Lacathedrale

By the way, hasn't it been a while since you did any trackwork/etc. ? maybe something to consider? Dual gauge baulk road track diorama a-la @Mikkel

I have been erring on getting the exact editions subscription of the toddler for the access to the back issues for exactly the reasons you describe - all of those gems nestled in between OO9 rabbit-warrens. I'm taking a journey backwards in time myself, and have decided to build nothing post 1900 and ideally nothing post 1890. I think unlike yourself though, I'm going to make an exception for RTR stock until I can backfill enough scratchbuilt items

Looking forward to seeing what comes next on the broad gauge blog - keep it coming!

That P3 crossover gave me no end of headaches trying to work it out on Templot @Richard Jones - not to mention the pair of overlaid single slips just below the ash pit on the throat.

A photograph from around 1880 shows that this line was either never implemented or removed shortly after.  I have highlighted in red where it would have been -

Thanks Mr. Gibbons - re-gauging my RTR coaches should not be a problem hopefully, either with replacement axles or simply pushing out the existing wheels if there's clearance. Locomotives are a bit more of a pain but I believe the layout scope of two and three-coupled inside-cylinder, inside-valve gear locomotives should be fairly straight forward. For example, the Hornby H-class is just a matter of pulling out the wheels by hand on the axles. Not all are that straight forward, of course...

I'm quite aware of British Finescale having spoken to Wayne a few times and bought some of his FiNescale N-gauge track - but the way I see it now is that relieved of the need to hand lay all my track, I can spend some of that effort in the re-wheeling process

Thank you!

On 26/09/2021 at 23:16, Mikkel said:

Thanks Dave. Dry-brushed Vallejo "Pale sand" works well for light weathering, I think. That and MIG "Light European Earth" pigment are used for weathering  across buildings, ground and stock, in an attempt to bring things together visually.

 

Is that the drybrushed colour on the rail sides and buffer stops in these photographs? I think drybrushing and colour-scaling is one of the few areas that we all get wrong, but yours looks just right.

I also wanted to ask and I'm sure you've already written up somewhere - what you use for ballast/ground cover and if you're ever modelled it over the track timbers?

Many thanks,

William

Hi Matt,

I'm not a member of MERG but the use of signals switching track power is something I definitely want to implement. Are you able to scan or summarise that part of the journal please?

Getting trains running is a massive boost, so good luck.

I personally found ID Backscenes to be inexpensive and worth while, but desaturated colours in the backscene are always complementary.

Many thanks!

I must ask - when are you going to plump for a resin DLP? Your designs are wonderful and clearly work a treat, but wouldn't the surface finish of a resin printer better reflect the hard work you've put in?

Wonderful models and ingenious techniques - thank you for sharing.

I have built track with copperclad, with copper + etched chairs, and with plastic chairs in 2mm, 4mm and 7mm.

The best solution IMO is copperclad with etched chairs, but I have only seen and tried this in 2mm and it is by far the most fiddly.

I think there is a false sense of security with plastic components since they are familiar materials to a scale modeller and wagon-kit-basher. Generally one can de-solder and shove around rail and etched chairs on PCB fairly easily if they are out of gauge or alignment but the same can't be said of plastic.

The 2mm Association have a book 'track: what it is and how to model it' which is very useful for any gauge and quite exhaustive, but @hayfield has put together a fair few series of photo essays on building them.

,,,and there goes another 40 minutes. I swear, I could watch videos on Buckingham all day.

Right - so I've got the order of home signal-line clear wrong. Thank you! I've updated the original entry to reflect that.

In regard to your last point about a vehicle standing at the stops - in my era wouldn't this be controlled by a calling on signal (pulled off when the locomotive had come (nearly) to a stop at it?

May I please ask what the socket or connector going through the baseboard joint looks like? It's a simple hook and loop or something?

I posted a thread in the Signalling subforum to clarify the block sections for the layout plan and to confirm the specifics around pulling off home signals at a terminus - if you have to do it before you set line clear to allow the signal box in rear to pull of their starter signal - why bother having home signals at all?

Maybe 2019? Everything is blurring into one

As you know, this layout has all the turnouts in one board also, so mechanical actuation would (hopefully) be fairly straight forward - but the signals are a little more widely spaced to unless I can figure out a reliable mechanical join for the runs will have to be servo operated.

It pains me to know that you must have been standing behind Leighton Buzzard at the LFRM in 2020 and I didn't join the dots at the time, so you'll have to excuse that. I dearly wish one day I could see Buckingham in the flesh, maybe I can ply you with gateaux one of these days.

RE: operator interaction, I think if you've got buy-in from both then that makes alot of sense. I've joined the local finescale group so between that and a few current friends, hopefully I may find some who are sporting enough.

I think interlocking is definitely one of the things that would be added AFTER the layout is 'finished' as a way of extending the modelling and construction opportunities on an otherwise complete system. If I remember correctly there's an arduino sketch which you enter in a table similar to that shown in the original blog entry and it handles the locks and releases (albeit with flashing red lights and nothing happening, rather than a physical lock).

Yes, I follow Plumpton Green on YouTube and there's an awful lot of ringing. I think with an. accurate track plan, you can choose to add or omit signals, and with signals you can choose to add or omit bells - so you may as well see how it lands!

Thanks Andy, always learning on this one!

Incase it didn't ping you, thank you @DavidLong @scottystitch and @Izzy for that feedback. Sometimes being in the weeds makes it hard to see how it's really taking shape.  @Donw the layout is/was always going to be pre-grouping, so that is going to mean a fair bit of kit building and bashing whatever happens, Even someone like the SECR who are now well served by RTR are missing key locomotive types such as the Large and small Scotchmen, a Q, and all of the various SER and LCDR types which would have still been extremely common across the system, to say nothing of meaningful NPCS representation.

They didn't have it ready to go, but took it in their stride, @Jub45565 - I had originally considered a board that was double height, with the front and rear cut away to leave a viaduct/embankment base along the middle at the original track level, and they seemed prepared to do this - but I realised that was going to end up meaning paying for alot of laser cutting and CAD time that I could replace fairly with some celotex and ply.

Well, objectively the 'complex' throat is shorter and so not quite as hard up against the baseboard edges, and has a knock on effect of increasing the platform lengths of the two south platforms by 6" - but I think you're right that the simple throat does not look more elegant.

I have released as per my latest blog entry, that I should really be using 12' straight-planed, loose-heel switches instead of B-types to properly represent 19th century LNWR trackwork. Certainly, I don't NEED to - but why not? I have updated the simple throat to v2.0, using B6 turnouts for the dock and loco siding. The net result is a few inches of space saved, and an increase of the minimum radius by another 3" on the approach tracks - so I'm going to take that as a win!

It looks like there's a kink coming out of the turnout into the southernmost platform road, but it is just the nature of the straight planed switchblades and the set for them.

I have enjoyed reading about Blacklade since it’s inception and am very glad it’s still kicking! Thank you for this wonderful  log entry, fascinating stuff.

I’m finding a bit of a quandary in my layout setting - steam era ops seem so much more fascinating but you clearly have survived with DMUs! What’s the secret??

Wonderful stuff - how are these locomotives powered? There's so much daylight under the footplates!

A bundle of them are still extant on the main line between New Cross Gate and Croydon - particularly around Forest Hill and Windmill Jct (although I think the latter has some strange angled steel things too)

@Nearholmer - I may have exagerrated slightly for narrative effect - but there definitely were 3Sub and 4Sub EMUs that had ex SER matchbox-sided bodies so there were absolutely some old duffers in the mix too. The blog here is primarily to collect the research and information I pulled together from the main Holborn Viaduct planning and layout threads in a manner that makes it easy to read and refer to - I'm cautiously optimistic about this plan, but will require the construction of a fair few Worsley EMU's that haven't even been etched yet - so probably best not to place too much weight on it at this early stage

Cheers!

@Mikkel I've updated the text with some photographs to hopefully give a better flavour. Thank you for your comment!