Leek station- the build commences

Great result Mr S... I don't think the column size is that far out ... in fact probably not at all since we know most of the necessary datum points and measurements such as track spacing, platform width and the NSR structural loading gauge. Great design Andy.

I do already have a set of Leek station nameboards which were painted up ready to go a year or so back but we're not using those as the frame profile was incorrect and looked obviously wrong... the new ones Andy has been working on will cut the mustard... see how pedantic we all are right down to the last detail.



The chap with the mop of dark hair to the left of the station master Mr Andrew Wragg (not George Percival receiving his long service retirement award) is the late Terry Murphy who I worked with at Stoke in 1974... Terry was a devoutly religious man who never broke the rules, he once reported the station porters for playing football on the platform with a fresh cabbage. Leek was shut down in 1970 and I started with British Rail in 1973 so I bump into some of those chaps from time to time at work. Great days they were and a proper railway too.

 

In the meantime the final (for now) trapezium shape baseboard segment has been put together in basic form, I shall probably have another two straight boards to make which will carry the cutting into the tunnel beyond the north end of the platforms and off the curve... we shall see and I may well incrementally reduce the width of these final two boards. So with six boards we now have an external distance of twenty one feet in length which should give us the whole station and a start on the pointwork into the sidings... fiddle cassettes at each end are another story and this aspect will come later but for now I'm aiming to make the scene with just the station in place. The picture shows the final laminated ply side this afternoon all clamped up as the expanding glue dries... the solid end pieces 12mm ply will be where the alignment dowels and bolt fixings will go and the centre crossbrace is designed to take bus wires and other feeds. I'll probably use multi pin connectors between each board but need to do a bit more research there yet.

 

So today with the sun shining I took the opportunity to position the six trapezium shape baseboards together on the lawn so see how the curve looked, by jove I think it may well work. Next stage is make the leg supports and a jig to locate the connecting holes.





And with the work in progress buildings placed approximately in their correct positions we can see how the route of the track curve through the station will look.

 

With six of the trapezium baseboard carcasses now completed a jig is being made which will align all the points which will need to be router plunged to take the connecting bolts and dowel pegs, so far three 16mm holes have been drilled to accept the routers profile fence for the 6mm bolts. The other two holes for the alignment dowels will need a 30mm spade bit which I thought I had but turned out I'd got 38mm and 32mm ... so a 30mm one is on order, once those holes are drilled for the router's 30mm profile fence to fit I'll swap to the 25.4mm countersink bit plunged to a depth of 3mm making the recess for the dowel studs to sit inside, the port for the male dowel will be finished with a 10mm drill.




And the jig works like this... it will serve both left and right hand connecting sides of each carcass and once clamped into position will offer stable and solid repeating hole points on each baseboard.
After this I shall have to make a table jig to route the dado rebate lines which will hold the joining baseboard ends (12mm) fast onto the lag framework... none of this has even been made yet but hey ho all in good time and once done we can then set the whole shebang up to see what it looks like.

 

Yes indeed, the narrow tunnel mouth board which will be a tapered length straight end on connecting one just means the holes locate at the wide end in the same position and a traversing cassette add on will use this same jig but with another end block to shorten the span.

This jig arrangement concept came from the Platform 1 MRC School of Applied Design & Science... not sure if Toto had much to do with the school tho

 

If there are no hammer marks then probably not a Toto design / implementation.

Great that you will be using the same jig, I may need to get a couple of end boards (with track centers marked on) so I can make up an adapter board to be able to connect your layout to Toto's traversers, or the newer Mk 5 versions when they are built - probably 6ft long with a 5ft 6in 4 or 5 road traverser table and single ended. Will that be long enough to run the trains you want ?

Paul[/QUOTE]
Oh gosh yes that is certainly long enough, I would like to run a 2-6-4 tank with three LMS period 2 coaches or a three car 104 DMU when it is eventually released in kit form... as for other stuff just a loco with a couple of wagons on certainly no double headers with 8 coaches on for the Belle View or Blackpool summer excursions.

The 30mm profile guide bush and the 25mm cutter bit arrived this morning so we will be back in business very soon once the spade bit arrives.

 

Thanks Kimbo, just working on the basis if the layout is to be reliable then it will need a solid foundation particularly as this may well do a show or two at some point... I'm just hoping the framework all works as intended for this really is a blindfolded risk venture for me. Apart from anything else I'm aiming to start track building as the next phase and then I can locate the building bases and scenery.

 

The connection jig now finished, it will be used in anger over the weekend.




Various other necessary bits of kit have arrived, on the left is the 30mm profile guide used to hold the router to plunge for the dowel alignment studs... the 25mm plunge bit is next to it. The Vee bit next will make a centre mark for me to align a 10mm twist drill and bore a hole which will accommodate the male end of the dowel once its fitted to its other half. On the right is the 16mm profile guide which will align the 6.4mm plunge cutter next to it when making the through holes for the connecting pins and nuts.





Finally some ply strengthening pieces were made to add a bit more depth for the fixings, some 24 pieces of 12mm and 36 pieces of 6mm were ripped from scrap ply and glued into position with expanding resin glue... now we can say these baseboards will soon be complete.

 

Good point Dundee... I appear to have a 12mm plunge bit in my arsenal of stuff... hopefully it won't bore too close to the screw fixing points if it does I guess its back to Plan A and more work. The hole only needs to go in just beyond the depth of the male socket... or does it need more space ?