The Saltport Saga

[SR71]

I think I'm right in thinking you model in the correct gauge:scale ratio? Excuse me confirming but there are some very good modellers on here that fool me with their pictures on a regular basis.

 

The point I was getting to is: Would a check rail be effective?

[Barclay]

9 hours ago, SR71 said:

I think I'm right in thinking you model in the correct gauge:scale ratio? Excuse me confirming but there are some very good modellers on here that fool me with their pictures on a regular basis.

 

The point I was getting to is: Would a check rail be effective?

Fairly close - 18.2mm. A check rail is a great idea!

[SR71]

Glad it's a helpful suggestion. I wasn't sure if they could be used in the finer scales or if the tolerances would be too much to achieve.

[Barclay]

Down at the sordid end of the layout, the checkrail has helped, together with tweaking the angle of incidence of the cassette, and moving the warehouse along slightly - fortunately there was room to do so without it having to overhang the end of the layout. I have also started making up small pieces of Wills granite setts to infill around the warehouse. 

 

Meanwhile, second photo., I was inspired by discussions on @Ruston's loco building thread to have a go at making a chimney on my fairly newly acquired lathe, and thanks to advice received, I have made a moderate stab at it. This, then, may well be the next loco project. What do you mean, "What is it?" - you can tell by the shape, surely? 😵

 

 

[Barclay]

Well after 40 years in 3 different lofts, it had to happen some time...

 

On Saturday I stepped into the hole in the floor! Luckily the hatch is quite small and my backside wedged in the opening. This may seem quite funny but I wasn't laughing at the time, though I fully understand that others may find it so. I was incredibly lucky, and got away with cuts and grazes, and a truly massive bruise (you know where). I seem to have struck the layout on the way down, and the Gents' urinal that hides the switches at the front on the low level is no more, though repairable.

 

Yesterday was spent, therefore, building something that I have been pondering for some time, a plug-in hole-filler that can take my weight if required. I would urge anyone else who thinks they aren't daft enough to do this to consider that they only have to do it once...

 

 

[SteveyDee68]

Sorry to hear of your mishap, and glad you came off with nothing worse than some bruising.

 

My late father (bless him) accessed the loft with some wooden fold up decorating ladders, which meant you climbed up them, then hoisted yourself up into the loft, using the top part of the steps (where the front hinged to the back) to give yourself a boost. I lost count of the times when I would misjudge the lateral forces and send the ladders crashing down leaving me dangling in mid air from the trap door!

 

Once in the loft, you had to be careful not to fall through the “hole in the floor”, but that changed when my little sister aged about four years old insisted on having a look at what we were doing in the loft. Dad boosted her up, and climbed up behind her but mere moments later, after deciding she wanted to look at something on the other side of the loft, she walked straight into the hatchway hole!

 

First I knew about it was a loud bang and high pitched scream, as apparently she bounced off the top step of the ladders head first onto the landing floor, before picking herself up and running into my bedroom and throwing herself onto my bed, clutching her (bleeding) head!

 

She suffered a cut on the top of her scalp (which bled a lot but looked worse than it was) and after a family outing to A&E and various X-rays returned home with a bandage on her head, a bottle of the 1970s equivalent of “Calpol” and went straight to bed. Luckily she survived the fall sans skull fracture or anything else serious.

 

I didn’t go straight to bed, as the yellow covers were covered in blood! They were washed immediately, but even after washing had a nasty brown stain on them so went in the bin.

 

The following week, Dad had crafted a substantial “hole plug” to put in place whenever anyone was upstairs in the loft, and so effectively fastened the stable door long after the horse had bolted! 😆 Having said that, nobody ever had another accident entering or exiting the loft, even with the rickety ladders as the only means of access!

 

My paternal grandfather, on the other hand, was notorious for creating brand new “access holes” in the ceilings of his bungalow, as he was too tight to fully board out his loft and was forever misjudging the distance between the planks he had installed as a floor! Usually this was just a foot or leg that would make an impromptu entrance through the ceiling, but apparently his most spectacular accident was when he went into the loft to fetch down some home brewed wine for some visiting friends and suddenly rejoined them in the lounge, coming straight through the ceiling clutching a couple of bottles and landing in an easy chair directly below his fall! When he sold his bungalow, he had to get a professional decorator in to make good his many-times patched Anaglypter*, as it otherwise looked like a patchwork of pieces of ceiling paper (of various patterns, never matching - he would get a free sample of paper from the DIY store and use that for his repairs!)

 

Moral of those stories - whether you have a part-boarded or fully boarded loft, if there is even a single hole you can possibly fall through then Sod’s Law says that at some point you - or someone else - will manage to find that hole!

 

Steve S

 

PS

Glad your layout only suffered minimal damage - last time I leant on my baseboard (of unsecured track) I managed to catapult the lot off and onto the floor!

 

 

[Tullygrainey]

So easily done. Very glad to hear you got away with (fairly) minor injuries.  A timely reminder to us all to take care and fit a cover on the access hole for when we're up there.

 

I did the same thing a number of years ago. It was an 8 foot drop onto the concrete floor of the garage. I bashed my chest on the way through the hole and broke a rib but I still get the shivers thinking about how much worse it could've been. 

[Barclay]

Last weekend saw the completion of another wagon that I had started a couple of weeks ago. This is a 1942 built LMS Long Low wagon to D. 2069. I'm not sure of the make of the kit, as I had lost the header card and there was nothing on the instructions. Grey plastic kit with white metal buffers (Chivers maybe?). I had a go at springing the buffers by chopping off the heads and boring them out in the lathe to 2 different diameters before fitting turned steel heads with springs. I got three of them right! I haven't sprung this one as it has the bigger heavy duty axle guards that I don't have an etch for. In any case plastic wagons seem to run more smoothly than white metal ones.

 

These wagons are likely to have been built unpainted but looking at the photo., I think it needs more weathering - that wood is far too pale for a wagon that won't have been cleaned since it was built 5 years ago...

 

 

 

[AlfaZagato]

Have a load in mind?

[Barclay]

20 minutes ago, AlfaZagato said:

Have a load in mind?

More often than not I chicken out and run them empty!

 

What do you suggest?

[AlfaZagato]

Maybe a sizeable crate?  Or some pipe.   I admittedly don't remember what industries you've suggested around your layout, so maybe something directly related to those?

[Barclay]

I've always kept the idea of traffic very vague. Essentially anything that could end up at docks or an industrial estate, so basically, anything at all! I must think about this. Perhaps just a nobbly shape under a tarp.

[AlfaZagato]

To overthink it, I'd wager a long-low is only rated about the same as a shorter wheelbase wagon?  If so, could knock up a real easy load out of styrene or brass tube, painted black or whatever color pipe would have been painted before use in your timeframe.

[Barclay]

It's a 20 Ton wagon, but yes, pipes and lumps of steel, perhaps offcuts of plastic section etc.