Chuffnell Regis

[Graham T]

Thanks Trevor, I hadn't seen that site before - that looks like it might take up my entire evening!  

Edited August 16, 2022 by Graham T

[Andy Keane]

57 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Some small fillets of scrap ply and hot glue seem to have done the trick (seems that at Chuffnell R, if a hot glue gun isn't the answer then you might be asking the wrong question...)

 

 

The joint between the end of the platform and the road will be disguised with a little bit of Das, forming a sort of scrubby, very low bank, that will run on behind the buffers and then peter out at the goods yard.  And the other joint will have a short stretch of curb I think, separating the roadway from a small parking area on the dark grey surface, and then a fence with pedestrian gate separating that from the platform proper.  Does that sound vaguely feasible or realistic?

Unless your whole forecourt is fenced and gated off from the road I think the regs require that all track must be fenced and gated from the public. The basic idea is that the railway operatives can "shut" the station and prevent anyone getting to the track without going over a fence or through a gate. If your forecourt itself is fenced and gated then only the platforms where trains can be embarked on need gating - this I think is to enable things like platform tickets to be enforced (not that they ever were in practice as far as I can tell). 

regards

Andy

[Andy Keane]

3 hours ago, Graham T said:

Thanks Trevor, I hadn't seen that site before - that looks like it might take up my entire evening!  

If you ever get the chance I can very much recommend the weekend courses they do there. Great people and good tuition. I am off again this autumn for one on building signals.

Andy

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:

If you ever get the chance I can very much recommend the weekend courses they do there. Great people and good tuition. I am off again this autumn for one on building signals.

Andy

 

I'd love to do one of the courses Andy (I expect there's some good socialising too), but I think it'll have to wait until I move back to the UK.

[Andy Keane]

1 minute ago, Graham T said:

 

I'd love to do one of the courses Andy (I expect there's some good socialising too), but I think it'll have to wait until I move back to the UK.

Yes a certain amount of beer does get consumed too!

[Graham T]

Sounds even better 🍻

[Graham T]

5 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Unless your whole forecourt is fenced and gated off from the road I think the regs require that all track must be fenced and gated from the public. The basic idea is that the railway operatives can "shut" the station and prevent anyone getting to the track without going over a fence or through a gate. If your forecourt itself is fenced and gated then only the platforms where trains can be embarked on need gating - this I think is to enable things like platform tickets to be enforced (not that they ever were in practice as far as I can tell). 

regards

Andy

 

I have a cunning plan!  Please excuse the rather child-ish pic - I'm ok with a paintbrush but am most definitely not skilled with any computer graphics programs!

 

 

The green blobs are hedges.  Blue dotted lines are train tracks (beware of trains...)  Red dotted lines are fencing, and green dotted lines are gates.  The green area between the station building and the road is a patch of lawn; Rowden Mill had one like this, and that's the station I want to try to make a model of (it had no access doors facing the road).

 

EL is the end loading bay.  I'm toying with making up a slightly stretched pagoda hut that's been divided in two internally.  There would be a door onto the platform, as a bike shelter or similar. and a second door on the side of the end loading bay, as a store room.  

 

Any thoughts, feedback, suggestions and so on regarding the plan would be very welcome, thanks.

[Andy Keane]

13 minutes ago, Graham T said:

 

I have a cunning plan!  Please excuse the rather child-ish pic - I'm ok with a paintbrush but am most definitely not skilled with any computer graphics programs!

 

 

The green blobs are hedges.  Blue dotted lines are train tracks (beware of trains...)  Red dotted lines are fencing, and green dotted lines are gates.  The green area between the station building and the road is a patch of lawn; Rowden Mill had one like this, and that's the station I want to try to make a model of (it had no access doors facing the road).

 

EL is the end loading bay.  I'm toying with making up a slightly stretched pagoda hut that's been divided in two internally.  There would be a door onto the platform, as a bike shelter or similar. and a second door on the side of the end loading bay, as a store room.  

 

Any thoughts, feedback, suggestions and so on regarding the plan would be very welcome, thanks.

I think you have a problem here. You have no way of closing the public out from the end loading bay or fences alongside the track.

You will need fences to protect the railway even if they have hedges growing through them. I have added some solid red lines below plus gate to the loading bay.

Now the public cannot get to the trains when the gates are shut. The bottom red fence may not be needed because of your left-most gate. Of course there are lots of ways of doing this. Do you have the three volume set of GWR station plans (An Historic Survey of Selected GWR Stations) - this shows a huge variety but always the rules require the railway can be closed off from the public.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

4 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

I think you have a problem here. You have no way of closing the public out from the end loading bay or fences alongside the track.

You will need fences to protect the railway even if they have hedges growing through them. I have added some solid red lines below plus gate to the loading bay.

Now the public cannot get to the trains when the gates are shut. The bottom red fence may not be needed because of your left-most gate. Of course there are lots of ways of doing this. Do you have the three volume set of GWR station plans (An Historic Survey of Selected GWR Stations) - this shows a huge variety but always the rules require the railway can be closed off from the public.

ps - I note that at Rowden Mill the lawn was fenced off in such a way that when the gates were shut you could not get to the lawn.

[Graham T]

13 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

I think you have a problem here. You have no way of closing the public out from the end loading bay or fences alongside the track.

You will need fences to protect the railway even if they have hedges growing through them. I have added some solid red lines below plus gate to the loading bay.

Now the public cannot get to the trains when the gates are shut. Of course there are lots of ways of doing this. Do you have the three volume set of GWR station plans (An Historic Survey of Selected GWR Stations) - this shows a huge variety but always the rules require the railway can be closed off from the public.

 

Thanks Andy, I appreciate the input.  Good points made!  I will take (most of) it on board 🙂

 

I say  most because I will probably stick with a hedge as the boundary between the bay platform line and the road.  I understand that it's not prototypical, but if I put a run of fencing in there then I run into a problem at the cottage end of the road; it might look odd for the fence to end up against the cottage gardens.  I'm not sure though - need to sleep on it at least.  Might have to invoke Rule 1 (again!)

 

I will make sure that the lawn and end loading dock are fenced off though!

[Andy Keane]

17 minutes ago, Graham T said:

 

Thanks Andy, I appreciate the input.  Good points made!  I will take (most of) it on board 🙂

 

I say  most because I will probably stick with a hedge as the boundary between the bay platform line and the road.  I understand that it's not prototypical, but if I put a run of fencing in there then I run into a problem at the cottage end of the road; it might look odd for the fence to end up against the cottage gardens.  I'm not sure though - need to sleep on it at least.  Might have to invoke Rule 1 (again!)

 

I will make sure that the lawn and end loading dock are fenced off though!

I guess the argument you make is the fence is there but the hedge has grown through it in places. I think this is quite common when houses abut the railway but unlikely at the station. My gran had just such a hedge but the wire fence was actually there. Maybe you could  start with fence and then intersperse with hedge as you go along perhaps?

[Andy Keane]

Just now, Andy Keane said:

I guess the argument you make is the fence is there but the hedge has grown through it in places. I think this is quite common when houses abut the railway but unlikely at the station. My gran had just such a hedge but the wire fence was actually there. Maybe you could  start with fence and then intersperse with hedge as you go along perhaps?

Ps what type of fence will you have at the station? Metal spear or wooden pailing? Then switching to post and wire as you move away from the station proper.

[Graham T]

11 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Ps what type of fence will you have at the station? Metal spear or wooden pailing? Then switching to post and wire as you move away from the station proper.

 

Again I'm not 100% sure yet, but probably wood.  Although the spear fencing around the lawn at Rowden Mill looks nice too - aagh!  Too many decisions...

[Graham T]

I spent an hour after finishing work this evening extending the "scenic" stuff towards the station.  As the area involved between the bay platform and the roadway is long but very narrow, my usual technique of building a card framework and then putting a lattice over it seemed like overkill really, so I took a simpler option.

 

Strips of cardboard nailed down with hot glue to form the bank, and then dollops of polyfilla over the top 🙂  There are a few gaps that will need sorting out tomorrow.  I might build up the top of the bank a little with Das, as it will be much easier to get the shape I have in mind.  Anybody know if Das sticks to polyfilla?

 

 

[John Besley]

10 hours ago, Harlequin said:

I don't think it's common to see trails from washout plugs on well-maintained engines.

 

Here's one in period:

 

A bit grimey but not filthy or stained.

 

 

I agree, only in the end of BR steam when everything was getting run down did locos start to show weepage from joints etc.

 

If a loco was leaking steam from washout plugs then it should be stopped by the fitter as these would need tightening and possabilly reseating. White water dribbles from the Smokebox door would be a first sign of weeping tubes or priming due to water carry over from a boiler filled too full.

 

White water deposits would also be feasible where steam would exit around the safety valve seats and around the bottom of the whistle where it bolts to the pipework - but to show this in a 4mm scale model would be very difficult due to the locations being too tiny to see.

 

To show this correctly in scale would be vertually impossible in 4mm as the deposits are quite small - it would be all too easy to do this and it would look out of scale.

 

In short don't spoil the ship for a hap'ny worth of tar!

 

Hope this helps

[Graham T]

Thanks John, I will leave well enough alone!  But I have painted up a strip of plasticard to represent the length of scaffold board across the front of the tender; I think it was you that mentioned that?

[Graham T]

As I had the polyfilla out it seemed churlish not to bed in the weighbridge as well.  I might try to scribe some bricks into it once it's hardened.  Alternatively, I might try to preserve what little remains of my sanity!

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

3205 has now had her final tweaks done.  I added a little Geoscenics coal to the tender, and also the scaffold board as mentioned by @John Besley.  I tried to show a little oil leaking from the lubricator cover on the smokebox, with a streak of gloss varnish, but it hardly shows.  I might try a touch of gloss black enamel instead.

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Graham T

[KNP]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

3205 has now had her final tweaks done.  I added a little Geoscenics coal to the tender, and also the scaffold board as mentioned by @John Besley.  I tried to show a little oil leaking from the lubricator cover on the smokebox, with a streak of gloss varnish, but it hardly shows.  I might try a touch of gloss black enamel instead.

 

Looks very smart, or not depending on your point of view, not, which is of course what you where aiming for.

 

Great job.

[Graham T]

Thanks Kevin, very much appreciated, especially from a man who certainly knows how to make a loco look the part 🙂

[Graham T]

An afternoon break meant that I had time for some lurid red Das action.  First the little bit of earthwork across the end of the platform, just to get warmed up (it's 35 degrees here today) ...

 

 

I still need to come up with a cunning plan to disguise that joint between the parking area at the end of the platform and the road surface...

 

And then the somewhat larger job of making the bank separating the bay platform from the roadway.  This will have some post and wire fencing along the top (thanks @Andy Keane for the advice there), with hedgery growing around it.  The Das was worked into thin layers on a sheet of baking paper, as it doesn't stick to that, and then laid onto PVA - which it does stick to 🙂  Then smoothed down with a wet finger.  I'll see how it looks when it's dried out, hopefully it will be ready for painting tomorrow.

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

I can resist anything except temptation...

 

A bit like @MrWolf, I also seem to have acquired another loco.  I was reliably informed that converting my old DC pannier to DCC would have been beyond even my renowned abilities with all things electrickery (stop sniggering at the back).  So I bought myself another used Bachmann one with DCC fitted.  After all, a pannier never offends!  7788 now needs "the Chuffnell Regis treatment"; sound chip and stay-alive, coal, couplings, and crew.  A touch of very gentle weathering too.

 

This pic also shows the growing range of liveries now infesting Chuffnell R.  Not sure whether to do some drastic repainting or just be a bit flexible with my time window 🙂  Also, the greens of 7788 and 2732 are noticeably different.  I dare say 7788 is closer to reality, so maybe I should try to darken 2732?  I used Humbrol RC405 acrylic on it, but think I need to find something closer to GWR (chrome?) green.  Anyone got any tips on that please?

 

[Andy Keane]

Phoenix make two GWR loco greens.

[Andy Keane]

I also notice two of your panniers have yellow route marking and one has blue. I think they all started blue and then got changed in the 1950s. See http://www.gwr.org.uk/nopanniers.html

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Andy Keane

[Graham T]

4 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

I also notice two of your panniers have yellow route marking and one has blue. I think they all started blue and then got changed in the 1950s. See http://www.gwr.org.uk/nopanniers.html

 

 

Yes I was wondering about that too!