Lower Thames Yard

[Tallpaul70]

Hi all,
I went to the Milton Keynes Club Exhibition on Saturday.
Lots of tempting goodies on offer such as the Locomotive Portfolios books on various GW Classes at £10 off all and even £15 off some!

I managed to keep my card in my wallet considering pending expenditure on the layout front.

I did however surrender to half price S&T wagons and the recent Hornby sound wagon from a certain Gloucestershire retailer.

Otherwise I bought two books:- Goods and Freight by John Vaughan with lots of colour photos from the 60s through to the early 2000s at 90% off the £30 list price and a secondhand Freightmaster for 2012 which cost me £2.50 (list price £15.95) from the RCTS stall.

Show was I thought up to their usual standard, and I welcomed additional seating in the halls (getting old I'm afraid!!).

I particularly enjoyed Much Murkle, so below are a few pics I took.

Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Hi all,

There are a number of concerns in operating multiple periods on a layout.
But I don't think there is much difference between two periods 10 years apart and my three, the first two 30 years apart and the second and third which are 24 years apart.
Alternatively, if you are going to have two periods just a few years apart, I think you might as well have one period with an elastic time slot.

As soon as you decide to have multiple time eras then you are committed to a certain amount of work in doing a change over. So while I will have some 30 trains to change over, but I only plan to do a changeover say once in three months.

Yes, there will be other items to change, but if you choose your area carefully, most buildings, for instance, can remain the same, although things like shop fronts will change. It is sensible to avoid the larger chains which over the years, amalgamate, go broke, or move premises. Posters and street lights I am avoiding as far as possible, and vehicles IMHO are quicker to change than rolling stock.

So in my interpretation of Maidenhead there will only be one row of buildings that need to change drastically. As these are low relief they can be quickly picked up and moved!

Luckily, from 1962-2016 the majority of signals were colour lights although I am stretching things a little as in fact the first version of colour lights only came in in 1963!
The branch is more difficult as this retained semaphores until the early 70s. So I am having two sets of removable signals made for the branch area which is at the front of the layout. Then the semaphores in place for 1962 will be removed and replaced by colour lights.

In a later post I will go into the details of how the two sets of signals are changed and operated.
I will also post more on changing periods later.

Best regards
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

Good Evening all,

Writing this is as near to modelling as I have got this weekend as have been on Family duty!

Its our eldest sons birthday today and younger son is down from the wilds of Flintshire with his family.
So yesterday was 10 pin bowling, lunch at Frankies and Bennys, then chilling out watching the France/Wales rugby at eldest son's.
The least said about the match the better, especially as Welsh daughter in law was not amused by it, even less so when her 5 year old daughter said she wanted France to win!!

Today we hosted lunch for 9, and just managed to get cleared up for the England Ireland match, a much better affair (and not just because England won!).

We have just finished loading the second wash into the dish washer and packing away the clean first load.
Just enough energy left to complete these notes and answer a few emails before bed.

Will post something on modelling during the week.
Keep smiling
Paul

[Tallpaul70]

So finally I have time to post something on my progress with my Lower Thames Yard layout, and I thought it time to talk about signals:-

Modelling three different eras can be tricky when it comes to signals.

Luckily, by application of Rule 1 I can bring forward the 1963 colour light signal scheme on the Slough to Reading main and relief lines to 1962. I can by application of the same rule keep the same colour light signals through 1992 and on to 2016!

However, the High Wycombe branch is a bit trickier, as semaphores remained until the early 70s. So I came up with the idea of having swappable signals for this area. Semaphores which I can unplug and colour lights that will plug into seperate but adjacent holes. The new Dapol signals looked just what I wanted.

Planning progressed fine until I heard that the Dapol signals were not as good at being taken out and put back again as was initially suggested. Dapol told one modeler that they were not actually intended for repetedly taking out and putting back!

So I then looked around for someone to make custom signals that could withstand repeated taking out and putting back again.

After a period of investigation I have settled on proposals put forward by Stephen Freeman.

These, while a bit more expensive than the Dapols will do what I want and have the advantage of as being closer to the original signals than the Dapols. The only problem is finding close up photos of some of the signals.

Now I am getting my head round DCC signal operation with the aim of eventual computer control.

I am reducing the number of operational signals by limiting working signals to those whose operation can be seen from the operating and viewing area. While semaphores can be seen to operate from back as well as front, colour lights can only be seen from the back if you are operating in subdued light conditions, which is not something I intend to do!

Next I have the tricky task of drawing large scale plans to show the positioning of the signals and therefore the positions of their fixing holes. This is not easy as the track plan, while allowing most of the movements of the prototype , is actually different and the spacing of points differs from the prototype!

Some of the spacings are quite tight so I need to ensure that trains, particularly overhangs of bogie coaches on curves will not strike signals particularly the junction signals.

Happy modelling,
Best regards
Paul

[bulleidboy]

Hi Paul

Here's a picture of a Dapol SR Home Signal wired to a Cobalt Digital iP point motor. Situated at the exit to the fiddle yard. It is a little intermittent in operation - it should change every time the point is operated, but it occasionally needs two throws of the switch. BB

IMG_0526 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

[Tallpaul70]

Hi All,

Compromises or Rule 1?
The bad weather this week keeping me in the house and away from the railway room I decided to work on the working timetables for the layout. Doing this reminded me of the consequences of compromises we make in modelling and the implications of “Rule 1”!

We all have to make compromises in our layouts, and we regularly claim “Rule 1” to cover doing what we want rather than what prototype dictates.
However, it seems to me that the two can have an area of overlap.
So having thrown that hand grenade into the arena, I’ll explain some of my compromises, some of my “Rule 1” decisions and a situation where I found they overlapped!

Compromises.
As soon as you try to realistically depict a 4 track mainline in a 12ft x 8ft space even when it is a dedicated space you are bound to make compromises.
The first I made, but only after putting up several test plans on the forum for comment, (and getting plenty of comment!) was that 4 tracks didn’t work. So I settled for the relief tracks and a branch junction and ignored the main tracks.
This worked because study of a working timetable revealed more variety and interest in the relief lines and branch than in the procession of expresses on the mainlines particularly in the periods I wanted to model.
But I still will run some expresses such as my favourites, the Cornish Rivera Express and the Cathedrals Express (yet more compromise!)

The next was to not have a station, or at least not any platforms, just the station buildings as a scenic break at one side of the layout.
This was made for two reasons. Firstly, again, considerations of space, but also because it got round the problems of platform furniture changes between my chosen periods.
Space considerations confirmed a decision I took a long while ago to have a maximum train length equivalent to 5 off 70ft carriages and a tender loco.

Rule 1
One of the big rule 1 decisions I made was that rather than sticking strictly to my stated years for the three periods of the layout, I would flex things slightly.
Thus in the early period for instance, I will use a 1960 timetable but allow rolling stock built up to late 1962 so that I could run Western Class diesels.
In the middle period I will run a class 117 DMUs in the GWR centenary livery of chocolate and cream alongside the late 1992 introduced Class 166 in NSE livery.
In the modern period I will run class 150s and class 143s in “Neon” livery alongside Class 166s and class 158s in gWr livery. Of these only the Class 166s are accurate for the Thames Valley lines!

Compromise or “Rule 1” or a combination of both?
In explaining this situation I must start by saying that one of my aims in operating this layout is to limit handling of stock and locos as far as possible to the sessions when I remove one period’s stock and locos from the layout and replace it by those of another period.
I should also say that I plan to run operating sessions at approximately double time speed and for around 2 hours. So my first session might be on a Monday morning 10.00 to 12.00 and use the timetable for 1962, 4am to 8am. The next day I might run 12.00 midday to 4.00pm and so on. Probably one every couple of months I might change to another of my 3 eras.
Realistically my 2 hour sessions might have a coffee break around halfway through, depending on what the timetable allows!

One of the problems of running a mainline layout is that mainlines in reality use a lot of rolling stock sets and locomotives!
You may have enough stock and locos, but fiddle yard capacity is another matter, even if, as I plan , there will be a lower level fiddle yard.
So my compromise is to run some trains round the layout a number of times in a controlled and timetabled way (Yes, every once in a while I will just play trains!!) . I will do this either by running them on consecutive trips (for instance while I am carrying out shunting moves) or with other trains circulating between their trips. This is easy to get away with when using Mk1, 2, or 3 coaches on passenger trains and in the recent eras with block trains but more difficult to be convincing in the 60s era, when there were few block train freights and one freight was usually noticeably very different from the next, even if you intersperse other trains with a particular freight!

The idea I am working on is selective shunting. Under this, freight trains have up to 3 sections of 5 wagons each and a brake van.
So a train on, say, its first anticlockwise run round has two 5 wagon sections A, and B plus a brake van. On its second run round the train enters the right hand end of the up loop and halts in the loop. It then backs section B and the brake van into a siding off the loop.
In a second siding off the loop is a section C and a brake van of different type to the first brake van. The train picks up this section and brake van and continues on its way.
Later another train drops off a section and brake van and picks up section B and brake van, while on a later circuit the original train drops off sections A and C and a brake van, and picks up the section and brake van dropped by the second train. And so on…..

Now is this compromise or “Rule 1”??

Cheers
Happy modelling
Paul

[Chris]

Seems like a good compromise,
for the freight I wonder if having wagons in a set of 5 will look a little odd, all though there will be variation in the make up of the train it will still have a very uniform look perhaps some 5's are either made up of 3+2 or are shorter. It might be the temptation to have the maximum all the time but would a prototypical freight be the same length always?

[Walkingthedog]

Not a mixed goods, it would have enough wagons to carry what was needed.


Took this of the internet. Property of Stephen Thomas.

[Tallpaul70]

You raise points, to answer which I should clarify my example.
I used 5s just to keep things simple.
While many of my wagons are in sets of 5, the 5 are not all the same!
So a set of 5 might be two vans(different types), a 16T mineral, a 5 plank, and a tank wagon.
Some sets will be 4s especially when longer wagons are included.
Shorter freight trains will be pick up freights which will operate conventionally, and block trains such as tanks will operate outside this system

Some trains will be of differing lengths due to different lengths of wagons, but 15 + brake van is the maximum realistic freight length.

Hope this clarifies things?

Cheers
Paul

[Chris]

understand now, seems the planning for your operations is coming along well