Bethesda Sidings

Captain Kernow

Western Thunderer
20200209_164938.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
One small observation. I realize brick and stone buildings tend to remain a lot cleaner in country areas, nevertheless, they remain subject to some sort of weathering especially when they have stood for 100 years or more. The steel part of the bridge would have stained brickwork below it. Vegetation adjacent to structures tends to discolor walls while places that see less sunlight tend to gather moss and are stained from tree 'droppings'. However, I am also baring in mind that you probably haven't got around to doing the weathering as yet.
 

Captain Kernow

Western Thunderer
One small observation. I realize brick and stone buildings tend to remain a lot cleaner in country areas, nevertheless, they remain subject to some sort of weathering especially when they have stood for 100 years or more. The steel part of the bridge would have stained brickwork below it. Vegetation adjacent to structures tends to discolor walls while places that see less sunlight tend to gather moss and are stained from tree 'droppings'. However, I am also baring in mind that you probably haven't got around to doing the weathering as yet.
I appreciate what you're getting at here, Larry. I've had another look at the bridge and I did apply weathering before I installed it on the layout, but it isn't too obvious from the photos. There is some mossy green staining and some limescale as well, especially right under the girders, where the camera lens doesn't really reach.

However, I take your point about the steel girders causing rust staining down the brickwork. Before I apply any further weathering, I shall try to unearth some decent prototype photos that show that kind of thing, to guide me.
 

Captain Kernow

Western Thunderer
A few months ago, when I was testing some of the locos that I plan to use on Bethesda Sidings, I found that my Bachmann 08, which had previously been a lovely, slow runner, had developed a pronounced tight spot and 'limp'.

The loco had essentially been sitting in it's box for a few years since my last exhibition. Initial investigations failed to reveal the source of the problem and I reluctantly put it away again.

I have been having a more thorough look in the last couple of weeks and finally spotted that one of the plastic outside cranks, on the rear (driven) axle had split, where the crankpin is attached.

The plastic crank was quite oily and I didn't fancy trying a repair on it, so I ended up ordering a complete replacement wheelset, with rods attached, from the Bachmann spares department. When on the phone, I asked if the design of the 08 chassis had changed over the years (mine is a relatively early model) and was assured that it hadn't.

The new wheelset arrived pretty quickly and I went to install it this afternoon.

I was rather irritated, to say the least, to find that it would only fit, with the rods upside down:


I couldn't put them in the other way up (even though the axle centres are the same between all three axles), because the drive gear is off-set and the gear in the new wheelset was off-set on the opposite side from my original one.

I concluded that either the wheelset I had been sent had been assembled incorrectly or the chassis design had changed after all.

After a bit more faffing about, I realised that I could remove the new driven axle, with it's new outside cranks and substitute it for the original driven axle.

I was able to remove the Bachmann crankpins OK and when assembled, the whole thing then ran sweetly again:


You may notice that I hadn't finished painting the dark rust colour on the check and wing rails, this is now done.

Also, a bit of footage:
 

Captain Kernow

Western Thunderer
Now that the layout itself is virtually complete (apart from some work on the fiddle yard), I've been doing a bit more on the 74XX conversion this afternoon.

Thoughts then turned to giving the chassis another test run on the layout and I found it to be unsatisfactory. It's not really smooth enough at slow speed for my liking and doesn't like the A5 crossover (which is OO-SF), as not all the Bachmann wheels are touching the rail and it sometimes stalls.

Such unreliability isn't acceptable and I know that a compensated chassis would work properly, so I've made the decision to order a High Level chassis kit for it and will probably make building it a priority, together with the whitemetal 16XX kit.

This is now the fourth RTR loco for this layout, where the RTR chassis has failed to live up to expectations and has to be replaced by an etched, compensated example (the others being two Hattons/DJM 14XXs and the Oxford Dean Goods).
 

Captain Kernow

Western Thunderer
I have now started to build the High Level chassis for the 74XX. Early days yet and no photos so far, but the bits that I have soldered yesterday went together really well.

In the meantime, here's a photo of Peckett 'Plantagenet' resting at Bethesda yard, having worked down the light railway from Llanddewi:


Due to the gradients up the light railway from Capel Bethesda, all locos operate with the chimney 'facing north'.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Looking good. I was wondering if these chassis and motors allow enough room for fitting a DCC sound chip and decent size speaker? (I usually gut the cab and bunker to make more space).
 
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