Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Progress Report 100

 Wow! It's hard to believe that this is now my 100th Progress Report. When I first started this blog back in 2006, I honestly thought it would be something I might add posts to every six months or so, this will be my 369th post about my railway which means on average, I've posted in the region of 19 posts a year or between two and three posts per month! Over that time my blog pages have had around 1.25 million views, and I've received over 900 comments - which doesn't include spam messages which I have to delete on a daily basis. I've also posted over 230 YouTube videos about Peckforton Light Railway which to date have had over 830 000 views. Who'd have thought so many people interested in my little garden railway set up in a modest back garden in Cheshire?

Anyway, what has happened on the railway since my last update in August?

The most significant event has been the complete refurbishment of Beeston Market station and the Copper Mine, after I discovered some of the baseboard timbers had rotted away. In addition, there has been the general maintenance of locos and stock, motorising my semaphore signals, the continued painting of 3D printed figures, a newly acquired app for helping with freight management, hosting a visit from Zach Bond - who really enjoys the challenge of running his live steam locos on my track and, of course, a few running sessions.

 

 Permanent Way

 For a couple of years, I've noticed that the trackwork at Beeston Market and the Copper Mine had dipped in a couple of places - to the extent that I was having to prop up the underlying wooden baseboards with additional supports. The hump and dip in the track on the approach to Beeston Market can be seen at 14:40 in this video I recorded in September last year:
 
 
After crawling underneath, I realised that there were several places where wet rot had attacked the treated timbers and so I had little alternative but to lift the track and investigate further.
 

 What was revealed presented me with a dilemma - should I just patch up the worst affected areas, or rip out all the baseboards and start again from scratch?

The same problem was found at the Copper Mine.

The baseboards had been in place for 17 years and so, I figured that if I replaced them, I'd be at least 90 years old before they would need to be done again. And so, with a spell of decent weather forecast, I decided to rip all the boards up and start again.


 A quick calculation and a trip to my local fencing supplier (one advantage of living in a rural farming area), and a few days later sufficient boards were delivered for the revamp.

I discovered some of the legs supporting the baseboards had also rotted and so these were replaced and a few additional legs added where I thought they might be needed.

Cross-members were then screwed into place .....


 ..... so the new boards could be fixed into place.


 I had worked out, together with comments from some of my fellow forumites on the GardenRails.org forum, that the rot on the previous boards had mostly occurred where I had cut the treated boards. And so, I made sure that every cut end of the new 6" x 1" pressure treated timbers was given a liberal soaking with wood preservative.



 At the Copper Mine, I decided to raise the sidings slightly above the adjacent main line, to help differentiate the two.



 Once all the boards had been levelled and fixed into place, they were covered in good quality (15 year guaranteed) roofing felt (aka tar paper), making sure that all joints were sealed with bitumen based felt adhesive - again following suggestions from fellow forumites.




 Tracklaying, then followed. I spent a couple of days, trying various combinations of pointwork until I was satisfied that the new layout would make shunting operations easier and/or more interesting.





 At present, the track is unballasted and the platform is just a plank until I am completely sure that the new layout works well and there are no snags.

Something I was keen to install was a double slip - partly because I thought it might add a couple of options for shunting, and also because I find them fascinating.

 So far, I've run a few test trains over the new set-up and had a couple of full operating sessions - so far, so good.

See - How I refurbished Beeston Market Station - pending

 Rolling stock

 No major developments here since the last update, though I have now given the de Winton loco a decent paint job and had an opportunity to run it in.



 I must admit to being very pleased with this loco. Not only because I feel it looks good, but also because I made its mechanism from scratch, something which, over the years, I've tended to avoid as my modelling skills are insufficiently adept - until I acquired a 3D printer which, of course, can produce models down to 0.1mm accuracy.

For more information see - How I constructed a three foot gauge de Winton locomotive

 Lineside

 The dozens of 3D figures which I received from Dean at DesignScanPrint3D after a scanning session with my fellow thespians at our local amateur dramatic society are still in the process of being painted.


I have to admit that progress is painfully slow. It takes me ages to paint each figure as, rather than slapping on a single layer of paint to each piece of flesh and each item of clothing, I go over each element several times to try and get the shading and the facial features looking reasonably realistic. With some figure, this process takes ages, as I find I have to redo them several times until I am satisfied. 


The added complication is that I have two of each figure to paint - one for me and one for each volunteer, as a reward for being scanned.

Hopefully, by the next progress report, they will be finished.

 

 Operation

 Motorised semaphore signals

The most significant development here has been the motorisation of my semaphore signals, which I constructed in 2014 - See How I constructed 19 semaphore signals. After an initial attempt at motorising some of them using a Picaxe micro-controller (see - How I radio control my semaphore signals), I was reluctant to extend the process for the remaining fifteen signals as it was a bit cumbersome and would have required a fair amount of additional wiring together with devising a robust, weatherproof system of electrical connection for each signal.

When I spotted some tiny linear servos, together with a compact Arduino based processor and a tiny keyfob actuated receiver, all of which could be powered with a single li-ion cell, I experimented with producing a self-contained mechanism and control unit which would sit neatly beneath each signal.


 It took a couple of months, but I now have all nineteen signals motorised without the need for any additional wiring.


 The next stage will be to provide solid bases for each signal around the garden so they can be quickly and reliably installed at the start of an operating session. In the meantime, I have deployed a few of them during a running session to test their reliability and effectiveness.


 For more information, see - How I radio control my semaphore signals - Part 2

 

A new app to support freight handling

 As regular readers will know, I have used various versions of my computerised freight management program over the years to help me decide what wagons will be used in each goods or mixed train and where they will be sent. For example see, How I created a Psion version of my freight management program

 However sometimes, if I am in a hurry or if I want to run some special goods trains, I turn to a different method to determine which wagons will go where. For example, in a recent Southwold-focused running session, I used a simple die-rolling technique to decide where to send the few items of Southwold Railway goods stock I had at my disposal.


 In addition, from time to time, I have used a simple app on my phone to carry out a similar process. In the past, I used an app called Weighted Random Generator but when I accidentally deleted it from my phone I discovered it was no longer available. Fortunately, I discovered a similar app called Rand1 which is equivalent and so now use that from time to time.
 

 For more information see Issue 353 (January 2024) issue of the Garden Rail magazine pp18-22 or - Various teachniques for generating freight movements - pending

 

Running session

 In addition to the test runs for the new layout at Beeston Market (see above), I also took the opportunity, during the spell of sunny weather at the start of April, to run a full session which I decided would have a Southwold Railway focus.

Over the years, I have slowly and steadily been adding items of Southwold stock to the railway, ranging from a couple of locos.....



 .... to a rake of Cleminson six-wheeled coaches.....


 .... and a few items of goods stock.



 So I decided it was time to showcase these items in a Southwold-focused running session. As indicated above, I needed to change my approach to managing the destinations for the goods stock, but I found it an interesting change from my normal running sessions.


 

 And finally, I hosted another visit from Zach Bond who brought with him his latest acquisition - a rather beautiful Accucraft Caledonia model which he had had repainted in Southwold Railway livery as it reminds him of a Southwold Sharpie.


 We spent a very pleasant afternoon running the loco up and down the line alongside some of my own stock and catching up with the latest news on garden railway developments.

 

[Awaiting video - currently in the editing shop]

 

 Conclusion

 There are still several jobs on the todo list:

  • finishing the painting of the 3D figures,
  • ballasting the track at Beeston Market and the Copper Mine,
  • providing bases for the signals at each station;

 ... and I have got a few ideas for additional locos, particularly now I have developed the confidence and the skills to make my own powered chassis. But, for now, I am quite pleased with how the railway has progressed over the years.

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