Lacathedrale

EDIT: The ideas behind this thread have solidified a little further down the page Hello there, I really enjoy building track - I'm not very good at it, but I do enjoy it. I've not built a three-way or a diamond, and I have put together a little track plan which includes both. Normally I am really against the idea of putting a track plan and then building a layout around it, but in this case, I want to build this particular arrangement, and I want to challenge my preconceptions of what a layout design should entail. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it (oh, please do) - is to see if we can find any plausible reason for this track layout. Ideally I'd like to have the setting fairly elastic in time with the replacement of detail parts if at all to move the layout from 1900's-1950's Rather than a screenshot of templot, I scaled the plan to match my 2FS stock and have posed some of it on the plan. If I were to proceed, the size in which this will be modelled would be S-scale - of which I have a single P.O. wagon yet! The extent of the plan is illustrated below in plan form: The depicted track occupies about 4'3 - keeping the visual area to 5' in length and overall (for satisfying operation) to a total length of 8' would be ideal. It seems an obvious choice for the threeway to be an inglenook! A few ideas are bubbling up, but really I'd like to go into this with no preconceptions- I would appreciate your thoughts greatly!

Ah, I don't mean that my track varies - just that when pushing it along the workbench. I'm not pushing perfectly perpendicular to the axis of the wheels, which seems to start off a slight rock that is then exaggerated as the wheels alternately 'brake' on the inside of the shoe and increase the waddle, just that the design of the pivot permits a couple of mm maximum pivoting.

Wonderful, I'll check it out. I can't disassemble the wagon sides from the bottom at this stage, so it'll just have to be chalked up to a learning experience. Here's the progress - all the ironwork is done, bar the crown plates for the W-irons, and is awaiting bolts to be applied, pictured nearby. I really like how it's coming together!

Perfect, thank you Martin!

I use Parallels and other than causing my MacBook to start running high cpu usage, it works great. One thing hopefully @martin_wynne may be able to help with, is that the text scaling for the menus/etc. is way off - normal Windows dialogues/menus/etc. are OK but within Templot it's tiny, i.e. the buttons at the top of the sketchpad, the info boxes, etc.: It looks OK here, but this is because the resolution is quite high on my macbook screen - in reality the red '0' is approx 1.5mm across!

@NCB I love those wagons, very nice!

Ah, understood - I'll see if I can separate everything - if not, this wagon will be a testament to not reading properly and end up 2 scale inches higher than intended. I did review MRJ No. 33 and didn't see anything from Chris Croft. Did you mean 31 (improving slaters PO wagon) or 12-15 (scratchbuilding wagons) ? Cheers!

Signatures disabled but I see now, thanks Simon. @ScottW The side view of my wagon shows a floor thickness of 5" - I assumed this was all the way across so used 80 thou styrene sheet. Are you suggesting that this is infact a vertical plank, and the 'real' floor is only 2-3" ?

Thank you, (by the way, do you prefer @Regularity or a Christian/given name?) I think I'm going to complete at least a couple of wagons before I invest in yet more tools - having just sorted out my lathe with tools, and a bundle of brass for 2mm scratchbuilding! More progress - there's a little cusp on the 5 thou strapping to knock down with some high grit sandpaper before this is finished!

Maybe reducing the rock is a solution, it's at least a couple of of mm currently. The shoe does match the profile, it's just very close. Thank you, I will check it out.

@Regularity you're not wrong there - mistakes so far: initially scaled the drawing horizontally but not vertically, so everything was 11% taller than it should have been cutting the floor out way too short initially cut the floor out of 2mm stock instead of 1mm (hopefully this doesn't scupper my chances of fitting the association W-irons..) cut the floor out of plain styrene instead of the v-groove bought specifically for this purpose somehow managed to mark the buffers too wide I see you commented in the thread on the sale of NWSL - have you used their chopper? I am having to cut lots of strip to the same length for various bits and bobs, and it feels like that would make life easier!

And now, taking whole a sheaf from @ScottW, here are the first steps towards the aforementioned LCDR drop-side wagon: Certainly I'm finding some challenges - particularly reliable measuring and marking (I just don't have a method yet) and I can already see things I'd do differently - but I guess that's the benefit of actually doing someothing rather than just thinking about it!

I've dug out a wagon to finish up (see Imperial Workbench and/or S-scale area). It has an etched underframe the comes with a one-sided set of brakes which look wonderful, and one pivoting W-iron. However, when the the W-iron pivots, it causes the wheel face/flange to rub against one or the other side of the fixed brake shoes, which then adds a little drag/rotation which causes a vertical deflection between the body and the W-iron, which then causes it to rub more, etc. etc. causing a waddle. Stiffening the pivot may make the initial state less likely to occur, but it feels like I'm missing something fundamental here - should the brake shoe be far enough away either horizontally (or in depth, or both?) that it cannot touch the wheel face/flange? I have already shaved a wedge off the back of the brake shoe to give clearance, but no joy. This feels like it must be a solved issue, after all - the same problem would manifest in EM, P4 or S7 with the same principal - and I would like to know what can do or have done wrong... For the sake of prettiness, here's an otherwised unused photo of the offending wagon:

Here's the wagon, if anyone would like to see the update - I'll keep this thread for a showcase, rather than the various in-progress questions in the above mentioned.

It's taken some time, but here's the wagon from November closer to a state of completion: No lettering, nor three-link couplings, and missing a brake ratchet - but I'm quite chuffed. The body is in the same middle brown as previously, equivalent to SR Freight Brown, with the ironwork in weathered black. I've painted the solebar and everything under it in weathered black too. Inside weathered with black pastel.

Thanks to Scott and others' advice in his thread, I've started dimensioning up a drawing: Some of those measurements are overkill I'm sure, but I'd rather have more than less to start with: This is from one of the Southern Wagons series, my thought being that there are a couple of photographs as well as this drawing and some paragraphs of information. I would be interested to know what the large protrusions off the solebar are (approx under the 'To' and '1') - wooden wedges to stop the drop-sides clouting the brake gear? I've had a look around the internet on other wooden drop-side wagons and can't seem to see and equivalent...

@Regularity I'm actually working my way through MRJ and I'm currently reading No. 33 - what luck Thank you all, I'll post any progress in the workbench thread, rather than polluting this one further - thanks!

Wonderful, thanks. I have lots of drawings which look roughly accurate but only with a few dimensions marked, such as the attached. Maybe it'll be a better bet to check with the relevant society (I'm a member of the SECR society) or NRM. Have you done wagons with rounded ends, any thoughts? @ScottW

Oh wow, in Angola?! Many thanks for the reply, I'll do some looking in the kitchbuilding & Scratchbuilding forum - it seems plans I find online are either 'the side of a wagon is a rectangle' or 'this is the radius of the inside edge of the coupling hook' and little inbetween! Cheers,

L is definitely one of my favourite 4-4-0's, only nipped at the post by the Schools - but you can't argue it's alost more elegant!

Thank you so much, @Legend !

I've bought and enjoyed 'The History of Hornby Dublo Trains' very much, and I was wondering what the equivalent Triang book is? I'm loathe to start a collection but it would be nice to see some pretty pictures!

Really lovely! Might I ask for the accepted wisdom on gravelly roads/goods yards? Looking at some prototype photos it looks quite fine and probably close to powdery in 2mm scale - so I wonder if a smooth surface suitably mottled with sponged-on paint and so on would be the best choice?

Scott, do you have a wagon plan that's got enough detail to just pick up and run with? I have various styrene profiles and sheets, but having trouble actually finding a plan to work to - I know this is your thread and about your work, but hopefully it could be considered an addendum to your wonderful series of build steps on the previous pages?

Hi Martin, I ended up moving my progress to the S scale forum 'What's on your S-scale workbench?' thread here: In the meantime, I've finished the above wagon, and spent most of my modelling time scenicking a 2mm layout and learning how to use the Unimat lathe so kindly sold to me by a member of the society. You'll find any new updates in that thread!