Martin S-C

I'm not sure about the to/from notation. Several signal box diagrams I've studied for inspiration seem to use "from" when that is the up direction and "to" to any station that is down. In later years (BR) these quaint details appear to vanish but that is what I'm using on the basis that that's what I think it was conveying. I'm possibly wrong. If there's an expert out there...?

I've just read his entry on the Pen-Y-Darren Tramroad. Really engaging and well worth a read. I'm working on my next signal box diagram and could use some advice, I'll just put the pic up and invite criticism and any other remarks. I'm fully aware that there was never such a thing as a junction disc and crossbar signal as far as I'm aware although there is photographic evidence of what seems to be two discs mounted one above the other on a single post which may amount to the same thing, with presumably the upper disc controlling the main route and the lower the subsidiary, though without of course any indication of whether that diverged to left or right. I will need ground discs here but do not plan on making these operational. Due to the short distances between station on the layout I am not going to use distants in any of the three directions towards Snarling. I haven't added lever numbers yet, obviously. There's nothing extra to worry about like level crossing gates.

That Oakmarket footbridge is looking very handsome now Annie. My only critcism would be the fence along the hill edge - its very white and slaps you in the face rather because of its prominence and length. Could it be weathered down? All the coaches are delightful. I never had any decent choice of 4-and 6-wheelers back in MSTS days.

First in a series of blog posts by Roger Farnworth on the Forest of Dean, its industry and transport. He is also linking the blog posts to the 19th Century Railways Facebook Group (well worth following!). https://rogerfarnworth.com/2017/09/26/lydney-harbour/?fbclid=IwAR12meJKHqfsCOvPmbv29RKf93KuxWYwhzt5s7CdkoD-0uUOaLRwO7TFRd0/ More entries by Mr Farnworth about the Forest: https://rogerfarnworth.com/category/forest-of-dean/ Bullo Dock today...

Absolutely superb! A real inspiration to me to get my own loco back into running condition.

It needs a coat of Swindon green and some weathering.

That's an excellent point. I've only just begun hand-pushing stock around on my build and already questions are coming up as to exactly what I should hand push. And gradient testing, this is turning out to be more of a process about what will be hauled up the grades rather than what will be hauling it.

He is looking a bit orange, I must say. No, this isn't neat. Go to Chris' thread for NEAT. His layout looks good enough to eat.

A little bit of fiddling about this afternoon. Smoothed out that lumpy curve. Loosely put some track down at Catspaw, the middle station on the branch to see how it fits. The view in the other direction. Potentially another yummy gentle reverse curve here as the track goes into the tunnel. And a view of a pile of grot on top of the part of the layout that's not been attacked yet.

Almost all the plain track on the layout is in transition from one radius to another. That's partly because I really like softly flowing curved track, especially through station platforms and partly for a need in this restricted width to get any kind of decent curve without tightening the radius under 24" which is my minimum. We're achieving gentle reverse curves in some places which are my favourite in terms of appearance. I appreciate that the prototype was often less demanding of smooth geometry on the type of pre-grouping minor railway I'm depicting but if I'm to have wonky track I think I'd need to raise the standards to which I'm working and consider things like compensation on all vehicles, proper couplings and sprung buffers. Maybe that's an exaggeration but as it currently stands that curve is bugging me because its visible the instant you enter the room and look along the baseboard and unless its corrected its going to annoy me for the rest of the layout's life, I'm sure. I don't know if people want to read the technical bits as I think the photos show what we are about here, but in case its useful to anyone we are laying a main bus for track power all around the layout and taking droppers from each length of plain track between turnouts so there are multiple power feeds. Track is being loose pinned direct to the ply boards in order to get the track plan finalised. We'll then ballast it which will glue it down as well, then remove the pins and make good any small holes. Locomotive control will be digital using NCE Power Cabs and there will be six locations on the layout where control panels will allow these to plug in. We considered wireless handsets but the nature of how I intend to operate the layout makes these unnecessary. Wireless is great if you are modelling USA practice and a driver drives his train right over a scale Raton Pass for example, walking about the layout from start to destination on one of those drool-worthy huge layouts in a massive basement that our colonial modelling friends are so fond of, but I'll be using British practice where trains are passed from signal box to signal box and so the driver of the train will change as it passes between sections. The Peco live frog points have been disabled at the toe end (you can see the disconnected wires sticking up in a few photos) and polarity will be switched by the Cobalt motors. The toe end of each point has both tracks isolated using two plastic rail joiners each on one of the rails for the left and right diverging routes. Where a length of plain track between turnouts is assembled from several Peco lengths, we are relying on fishplates for electrical connectivity. Cosmetic bolted fishplates will go in as well once we hit the scenic side of things. Point and signal control is electric but analogue. I put up some photos of the Cobalt lever frame units here a while back and we'll be building control panels that have a raised floor to accept the lever frames, a place to plug the Power Cab into and (I hope) a small LED screen powered by a Raspberry Pi that will be a touch screen to allow a basic form of block signal control with lights rather than bells. The Pi's will be networked and powered by a laptop as a server. Signalling along the branch will be crude with stop boards and calling on indicators (animated figures). On the main line I would like to use a mix of disc and crossbar types and slotted posts. I'd very much like to use servos on these so we get a pull-and-bounce motion but that is a subject not tackled too closely yet. These signal types are strictly speaking largely out of date for a Great War era model but I am not adhering to history in many places and idiosyncratic signal models and signalling methods are something I have always loved. There may be a conventional semaphore arm here or there to suggest piecemeal improvements as funds allow. There was a disc signal controlling the crossing of (I think it was) Brain's Tramway over the GWR line at Bilson in the Forest until the 1930s. The tramway was effectively disused by this time but the GWR maintained the signal in case traffic reoccurred on the tramway, so there is at least a tenuous precedent for antiquated signal systems in the region.

Nah, it looks pants. The bit circled in red needs smoothing out so its all one transition curve. We'll get it sorted. That's right, we are just lightly pinning track down for now to get the plan sorted and I will then run some test trains. Later on we'll cosmetically attack it in earnest. What is really annoying me however is the difference in profile between the flat bottomed rail (pointwork) and the new bullhead rail (all the flexitrack). The sleeper length and spacing is a horrible mismatch as well. As I plan to have ash ballast and almost everything will be covered its less of an issue but I will be bothered if Peco release more points in bullhead as soon as we're finished... which Murphy's Law states they are bound to do.

An update on track laying while I was away in the Forest, plus work done last Wednesday. In my absence Neil laid the entire main line bus under the main baseboards so now, when track is laid, it can be powered up in a jiffy. Photos show the current state of play with track being laid in various locations; we're just going through the options of where to lay track and wire it up to the bus as we go, on the basis of what's easy! Presently we have the hidden storage loops of the circuit laid, the hidden track out of these on the north side towards Puddlebrook, the trackwork at Puddlebrook station and most of the (in tunnel) gradient up to Snarling, plus all the gradients at the west end of the layout which are 1) the branch grade between Catspaw and Witts End, 2) the grade down from Puddlebrook to the Exchange Sidings and 3) the level track curve from Puddlebrook past the colliery and up the grade to Green Soudley. The large radius curves at this end of the layout are looking pretty good. "Fake" crossover that links the continuous loop to the Snarling/Puddlebrook section of main line. Since taking this photo the right hand point heel has been swung left a little to smooth out the S curve. The curved track behind it has consequently been shifted left to ease the radius. Main line grade from colliery to Green Soudley at the left. Line into the Exchange Sidings in the centre and branch line curve between Catspaw and Witts End at the right. Close up. Testing curve with some rolling stock. Puddlebrook, looking towards the colliery. Pointwork being "fiddled about with" at the colliery entry. The left-most track is the gradient climbing away from Witts End (away from camera). Puddlebrook looking the other way. Witts End board on the right. This area was a real beast to get right due to having to avoid the hinged end of the lifting flap for point motors, etc. Curve beyond Puddlebrook looking towards the crossover seen in the first picture. The curve here needs adjusting , not yet smooth enough, its only loosely pinned down for now so easy to tweak. Another view of the smooth curve leaving Witts End and climbing the incline. I'm really happy with the sinuous nature of this section. Straight track is so dull!

The Freudian workings of my mind made me read that as "bust-ology" and I wondered for a glorious (albeit tragically brief) moment if it were possible to use the dimensions of the 19th century female bust to accurately date a photograph. More research needed I think.

It puts my efforts to shame, both camera/lens quality and lighting. I am sure its been discussed before on here but what camera do you use Kevin?

Hard to believe this was once a Nellie. Fantastic job.

I would really like to get along to Kettering and was intending to at one stage but now I am away in France and will miss it. I am actually tempted to cancel my trip abroad so I can attend the show and pass on my appreciation of the reconstruction work that's been done.

My intention is to have a variety of horse drawn road vehicles and I'll swap these about or move them as needed.

When building up an outgoing goods I thought it was correct practice to first get the brake van and run round it then place it against the buffer stops of the platform road and leave it there, shunting the entire assembled train onto it just prior to departure. Having the brake van attached to the engine while shunting adds a lot of unnecessary weight to the train as you assemble it, plus it blocks the crews line of sight to the wagons they are sorting. I'd caution against trying to add everything, that way just lies a cluttered look. I agree that on second thoughts, coal bins are not necessary. Coal could be unloaded direct into sacks weighed and bagged from the wagon and loaded directly onto the coal merchants cart, or there could be a couple of coal heaps of different grades just piled away from the track. Coal discharge would definitely have its own area but it doesn't need to be limited to right opposite the coal bins. An end loading dock would almost certainly not be at the end of the goods shed road, however Highworth, Wiltshire provides a contrary example. Wagons would be pinched-barred up to this dock, or hauled there and back via the yard horse so that locos did not need to enter the shed. Moving wagons about a model goods yard without a loco is always awkward because unless you set up some complex and expensive means of chains, wires or motorised wagons, it means pushing them via the good old Mk.1 finger. I think quite a few railway modellers shunt in ways that are too complex and involved when the reality was the goods train would drop off a few wagons in one siding and the yard crew, shunters and horse would do ALL the moving about needed to get them onto other sidings or against facilities like cranes, cattle docks, into goods sheds and so on. An arrangement I liked at Highworth, was the cattle dock was beyond the platform and occupied one side of the loco run around release track. In later years when livestock traffic dropped off this became the milk dock and I have photos of it full of milk churns.

That works. I prefer the first one. It has also struck me that what we are now calling the brake van road is well sited, if shortened a few inches, to have an end-loading dock at the end. Good access to the road. It can still hold a brake van or two plus a CCT/MOGO or open carriage truck.

I suggest you put as much distance between the coal bins and the goods shed as the scene will comfortably allow. Always wise to keep the dirty gritty stuff away from the parcels, barrels, food and drink!

I don't think you need justification for a short siding there. It seems the perfect place for an arriving goods train to leave its brake van before it shunts its train. I tend to design in brake van roads when I am planning. EDIT: I just noticed the siding that is nearest the canal has no road vehicle access except across the other track which isn't desirable. I would suggest you clear away the last length of the hedge that abuts the front left corner of the goods shed (you tend not to see undergrowth around goods sheds for the very reason of necessary access) and make a short narrow cart road run down the siding's canal edge. This may require the railway boundary to impede on the canal property boundary more than it does, but if the towpath is on the viewing side there would be no land owned on the far side of the canal by the canal company anyway and as its such a tiny strip I doubt it would be of much use to the farmer, so most likely it'd be railway property by this point (assuming the canal was built before the railway that is). EDIT TWO: Here's a suggestion. Two things. First if the road from the goods yard goes up over a canal tunnel entrance you can make the gradient more interesting by starting the slope to the bottom right of the goods shed. This will necessitate a retaining wall and gives a nice little area "A" to do some extra modelling such as huts, junk, waiting horses and carts, etc. Second the siding nearest the canal lends itself, I think, to be a coal siding. If you do this it means dirty coal gets handled well away from both passengers and the goods shed which is very sensible and the siding between goods shed road and the LC can now be used for dry goods like timber, crates, vans, etc. I have suggested some coal bins with area "B" being potential for a nice clutter of coal merchants offices.

Looking super tidy as usual Chris.

Working for the International Commission for Eclairs sounds like my dream job.

That must have been a pain in the rear end when filling in forms. And imagine the horror of doing your own PPI check.