Lacathedrale

Hello fellow modellers, I was hoping to get started on laying some track for my layout today or tomorrow. It is a hybrid of Peco Bullhead and hand-laid OO-SF pointwork. I've laid track in a few scales before and not had too much trouble, but never attempted a three-way or a diamond before. So, with that - here is what I'm dealing with: My initial thought is to lay the rearmost route of the three-way and the adjacent vee, but i really have no clear idea! Thanks!

Having located the bullhead turnout, most of the pointwork (save the slip, of course) is in place. The whole layout is a series of very shallow sinuous curves which while not very prototypical should please the eye: I've not really got the foggiest on where to start with the track laying, my complete guess is to start on the rear road of the three-way and treat that as my datum? Any suggestions gladly taken!

Another month, another no-show

The knurled wheel would presumably push out or retract the wick

Interesting, Martin - thank you. All my stock will have modern wheels. @Joseph_Pestell - to be honest I'm trying not to get very stuck into the weeds of the trackwork as is my wont. It is only the lack of a ready-to-plonk diamond and three-way which is leading me to hand lay what I am. If you were to chart a graph of all of my layouts, you would find very little of note after 'commencing trackwork' for any of them! It's not so much that I'm in a race to the end, but I'm just very aware that there is more to the hobby than building baseboards and laying track which is literally all I've been doing for the last 3 years or so! Truly if you have a suggestion around the peco pointwork I'd gladly hear it. It has been the case for some time around the design of the layout boards, the viaduct and the plan however, that both the roads of the slip are aligned to direct platform entries, and the two plain turnouts on the corners of the diamond are aligned to provide exit to the FY on one end and another platform road on the other. Short of some radical chopping and redesigning it would appear my geometry is such as it is - unless there's a way to maintain that angle while increasing the turnout size longitudinally (where I do have some flexibility. Please don't misunderstand - I am extremely grateful for the comments and pointers!

Hi Joseph, the original plan was to hand lay everything, as per this post: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/148579-a-snippet-of-victorian-london/&do=findComment&comment=3762639 but in reality, there's not much to be gained by hand laying the two plain turnouts opposite each other on the diamond, I don't think - they are just standard B6's which are as near as damnit to the Peco bullhead offerings. The only other track that might be required is a double slip which is certainly achievable but given the imminent Peco offering I'm not sure what value it adds, really... I think if I were laying this throat on a curve or with even more complex pointwork, like Ludgate Hill - then I definitely would lay the whole thing (bottom-right is the lattice bridge over Ludgate Hill, and represents the exit to FY in the 'full' version of the HV layout) (source: https://85a.co.uk/forum/view_topic.php?id=2400&forum_id=12 ) I've finished The South Eastern and Chatham Railway by O. S. Nock - lots of interesting tidbits and pieces. It seems that the LCDR's 2-4-0's in the Enigma and Europa Class were the real movers and shakers until Wainwright's D-class came along: The Enigma is quite similar albeit earlier - open splashers and no dome or cab roof. An interesting scratch-build project for the far future, maybe? In the meantime I've finished putting down the timbers for the three-way: Unfortunately however, I've lost the Peco bullhead turnout on the rightmost road (which leads to Platform 1 and the pilot loco shed, just by the paper cutout of the diamond) - super annoying! After the above comments, I'm wondering if it's worth hand-laying that first, and then working towards the diamond and three-way that way?

Isn't the requirement for 9.42" x 60cm? Or has it changed to square centimeters? It is of course your layout, but 'kickback off another siding' is the kind of thing you often see on shunting planks where the person has run out of ideas - quite opposed to the stringent analysis and search you've been doing. Jan's suggestion of a removable left-hand backscene that bisects the line between the opposing turnouts may be a happy compromise, assuming there's a view block planned for the middle of the scene?

Thanks @martin_wynne - a good point! I can ask your advice, would prototype practise be to extend the check/wing-rails of the threeway's left hand route into the check-rails and wing rails of that corner of the diamond? I realise the previous show didn't really illustrate the timbers well, so here we go again. The peco points aren't fixed down at all - obviously I'm going to need to address that before anything else goes down: The standards are OO-SF

@bbishop thanks for the tidbit - as mentioned I'm happy to fill in the gaps where there is no evidence either way (such as the reverse working of the GNR and LNWR trains into HV for goods, rather than having them attached at LH) - it would be a time consuming and expensive diversion to build or buy an Adam radial tank and some bogie coaches just for them to peek out onto the layout to be immediately runaround and pulled back off! Back to the mundane and material, progress on the station throat: As you can see, we have finally dispensed with the Peco track planning printouts and got down to brass tacks - the templot printouts of the diamond and threeway are in-situ with the relevant limewood sleepers in place. I've used evostik for both the paper and the turnouts - my thoughts are that it will be slightly easier to remove if I mess anything up, and if not then ballasting will securely fix it all in place. I needed to cut back the endmost timbers of the peco bullhead pointwork. I know, I know - you're already saying to yourself 'William, equalised timbers were not used on the SECR" and to that I say - you're right and it's annoying me. It is yet to be seen if it annoys me enough to hand lay them. Timbers over the diamond were cut in a jig: So far, so good! Having laid neither a diamond or a threeway, I wonder if this is playing with fire a little bit to do both in situ - but I guess, nothing ventured - nothing gained.

Here's the pannier painted up and posed. As per my post in the workbench thread - the casting wasn't great but it was important for me to try to get something under my belt, and it's mostly done. I've tweaked the CV's and it runs much more nicely now, but needs further work like glazing and the crankpins soldered. For the moment, I'm going to consider it 'basically finished' and move onto something else for a while:

My Pannier is just about done - the model is an whitemetal casting. I added some detail (such as bars over the rear windows and the toolbox on the footplate) - but there really wasn't much detail to work with! My focus was on finishing, rather than improving too much - next time I would add more pipework around the cab, a new smokebox handle and some vacuum pipes. Maybe they're still to come?

Getting a little better with decals and a lick of paint:

Digging through the working timetables is quite fun - the SECR Society has dozens. Having a chance to pore through the Passenger Timetable for 1903, the following tidbits are germane to the discussion here: A shuttle service to Victoria operated all day Trains to the East Kent route, Catford Loop, and Bromley South alternated every hour, with occasional services to Crystal Palace HL, Kent House and Beckenham dotted around Main line expresses to the continent and the coast departed and arrived throughout the day, as detailed previously they woud split at Herne Hill for division between HV and Victoria, so the trains would be much truncated on their arrival Formation wise, some pretty standard (I imagine) rules: There must be a brake end/van adjacent the engine, with firsts centremost in the train, then seconds and thirds LNWR trains must have a brake at each end, their trains would be worked by LNWR locos throughout LSWR through vehicles must be marshalled at the front of the train Boat trains and expresses: Should have no 4w coaches under any circumstance Any vans marshalled as close to the engine as possible Regular stopping services: Should have any 4w stock marshalled behind or ahead of any bogie stock Some rather strange emphasis on: Passenger brakes should never be used on Grand Vitesse services SER CCT vans cannot work over the Metropolitan extension All spare brake vans should be worked up to Holborn Viaduct It does not appear that any passenger services from the MR/LSWR/GNR/LNWR actually called at HV, the vast majority cutting straight through at Ludgate Hill. However, this may not factor in the shunting/piloting actioned by HV on those trains - after all, even after the SE&CR was formed there were draconian rules in place about which stations passengers could leave trains depending on which company their service originated from, on what was MEANT to be a single route.

Working through the 1921 WTT for parcels and freight, there are some wonderfully anachronistic freight trains involving Holborn Viaduct: At midnight, a train of cattle from the GER from Norwich via the GE Mainline, East London Railway, New Cross, to Hither Green and then back up to Holborn Viaduct - vans attached to the early morning newspaper trains as neccesary (expectation: 12 vans). Except vans for Westerham, which were sent to Cannon Street. And then to Charing Cross. And then attached to the first train to Westerham at around 9am the following morning. Some shuttling of vans between HV and Blackfriars Goods was required in the early hours of the morning Around 5am, the aforementioned Newspapers + Vans + potentially Cattle to both Ramsgate and Dover depart. Anything for the Crystal Palace branch is delayed until the 9am train in that direction. No parcel workings are permitted during the morning, lunchtime, or evening rush. At 2:45pm, the Holborn Pilot has to rush out and attach any vans bound for Cannon street onto the back of a GNR train that's come up the Metropolitan extension and is simmmering away over in Ludgate Hill. The return journey is at 3:45pm, and pulls all the way into Holborn Viaduct, for the Holborn pilot to add any extra vans onto the back - and then is piloted back out to Ludgate to resume its journey to points north. At 4:45pm, an LNWR train arrives and is shunted and goes on to points north via Loughboro Junction and Battersea Bridge, the reverse happens at 10pm. At 9pm, a transfer from Clapham Junction occurs for parcels and luggage for the GNR Very stern words are used about the use of Fish Vans as parcels and luggage trucks - they must be immediately emptied and trans-shipped at Holborn Viaduct - as well as anything that's less than a full 30cwt van-load, or consists of multiple destinations in a single van.

Sorry, I mean - at the time that the metropolitan extension there were no level platform/station (opened 1874) in the tunnel (opened 1866). It of course a complete fabrication that when Holborn Viaduct existed that the trains would have used it - but I didn't realise there was a dedicated extra siding for them to use in the tunnel. (Seems a bit strange they wouldn't use the runarounds in Ludgate Hill, I guess).

Ah, you could be right, the context of the discussion was prior to the construction of HV but after the metropolitan extension was completed. It is/was my understanding there was no low level station, and that HV was just a pair of sidings used by the LSWR trains.

Thnaks @t-b-g good to know I'm barking up the right tree. Invicta 94 (the SECR society magazine) has some wonderful details about passenger and freight traffic on the Widened Lines - LSWR traffic used the 'Main Line' (i.e. route into Holborn Viaduct) to runaround services from Richmond to Ludgate Hill, and there are pictures of the services with an Adams Radial Tank on there - so that's quite a cute little inclusion for a non-stopping 'colour' service on the Holborn Viaduct layout. There is a section dealing with freight, and notes that the Midland has a scheduled service of a tank loco and brake van which heads up the Widened Lines, reverses at Ludgate Hill into HV and then a subsequent goods train departure from Holborn Viaduct station itself. There are also some lovely shots of the Ludgate Hill bridge, showing the early versions with very fine latticework and a pair of multi-storey signal gantries, and the later concrete encased version. Either way, it does give (real) justification for the complex and congested pointwork at the real Holborn Viaduct and Ludgate Hill - a minimum clearance was required over the road leading to St. Pauls, which mean that only plain track with no pointwork was permitted - so everything had to be squeezed in either side in order to maintain the alignment and original station locations. Nothing has happened since the above, other than storing the layout boards while I reorganise the workshop. The Peco double-slip is still not available

I have an old Farish chassis that has been converted to 2mm by the previous owner, the wheels are plastic spoked, with a full length brass axle. Everything's fine, except the crankpins are approximately 0.625mm in diameter, instead of the 0.5mm. Not fancing my chances of reaming out the crankpin washers from the association etch, I wonder if there are commercially available washers/etc. ? The crank pins are not threaded either, so I'm a little confused if they are a farish product?. The rods themselves seem to be fairly delicate half-etched fishbelly shaped, out of NS or very thin steel.

Thank you all for the help - I've stripped and repainted (acrylic) and left out uncovered to see what happens next. My workshop is a garden summer house that's weatherproof and well insulated but I suppose is fairly suceptible to damp being of timber construction. I have a small space I could use for a workshop indoors - maybe that is going to be a better choice in the long run.

My little whitemetal pannier is getting slowly closer towards being ready. It required another coat of paint after this shot and a slight tweak to the bent footplate:

What happened to my wheels? They are association brass wheels with steel rims, were painted with acrylic and mounted into a chassis, then removed, and touched up with more acrylic. I placed a cigarette paper with a dab of oil over one of the crankpins (otherwise very clean), and then set the whole lot (including loco body, con rods, etc.) in a tin. Upon return - this is what I see! I can wipe off some of the brown with a cotton bud dipped in lighter fluid but it looks like the paint has crazed and bubbled over - both layers were cured and had been sitting on my work bench for some time - it seems the catalyst was being put in the tin?

Paging @Corbs

I've recently come into ownership of a Unimat SL - I've bought some tools for it, but I remember speaking to someone who suggested the use of a graver as opposed to tools held on the cross slide were useful for forming the complex curves of things like loco chimneys and domes. I've got an opportunity to turn up a pannier tank safety valve cover, and I can't help but think this would be best achieved using the graver method as described to me (though I a happy to be disabused of this notion). CooksonGold supply square and lozenge gravers, and I can see that Amazon have a couple with handles and different grades- generally any advice or pointers on this would be greatly appreciated.

After a reasonable amount of fiddling I managed to get the chip in the cab roof and the body on properly. Here it is: Slightly more pleasant than the previous effort, isn't it? Thank you - after some research it seems the donor loco is a bit of a lemon. A possible candidate for remotoring or maybe sticking an association 57xx chassis underneath - but for now I'm just pleased as punch to have my first actual working 2mmFS loco that runs through all my pointwork. I'm going to do my best to finish it up well with post-'42 GWR green sheme, If anyone has any pointers for details, I'd gladly take them - so far I can see it needs a toolbox on the foot plate, steps on the bunker sides and bars over the rear spectacles.

I managed to find my Pannier tank and fix it. I still can't quite get the chip into the roof of the cab properly (despite some milling) and the mechanism is a little jerky (hence the hot rod dragster look), but it runs through all my pointwork without complaint: The work this time was more cleaning of the rails, wheels, resoldering a couple of joins inside the loco itself. I'm very aware of how crude the above video is with the loco rocketing around and coming to a dead stop, but at least it proves my trackwork does infact work!