Berrington and Eye 1912 (Herefordshire)

[petermeyer]

With the layout still residing in the living room, the Bank Holiday weekend has seen the inner circuit of track work almost completed and tested. This includes the fiddleyard board which at 4 feet long is much longer than I had when the layout was end-to-end. The whole non-scenic area now allows for some proper length trains. It's amazing how much clutter track building generates.

IMG_1808.jpg

Just the track on the one remaining scenic board at the Shrewsbury end to complete.

[bécasse]

I wonder whether that full-length cassette connected into the running line at both ends might not cause expansion problems if the layout is exhibited in a hot exhibition hall?

[petermeyer]

I wonder whether that full-length cassette connected into the running line at both ends might not cause expansion problems if the layout is exhibited in a hot exhibition hall?

Thanks for your vote of confidence but I am unlikely to inflict this layout on the fee paying public. It was always designed as a home layout initially to go in the loft which is why it is an odd shape.

Again thanks for your faith in my carpentry skills but this was built with mainly hand tools. I was amazed that the fiddleyard lines up and is square. However there is at least a 1mm gap at each end of the cassette. I will see how it works in operation but in practice I am more likely to use groups of shorter cassettes. The ones I have for the stock are about 500mm which fits into my storage.

I had thought of using turnouts and crossovers in the fiddleyard but at 4 foot they would probably take up all of the space. Another option is a traverser.

[petermeyer]

The track has now been completed on the inner (Down) line and a train has successfully completed a number of circuits and reversed into the goods yard from the Down line. I think I'm going to have to put the Down starter on this board. That means running a servo cable between two boards:

Test-1.jpg

According to the WTT, there were 4 local goods daily. One in each direction for each of the 2 companies; LNWR & GWR. The LNWR local goods were not given sufficient time in the WTT to do any work in the station and one even was only scheduled to stop if required. Oddly, a quirk of the WTT had the LNWR Local Goods trains almost crossing at the station!

The GWR local goods trains were given time and have assumed that the GWR Down Local Goods (which took most of the day to get there from Shrewsbury) did most of the work in the yard as it was facing in the right direction to easily use the headshunt. The other 93 trains through the station daily never went near the goods yard.

Thoughts now turn to producing realistic length trains and see if my locos will pull them. Progress will be reported on my workbench.

In the meantime, I am on with laying sleepers for the outer (Up) track.

[John Lewsey]

Hi Peter,this looks really good I look forward to seeing more of this
John

[petermeyer]

The circular trackwork has long been completed on both up and down lines so the scenery is slowly returning to the layout whilst it is still in its temporary location.

The roofers have returned to do fit more slates on the roof: possibly the first time since lockdown! This required first building the chimney stacks for the booking hall which are also incomplete. But at least the booking hall has all its slates and is looking more like a building. Unfortunately, they have now run out of slates to finish off the station-master's house.

Roofs are just plonked on hence the jaunty angle of the chimneys!

IMG_1908.jpg

[petermeyer]

Today added a working signal. The signal was built some time ago but what consumed the time day was wiring into the control panel and connecting to the electronic wizardry under the baseboard. Another signal to be added on the down side. The module I have allows for two:

[petermeyer]

I think the effects of the cant on the main line can just be seen on this passenger train. All still a work in progress:

[TonyMont]

Hi Peter,
That looks great, it always feels so good to get something moving reliably.
Regards Tony.

[petermeyer]

Looking at the video I posted I think the combination of angle and lighting makes the track formation look odd and the single slip and line into the goods yard hard to view. The check rails are also largish which is what I believe the LNWR practice was at the time but might distort the aspect.

Looking at this still photo compared to the original I think I have tried to construct a reasonable representation given the compromises dictated by the compression and much tighter curve to get it into my space.

IMG_2017.jpg

The cant on the outer (up) line runs through the platform but finishes in the centre of this formation. So there is no cant at the point of the switch blades or through the V. There is no cant on the inner (down) line till after this formation. Because of the slight chance of any minor cant having an effect and causing a kink, I set the goods yard 1mm below the running lines. The whole formation was built in situ on one sheet of ply and there might be a slight dip into the goods yard. This may well be prototypical as the running lines were more likely to be re-laid more often than the goods yard.

If anyone can see any major errors in this build, which is now over 10 years ago, please let me know.

[bécasse]

This may well be prototypical as the running lines were more likely to be re-laid more often than the goods yard.

Oddly, that may not be strictly true. Because yards were typically laid with well-worn secondhand (from running line) material, the critical bits of points and crossings often had to be replaced quite frequently although it obviously depended on the amount of use (and abuse) they got and the tolerance of the "authorities" to dealing with the results of derailments.

It was something that I and some colleagues discovered half-a-century ago when looking through photos which showed a particular small area of a yard over a couple of decades. One of those colleagues worked in the "pw business" and posed appropriate questions to older gangers who assured him that it had, indeed, been habitual practice. Plain track in yards, particularly at the far ends of sidings, could, on the contrary, have been in place for half-a-century or more, with just spot replacement of odd sleepers or broken chairs.