Northroader

OK, give me a bit of time to fix some wiring in, and you’re on. No DCC here, mind, we’re Primitive Fundamentalists.

Hours running, five minutes shunting, (and that’s it) and an hour back. Good use of your time? Still ,you’re quite welcome, it’s all in a state of flux at present. (It always is, though) Do you ever get to the place in Gloucester? Maybe call by then.

There’s a bit more been done on the line. I wanted to join the station unit of the baseboard to the fiddle yard piece, to get something that’s well aligned and giving a flat surface. The two units dimensions were off what you could do with a single sheet of foamboard, but Ive been splicing it to get a better single unit. I’m in my eighties, and building baseboards from 10mm foamboard suits me fine, as all I need is a Stanley knife and a pot of PVAbond, so I can go on kicking the can down the road for a bit longer. The layout is in an unheated extension to the house, so there’s a close season approaching when you need to bring the PVAbond into the warm house, and stop gluing over the winter months. So here’s a sketch of the layout size now, and what the underside splice looks like: It’s a bit shorter than it was, the two tracks in the station cut back a bit. The layout is faced with some 4mm ply, and there’s ply pads where the screws go through to attach the backscene support. The tracks in the station are laid on 4mm cork tiles, and the cassette has a 4mm ply base, so it all lines up. The tracks are stuck down with some Evostik. There’s stiffening strips along the sides of the cassette, and a hook screwed into each corner to help handling it. Here’s some views, with a closeup of the join, with a track gauge. Now I just need to make something with wheels to go on it.

My only bogie coach was done with a hardwood roof and the coach weighs far more than it should. Balsa sounds a sensible approach, would it have helped to face it with a few layers of paper to get a smooth run? Anyways up, the sides look good, and the paint job is lovely. Glad to hear the bogies contributed to the success. Me, I’m sticking to four and six wheelers.

https://m.ok.ru/video/1583025359470

They were Alco built in America for British Steel at Margam in South Wales.

Bob, pay more attention.

You’ll be needing another track on the front of your diorama then?

Put “NCC” on the tender, and folks will be none the wiser.

You are reaching true enlightenment.

Cooking foil does it for me.

I’ve heard of Cheops, which dysentery was Maslow?

I’d be inclined to ditch the right hand crossover, just a straight entry into the back siding from the fiddle yard through just one point out of the loop? On due consideration, you would lose the private siding aspect, so maybe not, perhaps something like Ruyton Road, plus the engine shed? https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/154530-ruyton-road-revisited-what-to-do-with-an-old-classic/ sorry, I always think Iain Rice added at least one more point than necessary, now that Whitley could lose a siding, and keep it all compact and less points, and… (why don’t you just shut up, Bob?)

And you can get close ups in colour of the old green scheme here.

You could get the blue and red on Mark 1s as well. The story goes there was this derailment up Ebbw Vale steel works. Some 100ton bogie oil tanks broke loose and went out of the end of the siding. They were loaded with 3500’ oil which was being warmed up for discharge, and one of the pipes underneath got knocked off, and all the b***** oil ran out and set. When it’s cold it’s thicker than tar, very black and very sticky. There was a blizzard going on, so it got covered in snow. The breakdown gang got the tanks back on the line, by which time oilskins, boots, were completely f*****, and the inside of the two coaches (old bow ends) ruined. so we got two mark ones in the wagon shop, strip out, mess, riding, tool, and packing store conversion. No drawings, you just wing it. To finish off we just painted out the grey upper panels, and did them red, as an arty hand book “the corporate image of BR” said that was the scheme for service vehicles. Once they were seen out and about at Canton the people at Derby Tech centre complained we had taken their livery, and we should have done them plain red, but red and blue was how they stayed.