Hartley Hills, LNWR c1900 - buffer stops, how do you build yours?

[Ressaldar]

Hi Graham,

many thanks for the tips, the trackwork is fairly straightforward, but at the same time 'involved' especially as on one four fott board, there are five turnouts that form a crossover and sidings and it has been a juggle to get them all on the board but thankfully, the C&L templates have helped greatly.

cheers

Mike

 

[Dog Star]

Although not mentioned earlier in the thread... and something which Albert just would not understand.... the PW for Hartley Hill is being "wired" as the rails are laid. A separate thread shows the method by which each rail is given an electrical feed.

 

[Dog Star]

...we are soon to start point construction on the Club layout... ...any photos are helpful for guidance etc.

Please think through the possibility of extending the stock rails beyond the ends of the turnout as that eases the task of forming the curve in the stock rails.

To show what I meant, here are some photos of what I am doing with Hartley Hill.

Photo 1 shows the toe of the turnout after forming the stock rail and before cutting that rail to length. I have moved the rail "off-line" to show where the rail runs on the template. Why does the timbering not follow the template? The timbering is placed by LNWR practice and aligned from the switch toe, the template is to REA standard and has an extra timber between switch toe and end of the stock rail - hence the required joint in the rail is in a different position. The black mark to the right is where the rail is (yet) to be cut to represent the end of the (prototype) stock rail. The black mark to the left is where the rail has been "set" to accomodate the planing of the switch rail.



Photo 2 shows the crossing end of the turnout, the orange knife handle is adjacent to the end of the stock rail. The curved stock rail is over-length to help with forming of the curve through the turnout.




Photo 3 shows the extension of the stock rail to the LHS. The section of rail between the handles represents a 30'0" length and is laid contiguous with the stock rail. The rail is (yet) to be cut off at the LHS. (Sorry about the tatty template, I drilled a nole in the foam and the paper wrpped itself around the drill - now I use hollow punches to make the holes... and to cut foam plugs to fill them up afterwards).




Photo 4 shows how the curve through the stock rail continues into the plain line track without a dog-leg at the (virtual) joint. If I tried to form the stock rail when cut to exact length then I would not get the curve into the last couple of inches of the rail and there would be a kink at the joint with the plain line.



Virtual joint? Not something one can get on the NHS!

Where the prototype has a fishplate joint and the model does not... as in the stock rail... I represent the joint of the prototype joint by a virtual joint on the model. The rail is cut with a razor saw (just 11 thou wide, a scale 1/2" in 7mm) until the saw has cut through the rail head and is about to cut into the web. A pre-painted Exactoscale ABS fishplate is cut into two pieces and then a piece is stuck on either side of the rail.

Just a snippet of prototype history... photos of LNWR track pre-1900 show fishplates with the nuts on the inside of the rail. I do not know when the practice changed to nuts on the outside.. photos indicate that the change was shortly after 1900, so Hartley Hill shall feature both practices.

regards, Graham

 

[Rob Pulham]

Hi Graham,

Am I correct in assuming that the chairs on the over length rail are just temporarily in position to allow you to create the curve? I ask as I notice that they are not centred on the timber/sleepers? We are awake, just! up here in the the rhubarb triangle

 

[Dog Star]

Hi Robin of Yorkcestshire,

The diverging stock rail in the photos is laid in place on a temporary basis - this was so that I could post photos in support of my description of using extended rails (see my response to Mike). Apart from the fact that there are not enough chairs (!), the rail cannot be laid at the moment because I have to:-

1/ cut to final length;
2/ blacken the rail before fitting chairs;
3/ cut the rail head and fit the fishplates either side of each virtual joint;
4/ fit electrical feeds, wash/degrease and blacken after cleaning each joint;
5/ lay the diverging closure rail because the stock rail is gauged from the corresponding closure / switch rails.

Why have I not laid the diverging switch and closure rails? Still need to fit the drive and stretcher rods to the switch rail before that can be fitted finally.

This what I was trying to get across about planning as threading chairs onto rails and sticking chairs to timbers is almooooost the easiest bit!

regards, Graham

 

[3 LINK]

The rail is cut with a razor saw (just 11 thou wide, a scale 1/2" in 7mm)

regards, Graham

Hi Graham,

Could you tell me the make of your saw and where I might be able to buy one, might be handy what with the Reading show next week.

Martyn.

 

[Dog Star]

Could you tell me the make of your saw and where I might be able to buy one...

The one in the Xacto handle is marked... "Xacto"!!!! and is 0.011" thick across the teeth.

I have some Xacto blades in packets... one has a sticker which says "Eileens", so a fair guess that I bought that from Eileens .

Reverting to the question about colouring of trackwork. Even though I try to get the sleeper / timber colour close to the desired appearance there is no way that dunking in wood stain is going to produce the vagaries and variations in colouring, some post stain work is required and I believe that a dry-brush is the simplest way of achieving the result. I use Woodland Scenics materials for the ballast and mix from several packets, for example:- circa 1905 GWR new ballast for the GW&GC Jt is predominately a light grey to which I have added a small percentage of light brown. On our FoD layout the colouring includes iron ore, dark grey, dark brown to get close to the slag colour (sample provided by Ian Pope and crushed to a (7mm scale) 2" riddle to provide a visual reference). In either case, subsequent treatment involves a dark wash for shadows plus a light grey /brown drybrush for highlights.

regards, Graham

 

[Dog Star]

John and I are trying to decide on the colour and texture of the ballast for Hartley Hill.

Adrian Marks has advised that the LNWR was using broken / crushed slag in the pre-WW1 period.... and Adrian has provided a link to a building materials web-site which has a photo of crushed furnace slag. The photo shows the slag to be predominately mid grey with streaks of brown... plus some stone which is a dark brown in colour. A great photo... which is not quite the appearance of LNWR PW circa 1910 (for example, page 52 of 7MM Modelling by Gordon Gravett). The LNWRS has published a book of photographs by Pilcher and the general impression of track in those photos is that of ballast and sleepers of a similar and consistent colour / shade / tone.

This picture is an indication of what John is trying to achieve. What do you think is the colour of the ballast in that view? An interesting aside... what do you think is the source of weathering that could change grey stone to a dark, sludge, smudge brown?

thank you, Graham

 

[Buckjumper]

Adrian Marks has advised that the LNWR was using broken / crushed slag in the pre-WW1 period.... and Adrian has provided a link to a building materials web-site which has a photo of crushed furnace slag. The photo shows the slag to be predominately mid grey with streaks of brown... plus some stone which is a dark brown in colour. A great photo... which is not quite the appearance of LNWR PW circa 1910 (for example, page 52 of 7MM Modelling by Gordon Gravett). The LNWRS has published a book of photographs by Pilcher and the general impression of track in those photos is that of ballast and sleepers of a similar and consistent colour / shade / tone.

This picture is an indication of what John is trying to achieve. What do you think is the colour of the ballast in that view? An interesting aside... what do you think is the source of weathering that could change grey stone to a dark, sludge, smudge brown?

The problem is that you're trying to replicate something that appears in an image but which never existed in reality.

The fact is that neither the photos in Pilcher, nor your link come anywhere close to giving a true indication of the shade/tone/colour of the ballast due to the limitations imposed by orthochromatic emulsions of the period which were only sensitive to blue and green light. They were also inherently high in contrast, to the point that with some emulsions even coal appears as a light shade of grey.

The bottom line is you cannot possibly hope to replicate the colour/tone/shade of the furnace slag ballast (or indeed anything at all) by simply referencing orthochromatic photos.

I've run Graham's modern colour photo of blast furnace slag with its mid-grey colouration interspersed with streaks of brown through a couple of programs to replicate a typical emulsion of the period and emailed it to him for comments. Unfortunately I don't have permission from the copyright holder to post it here.

 

[John D]

A question does anyone have any idea what colour the ballast would have been at Birmingham New street station

Short of having a Doctor Who Tardis in the back garden we'll never know........but.......when a lad the view from my bedroom window included the rather large heap (looked like a bit of the Swiss Alps in winter when the snow was on it) which was the depository of the furnace slag from Crewe Works over the ages . The heap was flattened in the 70's (?) but the base remains next to Queens Park in Victoria Avenue.....as a nature reserve/kids play area. Should still be OK for a colour match perhaps as the lower levels would be genuine LNW slag/ash, though various types of vegetation is now growing on it

 

[Dog Star]

I've run Graham's modern colour photo of blast furnace slag with its mid-grey colouration interspersed with streaks of brown through a couple of programs to replicate a typical emulsion of the period and emailed it to him for comments.

True to his word, Adrian has sent a montage of the "aged" modern colour photo against the referenced LNWRS photo (link in post no.#248)... Whilst the modern photo shows only stone, no wood sleepers, the "aged" effect is that of a black/white image with a restricted range of tones, the overall effect is similar to the LNWRS image.

 

[JimG]

This thread reminds me of a discussion that happened on the modellers' email list of the Caledonian Railway Association just about a year ago. I actually started it off by raising the same matter about the colour of the ballast used by the Caledonian. One of the contributors - David Blevin - came up with the information that the Caledonian Western Division used slag from the slag bings of the Calderpark Steel Works. In 1970s, David came across some of this slag ballast on the Whifflet to Airdrie embankment line. The slag was yellowish/grey with more of a bias to yellowish or buff colour. Apparently it still had the whiff of rotten eggs from the sulphur content. David remarks that the ballast was still quite light coloured after more than fifty years of exposure, and definitely not grey, so he suggests that it might have been quite light in colour when first laid.

Jim.

 

[Dog Star]

An invitation from Albert and his beloved, the barmaid from the Inn near to the station, to join them for a festive orange-juice lead to me travelling north from Birmingham on a secondary service to Stafford last Saturday evening. The night was cold and clear so I was looking forward to a warming drink when I espied this scene as the train approached my destination...




Christmas lights over Hartley Hill... Merry Krimble to you all.

 

[Dog Star]

Recent activity has been focused on making a 1:8.25 crossing for the turnout which connects the up loop to the up main, turnout 4A on the station plan (here). Whilst the construction of the crossing has been covered in the Permanent Way forum (here) that thread was left with the common crossing waiting for installation on Hartley Hill.

The first photo shows the completed crossing sitting on the template on the baseboard with black permanent marker on the free-ends of each rail ready for aligning the tip of the vee with the relevant timber and then marking the rails for cutting to the appropriate lengths (scribe a light line across the rail / through the black marker). The brass strips which hold the crossing together have been cropped approximately, the pieces are filed flush with the wing rails after the crossing rails have been cut to length.



The crossing with all free ends cut to the correct length. The block chairs for the vee have been formed and fitted... whilst at the other end are shown two plain line chairs fitted temporarily to gauge how much needs to be removed from each chair.



The two plain line chairs which are combined to form the LNWR "6" chair are now the correct size to join together - the chairs are shown displaced from the correct position (where the chair sits central on the appropriate timber) so as to show where the chairs were cut /filed to size.



And here is the result after the chairs are moved into the correct position and joined by use of solvent.



This is as far as construction goes before the crossing is fixed to the formation for the remaining chairs are either singles or half chairs.



Fifteen photos after construction started, here is the complete crossing for turnout 4A. Plain chairs are cut in half to provide a chair jaw with key and are then applied to each side of the crossing ( at positions marked as X, A and B on the template). The dropper is hiding under the vee, to the right of the timber beside the letter B).



Just visible in this photo is the start of plain line track (out of focus fishplate to right of centre). By the time that this turnout was renewed the LNWR had introduced the "Bridge" chair and that type of chair is adjacent to the rail joint.



For those with a "PW-S&C" anorak in the cupboard, the LWNR had changed from 14" to 12" timbers at some point between circa 1900 and circa 1909 hence there is a visual difference in the timbering between this turnout (4A) and the previous turnout (4B) which was covered in this post. Similarly the introduction of the bridge chair had a significant difference in appearance and chairing of the turnout (no narrow plain line chairs in this turnout).

regards, Graham

 

[john lewsey]

Really nice Graham thank you

 

[Caggers]

Good to see this progressing, do you have any overall shots of the PW?

Cheers
Caggers

 

[Dog Star]

There comes a time when procrastination is no longer an acceptable defence... and one just has to get on with the wiring. In this instance that decision has been prompted by:-
* views of the wiring for Heyside;
* John asking about the LNWR 0-8-0 running through the crossings of Hartley Hill;
* Simon asking about the wiring of the common crossing shown earlier in this thread
* the immenent commissioning of a Cl.37/4 with bells and whistles..

Even though we have had motive power rolling along the plain line track I can understand why John has asked about the big goods engine for if that engine behaves through the crossings then we can expect other engines to follow suit (for "other" read LNWR Jubilee, Precursor Tank, Special Tank, DX Goods and Brush Type 4, Western, EE Type 3). The original intention was for the layout to be 12V DC... and time has moved on so we are now looking at the layout supporting operation of DCC and DC stock. Richard Lambert with Heyside has helped our thinking here by explaining how Heyside uses DCC power districts and by noting that the power bus operation can switch between DCC and DC. No doubt that questions shall be asked of the Heyside team and advice followed resolutely.

So, power busses... one power bus for each route through Hartley Hill:-
* Up Goods Line and Up Loop Platform;
* Up Main Line and Up Main Platform;
* Down Main Line and Down Main Platform;
* Down Loop Platform and Carriage Siding.
with each power bus being "linear" and "from-end-to-end", together with droppers from the individual rails to the corresponding power bus. Where there are tracks which link two routes, for example:- Up Loop to Up Main at the London end of the platform, which power bus supplies power for the link shall be determined on an individual basis. In the case of the example given here, I expect that power to the linking track shall be controlled by the turnout on the Up Main and hence the link track shall be connected to the power bus for the Up Main. Those of you who are about to ask "what about the diamond?" shall have to wait until a future episode before rolling on the floor etc., etc..

The jury is still out in respect of the Up Yard.

Now to the operation of the turnouts... unless there is good reason to change direction I hope that we shall be using Fulgurex motors and that the polarity of the common crossing is managed by the (electrical) contact sets of the switch motor. Using the contact sets of the Fulgurex to control the polarity of the crossing means that the corresponding wiring is compatible with DC and DCC control. As to operation of the turnouts, we have used a lever frame with micro-switches for Scrufts Junction... how the turnouts are worked on Hartley Hill is still to be discussed with John.

If there is any uncertainty in all of this... it is how to use the contact sets of a turnout motor to manage power to "protection" sections where power is only provided to a track section when a corresponding Home signal shows a Clear indication. Operation of Hartley Hill is going to include local services terminating at the station and then returning whence they came by use of the diamond - the possibility of a departing Up local service being struck by a Down Express needs to be prevented and "protection" circuits are one way of achieving this aim.

regards, Graham

 

[Len Cattley]

Hi Graham, where did you get the brass for the crossing angle's, did you make them or can you buy them?
Regards

Len

 

[Dog Star]

... where did you get the brass for the crossing angle's, did you make them or can you buy them?

Apologies for overlooking this question.

You can use either remainders of etch (generally 18thou thick if from 7mm kits) or new material from suppliers like Eileen's Emporium (1.5mm wide and roughly 15thou thick). I have used etch and spent time removing the cusp for neatness... in the case of Hartley Hill I have used new strip to (a) save time and (b) use the remainders of strips from which I have made the droppers.

regards, Graham

 

[Len Cattley]

Thanks Graham