Tredethy Wharf (May update)

This is not much of an update on progress, more a report that the layout has found a home which should help with construction.......

Apart from a fettle with some Bill Bedford W Irons, progress on the layout has been at a standstill from mid April through most of May. Work and social commitments have taken their toll, along with yet more furniture moving and rearrangements. This is all down to my daughter moving out into a flat and the rest of my partner's furniture coming out of storage. With all this going on I had to, yet again, reluctantly loose my 'man space' in the garage. But the upshot of all this is that I've negotiated some space for the layout in the house!

The baseboards for Tredethy Wharf now reside on a bench in what has become my 'man space' in the house. There's not enough space for the eventual complete layout, only the two scenic boards (beggars can't be too choosy) but this has enabled me to dabble a little on the layout for the last couple of evenings.


A while back I mentioned to the local P4 group that I was planning to use cork for the track bed. I was immediately informed that Balsa wood is starting to be recognised as a better material for the track base. Holes have been cut through the ply baseboard under the tie-bar locations for point control and 5mm Balsa has been glued in position. One part completed turnout has also been dropped into place. I was hoping to get the track plan glued in place but I've been side tracked a little this evening staining some sleepers.

The next update should show some good progress........

Tickets

I've gradually been building up a collection of photographs for the Wadebridge - Bodmin - Wenford Bridge lines and thought I'd share a couple of my recent ebay purchases. Neither are photographs but tickets issued for the lines. The first to catch my eye was a ticket for travel between Grogley Halt and Bodmin. When spotted I thought I just had to have it as Grogley is the inspiration and central to this project. The ticket ties in a little bit of reality to my fiction.


The second is a passenger ticket for the goods only Wenford Bridge line. As my 'Plank' Tredethy Wharf is based on this line, again I thought this also had to be added to the collection.

Apparently passengers were allowed to travel in the Guards Van. I've also been informed that a Queen Mary brake van was sometimes added to the daily goods train when passengers were being conveyed. No printed tickets were available so tickets had to be hand written. What a nice piece of railway history.

I don't know the age of, or personal history behind either ticket, if anyone has any ideas please let me know.

The plank!!

Well, there it is, The Plank!

and

The Plank with track plan.

At this end of the layout I cannot decide on how the cottage / road / land contours will look, so the front profile board will be cut later. I also need to decide on the height of the layout so that I can start to construct the supporting frame/legs, but at least I am at the point where serious thought can be applied to track laying. Just need a little tweak here and there on the track plan and things will start to get interesting.

Wenford DVD

I recently purchased a DVD produced by Branch Line Video titled 'Memories of the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway'. I had mulled over the purchase for a while but as the front cover had a picture of a Beattie Well Tank at Dumere Crossing I thought it might contain something of interest on the Wenford Bridge line. Being not sure what to expect I was, after viewing, extremely please with the purchase. I would highly recommend this DVD to anyone interested in this area and the workings of the Wenford Bridge line.


It comes with two DVDs, the first covers the history of the line starting with brief footage of the North Cornwall Line then moving onto the main subject highlighted with many stills and brief cine film. Of more interest to me is the second DVD. It has cine film footage of two trips down the Wenford Bridge branch. One starting with footage of workings at Wadebridge and progressing to an empty clay train working hauled by a Beattie 30585. The second of a Brake Van special hauled by 1369. Both have anecdotal commentary from men who worked the line. Footage is not surprisingly showing its age but still fantastic to see.

At last , some progress

I was supposed to be going to the Nottingham Model Railway Show this weekend but a couple of events changed my plans. The guy I was going with couldn't make it and my partner deciding at the last minute to visit her son, staying over until Monday morning. I've not been to the Nottingham show before the Scalefour Area Group guys had recommended it as one worth going to. With four P4 layouts there this year, which I have not seen in the flesh, and an impressive trader list I was fully intending to go. So why didn't I?

The previous weekend I'd made an attempted to reorganise the garage. The intention was to create some space so that I could make a start on baseboard construction. Though I was not able to create enough space I did clear a path to the sheets of plywood I'd put on one side for this project. Knowing the timber was at hand put a thought in mind. After the boss had departed and while watching the final game of the Six Nations, I rolled out the full size printout of Tredethy Wharf. A few scribbles were made, a couple of sketches drawn, and I thought, 'if I don't go to Nottingham I could get them built tomorrow.......Hmmmmm..... With no room in the garage to swing a cat I've been waiting for good weather at a weekend or an opportunity like this to make a start. It was a tough decision but this was an excellent opportunity to get stuck into the baseboards for Tredethy Wharf.


Sunday brought mayhem to the kitchen and gradually it spread though the house. Was I glad the boss was not around? ....... At the end of the day I had nearly finished one baseboard.

Baseboard One.
The above picture makes it look like the baseboard has a bottom but it's only resting on a piece of scrap plywood to stop me scratching the table.

This has been a bigger task than I thought. Last time I built any baseboards they were simple rectangular solid topped style boards. The two I'm making for Tredthy Wharf have curved fronts and need height front to back. I have also attempted to integrate the contours into the board end profiles. While weighing up angles and gradients for surrounding land I started to wish I'd made a quarter scale mock up. But out came all photos I have accumulated on this line ........ hopefully I will have the lie of the land about right?

In the above picture the nearest baseboard end profile board has the next boards profile end piece bolted to it. These two end pieces have pattern makers dowels fitted for alignment. I have not used pattern makers dowels before and though easy to fit they did take a little while. To complete the above first baseboard a couple more middle supports need fitting and the front facial profile board needs cutting and fitting. Then it's on with the second baseboard.

There was a bit of stumbling around, a couple of mistakes and plenty of 'thought time' involved but overall I think I've cracked it with the baseboards. Just need the boss to go away next weekend and I'll have both boards completed!!........

RCH 7 Plank Wagon (Pt.4)

I have been undecided whether to have Morton Brake Gear on both sides or just one side on this wagon. The old packet of 9ft Brake Gear produced by Kenline contains two identical castings. I was sure that, while this might be OK for independent brake gear fitted to wagons with bottom doors, for this wagon it would not be correct. In my earlier modelling days I would have just added the brake gear as supplied. I wouldn't have batted an eye lid to any possible inaccuracy, hiding behind the thought that you only see one side of the wagon at a time, but today I feel different.

So what would the other side of the wagon look like? Are the brake handles identical? Should there be double V hangers on the side with no brake gear? I remember comments about rackets, reversing clutches, dog clutchs, cams and other technical terms concerning Morton Brake gear. What do they all mean? How and where were they all used? To those that are in the know about these things please remember that I am on a big learning curve with the whole of this project. The problem I've had is finding a wagon with Morton Brake Gear that has been photographed from both sides and/or ideally from underneath. While it might be possible to deduce from a single photograph whether a wagon has brake gear on both sides or not, it's difficult for a novice like myself to understand what the other side should look like.

Eventually, after rummaging through all my wagon books, I found a couple of pictures showing both sides of the same wagon. They're of a badly loaded NE 6 plank open wagon in J.H. Russell's book 'Freight Wagons and Loads in service with the GWR and BRWR' (figure 14 and 15). These photographs clearly show that the arrangment on the V hangers on each side was different. On the none brake gear side, there was a reversing clutch on the V hanger at the end of the brake handle. I've also seen photographs with a reversing clutch on the brake gear side of a wagon fitted with brake gear on only one side. But until I saw these two photographs of the NE wagon, I was a little unsure of the complete arrangement. But I now take it that the reversing clutch could be on either side of a wagon fitted with brake gear to one side.

So......my current understanding is that, Morton Brake Gear, on wagons with no bottom doors, has to have a reversing clutch on one side of the wagon to change the direction of rotation of the connecting bar between the V hangers on each side of the wagon, so that the brakes can be applied from either side of the wagon. Makes sense..........if I'm right that is.......?


Now to the model..............To try and show the reversing clutch, I carefully cut a piece plasticard to shape and then slightly modified the Kenline brake handle. While not 100% accurate, hopefully I have been able to capture the essence of a reversing clutch on the wagon.





OK.......by blowing up photographs this size does show up some issues, but overall I'm pleased with my effort so far. Door stops have been fitted since photographs were taken. Just drawbar hooks to be added. I was going to use Smith's 3 Link couplings until I realised that they are larger than the ones I'd used on my old EM gauge wagons. It had already been mentioned to me that Smith's couplings are a little over scale but until I saw the difference, I didn't realise by how much. I'm now waiting until I receive some couplings from Exactoscale before progressing this wagon any further. Once the drawbar hooks are fitted I can start painting.............

RCH 7 Plank Open Wagon (Pt.3)

Modelling time during the last couple of weeks has been minimal as I've been busy putting a lot of redundant railway and wargaming stuff on ebay. This is to declutter and help to raise a little cash for this project.

This evening, however, I earmarked a little time to progress the RCH wagon and had a go at adding the axle boxes, springs and brakes. I started by looking over a lovely model of a MINK D built for me as a birthday present many years ago by my good friend Nick.


The compensation units that he used are very similar the the current MJT units and the wagon has been easily converted from EM to P4. The springs on this MINK are J-hangers and Nick had cut the spring away from the hangers on the rocking unit allowing a good 1.5mm of movement.






I thought I'd try and follow his example but after adding the springs on the rocking unit the movement has been restricted to 0.5mm which is most disappointing. The buffer beam height looks OK when compared to the 57xx so I'm not sure how I can achieve more movement?


I cut the springs away from the shoes thinking this would be the least obvious place rather than having a gap between the spring and axlebox. Perhaps I should rethink the way I'm doing this as I would have thought a 1.0mm movement would have been preferable? Also I'm not sure of the look of the gap in the springs?

While at the Leatherhead show I purchased one of the 'more modern' sprung subframe compensation units from Masokits. Looks like I'll have to learn how to use a soldering iron again! Perhaps give this unit a try on one of the many minerals wagons I have to build?