Great Chesterford Junction Part Two

G`day Tony,

Yes I`ve actually done that myself to improve the cheap Chinese trees, but in this case the tree was just wrong........I`m getting fussy I guess..???

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G`day Captain Pugwash,

I`m glad you tried the downpipe method. I think it makes quite a difference to the models.

Have you tried the pop rivets as chimney pots.????.....they scrub up pretty well too...

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G`day Folks,

Here comes your final serving of pics of Railway Terraces at GCJ.

I made myself a tree to act as a scenic blender next to the low relief cottages. This is the first time I`ve done a tree with Jute rope instead of Jute string. It has opened up a few more possibilities using the rope, because it is much easier to establish branches in the tree and improve the overall look ,especially if you want to add some gaps in the tree. It`s also less time consuming.





The trunk for this one is quite substantial. It is a piece of gum tree twig that I picked up this morning whilst out walking. If you look at the twigs the right way up, they flare out at the point where they are branching out to a new branch / twig. I have cut the twig to incorporate the flared out portion and mounted it upside down so that it looks like the base of a tree. The texture of natural products is hard to beat as well.



I have also added bushes/foliage behind the wall and against the background and along the front of the wall and spilling onto the embankment.



This blending / softening with foliage on and around the hard structures starts to make the scene look more natural or even overgrown.???

A view taken from the road bridge



And one taken from the branch bay platform



So there you are folks......another step closer to the corner of the room. That`s about 14 feet of scenery done now.....

More as it happens

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Thanks Ron & Pete....

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Thanks Guys,

Now that`s a surprise......

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Thanks Gary & Chris......
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G`day Folks,

I have turned my attention over the last couple of days to sorting out my turntable.

It`s the Dapol kit version which was built some time ago and it relies on track alignment by sight. It works reasonably well but occasionally I get the odd derailment due to misalignment of the tracks. There is a small amount of play in the gears which translates to too much sideways movement on the bridge.

Probably the logical solution, an index ring, would have been best tended to during the build, however that didn`t happen because I thought the visual alignment could handle the task.....oh well you live and learn.....

Time to go back to first principles.....how do they do it on the real thing.???....Well I found some interesting info on Google. The info seems to relate to American railways however the fundamentals would be the same for just about any railway. The turntables rely on the main bearing under the center of the bridge to carry the load. The little outrigger wheels that follow the ring of track in the well, are purely to help with vertical alignment. When a loco is evenly balanced on the center of the bridge ( the sweet spot ) the bridge can rock slightly showing that it is finely balanced and therefore reduces the load on the main bearing.

This is exactly how my turntable is set up.......blind luck got me that far. The outrigger wheels are pretty much just for show and have no role to play in supporting the load on the bridge on my model. The main bearing on my model carries the load.

The real turntables are aligned by eye and sometimes require a bit of backwards and forwards adjustment by the operator, to align the tracks correctly. Once they are aligned, they are locked in place with various latching set ups which vary from location to location. The latching is essential to stop sideways movement of the bridge whilst a loco is attempting to use it. The latch again is done by hand. It can be a simple steel bar that fits into correctly aligned slots or it can be any one of various sliding latches operated by a lever.

So the question arose....do I create a manual latching system operated by the hand of God..?????

Well seeing as the other alternative is a complete rebuild, the answer is Yes !!!!!

I decided to use 4mm Pop rivets to make the latches.... because I had them. The heads are filed off and the shafts are bent at one end to form the sliding latch. This one is not finished yet but gives an idea of how it works. The tubes are Super glued to the sleepers.



I use my magnetic uncoupling hook to raise the handle on the latch.



And then push it forward into another tube in the end of the bridge.



The cosmetics have to be sorted out yet, but that is the easy bit.



This is how they scrub up. I have used a little bit of rail as a back stop so that the latch doesn`t pull all the way out of the tubes. That would be annoying.



I think they look OK....not quite 100% prototypical but there you are..????...The prototype would have the latch mounted on the bridge. To save some grief I`ve mounted them on the sidings.



They still need some touch ups.....but as I say .....that`s part of the easy job.



So you must be wondering if it works..????.....well yes it does and to be honest it feels a bit like you are operating the real thing instead of doing it remotely via index rings and stepper motors and enough integrated circuits to build a computer.

There is a video to accompany this post and apologies for the shaky camera, but you will get the gist of how it performs.

Turntable Latching Demo



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Yes Toto,

That`s right......I mean they may look a little big.....not prototypical if you like.....even ugly to some...however.....now the turntable is bug free and ready to be used as it should be used.

It is also prototypical in it`s operation if you can excuse the hand of God.???

I have given it the speed test by locking down both ends on the straight through road and running a loco at speed over it. ........No issues.....that`ll do me...

To improve it further cosmetically would mean a complete re-build and I`d rather not do that. The other alternative is to buy a commercial product which would blow the budget by a long way.....so here I stay with my AU$20.00 turntable....warts and all for the moment.

Some time in the future I may consider a scratch build......but that is just an idea at the moment and probably will stay an idea.

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OK Folks,

A couple of new ( old ) arrivals over the last couple of days. I`ve been shopping down at thE bay again and got a couple of bargains.

A 20 ton brake van from Dapol in beautiful condition and free running and a Match Truck and container from Mainline also in beautiful condition.





They just need the small coupling conversion to bring them right up to date.

Now a couple of atmospheric pics taken whilst out there in the shed taking the wagon pics.









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