Brettell Road

[jim s-w]

Hi all

If you have followed my New Street thread you might be aware of the following, if not you probably know about the Great British Locomotives magazine. Well I haven't really paid that much attention but recently they featured a Jinty which I've always quite liked. So a copy was purchased and the following image taken just for the hell of it.



It should have stopped there but I've found myself looking at things like th brassmasters detailing kit and the high level chassis. Then the brassmasters deely 0-4-0. This is far from a good thing trust me. But if I went down this route what would I do with them? I find myself looking at various locations arround my house in the black country and the sidings at brettle lane have a certain appeal. I can get there in about 15 minutes on foot and while there's not a lot to look at now with a slight relocation of the canal and some selected local buildings there's the genesis of a little industrial themed plaything.

Add in that the shopping centre for new street is going to take a long time and this side project might just be worth considering...

There's a few other things that appeal too, the idea of selecting somewhere to model rather than always knowing what I was going to do is something new. Having to research something from scratch is also new.

Cheers

Jim

[Andy W]

I can see why you may be looking for a change Jim, but some of your many qualities we admire are your commitment and focus. It would be a shame if progress on New Street faltered. However, we all do this hobby for enjoyment, and if you feel a new scene is what's needed then go for it. I'm sure you'll produce wonders.

The Brassmasters' Deeley is my next build - so I can see the attraction. But then I model MR 1908 so have no dilemma.

Andy (one of your many fans).

[jim s-w]

Thanks Andy

I'm looking at this a bit more of a freebie, in that I plan to use it for experiments on things that I will be doing on the main layout. Ok not laying track as I've done a bit ( ) of that before but I do have more track laying to do on new street soon so I'll do that together.

I need to practise on laser cut buildings etc so this will be good for this too. Plus I like the idea of setting at night and in the rain, not sure how to do rain falling on puddles and the canal yet so that will need experimenting.

Cheers

Jim

[Tim V]

A bit of a step outside your norm there Jim - and why not?

Is it a contender for the SGW? If so I'll have to get my thinking cap on....

[jim s-w]

Afraid not Tim, it's too big. Although I'm finding 8ft scenic to be more cramped than a really cramped thing!

Cheers

Jim

[Ian Everett]

Afraid not Tim, it's too big. Although I'm finding 8ft scenic to be more cramped than a really cramped thing!

Cheers

Jim

If your starting point is BNS I suppose 8' seems short! But to most of us...

There are precedents for modellers with long term projects going off on a temporary tangent without affecting the overall success of the main layout - thing Peter Denny with his TT and garden layouts and David Jenkinson with his gauge 1 garden layout.

We look forward to seeing progress, Jim.

Ian

[jim s-w]

Hi all

I've changed the name a bit to break ties with the real place (which was GWR territory). I have been busy but still only theoretically as I've been working on the track plan below.



The curved line will be abandoned and the double slip modified to reflect this. The layout is still quite a bit smaller (and less work) than my shopping centre for New Street!

Cheers

Jim

[jim s-w]

Hi All

Spent today at Tim's playing with the laser cutter and have knocked up the boards for this, Unfortunately it was a bit dark when we finished but it was quite a bright moon!!

Brettell-Grove-teaser.jpg

Brettell-Grove-teaser.jpg (42.58 KiB) Viewed 14105 times

Cheers

Jim

[Mark Tatlow]

Very atmospheric Jim; even if it was perhaps not by design!

[DougN]

I'm impressed Jim that you seem to have a idea and then away it goes, from a plan to a physical presence extremely quickly. I guess Tims laser cutter helps with the speed of making a layout. I like the idea but there are not that many laser cutters here in Australia.... Though it is a toy that I would like.

[Tim Horn]

Jim's at the controls this morning, cutting out stuff for New Street

Jim at the controls.jpg (175.79 KiB) Viewed 14008 times

[Tim Horn]

The finished item, designed and mostly cut by Jim

[Terry Bendall]

Jim's at the controls this morning, cutting out stuff for New Street

Hard work this basboard building.

Terry Bendall

[jim s-w]

The hard work is done in illustrator Terry. While drawing each part is simple it can get very complicated very quickly and there's an awful lot to think about. TBH building it on the fly is probably much easier (and would be a lot faster) but the end result might be (would be in my case) a lot more Heath Robinson.

I have to admit, there were a couple of mistakes designed in but the ability to tweak complex shapes and re-cut it where this method scores. The length of the curved fronts was completely wrong for example.

Cheers

Jim

[jim s-w]

I'm impressed Jim that you seem to have a idea and then away it goes, from a plan to a physical presence extremely quickly. I guess Tims laser cutter helps with the speed of making a layout. I like the idea but there are not that many laser cutters here in Australia.... Though it is a toy that I would like.

I wouldn't say that Doug. Although true in this case I was working on the plans for new street for something like 7 years before I actually got started with track laying

Cheers

Jim

[jsherratt]

I like the look of these new baseboards, Jim. Very interesting. Look forward to reading more about this new project here.

John

[jim s-w]

Hi all

I've changed the name again after a few people mentioned they thought grove was a bit out of area.



I must admit I'm a bit out of practise with this track building stuff and this took a bit longer than I thought.  Above is an overview of the trackwork so far with just some plain track still to do.



First up is a double slip that isn't!  It's actually just a normal turnout from an operational point of view with one end blocked and clamped so it doesn't move.



At the other end I've removed two of the point blades to depict that the line it leads too is out of use.



On the other board is a 3 way point.  I've always found these more tricky than double slips although they are less work.



It's the way the 3 vees have to interact that makes them tricky. I also messed up the first set of blades and got one in the wrong place so I had to do it again. It was only once I'd done it that I remembered I might have done exactly the same thing last time I did a 3 way!

Cheers

Jim

[dave_long]

Coming along nicely Jim, although whats the meaning of making the Pensnett branch disused 20 years too early!

[DougN]

Jim, that track work looks great. I would love to be able to build the track to that standard. Can you give a bit of. A run down of what components you have used. I notice that some is exacto scale others are C&L... Along with some copperclad.

I was going to pick up some track bits this year but I know I have a massive collection of C&L bits but combining them with the exacto scale bits looks to be the bees knees.

[jim s-w]

Most of this was made with left overs from New Street Doug. Rail is c&l and the chairs are exactoscale. I had some lengths of c&l flexi track which were unused so I used them up on this (I'm using exactoscale flexi on New Street) which means I did need to buy some thin sleepers and copperclad (as well as more chairs). I use pins through the copperclad to adjust the height and provide droppers at the same time. There's a thread on here somewhere.

Hi Dave

I just thought it was more Interesting. I want to try some overgrown greenery. I also like the idea of a derelict signal.

Cheers

Jim

[jim s-w]

Hi All



With the track finished and wiring done the first train has had a run round the layout.  Surprisingly for a first running session, nothing fell off (despite the boards just being propped up on whatever was to hand an not levelled)!  In the absence of suitable stock 08610 and a short rake of modern wagons did the honours!

Cheers

Jim

[jim s-w]

A pet peeve I have is really nicely modelled layouts with ever so shiny road vehicles that are clearly tipped from the box. These are usually done by quite skilled modelers who wouldn't accept such a thing if it was a rail vehicle but are happy too for cars, trucks and vans. Odd then that ive just done a lorry for Brettell Road that is deliberately shiny!

Part of the plan to model Brettell Road is to model it in the rain.  I've seen layouts that depict snow but never rain which is a tad odd when you consider that in the UK on average it rains for 1 in every 3 days! This lorry is effectively a freebie, using left over bits from lorries done for New Street.

I realised that the picture of the double slip that isn't in an earlier post is a bit confusing. However once a spot of paint is added it becomes much more obvious which bits are used and which bits are not.

Finally a start has been made on the scenic side of things. Its early stages at the moment but the below picture gives a good idea of the effect I have in mind for the layout.


Cheers

Jim

[DougN]

Jim that is looking great and as it is totally out of your normal range to have green stuff ( ) it is looking great. I really like the way the trackwork is obviously (now) out of use.

BTW I thought that the "grove" name was quite good. The idea that names can be drived from many years (centuries) before is great. I am thinking "Copenhagen fields" jumps to mind. Layout names I find difficult to come up with good ones for my OO layout but I managed to come up with a friends very quickly as a joke, Newton Broadway.... which he loved!

(coming from Paris rather than Blackburn)

[Terry Bendall]

Part of the plan to model Brettell Road is to model it in the rain.

That should be a challenge even for you Jim. I have seen Steffan Lewis's layout with smoke effect which in some venues set off the fire alarm, but what about flooding from all that rail water?

Terry Bendall

[jim s-w]

Thanks Chaps

You are right Doug, I dont do greenery but I have been reading Gordon Gravetts rather nice book on the subject.

Apparently the largest possible raindrop size is 5mm (there are websites about this sort of stuff) which scales out at 0.065mm in 4mm but that's for a torrential thunderstorm. A moderate rain drop is half that size (0.033mm). Is that even visible? I have an idea of showing that rain is falling mind you

Cheers

Jim