A Tale of three, no, two, Railways .

[The Q]

Ok first was Tiree, N Gauge Highlands and Islands.
See the "Tiree" thread...

Then I decided the club needed something local, so there was a farm to river railway in Norfolk.

Then I got leant on to buy a French model railway set, from the club's second hand stall.

Now Tiree being a Hebridean based model railway had to have a distillery.
The French real railway maker was a maker of stills..
The Norfolk railway was mostly for sugar beet.
The French rail Railway makers first railway was for sugar beet.
The French railway companies products were used on the Norfolk railway.

Coincidences abound between these three railways.

Anyway this posting is a place holder for the two 009 railways

Originally the two were going to be totally separate, and they still will be able to be used as such. But I've now decided to be able to run the pair as one.

Currently I'm redesigning the first to join the second and modifying the second design to fit the first.



Where as Tiree is being built at Broadland MRC, the two 009 layouts will be built at home... Section by section in the living room..

Current status
Norfolk railway,... I have all the rolling stock. I've got photos of the 4 main buildings and a engineering drawing of a 5th.

French railway, not a single place, but a fictional assembly,
I have the rolling stock, one ready built building, the distillery, photos of the station building and a developed idea of the other buildings.

I await the delivery of the loaned track jig for the hand built track in the visible areas, it will be standard Peco track off scene, actually left overs from Tiree both points and Flexi.

Once track laying starts I'll reveal the two layout names, still haven't worked out a joint name yet.

Timber cutting will start in a fortnight, so I'd better finish the designs...

[The Q]

Well, for various reasons I've had a lot time to plan the French layout.
The layout has to fit in the back of the 107, that's a space of 36inches fore and aft, 37 inches side to side and unfortunately the rear hatch/ window is only 21 inches high.

I was going round and round the design circle trying to make it all fit.. finally I came to a solution.
Two, fold out baseboards, each of two sections of 36 inches by 18 inches.
The height of each section is limited by halving 20 inches to 10, but the ten inches must include legs and wiring below the baseboard.
A final remeasure before wood cutting is required.

[The Q]

Wood cutting has commenced, the blanks for legs, baseboards, back and side boards are all cut.
Drawn on the baseboards is the probable layout.

Had all sorts of problems, kept underestimating the size for buildings, then forgetting they are H0e not 009.

Eventually a solution was found, a terrace of Art Deco tenements, I'd seen in Scotland last week. They'll be half relief on the back scene of one board

Tonight I sorted through my stock of points, turned out there were 31 of them!!!  Half removed from Tiree, half were spares with Tiree when I got it. So definitely no points need to be bought.
Tomorrow I'll place the points on the boards just to check positioning.

There is a slight hold up in construction, the leg hinges ordered, show picked up, in transit,  then rejected for being overweight!! They were due tomorrow, but what happens now I have no idea!!.

[The Q]

Ok after the raid on the stocks of points I discovered there were 31!!!

Of which half were ex Tiree, and half were new.
Of the new there were several short leaf blade points , most suitable for a NG railway but unfortunately all left handers, so 4 of them are being used in the visible area and one long leaf right hander which was unavoidable.

After placing on the boards the river needed a slight diversion and the distillery needed moving,

A name has been chosen for the layout...

Decoville

Why?

The engine manufacturer of small narrow gauge locomotives was Decauville. Of which I have two models.

They also invented the pressed steel sleepered small panel railway tracks, used behind the lines in WW1.

Decauville used them on their own sugar beet farm.

As did the Norfolk railway I wish to model, which bought them military surplus after ww1.

Having chosen to build an Art Deco terrace of houses.
I've decided as many as possible of the buildings will be Art Deco..
There will be.
L'hotel, La Gare, The Art Deco terrace. At least 3 Art Dec houses backing onto the river, the distillery and it's bonded warehouse.

Most of the buildings will be half relief.

L'Royal Mail says the hinges should arrive in the next hour or two as per normal postie time here..
Then work can proceed further.

[nickk]

Sorry I couldn't resist


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV11t_qYikg

[The Q]

" nobody expects the Spanish inquisition"
And I certainly didn't expect it to appear on one of my railway threads.



Things have moved on a bit.
A sheet of PIR foam has been bought and cut into rough blanks, the track will run one inch above the baseboards, that will allow the river and various other points to be below land level.

Legs fitted with hinges and the height adjusters partly fitted, I need to find a hammer to tap them home , I've only got half a dozen hammers, but can't find any of them..
Depth of hinge and legs found to be just over 2.5 inches, so I've allowed 2 3/4 inches below the baseboard level.

Edges of two boards cut into tongues to interlock with the support frames.

One back board has had holes match holes cut to match, they have been locked together and are gluing at this moment.

I've bought a jobsite mini scroll saw, £25, I've found it extremely useful cutting these tongues and sockets, quite fast, and nice neat cuts.
Monday I hope to fit the end board and some reinforcement pads to go above the hinges.

Many revisions of the design of the track have occured, the key points haven't. A change of design the fiddle yard has occurred. It's going to be a cassette system, each cassette will also form a carrying box for a train.

The cassette site will be in the back of the terrace of Art Deco tenements.

The terrace will be modelled on two terraces that exist in my parents home town, by chance almost opposite the pub in which we held the wake after my father's funeral..

I'm hoping to put the controllers in the back of other buildings..

[The Q]

Today I should have been sailing on the Broads but the high winds made it unsafe for my little boat.

So Today's work,
Front and end boards cut to interlock as were 4 reinforcement pads for the legs to mount onto.
They are now all gluing in place.

Tomorrow, I hope to complete the basic first board, I'll then do it's partner , once the pair are complete a piccy will be posted.

Must do some measurements to work out the size of cassette needed.

[The Q]

Much thought has gone into stopping the boards over folding, when packed up. Also thoughts are going on into keeping it all together when packed up. Today the 4 side was installed after a big error, the fourth side I cut tongues where there should be holes and holes where there should be tongues. Luckily it was the short side.. a replacement made and is gluing.

Legs have been installed there will be a modification to them tomorrow, to stabilise them a bit by adding a cross piece between each pair..

A second baseboard was had its edges cut to shape, the back board was made to match and the pair are now gluing.

Tomorrow, board one should enter the modelling room,

Drat just realised another mistake luckily only a minor one which will require cutting away some ply.

[The Q]

Board 1 is now in my modelling room, the leg stabilization worked. Though one needs adjustment. The foam board inside has been cut and loosely fitted. I've not glued it yet,  as some buildings will be ply cored to tie to the back / side boards to reinforce the case.

board 2 has two ends added today along with  two reinforcement pads for the leg mountings.

[The Q]

Boards 1 and 2 are now in the modelling room.
Boards 3 and 4 are in the workshop built. Glue drying, just legs to add.

The layouts name is Decoville,
The date is early June 1944.
Why that date?

Well I was a radar technician, one day a week I now am a guide here https://www.radarmuseum.co.uk/ in the radar history room.

On the 6th of June 1944, shortly after the first landings on but on D-Day itself, two RAF radar teams went ashore with each team had  4 radars,  on 27 vehicles , with 140-160 men.
On Juno beach they were practically unopposed and had their radars up and running within a few hours..

On Omaha beach, 6 out of the 27 vehicles survived, 41 men were casualties, 11 died and some Americans shot at them because they were wearing RAF blue grey uniform, similar colour to the German troops...

My fictional history, has the Juno beach team setting up at Decoville, which the Germans did not defend,  so it's undamaged and village life continues.

I'll model two of the radars, a type 14 azimuth radar, and a type 13 height finding radars. Some of these were mounted on Austin K6 lorries. So I've ordered a couple of 3D printed lorries off ebay.

The radars or should I say RDFs, as Radio Direction Finders is what we called them at the time , I'll scratch build myself, I've already done some for the museum at... 1/1000 scale.

They are going to be set up. At the top of the hill which has a vineyard running down from it to the river where the distillery is.

[The Q]

I'm working on board 4 at the moment, as that like board 1 has a set of 4 legs.

I've added the front fold up flap that becomes the case for board 4,
Also I've cut and built the ply core of the hotel, lots of windows hard to be cut out.
That now is glued in place against the end board of board 1, reinforcing that board.

A first attempt at a cassette was made, a failure I forgot to allow for the thickness of the aluminium angle. It will have to be remade.

[The Q]

The fold up flap wouldn't close properly due to the thickness of the screw heads.  The hinge position has been redesigned so sort that out. Unfortunately it will mean an extra day build time due to the setting time of the glue.
Board three has had the extra bits of wood added to sort the problem. It's now setting

Rats in the workshop, yep they've got in somehow, spent the morning having a good clear out of accumulated bits and pieces can't find how they got in, I can only assume the pile of spare wood pushed the bottom of the door enough to let them in through the gap.

Cassette prototype 2 has been a success as far as running carriages on it. Now to fit it with a closing top and end doors.

I'm now going to finish board 3, as far as wood work is concerned, which requires the tenement building core to be fitted as it forms the cassette mounting area, and reinforces the backboard. Then the front and end fold up protection boards will be fitted.

Then each board will be brought into the workshop in turn for their protection boards to be fitted or modified.
Once the fold up flaps are fitted, there'll be something to photograph.