Double Crossing

After treating Gunnmere to a face-lift we decided to do the same to Coneyvale Halt at the weekend.

This little station is situated just south of the viaduct and is primarily used by workers at the adjacent Coal Depot although walkers and climbers visiting the area around the viaduct use it too.

We have also added some cross-over points here to allow trains to and from the Depot to easily access the Up line, something that we failed to do when we first decided to include a halt here. This time we used Peco Electro-frog points and these look much better than the insul-frog variety. The only thing that we had to do was to put an insulated rail joiner on to the two rails emanating from the frog.

As there is no footbridge here since it is difficult to include one on such a small and slightly staggered station, passengers needing to cross the line must do so via the barrow crossing which we also installed at the weekend.

We have not quite finished our work here but hope to do so next weekend and I will, of course, post photos of the result next week.

Track Changes

After a bit of a hiatus as far as blog posts go, methinks that it is high time for an update on our progress and, having almost completed the Diesel Depot, we decided to turn our attention to Gunnmere, the main intermediate station on the layout.

As can be seen from the bottom photograph (taken in April 2008) this was originally going to be terminus station with a facility for a locomotive runaround on the up line. However, when we could extend the line into the other half of The Shed, Gunnmere was lengthened and converted to a through station. 

Unfortunately, in installing the runaround, we had to kink the track slightly in order to prevent loco buffers hitting the platform when crossing from one line to the other. This was in the day when we had not discovered Express Points and were still somewhat green when it came to track laying. That said, the kink was camouflaged beneath the canopies and was not too noticeable. It was noticeable, however, as soon as we made Gunnmere a through station with less canopies at which time the crossover points also became, well, pointless!

We also had an issue with the up line as it entered Gunnmere, under the road bridge in the distance. A slight gap had appeared in the track that was sufficient to derail some of our goods trucks.

Now, though, after two or three sessions ripping up track and relaying it, the points, the kinks and the gaps have all been removed and the track through the station is now much improved.

While we were working on the permanent way we also took the opportunity to revamp the station itself. We have long been unhappy with the look of Gunnmere using, as it does, original Hornby platform sections. These have always looked somewhat plasticky with gaps and, compared to Sueston and Petersfield, it looked very unrealistic.
So, we covered the platform with Metcalfe Tarmac Sheets and faced it with some of the Metcalfe Stone sheets. We had a few of the platform edging sheets, that come with their stone platform kit but this was insufficient for our needs. So we scanned one of these strips and created our own!

Originally, the large station building was on the down line while a couple of the smaller buildings were on the up line. Other buildings were also further along both platforms but looked silly because they were really too wide for the narrow platform. So, by creating some extra width to both platforms at the north end of the station, we were able to have the larger building together with the gents toilet on the up platform and almost all of the other smaller buildings on the down line. 

To allow us to increase the size of the platforms here we had to lose a short length of the branch line track as well as some of the car park but this was a small price to pay for what is, I believe, a vast improvement.

Time 4 Launch!

Following on from the previous posting, here is Tri-ang Railways 4-Rocket Launcher which, like the Searchlight Wagon, was produced between 1962 and 1965.

It was also sold individually as well as part of "The Defender Train Set" and, again, is rare to find in a boxed, working condition as per the one shown here.

The Catalogue Nº was R.343 and its Running Nº was, as it was with the Searchlight Wagon, TR 7191.

Light Show

The Tri-ang Railways Anti-aircraft Searchlight Wagon, Catalogue Nº R.341, was available between 1962 and 1965 and was part of Tri-ang's set of NATO / Battlespace rolling stock.

It is quite rare to find a boxed example of this wagon and even rarer to find one with the lamp still in full working order, as in the photo above.

The lamp picked up its current from the track and was available both individually and, also, as part of "The Defender Train Set".

This train set consisted of a Class 08 diesel shunter, the searchlight wagon, 4-rocket launcher wagon and exploding car and was produced in 1964 only.

Snow Fun!

More work took place on the Diesel Depot at the weekend although, because the inclement weather meant that some of us decided not too venture out, I found myself working alone in the Shed this week - it was nice and quiet though!

The first job was to solder wires from the Bus to the re-aligned track that now passes through the Washer Plant. I then pinned this length of track down to the board and painted the sleepers dark brown.

This done, I then stuck the Depot Crane into position and laid some more scatter.

The final job of the afternoon, before venturing out into the grey and snowy winter's evening, was to finish tacking the plywood wall that now surrounds the depot prior to covering it with Metcalfe Brick Wall sheets in order to make it look like a wall and match, more or less, the wall of the Fuel Storage Tanks.

Snow is very pretty and can be fun too - if you don't have to drive in it!

Still, spring surely cannot be too far away now and, in the more immediate future, I am hoping that the wintry weather will not prevent things from getting back to normal down the shed this weekend.

A Moving Story

"The sole surviving Class 17 Clayton diesel-electric Bo-Bo, the former D8568,
left the Ribblesdale Cement Co. Ltd., Clitheroe, on Wednesday, February 9
for its new home on the North Yorkshire Railway. The main picture shows D8568
being loaded up for the two-day journey, and the inset shows it en route
on the M62 near Junction 17.

Here is another photograph or, more correctly, two photographs, scanned from the pages of Rail Enthusiast. These photos show the only surviving member of the Class 17 fleet of 117 Type 1 locomotives leaving the Ribblesdale Cement Co Ltd for its new home at the North Yorkshire Railway.

The photograph, and its inset, were featured in the May 1983 edition of the magazine and both pictures were taken by M J Symons.

The caption that accompanied the photos is also included above.

The Class 17s were built by Clayton Locomotives of Tutbury and D8568 was constructed in the autumn of 1963.

The Claytons were fitted with two 450 HP Paxman engines and were the only main line diesel loco to have flat engines, where the pistons went from side to side rather than the more usual up and down.

D8568 was delivered to Haymarket near Edinburgh in January 1964 before moving to Polmadie near Glasgow in September 1968. It remained working here until it was withdrawn in October 1971 having, as a result, spent all of its working life based in Scotland.

The Class 17 locos were designated by BR as the standard Type 1 locomotive and were supposed to have replaced the English Electric Class 20s. This was because their centrally positioned cab was meant to give drivers much better visibility although, because of the long 'noses', this was not necessarily the case.

As it turned out, of course, the Class 17's proved to be extremely unreliable, which meant that withdrawals began as early as 1968 at a time when some of the members had only been in service for four years. This made them one of the least successful and shortest lived of BRs main line locomotives.

All of the class, with the exception of D8568, were scrapped, although the final two were not actually cut up until 1978.

After its withdrawal in 1971, D8568 went to Hemelite in Hemel Hempstead and, then, to Ribblesdale Cement before being saved for preservation.

It is now in operation at the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway having completed a successful test run in March 2011 following a major overhaul.

Washer Room

 

Work continued on the Diesel Depot at the weekend and, as you can see, we have had a bit of a change-around. This was necessary after we discovered that the left-hand buffer on the larger locos just managed to catch the side of the Washer Plant as they entered it. 

This was due to the slight curve in the track between the bridge and the Washer Plant  and was something that we had not properly tested previously - DUH!

So, with another lesson duly learned, we found that we could simply swap the Washer with the Depot Crane and, also, make the track that passes through the Washer a longer straight section. This would then eliminate any curves and give even the largest of our locos enough room to pass through the washer without any interference.

The track just beyond the washer has not been tacked down as yet because we have to connect it to the bus wires running beneath the layout. 

However, because there are obstacles underneath the baseboard, we cannot drop wires down beside the track and will have to run one of them beneath this section of track. before it is tacked into place. This should be done this coming weekend and, then, we can continue landscaping the depot before we can add figures etc.

One other change that we made this weekend was to add a two-aspect coloured light signal to control locomotives leaving the Depot. This signal is the one that was replaced at Sueston and is perfectly placed here for telling my drivers when it is safe to rejoin the main line. 

Of course, whether the more zealous amongst them will actually obey the signal is another matter.