simond
Western Thunderer
Waaaay back in 2013 I posted on RMW about my ambition to build a model based on Porth Dinllaen - edited highlights of that very old post are below.
In the intervening 13 years, many things have changed; the kids have flown the nest, the hard-won planning permission for an extension that would have given me a wonderful workshop in an extended garage, and a 63m2 railway room above could not be built for less than £300k and that was not a reasonable sum for a couple of hobby rooms, and so, after much debate and indecision, we concluded that a garden room is the way to go. You can build a 30m2 garden room under certain conditions as permitted development, but what you cannot do is run roundy-roundy 6 coach express trains in 0 gauge in such a space - and I wanted to be able to play trains year round. Accordingly, I applied for permission to build a 50m2 studio shed in the garden. The approval (with conditions, we live in a landslip area) was granted on Friday. Yee Harrr
Oh yeah, one other thing - I will retire at the end of July.
It will be well insulated, heated and cooled, and well able to be used on Christmas day as well as midsummer's day.
I've been researching Porth Dinllaen for a while now, as it is the scenario I have chosen to develop for my intended 0 gauge layout.
It still is
Brunel seriously considered Porth Dinllaen as a competitor to Holyhead, the line would have surely come up from Barmouth, via Harlech, Porthmadog & Pwllheli. How it got there from the midlands without climbing Talerddig is another question (double headed Kings with bankers...? Would have been a sight to behold - and hear!)
The shed is externally 10m x 5. A passenger terminal based on Birkenhead Woodside will occupy one wall, and I hope to use the PD loco shed that I have built over the last few years as a module of the "high level" side of the model - the tracks will lead out of the shed to a short run (20m) and a return loop. The other long wall will be the goods facilities, a representation of the docksides (again based on Birkenhead) and this will be at a lower level than the passenger facility, allowing me to have hidden storage below the station - and to allow a complete running loop inside the shed, with radii not less than 2m. There will be an internal gradient link between the lower level and the passenger station which will allow roundy-roundy running using the outside tracks and the internal link.
I was intending to be able to get 8 coaches in the platform, but will probably have to settle for 6. Platform 1 will handle a 4m train, platforms 2&3 will handle 3m trains. Platform 4 will handle shorter trains. Platform 5 for parcels and smalls. The current loco shed will fit across one end of the shed.
Ironically, there are some similarities with Folkestone, as a harbour at the bottom of a steep hill, single pier, bridge access, just without the interests of the local landlords preventing the seaside being polluted with a loco shed means I can put it at the bottom rather than the top of the bank! I could even use multiple 57xx's as bankers!
The gradients are no longer part of the plan. I don't think the banker models will be practical in the latest design. I had hoped to have a quarry branch, I think that idea has been dropped. Maybe a future outside branch?
Traffic will comprise regular "Irish Mails", plus passenger services to & from London, the midlands and more locally. Outbound freight will cover cattle, sheep, milk & meat, fish & veg of various sorts dependent on the season, plus dock traffic from Ireland (which may comprise much the same profile), and block trains from the quarry. Inbound freight will comprise coal (for the ships and for Ireland, which I believe still imports it) and manufactured goods, and quarry empties.
And the "Birkenhead Meat" - I have the 47xx, and I have been building, collecting, doing Mica meat wagons for years - I now have 9, and need at least 20 for a decent train.
So far, I have built most of the locos that will be required, from Martin Finney (47xx), Springside (Hall, 48xx, 45xx), JLTRT (King), CRT (1361) , Warren Shepherd (52xx), Acorn (57xx) and Scorpio (Castle) kits, bought a Dean goods, scratch built a 28xx and need a couple of 43/63xx and Birds/Bull/Dukedogs and a couple more shunters to complete the roster. They are all DCC fitted, the King & 28xx have sound, which I love!
I think all my locos now have sound. Tre Pol & Pen built, the Mogul is on the workbench thread, I've acquired a few Panniers from Minerva and Lionheart, we are not short of locos.
I have amassed 50 plus wagons ( and will need another 50) and 20 plus coaches & brown vehicles, and the main thing I need now is the time & money for the garden building ( or a decent lottery win!!!) in which to start the baseboards and track laying. As that won't happen for at least three & probably five years (not counting on the lottery win here!!!) I will content myself with building more elements of the layout; there is a turntable ( see "stepper motor turntables" in RMWeb), and I've made some pleasing progress with a 7mm scale Stothert & Pitt 12t crane based on the original drawings of the crane at St Peter Port. I've also rescaled the manufacturers drawings of the Edgerton float bridge from Birkenhead docks from1/48 to 1/43.5 ( I hate Henry Greenly!) and am awaiting the opportunity to develop a set of laser cut parts for it.
The bridge is being redrawn to be a hybrid of PCB, metal, 3DP FDM and will be 20% longer than scale, so my waist will fit through. The crane is part built and in a box, waiting for the time to see the light of day once more. I estimate that I have acquired a good proportion of the 50 plus wagons I will need, and, through the developments in 3DP, I have printed a good proportion of them myself. Now, if I could get to be able to paint and letter them to a decent standard...
Train operation will be DCC, points & signals will be mostly servo-driven, though I have a dozen tortoises that will get re-used. Aiming to keep driving and signalling separate.
This remains the plan - everything that is not loco control will be CAN-bus based. Loco control will be DCC
I hope to rip up the Greater Windowledge Railway and start on the loco shed, it being the only bit of the grand plan that will fit in my lounge, some time early in the New Year. At least, by then I'll have a turntable, a coal stage /water tower and most of the locos...
The Greater Windowledge Railway is long, long gone. Along with the pussycat whose footprints occasionally appeared thereupon
a few references -
Phil Greaves Rhyd y Clafdy, (Model-railways-live .co.uk)
Trefor - LNWR approach from Caernarvon (RMWeb)
Porth Dinllaen (RMWeb)
Provisional coastal terminus idea (RMWeb)
Proposed London to Porth Dinllaen Railway Report
Pwllheli and Nefyn Light Railway Papers
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/search/sum...rd=1&maximumRecords=20&hitposition=0#rightcol
User:Ansbaradigeidfran/Sandbox2 - Wikipedia
http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/tunnels/construction/purdon.html
Porthdinllaen - Wikipedia
Llyn Railway
Walkingworld
More soon....
In the intervening 13 years, many things have changed; the kids have flown the nest, the hard-won planning permission for an extension that would have given me a wonderful workshop in an extended garage, and a 63m2 railway room above could not be built for less than £300k and that was not a reasonable sum for a couple of hobby rooms, and so, after much debate and indecision, we concluded that a garden room is the way to go. You can build a 30m2 garden room under certain conditions as permitted development, but what you cannot do is run roundy-roundy 6 coach express trains in 0 gauge in such a space - and I wanted to be able to play trains year round. Accordingly, I applied for permission to build a 50m2 studio shed in the garden. The approval (with conditions, we live in a landslip area) was granted on Friday. Yee Harrr
Oh yeah, one other thing - I will retire at the end of July.
It will be well insulated, heated and cooled, and well able to be used on Christmas day as well as midsummer's day.
I've been researching Porth Dinllaen for a while now, as it is the scenario I have chosen to develop for my intended 0 gauge layout.
It still is
Brunel seriously considered Porth Dinllaen as a competitor to Holyhead, the line would have surely come up from Barmouth, via Harlech, Porthmadog & Pwllheli. How it got there from the midlands without climbing Talerddig is another question (double headed Kings with bankers...? Would have been a sight to behold - and hear!)
The shed is externally 10m x 5. A passenger terminal based on Birkenhead Woodside will occupy one wall, and I hope to use the PD loco shed that I have built over the last few years as a module of the "high level" side of the model - the tracks will lead out of the shed to a short run (20m) and a return loop. The other long wall will be the goods facilities, a representation of the docksides (again based on Birkenhead) and this will be at a lower level than the passenger facility, allowing me to have hidden storage below the station - and to allow a complete running loop inside the shed, with radii not less than 2m. There will be an internal gradient link between the lower level and the passenger station which will allow roundy-roundy running using the outside tracks and the internal link.
I was intending to be able to get 8 coaches in the platform, but will probably have to settle for 6. Platform 1 will handle a 4m train, platforms 2&3 will handle 3m trains. Platform 4 will handle shorter trains. Platform 5 for parcels and smalls. The current loco shed will fit across one end of the shed.
Ironically, there are some similarities with Folkestone, as a harbour at the bottom of a steep hill, single pier, bridge access, just without the interests of the local landlords preventing the seaside being polluted with a loco shed means I can put it at the bottom rather than the top of the bank! I could even use multiple 57xx's as bankers!
The gradients are no longer part of the plan. I don't think the banker models will be practical in the latest design. I had hoped to have a quarry branch, I think that idea has been dropped. Maybe a future outside branch?
Traffic will comprise regular "Irish Mails", plus passenger services to & from London, the midlands and more locally. Outbound freight will cover cattle, sheep, milk & meat, fish & veg of various sorts dependent on the season, plus dock traffic from Ireland (which may comprise much the same profile), and block trains from the quarry. Inbound freight will comprise coal (for the ships and for Ireland, which I believe still imports it) and manufactured goods, and quarry empties.
And the "Birkenhead Meat" - I have the 47xx, and I have been building, collecting, doing Mica meat wagons for years - I now have 9, and need at least 20 for a decent train.
So far, I have built most of the locos that will be required, from Martin Finney (47xx), Springside (Hall, 48xx, 45xx), JLTRT (King), CRT (1361) , Warren Shepherd (52xx), Acorn (57xx) and Scorpio (Castle) kits, bought a Dean goods, scratch built a 28xx and need a couple of 43/63xx and Birds/Bull/Dukedogs and a couple more shunters to complete the roster. They are all DCC fitted, the King & 28xx have sound, which I love!
I think all my locos now have sound. Tre Pol & Pen built, the Mogul is on the workbench thread, I've acquired a few Panniers from Minerva and Lionheart, we are not short of locos.
I have amassed 50 plus wagons ( and will need another 50) and 20 plus coaches & brown vehicles, and the main thing I need now is the time & money for the garden building ( or a decent lottery win!!!) in which to start the baseboards and track laying. As that won't happen for at least three & probably five years (not counting on the lottery win here!!!) I will content myself with building more elements of the layout; there is a turntable ( see "stepper motor turntables" in RMWeb), and I've made some pleasing progress with a 7mm scale Stothert & Pitt 12t crane based on the original drawings of the crane at St Peter Port. I've also rescaled the manufacturers drawings of the Edgerton float bridge from Birkenhead docks from1/48 to 1/43.5 ( I hate Henry Greenly!) and am awaiting the opportunity to develop a set of laser cut parts for it.
The bridge is being redrawn to be a hybrid of PCB, metal, 3DP FDM and will be 20% longer than scale, so my waist will fit through. The crane is part built and in a box, waiting for the time to see the light of day once more. I estimate that I have acquired a good proportion of the 50 plus wagons I will need, and, through the developments in 3DP, I have printed a good proportion of them myself. Now, if I could get to be able to paint and letter them to a decent standard...
Train operation will be DCC, points & signals will be mostly servo-driven, though I have a dozen tortoises that will get re-used. Aiming to keep driving and signalling separate.
This remains the plan - everything that is not loco control will be CAN-bus based. Loco control will be DCC
I hope to rip up the Greater Windowledge Railway and start on the loco shed, it being the only bit of the grand plan that will fit in my lounge, some time early in the New Year. At least, by then I'll have a turntable, a coal stage /water tower and most of the locos...
The Greater Windowledge Railway is long, long gone. Along with the pussycat whose footprints occasionally appeared thereupon
a few references -
Phil Greaves Rhyd y Clafdy, (Model-railways-live .co.uk)
Trefor - LNWR approach from Caernarvon (RMWeb)
Porth Dinllaen (RMWeb)
Provisional coastal terminus idea (RMWeb)
Proposed London to Porth Dinllaen Railway Report
Pwllheli and Nefyn Light Railway Papers
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/search/sum...rd=1&maximumRecords=20&hitposition=0#rightcol
User:Ansbaradigeidfran/Sandbox2 - Wikipedia
http://www.forgottenrelics.co.uk/tunnels/construction/purdon.html
Porthdinllaen - Wikipedia
Llyn Railway
Walkingworld
More soon....
! I accept things and practices have changed and developed since the time I had my shed erected so I might just be rabbiting on about things that have been supeceded. If so, forgive the ramblings of an old chap, but I do stand by having a cat!