Clamping and Gluing

The clamps I’d ordered to help with construction of the baseboards arrived yesterday, which enabled me to start constructing the framework for the first board. In an attempt to keep these large baseboards as light as possible I’m only gluing the components together, no screws or pins. On my previous layout (Tredethy Wharf) I’d glued and screwed the boards together so this is new territory for me. On these boards with the amount of joints and the supposed strength of wood glue (around 3000ppsi) I’m hoping it will be strong enough without the additional weight of the screws. The only addition I might make is adding a right angle brace of some sort in each corner of the board for added rigidity.

So I’m taking it steady, clamping and gluing each section in place, checking levels and leaving to dry before moving on to the next section. The instructions claim the glue is dry within 30 minutes but the joints are fully cured in 18 to 24 hours. I’m leaving each section for about 6 to 8 hours before moving onto the next. At this pace this framework should be finished tomorrow, when I’ll start on the next board. The tops will be cut and glued in place when the frames for all three boards are built.

Making slow progress on the first baseboard

I have made some progress on the construction of the first baseboard. Hopefully the pictures will help to explain my thoughts on how I’m building the boards. At the moment nothing is fixed in place, the books are helping to keep everything upright.

All profiles have been cut to reflect the different ground levels, with additional sections cut out for the turntable and inspection pits. The baseboard top is at the bottom with the track plan on. This is so I can position the infill sections to miss any possible conflicts with turnout wiring and TOUs. Fingers crossed I’ll get them all positioned correctly. There are just the last three infills to cut and position. This will be done when all others are fixed in place in case I have made a miscalculated on the dimensions.

Looking from the turntable end

The joint between the two main boards

It might workout OK

The shed area being flat is a good start

Mainline Gradient (1:103)

I’m hoping to start putting it all together in the next couple of days.

Could I use some Posphor Bronze Rail

 

A couple of days ago I tweaked my back which hampered progress on baseboard construction. To keep a modicum of momentum going on this project I looked around for some light duties.

I’d been kindly given some used Phosphor Bronze track, unfortunately as it’s mainly in short lengths I’ll not be able to use it for standard 60ft sections of track. It would be a shame to discard them so I started to mull over how to justify their use. I vaguely remembered reading something about the GWR using shorter sections of track prior to standardising on 60ft sections. Then found, in Stephen Williams’s book Great Western Branch Line Modelling - Part One, that after 1929 the GWR started to use 60ft rail sections on the main lines replacing the previous shorter 44ft 6in sections.  After a little further research on the internet I discovered a good article by Stuart Hince on the Templot site http://templot.com/martweb/pdf_files/gwr_track_panels.pdf which confirmed this and also describing how to create these 44ft 6in sections in Templot.

So how could I justify 44ft 6in sections of track on my model? My thinking is, in my fictitious twist on history, when this area was being redeveloped in the 1930s any reclaimed 44ft 6in rail was reused by the thrifty GWR in the construction of the sidings. After all, these sidings might not have seen much traffic so would be on the rusty side which phosphor Bronze track can depict. The thought then was, do I have enough rail? This prompted me to open Templot and use Stuart Hince’s article to redraw the three sidings at the front of the layout with 44ft 6in sections and 18 sleepers in each.

The track bases were of thin plastic with 3 bolt chairs and not in the best of condition. Also as my preference is to use 1.5mm thick plywood sleepers I stripped all the rails off the bases. The rails were then laid on the revised plan of the sidings matching each 44ft 6in section.

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It looks like there are enough, especially as I found another short section of track when emptying the turntable storage box. Next task will be to clean all the rails as they have been heavily weathered.

Excellent, this might not be prototypical for 1959 but it might have been possible…

Baseboard construction - Part 1

 

I made a tentative start on building the baseboards yesterday. My first task was to mark the different track levels on each cross piece. All changes of track levels do seem subtle at this stage. I’m hoping that subtle changes should help to project a believable scene.

 

At the above stage I realised that the very end cross piece (furthest away in the above photo) was going under the turntable. How did I miss that on my plan? I’ve been lucky enough to acquire a GWR turntable from Alan Smith after he’d decided to dismantle and break up his Little Stoke layout.

I carefully brought all pieces out of storage and couldn’t resist installing the turntable deck to check it over. I’m looking forward to seeing this in operation. 

 

Little Stoke’s baseboard is 9mm and the turntable is mounted on a 15mm thick ply underneath to allow for the turntable pit. It’s a solid piece of modelling and therefore a little on the heavy side. Unfortunately, after mulling the options over, I think modifying it would destroy what is a good working turntable. With that in mind I decided to accept its solid construction and move on to how I’m going to install it into the baseboard.

I was not surprised that the former track positions on the turntable board don’t match my plan; it would have been a slim chance if it had. That will be one modification that I’ll be able to match without causing any irreparable damage. So by ignoring the current approach tracks on the turntable board means I can align the turntable base square to my baseboard. In doing so means it would also miss the proposed inspection pit on the right (marked by the ply strip). My intention is to use 6mm plywood for the baseboard top with 3mm cork underlay which should match the 9mm of Little Stoke’s baseboard.

All seems good at this point…

Timber has arrived

Yesterday the Plywood for the sleepers arrived all 4000 of them for plain track, plus strips for turnouts. My God, this now looks a daunting task to lay all those sleepers!

Then today I got a knock on the door and found the arrival of the baseboard timber.

As traveling to the nearest decent Timber Merchant would probably be against the current Covid rules I settled on ordering the plywood online. Initially I thought about using a supplier of laser cut base boards. I then decided against this due to the track plan having some subtle differences in levels. Finally found a supplier that would cut birch ply to any size I required. Below are the pieces of my baseboard jigsaw puzzle.

My aim is to cut each piece for the ends, width and sides to the correct profile, then the longitudinal pieces will fit at one depth to brace the framework. The tops can then be cut to match the profiles and track bed with all the rises and falls. Baseboard construction will not start for a few days just to give the plywood chance to adjust to our house conditions.

Well that’s my plan we’ll have to see if my carpentry skills are up to the task.

Locomotive Allocation

While I'm waiting for timber to arrive for baseboards and track I'm having another purge on stuff that I've accumulated over the years. As it would be daft to move on stuff that I'll need, it has made me consider the stock requirements for Rospeath Lane.

The year I'm aiming to represent is 1959 (as the shed would still have had a good quantity of steam locomotives but the first Diesel Hydraulics and Class 08 shunters would be seen). As well as being the end of the summer months for scenic interest, August seems to be the start of the decline of steam in Cornwall. In August 1959 Long Rock (Penzance) had 33 Steam locomotives and 1 Diesel Shunter allocated. The allocation was 12 x Granges, 4 x Counties, 4 x Halls, 2 x Castles, 4 x 45xx, 2 x 4575, 2 x 94xx, 1 x Modified Hall, 1 x 51xx, 1 x 57xx, & 1 x Class 08. To build all these locomotives in P4 is a daunting thought as I'd also require a quantity of visiting locomotives from other Cornish sheds and from further afield.

In looking over the track plan I was able to squeeze into the reduced size of my 'Man Cave' the layout will not be able to stable 34 locomotive let alone any visiting Locomotives from Laira or further afield. At a push I think it would accommodate around 25 to 27 locomotives depending on the split between Tender and Tank engines. With this in mind I created a sliding scale in the hope this would allow me to proportionally reduce the locomotives but still represent the type of allocation this shed would have stabled.

In some ways the anomaly I have with the model being too small for the location works to my advantage. I feel that working towards building 17 locomotives plus approximately 5 more for working the fictitious lines west of Penzance is an achievable objective.