Dublo 3 Rail Layout

Discussion in 'Members Personal Layouts' started by Wolseley, Nov 20, 2018.

  1. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    There were a number of Dublo "might have beens" some more interesting than others, the main ones being:
    LMS streamlined "Coronation" (not fully documented, but probably 1938);
    Southern "Lord Nelson" (1939);
    GW 56XX (1958 - abandoned after Trix model introduced);
    V2 2-6-2 (probably late 1950s);
    Diesel railcar (appears to have been abandoned after their Southern EMU was introduced);
    Western Class Diesel (abandoned after Trix model introduced);
    Warship Class Diesel (abandoned after Trix model introduced);
    BR 2-10-0 9F (1963 - elements of this one surfaced later as a Tri-ang/Hornby model) and;
    LMS Black 5 (undocumented and probably apocryphal).

    Apparently also, at one of their product development meetings, someone brought along a Tri-ang "Lord of the Isles and suggested that Meccano should produce something similar. There was some interest but, unfortunately, the company was then in the final stages of a terminal financial collapse, so nothing came of it.

    And that's just the locomotives. There were some other interesting items of rolling stock and lineside accessories as well.

    Jim
     
    Andy_Sollis likes this.
  2. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    3,896
    Likes Received:
    3,621
    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2018
    I have read of the V2 Plans, but not the others.

    interesting! What May have been eh?
     
  3. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    I am (rather slowly) getting on with fitting some lighting to the layout:

    P1010155.jpg

    P1010153.jpg
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2021
    Setaf, jakesdad13, Dr Tony and 2 others like this.
  4. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    I still have to install lights around the goods shed and engine shed, but I don't have enough lights at the moment to do that. I did have enough, however, to finish off the station and all its surrounds, including the house and the level crossing. I will be putting three or four lights in the station car park, but that will have to wait until I have more lights, although the wiring is in place waiting for them

    P1010158.jpg

    P1010157.jpg

    P1010156.jpg
     
  5. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    Well, when I started this layout, I decided I would keep it simple, say, two feeds, a few supplementary feeds and some isolating sections and that would be it. Then I decided that I would use electric signals and, for parts of the layout not easily reached, electric points and uncouplers. I also wired a couple of ammeters into the circuit to keep an eye on the current consumption of the locos (after all, most of them are around 60 to 70 years old). Then came the decision to install lighting.

    The wiring was meant to be simple, as I had never wired up anything more complex than fiddle yard to terminus layouts before, but I ended up with this:

    P1010159.jpg


    The two loose wires hanging down at the end are not something I forgot, by the way, they are wires for the lights in the station car park - something I hadn't thought about adding until I started putting in the lights so, of course, I didn't have anything to connect them to.....

    Jim
     
  6. Vinylelpea

    Vinylelpea Full Member

    Messages:
    733
    Likes Received:
    476
    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2017
    You're making me nervous I'm trying to keep my layout simple. :avatar:
     
  7. Dublo

    Dublo Full Member

    Messages:
    195
    Likes Received:
    406
    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2019
    Hello
    Like you Wolseley, I'm amazed at the amount of wiring that has gone into the Weldon's. I still haven't finished lighting the loco yard and then there's the Trix illuminated semaphore signals etc, etc.
    Still it all adds to the enjoyment of running " the perfect table top railway "
     
  8. Mark4mm

    Mark4mm Guest

    All that wiring, it's like spaghetti junction :avatar:In the end it adds to an awesome layout and lighting. :thumbs:
     
  9. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    Looking a bit lost and wondering where it is, a Queensland Railways cream shed:

    P1010160.jpg
     
    jakesdad13 likes this.
  10. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    I have recently given my two oldest Dublo locomotives a clean up and oiling. Both are post-war, a Sir Nigel Gresley and a Duchess of Atholl, and both have the old style horseshoe magnet motors, which dates them to 1948 or early 1949 and therefore also slightly older than me, but I digress......

    The A4 is the better runner of the two, but they still both perform remarkably well, given that they are 73 or 74 years old. The horseshoe motors do consume a bit more electricity that the later motors, but they are up to the job of hauling a four coach train around the layout over and over again. My layout is only 8'x4', so anything more that four carriages looks too long.

    The Duchess of Atholl consumes around 0.7amps hauling a train at speed, and the A4 just under 0.65amps. I had the Duchess hauling 3 Dublo LMS coaches plus one Wrenn LMS liveried Pullman, and the A4 four Dublo Pullmans.

    P1010164.jpg
     
    gormo and Dublo like this.
  11. Vinylelpea

    Vinylelpea Full Member

    Messages:
    733
    Likes Received:
    476
    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2017
    What a great piece of history. Age of your models is impressive. Love your layout and passion for your era modeling. :thumbs:
     
  12. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    The only pre-war Dublo item I have is a manually operated point. They are visually very different from the post-war ones and, to my eyes, look much more attractive and realistic, but the casting used for the frog is much more delicate and easily damaged than that used in the post-war points. I chose not to use it in the layout, but instead have it put away in a drawer somewhere. I'll have to dig it out and post a photograph.
     
  13. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    I do have this tendency to start on a project before I've even got the previously started one even halfway, but I suspect I'm not alone in that. Yesterday I got one of my part finished projects out and, with any luck, I might even get it finished this time:

    P1010177.jpg
     
  14. Gary

    Gary Wants more time for modelling.... Staff Member Administrator

    Messages:
    7,316
    Likes Received:
    3,847
    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2015
    Guilty as charged, your honour !

    Cheers, Gary.
     
    gormo and jakesdad13 like this.
  15. Andy_Sollis

    Andy_Sollis Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    3,896
    Likes Received:
    3,621
    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2018
    Yeah, me too! It’s what keeps the motivation going otherwise there is a risk some items can become stale.

    andy
     
    Gary likes this.
  16. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    Well, a bit more work done on it tonight and It is ready for its first coat of paint tomorrow. As far as the body is concerned, I filled the gap on the footplate with Tamiya Putty where the bunker had been extended (the sides had already been patched with some styrene sheet), a funnel that looks more like a funnel has been fitted (an old Crown Line fitting intended for a B12 - not right for what I’m doing here, but the right length of funnel would look wrong due to the boiler being a bit too high) and a safety valve cover added (fashioned by hand from one cut off a scrap Tri-ang Albert Hall which was then sawn in half and about 2mm of styrene sheet glued in-between the two halves, the whole thing then being filed to shape before being glued on).

    I did have a problem with the chassis when I tested it (it was a spare picked up cheaply on eBay a couple of years or so ago for spares). I had tested it previously but only ran it in a forward direction and it ran well but with the occasional stutter (for lack of a better word) which I put down to it not having been run for a few decades. This time, however, I also tested in in reverse but, instead of running, it moved about a quarter of an inch and started making nasty buzzing sounds as the mechanism locked up. After that, it needed a bit of persuasion to run forwards as well. A bit of dismantling and poking around and I realised what the problem was. It seems it was cobbled together from bits and pieces for sale as a running chassis and two parts didn’t match. The armature had an early model coarse thread and the gearwheel was a late model fine thread. A rummage through my spares box produced a coarse thread gearwheel from an 0-6-2T and, once fitted, the chassis ran perfectly in both directions. This did, of course, necessitate the removal of one wheel, which is something I don’t like doing with a Dublo chassis.

    Anyway, here it is now:

    P1010178.jpg
     
  17. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    Well, there's still a bit of work to do, but I think you can now see where this is headed. A model that Meccano Ltd neglected to produce: a Hornby-Dublo Highland Railway 39 class banking tank.

    P1010179.jpg

    P1010181.jpg
     
  18. Gary

    Gary Wants more time for modelling.... Staff Member Administrator

    Messages:
    7,316
    Likes Received:
    3,847
    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2015
    Nice work Wolseley ! :thumbup:

    I see you have also fitted new bogies to your 'open top' coaches too. ;)

    Cheers, Gary.
     
  19. Wolseley

    Wolseley Full Member

    Messages:
    742
    Likes Received:
    987
    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2017
    I picked up some shorter bolts from Bunnings today so they won't be quite as visible when I'm done. The coaches were early Tri-ang clerestories that had the bogies with open axle boxes. I swapped them for Dublo bogies (from some scrap "blood and custard" coaches) for ease of coupling and uniformity of wheel standards. I did the same to some Tri-ang Caledonian coaches a few months ago and they run better now than they did before the change, in spite of not having pin-point axles.

    "De-clerestorying" the roofs is taking a bit longer than I expected, but I'll get there. I also need to do a coach with a brake compartment.........
     
  20. Gary

    Gary Wants more time for modelling.... Staff Member Administrator

    Messages:
    7,316
    Likes Received:
    3,847
    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2015
    I replaced the bogies on my Triang, Traing/Hornby coaches with new Bachmann bogies a few years back. The difference is amazing ! I may even have the old bogies sitting around in a drawer somewhere if you are interested in them ?

    Cheers, Gary.
     

Share This Page