Martin S-C

I think that's amazing. Probably though such a monorail system (even one where cars are slung under overhead track such as in Germany or Japan) would be possible in any train simulator once you crack the code to write the behaviour of the track pieces and the logic for how the stock interacts with it. The Listowel track though would need to be incredibly wobbly with coaches and locos swaying about and you'd need to have code to cater for that written into the vehicles or the track pieces. Not impossible but a very smooth ride would look quite odd I imagine.

Can you tell us more about the tender? I have a couple of these to do to add behind Dapol pugs for power pick up purposes and to hide sound decoders in and am ruminating on what might be the best chassis or kit to rudely assault.

Is he related to any of the blokes at the dairy?

You could try an LED strip above the layout in a similar way to Kevin has on Little Muddle.

I agree. I have been proud of my models when they are done, then when I look at the photos, all the faults come out. I cringe sometimes.

I was told there are some Bassett-Lowke locos on the layout, an LBSC 3-car electric unit being one of them which has the original B-L motor bogie I'm told. I will sound like a real ignoramus now and confess to not knowing of Frank Roomes. A quick internet search brings up nothing but a reference back to RMWeb and a thread discussing inspirational layouts from the past where his EM gauge "Lutton" gets a mention. Here are the last few pictures of the garden railway. A rare Southern bogie parcels van. Holt Dairy private siding. Wonderful old school control panel and hand-written operating sequence. I cannot recall the last time I saw anybody use a bulldog clip! The principal terminus in a shed about 12ft x 8ft. It looks a bit grotty but the atmosphere in there was great. 1940s era ex-RAF switches. Bakelite rules! Some subsidence in the main boards has occurred...

Ooh, that looks nice.

More superb weathering. How does Tim get that effect? It's wonderful. He must spend hours and hours on each engine.

The owner's main interest is the GCR and its constituents, but he also has a fondness for later Eastern and Midland region companies as well. There was only one GW loco in action that I saw which could have been a visitor, but one other was out of use, and no Southern though there were a couple of Southern/constituent goods vans. A few LNWR coaches were around as well and I spotted a Caley brake van in among the piles of goods vehicles.

It is MB's yes. Maybe it is coarse scale, I am not familiar with O gauge standards of which I'm aware (at least) that there are several. I was thinking its not as coarse as the track I saw at the O Gauge meeting a couple of months back, hence possibly my confusion. I'll post some pics of locos and maybe you can see from the wheels what level of coarseness it is or isn't!

Nothing to do with my railway but I had a wonderful day out yesterday to a Gauge O garden railway built and operated in the true retro style. It was stud contact electric, moderately scale track (not coarse) and worked by 5 people at 5 stations using only bell codes and a sequence hand written on bits of paper attached to clipboards (!). Not a single computer-generated piece of printed documentation in sight. It was very old school with massive wooden control panels with big brass switches and electric section switches that apparently were the bomb release switches off Lancasters. The track was raised on wooden legs in the manner Freezer and Pritchard would have been proud of and apparently has been operating for 50 years. It was a glorious sunny afternoon, not too hot and not too chilly and the day closed with tea and cake in a most congenial setting. I took quite a few photos but due to the forum limits I will post these up over several days. In some pictures I have blacked out some non-railway clutter under the trackbed boards so that things look better, and in a couple of pictures have photoshopped in extra greenery to cover unsightly areas but otherwise all is as-seen. More tomorrow.

The trackwork of Green Soudley station begins to take shape. I've also laid the track for the C&W shops and the carriage shed as well but didn't take any pics of those. I imagine this weekend could see track-laying complete. The next job will be adding motors to points, wiring up and getting the lever frames and control panels built.

Cheers, its is the line I was thinking of, quite steeply graded IIRC.

Wasn't the Leadhills branch in Scotland? South-central area? I think I have a collection of maps of the line when I was looking for another route to build in MSTS about, oooh, 15 years or more back.

It does now. I am only using one pair of droppers on each length of plain track between any two turnouts, so where a length of track consists of several pieces, power to the other pieces is via the fishplates. It strikes me a weeny bit of overkill to power up every track piece.

Did I read that right, you use two droppers per yard of track? Or is my maths broken?

Chris, have you got all the track laid, wired up and tested yet? I recommend achieving this milestone before you pour too much effort into scenics.

I saw the Roco Universal couplings in use on the Nene Wharf layout at the King's Lynn show and was impressed. They do not look like any prototype coupling but they are less obtrusive than the Bachmann, plus you get the ability to propel without recoupling. They use Tri-Ang style uncoupler ramps which is one of their drawbacks. I think on British outline coaching stock, even steam era, they would not look too bad. I have no fixed rakes of wagons at all, and my coach rakes are only going to be 2 to 3 vehicles but the Roco design impresses me more than the Kadee. The Roco also plugs straight into the NEM pocket although that's no help with kit-built stock of which I have a fair number. Today saw Snarling Junction's track and the gradient up to Nether Madder all laid. With Snarling complete the branch and main lines are connected so everything we've laid to date can now start to be tested with some proper train services. I shall lay the high level loco shed and carriage sidings tracks next. A reverse loop module is on order for the loco turning triangle at NM. Snarling had an interesting double slip assembled by Neil out of two back to back short Y points. These were hacked down to minimal length and had their underneath webs cut about in order to flex them until one of them ended up with a straight route in one direction. The whole assembly has worked very well. We test ran a loco over this section in all directions and there was a small amount of pinching when travelling through one of the routes but this will be cured with a copper clad fitted beneath and a dab of solder. A conventional Peco double slip did not come close to fitting here and the only other option was to chop about an SMP or C&L kit. 'Double slip' at the west end of Snarling. The three nearest tracks are, from left to right, main line to Puddlebrook, branch exchange siding, branch. Looking the other way. The branch exchange siding will only need to hold 3 or 4 vehicles. A different angle. The nearest Y point has been bent into a straight very short right hand turnout and the further one is now an asymmetric Y, the left arm a tighter radius than the right. The east end of Snarling. Pontefract's Creamery siding at left background and flour mill siding to the right with some extreme curvature. The cut-outs are for a stream which on the left runs between man made stone wall banks and is culverted under the tracks. Looking south east. Armisford mill and siding. The stream referred to above is the Little Madder River and flows from right to left. It enters the scene beyond the mill, is bridged by the railway carried on a stone arch, is then bridged by a country lane to swing right and pass behind the mill. A mill race beneath the far side of the mill powers an undershot wheel. The main line climbs on a gradient up towards Nether Madder behind, curving around to the right. Right rear are the two loco coaling roads and the crown timber siding. Just visible beneath everything are the hidden "Hereford/Gloucester" loops served by the circuit. Looking south at the loco coaling roads and the crown timber siding. There will be a stand of trees on rising ground behind the timber siding and a lane and fields on the low ground in front of the main line. The raised board front right is the +7" height of Nether Madder and the goods headshunt will be here with earthworks down to the fields. Looking south-east from above Armisford mill with work commencing on laying the pointwork at Nether Madder station throat. The cluster of points on the left-hand track will be for the loco shed and loco works roads with the turning triangle formed by a straight track along the wall and a curved line towards the station throat around to the right. The other curved arm of the triangle will be almost above the branch track in its tunnel (where the drill and hammer are being used as weights to hold down some PVA'd cork sheet acting as a support to the camber of the curve). The right hand cluster of points are ready to be laid for the entrance to the goods yard, the headshunt and the small mileage yard. Nether Madder will be the principle yard for freight on the system with goods trains arriving here to be sorted into services for the branch, colliery empties and for Green Soudley. Empties also return to the Madder Valley exchange sidings from here.

I always like an early British diesel with scale couplings and all those nice dangly hoses on the ends. They add real character.

Neil returned today after a bit of a break and he was very welcome as he fixed a few things I'd managed to break during his absence. One area that had really got my dander up was the Coggles Causeway track layout. It's only 3 turnouts, a siding and a loop but due to some changes after planning and during construction this little station became my nemesis on the layout so far. I have laid the track three times now and finally got a layout that fits the space and looks reasonable. The area is on an 'S' curve between a tunnel on a gradient on one side (to the left in the photo below) and a very tightly curving gradient up to Snarling Jct. on the other (right hand side on the photo). For all kinds of stupid reasons that I won't mention this little station proved to be a nightmare to lay track for. Today I got it into an acceptable condition. Neil was a huge help for this, as well as the connection between the branch line and Snarling Jct., which is also a fairly tight bit of track design. I think when he returns tomorrow we will crack this nasty little beastie and then finally the branch line track will be connected to the main line and I can actually run trains back and forth with some kind of purpose rather than the roundy-roundy-with-a-glass-of-wine operating that I've had to suffer with (!) to date. First the Coggles Causeway track. Please don't look too hard at the horrid mish-mash of bits-n-pieces on the right. This will all eventually disappear under a blissful camouflage of ballast, DAS clay, chinchilla dust and electrostatic grass. Next a shot or two of Snarling Junction being born. In the second photo some futuristic rolling stock marked with strange runes that spell "L M S" and "L N E R" and other odd scripts that only the Dark Ones speak of with 8 wheels that are more than 50 feet long, are in use to check clearances on the curved platform roads.

I do have the Bachmann Type II. However I find the occasions when the hooks fail to couple to the right side is quite rare and the issue with changing a coupling system is I have 100s of vehicles to convert. I'm 90% satisfied with the Bachmann tension lock. If during operations it becomes a serious problem (rather than just a minor problem). I'll look at the whole issue of couplings again. Meanwhile. Moar track! MOAR!

What a shame you didn't announce you were going. I was operating Merstone the whole weekend. We might have unknowingly been only a few feet apart while you were taking those photos.

Dude. Hit me up. Would enjoy a day out there. In good company is even better. Anyone else?

Have you any trainy pals locally? Perhaps you could relax in an easy chair in the train room and let a couple of friends run trains while you sit back with a cuppa and watch? If there were a great need to help you out, I'd be very honoured to operate such a superb railway. I'm sure many others here on RMWeb would also jump at the chance.

I agree, I always feel like I'm set up for the day after a good session of canopy nudging.