Tullygrainey

I keep forgetting to look in this corner of the forum! An absolute joy to browse through all these images David.

Something not BCDR related for a change. Patrick @Patrick Davey's current project is a return to the narrow gauge Ballycastle Railway for a model of the halt at Capecastle. This time he’s modelling in 5.5mm/foot, allowing the 3 foot narrow gauge to be represented using Peco O-16.5 track. Working in 5.5m means the motive power and rolling stock will have to be scratch built or adapted from something else. My contribution to the project is a chassis for a proposed model of 0-6-0ST ’Countess of Antrim’, one of three saddle tanks built by Black Hawthorne for the opening of the line in 1879. We have a drawing which we were able to scale using a few known dimensions - wheelbase and wheel diameter principally. We also have some useful photos of the Countess in action and since no-one alive has seen the original, we have a degree of artistic licence to hide behind I'm building the chassis using 4mm/ft methods because it's what I know but the techniques should work well enough in the larger scale. The Countess was a fairly small engine. Likewise, 4mm parts fit the bill ok (as long as you're not a spoke counter). As usual, I started with the connecting rods and made these up from an Alan Gibson universal rods etch on a simple jig. The rods themselves then do duty as jigs to mark and drill 1mm pilot holes for axles on a pair of chassis frame blanks (16 thou nickel silver) This chassis will be compensated so a compensation beam was next (2 thicknesses of 16 thou nickel silver), with the axle pilot holes opened up to accept a pair of axles so the beam could be positioned touching the axles and the pivot hole drilled through the frames in the right place. A bit more cutting and filing to accept hornblocks (High Level SpaceSavers) and the frames are almost ready to be separated. Alan

Nice solution to a perennial problem!

Great pics and that weathering is totally convincing.

Track is now laid, wired and tested on Kilmore's scenic boards. Droppers are 7/0.2 multicore wire. The bus wires are single core copper mains lighting cable. I used to lay the track then fit the droppers but now I solder these to the rails before they go down. Far fewer melted sleepers this way. Phono plugs and sockets take care of inter-board connections. Track on the scenic section is Peco OO Code 75. The non-scenic bits are a mix of Peco and Hornby Code 100. The whole layout footprint is now 11 ft by 6 ft. The only place I can set it up without throwing furniture into a skip is the garage. Putting it all together allowed all the connections to be tested and some tweaking of the track ends at board joins. Some of the locos needed a bit of encouragement too. Of the BCDR stock, diesel No.2 is finding the 4th radius curves on the linking sections a challenge and sits with its wheels spinning with more than two or three wagons in tow. More weight needed maybe. The 0-6-4T dock shunter No.29 derails on these sections and will need a bit of work to make it behave. The rest of the stable manages ok. 2-4-2T No.7 happily pulls 2 coaches, 12 wagons and a brake van. Video of some of the first runs... Kilmore first runs.mov A way to go yet but we're making progress. Alan

Great pictures of the layout and the venue David. Thanks for sharing. A wonderful place. It's been on my list for a visit for a long time!

He's a home bird really.

Tullymurry was a small station on the BCDR main line a short distance from Newcastle. Its signal cabin was compact and unusually (uniquely?), built gable end on to the line. I used it as the guide for this signal cabin for Kilmore. Having never built one before, I studied form at @Patrick Davey's Brookhall Mill and Clogherhead. Thanks Patrick. Construction is mainly embossed plastic card over a mounting board carcass with some etched brass providing bits that would be difficult to make from scratch. An etch from London Road Models provided the basis of some window frames after a bit of cut and shut. The London Road Models etch also provided the bits for the lever frame... ... and an etch from Scalelink Fretcetera gave me some outside steps. Can't imagine trying to make these from scratch. Signal cabins really need at least a semblance of internal detail and this is my semblance. Don't look too closely at all the gubbins on that shelf. I've no idea what they are except that they were left over from one of Patrick's signal cabin builds. He wasn't sure what they were either but they look the part. From a distance. The tiny LED isn't as yellow as it looks in the pic. Signalman from ModelU. I think he borrowed the tie from that bloke who's always in the news. And just about done. This thing is minuscule! I've been putting off laying track on the scenic boards. Running out of excuses. Alan

Some very impressive hand-built track there. The buildings aren't bad either! Lovely stuff.

Thank you David. Sometimes it's better to leave things as they are but the niggles about this one just wouldn't go away. The original roof was done with hand cut strips of light card. The new one is built up with ready made laser-cut strips from York Modelmaking. Not sure what material it's made from but it's flexible and tough and yes, it is probably thicker than the card I used before and certainly more regular in appearance. It's also self adhesive and takes paint readily. To simulate the ridge tiles, I glued a length of 1mm brass rod along the ridge and butted strips of the York Modelmaking stuff up tight against it on both sides. I replaced the gutters and downpipes with smaller diameter rod and changed the colour to match the station building. The lichen was done with artist's acrylic, titanium white and cadmium yellow, applied with a fine brush and also the tip of a cocktail stick. Alan

Largely forgotten pioneer of rubber band propulsion for model railways. Cobley’s company was known for its resilience and was briefly successful during the inter war period but a shortage of raw materials from the plantations in Malaya after the second world war stretched the business almost to breaking point. The hoped for bounce-back never happened and the company was eventually erased.

I'm on slightly firmer ground with models as opposed to the real thing - IRM, Murphy, Provincial Wagons, JM, Dapol, Past Avenue, Gareth Brennan, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all?

Some of my BCDR fleet got an outing today, not on a layout but on the real thing! I had an opportunity to visit the privately owned and wonderfully restored and preserved BCDR station at Saintfield, County Down. With the warmest of thanks to the owners Jane and Mark for their hospitality and the opportunity to roam at will, immerse myself in the atmosphere of a very special place and take these pictures.

Since finishing the Kilmore goods shed I've not been entirely happy with it and it took me a while to figure out what was bothering me. Goods sheds are big but this one seemed out of scale with the other buildings on the emerging layout. I finally realised that the roofing slates were too large (see the last post above) - in 4mm, about the size of dinner tables! The guttering and downpipes were also over-scale. Essentially what I'd done was make a small building in 7mm/ft rather than a large building in 4mm/ft. Re-roofing and re-guttering have improved things significantly I think.

No but great video Patrick! Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful. RIP BHM

Some windows, doors and gutters for the goods shed.

No pressure then Patrick. Better get my soldering iron serviced

I’ll take that with a pinch of salt

Thanks David. I find that scribing the walls can be quite relaxing in its way. With a bit of music in the background, I can get lost in it for hours on end. It's usually cramp in my right shoulder that stops me Railway in landscape... I've had a mental image from the beginning of how I wanted this one to look - a rural BCDR station and there are (were) plenty of examples to inspire that. The challenge is to get as close to that image as possible! As to the order of doing things, it's always a bit of a compromise in my experience. It was easier, for example to paint the bridge and the walls on the bench before adding them to the layout but it's then tricky to keep them pristine as the scenery gets built up and painted around them. Clingfilm and masking tape to the fore!

Track is now laid, wired and tested on the traverser. It seems to work pretty well though some of the track ends will need tweaking to line them up a bit better. I've parked it for now while I lay track on the curved link sections. Despite my best efforts to keep things tidy when wiring track, it never seems to work out that way. I won't lay track on the scenic section until I've done a bit more of the landscaping... ... so I've been stonewalling. Knee deep in DAS dust. I'm trying some forced perspective with the road over the bridge. It remains to be seen if it'll work the way I'd like it to. The walls get smaller as they curve towards the back scene, eventually meeting just out of sight. The bridge itself also narrows from one side to the other. The station is getting some boundary walls too. Shame about that seismic crack in the platform across the boards but it looks worse in the photo than it is in practice. This station now has a name at last. Having rejected Ballymurry, Tulllygar, Crossfield, Dungrainey and Trainy McTrainface, I conducted a survey (well I consulted @Patrick Davey) and we decided on Kilmore, a real place, close to the route of the BCDR main line but without benefit of a station. Until now. Alan

Derek, Road Transport Images make resin kits for commercial vehicles allowing you to assemble your own choice of cab, chassis and load. Might be something here you can work with. https://www.roadtransportimages.com/shop/category/livestock Alan

A real pleasure to see these pictures David and a lovely selection of locos, all up to your usual high standard. That pic of Nottingham Forest is particularly effective and hats off to you for that scratch built railbus - some very skilful panel beating there! I can understand your affection for the little well tank. A real charmer. More please.

While laying some track on the traverser, I realised that the barrel bolt I'd bought to lock the moving table in its various positions had quite a lot of slop in it. Fine for locking the bathroom door but not nearly refined enough for accurately lining up the sidings with the entry/exit lines. It took most of the afternoon to contrive a replacement from nested brass tubing. Also had to sleeve the now-too-big holes in the registration plate but all in all, worth the effort. Zero slop and a better chance of the traverser working as it's supposed to. Should've done this in the first place

That sounds like a huge job David but you’ve made a very impressive start. Looking forward to seeing more.