Under Construction - Birmingham UK


MilesWestern said:
Yikes! 800 ft of track, not to mention all the fancy work you'll have to wire under switches!
Click to expand...

Once you build your own track you can lay it exactly where you need it. As the fiddleyard will be shared with 2 other layouts. One of them wants West Coast mainline sets pushed into it at a scale 90mph (a lot of use was made here of driving vans and loco's on 1 end of the train only - normally Glasgow end so they pushed south) So we have settled on a minimum radius in the curves of 9 feet. This results in some pretty big pointwork (switches?). Below is a test vee I built to see if a 1 in 25 crossing would work. The whole point will be getting on for 4 feet long.

veetest.jpg


Plan of the fiddleyard

fiddleyardwhole20.jpg


I have tried to keep it as elegant as possible.

The Modernization makes sense, but it seems like it took a long time to transition..didn't it all end in 1967?
Click to expand...

It never really ended TBH. A lot of the problem is the government insisted locos were built here. this resulted in many classes being ordered off the drawing board and quite simply not working. Some lasting less than a decade. Why the government didn't go the USA and order proven designs we'll never know.

Jim
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi All

I appreciate that all of this UK stuff I do wont really have much relevance to the majority on here but this might be a little different. A little idea i had a few years ago - working brake pipes! These are really simple to make and even easier to use. Articles on these appeared in DEMU 's update magazine and Model Railway Journal. You can download the Update article from my site (go to others and then articles)

Jim

IMG_2345.jpg

IMG_2343.jpg
 
ALL!!..it is just GREAT sir!
Like "the plank" idea( same word as in our language! ( plank = flat piece of wood =) )

Jos
 
That's Remarkable! I had the exact same idea a year ago (using small magnets on some sort of pipe for a brake pipe), but had no idea as to the magnet or the brakepipe.

Could you Send a long legnth of that tubing and a bunch of magnets to me? I'll pay for them! PM me, please! :)
 
Hi All

This summer we staged a trail run of setting up the fiddleyard. The design was for the overall length to be 52 feet and it came out to within half a millimetre of the design. Not to bad hu?

We are sharing the fiddleyard between 3 layouts and the first (Calcutta Sidings 2) will most likely be the smallest at the current 52 feet. New Street is likely to be 10 - 15 feet longer.

Picture is © Tim Horn

Jim

storageyardtjh0416thjunef3.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi All

Not posted anything for a while so (in a shameless attempt to bump this back up the list) - Focus has recently been on my model of the Signal box. I originally used resin cold casting to produce the distictive cladding (aint 1960's architecture great? Ermmm NO!) But having looked at it for a long time (and spent a fortune on resin) the inevitable conclusion is that it isnt good enough! You can see the resin castings in the bottom of the picture. The "thing" in the top of the picture uses Evergreen L section instead and I am much happier with that (costs a second small fortune though!).

Jim

_5270.jpg
 
Nice work Jim,,,
for our american cousins benefit Jim has just had an article in a magazine showing his remarkable workmanship close up, the article covered catenary of all types used in Birmingham new st

10/10 for that jim
 
Thanks Guys :)

NYSW F45 - the catenary is not powered but it could be. With DCC there is no gain to be had form doing so and it actually makes things more complex. Plus how will I tell a loco to raise its pan if it isnt touching the wire? In all other respects its fully funtional. Working tensioners etc

Cheers

Jim
 
jim smith-wright said:
Thanks Guys :)

NYSW F45 - the catenary is not powered but it could be. With DCC there is no gain to be had form doing so and it actually makes things more complex. Plus how will I tell a loco to raise its pan if it isnt touching the wire? In all other respects its fully funtional. Working tensioners etc

Cheers

Jim
Click to expand...

true. only reason i asked at the local HO club here in NJ they made an 0 scale GG1 able to pickup power from the pans and made the overhead catenary powered. But from the looks of it the owner of hte gg1 must have passed cause its been on display for years.
 
NYSW,
Where in North Jersey are you? I live in Basking Ridge. Also, what club are you talking about with the O scale GG1... Carlstadt?
 
Jim
Your layout and website of it is most impressive. The catenary made my jaw drop. I need to start building some of that to make my GG-1 look right at home.
 
Jim, that is some fantastic wire work. I can't even get two telegraph pole wires on straight. :) I'm confused by what you call a "signal tower" in your photos. It appears to be what we would call a cooling tower as part of the climate control system on an office building. Is that what it is or is a signal tower something else in the UK?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top