Project 17 - Rodding Continues

I forgot to break the sleeper ties for the rods to run straight through beneath the rails. What you see instead is truncated lengths each side of the rails. If you can run roding straight through then it is easier but sections of insulating sleeves will need to be fitted to the wire rods to stop electrical shorting where they lie beneath the metal rails.

The second photo shows rods and cranks down the centre of the sleepers. These are for the dual acting facing point locks of the two turnouts there.

There are three more rods to lay alongside the track almost the full length of the layout module. About 20 more stools need to be made to support these. That's going to take quite some effort.

In practice there was more mechanical fittings than modelled, some of which I don't know the purpose, but what I am installing gives a fair impression of this highly visible track side furniture.


To Part 1.

Project 17 - Rodding Commences

Now for one of the more tricky parts, not only in model construction but also for prototype technical understanding. I confess to being no expert and have spent ages reading up on technicalities and reviewing photographs of the location to identify turnout rod runs and cranks. The cranks can have one of two orientations and I don't know if my guess is correct as I cannot determine it from the photographs I have.

The stools (rod rollers) in this first section beneath the railway bridge in the photo are my last stock of the defunct Colin Waite brass etchings. All others will be the Brassmasters version. The cranks are a mix of both ranges. I have used round copper wire for the rods, whilst round rods were used on the network I believe at Swanage they were square channel, the other option. The spacing of stools for round rods is eight feet.

The installation is purely cosmetic and will be painted when all is finished. Needless to say this lot is quite fiddly/frustrating to assemble but I get a weird sense of enjoyment threading the rods through the finished  stools.

Six rods control two catch points and three turnouts. All together that is five turnouts so why six rods? Each rod is associated with a lever in the Signal Box and they were allocated as follows:

Lever 10: Shed road catch point
Lever 9: Goods turnout
Lever 8: Facing Point Locks of  No2 road and Goods turnouts
Lever 7: Siding catch point (off stage) 
Lever 6: Two Facing turnouts on No 1 and No 2 roads
Lever 5: Facing Point Lock for No 1 road turnout

To Part 21.

To Part 1.

Project 17 - Ground Signals

Hitherto I made ground signals from matchstick, hole punched plastic and bent wire. For something so small this is fine but for Swanage Loco Yard where attention to detail is more acute, being a very small layout, I opted for the more accurate MSE GS002 kit from Wizard Models.

Only two ground signals are necessary in the modelled scene and fortuitously the Wizard Models kit includes two signals. Whilst of few parts they are extremely small and fiddly to assemble. There is potential to make them operable "if you are brave enough to have a go", says the instructions and as I felt brave I did, except two broken drills later and much fiddling I gave up! The disc does rotate by finger push so can be placed in on or off position but is not linked to its operating lever.

The one on the left is for the shed road catch point and the one on the right for shed road turnout on the station approach road.

To Part 20.

To Part 1.