4mm The Saga of Skeetsmere & The Norfolk Central Railway

[Herb Garden]

What's this? a new thread?

Well for some time now I've been thinking that my Skeetsmere project has outgrown itself on the Canary Sidings thread and it was time it branch(line)ed out on its own. It felt like the first trip out to workshop wise was a good point to make the change.

For those worried.... All loco, carriage and wagon matters will continue to be delt with by the CME at Canary Sidings...

For those who don't know (where have you been the last 12 months) Skeetsmere is my attempt to capture the essence of the Mid Suffolk Light Railway in it's 'heyday' (maybe that should be more like 'notlowday')


Anyway I won't repeat the wheres and whyfors of the history of this project they can be found on my Canary Sidings thread.


The layout is now back home. And although it worked really well at workshop wise, given how little testing was done before hand by the end of the day issues were beginning to show with the reliability of many aspects of the project and now it's endured a second car journey home some of those faults are more pronounced than before. Time needs to be taken to fix those.


I do have time though but not unlimited. Skeetsmere has allready got bookings to return to Workshop Wise next October and then potentially Workington next November in a preferably more complete state. I'm certainly hoping for a more finished item by next year but this time I've been clear from the outset that I will do what I can do but won't push myself against really hard to hit deadlines. Having built the current layout as it stands today in a year was a considerable feat and I'm impressed with myself for doing so but I'm not going to put myself under such pressure again unnecessarily.


Skeetsmere was designed from the off as both a standalone exhibition layout and for home use, but also as the start of a larger home system and over the next few months I also intend to start laying some of the foundations for the 'Norfolk Central Railway' alongside all the scenic work being done on the doyen of that system.


And there you have it... A starting point for a continued modelling journey. There have been points in the last year where I have loathed this layout project but since it's top notch performance at workshop wise I have found new heart for the project so let's see where it goes...

 

[NHY 581]

Excellent stuff. I could do with a bit of inspiration, George.
My own RTR based, Mid-Suffolk inspired plans for forum domination are having to take a momentary pause whilst I sort out a couple of other pressing matters ( mainly getting next year's SWAG Members Day off the ground ) but I'm hoping to commence Flaxfield before Christmas ( this year ! ).

That said, Blackwater Pier lies brooding above the book shelf, therefore, Great Eastern thoughts at my end as well.



 Rob

 

[Herb Garden]

Right... New year let's get cracking!

You will have thought by the radio silence regarding the layout that nothing has been happening with Skeetsmere. However, you would be wrong.

I've been playing trains!

The aim of this exercise is not just to have fun but to find the operational issues with the layout. I found a fair few at workshop wise but the last 2 months I've found a few more and fixed a few minor ones. The good news is the layout still works but much improvement is needed before it goes on tour again in October and November.

So the issue is are as follows:


Stock and couplings. by the end of WW I had one loco running and 2 wagons neither of which were appropriate. So those of you who follow canary Sidings will have noticed that a plethora of GER stock has been appearing and with a refined assembly process for sprat and winkle couplings we now have a fleet of useful wagons and some coaches on the way. Hopefully by WW 25 we will have enough to run a proper timetable. #151 has also been joined by newly DCC fitted #407 and #510. Although there is an issue with the latter which I will come to shortly.


There's a very sharp bend on the track from the fiddle yard which although the bucks can get over #510 can't... It just rides up and shorts.


There's another kink in the track when you exit the slip I to the loop. #being an 2-4-0 #151 copes most of the time but #407 nose dives the ballast.


Ground subsidence in the river bank means the signal is leaning alarmingly


There's a short somewhere on this point to access the rear siding


The merg servo 4 points controllers are proving a bit rough and hard to program


The fiddle yard cassettes are too short


The fiddle yard itself is sagging really badly. The main layout was level when this was taken.


And there is a massive step where the fiddle yard joins the layout. What ive created inadvertently is an uncoupling ramp!

Obviously the other thing is scenery that needs doing. Going to be a busy year!

 

[Osgood]

"Oh man - well at least the leaning signal is well-observed modelling of fenland subsidence"

 

[Herb Garden]

Anyone else suffering from storm damage after last weekend windy weather?

Well so is Skeetsmere.....


Because it was intended to be stored in an alcove at home but also be a show layout Skeetsmere always had a front and side exit from the layout which necessitated the need of a double slip on the way in. This works well but dictates some tight track geometry on the approach as seem previously.


A change of location for the layout has given me the opportunity to rethink this end of the layout as we now no longer need the front exit so this has allowed the double slip to be removed (and stored for safe keeping)



It looks a bomb site but a bit of work and some new track will allow this scene to be reborn. It's helpful as I can now simply the control system as well. I also hated the fact that two tracks crossed the stream together on one bridge. It just didn't look right.

 

[Herb Garden]

Bridge Over the River Skeet

All this digging about and clearing up the mill board meets that at some point track will have to go back in. This left a quandary about how to bridge the river. The initial thought had been to put another piece of foam board in place but I've thought better of it and have attempted some civil engineering.


The bridge started life as some girders from a classic Wills kit. Rightly or wrongly I get the impression Wills products get looked down on a bit now but I feel like they are a staple of the model railway hobby and Skeetsmere will include one or two items from the range .... Watch this space....

Some Wills English bond brick sheets, thanks @matto21 , were used to make some more appropriate abutments for the girders, the originals in the kit having been stone which isn't a common building material in east Anglia.

With careful planning I was able to get the whole bridge out of two sheets.


The bridge won't have a deck as such but the track will be supported by girders which have been added from plastrut material that I've had lying around for over a decade!


Final job was to build up a set of bridge pillars at each end. First one....


Then the other!


From a low level this little structure looks particularly good. For those who don't realise this is my first go for a very long time at making anything in plasticard and especially anything this complex so I'm really chuffed at the result.


Looks rather good with #151 balanced on top

 

[AJC]

That looks pretty good - the best of the Wills bridges, I think. Even the handrails aren’t too chunky. Obviously they could be finessed, or replaced with something (wooden fills were often used in some places), it could be better, but it doesn’t scream out as ‘Vari-Girders’ do.

Adam

 

[Herb Garden]

A pointless exercise


So from a few posts back you will remember I removed the double slip from the station throat at Skeetsmere. It's a pretty good bit of trackwork but not without it's faults so I took the decision to rebuild it as a normal set of points as the key parts like the crossing geometry and point blades




Well it's sorted of a method. Hear it is in place, roughly...



With the bridge in place and the trackwork coming together. Plus the armatures for some of the trees you can't start to see what I'm aiming for