Aberfan 1908

[Phil Hudson]

I've been a member of the S4 society for nearly 40 years. Most of that time I was barely active as a Modeller until the first lockdown coincided with semi-retirement. Lots of armchair work and numerous plans kept me engaged over the years. Finally I got started with a project which made faltering progress between July 2020 and December 2022. Earlier this year I decided that the layout just wasn't good enough on many counts so I stripped it down and sent it to the Council recycling centre! For some months I had been planning its replacement and then last month a start was made.
Briefly I'm building a model of Aberfan on the Taff Merthyr line c.1908. It occupies a 7m section of my basement. The baseboards were laser cut and assembled a week ago. I've just added a couple of plain fiddle yard boards and I thought I would post a couple of progress photos

[Paul Willis]

Fantastic! More P4 pre-Grouping!

Do you have a track plan that you can post? Reading Stephen Williams’ first book in modelling Great Western branch lines, he repeatedly makes the point as to how individualistic and un-GWR the absorbed lines were…

I’ll be watching this topic with much interest

Cheers
Paul

[Phil Hudson]

Two images that begin to give the background. Ordnance survey extracts from c.1900 plus a screenshot of my CAD plan for the layout. The track work was drawn in Templot and imported into AutoCAD LT for me to work into greater detail. I'll post more tomorrow in which I'll give some background.

[Phil Hudson]

Fantastic! More P4 pre-Grouping!

Do you have a track plan that you can post? Reading Stephen Williams’ first book in modelling Great Western branch lines, he repeatedly makes the point as to how individualistic and un-GWR the absorbed lines were…

I’ll be watching this topic with much interest

Cheers
Paul

Individualistic is spot on and The Rhymney Railway excelled in being different. My layout will be a heavy mix of Rhymney & GWR, a hint of LNWR and a dose of Crawshay Brothers

[Phil Hudson]

Foundations

The floor in my basement is not particularly level so some help was needed to get things well founded. I am using 5 trestle frames (Screwfix or Amazon). To get some finer vertical adjustment I fitted leg adjusters from Station Road Baseboards, 2 per trestle. This and a spirit level means I can get the layout nicely aligned. The middle three boards sit astride 80x40 aluminium channels. The baseboards have a downwards projection at each corner which engages the inside face of the channels. The picture describes this better.

My first attempt at baseboards in 2020 was a bit of disaster. The design used 9mm birch plywood cut on a CNC machine. Once assembled is was almost 1200 wide, quite deep and far too heavy. Out came the jigsaw and I chopped out a huge amount of mass which helped. Then I cut the front and back away to make it narrower but ended up with each unit out of level. Once I laid the track my baseboards looked like a roller coaster ride for the trains. I had to accept the inevitable and consigned my efforts to the tip.

In my new design I slimmed everything down. I went for Laser Cutting this time and used Birch faced 6mm plywood. Cross members are placed at 160mm centres and each 1200 long unit starts with a perimeter baseplate with internal edge stiffeners. The cross members are castellated to save weight. My boards once assembled are quite stiff and weigh very little....less than 5kg before track and scenery are added.

I use C&L baseboard aligners combined with a couple of 6mm bolts with T-Nuts. I have also added face clamps.

Trying to find a Laser Cutter in spring 2020 was difficult. They were busy making screens and visors as shops and businesses tried to survive the pandemic. In 2023 they are doing normal business and I used 4D Models in London for my work. They were very helpful and less than two weeks after placing my order a box of cut sheets was delivered to my home. 15 sheets at 6mm and 2 sheets at 3mm. Thankfully my artwork only had a couple of minor errors so out came a piercing saw and a file. Veneer pins and Gorilla Wood glue hold it all together.

The next step is the 3mm cork underlay which I'm having laser cut with all the track work etched on. Sections of the baseboard top are removable and I'll construct the track work on these panels in the comfort of my study rather than in-situ with poor light and backache.

[DougN]

Phil, it looks great. The solutions to use laser cutting for accuracy and ease is brilliant. I have yet to find any one capable of doing full sheets here in Melbourne, though I do know a lot of joiners who use the CNC panel cutters.

I like your method of the Aluminum channel and a small number of the trestles. I was going to use a similar system with box section Aluminum of 75x 50. Cut to 3.25m lengths and laped on the middle trestle. I can just take this length in my car... if I ever wanted to take it to an exhibition. Thinking about the layout only got as far as buying the trestles!

[Phil Hudson]

The laser cutter used for my job can cut 1200x700 sheets but other cutters I approached could cope with larger sizes.

The Aluminium beam solution was something I picked up from The South London Groups St Merryn layout. The beams are strong and light but I wish I'd bought them slightly longer

[Mark Tatlow]

A small but nifty point I see in the last of your photographs.

The protruding tab that you have to ensure that the boards do not skid around on the aluminum beams will ensure that the boards are raised slightly if you place them on the ground.

It means that their bases will not get scuffed and you can get your fingers under them to pick them up again. It is actually a surprisingly significant point when you are tired and looking to pack a layout away at an exhibition and can't actually get your fingers under them!

[Phil Hudson]

Mark. Good point about the lifting. I also fitted 4 rubber feet to the back face of each unit so I can sit them on the floor without scuffing the surface....which I'll paint at a later date.

[Phil Hudson]

The next stage of work is about to start. Laser cut cork has been laid out for checking purposes. The sheets have the track plan etched on including marks, fishplates, isolation joints and palatine dropper locations. I've also added the point rodding layout. The next job is to drill the holes for the dropper wires after which I will stick the cork down with PVA.
The Rhymney Railway used flat bottom rail. After much deliberation I've decided to use Peco Code 60 FB rail. It's not an ideal choice but its the closest to the prototype size. Code 55 is just too small and code 83 is far too heavy for Krupps 70lbs/yd. I would love to use steel rail but Peco Code 60 is only available in Nickel Silver. The template highlights PCB strips generally at every 5th sleeper.
More about the trackwork to follow at a later date.

[nberrington]

Fantastic stuff - lovely flowing curves and a very contemporary method of construction. That should be a treat when done!

[Lindsay G]

OMG - hasn't boards and track design and build moved on in the last few years?!

Anyone still using solo point templates or the likes out of the ark?

[Philip Hall]

Very impressive way of laying out a railway. Wish I understood all the computer stuff. Which means, Lindsay, that yes, I am still stuck in the dark ages. It still works!

Philip

[Terry Bendall]

Anyone still using solo point templates or the likes out of the ark?

Yes but you might expect that from me.

It still works!

Because it does, and there will be a bit of dark ages use of paper templates on my demonstration stand at Wells!

Very impressive work Phil

Terry Bendall

[Penrhos1920]

When I made my Rhymney flat bottom track C&L sold code 75 steel fb rails. But when I needed some more it had sold out and wasn’t going to be available anymore as it should have been code 82!

Anyway that double junction is no more as it had a baseboard joint right through the middle which meant I could never get it to run nicely on all roads. So I’m getting a new baseboard and track.

Don’t forget that the switches were all loose heels. So most of them will be 12’ and maybe a 9’ in the yard.

[philip-griffiths]

Also from I’ve read the Rhymney just spiked the rail to the sleepers. However, the Rhymney line up the Taff was a joint GWR line, so was it flat bottom spiked?

The flat bottom spiked rail on the main line from Rhymney was the reason why the GWR banned exLNWR 0-8-4T as they would spread that type of track.

[Noel]

However, the Rhymney line up the Taff was a joint GWR line, so was it flat bottom spiked?

A photograph dated post-1891, as the running in board shows "Aberfan for Merthyr Vale", shows spiked FB track, but that photo can probably be dated rather later. This 1898 revision https://maps.nls.uk/view/135196045 shows the layout modelled, whereas the photo shows the sidings matching the arrangement shown on the 1914 revision https://maps.nls.uk/view/135196048. The changes to the sidings must have made them much easier to work, I feel...

[Noel]

For photographs see http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/aberfan_rr_station.htm and http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/a/aberfan/index.shtml, which also shows excerpts from the maps.

[Phil Hudson]

Very impressive way of laying out a railway. Wish I understood all the computer stuff. Which means, Lindsay, that yes, I am still stuck in the dark ages. It still works!

Philip

Probably worth highlighting some background.

I'm a semi-retired Civil & Structural Engineer with over 40 years experience. I was modelling engineering works on the computer in the 80's but it was in the early 90's that I was introduced to AutoCAD. In those days my practice was helping our draughtsmen & women to convert from working on the board and training them up to be CAD Technicians. Move forward 10 years and we were training the same Technicians to use REVIT and drawing our projects in 3D. This is now the norm on all our projects.
Since I was employing these people I decided that I needed to understand the process so I taught myself how to use AutoCAD. I could open drawings and make simple changes but I wasn't trusted with anything serious. I dabbled with REVIT but this was a step too far for me so I've relied on skilled people for this work. Thankfully I kept my basic CAD skills alive on the back of drawing model railway plans. My earlier versions of Aberfan never quite worked because the trackwork didn't look right so I got myself upto speed on using Templot. Once I got to grips with switching off my CAD brain to use Templot, I started started to produce designs which looked right. I'm a huge fan of Templot and the ability to export a completed plan into AutoCAD has been liberating.

Meanwhile in my working world I'm surrounded by young and bright Engineers and Technicians using engineering and draughting software in exciting ways. The ability to programme a design process, calculate material quantities and embodied carbon are great. I'm also using a software package called Bluebeam which is essentially a PDF markup and drawing package. It produces good drawings much quicker than I could do by hand sketching.

AutoCAD LT2000 is my long term goto software for my model railway work. I tried TurboCAD some years ago but my brain is so tuned into AutoCAD use. I also like to experiment with new methods. I tried using CNC cut plywood based on an AutoCAD model a few years ago but the results were not good. Laser cutting works works much better at our scale of work and now I want to experiment with 3D printing. I'm always ready for a challenge.

[Phil Hudson]

When I made my Rhymney flat bottom track C&L sold code 75 steel fb rails. But when I needed some more it had sold out and wasn’t going to be available anymore as it should have been code 82!

Anyway that double junction is no more as it had a baseboard joint right through the middle which meant I could never get it to run nicely on all roads. So I’m getting a new baseboard and track.

Don’t forget that the switches were all loose heels. So most of them will be 12’ and maybe a 9’ in the yard.

I also recall C&L selling code 75 some years ago. I presume its still available in the USA for their market. Maybe I need to find a stockist and go to the USA on a shopping holiday!

Yes, all straight switches at 12' and 1:8 vee's. Templot has done the heavy lifting for me on this. I have set out the rails at 26'6" length and 13 sleepers per section. The pictures of Aberfan and Abercanaid prior to WW1 show the FB rail spiked without baseplates. I think life is too short to justify modelling the spikes. I've not seen any post WW1 pictures of Aberfan showing the track work but those of Abercanaid show the track replaced with bullhead rail, probably secondhand. There is a lovely picture of a southbound train leaving Abercanaid in 1919-1920. It shows the contrast between the recently installed BH track and the FB track still used on the Gethin Colliery reception line in the foreground. I'm intrigued by what appear to be restraint blocks being used to maintain gauge and clearances. I don't think they are chairs in the conventional sense and I wonder if they were added to cope with wear & tear. I've seen these on other pics of Rhymney FB track work in later years. Any thoughts?

[Phil Hudson]

However, the Rhymney line up the Taff was a joint GWR line, so was it flat bottom spiked?

A photograph dated post-1891, as the running in board shows "Aberfan for Merthyr Vale", shows spiked FB track, but that photo can probably be dated rather later. This 1898 revision https://maps.nls.uk/view/135196045 shows the layout modelled, whereas the photo shows the sidings matching the arrangement shown on the 1914 revision https://maps.nls.uk/view/135196048. The changes to the sidings must have made them much easier to work, I feel...

You are right. The goods yard layout was modified at some date. I've not been able to work out when this happened. Prior to this I suspect the backroad was worked with a guy using a pinchbar or a horse to move a van or wagon, one at a time. After remodelling the backroad must have had a tortuous radius which made it very difficult for a 6-coupled steam engine to traverse. Anyway I decided to stick with the earlier layout and use my imagination.

[garethashenden]

Code 70 rail is readily available in the US if that's of use to you. Just in nickel silver though

[Phil Hudson]

Code 70 rail is readily available in the US if that's of use to you. Just in nickel silver though

Yes, I can see Code 70 on Fast Tracks website plus the useful tools for fettling the components. Order will be placed in the coming week.

[jim s-w]

Peco do code 70 as well https://peco-uk.com/products/code-70-flat-bottom-rail

[Stephan.wintner]

For flat bottom rail from the US, it might be worth checking Proto87.com or ohrtracksupply.com as well, depending what your looking for. Proto87 does have a 4mm section.

Stephan