Lacathedrale

Sorry for the thread necromancy - these couplings have been renamed Easi-Fit, right? Does anyone have a rule of thumb on what length arm is required for a typical terminus-to-fy shelf layout (as opposed to a roundy-round on a coffee table? At £25/pack I'm reluctant to roll the dice! My stock is almost all modern Graham Farish and Dapol.

Lighting and power is in - floor is on-site and awaiting wall repaint (matt white) next week before it goes in..

@Izzy thank you so much for posting those pictures of the layouts operating sequence, it's rare enough one is described, let alone accompanied with such great text. Thank you!

Thank you all for the advice, again. Having parsed again, I think I'm looking at the following: Taking a pram, with a changing mat/etc. included - shouldn't be a problem even if we need to change baby on the floor we can. In sequential order: Start at Kidderminster - Breakfast at AJ’s under SVR offices, Bewdley - Convenience stop if required, good for train watching Highley - Engine shed/etc. Arley - Convenience stop if required, good for picnicking Bridgnorth - Up the hill, White Lion/Old Castle for a bite/beer Return to Kidderminster - Some drinks or food at King & Castle (station) or Weavers (up road) and potentially pop into the museum/footplate.co.uk shop

Thanks again, Nick. Here's the second D67 - as No. 678, built in 1902: And here it is alongside it's refurbished sister No 12: Both still need glazing and screw link couplings added, but I'm pretty pleased with them!

Not a bad shout! The garage is being slowly cleared, although it probably doesn't look like much: I'm getting daylight bulbs fitted and some more power. Layout will run at a little over the height of the trestles on the left hand side. In theory it should be able to curve around under the boiler, with the traverser in the back-right corner. I'm afraid that plans extending further are on indefinite hiatus, as the area currently occupied by the bench is pegged for a home gym. That's also the reason for a high baseboard height - so bicycles can fit underneath!

Though stock construction continues unabated on the workbench, I'm feeling a little less confident about the layout - particularly the peco double slips. It seems the 27" radius is most certainly going to prohibit me using three links. So I guess I need to go fit S&W's to my stock? That's not the end of the world but I've never done it, and spent all that time putting hooks and coupling links on everything :(

Well, the wheels finally arrived so here's that first D67 looking suspiciously close to being complete: I'm having a bit of a crisis at the moment - whether to continue with three-link and screw-link couplings, or DGs, or leave them as tension locks? The 24" radius for the slips in the throat of the layout is giving me a bit of worry...

I have a donor section that i can cut the extra section from, but I would need to slice either side of a single panel and somehow maintain (or repair) the beading either side of it - and then make a pretty bloody good cut and insert it perfectly, while maintaining alignment in all three axis. I think I'll leave that one aside for now and push on with the D61 (First/Second Compt) and D139 (Brake Third) - if they end up being at least passable then I'll invest the time in the D129 (Brake Second Luggage). That's a bit annoying because the Brake Second Luggage was the only vehicle I definitely wanted!!!

Thank you all! To repeat back the advice so far: For SVR: It seems the pram will need to be loaded into luggage area but that's fine Breakfast beforehand in Kidderminster at AJ's, or sandwiches/etc. from King & Castle/Tearooms Break up the trip with stops over at Highley and/or Arley. Trains every 30min so no major dramas stopping off at Arley even if there's nothing else going on, in theory? Bridgnorth - worth a trip to the town for a bit and have a bite to eat at the Railwayman's Arms Pub For NYMR: I have booked a compartment so we should be able to get the pram in with us, and change baby en-route Since only one train each way, can't really get off at Goathland or Grosmont unless I'm prepared to skip Pickering, I can't imagine that's worth it without the walk/anything else to do? A walk through the forest sounds lovely but not practical with pram so will have to wait until she's a rambler. Would like to have done the shed tour, but unless I can convince the wife to take care of baby for a couple of hours on a different day, it's unlikely.

Slow progression: I have no idea how, but my Brake Second Luggage (front of the previous post) has ended up one panel too short - it should be 3 + 4 + 4 and so is now about 8mm too short. I'm of a split mind whether to splice in another panel or not yet - I've been fairly lucky with the cu and shuts so far...

My wife, newborn and I are heading to the SVR for the Autumn Steam Gala on the Thurs 15th of September, and to the NYMR for the Yorkshire Express on the Tues 18th of October. Other than them being two of the larger preserved railways I know NOTHING about them - what to see, what to avoid, etc. I say this, because visiting the Bluebell with a knowledgeable friend he suggested we take the first train up to EG from SP, next train back to HK, get lunch before the rush of the next train, etc. etc. and it was a much more pleasant experience than just muddling through. For the SVR trip we are based about 15 miles away in Alcester, and the plan is to drive into Kidderminster and try to catch the Black Five and 2800 in motion - but thats about as far as i have got! As it pertains to trips to take/avoid I'm a bit lost. For the NYMR trip we are based in Whitby. The train departs Whitby at 10:00 heading for Pickering before returning after a few hours at 16:30ish. Seeing as this is the only train of the day and getting off, while permitted, means hanging around until the train returns. Is there a station/area that is significantly nicer than Pickering to pass a few hours? Anything particular to see at either end? Not sure a shed tour is on the cards with baby, really... Any tips at all would be gladly appreciated!

I keep getting dusty finishes with my Vallejo Gloss - I've read that a drop of flow improver and a smidge of retarding medium might help, and since I've just bought myself half a litre of the bloody stuff - I guess I'd better try it! EDIT: One side went down perfect, the other side went down very blotchy, which I wiped up with a tissue.

Nope, turns out I had just enough - the following shows, front to back - a 54' 5 Compt. Brake Second with extra luggage space, the previously illustrated 54' 7 Compt. Brake Third, and a 50' 8 Compt. Ex-suburban First/Second Composite in the rear: Lots of work to do on these - but I'm hoping by batch-building I'm going to get economies of scale with the various steps.

Thanks Nick! My train needs a brake vehicle, so I am starting to cobble together a D139 - a 7 Compt. Brake Third: 5 Compartments from one Tri-ang BT, 2 Compartments from another, and the Brake-end minus ducket. It will need new ends, roof and underframe detail - but I think the only challenging thing there is going to be forming the roof. I think the compartments will have to be full height and with the roof profile atop. In an ideal world I'd like to build a D129 Brake Second Luggage and the D61 First/Second Composite, but I think I'm going to be one BT short. Oh well! I'm not sure the best way to fill the gaps between the panel joins, I've tried Vallejo Plastic Putty but it seems to just wick away or shrink down - any ideas?

"So what are all those carriages FOR?" she asked. "Well," I reply, "it's for a layout eventually" The hairs raise on the back of my neck, has she forgotten our discussion about the garage wall? With three umber carriages almost complete we are rapidly approaching the point at which track laying needs to commence. Let's find out...

@Nick Holliday, in your diagrams I note there is red lining around the windows - is this something I need to do/have done? I seem to have totally missed it if so, and I was just about to glaze up the carriages I've built so far...

It went alot more smoothly this time, knowing what my end goal is - LMS buffers, scratchbuilt queenposts, thin partitions (since I'm not doing interiors that's fine with me!), and then an overall basecoat of 7:1 Chocolate Brown:Black and and panelling of 7:1 Pale Sand:Chocolate Brown. One afternoon to build it, one afternoon to paint: I tried to line on the matt finish as recommended by the Easi-Liner, but it didn't go as well with the dip pen, there being quite a few issues with viscosity. It turned out OK in the end though, so hard to complain: You can't really see the lining on this one I'm afraid, but trust me, it's there! I realise I forgot to paint the grab and door handles on both carriages, so they're going to get a coat of the same 'sunny skintone' that I used for the lining. I just need to get the screw couplings added and the other bogie built - not too onerous really. I am really quite worried though, that I have two Peco Double Slips as part of the layout throat and I think that might cause too much throw and/or buffer locking around the nominal 2' curve of the diverging routes...

Still waiting on the Mansell wheels, so why not get the other D67 done while my eye is in on it? This will be from the initial batch with gas lighting and intermediate smoking compartments, and will be in Umber/white - an over emphasis on the period differences since both D67s would have seen both liveries, but at least theres some variation? The fact the use of an all over Umber livery requires double the transfers (56!) has nothing at all to do with it.

I’m generally using about 20psi - I’ll try again on a test wagon. Using valllejo glossy varnish has been a success though

Well, here's my transfer effort on the D67 - the panels for the doors are slightly too narrow, so the 'D' in THIRD overlaps onto the handle instead of being alongside. The compartment panels are also too narrow for L B & S C R so I've compromised on L B S C R which just about fits. Carriage is numbered 12 to align to a 1904 BRCW-built example with Stone's electric lighting: It needs more microsol and a few layers of gloss varnish to build up the layers but I feel is fairly respectable. And I've just noticed I'm missing the Havock vents above the end compartment doors and the buffer shanks need painting too. Oh well!

Some EB Models transfers completes the D95: I have considered doing some weathering but I'm really not convinced - my test coach on the left with the easi-liner test lining, and the D67 All Third unweathered on the right: This is just a light spray of a grey-brown on the lower bit of the panels and footboards, but it just ends up looking like ghosting or reflections of the surface underneath. I'm not sure how to pull off the pre-group weathered look, really... As a side note, the panel widths of the D67 are such that I can't fit the bloody L B & S C R lettering in - time for some splicing?

Thanks Nick, you've convinced me to make the D61 instead. FYI Terry suggests cutting one side or another of the compartment centre-lines. This is the only picture I have: I've made up the bogies but am short Mansell wheels (I guess they would still have been Mansell at this point?) so they're on order - and that complete the D67 is basically done and I can get cracking on the next items. Annoyingly, I'm one Triang brake third short of being able to put together that D61 First/Third Comp, a D129 Brake Second Luggage and a D139 Brake Third, so I guess I'll get the meat of the first two done and then when the process is proven, I will get another BT and sort the latter. One large gap i'm seeing is a Lav First which shows up in the 1908 City Limited - is this something I can cobble together from a pair of Tri-ang Composites? I'll have two left over and while I'm assuming not, maybe worth a try!

OK, finally finished and last picture of the control panel before it's being used to run trains: You can se the rotary knob that's used in conjuction with signal 19 as previously described. Levers 1-3 and 4-6 are electronically identlcal - ultimately in the real lever frame they will throw different signals - but for the purposes of this box there's no point duplicating all the wiring!

It may look like a rats nest but its all documented: And, marvel of marvels: it all works!