Worsley Dale Garden Railway

[mick]

I decided to use the airbrush in the attic this afternoon as that's where it's been stored for the past few months. It also gave me the opportunity to run the loco's round Skew Bridge once they'd been weathered.

37411 and 37419 have now had their chassis weathered as well as their roofs and a little extra weathering on their bonnet tops. I coupled them together on the rake of BDA wagons as that's the most appropriate load up there. Those BDA's are in need of weathering too.

37025 has also had some additional weathering to its roof as it looked a bit too 'brown' previously. I allowed it to dry by letting it take over from 411 to have a run out.

Unfortunately it appears that 411 has gained a slight wobble from somewhere, which annoys the hell out of me, so I'll have to take that one apart again to investigate. Hopefully it will be an easy fix.

[scoobyra]

025 looks great Mick (I’m not really in to the EWS tractors)

[jimbob]

Have to say those pictures had me fooled l thought they were real 12in /ft scale.

[mick]

6 hours ago, scoobyra said:

025 looks great Mick (I’m not really in to the EWS tractors)

Oh I think 37s are one of the few loco's that actually suit EWS livery and it was a video of a pair working the West Highland line that made me want to create the double header.  They make a nice change from large logo and they're something I can realistically use either outdoors or up in the attic.

1 hour ago, jimbob said:

Have to say those pictures had me fooled l thought they were real 12in /ft scale.

Thanks Jim. I'd forgotten just how good it felt to be up with the attic layout - I've spent so much time lately outdoors that it's been completely overlooked. There's still work to be done up there but at least there's plenty of opportunities for running trains now and it's not all about construction. I still need to get the hang of the camera's and find the best way of taking photos and videos.

[Andrew]

Yes, definitely a couple of superb photos there, Mick.  They prompt an idea. 

You could use them to start a new thread of "realistic" photos, which contributors would add to when they thought they had pictures looking more like real life than a model. 

It's only slightly ironic that your initial photos to start the ball rolling are taken indoors!

[mick]

It's been a while but I had Worsley Dale up and running again yesterday albeit with a very limited roster. Almost all of the stock had been removed from the layout for safe keeping while I've been enjoying following other interests and so only a couple of loco's were brought back out in order to run some of the new Heljan Cargowaggons.

Typically, I'd previously sold several Cargowaggons a few years ago believing that they wouldn't fit in with my plans at the time, but then looking at videos of the later EWS period it seems they would have had a place after all! Anyway, I now have five of them and one of the videos I've seen shows a rake of them running behind a pair of class 37s in EWS livery and so here's my take on it. Okay, so the wagons need some weathering but that will give me something to do later.

Once again it was a relief to find that all that was needed was a wipe over the rails with a Garryflex rubber before sending out the 'IPA' laden track cleaner before I was able to commence running. Even the 'spring points' needed very little attention. I've also refrained from feeding the birds so the track was much cleaner than it normally is - just a few plants in need of a trim.

 

[mick]

Here's a very brief video made up of clips taken during yesterday's running session, the final clip showing the train passing over the sprung points before crossing onto Low Shott viaduct.

 

[aussietmrail]

Hi Mick, awesome video , does the UK have long freight trains or set to a certain length , the Aussie east coast  rail corridor can't have double stack container trains because of height issues , with the old tunnels  especially in QLD and the boarder tunnel.

I have finely started  work on setting up the  large curved radius decking linking the back main line up with the front and access to the terminus station platforms.

Nice Monday morning here , Tony from down under

 

[mick]

48 minutes ago, aussietmrail said:

...awesome video , does the UK have long freight trains or set to a certain length...

Thanks for that Tony.

Trains over here in the UK are certainly not long compared to those in some other countries including Australia. I doubt our congested railways and railway infrastructure could handle them. On my attic layout I run trains which at the time were of realistic length - that is a maximum of 36 MGR wagons or 19 HTA bogie hoppers. There was one particular local daily working that could handle 47 MGR wagons. Later on they began running certain routes with 54 empty MGR wagons as a way of moving 3 sets of wagons with just two journeys and I believe the capacity over the Settle & Carlisle line was also increased using additional HTA hoppers. 

Similarly my outdoor layout runs trains of prototypical length for the type of line it portrays. Perhaps that's a good thing considering the cost of model wagons these days!

[aussietmrail]

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Trains over here in the UK are certainly not long compared to those in some other countries including Australia. I doubt our congested railways and railway infrastructure could handle them. On my attic layout I run trains which at the time were of realistic length - that is a maximum of 36 MGR wagons or 19 HTA bogie hoppers. There was one particular local daily working that could handle 47 MGR wagons. Later on they began running certain routes with 54 empty MGR wagons as a way of moving 3 sets of wagons with just two journeys and I believe the capacity over the Settle & Carlisle line was also increased using additional HTA hoppers. 

 

Hi Mick, had a bit of trouble with the Quote, those MGR wagons are they those blue ones in the video , I don't know a lot about UK freight wagons , over here QR coal trains running the Dalby  to Port of Brisbane corridor train length is 40 wagons, will check that out from my friend that is a coal train driver , that is a good length, my train length are 25 wagons . Biggest passenger train the Indian Pacific 18 cars plus a auto carrier and two locos  can make up 28 passenger cars . The Ghan train has 44 cars very long, peak times need a big layout for them .

Tony from down under

 

[Clay Mills Junction]

11 hours ago, aussietmrail said:

 

32 TEA or TEB 102t bogie tanker wagons behind a Class 60 is about the longest regular train in the UK. That is 590m long.
I've seen longer infrastructure trains but they only ran as specials, like this one at 770m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvTZMBR28z8

MGR is short for Merry-go-round. They were the answer to keeping Britain's coal fired power stations fed with coal. Each colliery and Power Station had a loop line through the loading / unloading facility so the trains didn't have to reverse and therefore have loco changes. The locos also had a super slow setting that would keep the train at a steady pace through the facilities. That's not special now, but in the 70s it was new.

The MGR trains were mostly rakes of HAA wagons. https://images.app.goo.gl/6tFdVnGnxvTEgV4H7  There were other wagon types through.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Clay Mills Junction
Adding MGR answer

[ba14eagle]

19 hours ago, Clay Mills Junction said:

32 TEA or TEB 102t bogie tanker wagons behind a Class 60 is about the longest regular train in the UK. That is 590m long.
I've seen longer infrastructure trains but they only ran as specials, like this one at 770m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvTZMBR28z8

 

 

That's the High Output Ballast Cleaner - they are the longest trains I've dealt with, albeit only on occasional weekends. Quite often top and tailed (loco each end) and in some places there are special instructions which allow the rear loco driver to give assistance - something not normally allowed or required on the UK network, these days.

The MendipRail contract sees trains of over 2000ft, several times a day, each weekday. Loaded, these trains can weigh upto 4700 tonnes (trailing).  

[mick]

Since mid-July I've had two class 37 sound decoders sitting on my desk waiting to be installed. One of them was for 37248 Loch Arkaig in West Coast Railways livery which had previously been fitted with sound back in the Selby Garden Railway days but I felt it was in need of upgrading as it is one of my favourite locos. The second I hadn't quite made my mind up about but surely a couple of months or so should be sufficient time to make a decision?

Loch Arkaig originally had a Loksound v3.5 decoder fitted alongside a standard 100ohm speaker sitting on top of the chassis and pointing up to the roof. The sound wasn't too bad but a little too quiet and not up to the standard of some of my most recent sound installs. Now, although it's a tedious process, I prefer to fit speakers in the fuel tanks of class 37s and I've been using Rail Exclusive Chunky Boom Box speakers, pairing them with the latest v5 loksound, Zimo, and D&H decoders depending on availability. It's probably about as good as you can get without resorting to cutting into the chassis itself to fit even larger speakers. A slight disadvantage is that you need to discard the cast weight from the fuel tank in order to fit the speaker but it doesn't make any noticeable difference to a loco's performance on Worsley Dale. So Loch Arkaig now has fuel tank speakers and an improved soundfile.

One of my other class 37 models is of 37254, a factory sound fitted model which developed a fault with the decoder once out of warranty. The sound played okay but the loco just wouldn't move. I had completely forgotten that this was a loco I had previously modified by fitting a 100ohm bass reflex speaker in the fuel tanks and so I thought I'd install the old v3.5 decoder from Loch Arkaig in this one and see what it sounded like. It sounds really good - almost as good as the new 37248! So that's 2 more 37's making their way onto Worsley Dale in the coming days but there remains one new decoder to find a home for.

I've decided the second decoder needs to be fitted in a coal sector loco because I plan on adding some additional coal traffic in the form of a few PFA containers. I've got two coal sector liveried 37s, 37692 'Lass O'Ballochmyle' and 37698 'Coedbach'. The first clearly has a more Scottish name whereas the second has its origins in Wales but neither loco spent much time north of the border so does it really matter? My plan is to install the decoder into one of them and then perhaps swap the bodies around rather than spending more money on yet another decoder. I'll have a think about that.

That leaves me with one defective decoder from 37254 which I could possibly use in a dummy loco similar to how I've adapted EWS liveried 37419 for double heading. I'll need to sort through which loco's I have left that might make a suitable donor. It would be a shame not to use it and double headed 37s are always a welcome sight.

It's hard to believe that most of the above mentioned loco's have been in my collection for a decade now and yet they still give pleasure and enjoyment. Nine years ago I was filming Loch Arkaig on the SGR! The design of the Bachmann model has changed very little during that time so they're still as good as some of the very latest releases and yet they cost much less back in those days.

I had hoped to run some trains today but instead I've spent the day stacking a delivery of logs for use over winter and cutting up the wooden pallets that they were delivered on so I'm hoping this settled weather lasts a few days more so I get them on track and in front of the camera.

[mick]

On 07/09/2020 at 00:42, Clay Mills Junction said:

...The locos also had a super slow setting that would keep the train at a steady pace through the facilities. That's not special now, but in the 70s it was new....

And of course 56073 and 56074 were supposed to be able to do that remotely without intervention from the driver. It never appeared to be very successful in my view.

[mick]

I've had a good day out on the layout today and managed to run the loco's I've recently been working on as well as give a quick outing to a few new wagons

Unfortunately 37254 has been erratic, stalling at the same two locations on almost every circuit. It seems like it's got a problem with the pickups so perhaps there's a connection come unsoldered or I've not put it back together properly. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about and I'll have it up and running well soon. It's very smooth once it's in motion.

D6607 'Ben Cruachan' has been on track again today hauling blue/grey Mk1's. Very reliable and sounds very good.

4464 'Bittern' has had another run out but its performance hasn't really improved a great deal. It seems really sluggish when moving off from a standing start but runs okay 'ish' once it's moving. Prone to derailment too, especially the cartazzi truck. The smoke effect can be good at times and there's a decent clip on todays video to that effect but it's not with using either of the smoke oils that Dapol supplied.

37248 'Loch Arkaig' always looks the part and sounds as good as it looks. This one, along with D6607, would benefit from a light weathering especially around the chassis area and ploughs. Something else I need to get round to doing.

I've taken delivery of a few more PFA wagons with Cawoods containers that I intend adding to the garden layout stock as well as a trio of the new Cavalex BBA wagons in Railfreight livery. I never thought about taking photos but there's a single clip of them towards the end of the video below. It's hard to believe that you can condense a whole days work running trains in to just a few minutes of video.

Here's the results of my efforts today (with similar pic to the one above).

 

[mick]

I'm not sure where today has gone 😲 It seems no sooner had I set myself up in the shed than it was starting to get dark and rather cold.

My plans were to finish installing a sound decoder in a coal sector 37 and take a look at 37254 to see why it keeps stopping in the same location all the time. As it happens I've changed things around slightly and a new 37/0 sound decoder from Jamie Goodman has been installed in 37248 'Loch Arkaig' while the decoder from Loch Arkaig has gone into 37698 'Coedbach'.

37248 now sounds stunning - Jamie has made a fantastic job of the 37/0 and the Rail Exclusive fuel tank mounted speaker really does do it justice. I just left it running for ages while I got on with other things.

It's nice to have a coal sector liveried 37 up and running now but there was a problem with it derailing on one of the points. No other loco has a problem there so I've spent ages messing around with the bogies, checking wheel back to backs and so on. I've got my fingers crossed now that I've got it sorted - it's done a number of laps without hitting the deck so I'm hopeful. Some of the loco's can be a real pain at times.

Speaking of which, I moved on to 37254 thinking it would be a simple soldered joint or loose wire to the pickups that kept making it stall but they all seemed fine. I say stall but in reality it just slowed down almost to a halt rather than stopping altogether, before moving slowly off again. As with 37698 I've checked and eased the wheel back to backs as I was barely able to get the gauge between some of the wheels and again I think I've cured it. Several circuits without a problem but it was getting too dark and cold to stay out any longer.

I was looking forward to taking some more video or at least a few photos but I never even had the time to put my hand on the camera. There's always tomorrow and they say it's going to warm up a bit - I do hope so as I've had to put a jumper on today.

[mick]

37698 started the day as it did yesterday. I turn my back and it derails on the same set of points. If I sit there watching or gently running it back and forth over the junction there isn't a problem until I turn away when it begins ploughing through the ballast again. In the end I dismantled the leading bogie, rechecked all the wheel back to backs and put it back together again. I've now managed to get some video of it so hopefully this time the problem is cured once and for all. When I've had enough running I'll get round to detailing and weathering to finish it off. I do like my coal traffic! There are another 3 PFA's to add to the rake when they arrive which I think will be sufficient outdoors. They also need weathering and some coal loads adding.

I noticed 47522 'Doncaster Enterprise' on the shelf earlier and remembered it's one of my few sound-fitted class 47s so I decided to give it a run out, placing it at the head of the ballast train. I really do need to get some more 47s up and running as it's all getting a bit top heavy with 37s.

I'll add some video footage later this evening featuring the above two trains.

[mick]

I've uploaded another video with footage taken today. The bright and breezy conditions made capturing decent footage difficult with plenty of distortion from the wind noise so there's action from inside the shed area too where it was a bit calmer, though not so bright.

There's a full cold start-up sequence from 37248 'Loch Arkaig' at the beginning which takes up the first 60 seconds or so but it's really nice to listen to - well perhaps for the one time it might be! I suppose it might grind a bit after a while so apologies if it does. You can always skip the first minute should you choose.

 

[Noisynoel]

Fantastic video Mick, it's prodded me to do a progress report on Pentney Parkway. I do like the rock cutting with the house in the background, looks excellent

[mick]

5 hours ago, Noisynoel said:

Fantastic video Mick, it's prodded me to do a progress report on Pentney Parkway. I do like the rock cutting with the house in the background, looks excellent

Look forward to see your update in due course Noel.

The BR Mk1 Pullman's behind Loch Arkaig in yesterday's video were coupled together straight from the box in order to quickly make a suitable rake. Viewing the video I noticed the large gap between coaches which I decided to sort out today and so the tension locks have been removed and replaced with the R8220 close-couplers that I've used on a number of coaches already - in fact believe it or not I was even able to remember the Hornby catalogue number without needing to look it up! I've had to file down a small portion of bufferbeam to allow the couplers to move sideways but it's not noticeable. Each end of the rake has a Kadee coupler for attaching to a loco.

I've been able to put my hands on a few more Mk1 Pullmans so despite the fact that they don't fit in either station I've been running round with 11 behind the loco which is a more realistic load and even though 37248 has had the weight removed from the fuel tanks in order to fit a large speaker it has no problem hauling the extended set.

I've also found my BR Mk1 full brake in western region chocolate and cream so I'll add that to the appropriate set too.

I'll probably just take a few photos when I go back out there (though it has now just gone 5pm) and leave videos for another day.