TheSignalEngineer

My 6364 was run in for about an hour on the 30 foot loop, forward and reverse, clockwise and anticlockwise using a Gaugemaster D. There was a bit of clicking from the crosshead on one curve which I tracked down to the motion bracket being out of true, can easily happen getting it in or out of the package but just as easily fixed. I put it on my freshly cleaned straight test track after checking the wheels and pickups were clean and got it down to a similar speed to you using a trainset controller. The only problem I have is the pony truck occasionally derailing on the straight side of the first set of points on the main line after leaving one end of the fiddle yard. Investigation to follow when I have cleared out all of the junk stacked in front of the layout over Christmas.

Conversion to a cycle track doesn't mean the old bridge will be retained. The Woodhead line crossing the A628 west of Penistone was replaced by a footbridge some years ago. The Fallowfield Loop bridge over the A57 at Gorton was taken down last year for a road improvement scheme. It is being replaced by a longer footbridge.

I had no problems, although you have to try a couple of different ones sometimes as with most RTR stock the sizes of the apertures vary slightly. Another trick I found useful is to carefully take a little off the inside edge of the window apertures. Because of the mould release angles the inside of the aperture is slightly smaller than the outside. To fix the glazing in place I use a small brush to run a little cockpit glue round the inside edges when the piece of glazing is in place. This will go underneath the edges by capillary action and will dry clear. It doesn't risk fogging the glazing with solvent glues. LMS Third Class coaches didn't have curtains. The Period 3 coaches had pull-down blinds. Curtains were normally only used on Firsts.

I remember a similar arrangement with the centre siding between platforms 7 and 8 at New Street pre-rebuilding. When the points were set for the platform lines both switches in the siding were open forming a wide-to-gauge trap. The switches worked individually connected to the ends in the platform lines so that they formed a crossover when the points in one of the platform lines was reversed for access to and from the siding.

I checked out the bridge in question, it is on a dirt track which has been washed out completely by the river on the approach to a ford about a couple of hundred yards away. Except for the hump in the road and a weight limit sign you would be hard pressed to know there is a bridge there. The course of the railway has completely disappeared on one side, the other side is a line of trees and scrubland. The bridge gives access to two fields, both of which can be accessed in alternative places. Maintaining it would be a serious waste of resoures.

One I am familiar with last saw a revenue earning service in 1947 and the line was lifted in 1951. I tried to walk part of the line 30 years ago but failed

Level crossing at bottom left corner of this picture? https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/eaw033901

I'm not sure how much value there is in preserving some of these structures. I have been involved in reopening lines in the 12" to the foot railway, not in terms of preservation schemes but as council or government backed and commercial projects. Repairing or completely rebuilding historical estate has been one of the most significant items in the budget. Many structures do not meet modern requirements in terms of structural strength, railway or highway clearances which have to be complied with as reopening a lifted line is likely to be considered new build in this context. In many cases we found it cheaper to demolish and rebuild rather than try to bring up to modern standards.

Some went to Tyseley c1987 around the time we reopened the Moor Street to Snow Hill section, They could be seen on any Tyseley diagram, in fact B430 which was the GWR livery set and became T305 got as far as Norwich. I believe it was the T3xx sets which were later sent to Edinburgh. Several 117 7xx sets in NSE livery were allocated to Bletchley, mainly working on the Bedford services. They also worked on the GOB line across North London and on at least one occasion subbing for the EMU service from Watford Junction to St Albans.

Probably more a case of the body and formation changes. Class 117/118 were fairly static in their shape and formation IIRC. The 116 had variations with two lights with or without a headcode panel between, 4 lights, three lights with no headcode panel, two lights with high intensity headlight between, etc, etc. Then gangways were added to many, a lot of these getting centre Lav coaches from other types. The basic liveries I have found started with light DMU green or dark DMU green with variations of no whiskers, whiskers but no lining, whiskers with lining, SYP with and without lining. They progressed to Rail Blue SYP or FYE then refurbs got blue stripe on white and lost the headcode panels. Following that there was the blue/grey era then a few got NSE livery. Livery embellishments included at least four variations of WMPTE branding plus the one with Royal Wedding flags, two versions of the Red Dragon sets and Greater Glasgow/Transclyde. Most liveries had examples with a white cab roof. Tyseley has one with the grey band extended round the corners of the cab and black cab window frames. Some cars were used in parcels sets with Red Star or Railair branding. Makes the 117/118 seem easy, and I've probably missed a few.

I hate doing trees. Last one was on the layout built for our son. That was started at Christmas 1979 and reached its final state nearly 40 years ago.

I remember doing a lot of work at Fenny Compton around the time of the Falklands War. The sidings there formed the connection to the stub of the former SMJ line to Burton Dassett aka Central Ammuntion Depot Kineton. Much of the traffic was bound for Portsmouth and Southampton mostly in 12 Ton box vans. I was trying to survey the signalling equipment and had no end of difficulty with the boys in blue and their military cousins by turning up and wandering around with a note pad. It was a different story after the hostilities finished and the unused stuff was being booked back in. One Friday night a train arrived at Banbury with about 20 vans of live ammunition. The crew didn't sign the road beyond so they unhooked their Class 33 in the Down Relief platform and headed back south Light Engine. The vans stood unattended in the station for two days before they finally continued to Fenny Compton.

Same here. I blame it on the bloke who got me addicted to doing cut'n'shuts of coaching stock. At least I've got some rakes of coaches that represent more prototypical formations than you can get in RTR.

Yes please, save me doing one from the Kirk kit I have in the drawer.

My modelling is done from first principles i.e. a couple of pencils fixed to a coach to trace out the side and end throw. In the days before laser measurement the real railway even used similar methods even down to a frame covered in expanded polystyrene blocks being used to find the minimum size of the Widened Lines tunnels at Kings Cross. Later in that area when I had to put in some extra signals i had to put a co-acting head ground mounted in the 6 foot on a tight curve. A Class 319 was parked on each line in turn and a plumb line used to determine if the envelope where the head needed to go was big enough, which it was by about 2" more than the minimum clearance.

I've only watched a couple so far and took them to be exactly what you have described. I have done many presentations to potential clients varying from the hopefully slick bells and whistles stage show and exhibition stands to the informal chat type in a lounge setting. Where did we get the most business? I would say probably the informal style where you had an agenda rather than a strict script to work to and could feed off the audience. We live in strange times where we are all having to adjust. A large part of my modelling inspiration besides my experiences on the 12 inches to the foot railway came from interaction with layout operators, demonstrators and small suppliers. This feed has been cut off and I am very grateful to the folk running this forum which, incidentally, AY directed me to when he was exhibiting at Manchester in the CO-OP days.

A personal Hobby Horse of mine. I ended up making cut'n'shut jobs of two Period ! coaches not done in the Bachmann range and a rake of LMS open stock of assorted Period 1,2 and 3 designs. The latter are a notable omission to my mind as the LMS built a vast number of Open coaches following on from the Midland design through to WW2. Many of them were still in service up to the early 1960s. Hopefully a couple of the gaps in the Stanier range can be filled by backdating the Coronation Scot set to the vehicles they were derived from. I know that some of the EPs e.g. the D.1904 TO were closer to the original build rather than the Coronation Scot version. The 50' Kitchen car will allow the production of a dining three-set with an FO and TO worked up from the other vehicles . The Gresley corridor stock has many well described foibles and again is a very restricted range when you look at the types built over the years. Regarding the Maunsell Dining stock I have looked at this for a while and came to the conclusion that there were so many variations and rebuilds over the year that it is a veritable minefield. Many of them spent more time as the various Buffet Car rebuilds than they did in their original form the purpose of which effectively finished in September 1939 and never recovered. There are a number of sadly-ignored items of goods stock, the LMS 12 ton vans being a prime example. Add to this the wrong length LMS and BR cattle wagons in the Bachmann range and a lack of proper GWR ones, current 5-plank opens being rather generic, better bogie bolsters of say 1930s design and some decent 14T tank wagons and there are still plenty of things to go at without novelty items.

OK on an undersize gauge. I remember a colleague telling me of a job he went on in Pakistan. The design specified a distance from track centre for OHLE structures. Trouble was they used the dimension copied from a drawing intended for standard gauge track but the line was 5'6" gauge. Stopped riders hanging on the outside though. Back on topic, the old Board of Trade Requirements Clearance Diagram specified a desirable distance from the track centre to the face of any structure was 7' 8" or 30.66mm at 4mm scale. The absolute minimum was to have a post at 4' 5 3/4 " from the running edge which is 6' 10" from the track centre line, so 27.33mm at 4mm scale. Allowance was made for cant and end/side throw due to curvature. If a signal is placed in the interval between two tracks the minimum passing clearance is 18" from the bodywork to the structure. This is the drawing as it appeared in the 1950 edition of the Requirements.

Oil burning didn't catch on with BR as over 95% of our oil was imported. The Government was bankrupt and could not afford the foreign exchange to buy it.

I thought those were mutually exclusive concepts.

Just had this from one of my former staff via Facebook

This link has a good drawing showing the typical method of the locking directly activated by lever movement, Another common method is locking activated by the catch handle driving a rocker or cam which checks that the lever is able to move by driving the tappet to the mid position. This will lock conflicting moves before the lever can be moved then on completion of the movement release of the catch handle drives the tappet to the full normal or reverse position to line up the release notches.

I didn't vote as I wasn't intending to buy any of the items but I note that the Aveling and Porter was high up again. Personally I am more interested in the 0-4-0 version listed last year as I would like to build a model based on the interchange with the M&B line at Rotton Park Road on the Harborne Branch. They had one named John Barleycorn. When it was ailing c1948-50 they would hire in from BR, resulting in visits by an L&Y Pug in LMS livery, the LMS 100HP Sentinel in plain black BR and allegedly a Caley Pug visited the area.

Apologies for topic hijack but on the 94xx theme. A picture cropped up recently on Facebook showing 8437 at Ryecroft Junction to the north of Walsall station in 1955. According to the person posting it had come off the shed and was reversing onto the Water Orton line.

City sheds tended to be shoe-horned into impossible spaces and had much more track for the land area than other places. The key is whether the roads are needed operationally.