Thursday 14th January

Worklist:
Gateway
Track crossings
Era and scenario discussions

Geoff continued with the railway gateway, fitting all of the components and applying 'mortar' to the painted brickwork.

Pointing added to brickwork and main gateway parts glued in place.
Note the English garden wall bond brickwork.

Chamfered cappings to gateway.
The relocated coaling stage trialled in the proposed coal area

Stephen completed the timber foot-crossing he had started last week. The timbers were filed down to clear the rail-tops and then re-stained.

This was considered to be one of two crossings to the platform, but the other crossing needed to be thought through. Stephen suggested that the layout as a whole needed to be considered in more detail in order to decide where the crossing should go. Was it a working railway for a working estate, or was it a preserved railway. If the former, who would use the station? Members of the household, or was there a village and where would the passengers come from? The crossing fitted could be coming from the main road, off the board edge, but was it a bit narrow? Passengers could come through the yard, but would the Lord & Lady of the house come that way. Was the gas plant and engine a working concern, or some form of attraction? And what about the mine? Finally, what period in time was it all set?

After a prolonged discussion, wherein types and movements of stock were considered, it was decided that an early, preserved railway around 1965 - 1970, fitted most of our requirements. The gas engine had been replaced by mains power, but was still in working order. Visitors would come from the near-by car-park into the centre of the station. Access to the platform would be across a wider crossing, protected by a fence. The engine room, goods shed and cafe, are all accessed off the connecting road.

The coaling stage would be supplied by coal trucks on the railway, with a sideline in bagged coal sold off the access road. The mine is still a working concern with materials going up the mine and stone products back the other way. The preserved line scenario, although a little contrived, does give a lot of scope for interesting train operation, features, signage etc, whilst the period obviates the need for full Health & Safety provisions.


Laurence made and fitted the central crossing and recycled some old fencing from the original layout.

Meantime, Stephen made-up the power supplies for two low-voltage features on the centre baseboard i.e. the gas engine and its sound unit. We've used a number of these small units, purchased on eBay, normally from China. They take a DC supply of up to 40v and, provide a DC voltage from 30v down to 1.5v. (Our current batch cost £5.75 for ten - post free)

We have a 19v DC supply going to each board, provided by an old laptop power supply. They were made-up for each project - 5v for the sound unit and then the engine supply roughly adjusted to set a nice working speed for the engine. These will be fitted under the board, with on-off slide switches fitted under the fibreglass hill.

The power supplies as fitted in the control box for point operation.