Ive mentioned before that enlarging Brettell Road would mean I need to build new fiddleyards. The reason for this is the way the cassette system worked was to have a recess in the board which given that the layout is now 2 tracks meant the old ones couldn’t really be made to fit. I also took the opportunity to make some improvements and the result can be seen above.
The boards are 6 inches longer and this time I’ve included a little barrier on the near side edge to stop anything falling off It never did but it was something that bothered me. 
View from the front. I decided that the Round Oak industrials running on the mainline was a no-no, so now they will appear from the right of the layout behind the warehouse. As the mainline drops away this means that i needed a different level for this bit.
With the cassettes I have also made some improvements. The originals use 9mm ply which as it was unsupported did bend somewhat. I now have 3 sizes instead of the original 2. A short one for locos, A medium one for units and a long one for coaches/wagons. I have made the long and loco ones reversible but I only expect to reverse some of the locos.
Pictured are the loco and unit versions. The base is 9mm MDF this time.
The little bits on the inner ends are for rudimentary buffer stops. This stops the trains running off the end but also adds a little security when lifting the cassettes so that nothing rolls off.
The way they connect is a tweak on my original design of using a bit of flat bottom rail on its side – positioned in the web of the running rail for alignment and electrical connection. Originally these were both sides and the rails on the cassettes were angled outwards a little for a good fit. Making the loco cassettes reversible main this wouldn’t work and so a small bit of 0.6 straight wire is soldered to the inside of the web to help with alignment.
You may be wondering what the little blocks are for in the first 2 pictures.
Taking a hint from Amlwch (a layout i used to help out with) I decided to make the storage of the cassettes integrated with the fiddleyards. This one will store the locos and units, the other one the long cassettes. Most of the braces slot in place meaning I can lock in place 8 unit cassettes with just 3 bolts and 16 loco cassettes with just 2. The less time spent faffing about at an exhibition the better!
Thanks as always to Tim for allowing me to hijack his laser cutters.
I wasn’t expecting to find a lever frame but there is one. Its located on the third floor which is used for training.
The fourth floor is a gigantic relay room. It still had that lovely electrical machines smell.
These are called K packs and each one controls 1 thing outside in the station. Theres no plug in a laptop and diagnose a problem with these things. If something goes wrong an engineer would need to use their knowledge of which pack is causing the problem, lift it out and use and the paper schematics that are kept on the same floor to fix it. All under the pressure of something on the station being shut down and the general (organised) chaos that would ensue. We were told that some of these pack have never been touched since the day they were installed. About 60 years of reliable service!
The view from the fifth (top) floor window. The Building directly ahead is about the only thing thats unchanged since my version of New Street set in the late 80’s. The blue building stands where the original lamp block stood and is still called that.
Finally the panel. Who knows how many millions of movements were controlled by this in its lifetime? All the platforms are bi-directional and all worked via permissive block working. Everything being safety netted by the relay room downstairs. We were told it would take a signaller 6 months to become proficient in using the panel although there was one guy who learnt it in 8 weeks.
Just a little update this time – Been fitting some of the details to the body. Bogie wheels are temporary as I was doing a little testing (read that as shuffling it around on Brettell Road). I never realised how big these actually are. Right on the limit of the loading gauge!
But before I can do that need to fit the cab, firebox, boiler and smoke box so that theres something to give it a degree of rigidity. This is the basic cab assembly.
And inside mounted to the footplate. The seats are posable!
Finally – I couldn’t resist!
I will need to straighten that station lamp. It’s amazing how things are so obvious in a photo but equally so invisible to the naked eye!
Crew by Modelu which is pretty much standard these days
The Great British Locomotives Jinty. The model that started this whole diversion into the late 50s era. When they first appeared (as part of a magazine series) they were so cheap that I brought a second one just so I could do a before and after picture.
So let’s start with the footplate. The body of the model separates into 3 parts. The footplate, tank sides and bunker. The boiler, smokebox and tank tops and the upper part of the cab. Handily everything is plastic so carving it up is easy. I believe that the Bachmann Jinty has a cast metal footplate so it might be a bit more tricky.
Not a lot to do the cab. New rear spectacle plates from Mainly trains.
The Boiler. I cut the smokebox back and remounted the front piece (which is separate). It seems that the condenser fitted locos had the handrail below the upper hinge like a Jinty but the others has it mounted above the hinge. Chimney is from my spares box (Brassmasters Jinty detailing kit I think) and the safety valves and whistles are from Markits. The top of the dome had been filled and blended into a new shape.
A little bit of fiddlyness for the ejectors. The moulded one is a bit clunky and I believe depicts a combined large and small Ejector. When I did my other Jinty I used a cast detailing part for this from (I think) London Road Models. Some 2441 class locos had these. The fiddly one depicts an earlier type and is cobbled together from 0.4mm wire with 0.6 and 0.8mm tubing.
The assembled loco (so far) The chassis is a High level Jinty with the frames altered to be shallower. Otherwise it’s built as per the kit. I didn’t go for working inside motion as you really cant see it at all on these locos.
You’re going to need your imagination for this bit! Regular readers will know that Brettell Road is not an accurate model of the real Brettell lane but is inspired by it and the local area. The above picture taken in August 2014 (that long already?) shows what was left of the goods yard at Moor Lane. Brettell Lane is behind us. The line to Pensnett branched off on the left and the yard is petty much straight ahead of us. You can see the flood lights against the skyline. This was the view from the left hand end of the original version of Brettell Road and is now the view from the middle looking to the right. On the model the line is not an S curve but a continuous left hand bend. Also the main line descends from this point on the layout while the real line rises as it goes away from us.
Another view from 2014 that shows the building being converted into apartments. If you stand looking at the right hand end of the layout you would effectively be standing in this building. The line runs behind it and you can just make out the ironwork of Moor Lane Bridge on the right of the picture above the yellow van. This building is represented on the layout as part of the backscene.
I present you the ancient K’s kit for the GWR Coral glass wagon. These were built in 1908, to 2 diagrams, by Swindon to carry large plate glass in crates. BR briefly continued with these building 6 more examples before switching to the LMS design but even then only building 42 wagons (also at Swindon).
In service on the layout. As mentioned its not really the sort of glass that Brierley Hill was known for but it is a nod to the industry. Apparently some of the real wagons were transferred to the steel industry anyway so perhaps its on trial in the area for that reason instead?
The good old catfish. Built with the use of Stenson models hand wheels and replacement handrails. One thing with these, as supplied, is that the wheels seem a long way away from the w W-irons, even in P4 so I cut the moulded rings off the back and moved the solebars closer together. A lot of people say these are a bit tricky but the only real difference to any other kit is you just need to take a lot longer and really let things set. They aren’t really a bung it together in an afternoon style job. I found another 2 kits in my stash which i will build up for New Street and might do a bit of a step by step on how to do them.
Next up the mermaid. I have built this as an early one which were the same as the original GWR builds. The main difference is push rod brakes instead of clasp, no vacuum brakes and earlier buffers. The rail clamps were replaced with Roxey mouldings shackles.
