P4 New Street

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

Another batch of waiting rooms done, ready for installation at the London end of the platforms.

Once again, thanks to Tim for the Laser cutting

Cheers

Jim

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

Been up to a spot of photoshoperry this evening. Starting with

Tiger in the rain

The other day I found this picture



by D210bob and reproduced here with permission and I thought I would copy it.

I dont have 50050 so 009 is standing in and I cant get my camera as low down as the picture but I am quite pleased with how it came out.

Cheers

Jim

Its well worth checking out more of Robert's pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/d210bob/with/6658185091/

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

I do plan to redo my site at some point and bring it up to date. I took this picture to use as a background image but I quite like it on its own

Cheers

Jim

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

As those of you who visit my website will know its been dormant for a very long time. The reason for this is I wanted to completely rebuild it and so I stopped adding anything. Well it took me a lot longer to get round to it than I hoped but I am pleased to say that the rebuild is now complete.

The URL is still www.p4newstreet.com

Cheers

Jim

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi all

Comments got me pondering just how much traffic and what platforms are used. Below is the timetable from 1989 showing the activity in the station from 8am until 9am on a weekday. There are 89 moves in that hour.

Cheers

Jim

 

[28ten]

I take it that wont be operating on your own then I would think that operating that is going to be quite hectic to say the least

 

[Jim S-W]

My plan is to work out a timetable made up of 3 hours - morning, early afternoon and evening. But then to follow it as a list rather than an actual timetable.

Cheers

Jim

 

[Wummyock]

Hello Jim,with regards to operating the layout how many operators will you need to do the layout justice with regards to how busy BNS was?

 

[Neil]

My plan is to work out a timetable made up of 3 hours - morning, early afternoon and evening. But then to follow it as a list rather than an actual timetable.

I think that makes a lot of sense. Though I know very little about the operation of real railways, I know enough to know that there's a rhythm that doesn't scale down to layout size well. Watching and listening to what happens on the Corris (about as far away in scale and scope as one can get from New Street) the tempo of operations is slower than that you'd see on a corresponding model as the physical requirements of getting on and off the loco and stock, coupling, receiving instructions and checking that the road is clear are factored in. I guess that all these and more, like waiting for a path, will be present at the real New Street; not easy to translate into model form.

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

This originally belonged to 'wheeltapper' and I brought it as my own little memorial to him after he lost his long fight against cancer. I have kept as much of Richard's work as I could, just changing the windows, wheels and roof vents. It will see service on Moor Street when its running in its early period.

RIP Richard, you gave it a damn good fight.

Jim

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

Added a few more piccies to my site - heres a taster.

quite like this angle - must try it again with something else.

Cheers

Jim

 

[Dog Star]

Very nice, a clean sweep perchance.

 

[Jim S-W]

a bit lost on me that one Dog Star?! What do you mean (no doubt its just me being thick!)

Cheers

Jim

 

[daifly]

a bit lost on me that one Dog Star?! What do you mean (no doubt its just me being thick!)

Class 50 - Hoover - clean sweep (unless that's being too clever!)

 

[Jordan]

(unless that's being too clever!)

Probably... it passed me by, too....

It is a nice picture, but I prefer the ones taken "from the platforms", so to speak, as that was the view us Spotters got... With that Hoover shot, only a PW-man would get that angle.

As for the GWR Flying Banana... well after you've finished New Street, Jim, you can always build Snow Hill....

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

I have had a couple of projects that need to be batch built recently. One of them is a batch of 31/4s (with a railfreight /0 thrown in) but for now I am going to make a start on a small (3 or 4) batch of class 86/2s

The near one (glenfidditch) was done eons ago so I am adding it to the batch to bring it up to date. I hope I can blend the new blue bits in and just repaint the yellow ends. In the pic you can see I have added my etches and filled the bodyside holes. Interestingly Glenfidditch had lost one of its lower handrails at this end only so I removed the wire one I had already added and filled the holes. I plan to do another etch for the rest of the fleet that will correct the under height body side grills.

Cheers

Jim

 

[28ten]

I was in New street today didnt see any 50's or Railcars I did see your signalbox though
On a slightly more serious note I realised how much blue brick there is in the station area and also how much vegetation is growing from the brickwork, was it like that 20 years ago?

 

[Jim S-W]

There was not so much vegetation but everything was a lot dirtier.

Cheers

Jim

 

[Jim S-W]

Hi All

A quick how to for those inclined to rewheel the 85. The class 85 wheel is 4ft diameter. The nearest I found when I did my 81s was the Alan Gibson 3ft 11 disk and as thats within the wear rate so that what I used. The Bachmann model uses split axles and picks up through the bearings. As the Alan Gibson wheels have plastic middles (and I didn't have any split axes) I drilled through the gear with a 2mm drill and pushed it onto my new axles.

I was chuffed to see that Bachmann have done the gubbins on the face of the wheel and even more chuffed to see it a separate bit. Icing on the cake is that when fitted to a P4 wheel the wheelset still fits between the sidefames. The moulding is glued to the wheel and 2 prongs sit in holes. I drilled these from the back and taking it slowly (and with the stereo off) you can hear the glue fail. The Backs were cleaned up and they were glued to the new wheel.

Cutting the old pickups back I soldered a bit of .3mm brass wire as per the picture. These were bent to bear on the back of the tyre.

Before and after. For those wanting to renumber their models a spot of turps substitute on a cotton bud and a little bit of rubbing and the old numbers came away nice and cleanly.

HTH

Jim

 

[Jordan]

Jim that makes P4 look positively easy..!!!
It is nice when things go well with a project, though!

I always preferred the 'look' of the 86's and 87's to the earlier AC classes, although I could never decide between 86 & 87 which was my absolute favourite....