Hadley Wood

[DaveGlew]

That is quite some enterprise - I look forward to development..... and the storage - just wow!

[Bealman]

Yep, this is just getting better and better. 

[Stevie DC]

Thank you for your kind comments. The theory behind the Fiddle yard is that I can use the kickback sidings for train storeage, running them out and (following a run through the scenic section) reverse them back in. This concept works very well on Little Bytham (Tony Wright's incredible 4mm scale model) and I'm hoping that I can emulate this. However this does mean that a couple of lines are dedicated to this reversing operation (to remove the need to reverse trains around a 180 degree curve!) and cannot be used to hold stock.

The longest loop lines are over eight foot in length and will be used to store the up coal and down empties. In theory this means that I can have c. 50 wagons in these trains - bearing in mine that 80 was generally considered the maximum for the O2s. The shortest kickback siding is just under three foot and will be used to store local workings and short expresses (of which there were quite a few apparently).

All this is dependant on a couple of scratch built point formations though. I could make these by chopping up a couple of scissor crossings and double slips but the prices for these are eye watering for something that might not work. I've now built a point and crossing from Finetrax with the last two points for the scenic section on the way. Hopefully this will give me enough experience to tackle a 'simple' scratch built point as a test piece before trying anything more complex.

If I'm successful in my scratch building, this will given me twenty storage roads plus some shorter sidings for loose stock and locos in an area only 16 inches wide. As somebody pointed out to me, Hadley Wood would easily see ten trains in each direction per hour in reality!

[Bealman]

Awesome! 

[Stevie DC]

Awesome! 

It'll only be awesome if the theory works in practice! 

[weave]

Morning Atso,

All sounds very interesting. Looking forward to your build.

Cheers weave 

[Bealman]

Awesome! 

It'll only be awesome if the theory works in practice! 

Yes indeed, but that's the challenge!

To me that's one of the great things about this hobby. Solving the problems as they come up.

Really looking forward to this. 

[Newportnobby]

The mind boggles at the cost of stocking the fiddle yard
I can see why it's a long term project.

[Stevie DC]

The mind boggles at the cost of stocking the fiddle yard
I can see why it's a long term project.

I'm not even going to think about that aspect! All I'll say is that my tenth Dapol A3 will be with me next month (birthday present) and represents the eighth I've bought either second hand or as a spares/repair for considerably under the RRP (cheapest was a wreck for £10 that I spend another £20, and about a week, in repairs). In case you're interested, the latest one will end up as 4470 'Great Northern' as it was in 1937 with high sided tender but still in original Gresley A1 condition (i.e. no superheater header covers and right hand drive).

The current available and in progress motive power includes:

A1: 4472 'Flying Scotsman' (rebuilt from a wrecked A3 'Papyrus' and paired with a corridor tender back dated to c. 1928-36 condition).
A3: 4480 'Enterprise' (modified 'Papyrus' to right hand drive)
A3: 2500 'Windsor Lad' (Reworked 'Flying Scotsman' with bango dome and paired with a high sided non-corridor tender)
A1: 2562 'Isinglass' (modified 'Grand Parade': purchased spares/repair not yet complete)
A1: 2568 'Sceptre' (as for 'Isinglass' but with westinghouse brake pump dating it to 1933 or earlier: purchased spares/repair not yet complete)
A3: 2573 'Harvester' (as for 'Sceptre' but right hand drive A3: purchased spares/repair not yet complete)
A3: 2744 'Grand Parade' (standard Dapol)
A3: 2750 'Papyrus' (standard Dapol)
A3: 2751 'Humorist' (backdated and repainted BR 'Gladiateur' the only A3 fitted with a double chimney by the LNER)
A4: 2510 'Quick Silver' (standard Dapol)
A4: 4482 'Golden Eagle (standard Dapol)
A4: 4487 'Sea Eagle' (standard Dapol)
A4: 4490 'Empire of India (standard Dapol with incorrect double chimney!)
B17: 2871 'Manchester City' (standard Dapol - not strictly appropriate for Hadley Wood)
C1: 3279 (Gresley rebuild with outside valve gear - 3D printed body on Farish Jubilee chassis with Union Mills tender drive. A very early effort and awaiting a replacement to be built)
C12: 4519 (3D printed body on modified Dapol 14xx chassis and Farish front bogie)
D11: To be 5506 'Butler-Henderson (Union Mills upgrade, awaiting repaint from BR green)
D16/3: not numbered (Union Mills BR version to be repainted)
D49: 234 'Yorkshire' (3D printed body on Dapol Schools chassis with Dapol B1 tender frames and modified M7 bogie moulding - in bits again at the moment!)
J6 (x2): Not numbered (unfinished project 3D printed body on Farish J39 chassi)
J11: Not numbered (Upgraded Union Mills awaiting repaint)
J39: 1856 (Standard Farish)
J50: 617 (3D printed body on custom built chassis from N-Stars in Holland)
K3: 4004 (GNR cab version, 3D printed body on Farish N class chassis with V2 tender frames and modified J39 tender body)
K3: 2425 (LNER built, 3D printed loco and tender body on Farish N class chassis with V2 tender frames)
N2: 4744 (3D printed body on modified Farish 3MT chassis)
N2: 4750 (3D printed body on modified Farish N class chassis)
Q2: Not numbered (Union Mills)
V1: Not numbered (3D printed body on Farish N class chassis - test build in progress before making the print available to buy)
V2: 4771 'Green Arrow' (renumbered Farish - awaiting rebuild/replacement)
V2: 4844 'Coldstreamer' (Standard Farish - awaiting rebuild/replacement)

Total 32 locomotives: Collected or made/modified over a number of years (many when I once had a well paying 9-5 job before I got sick - several years in the past now!) and by constantly searching out the bargains and spares/repairs. That's not including the 3D printed A5 body I have, waiting for a suitable donor chassis to be found! For a general rounding out of the more typical motive power seen through Hadley Wood I really should make a 'standard C1', D2, J3, J52, K2, N1 and O2 as well. It does raise the question of can you really have too many locomotives? I didn't realise just how many I have until I made this list! Rolling stock is another matter and there is no way that I could fill out more than six roads with what I have at the moment!

[Milton Rail]

That is an impressive list!!  very jealous, my own LNER stable is largely limited to off the shelf ones ... though have just taken delivery of A3 60061 "Pretty Polly" ... courtesy of TMC

Would be lovely to see D49 "Morayshire" grace Hadley Wood 

[Newportnobby]

That's one helluva loco roster, but I was thinking more of............

The longest loop lines are over eight foot in length and will be used to store the up coal and down empties. In theory this means that I can have c. 50 wagons in these trains

Depending on what you buy that's going to be around £1000 - £1500 for 2 trains, less what you already own, of course

(And, yes, I'm scared to try and put a value on my own stock )

[Stevie DC]

That is an impressive list!!  very jealous, my own LNER stable is largely limited to off the shelf ones ... though have just taken delivery of A3 60061 "Pretty Polly" ... courtesy of TMC

Would be lovely to see D49 "Morayshire" grace Hadley Wood 

It has been built up over a number of years and has mainly taken advantage of discounts, sand hand bargains and items that need repairing. Unfortunately, 'Morayshire' is unlikely to ever grace Hadley Wood as the D49s weren't common locomotives at the southern end of the system. My model of Yorkshire was originally going to be Lincolnshire as it was allocated to Kings Cross briefly c. 1929. However, nobody made any nameplates for Lincolnshire and, as I was going up to Pickering and seeing some of the Scarborough club (North of England Line), it became Yorkshire, came with me and got some running rights for the day!


(Photo taken by Tony Wright and thanks to the NoEL team for letting me play for a little while!)

TMC do some lovely stuff, don't they? Unfortunately, it falls outside of my price bracket at the moment but does serve as inspiration to improve my own models.

[Stevie DC]

Depending on what you buy that's going to be around £1000 - £1500 for 2 trains, less what you already own, of course

(And, yes, I'm scared to try and put a value on my own stock )

It does get expensive but I find a combination of shopping around and kit building goes a long way to reducing the costs. However, that does mean that I've got a lot of wagons currently awaiting the paint shop!

Re Shopping Around: I found quite a bit of Farish in an antiques shop in Cheltenham last year. Chief amongst them was the old sand wagon but there were quite a few new type PO wagons as well. The owner wanted £10 for the sand wagon as it was 'rare' but only £1.50 for each of the new POs as they weren't old and 'common as muck'! I feel I got a good bargain that day for £25! My girlfriend now jokes and I have a sixth sense for finding N gauge items in the most unlikely of places!

Totalling up the total worth of everything I own..... my head hurts! Yes, it is quite scary when you think about it.

[Train Waiting]

That is an impressive list!!  very jealous, my own LNER stable is largely limited to off the shelf ones ... though have just taken delivery of A3 60061 "Pretty Polly" ... courtesy of TMC

Would be lovely to see D49 "Morayshire" grace Hadley Wood 

It has been built up over a number of years and has mainly taken advantage of discounts, sand hand bargains and items that need repairing. Unfortunately, 'Morayshire' is unlikely to ever grace Hadley Wood as the D49s weren't common locomotives at the southern end of the system. My model of Yorkshire was originally going to be Lincolnshire as it was allocated to Kings Cross briefly c. 1929. However, nobody made any nameplates for Lincolnshire and, as I was going up to Pickering and seeing some of the Scarborough club (North of England Line), it became Yorkshire, came with me and got some running rights for the day!


(Photo taken by Tony Wright and thanks to the NoEL team for letting me play for a little while!)

TMC do some lovely stuff, don't they? Unfortunately, it falls outside of my price bracket at the moment but does serve as inspiration to improve my own models.

Improve?!  I'm at a loss to see how Yorkshire could be improved  .

 
John

[Stevie DC]

Thanks John, I need to pluck up the courage to give it a light weathering but not as heavy as this:



Another Tony Wright photograph taken on NoEL. The GCR fish van isn't mine I'm afraid, it was scratch built by MikeJ of the Scarborough club and is very impressive!

Somebody on another forum found the a signaling diagram for Hadley Wood c. 1932: https://signalbox.org/diagrams.php?id=335

This has been a brilliant find as it clears up that there were no ground signals controlling the goods sidings (can't really call it a yard!) and that the signal mounted on the southern face of the bridge had been removed by that point. It also shows that I've only got two signals to model and that one of the is a colour light one. However, all the pictures of the semaphore I've got are from the 1950's and I don't know when the somersault signal was replaced with an upper quadrant type.

I've also spent a little time working out the approximate dimensions of the signal box. By the period I'm modelling, the signal box was being used as a covered ground frame with the box at Greenwood (between New Barnet and the south Hadley tunnel) controlling Hadley Wood and only unlocking the Hadley box when the goods sidings were in use.



Very rough (and incomplete) at the moment but I've been helped by a photograph of a quad set passing by the signal box. This confirmed that the roof of the box came to the same height as the roof of the coaches and gave me a known dimension to work out the rest. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the front of the box, so this has had to be complete guesswork. The box was a timber upper part resting on a brick base and intersecting with the platform ramp. I'll get around to building a study model at some point but next week has to be spent on getting some CADs finished!