7mm Heybridge Basin

[Richard Gawler]

View attachment 188062
George @Herb Garden : The track plan is very is close to this, but I am showing a Peco curved point here in AnyRail to represent a mildly-curved A6 which I am using.

@adrian : The baseboard is from a standard G&H module. I placed the track on the board as carefully as I could and marked a line to show the rail nearest to the basin. Then I marked another line parallel to this and cut out the baseboard top to suit - see Dockside tracks. It was then easy to lay the cross members onto the top to mark them for cutting out. The construction sequence for the big bits was (with the structure upside down) top, three cross members, both ends, front and rear, basin base; and then trimmings like the back of the basin and the three diagonal braces.

@Yorkshire Dave : The operating practice on the Navigation was for sea-worthy vessels to tie alongside near Osea Island, where their loads were transferred to old Thames barges. These were towed across to the sea lock, moved into the basin, and everything was moved again this time onto barges. There is more in part 1 of my back story, this part of the story is factual. I will be very happy to make some passable looking water. Some kind of watercraft would be a bonus but it isn't a must have. Shoving all of this track into five square feet is probably a cliche in its own right, but if I can end up with a better test track and some experience of larger-scale scenics this will be good.

I have been pondering the scenic development of "Heybridge Basin". The track plan has been fixed since early June but some thought is needed to show this is "Essex" and not "in England". So, thinking about localisation, the ideas so far are the following:

Great Britain

• Sleepers 9 ft long, set at the usual British spacing with spiked FB rail
• Facing point lock on the passenger line
• Architecture item 1: platform shelter
• Navigation to look like a canal not a river
• Wildlife: mute swans in the basin

East Anglia

• Water column of GER pattern
• Large sky on the backscene

Essex

• Ballast: local sand and gravel (independent railway, so not GER ash from Stratford)

Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation

• Architecture 2: small office building from Paper Mill Lock, this is seven miles away on the Navigation

Heybridge Basin

• Waterfront defined by stone slabs on brick walls, like the sides of the sea lock
• Early use of concrete for building blocks, pioneered by E H Bentall
• Station name board “Heybridge Basin” (!)

I would love to add "painting of local buildings on backscene" to this list, but while the usual constraints of time and money always apply, there is is also the matter of ability


I have built, it seems, seventeen model railway layouts. Only four worked out really well, and these were the four where I planned the treatment of every square inch before I even laid the track. It makes sense really, especially if some more of the baseboard top has to be cut away. There is no rush, but I do think "Essex" deserves more than "ballast". This is the 1890s but I still await the first TOWIE remarks

 

[Richard Gawler]

The first turnout is now glued down forever . . .


Unfortuately, the tiebar using piano wire and two offcuts of copper clad (September 2022), which I thought was really neat, broke before the turnout reached a baseboard. So I am having a first attempt at an under-baseboard tiebar.


The new tiebar assembly is from C&L. I have glued its acrylic base onto the baseboard with Evo-Stik contact adhesive.


The tiebar assembly uses two vertical lengths of 0.5 mm piano wire to move the point blades. So there is space to model a scale tiebar.


I had a go at arranging these wires to pivot on the tiebar to reduce torsional stresses but this merely increased their lateral movement and the associated stresses at the blades, and I ended up with too much slop.


So they are now soldered solid. This assembly "seems to work" but I have doubts about the longevity of the link wires. The blades are code 124, but on the bright side they are planed along most of their lengths and they are longer than a similar geometry in 4 mm scale.


If the tiebar had been an inch longer I could put a stall motor or a switch mechanism directly beside it. I will have to extend the tiebar or arrange some kind of linkage.

 

[Richard Gawler]

If I am sensible, I can keep the external wiring into the layout down to two wires. I have wired the track as if for DCC and for me this will support one analogue loco and a high frequency lighting unit. If a second loco enters the stage, this will be using radio control. The lighting unit can run a couple of gas lamps as well as coach lighting.


My busbars are copper wire on brass wood screws, and the colour coding is using up the colours I rarely use. The cable clips are ones for 3 to 5 mm round cable, fixed underneath the baseboard with screws in place of the masonry nails.


I turned the layout as needed to let gravity hold the wires, this makes looming a lot easier and neater.

I rather like the droppers off the blades idea. It gives a decent length for them to flex, so I don't think I'd worry about torsion.

A short length of brass wire with a loop at one end for the Tortoise spring wire, and soldered at the other to your tie bar should do the trick.

I have extended the under-baseboard tiebar as suggested by Simon.


The block of plywood is here to make sure I get enough throw from the point mechanism. I cut the block oversize to give me more area for the glue holding it under the baseboard.

This is a “Blue Point” mechanism of North American origin. It gives me a latching mechanism and a changeover switch, but the action above the baseboard is as clunky as a solenoid

The mechanism supports a second push rod, so I could arrange control from the front of the layout one day if this is useful.

The push rod is, of course, a bicycle spoke. The nipple can get a locknut when I find a suitably primordial-spec fixing. Probably a "2-56".

But at last, I can play trains

 

[Richard Gawler]

Hmmm! I had a rocking lever like this on an N gauge layout where I was determined to persuade one H&M point motor to work two points. Eventually I got it to work, but after the layout was stored for a while it didn’t!


In broad terms, I see operations a bit like this:

• For freight, a loco will haul a wagon from the fiddle yard (right) into the headshunt and then propel it into the kickback siding. When a loco passes over the Setrack point, it “kicks” the blades into place if they are set incorrectly. (Though most likely they will be correct following the last exit of a train from the headhunt).
• For passenger, a loco hauls its coach into the passenger platform. The task of getting the loco onto the other end of the train for its departure will involve setting back and then the use the headshunt and a rope. The route of the Setrack point stays unchanged throughout this.

If this all works out okay, I’ll stay with it. If I really want single-lever control of the points, I might look at a bowden cable from the actuating arm of the Blue Point around to the Setrack point. Or of course a rocking lever. This might be easier in 0 gauge than N gauge because it will be longer and will rotate further.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I saved some offcuts of the iron-on veneers to use them on the extension for the sea lock. These veneers have a short storage life, perhaps three or four weeks. I wrapped the offcuts in cling flim and put them in the garden shed away from the central heating but they still curled up along their long axes. So when the kit to build the extension baseboard arrived, I built it straight away.


The baseboard is a standard module from Grainge and Hodder, 400 mm long and 400 mm deep, with the front cut away to make a space for the sea lock.


I have reinforced the front edge of the top and the slimmed-down front of the module with parts provided to use as diagonals.


The structural bases for the sea lock (right) and the extension of the basin (left) are some 6 mm ply left over from another project. I cut locating slots in the frame not the new parts because this makes it so much easier to align the new parts.


Fixing the extension of the basin. The block of softwood here is simply holding the base of the basin level, it is not a part of the model.


The idea is to make the course of the Navigation appear to curve to the right and drop away towards sea level.

The original idea was to put the lock gates at the baseboard joint, but this wouldn't work because the arm for working the gate of the sea lock would be crossing the headshunt. So this arm will be beyond the headshunt, near the pencil.

The veneers flattened themselves out quite well after I brought them back indoors, but they don't like being stored for any extended period.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I started to write about ballast here and on my Workbench topic but this was a bit premature. It is sensible to deal with the groundworks built directly onto the baseboard before adding any ballast.

I have made a start on these with the passenger platform.


I have made the transverse pieces in two parts. This way there is no accurate cutting needed except to get the outer ends square.


I overdid the depth of one kerf on the first front wall and it snapped. The second attempt has at least twice as many kerfs as I really needed. I got away with fewer cuts into the rear wall because the edge trim (below the cardboard finishing strip) is holding this piece into shape.


The platform will end up higher than I really wanted it to be, but this way the coach doors will open underneath the awning. The long lens has closed up the hoizontal gap between platform and lower footboard, this will end up about a scale foot. Passengers will use an upturned wooden box or portable steps to climb in and out.


The platform is a scale 64 feet long to hold two 30 ft coaches with a little leeway. I have used an entire 2.4 m length of 11 x 6 mm stripwood to build this.

When I glued in the last piece I thought about the fall (run-off) on the surface to let rainwater drain away. This would have been really easy to do with some packing under one long edge. On the other hand, the finished surface will probably be ash or gravel so no great need for this. And it will be easier to fix the building upright onto a level platform.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Most of the model foundations are glued onto the layout and the landscaping in between them can get underway.

Meanwhile, this is the empty plot at Heybridge Basin in the 1920s.


"Heybridge Basin - ketch barge FEARLESS unloading granite chipping for road making, Essex C.C. FEARLESS was built 1876 at Ipswich, Official No. 65377". From the Ron Green Collection at Mersea Museum.

I saw this photo for the first time today. My interpretation already has a great deal of licence, but clearly there just had to be a railway here

Thanks to @Rob R for bringing this wonderful set of photos to my attention: Places > Heybridge - Mersea Museum

 

[Richard Gawler]

I have glued down my first scenic models, and so my groundworks give way to the landscaping. I haven’t used plaster for years, though I have used paper mâché and card surfaces. This is my first go with Sculptamold.


I will probably curse the water column for evermore, but I have to fix it now so I can fill in the adjacent ground surface. Offcuts of foam board to reduce the depth of the landscape formation (see later!)


I want the mature tree to be demountable so the tree gets a locating tube, a ply spacer and some mesh where its roots have raised the ground surface. I have shoved the sharp ends of the mesh downwards into the cork.


Three layers of card to make a profile, and more patches of foam board.


Cling film and masking tape, then the Sculptamold.


The metal mesh was good; the mixture dried out overnight. The foam board less so; and a patch 12 mm thick laid directly onto a cork tile even worse. These areas are still damp at the end of the third day. I suspect priming these surfaces with PVA was unnecessary (if well-intended) and it is certainly slowing everything down.

Patience.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Hi Richard,
To my eye the colours of the platform stonework are too 'forward'. I would mute them with a thin wash of grey to knock it back a tad. I've always worked from the premise that colour fades and is muted with distance and that, at the distance we view our railways, more restrained use of bold colour aids realism.

Obviously just my personal opinion, others are widely available.

I try to compose my progress photos to make them reasonably attractive but the exposure is always manual (the only communication between camera and flash head is "fire!") and I don't pay much attention to the white balance. So anyone trying to judge the colours of my models from these photos is disadvantaged to start with.

To try to remedy this I have taken some photos outdoors in bright sunlight. The camera white balance is at its factory setting for bright sunshine and I know this gives a good rendition of colour. I begin with the bare stone and the painted concrete blocks . . .







. . . and then move on to the telegraph office . . .




This final shot shows the intensity of my model painting against a path from neat Yellow Ochre. To my mind the rail sides are on the limit and could be cut back a little; the rest is about right.

I think the reproduction of the colours here is accurate, so let the judging begin! Better to point out flaws now than after the scenic dressings are chosen and glued down. I want a bright and cheerful layout; not a foggy day. I also think I am quite brave to put up photos in such harsh lighting

 

[simond]

Panniers.

you really can’t have too many. But building three or four of a broadly similar design, with detail differences, would be boring, particularly when they’re readily available, run well, look right, and are just crying out to be made suitably grubby. So I built two and a half*, and bought three.

* the half is still WIP, as @Pencarrow knows!

 

[Richard Gawler]

I've not yet seen anyone attempt anything like this despite lots of interest at exhibitions. Maybe nobody is interested and only wants to see the modelmaking?

I tried something using an Arduino driving a 20x4 character LCD display to describe a layout and the locos to be seen in operation, but the display wasn't coordinated to the movements of the trains. The same Arduino drove a couple of scenic animations too, and I got a fair way to filling up its memory which was a quiet ambition at the time. I think it was a fair idea but spoilt by my obsession with using really old-fashioned technology; the display was the alphanumeric type where I defined bitmapped characters to join up together to make pictures of my trains. No-one except me has seen it in action.

I saw a P4 third-rail (not three-rail!) exhibition layout "St. Mary Hoo" and this had a working flap-type departure board. The entire display of layout and departure board was a joy to watch - this was a large layout built by a small team who clearly all worked to very high standards. Of course, this sort of departure board is ideal for passenger trains but unsuited to freight, but it was ever so good. The whole layout was like watching a real railway through an upstairs window on a nearby building.

I very much like the look of what you have done. I guess there is a laptop with a PowerPoint or similar presentation and the TV is running as a duplicate screen? I suspect I could stand a tablet on the fiddle yard of Heybridge Basin (not built yet) to show similar things.

The only doubt in my mind is, your TV is offset to one side; and so people can see the screen or the layout but not both. Possibly, you could have a smaller additional screen, carrying the same information and located above the sky at the back of the layout? I think your display would be ideal for someone arriving at a layout at a show and wanting to find out what is going on. I think for me, such a display might give me the discipline to work out an operating sequence for Heybridge Basin too.

 

[Richard Gawler]

The colour of the water in the basin needs to reflect the colour of the imaginary sky above. Water is by far the more difficult of the two for me, so I really must have a go. Painting the backscene to tone with the water has got to be easier than the other way round.

My experience of modelling water comprises some solvent-encrusted string for an N gauge waterfall (not very convincing) and a modest pond in H0 (better). I have never tackled anything like this basin in my life.

Local knowledge tells me, the water here always has tiny ripples on its surface; it is never completely calm. I have done some experiments with a large offcut of rippled PVC sheet over intense blue-printed photo paper kindly supplied by Clyde Humphries of Magnorail Oz.


Experiments with different spray adhesives pointed me towards a light application of Gorilla brand glue onto the photo paper, a one-minute wait and then assembly.


Sadly the "real thing" did not work out - the joins in the photo paper and in the pvc sheet stick out like a sore thumb.


I know, used too much glue but I can correct this next time. I am sure this PVC sheet is a good idea but at the moment I am seeking a large sheet able to cover the area in one piece.


In the meantime, I have build a "cover assembly" to raise the basin to its proper height.


This is simply a sheet of black foam board braced with stripwood.


The foam board tucks underneath the edge of the basin. I will fix up the gap in the bracing if I think it is really necessary but a little flexing helps installation and removal.


The result looks so good, I might not bother with any water at all!

I mean, whilst the cover assembly gives me a space to install a Magnorail mechanism to drive some swans, I could equally well cut out the foam board to install a display panel, nicely angled for viewing.

The cover assembly leaves me about 1.5 mm to install a "water" layer of card and PVC sheet; but without these, a few shims will raise the cover tight underneath the basin edge. My options remain open.

 

[Richard Gawler]

The basin dominates the diorama but does not need to appear in many photos of stock. I would like to return to it after I have decided whether I should best represent the constantly-rippled appearance at the real location or the much more placid appearance further along the cut. Though Rob's modelling above is very good indeed!

In the meantime I want to explore the photographic possiblities of the diorama, to see how well it can work and what I ought to alter. This is supposed to be a fairly open location, and here are six views of the same wagon in different spots.


1


2


3


4


5


6

I want to add some kind of scenic detail on the left in photo 5 (and on the right in photo 4), just something small to balance things up.

I put a mate's "Britannia" on the layout last week and could not get one decent shot, though being green it looked pretty awful against my brown-green under-grass.

I wonder what else I ought to do before the ballasting.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Something no-one tells you about modular layouts is, expect to want a fresh backdrop for every plausible configuration. This is my first for the Heybridge Railway: "Heybridge Basin with extension".

View attachment 220767
These M6 bushes go in with an allen key. They are an alternative to tee nuts, and the advantage for me is they can go in from the front. The thumb screws are by Ganter, thank you to Tony (@Osgood) for pointing me towards these.

View attachment 220769
The panel drops into the slot in the extension, and wraps around the back of the main baseboard.

View attachment 220768
Hardboard seems sensible for a curving panel.

. . .

The curving panel with its abrupt ends won't suit all tastes but I think it will work in my living room, which is where I will have to keep this model when I eventually get the main layout underway.

In my previous posts here I have used "backscene" rather loosely, to refer to the physical backdrop panel or to its illustration. So I have edited several older posts today to clarify where I am writing about the backdrop. This satisfies the inner nerd even if no-one else ever noticed.

. . .

Too late, I realised a modular layout needs multiple backdrop panels, one for each permutation of modules. To make a start, I bought a full 2.4 x 1.2 metre sheet of hardboard, and the timber merchant cut this into four strips for me.

There are plenty of warnings about hardboard warping. The first panel is now four months old and has kept its flatness. The material seems to be okay if you prime both sides, and use the right stuff to do the priming. Rustin’s MDF sealer and a decorator’s acrylic primer/undercoat have been successful. What did not work at all well was to try diluted PVA glue on one of the backs. I might as well have put the board out into the rain. So now I have three panels instead of four.


The second panel is long enough to serve Module B as well as the diorama board and its extension.

Although I am lucky to have my hobby room I do not have a workshop. So I cut the board to size in the kitchen and did this test fit in the living room. Then I painted the panel in the garden room and did the final fitting out in the hobby room.


The reinforcements are holding the panel flat above Module B.


The new panel drops into the slot in the extension (same as the first panel) so I only need one thumbwheel to hold it in place. Which is fortunate because this is the only thumbwheel I can reach when the layout is in its place in the hobby room.


I really like the overall effect here, I think the shape is easier on the eye and it makes the model look more interesting.


Nevertheless, this is taking me down a route to more woodwork, to enclose the fiddle yard. I really don’t want to tackle this yet.

There is also the matter of the illustration! I was terrible in art lessons at school, and I dropped the subject at 13. The breadth of modelling on WT does rather show how some projects excel in the artistic sides of things. I am far happier with a soldering iron than a paintbrush in my hand, so I think I will best live with the magnolia for a while.

 

[steve50]

I've just bee browsing through your thread. That's a great project you have there, some fine modelling and I love the inspiration from the real location, a place I used to know well in my days as a Drayman!
How will you operate the layout, is the stock propelled in or would there be a loco in the kick back siding?

 

[Osgood]

Does anyone else have a view on how this rope shunting experiment at The Basin is likely to end up?

 

[Osgood]

Must say it would be a challenge but I am very tempted to try replicating the wagon scene in model form.
Quite tempted by this one too



Note: Photograph copyright believed to be held by Industrial Railway Society

 

[Richard Gawler]

In real life I think the location would be worked by a loco and a horse. I have both but the horse lacks animation. So I want to use a mixture of rope shunting, a local 'pilot' loco, and simple push-pull operations. The pilot will be 'Lady Marion'.

I have done my test runs with a 140 mm rope. This has worked, using a battery loco and with the loco uncoupling from the rope and "running round" as it were to propel the wagon along the siding. Frog switching would let me use one of my analogue locos in its place.

Going back to the rope shunting, trials have all worked out very well in geometrical and operational terms.


The MW class F can pull a pair of wagons into the passenger platform and take them clear of the fouling point, even when the headshunt contains two wagons.


Similarly, the loco can pull a pair of wagons into the siding and get them beyond the fouling point using the same 160 mm rope.


The layout reaches its maximum workable capacity with six wagons; I can still extract one wagon from the goods siding. I was expecting the limit to be four so this has all worked out better than I expected.

The capacity reduces if I use a longer loco such as the Terrier or the MW class K. These are both track-powered so I need to work up some different frog switching on the A6. Still, I can see the layout is going to work. The biggest problem I have is touching a wagon when attaching the rope. They are so free-running they run away.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I have made a start on the ballasting. I have spent months looking for a suitable sieve and finally found one in Poundstretcher.


This sets off the colour of the concrete blocks the way I wanted them to look.


I am about a third of the way into the task but I am so pleased with how this is turning out I wanted to share it.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I haven’t done any modelling for a month but I have built a lighting rig for the layout.

This is my fifth lighting rig so I ought to be knowing what to do but the technology changes every few years and each rig is different to the previous. The criteria this time are for the rig to be reusable for any future layout around 1.8 to 2 metres long; and to be as unobtrusive as possible. Also I want to be able to reach through it to use a display cabinet hung on the wall behind.


I began with a kit from Wholesale LED Lighting of Leicester. This has a 4000K “daylight” CCT tape and the effect is perfect at home with a cool white strip light above the layout, but just a tiny bit too warm used on its own.


So I added a strip of 6000K “cool white” and a controller to adjust the proportions of light from the two strips. This controller has three spare channels to use with other layouts or even new general lighting in the room.


The supports are from a pair of very lightweight lighting stands. Time will tell whether they are just a bit too lightweight, but they were cheap enough to cut into pieces and rebuild differently.


I have fixed an offcut of tube into the extension baseboard . . .


. . . and one bracket drops into this.


There is a suitably shorter bracket in the fiddle yard.


The lighting bar is an L-shaped aluminium extrusion with a corner LED profile inside.


There is just enough room to squeeze both tapes into the profile.


The idea is, if the bar gets knocked it will just swing; and its willingness to move will discourage people from hanging coats or indeed themselves on it.


Both brackets adjust vertically by about 100 mm. At the moment, the bar clears my head. The bar is just under two metres long so it will pack into a two-metre drain pipe for transit. So far so good