Heritage Line Layout-Named at last P9 /

[JohnN]

Hi John, that's a smashing layout you've built. I love your choice of a heritage line. As you say, you can have a wide selection of locos and rolling stock on the layout altogether. And the level of modelling there is very high. I love the little individual scenes and how they all add together to make the whole look so natural.

[Bufferstop]

Thanks John glad you like it. Putting those vehicles and figures in the bit of space by the station persuaded me to extend the board just enough to model the front of the station and the road in front of it. It also added a useful 100mm to the head shunt for the run round loop and also the other platform road. I've made a reversible plug in cassette big enough for a tender loco or a small loco and a couple of wagons that fits onto the end of the "gasworks tunnel" at the front of the layout. Over the top there's the road & pavements and I've punched some holes in the blank face of the station building given it some real doors (before they only existed inside the building stuck to the solid wall). I've bought the TV crew set of figures from Preiser and a VW van as their support vehicle and I'm in the process of setting it out as an "on location" cameo. I'll do some photo's when I've finished tweaking it.
John W
aka Bufferstop

[kennyGWSR]

Wow John, loving Cadbury 9! Looks great! May have to put an order in some day for a scratch built loco talking of scratch built locos, you still got Furness 20? Any chance of some photos of her please? And any chance i could borrow her and forget to give her back?

[Bufferstop]

In my last post I mentioned an extension, here it is all 100mm of it.
This is where I started

That fired me up to actually make something of that little area, and I knew I needed a bit more room on the headshunt for the run round, just enough to let me release an 0-6-0 and tender. Any extension would protrude over the adjacent shelves and would be visible on 3 sides so I didn't want to make it too large or that heavythat it would need supporting. I was also feeling a bit "post new year" in the finance dept, as the Smart is currently awaiting a £400 part, so expenditure was intended to be minimal. Sorting through what I had to hand, there was some 6mm MDF, a some pieces of hardwood (idigbou left over from our new staircase 5 years ago), and a couple of short pieces of code 75 track. The longer of the two pieces was just long enough for an 0-4-0 and brake van, the other was 190mm long, so the die was cast. It would be 100mm long across the end of the station board would have two 95mm extensions to the platform face tracks and (a bold move as I had not a clue how to make it) a cassette, which could receive a short train through the "gas-works tunnel" and be turned around and dispatched. I did have to dip in my pocket for a couple of pattern-makers dowels and a bolt and tang nut to pull the bits together. Here it is


The superstructure is built entirely of artists mounting board, including the outer faces which were cut from a black faced sheet. The tracks which extend the platform faces were lined up across the gap, continuity is (up to now) ensured by pushing hard on the ends of the rails with a screwdriver after fastening the unit in place. Seems to work quite well!!
The cassette sort of designed itself, here are the parts

The trackbed and the foot are made from MDF separated by a block of the same thickness as the whole base was made from. It slides in between two MDF guides and is held down by two strips of brass which also carry the power. At the centre on either side is a strip of copperclad sleeper with a phosphor bronze contact soldered to either end. The brass plates with which it makes contact are wired through a co-ax power connector and socket fished out of the odds and sods box. You can see it in the hollow centre section above. The bent paper clip device was the protective stop at the point where the cassette connects. It now has a new use.

If I run trains without the cassette in place, it provides a short circuit should I try to energise the approach track!
As you can see from the pictures above the station building didn't have a front as it faced directly onto the cut-off line of the model. Now it's gained a boarded front, canopy with brackets and a pair of open doors. It's now possible to see that there are internal walls, with skirting boards, doors to various rooms and a ticket window. Oh and a fire-hose reel mounted on the wall.

If you look back a few shots you will see that outside there's a telephone kiosk, a litter-bin and a green cabinet for Zunan and his mates to peer into and scratch their heads (I gave it up 45 years ago ) There's also a bus stop sign and a "Controlled Parking zone" sign. The road surface is 120 grade sandpaper, darkened where the traffic runs by dragging a Peco track rubber along it. Yellow and white lines are masking tape cut into thin strips and rubbed down until the surface texture shows through. (It also cleans you fingers and leaves a lighter patch on the road). The pavements are cut from thick grey card, scribed with flagstones. I run an HB pencil along the lines then rub the surface (not so tough on the finger as the sandpaper) to redistribute the colour over the surface. A strip of 1200 grade emery paper makes a contrasting re-instatement scar across the road.

In the car park at the side of the station a shoot for a TV programme is in progress, (helps the revenue stream) I used the light and camera from the Preiser film and TV crew set, but substituted repainted 4mm size figures as their cameraman was very small even for H0. I straightened and bent some thin copper wire, then painted it black to make cables trailing back to the VW van parked on the road. There's a board from the road to the kerb to prevent passers by tripping over the cables.
That's it for now, but I'll work out what it is that they are recording and report back.
John W
aka Bufferstop

[Dad-1]

All that for 100 mm !!
Looking very good. I like the idea of using card & mounting board, but not for
use in my garage.

Geoff T.

[Bufferstop]

Here's the cassette in action.

The Cassette in place.

Here it is with the side walls removed. The black strip in the 4' way is thick mounting card with its edges chamfered (used a picture framers matte cutter). It make getting the wheels onto the rails a bit easier.

a short train arrives. The side walls stay in place purely by friction. The pressure of fingers and thumb are enough to pull out both cove and cassette without it parting company.

and put the loco on the other end

Replace the cassette and train departs.
I'm quite chuffed with it, the materials and design just fell together.
The little tram train just about fits. The pug or Sentinel with a brakevan are a bit more comfortable. I could make the cassette a little longer but the limit is the need for it to be self supporting. More later -
John W
aka Bufferstop.

[luckymucklebackit]

Hi John - That looks very ingenious indeed"" - If youwanted it a bit longer you could incorporate a drop down 45 degree gusset that bears on teh side of the cabinet, that could give you sufficient support for another foor or so.

Great stuff

Jim

[Bufferstop]

Hi Jim that's one idea that I have floating the other is two pieces of telescoping tubing loosed in to the end of the baseboard, that the inner one could pull out by about half of it's length. Would allow me to roll in a rake of coaches or wagons already on the rails. The baseboard side rails are deep enough and the top surface is solid on that board so there wouldn't be a problem holding it level.

[cd82]

Thank you for your answer, love your pics and the cat, ours runs off with my bachmann figures in her mouth and i have to give chase, it's hilarious!

[InterCity125]

My cat sits in the bus depot yard, has a swipe at the train and while she waits for it to come past again occupies herself by chewing the hedges and the horse! (Not to mention the damage done to the trees)

[Bufferstop]

The ginger monster is showing her age (19 and a bit) and the railway is now beyond her reach, but she was never interested in the movement of the trains, just in getting attention.

[Tiddles]

The ginger monster is showing her age (19 and a bit) and the railway is now beyond her reach, but she was never interested in the movement of the trains, just in getting attention.

You will have to build her some steps

Starry our 15 year old tabby likes to sit on the laptop to get attention this often causes it to hjkfghbvbk...........................................

[timbologist]

hi John

Finally got to sit down and look at your layout very impressive, this loco building is somewhere I wish to go in the future,
I went mad on Ebay buying graveyard locos and rolling stock bits to do just this kind of work,
My late farther would do it with a brand new RTR out of the box never touched the rails, I'm not that game.
I think a persons layout is inversely proportional to the amount of rolling stock they own. ( the layout is never big enough.)
the Loco under the tarp really got me I keep going and looking at that. very original idea,

And your method of building the chassis to start with the known distance of the rods is brilliant, as they say if the foundations are right everything else will follow.

I'll be keeping an eye on your layout to give me ideas

cheers
tony

[Bufferstop]

Thanks Tony
Building a working chassis is definitely something you have to practice, there is definitely a bit of a black art in it if you don't have machine tools. I look at the cheaper Hornby mechanisms and think that works straight out of the box, yet it has play in almost every bearing, how do they get away with it. The secret seems to be to have proportionally more vertical play in the wheel bearings than horizontal play in the crank pins, get it the wrong way round and you can have wheels trying to turn in opposite directions. When I'm trying to figure out how to make something it makes me realise what a darned good machinist my father was, I still have some of his apprentice pieces in my toolbox just right for modelling work and far better than anything I could afford now. I do have one item that he would have thought marvellous, digital callipers, he'd have marvelled at the simplicity of use and been astounded that they cost less than he would now earn in an hour.
John W
aka Bufferstop

[timbologist]

Well John
I can admit to one thing here I think I can safely say I have got the skills for the job, I'm a toolmaker by trade and was lucky to be taught by brilliant tradesmen who were in there 60's
You did not do it right you got what for. you have seen the engine shed I am building, well some of the machinery was still driven by the overhead pulley system, but the steam engine was now an electric motor.
good tradesmen with the skills of old ( or as we are called now old school ) are hard to find now days.

but such is life.

cheers
tony