7mm Heybridge Basin

[Richard Gawler]

The portrait of the 3-plk wagon is rather tasty, nice work.

Thanks Graham. The "Stores" wagon was one of my first for 7 mm scale and for some reason I usually reach for it first if I want to try out a new loco or a new bit of track or whatever. It sort of fits the project - a doubtful provenance (="freelance design") and the right "look" for the place and time.

 

[spikey faz]

Hi Richard

I reckon once you've done the ballasting and added a few weeds here and there you'll have got the balance about right.

Mike

 

[Richard Gawler]

I reckon once you've done the ballasting and added a few weeds here and there you'll have got the balance about right.

"Heybridge Basin" hasn't shown up any ghastly problems likely to lead to untimely abandonment, and I want to take it through to a reasonable state of completion. Ballast and weeds will make a big difference, and then I can think about smaller things like the lever frame and an oil lamp.

But first! It is difficult to show an overall balance here, but the whole model does look a lot better if I add an extra 400 mm to the left.


I can use Module B from my first fiddle yard to do this.

This gives me space to include a level crossing with road access to the yard, and one or two more trees along the way to the fiddle yard.

Adding Module B gives me a few possible layouts with different overall lengths, all able to do much the same thing but with an extra wagon if I use the extension for the sea lock. If I am careful, Module B will still be able to fulfill most of its original role as a headshunt in the fiddle yard project too.

Of course, if I had made my sample track 20 mm longer this could be up and running in an hour, but I made the track for a display case and then decided the display looked much better without it . . .

 

[Richard Gawler]

I have managed to resolve a couple of long-term doubts and the model has left the stasis where it has been marooned for the last six weeks.

I have cancelled the Magnorail before starting it. The water can either be the most realistic thing I can manage, or something compromised for Magnorail; and really, if I hadn’t already got a box of Magnorail left over from an abandoned layout I wouldn’t be going out to buy one specially for this. So no moving swans.


Better still, I have started to repaint the rails. I tried so hard to give them a corroded-but-new appearance but they always seemed to jar.


I will be forever grateful to @Quintus for his suggestion to use Humbrol no.29 ‘Earth’. This sits just right for me, half-way between brand new rail and a main line encrusted with brake dust. I have mixed in some White and Leather to give a little variety, because I am trying to model a rural branch line not a steam shed. But the Earth really is a very useful colour.

I have a visitor to the railway later today. He has 70 years in 0 gauge against my three and a bit, so I’ll wait for the critique before continuing

 

[John57sharp]

I don't have any seniority to claim, but that track looks great to me Richard.

John

 

[Richard Gawler]

I actually painted the rails under artificial light, but I had done some test pieces in daylight so I knew what the colours were going to look like. I saw it all in daylight this morning, which prompted my last post. I am happy again with how things are going.

Anyway - the main comments today were, it is amazing how much can be fitted into a small space; and attention to detail is paramount on a small layout.

Some gulls and ducks would be good, swans would be doubtful (I didn’t mention the Magnorail!)

For the next modular layout, some semi-detached houses along the back. Individual semis to connect together, this would solve the problem of having to make a new backdrop panel for each permutation of modules

 

[Richard Gawler]

This sits just right for me, half-way between brand new rail and a main line encrusted with brake dust.

I don't want to mislead anyone with my track painting. I got the layout into the kitchen this morning, where there is much more daylight.


This is a long exposure in bright cloudy daylight, with much care for the white balance. This is closer to the colours I have painted.

The daylight seems to emphasise Peco's moulded wood grain more than I would really like, but the spikes look okay to me. The camera never lies, it just distorts the truth.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Something no-one tells you about modular layouts is, expect to want a fresh backdrop for every plausible configuration. This is my first for the Heybridge Railway: "Heybridge Basin with extension".

View attachment 220767
These M6 bushes go in with an allen key. They are an alternative to tee nuts, and the advantage for me is they can go in from the front. The thumb screws are by Ganter, thank you to Tony (@Osgood) for pointing me towards these.

View attachment 220769
The panel drops into the slot in the extension, and wraps around the back of the main baseboard.

View attachment 220768
Hardboard seems sensible for a curving panel.

. . .

The curving panel with its abrupt ends won't suit all tastes but I think it will work in my living room, which is where I will have to keep this model when I eventually get the main layout underway.

In my previous posts here I have used "backscene" rather loosely, to refer to the physical backdrop panel or to its illustration. So I have edited several older posts today to clarify where I am writing about the backdrop. This satisfies the inner nerd even if no-one else ever noticed.

. . .

Too late, I realised a modular layout needs multiple backdrop panels, one for each permutation of modules. To make a start, I bought a full 2.4 x 1.2 metre sheet of hardboard, and the timber merchant cut this into four strips for me.

There are plenty of warnings about hardboard warping. The first panel is now four months old and has kept its flatness. The material seems to be okay if you prime both sides, and use the right stuff to do the priming. Rustin’s MDF sealer and a decorator’s acrylic primer/undercoat have been successful. What did not work at all well was to try diluted PVA glue on one of the backs. I might as well have put the board out into the rain. So now I have three panels instead of four.


The second panel is long enough to serve Module B as well as the diorama board and its extension.

Although I am lucky to have my hobby room I do not have a workshop. So I cut the board to size in the kitchen and did this test fit in the living room. Then I painted the panel in the garden room and did the final fitting out in the hobby room.


The reinforcements are holding the panel flat above Module B.


The new panel drops into the slot in the extension (same as the first panel) so I only need one thumbwheel to hold it in place. Which is fortunate because this is the only thumbwheel I can reach when the layout is in its place in the hobby room.


I really like the overall effect here, I think the shape is easier on the eye and it makes the model look more interesting.


Nevertheless, this is taking me down a route to more woodwork, to enclose the fiddle yard. I really don’t want to tackle this yet.

There is also the matter of the illustration! I was terrible in art lessons at school, and I dropped the subject at 13. The breadth of modelling on WT does rather show how some projects excel in the artistic sides of things. I am far happier with a soldering iron than a paintbrush in my hand, so I think I will best live with the magnolia for a while.

 

[Richard Gawler]

. . .

I have extended the under-baseboard tiebar as suggested by Simon.

View attachment 212036
The block of plywood is here to make sure I get enough throw from the point mechanism. I cut the block oversize to give me more area for the glue holding it under the baseboard.

This is a “Blue Point” mechanism of North American origin. It gives me a latching mechanism and a changeover switch, but the action above the baseboard is as clunky as a solenoid

The mechanism supports a second push rod, so I could arrange control from the front of the layout one day if this is useful.

The push rod is, of course, a bicycle spoke. The nipple can get a locknut when I find a suitably primordial-spec fixing. Probably a "2-56".

The longer backdrop means I cannot reach the control knob for the A6 point. I am fortunate, the Blue Point device allows mechanical linkages from both sides at the same time.


The clevis is from the world of R/C planes and boats and was tapped M2. The bicycle spoke, whilst 2 mm diameter, is threaded "2-56" and as a compromise I tapped the clevis 8BA (!) and managed to screw the two together.


It was nice to get the lathe out to make the knob for the front.

So, a mechanical point mechanism with dual front and rear control. My first

The Setrack point still has its over-centre spring and I can flick the tiebar across with my fingers. I only need the push rod for this point if I am trying to show off the layout, when I will be standing at the back.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Adding the front-mounted point control meant I was ready for a mate to bring round his class 50.


Placing this behemoth on the track it made a horrible buzzing noise ("DCC-ready” claimed) and I had to disconnect my high frequency lighting unit before proceeding.


A combination of one tree and a mainline loco will pretty much hide the exit to the fiddle yard. The loco ran fine through my A6, but I forgot to try it on the radius 2 of the Setrack point.


I am only coping with 0 gauge because I am building a tiny railway with tiny stock.

This class 50 is amazingly heavy. It felt like it should be depressing the track at each rail joint, this didn’t happen but the wheelsets did manage resounding clicks along the way. I am not tempted, but it is quite a thing all the same.

 

[timbowales]

I've got a soft spot for the 50's, honorary "Warships"

 

[steve50]

I've just bee browsing through your thread. That's a great project you have there, some fine modelling and I love the inspiration from the real location, a place I used to know well in my days as a Drayman!
How will you operate the layout, is the stock propelled in or would there be a loco in the kick back siding?

 

[Richard Gawler]

How will you operate the layout, is the stock propelled in or would there be a loco in the kick back siding?

In real life I think the location would be worked by a loco and a horse. I have both but the horse lacks animation. So I want to use a mixture of rope shunting, a local 'pilot' loco, and simple push-pull operations. The pilot will be 'Lady Marion'. I have got as far as writing up some cards for wagons and their loads, buying a set of playing cards and even compiling a detailed list of train formations.

I imagine, each freight operation will begin by removing whatever stock is in the sidings before bringing in one or two new wagons and placing them in the goods yard or beside the platform. These will be interspersed by passenger services, which can be a push-pull (one Stroudley brake third) or a slightly more conventional train using a saloon and a brake van. The push-pull having the advantage it can arrive and depart while there are other wagons and a loco on the layout.

The track gets clogged up very easily if there is a goods brake van involved so freight trains might have a red flag on the last wagon instead. I am told the Ffestiniog Railway did this. So "my railway my rules" but trying to find a precedent for individual practices.

 

[Dog Star]

Severn & Wye, before the take over by the GWR and MR, tied a leafy bough on the top of the buffers of the end vehicle.

 

[simond]

Severn & Wye, before the take over by the GWR and MR, tied a leafy bough on the top of the buffers of the end vehicle.

That sounds like a typical “hole in the road” sign in Pune from my days there.

 

[Joe's Garage]

Hi Richard
I do like the 50s...they used to disturb my teaching at Exeter College in Queen Street Annex coming up from the GW station!!
Project looking very good. Is the flat bottom rail spiked to the sleepers?
Cheers Julian

 

[magmouse]

The Ffestiniog ‘last vehicle’ sign - embedded image from It’s not Cheap, but it is Unique – Inside Motion

Nick.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Is the flat bottom rail spiked to the sleepers?

Yes - I posted quite a lot about the tracklaying because it was all a bit of an adventure for me.

adding the spiked track

 

[Joe's Garage]

Thanks Richard will go back
Julian

 

[steve50]

In real life I think the location would be worked by a loco and a horse. I have both but the horse lacks animation. So I want to use a mixture of rope shunting, a local 'pilot' loco, and simple push-pull operations. The pilot will be 'Lady Marion'. I have got as far as writing up some cards for wagons and their loads, buying a set of playing cards and even compiling a detailed list of train formations.

I imagine, each freight operation will begin by removing whatever stock is in the sidings before bringing in one or two new wagons and placing them in the goods yard or beside the platform. These will be interspersed by passenger services, which can be a push-pull (one Stroudley brake third) or a slightly more conventional train using a saloon and a brake van. The push-pull having the advantage it can arrive and depart while there are other wagons and a loco on the layout.

The track gets clogged up very easily if there is a goods brake van involved so freight trains might have a red flag on the last wagon instead. I am told the Ffestiniog Railway did this. So "my railway my rules" but trying to find a precedent for individual practices.

I always wonder how to operate a small layout with plausibility and that sounds perfect, a strange as it may sound that has stopped me building a few ideas as I wasn't sure about operation. The layout is looking great, look forward to seeing some more updates.