Scenes from an obscure railway. Complete Closure - 10 June

[WardWorks]

Yup, its all still running today, so I guess I got it right - finally ! ... 😃

Had the odd power dropout around certain sets of points, but a quick touch with a track cleaner sorted that out...😖

Happenings are happening, back with today's brief episode of "Off the Rails" later...😈

Regards
OB of testing the layout by playing trains on it ! 😉

[JCON]

Very good news!!! Wish I could play, er' I mean test them out with you!!!

[WardWorks]

Sorry Joe, Rule 1 applies here ! 😗🎵🎶

Nah then, we were expecting the arrival of the Inspection Saloon, with old Airey aboard to verify the line's clear and open for traffic again, but it would seem one traverse of the wayward metals was enough for him.. 😖

Instead we got a rather distasteful suprise...



... as the Class 121 single car DMU, used for Driver Training on Passenger Routes arrived with the Passenger Travel executive aboard arrived, ran down the platform and then ran back across the crossover onto the loop, where it came to a halt. The Passenger Travel Executive Manager informed us they were being followed by another PAX Unit, which was officially trialling the branch for PAX Operations... 😖 A nasty shock indeed, we haven't had Passenger Services down here since the 1950's...

A quick tootle of DMU horns announced the arrival of a two car Class 101 DMU in the striking livery of Strathclyde PTE crossing onto the platform road...



The 101 rolled to a halt mid-platform and came to a halt beside the Route Learning Unit on the loop...



Whilst a Departmental Unit scurried forwards from the top of siding 3 and crossed into the headshunt, where it came to rest, awaiting the arrival of a Departmental Loco, coming to collect something down the end of Siding 3



The Locomotive arriving was a "Celebrity" Class 47 "Midland Counties Railway" painted in the former lined Maroon of the former Midland Counties Railway (part of the old LMS), to mark the Centenary of the Midland Counties Railway. 🤓



The two DMU's had removed their distasteful selves, after the bigwigs had said the line would be fine for passenger services... oooh dear 😖🤢... Shock all round, freight movements drive the signalmen batty at times as it is, "well I never" etc;... 🤯

We'll finish this episode with "Midland Counties" departing with a rather special load, the Branch Crane, which was down here lifting and clearing various old lengths of rail etc: and now needed to be towed back up to its home depot at Rhunnamuck Junction. With a blast of two tone horns, "Midland Counties" got going... The Crane is the venerable Rosebud/Kitmaster/Airfix, now Dapol kit and its runner wagon is a conversion of mine involving vile things done to a Hornby open wagon... 🙄



That's yer lot for this time folks !

Regards
OB of Catchyas Later ! 😉

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Looking good OB.

[JCON]

That crane is very cool!!!

[Dukemaddog]

Yeah, I love that crane! Everything looks grand here! Looking forward to the next trip on the rails.

[JED]

WOW at least the controllers were a quick and cheap fix,we had a class 455 burn out its complete set of line contacts today, only 750 Volts go through them 😬😬😬😬😃😃 heck of a fire and heck of a smell,and multiples of thousands of pounds to replace 😬😬😬🤗

[WardWorks]

Cheers Folks 👍

Matters Arising... 🤔

Oz - Its Downhill all the way from here... (Says he hopefully !) 🙏

Joe and Duke - Its still a good kit, and despite its age, quite accurate dimensionally... Pretty much falls together without problems and it now has good quality wheels in the kit, which makes it an ideal candidate for use on a model railway (in its original issue by Rosebud and subsequent issues by Kitmaster and Airfix), the wheels weren't usable for running on a model RR 🤓

Jed - Ouch ! 750 volts - what Ampage ? Take it a 455 is one of those outside 3rd Rail jobs that your Region is known for ? The bang and flash when that happened would have been quite spectacular to have seen ! 😲
Any ideas as to the cause ? Electricity has always been a somewhat fascinating subject to me, you cannot see it, but its power is undoubted, especially if you're on the wrong end of it at the time ! Any electrician will tell you volts won't kill you, but the Amps (current) will ! 😖 Just ask anybody who's relieved themself upon the outside third (conductor) rail in your region of the former BR. - well ask their family, chances are they won't have survived ! 😲🤫

Regards to All
OB of shocking examples 😉

[WardWorks]

Hi Folks

No news or piccys today, but all the track that needs to be painted is painted 🚿, well airbrushed actually, just a mix of two parts Tamiya Acryl Flat Earth and one part Tamiya Acryl Flat Black, Painted (undercoated) the soldered power connections on the track side first with a brown Humbrol Enamel (solder doesn't take Acryl paints too well !) 😖

Once the lot had dried, a rail cleaner was run along all rail heads and inside edges of the rail heads. Following which the 4 wheeled "lie detector", (the engineering vehicle seen in yesterday's extravaganza), was run over all track and pointwork to ensure paint hadn't got where it wasn't wanted. All clear, no problems whatever I'm glad to report. Moving onto various infrastructure bits n' bobs to work out where best to put them on the layout... 🤓🤔

Regards to All
OB of pondering 😉

[JED]

Apr 20, 2020 16:51:43 GMT -6 WardWorks said:

Cheers Folks 👍

Matters Arising... 🤔

Oz - Its Downhill all the way from here... (Says he hopefully !) 🙏

Joe and Duke - Its still a good kit, and despite its age, quite accurate dimensionally... Pretty much falls together without problems and it now has good quality wheels in the kit, which makes it an ideal candidate for use on a model railway (in its original issue by Rosebud and subsequent issues by Kitmaster and Airfix), the wheels weren't usable for running on a model RR 🤓

Jed - Ouch ! 750 volts - what Ampage ? Take it a 455 is one of those outside 3rd Rail jobs that your Region is known for ? The bang and flash when that happened would have been quite spectacular to have seen ! 😲
Any ideas as to the cause ? Electricity has always been a somewhat fascinating subject to me, you cannot see it, but its power is undoubted, especially if you're on the wrong end of it at the time ! Any electrician will tell you volts won't kill you, but the Amps (current) will ! 😖 Just ask anybody who's relieved themself upon the outside third (conductor) rail in your region of the former BR. - well ask their family, chances are they won't have survived ! 😲🤫

Regards to All
OB of shocking examples 😉

Hi OB, I'm not sure of the ampage to be honest,electrics aren't my thing to be honest. I know not to touch it mind!! I will look at the schematics tomorrow or ask one of our techs that is doing the re-fit. I've not in 20 odd years seen a fire in any of our trains as bad as this and cause as much damage as it has. The cause I believe was one of the feed cables chaffing and making contact where it shouldn't !! Some of the cables are about an inch thick and have started to melt!!

[JCON]

Wow!!!

[WardWorks]

Cheers Guys 👍

There was an Engineer's train pottering about the place when I arrived this morning, loud gravel scraping-on-steel noises told me that track ballasting was happening..







Its just a commercial ballast of fine tailings brushed into place, wet down with a spray of water and dishwashing liquid applied thru a plant sprayer, followed by a mix of hot water and PVA glue dribbled carefully into the ballast via a teaspoon to set it rock hard when it all dries... No, the points are not yet ballasted, only the plain track. Points get done separately (and very carefully - don't want to gum up the moving parts ! 😖).. The areas of plain track and points at the end of the platform road and the two sidings up the far end of the layout will not be getting ballasted as described above, they're to be treated in a different fashion.

Sitting on the unballasted end we find the Engineer's train mentioned above ..



Departmental liveried Class 33 - a Lima Limited Edition...🤓



Seacow Ballast Hopper (Hornby, ex Lima) with a Whale tucked in behind (Cambrian kit) 🤓



Pair of Dogfish hoppers - Heljan (no offence Oz - I didn't name them !) 😗🎵🎶



and a Shark Plough Van (Hornby) on the end ... 🤓



The train is kinda stuck here for the moment, cos water (in the ballast) and electrickery don't play together very well, so it'll move off as soon as the glue dries, got at least 4 -5 hours yet... Think the loco crew and the brakeman have scarpered off down the pub ! 🍺😃. Oh well at least the water in the ballast keeps those 'orrible passenger jalopies out of the place ! 🤫😈

Regards to all
OB of sticky stuff 😉

[JCON]

I like that last train very much!!!

[WardWorks]

So did I, til it departed back to Rhunnamuck Jn when I wasn't looking... 😖

Signalman at the next station up the line (Derwentia) had a heart attack when it appeared., without the relevant bell codes from our signalbox 🙄

Turns out he was unaware of the fact that the remains of our signalbox was demolished following the near total demolition it suffered in the explosion and fireball that occured at the culmination of Lord Elpuss's last experimental locomotive test drive (no window escaped being blown to smithereens within a 50 mile radius of the detonation)... 🤯

We think we know what happened, but we've been sworn to secrecy until the Explosive Disaster Enquiry announces its findings publicly (we know exactly what happened, as they've confirmed our thoughts), but we're not telling until they do... Official Secrets Act ya know ! 🤫😆

Regards
OB of keeping secrets 😉

[JCON]

Someone there eating beans again?

[WardWorks]

Funnily enough - No 😆

Sorry but that's all I can say, without contravening the Official Secrets Act... and I'm not going into the clink for anybody ! 🤫

Sorry but I'll have to leave you in suspenders again... 😖

They've said the announcement should be within a day or two now... I'll regale you with the story of the railway exploits of the late Lord Derwent (the founder of the line) and the Baroness Wobbleigh (his principal financial backer), starting tomorrow if ya like ? 🤔😈 It should be noted that the historical extracts are the result of my own researches, confirmed wherever possible by their descendants 🤓😈

Regards
OB of hitting the History books 😉

[JED]

Very nice OB, WITH REFERENCE TO THE EARLIER QUESTION AND THE AMPAGE output from the 750 volts (and yes third rail) how does 3000 amps sound 😬😬😬😬 that was from our head of technical wizardry !!!

[JCON]

Oh my!!!

[WardWorks]

Cheers Folks !

Jed - Blimey, dat's one heck of a zap, no wonder those silly enough to relieve themselves on the third rail end up very dead (and with their skin in the area looking like Alligator scales from the burns) OUCH !  😲

Name of my station is "Derwent Water" by the way, its a name I've used before for a much bigger layout (32 feet something) 😆

Here's an extract from the (heavily redacted and thus abbreviated) history of the line 🤔

"The original Terminus of the Derwent line is now known as Derwent Junction, how the line actually came to terminate at the lakeside, just over 4 miles from its original terminus, is a rather interesting tale, best summarised as follows….

In the late 1800’s, following the rather loud and messy culminations of Lord Derwent’s initial experiments regarding finding a way to make scones and puddings rise rapidly, the gentle villagers of Derwent (tired of scraping several types of both smelly and sticky substances from their windows, walls, roofs, bodies, children and pets), appealed to the Railway Company for help… the Company replied to the effect that if the gentle burghers were indeed willing to up stocks and move everything anywhere (as long as it was outside the blast radii of Lord Derwent’s experiments), then the Company was quite willing do what it could to help.

Parliamentary approval for the intended four mile extension was adamantly refused (owing to Lord Derwent’s "antics"), Luckily, the Baroness Wobbleigh’s mother then paid for all the works herself, out of her own personal fortune. The only reason for her so doing (as noted in her diary from the time) was that her little daughter (herself to inherit the title, following her Mother’s death much later) liked to watch the “chuff-chuffs” coming up the line towards Cobbler’s Halls, the ancestral home of the Baronesses Wobbleigh.

The village of Derwent was sited a further three and a half miles toward the lake (and as luck would have it, just outside the area modelled) and happiness reigned supreme among the villagers.

In the early 1960’s the infamous Dr Beeching tried to close the line, but was utterly repulsed, repelled and revolted by the Baroness Wobbleigh’s threats (best left in the timeless mists enshrouding history)... Your current scribe knows exactly what those threats were, but is way too much of a gentleman to ever think of repeating any of them, (even his thinking about them causes revulsion to the point of vomiting within seconds !). Subsequently, British Railways, have left the line and all concerned therewith well and truly alone."

That'll have to do unless and until the redactions are redacted and more can be elucidated for your edification from the relevant archives... it will, however, serve as a taster for the Bios to come of Lord Derwent and Baroness Wobbleigh, both of whom are somewhat legendary in local area memories

Regards to All

OB of still working on the Bios of Lord Derwent and Baroness Wobbleigh😉

 

[JCON]

Nice historical background!!!