Lacathedrale

As a small addendum - I spent some time yesterday trying to get this to a repeatable state, and found that sometimes the bend back to parallel would result in the filed face ending up concave, since the thinner tip would bend more than the thicker base of the vee. After review, I found that the 'bend' portion of this process is described in the middle of the TRACK book and suggests using pliers to tweak the filed face back parallel. This worked for me as long as I gripped the rail at the very end of the filed face and tweaked it. This resulted in two more fully supported vees that I'm more or less satisfied with. The bottom-most vee was my first (pictured above) and shows the slight concavity mentioned and will be desoldered and scrabbed, the upper two were done by tweaking with pliers: A couple of supplementary questions, since I'm at exactly this point (ha, pun) of continuing on now: 1) The common crossing assembly jigs are highly vaunted in TRACK but I found it quite hard to ensure that what I was using to tie the vee and wing rails together was situated either between timbers or ontop of them, depending on whether I'm using chaired track or not. Is there a simple way to do this? It feels like there's something obvious that I'm missing! and 2) - this formation was originally laid purely as an experiment before starting over 'on the layout' - but it has been brought to my attention this could well be a waste of PCB as well as time if the work is good enough. Does anyone have any insight on where best to truncate the formation as pictured so it can be lifted and shifted onto the layout if it cuts the mustard? My gut feeling is to lay the vee and stock rails fairly 3-4 sleepers beyond the common crossing, staggered so that each timber has at least a couple of soldered connections, i.e. something like this: I'm fairly certain rail joints for the vee and stock rails should be staggered for strength and alignment purposes, but not sure if they should be one side or another of the check rails, (i.e. top left corner), etc. Cheers!

Pennsy GG1's with OHLE? @Dr Gerbil-Fritters - I do love a good EMU. I think they must work really well in a 'railway layout as a system' mode, rather than the usual 'railway layout as a single station' - where they don't really have much going on, operationally.

I tried both file-bend-file and bend-file-file and found the former easier when using the filing jigs. For file-bend-file, I found that to bend the filed face back parallel with the rail was made easier by using a bright metal plate, with the corner acting as a fulcrum and the vee held with a fingernail. Here's my first 1:10 with a fully supported vee tip, I'm quite happy!

Is the unit behind the brown one in LT red? I do like the cast of the photo - it certainly has that evocative tone of sizzling tar, heat radiating brick and dust.

Aaah! Pre-bending - it all makes much more sense now!

An interesting idea. For now my time scale is fairly elastic at roughly 1910-1955 for the layout, and the location is potentially now somewhat elastic too - either part of the LCDR Metropolitan Extension, or the actual HV location, or somewhere further east on the ELR. I suppose for now it doesn't matter! Moorgate Street, Platform 6 circa 1910 showing the arrangement of canopies and platform furniture The blitz-era illustrate why the station ended up looking quite so austere: Moorgate St towards the buffer stops of P5 and 6 Moorgate Street towards the throat. The leftmost bridge arch is the same as shown in the pre-group photo above I think I'd rather go with Edwardian splendour, all told!

Understood, but how do you bend the chamfer back so the side is straight again? I've always ended up with it curled around

Thanks, I'll give that a shot! My other question was regarding the filing of bullhead vee components - when I'm filing using the association jig, as expected I end up with the web missing between the head and foot of the rail. In larger scales it seems the solution is to file one side, then bend that filed face flat with the original rail direction, turn it over, and file again. The problem I have is that I can't seem to consistently bend a long, filed vee back parallel - it ends up curved or bent. Is there a track I'm missing, or should I just forget about the re-bending process and simply blunt the crossing nose enough that it removes the unsupported head/foot?

I've printed out the revised plan, and it looks really nice - there's no noticeable S-curve on the route from the up-main to P3 and overall I think it looks quite nice! View from P1/2, pilot shed on the right looking towrds the throat View from the signal gantry approaching the station Overall view showing the full extent of the throat board - approx 3'6" One thing that has been on my mind is the notional plan I was working on for an urban terminus with @justin1985 - albeit set in a cutting. I've been delving through old photographs of Moorgate. I mean, just look at this and tell me it's not the scenic break between the throat and the station platforms: Moorgate Street Station, circa 1960's? By building the track on a separate board it could be mounted into a viaduct or at the base of a cutting. On one hand, stations-on-viaducts are basically my bread and butter - having commuted through London Bridge, Waterloo East, Charing Cross and Cannon Street - but it does make construction and maintenance significantly more difficult. A hybrid of Moorgate's setting and HV's track plan is a simple pivot, imagining Holborn Viaduct as an outgrowth of the low-level widened lines station, instead of way above ground level. An aerial photo from the post-war era shows the station nestled in amongs road bridges and surrounded by large buildings, etc. Moorgate Street Station, circa 1947 showing bomb damage In layout form, the cutting could be omitted from the viewing side except for supports for road bridges similar to what you see here.

I guess I can always run or not run those empty movements with the connection in place, but I can't choose to run them without it! I've also deciphered the plan, @TJ52 and realised that as a 1:10 slip the diamond MUST be switched, 1:10 with a fixed K-crossing - note the MASSIVE gap - part of the reason why the prototype never used fixed crossings above 1:8! 1:10 with a movable k-crossing. An extra pair of tie bars need to be fitted, adjacent the centre timber. So overall, quite a complicated piece of track that 4/5 destinations on my layout must traverse, so worth getting right...

That is correct - the stanchion has tabs that fit through hole in the washer plate, and into holes in the body. The challenge is holding the stanchion vertically and applying vertical pressurewhile applying heat to the washer plate. Maybe an idea to chamfer the edges of the stanchion tabs into a trapezoid of sorts... EDIT: removed stanchion, washer plate came loose. used scalpel blade as a tapered wedge to hold the washer plate against the sheeting hole at the widest extent, and went on fine. If only there were swann morton blades thinner than the thickness of an etch for this kind of thing...

Clive, I think there will be an orderly queue forming outside Fritters & Co.'s shed!

I am building a GWR Toad association etched kit into the AA13 variant. The penultimate step I had completed was to align external washer plates over the wagon sheeting and solder down, then fix in the stanchions. Unfortunately two things occured: 1) I was very slightly off in my alignment, so all the plates pieces are about 0.1mm too high up - but I didn't realise this until I had cut away the surrounding etch 2) when trying to fix one of the stanchions in (and having trouble because of #1) the whole thing shifted. What's going to be the best process to remove the stanchion and realign the washer plate? Is it just a case of applying heat to the whole area slowly and as soon as it moves, to grab it off? Is there an obvious way to re-align the washer plates, now that the etch has been removed? They all need to be shifted but such a tiny amount!

A bit more tweaking has resulted in this: Worth noting that the real HV has a runaround between platforms 2 and 3 (the middle two tracks in this diagram going off the left) Changes: Converted the single slip to a double slip to provide access to P3 from the up main Straightened out the tangent link from P4 to the up main Lengthened and curved the shed headshunt. I'm not sure the additional complexity of the double slip is worth it in the model (in real life it'd be a no-brainer!) - the reason being that I've already got three other platform roads with direct access from the up main and the inefficiency of a 'departure only' road in the station is more interesting! In HV the middle platforms were used for newspapers, parcels, and as a runaround loop by the 1920's, so even during its heyday, such a mainline station already had an odd operating pattern. Much to mooch upon, but first thing's first - to build a proof of concept, curved C10 double-slip...

ah, so you've gone with a fully plain vee for both, the kink being a separate wing rail...

I've been fiddling with the track plan for HV in Templot, and re-drawn it moving slightly away from the prototype but with a much more reasonable set of permanent way components. The modified version is above, the original (minus the Widened Lines connection) is below: So with regard to the changes: Reinterpretation of geometry rather than tracing OS-grid maps Omission of Platform 6 - no operational impact, and means we can lose a three-way ANd a double slip. It also widens space for the rest of the throat considerably Re-use of the space from those changes to amend from A5/B6 turnouts to C10/B8 turnouts throughout the throat Overall this has resulted in a much smoother layout with shallower curves and acutely angled turnouts. Overall I think it's a far better track plan! Any thoughts? EDIT: Figured out a potential problem - Platform 3 is 'departure only' in the new layout, unless either the slip becomes a double-slip, or some serious re-jigging. Is it it worth it? Thoughts on a postcard please!

You're not wrong. I think a 'home operator' type layout generally has different requirements than that which will be exhibited as you have shown. After some research and discussion with @Dr Gerbil-Fritters in this thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/84099-the-eagle-has-landed/page/39/ suggests that for a home operator a balloon loop is more effective than a traverser or FY in representing the rest of the world. It's something I've been fiddling with in my more recent plans. Ironically, the same kind of footprint is required for 2mmFS and Tinplate O!

Looking great! What's the process for fixing the extra segment in the LoLoader?

Violet - Not for any particular reason other than to delineate things for which the turnout is not concerned For Blue/Green - thank you for the tips. I'm going to be laying the actual pointwork out in Templot at a much more shallow angle so I wasn't focusing on specific joint locations, rather how they would be gapped in relation to each other. I think we are of an accord, and it's about time to break out the soldering iron!

I've always felt that 'kickback-infront-of-rear-FY' to be a bit of a trope if I'm honest, but I don't think there's much of the way around it. Minories in a 'minimal' configuration consists of 3 TU (train-length-units) - one is the station platform, one is the throat, and the other is a cassette FY. This seems to hold true regardless of scale, coarseness or gauge. One dodge I had considered for a notional Minories-style urban layout with a friend was to only bother modelling the throat and first few inches of the platforms, leaving either end as plain benchwork in matt black paint, with some cassette or traverser slots. In this case you've only got 1/3 of the layout as visible space, but no need to model platforms/etc. where not a huge amount is happening (and all the gorgeous track/locomotive motion/wheels/etc. are hidden by wooden batons painted grey) - but you are at least leaning into the idea that the interesting bit is the throat!

I'd not considered the gapping of the pink rail, which makes things alot more easy to manage - it requires only one bend in the pink vee rail to bring it around to the check rail position against the red vee, rather than two at precise points. I guess one could lay the red vee, purple rail either way around (I normally start with a straight stock rail then the vee in normal turnouts) ? Gapping wise, I'm assuming this: I'll be using PCB sleepers with etched chairs, so gapping can be done post-hoc but the rail cuts really need to be done ahead of time.

Hello all, I've still yet to build a three-way turnout and I think, save for conjoined formations it is really the last hurdle for me in track building to overcome before being free to pick and choose my track layouts. For ease of discussion, I've labelled up a Peco 3-way with colours to illustrate the components: My understanding is that the pink vee/wing assembly is the most crucial, since a flat edge pressed against outside faces will locate and determine so much of the rest of the turnout. When it comes to the order of construction however, I'm a little bit at a loss! It would appear that everything needs to come together simultaneously! If anyone could spare the time to tell me which order to build in, I'd be very appreciative! Thank you,

Without a doubt the earliest photo I've seen of Holborn Viaduct, looking down the platform towards the bufferstops. Holborn Viaduct circa 1880, Wakeman Collection The wall on the far rear/right is visible here:

@CF MRC that is so kind of you Tim, thank you very much - I am only on the other side of the Thameslink to where I believe you're located so could happily transport it and would gladly attempt to catch the pebble from the master's hand with regard to backscene painting - but this layout has always been a stop-gap to learn some skills and I would hate to impose on your good will for something that's ultimately quite transient and probably coming to the end of the its life-cycle. What do you think?

With regards to goods workings, I think the 80's '"Modular Minories" is just overall a better idea - NPCS is served at the platforms, but goods are on a separate triangular baseboard adjacent with a runaround and some sidings.