Well hello everybody...it's me again with the latest thrilling instalment of the extraordinary Corkscrew-Lines saga. Well it has actually happened and almost just as planned too. Jones-Towers was successfully sold so Mrs Corky and myself find ourselves temporary residents of the city of Peterborough, having taken out a rental agreement on a suitable house for 6 months.
As always, I have lots of interesting (hopefully) news for you all including just how the pioneering Corkscrew-Lines mk1 was finally dismantled. This was a very painful process in more ways than one. Regrettably I have been suffering with an extremely painful attack of sciatica caused by a pro-lapsed disc (a bad back, for those who have never suffered from this particular form of agony) which will probably result in surgery for poor old Corky! Anyway, I'm sure you are not interested in my lower lumber regions (after all it's not that sort of blog!) so read on my beloved Corkettes to share in all of my most recent adventures.
Right from the start of the Corkscrew-Lines story I have had the support of my family (often totally bewildered at what was going on) and close friends (often as obsessed, delusional and "barking" as I am). Well I have to announce that I have been truly humbled by the support, kindness and generosity of said family and friends who came to the rescue and in my pained hour of need have gone way above and beyond the call of duty to help me.
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| I am a lover of steam, but this is ridiculous! |
The Nuts & Bolts of it!
The date for completion of the sale of the house was agreed. All was progressing well and Mrs Corky and I were just about to start the process of packing our material lives into a very large pile of cardboard boxes. Being a well organised type of chap...or anal as my wife prefers to describe it, I had planned everything down to the minutest detail. I was confident the preparation for the house move would be effortless. It was just about then the Gods decided to amuse themselves and punish my self-satisfied smugness by poking me in the back with a large metaphorical stick and as a result they also hurled a very large and unwelcome spanner into the works!
Picture the scene. I stand staring at approximately half the layout still to be dismantled including the entire helix, and even with powerful anti-inflammatory drugs and pain killers, I cannot stand for more than half an hour without excruciating pain and I cannot lift any weights! With only a couple of weeks until moving day, a realisation enters my head...Oops I think, this is going to be a problem!
Well despite having my well laid plans effectively thrown out of the window, with a little help from my friends (actually with a hell of a lot of help from my friends) and my amazing wife, we somehow managed to dismantle the layout just in time. Looking back, I like to think I supervised and coordinated the operation but to be honest I was normally relegated to making the tea for the dismantling crew... which I still maintain is a crucial and highly skilled role in the whole process!
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| Just some of the ironmongery which held the layout together |
Nuts & bolts...hundreds of nuts & bolts! The Corkscrew-Lines is a modular model railway and was planned from the outset to be dismantled and moved if necessary. This however does not make the process of loosening and removing a seemingly endless number of ironmongery items any easier or less mind numbing. The normal baseboards were coming down quickly and before too long there was a very large pile of end supports and baseboards filling about a quarter of the double garage. There was the classic elephant in the room however...a very large and very intact helix sat chuckling to itself and whispering "what you going to do about me then matey?" Good question. What do I do with the helix?
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| I think it's a work of art...Just a very heavy one! |
I have always absolutely loved the concept of the helix. What it adds to the Corkscrew-Lines project is immeasurable in terms of added operational interest, extended mainline run and the simple childlike wonder it creates in grown men when watching trains winding their way round it. However, right now it needed to be dismantled ready for the move to the rented property. The clock was ticking and I realised to my horror that it would probably take me days in my immobile state to take it apart and that time would be better spent helping if I could with preparing to move.
A thought then crossed my mind. What about trying to sell it in it's assembled state? The whole structure could be lifted by a group of burly blokes (that counts me out then) and taken straight out of the garage doors and into a van. This would remove the helix from the problems to be solved list and as I was planning to improve on the design with the next layout anyway and incorporate "Powerbase" (see New Arrivals section below) into the next design, it wouldn't be such a great emotional wrench.
With a two pronged attack strategy in mind, I placed a listing for the helix on ebay and also contacted some Corkettes for assistance. Sadly after a week of searching for a buyer, my friends were unsuccessful. Particular thanks go to Steve Copley and Graham Morfoot (more about this new Corkette later) for their efforts on my behalf. I had placed a reserve price on the ebay listing of £150.00 which considering the time, effort and materials involved was an absolute bargain. Sadly the auction ended without any bids and the inevitable depressing and insulting lower offer phone calls then began. Out of principal alone I rejected the vultures.
Oh well, I had tried but it looked like the helix would need to be dismantled the hard way. Ironically, with a healthy back, the dismantling would have been quick and easy...but I didn't have a healthy back! I pulled up a chair next to the helix and got myself as comfortable as I could. I then took some more pain killers and started spinning my nuts! I couldn't do this for long without having to limp off and recover so whenever the mood took her, Mrs Corky would also sit spinning my nuts! I try not to think about it too much as it was a real low point, but in total about 3 days were spent with us sat next to the helix spinning my nuts! All in all a very painful process as I'm sure you can all imagine! Dreadful!...literally!
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| Track sections removed and baseboards stacked |
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| Lord Dowsby...a great supporter of the line, pays a visit to say a final farewell. |
To cut a very repetitive and monotonous story short, we eventually had all the nuts, washers and threaded rods removed and the helix taken apart and in component form. Having already decided that I wanted to modify the design of the helix for the next layout, I now had to find a way to lift off all of the trackwork from each of the 5 turns and also recover the trackwork from other sections of the layout. Although plywood is certainly not cheap, compared to the cost of new Peco trackwork and points its cost was inconsequential and it didn't really matter that it was being discarded. My main concern was finding a system for lifting the trackwork both quickly and cleanly as I didn't want to destroy the track in the process and we only had a few days to get it done. Thankfully the system I devised worked like a dream.
Full Steam Ahead!
Many years ago the Jones household invested in some sophisticated Italian steam cleaner kit for general use around the house. A combination of it's bulk and the time and effort required to prepare it for use meant it had been used very infrequently. True to say it hadn't exactly repaid the investment in buying it years before and it had hardly earned it's keep so far but it certainly came to the rescue now. I was extremely pleased it was available a few weeks back because it became the perfect solution for my track lifting woes and became an honorary Corkette without a doubt!
I am certain you are all very loyal and enthusiastic Corkettes and you have naturally all read my previous updates concerning tracklaying (yeah right!). To recap, I spread a thin layer of Copydex Adhesive onto my 5mm Plastazote foam roadbed and then place the track on top. This gives plenty of time to make final adjustments before the Copydex starts to set and has proven to be a simple and totally reliable system for me. Well now it was time to lift the track I have discovered yet another reason to continue with this method of working.
Way back when I was researching the use of Copydex I made a mental note that some people reported they had discovered that the adhesive will fail if subjected to excessive heat. With this in mind I thought I would see if steam heat would maybe break down the bond and allow the track to be easily lifted. Enter our unwitting hero, the steam cleaner for it's Cinderella moment and "15 minutes of fame". Having followed the lengthy prep' procedures and ensured there was plenty of steam available, I simply placed the steam nozzle onto the track and gave everything a jolly good steaming Old Boy!
After about 2-3 minutes, I placed a flexible filling knife under the track and started to run it gently backwards and forwards between the track and roadbed. The track lifted easily and as an added bonus, the base of the Peco track and points was absolutely clear of adhesive and looked as good as new. Steam cleaned in fact! I was delighted and a little surprised that it had all been far easier than I had expected. I couldn't do this for very long due to my back problem but it didn't matter because I was lifting complete lengths of flexi-track in under a minute. In fact, I was lifting an entire loop of track from the helix boards in about 5 minutes. Many people enthusiastically recommend using PVA glue for tracklaying but having had nothing but success when laying, and now lifting track, I will stick with my faithful Copydex thank you very much!
Although it was a little soul destroying lifting all the track, at least I now have about 100 yards of flexi-track in as new condition ready to lay on the Corkscrew-Lines mk2 when I am ready...what a result!...Hellfire!
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| Apply steam to track whilst sporting a gormless expression |
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| Whilst maintaining gormless expression, place filling knife under track. |
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| Run filling knife along under track...gormless expression is now optional |
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| Copydex Adhesive remains on the trackbed...track lifts off clean. |
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| Recovered flexi-track and points |
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| Complete helix loop is stripped clean of track (10 flexi lengths)...Dreadful! |
Time to move the Layout
So just in the nick of time, the Corkscrew-Lines baseboards, support panels, trackwork, stock, tools, ironmongery and general paraphernalia were stacked in a large heap taking up about a quarter of the double garage. As I mentioned last time, we had been unable to quickly find another house to buy and as there was a chance the buyers of Jones-Towers may be lost and the chain collapse, we reluctantly decided to find somewhere to rent. For logistical reasons and to keep our lives as simple as possible, we decided to rent for 6 months in Peterborough. It wasn't easy but we eventually found a house with a converted double garage which we could use to store all of our furniture and the Corkscrew-Lines.
I soon discovered that for some strange reason, household removal companies were frightened of my cute little model railway layout. I would open the door to the inner sanctum and a representative of "Bodgit & Bangit" or "Rip-Off Move" would give a sharp intake of breath and then rapidly recoil in horror. Typically this was then followed by much head shaking and muttering and frantic scribbling on the estimate calculator paperwork! Quotes seemed to rise exponentially when my little shunting plank was added to the estimated removals price. The obvious solution was to move the layout ourselves separately by hiring a van. This could be done a couple of days before the main house move as we would have already collected the keys to the rental property...sorted! Except I was in no fit state to do any of the actual lifting and moving myself...Oh dear!
Enter my magnificent friends once again. Johnny "Napier-Boy" Herbert and the wonderful Susanne White both gave up their day to help us move the layout and I will always be grateful to them for their generosity and assistance. Napier-Boy even hired the van and Susanne managed all day to call the Corkscrew-Lines a model railway and not a train set! That was a real breakthrough! Also special thanks to the always generous Lord and Lady Dowsby who gave up so much of their precious time to help us get everything ready for the move. Interestingly, despite us all being definite amateurs, this part of moving house was far more enjoyable and well organised than when the "professional" removers rolled up and moved the rest of the household contents a couple of days later!
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| Willing helpers...well press-ganged actually! |
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| Layout loaded - The Corkscrew-Lines becomes a portable layout! |
Lightening The Load
As part of the process of packing things ready to move house, I decided I would take a long, hard look at our possessions and specifically anything that was no longer required or simply was not used any more. Any items fitting this description would be put to one side with a view to either selling or disposal. We would be moving into rented accommodation so why take anything with us that was now surplus to requirements only to then move it again into the house we ultimately buy, at great expense no doubt, only to find out yet again that we no longer need it or use it? This process was successfully applied to everything from furniture to clothes and even my precious magazines and books.
I had over the years amassed a huge collection of magazines mainly relating to full sized and model railways. This included bound volumes of Model Railroader, 009 News, Model Rail, Railway Modeller, BRM, Backtrack, Steam Days etc, etc. I flicked through sample copies of the magazines and realised some articles were absolutely fascinating and would be invaluable with constructing the Corkscrew-Lines, whilst others were now completely irrelevant to me and no longer covered my current interests. The answer was simple, be brutal and get rid of the magazines I no longer needed. However, I was aware that although they were now surplus to me, they could still be of interest or useful to others.
Whilst being a resident of the Fens for the last 10 years I have become a regular and very appreciative visitor to the local annual model railway show in Spalding. Here perhaps was an opportunity to say thank you to all of the members of the Spalding Model Railway Club for entertaining me over the years. I contacted the club and about a week later, the extremely affable Club Chairman - Graham Morfoot, was standing chatting with me in the Corkscrew-Lines inner sanctum. It was an absolute pleasure to meet him and he even volunteered, alas unsuccessfully, to see if he could find a new owner for the helix. About an hour later he was departing Jones-Towers with a car laden down with magazines including the first 12 years of BRM in original binders. I feared his car's back axle may snap under the weight! Whilst chatting, Graham had readily agreed to becoming a Corkette (well why wouldn't he?) and he had announced that he would be renaming the clubroom library after me in recognition of my generous donation. A bit like a wealthy philanthropist having a university wing named after them. Actually, he said no such thing. It's just a pleasing fantasy in my head..I can picture "Corky's Corner" now!...haha!...Hellfire!
With regard to the magazines I kept, I started to systematically remove the articles I wanted to keep and recycled the surplus pages. I purchased some presentation books from Amazon and filed articles away so I could easily find them. The presentation books have 100 clear pages so I now have the equivalent to my perfect magazine...no adverts, no irrelevant articles...just pure gold! I would recommend everybody does this. Now I know where everything I need is and I have also reduced our clutter considerably...what a result!
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| If Heineken made model railway magazines... |
New Arrivals on the Corkscrew-Lines
Sitting at a table or desk for more than a few minutes is quite painful for me right now. This has regrettably meant I have not been able to construct any kits, add any DCC decoders or fit any Kadee couplers as I had planned. I have not purchased any new items for the layout for at least a month although some bits and pieces arrived just before the move into rented and I have taken a few shots of them for you below.
I have mentioned previously that my Engineering rolling stock roster is looking pretty pathetic. I have a few Dogfish wagons and Hornby Shark brake vans but that is about it. Well I saw an opportunity to acquire a small rake of Bachmann Sealion bogie ballast hoppers a couple of months ago via ebay so put in a cheeky bid. Suffice to say I was successful and the wagons are shown below. To adhere strictly to my chosen 1960s time frame they will need to be repainted into Engineering black livery but that can wait.
More 16t mineral wagons have arrived and an additional 4 MGR wagons, also to be backdated, for finishing off my existing rake. These were all ebay bargains and so far I have been fortunate to win bids at low prices for items in as-new condition. Bargain of the month though has to be the Corgi OOC die-cast model of a Southdown Bedford OB coach in perfect condition which I won for the extraordinary price of £1.95...Winner!
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| Engineers and Departmental stock additions |
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| Rolling Stock and Die-Cast bargains |
By far the smallest item of Traction to join the fleet is the recently released Hornby model of a Sentinel 4 wheel diesel shunter. The model always looked a little plasticy in photographs but it looks absolutely gorgeous when you hold it in your hand. It will never be able to haul a full rake of mk1s up the helix, but for shunting small rakes of fuel tanks around on the dockside it will be perfect. A little piece of trivia for all you Corkettes...the Sentinel was the last loco to run in the double garage as I tested it briefly on the helix just before it was dismantled. I have cancelled a pre-order for the NCB liveried version of the loco as I suspect there will be further variations of this loco released in future including perhaps 6 coupled or even 8 coupled models so I'll wait and see.
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| No wheel-slip despite the gradient and load...impressive! |
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| So cute...it makes the Bachmann 03 look positively obese! |
I have picked up a couple of new kits along the way... as you do! I am not sure at this stage where these Ratio kits will be used on the layout but they are the sort of structures - footbridge and coaling tower, that can be incorporated into a scene almost anywhere. The Dapol dockside crane is probably not going to be built as per the instructions. I have a long standing ambition to model a sort of mini Southampton Maritime scene with a few large dockside cranes. I will probably use components from the kits and add extra sections to produce something more prototypical.
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| New kits...You can't have too many kits for a rainy day! |
The latest additions to the Corkscrew-Lines Reference Library include this years Dapol Catalogue and a couple of excellent new tomes covering the West Country and Diesel-Hydraulics. The Devon Steam volume is yet another of the fantastic collection of books by Michael Welch. I think I have almost got an entire collection now and I cannot recommend them highly enough. I find myself returning to them time and time again...absolutely Dreadful stuff!
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| Hydraulics - What can be better? |
Powerbase by DCC Concepts. This is a very interesting bit of kit which I have mentioned in previous updates. The idea in a nutshell is you place a very thin layer of steel plates under your track and then stick magnets to the underside of your locomotives. This apparently gives you twice the pulling power over a non magnet fitted loco and as a beneficial side effect, also cuts down on the amount of track cleaning required. So why am I interested in this? All of my locos can make it up the helix with 8 coach trains without assistance so why do I need it? Simple, because I have no idea at this stage just how much room I will have for a helix on the Corkscrew-Lines mk2 and it is quite possible I will unfortunately have considerably less than I did on the mk1 layout. If I have to construct a smaller helix then the timely release of this clever system could mean I don't notice any difference to the formation and length of the trains I run. It seemed sensible to buy a starter pack just to get my head round how it should be laid and what it can do. Watch this space my lovelies!
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| Will I be needing Powerbase? I'll certainly be needing a mug of tea! |
So What's Next?
To be absolutely honest, right now the future is not entirely within my own control. The good news is that we are following our master plan, the first objective being the selling of Jones-Towers. We are now living in a perfectly pleasant rented house in a convenient location and the Corkscrew-Lines is safely stacked and stored in a converted garage space so that is all good. However, until I have seen a Surgeon regarding my pro-lapsed disc and I know what sort of time scale I am looking at for an operation and recovery period, we cannot realistically start to look for our next house and we cannot really make any long term plans.
Whilst this is really disappointing, it hasn't stopped Mrs Corky and myself starting to tentatively look at the type of property we will probably want to ultimately go for. Crucially, this also lets me get a rather good idea of the type of space that may be available for the mk2 version of the layout. If we are absolutely honest, we both love the look and character of Victorian properties but have grown increasingly accustomed to the convenience and practicality of living in a modern house. It looks increasingly probable that we will therefore plump for a nearly new property with a double garage. That would seem on the surface to be good news as the Corkscrew-Lines was designed to live in a double garage. However, we self-built our last home and the double garage was generously proportioned for the type. It looks like the next garage will be smaller and this will have a significant effect on what can or cannot be planned. The obvious first major casualty will be the large helix...hence considering Powerbase.
So at this stage it looks like I need to start pondering on a decision regarding whether I continue with the current themes and style of the layout or whether I perhaps think of something more radical. My strong desire would be to remain true to progress so far and keep the 1960s mainline, multi-level approach but I need to keep all options open and ask myself what I would do if I was presented with a space considerably smaller than the last one. For instance, would I abandon OO gauge and swap to N gauge to keep the multi-level, operations based goal or would I accept a far more streamlined OO gauge branchline flavour with diluted operations and a much reduced mainline run? So many decisions...Oh My Lords!
Approximately 10 years ago we lived in a rented 2 bedroom property in Horsham in Sussex and I was modelling something very different! Space was certainly at a premium and regrettably a mainline themed OO gauge layout was simply not practical. I really didn't like the idea of N gauge though as at the time the UK manufacturer mechanisms were quite crude and the running pretty dire. On the other side of the Atlantic though things were very different. US models by the likes of Kato had mechanisms like Swiss watches with fantastic controllability. Back then the solution to me was simple...Heavy Metal OO-9 gauge.
I started to scratchbuild and kit-bash loco bodies from OO gauge rolling stock and kits and then slotted state of the art DCC controlled American chassis underneath. The line's concept was simple. A mainline atmosphere and a busy, heavy duty mineral hauling 2ft gauge network which entirely covered an Island just off the Scottish coast. The trains were long, heavy and powered by multiple large diesels, all fitted with sound chips This was certainly not your typical OO9 rabbit warren affair. To all intents and purposes it was exactly what I am trying to achieve now in OO standard gauge but with narrow gauge tracks and totally fictitious rolling stock. It sounds bizarre now but it worked perfectly and it was great fun. Almost all the benefits of OO gauge regarding scenery and reliable running but in half the space. The best bit was I could do whatever I wanted because it really was "my railway". So am I seriously thinking of doing this again if there is only a much smaller space in the next house? Probably not. But at this stage all sorts of ideas are still on the table just in case a large OO gauge layout isn't possible.
I thought I would finish this update with the photo below of Mars and Odin, a pair of my surviving "Mythology Class" locos. Both are powered by Kato RS2 chassis and have full DCC control including lights and working micro-trains couplers. Just imagine working a lengthy train of 20 loaded bogie hoppers behind these two, especially if they were perhaps fitted with class 37 sound-chips...Dreadful!
Makes you think doesn't it? Decisions, decisions!
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| Narrow-gauge nonsense or a solution to the space/scale conundrum? |
Thanks again to all those who have offered help and support during a difficult period for us. It is much appreciated and we are grateful and thankful to have such good friends.
That's all for now folks,
Corky!
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