Progress
>
Mauch Chunk in
April 2016
photos by Steve Hales
This last six or so months has seen us
finishing the trolleys, checking they fit in a Luton van (as we will use to
transport them to exhibition) and finishing work on the BLI USRA Mikado
conversions to CNJ M3 Miikados. A lot of hopper cars have also been completed,
ready now to be weathered and loaded. Finally, work is now starting on
building a working signal gantry for the west end of the layout.
Trolleys
These first five photos show the trolley purpose built for the
storage yard. All five 3ft x 4ft
boards fit into grooves in it and when the ends are both closed, are secure for
transport. The unloaded trolley folds up into a small space - first photo.
Once all the scenic and storage yards boards are packed into
their trolleys and, the end boards are folded into each other, they were stacked
into a space the size of a Luton van to make sure we could transport the layout
to exhibition.
Here
are two photos showing the 'stacked van'! Not very
exciting but very important.
Finally we reassembled the layout in a
couple of hours (well, almost).
Mikados
The work on the Mikados was carried out by Steve, starting with the kitbashes
originally worked on by the (late) Chris Bennett and Steve. The full details of
the assembly will be placed in a project page, but in the meanwhile, this
downloadable pdf file has all the details.
Here are a few photos from the
construction:
..and a final one showing one completed, but not yet weathered, Mikado - in
front of a BLI brass equivalent.
Signal Bridge
The signal bridge is only in prototype at the moment and the details below show
a test etch of the gantry. This will be considerably modified for the final
version. We are intending for this to be available in 2, 3 and 4 track versions
for other CNJ and East Coast modellers - the details of how to do this have not
been worked out yet, but don't hesitate to contact us if you may be interested.
The fingers belong to Richard Oldfield of the Barrowmore Model
Railway Group.
Cheers until next time
Steve & Gordon
