I am modelling.

  Bill, the Tiger, our rallying exploits came to an end a year after the Oil Crisis (in ’76 / ’77, can’t remember now). The local dealership which had been sponsoring us suffered, as did the motor industry in general, and drastically cut their advertising budget (the source of our funds). We carried on for a while, but after a near serious off on an event we decided we couldn’t afford an actual serious off…. So the Tiger was sold, to a couple of lads just starting out…. And they promptly wrote it off on either the first or second event they entered!

I’d ordered a 3 litre Capri from the local Ford dealer, when it didn’t arrive, again and again, I transferred to a Celica GT… arrived within the week. I was then a Toyata fan, various models, finally with a Corolla GT (a bit like a modern version of theTiger), until our move up North.

  As to the question of rodding – I did buy some of the Wills point rodding kits when they were first introduced… on one of my to-do lists now, of course, and in a box somewhere under the layout…. That was for Hooton, and so I’ll probably try that first. I’ve seen a few articles in the magazines about using the Wills kits and the overall effect, if done properly (emphasis on the properly), does look very good…. It could come under the fiddly jobs category however…. which may be a problem for yours truly…… The only points using w-i-t on the layout are at Woodside Station/sidings…. That’s another half finished job on one of my to-do lists…..

Keith


  

Hi Keith,

Good to see you modelling and doing a grand job on the signal box. The dark wash works so well on the light-coloured woodwork, giving just the right grimy mood of the period.

I've also got some Ratio rodding packs and will install some on my plank, as it only has two pair of points going back to a small scratch build cabin, so shouldn't be too fiddly and like you, I've seen some good results, albeit after a degree of patience and doubtless encouraging words!

Sad to hear the Tiger had that serious off after all, right after your attempt to save it from just such a fate! I had the use of an aged auto Corolla just last week in the UK, a relief with my weak left wrist. This was no GT, but was the first Toyota I'd driven and it proved to be a delight and despite it's age (a '77), everything worked. Regarding the Capri. A mate at college had a '71 RS 3100 in red and it certainly looked the part, although I only had a brief ride to the pub and he was being very careful and even more so on the way back!

My best to your household and I know you'll be looking after one another.

Best,

Bill

  A few difficult weeks here, as we get accustomed to the new order, not helped by Fflyff now obviously searching for her sister with spells of seriously loud meows, more like wailing – thankfully such events are becoming less frequent. Also my latest order from Hattons arrived nearly four weeks back, other than to check the contents it has remained untouched …. the fact that it includes the long awaited DJ 0-4-2T says it all.

  On the odd good day I have managed to progress the timetable – not as straightforward as it should have been, given that this time I managed to get the fish train to the goods depot at a more sensible hour, and had the oil empties arriving early in the morning (last time they were at the depot overnight) both impacted on other traffic. Last time the fish was ‘forgotten’ and arrived at the depot just after 10am.… that’s a bit late I fancy. Anyway that is all sorted now – and it is now 06.44, one of the few clashes between the layout and the timetable (1961 version – there’ll be others with other years no doubt) occurs with the first Paddington train of the day – ex Woodside 06.30, and a Helsby train – ex Woodside 06.25 – both are timed to arrive Hooton at 06.46 – with the Helsby train departing 06.46, the Paddington train, as with all Paddington trains, is allowed 2 minutes at Hooton, departing at 06.48. Now, in the real world, with a four track mainline that’s fine…. I’ve only got two. Last run through I put the Helsby train (2 coaches) in platform 3, quickly followed by the Paddington train in platform 2, blocking the Helsby train ….which meant the Paddington train was away on time, with Helsby train a few minutes late. This time however, the fat controller had put three coaches on the Helsby train (’cos he hadn’t read his script properly) – so that doesn’t work/very, very tight fit. However I’ve found that by using all of the switches that I have at my disposal, I can manage it: the Helsby train still arrives in 3 (keep the passengers apart/no danger of getting on the wrong train)… the Paddington train waits at the signal outside the station…



    â€¦. that signal definitely needs replacing/fettling, both arms are a bit pathetic. By the way these photos were taken out of order, so pay no attention to the times. The Helsby train gets away, allowing the Paddington train to slowly pull into 2.


  

   and yes, I should have reset that point before taking this. I could have linked the two points to one point motor to avoid this problem, but for reasons which I can’t recall just now – but I’m sure they were very good at the time, the points had to be on separate motors, and I don't always remember to switch both points.
  So both trains can get away on time (just). I could say that I’d planned all these switches when I was wiring up the layout all those years ago …..I didn’t, total fluke that it works …..didn’t actually look at the timetable until I’d finished the track.  Planning? – as I have said many times, na, none of that here. More photos in the gallery if you haven’t had enough already.

  Perhaps just one more now, I have been trying to put the camera where I can’t actually get my head, if you see what I mean – gives a different view of the layout – this may be a help for anyone who is still looking for a track plan. The Sulzer type 2 is passing through Hooton en route for Birkenhead, the local parcels awaits departure from Platform 3, the middle tracks are the route down to the fiddle yard (which runs along the back wall – control panel top left), the 2P is held at the signal while the fat controller checks his script, and the tracks off to the right are the main line from Birkenhead.


  

  Also in the Hattons box are two Metcalf terraced houses backs to fill in the gap in the backscene behind the goods yard – I’ll get on with that soon – keep the grey cell more occupied than running trains, even when the fat controller gets it wrong, and taking even more photos. That said, I may just turn the clock back to 1956 temporarily just to snap the 0-4-2T with autocoach on a West Kirby service at Hooton.

  As ever, watch this space.

  Keith

P.S. Bill, perhaps I'll wait to do the point rodding, see how you get on first!