This Blog describes the ongoing development of a 16mm scale 45mm gauge garden railway situated in the North West of England, UK from 2004 to the present day.
According to the meteorologists, May was one of the wettest since records began - and it felt like one of the coldest. However, the weather turned completely during the last weekend of the month and I was able to have a full running session which gave an opportunity to test out a few of the projects I had been working on during the bad weather.
Infrastructure
Fencing
Owing to the poor weather, I was unable to do much out in the garden. However, following a tip-off from a fellow GardenRails forumite, I bought a few lengths of Fairy Garden fencing from eBay.
I hadn't seen it before, but I was told it's been around for a few years now but it seems good value for a 90cm length of fencing in the right scale. The palings are thin wood (similar to coffee stirrers) and they are held together with twisted plastic coated wire. This means the fencing is very flexible in both the horizontal and vertical planes.
Level crossing
The first application of the fencing has been alongside the level crossing on the approach to Peckforton station.
To fix the fencing in place, I added some copper wire stripped from 13A twin and earth electrical cable. This was forced in behind the twisted wire of the fencing at roughly six inch (15cm) intervals and secured with a couple of bends, leaving a tail of around an inch (2.5cm) pointing downwards.
The tail ends of the copper wire brackets were then inserted into plastic rawlplugs forced into holes in the concrete breeze blocks which form the trackbed.
Permanent way
Remote point operation
A couple of hard to reach points (turnouts) at Beeston Market and Beeston Castle stations have had push-pull point rodding added, using galvanised fencing wire and screw eyelets.
In addition, the two points for the storage sidings in the lean to can now be operated remotely from the entrance to the sidings with twist point rodding.
The double ended diesel loco which I 3D printed has now had its dummy trailer loco motorised.
It already had a 3D printed chassis which was designed to accept a motor and worm gear set from IP Engineering and so it was a quick and easy conversion. Four wheel drive was also added with Delrin chain and sprockets.
Although the locos are powered with cheap three volt can motors, the loco is now quite powerful coping easily with a train of eight loaded hopper wagons and a brake van up the 1:40 gradients on the railway.
In addition, the locos have been given name and number plates, drawn in TinkerCAD, 3D printed and painted.
The names, Dorothy and Diana, as well as being alliterative with Double Diesel, are taken from two of the daughters of Lord Tollemache, the supposed benefactor of the Peckforton Light Railway.
Schull & Skibbereen loco
The motorisation of the 3D printed Schull and Skibbereen loco (see How I drew and 3D printed a Schull & Skibbereen loco) is still being worked on. The original Bachmann Lyn motor block proved to be under-powered and so I have been seeking ways of improving its mechanical efficiency. Initially, the difficulty was finding smaller diameter worm gears which were compatible with the original worm wheels. I tried using different gear sets but they weren't sufficiently robust. I then discovered that the worm gears on Bachmann motor blocks are fairly interchangeable and so I am presently redesigning the motor block to make use of the worm gears from another Bachmann loco.
Getting the gears to mesh reliably and smoothly is proving to be very difficult inside a fully enclosed motor block housing.
However, I will not be defeated!
Second SR coach
After developing the design of the Southwold six wheeled coach, I have now constructed a second one.
I discovered during a test run, that the centre truck kept derailing. Closer examination revealed that the arms of the swivelling mechanism on the outer trucks were 4mm too short. Not sure how this happened when I redesigned the trucks, but it just emphasises how critical the dimensions need to be.
A third coach should hopefully finalise the design.
Cleminson open weathered
The six wheeled Southwold open wagon has now been weathered
I have now used the wagon twice on operating sessions and, touch wood, it seems to be performing well. It did derail on one of the points at Bickerton Station, but hopefully this will not be a regular occurrence.
Operation
Running session
Although the weather has generally been bad through May, it improved markedly towards the end of the month and so I managed to organise a full running session.
I am very pleased with how my revisions to the original program performed. At the start of the session, the location of some stock didn't match where it was supposed to be according to the program. This is because through May, I had been having ad hoc running sessions and testing locos and new rolling stock and so the wagons had become displaced.
I found that the easiest way to change a piece of stock's location in the database was firstly to reset all wagons to Beeston Market and then use the List and Move functions to relocate stock which had found its way to other stations.
As you will have noticed, it has been over six months since I posted my previous Progress Report (see Progress Report 65). I usually aim to produce them within two months of each other, but the online business which I set up at the start of 2016 (RC Trains), proved to be considerably more popular than I envisaged. Furthermore, members of my family have been suffering from a series of health issues and as a consequence, I have not had a great deal of spare time to devote to working on my railway and keeping up my blog as I had previously.
However, I have been able to take time out from my commitments to work on various projects:
Rolling Stock
I have been tempted to acquire or construct new items of goods or passenger rolling stock, but the storage roads in the garage (see How I constructed storage sidings) ........
...... are now full to capacity and so it is more likely that, in the future, I will start super-detailing wagons and coaches and maybe replace some items with better alternatives.
As my locos are stored in the house, I have been able to add a couple more locos and, as part of my RC Trains activities, I have converted a range of locos to battery power for various customers.
Regner Chaloner
Probably the most significant development is the acquisition of my first live steam locomotive. As slow-running and controllability are important considerations for my approach to operation, I decided a geared loco would be more appropriate. I was fortunate that a fellow modeller on one of the forums which I frequent offered me a Regner vertical boilered 'Chaloner' loco at a reasonable price.
She has so far had two outings on my railway and I am slowly getting to grips with the demands of a loco which requires fuel and water at regular intervals. My next plan is to install radio control so that she can be better integrated into my usual operating sessions. I appreciate that she is substantially over-scale (being nearer to 7/8ths scale), but have never been a rivet-counter often exercise the gentle art of compromise.
Angliscisation of Stainz
This project has been ongoing since the Summer. Although I could quite legitimately justified the running of a loco with German origins on my 1930s fictional rural narrow gauge railway (see A History of the Railway and its Locality), I decided to indulge in a bit of kit-bashing to turn her into something more Anglicised (see How I Anglicised my LGB Stainz loco).
Quite a few of my locos were constructed using LGB ToyTrain 0-4-0 motor blocks (eg see How I constructed a Hunslet loco from a GRS kit). I like to have at least one motor block 'in stock' as a spare or in case I have an urge to construct another locomotive. To this end, I bought a brand new LGB ToyTrain diesel loco for a reasonable price on eBay.
I am considering using this as the basis for another diesel outline loco - watch this space!
Soundcards
I must confess to being fascinated by soundcards and whenever one comes up on eBay I tend to place a tentative bid and then forget about it. In this way, I have recently acquired three soundcards - a couple of older versions of Dallee soundcards (one diesel and one steam) and a Phoenix BigSound 2k2 soundcard.
I am also working with Alan Bond on developing a small soundcard for diesel locos, though this project has been on the back-burner since the summer. Maybe, now I have a little more free time, I can resurrect it.
Battery conversions
As indicated above, through my work with RC Trains, I was commissioned to convert customers' locos to battery power and/or radio control. For example:
I tried to make this loco uncomplicated and self-contained by using three 18650 li-ion batteries and an iMax B3 charger. However, one of the greatest problems was finding a suitable panel mounted four-way socket to link the charger to the loco.
I used a 3.5mm four-pole jack socket and plug but was not entirely happy about it as, if it is not inserted fully, it could cause problems with the charger connections. It was therefore never intended to be more than a one-off experiment.
PLine diesel loco
The greatest problem with this loco was finding space for the batteries. Some 'flat' li-ion phone batteries were a perfect fit but proved reluctant to have leads soldered to their contacts and so two14650 li-ion batteries were squeezed in under the bonnet together with a Deltang/RC Trains Rx65b receiver/controller.
Dapol 0 Gauge Terrier Tank
This was a complete departure from my usual loco conversions and proved to be quite a challenge, as space was very limited inside the body. I did, however, manage to squeeze four 10440 (AAA sized) li-ion batteries into the side tanks (wired as two parallel pairs - 2S2P) and a Deltang Rx60b receiver/controller into the smokebox.
With her flywheel and superior motor and gearbox, she proved to be a very smooth runner - quite a tempting proposition if ever I decide to venture into 0 gauge ...... (get thee behind me Satan!).
Permanent Way
The layout of my railway is now quite firmly fixed and so developments with permanent way tend these days to be more associated with maintenance than track laying. However, there is always room for improvement and so there have been a few developments.
Peckforton re-alignment
After widening Peckforton Station and laying a new siding (see How I enlarged Peckforton Station), I decided it was time I sorted out a long-standing problem with the main tracks passing through the station. Since creating the station (see How I added a new station at Peckforton), the concrete blocks on which the track was laid, have settled - causing an unwelcome dip. This has meant that pulling in and out the station is a bit of a challenge, particularly when using inertia control on the RC Trains/ Deltang transmitters and even more so with visiting live steam locos. Rather than lifting all the track and re-positioning the blocks, I opted for a less intrusive approach which I've used before - I removed the screws holding the track and replaced them with longer ones. The track was then temporarily raised on various pieces of slate, tile and stones ........
.......and the space beneath the track filled with concrete.
The dip has now been removed and it is a lot easier to control the stopping and starting of trains. Though the platform now also needs to be raised to allow the poor passengers to reach the steps up into the coaches.
Level crossing
Having acquired a level crossing kit from North Pilton Works, I installed one of the crossings on the approach to Peckforton Station.
As with all railways built under the Light Railways Act of 1896, the Peckforton Light Railway was constructed in the cheapest way possible. Instead of expensive over- and under-bridges, most of the road crossings would have been on the level. As a consequence, I have to find space for three more level crossings. Each North Pilton kit provides me with sufficient parts for two single track level crossings and so is proving to be a cost effective approach to solving this problem. All I need to do now, is find suitable locations for the remaining crossings. (see How I installed a level crossing)
Lineside
Picket fencing
In addition to the level crossing kit, I also invested in some picket fencing from the same supplier. Having tried (and failed) to make realistic picket fencing myself, I decided this laser-cut fencing was a cost effective solution. The kits come with a variety of different fittings, large gates. small gates, corner posts etc. and so I opted for a couple of kits with gates and an additional fencing pack. So far I have installed fencing around the forecourt of Beeston Market station (see How I installed some picket fencing ).......
People
Having set my fictional railway in a real life setting (rural Cheshire) and a specific time period (the early 1930s, I realised that I could actually give the passengers and railway staff real identities, based on the names and occupations of local inhabitants drawn from census returns. Unfortunately, as census data is only released on the 100th anniversary of a particular census, I shall have to wait another fourteen years until the 1931 census records are made available and so I have had to use some artistic/modellers'/historical/genealogical licence to use the returns from 1911 to give identities to the figures which populate the platforms, station yards and carriages (see How I created identities for my populace). For example, this chap is John Boote, the foreman of the sandstone quarry in Bickerton.
..... and this young lady ....
.... is Ann Kirby, the cook at Bulkeley Hall.
In addition, I have also acquired a clutch of new characters for my railway.
These will eventually be assigned names and personalities as they take up their places on the railway. My next aim is to search local newspaper archives to identify specific events which occurred at the time and then create life stories for some of the characters. Who says this hobby is uninteresting?
Operations
Operating sessions
I have managed a few operating sessions since the last Progress Report, but they have been few and far between. Mostly, operations have been restricted to testing converted locos or running a few unscheduled trains when visitors have arrived (see below). I did squeeze in a couple of timetable-led sessions during August and October, however - here are a few photos from one of them them.
Diesel loco No.8, Wynford on the first Down ore train of the day
Manning Wardle 0-6-0T No.6 Harthill eases out of Beeston Market with the Down afternoon mixed
No. 6 Harthill approaching Beeston Castle station with the Down mixed
The Down afternoon mixed pauses at Bulkeley station to allow an Up ore train to pass, hauled by diesel mechanical Fowler loco No. 7 Tollemache
Peckett 0-4-0 loco No.1 Peckforton taking the Up pick-up goods out of Bulkeley station across the swing bridge
No.8 Wynford on an Up 'special' (taking stock back to the storage sidings)
Visitors and visitations
During July, I paid a visit to Peter Butler in South Wales to see his magnificent Brockhampton and Umbridge Railway, and more particularly his fine collection of scratchbuilt Far Twittering and Oystercreek Railway models in inspired by Rowland Emett.
Peter and his friend, Mike, preparing one of the Emett trains at Brockhampton Station
0-2-0 loco Hero
2-2-2 loco, Neptune
0-4-0 Steam Railmotor
0-4-0 loco No.5, Nellie, hauling the milk train
During August, Zach Bond made what is becoming an annual visit, this time bringing his trusty Accucraft Excelsior (River Butley).
..... together with his 'momentum van'.
More recently, Phil Partridge's freelance battery powered diesel loco with a small collection of mineral wagons paid the line a visit.
It's always pleasant to welcome visitors and also to gain inspiration by visiting other people's railways.
Developments
Canal basin extension
I have been steadily accumulating lengths of track and pointwork in preparation for constructing an extended siding from Beeston Market station to reach the canal basin where, it is envisaged, there will be a run-round loop and a siding for transhipment of goods between canal boats and the railway.
RC Trains
After much deliberation, at the beginning of this month, I decided to hand over my online business supplying radio control equipment for trains to a fellow modeller and electronics enthusiast, Phil Partridge. With members of my family undergoing various medical procedures, I decided I could no longer care for them and keep the business going. I am confident that Phil will continue to develop the business and I can refocus my attention on my own railway and this blog (oh, and my family, of course!).
