The Corkscrew-Lines

Thursday, 16 August 2012

Update No.32 - 16.08.12

Hello again my little Corkette chums. I hope you are all well and enjoying yourselves. I'm back with more nonsense from the world of the Corkscrew Lines. You'll all be itching no doubt to find out what decisions I've made regarding my recent mid-life gauge crisis! More of that later....what a tease eh?....Dreadful!

A Hymek with its cub - how sweet!

New Arrivals on the Corkscrew-Lines

As you can see from the image below, I am a firm believer in letting the wagons roll. A recent delivery from Hattons of Liverpool added another 22 wagons to the Corkscrew-Lines roster. Mrs Corky is always reminding me I need to think seriously about having more fruit. I congratulated myself on purchasing a couple of bargain packs of 4 wheel fruit wagons...16 in total...Hellfire! She'll be so proud of me don't you think? At just over £5.00 a wagon they are excellent value and if you are modelling the 1960's railway scene then you simply cannot have too many bauxite coloured 4 wheel box vans. You'll also note a few more exotic wagons including a couple of Conflats, a horse-box and yet another brake van. Alright, I'll admit it, I have a problem with brake vans. I just can't resist them. It's a weakness and I'm not proud of it!


Corkscrew-Lines goodies

Other items of interest are the mobile fish & chip trailer, a GWR Signal Box, a bottle of liquid-lead for adding additional weight to some of the wagon fleet and a fine tip lubricator for loco mechanisms. Finally, another couple of the 1960's British Army armoured cars which I've been stockpiling ready for the introduction of my military train at some point in the future. I now have 8 kits but no sign of the train to convey them. Oh well, it's the thought that counts! Anyway, as any modeller worth his salt will confirm, stockpiling kits for that proverbial rainy day is all part of the fun of this fantastic hobby...Dreadful!

Visiting Corkettes

As you'll know from reading previous entries...you have read the previous entries haven't you? I am currently working away from home pulling levers in signal boxes in Hampshire and Surrey. Therefore, I don't get the opportunity to see as many Corkettes as I'd like. However, a couple of weeks back, Lord and Lady Dowsby dropped by for some afternoon tiffin and as has now become customary, Lord Dowsby carried out an inspection of progress on the line.

Keep up the good work!

Alton Station - Mid Hants Railway

Although living away from home for the majority of my time isn't much fun, there are a few occasional advantages. One is being so close to a genuine part of the ex LSWR network which is preserved as it was during the 1960's. I wandered down to Alton on the Watercress Line, or Mid Hants Railway to use its formal title, and took a few shots of the station furniture and signage which I found absolutely fascinating...yet another weakness of mine I'm afraid! I timed it perfectly because just as I arrived a Hampshire Unit or "Thumper", as they are affectionately known by the anorak wearing fraternity, was departing for the Hampshire Alps. I vividly remember laying in my bed at night in Basingstoke as a boy and listening to the glorious percussive symphony produced by a hard working Thumper as it headed under Battledown flyover on its way to Salisbury. Oh, happy days, I'm starting to well-up...Oh My Lords!

Incidentally, I have a couple of model Thumpers just like the one in the photo on pre-order from Kernow Models so I can recreate such childhood memories on the Corkscrew-Lines someday soon.

Alton - Mid Hants Railway

Rooster's Railway!

Last weekend, Mrs Corky and myself were invited to an opening ceremony to mark the arrival of the Rooster's new outbuilding, the new home for his latest modelling project - Cambridge Heights. As you'll have seen from the last update, I assisted Rooster in producing the first couple of baseboards and I'll be knocking up a matching board for the fiddle yard in the next few days...hopefully! Very generously, Rooster asked me to cut the ribbon and say a few words in front of the assembled crowds. Obviously as the "Corkmeister" and head of the Corkette whoop I acknowledge these types of event will frequently come around but I always enjoy them. Anyway, as you'll see in the shots below, Rooster may find he is competing with other house-mates when trying to access his new shed!

The opening ceremony

The baseboards in situ - waiting for high level shelves

The opening ceremony

The opening ceremony - Blue enjoying the new shed!

"To N or not to N - That is the question!"

Right, it's time to put you out of your misery. Will I be changing scales or not? Well, to be honest I don't know for sure yet...sorry! As things currently stand we do not know for sure whether we will have to sell Corky-Towers and if we do, we don't know when we'll have to do it. Therefore, until we know for sure, I have made a decision to continue with the Corkscrew-Lines as they currently stand and stick with OO until I am forced to think otherwise. So there you have it...the Corkscrew-Lines continues as it is.

As you can see from the shots below, in the meantime, I have assembled a small collection of research N-Gauge rolling stock including a Dapol Q1 and Hymek in both powered and dummy forms and another smattering of brake vans. Train running in N-Gauge with modern locos has improved enormously since I last dabbled with it and I can see huge advantages in N when trying to portray the train in the landscape approach. Indeed, when considering the multi-level helix based layouts I prefer, N would be fantastic. A 2ft deep baseboard equates to 4ft in OO and the prospect of filling a single garage sized room with N is mouthwatering. But, the running qualities of OO are still superior and DCC sound is difficult, expensive and far less impressive in N-Gauge.

I suppose in summary, I'm going to bury my head in the sand to a certain extent until a decision has to be made and I will continue to naively hope that if we do have to move I can find a new structure which will accommodate the current layout without too many issues. Last week I had 6 trains running together all circling the layout and climbing and descending the helix quite happily. I don't want to give this all up unless I absolutely have to. However, if it does become obvious that the current Corkscrew-Lines have to be closed then my basic experiments with N-Gauge so far have proven I could quite happily make the change and in all probability have a layout which is just as interesting to operate only with different priorities.

N-Gauge Research

OO gauge parents with their N-Gauge babies!

Corkscrew-Lines track-laying begins again!

Yes my friends, I'm working on the layout again and if all goes according to plan, in the next few days I'll be track laying again. I have removed the temporary connection to the "Turbo-Banjo" (see earlier entries) at the top of the helix and have started work on the first section of scenic modelling on level 2A. Hopefully I'll make rapid progress and I can get another few yards of track quickly laid and then reinstall the "Turbo Banjo" back to the new end of the line and recommence continuous running again. You can see from the photos I have cleared the area of the peninsula and cut the trackbed and risers ready for the track which emerges from the first section of the helix from storage to level 2 boards. The photos give the general idea which I'll cover in much greater depth next time. The tunnel mouths and signal boxes at this stage are just temporary to get a feel for what works and what doesn't.

Peninsula cleared ready for track-laying

Peninsula track-laying. Mocking up possible ideas.

Peninsula track-laying action. Temporary sectional track being used.


Peninsula track-laying action. There's always time for a cuppa!

So there you have it my friends, you are all up to speed with developments on the line and my latest thinking regarding the "should I or shouldn't I" keep to OO or go to N-Gauge debate. I'm sticking with OO for now and hopefully this will become a permanent choice eventually. The good news is N-Gauge as a back up plan would also be enormous fun and assembling a helix would be much simpler. All in all, it's all good!

Take care my lovely little Corkettes and I'll be back to bother you all again soon,

Corky

Sunday, 22 July 2012

Update No.31 - 22.07.12

Well hello again my friends, the Corkmeister has returned with the first all new posting on the Corkscrew-Lines Blogsite...how exciting eh?...Hellfire! As you know, up to this point I have been re-publishing the email updates that I sent out to my friends and family during the early stages of the construction of the Corkscrew-Lines. However, from this point on all content will be new and current and available to the whole world...Hellfire!

Who are you looking at!

So, what's new? Well, quite a lot really. There are two significant announcements one of which may have a huge impact on the future of the current Corkscrew-Lines. I'll get onto that later but for now, lets concentrate on some really good and unexpected news...read on my friends...Dreadful!

Well, who'd have thought it!...It's happened again!

Roughly a week ago I found myself wandering into the Alton Model Centre (for the benefit of Mrs Corky I can confirm this is something that happens very rarely, if ever....honestly) and there I spied the latest copy of the always magnificent Hornby Magazine. I purchased a copy without checking the contents only to find upon later looking at the contents page that there was a picture of yours truly staring back at me!...Oh My Lords!

Absolutely fascinating - and the author's so good looking too!

Yes my Corkette chums, the 2nd article on the Corkscrew-Lines...."Constructing a helix for the Corkscrew-Lines" has been printed over pages 46-51 of the August issue with 20 of my photos to accompany my text and I'm rather proud of it. As the Corkscrew-Lines will no doubt now gain a cult worldwide following with it's new web presence, you may want to rush out and buy a few copies as they will almost certainly become quite collectable in the future. You can tell your grandchildren you were there with Corky right at the beginning! I'd better calm down and take some more of my medication!

I could read this article again and again...it's just so good!

Buy them while you can...Oh My Lords!

Baseboards for The "Rooster"

As I told you all in an earlier update, my mate Rooster has bought himself a shed. Now as any true railway modeller will confirm, it is impossible to step into a shed and not immediately start having ideas about filling the interior with baseboards and model railways. This is a perfectly normal reaction. And so it is with the Rooster! To give him a good head start I agreed to help construct a couple of baseboards for him here at Jones Towers and as you can see from the accompanying shots, we managed to finish a couple of 4ft x 1ft boards complete with adjustable legs just as he wanted them.

Improvised workbench!

Rooster hard at it!

Rooster & Corky take a tea break


Legs fitted and all ready to go.

What happened next I really wasn't expecting! Rooster produced some of his N-gauge stock and placed it onto the baseboards. While he was taking a few photos of the scene on his phone, I was looking at the Dapol locomotives and wagons and was really rather impressed by how far N-gauge had come since I modelled with it as a teenager. What struck me even more was just how much train you could accommodate in such a small space. Now as all you lovely Corkettes know, it is looking increasingly likely, to the point where it is almost inevitable, that Mrs Corky and I will need to sell our current home and head back to the Sussex/Surrey area again within the next year or so. It would be great to think we could find a property with a similar sized space to the double garage we currently have but unless we want to take on a huge mortgage...which we don't, we'll need to downscale. Now in principle neither of us has any objection to this but I naturally worry about the Corkscrew-Lines not having a new home.

All the fun, half the size!

So what if I constructed a new Corkscrew-Lines with the same multi-level concept incorporating a helix linking 4 decks and open sweeping mainlines and numerous industries and stations...but in a smaller scale, namely N-gauge? I have learnt so much from the construction of the current layout and overcome so many obstacles that I have no fears in doing it all again. In fact, I would improve certain aspects and incorporate new elements which would make the whole project even better and stick to the modular baseboard approach I currently use. Now don't be alarmed...this is not a done deal. I am simply sharing with you all a possible solution to the smaller house dilemma which could actually provide a much larger future layout but in a smaller scale. N gauge does have some significant advantages over OO when it comes to creating a train in the landscape feel and more generous curves and longer length trains can be run in very short distances. As an example, my benchmark loco and 8 coach train only takes up about 4ft in N-gauge.

I decided to sleep on the idea and just mull it all over for a while. Then something else happened which made me sit up and take notice. Dapol announced their programme of new releases in N-gauge for this year and 2013. Now as you all know, I model the ex SR and ex GWR lines in the Wessex/Devon area in the 1960s and I have been collecting a roster of locomotives in OO which covers all the essentials. Well Dapol have basically just announced every loco I need to have but in N-gauge and with a bang up to date modern spec' that on some locos even includes fitted DCC chips. Some of the highlights are as follows;

Class 33, Class 22, Class 52, West Country Pacific, Battle of Britain pacific, Schools Class, Q1 Class, Britannia Class, Class 35, Maunsell coaches.

Bachmann (Graham Farish) have already produced Warships, Class 47, Class 14, Class 45 and announced Class 5MT, WD Class, Upgraded Mk1 coaches, Bullied coaches and Merchant Navy pacifics. In fact, everything I will need!

So, I have decided to investigate further and have a little dabble in the murky waters of N-gauge. Just to see if I can adapt to the scale and to see if I can get the same degree of reliability of running and basically to see if I can be happy to possibly make the change I have already purchased some models. I have a Dapol Hymek ordered and have already received a rake of Graham Farish coaches. I'll do some more thinking, have a play with the new models and let you know if I'm making the change. As I've said, it's not a done deal!

N-gauge dabblings!

I will almost certainly disappoint some of you if I do make the change and I accept I'll get some stick from those of you who I've ribbed without mercy for years for being unable to commit to a particular gauge. This is all about how I want to do my modelling. I want an ambitious multi-level layout with the focus on operations and I want it to include a helix. If I cannot have this in OO scale then I will have to consider doing it all in N-gauge - it's all about being pragmatic.

Nameboards, Nameplates & Crests

As I don't have any shots of Corkscrew-Lines progress to share this time (too busy learning my new trade in Surrey & Hampshire) I thought you may enjoy some shots with a link to the era and area I model...enjoy...Dreadful!

So that's all for now my friends. I'll let you know what my initial impressions are once I get my hands on an N gauge loco and I can see what it can do. So until next time, enjoy!

Corky!

Update - No.30 - 23.06.12

Originally sent to friends and family only in June 2012

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, I'm back! After an absence of almost 3 months Corky has returned from his self imposed exile in the barren model railway bereft wastelands of the Network Rail "Initial Signaller Training" course in Leeds. I hope you are all keeping well my lovely little Corkettes and you will forgive me for not providing the regular updates you had become accustomed to......naughty, naughty Corky!

So what's been happening? I can hear you all cry. Well, quite a lot really but unfortunately not very much within the inner sanctum of the Corkscrew Lines where things are basically as they were left 3 months ago. I have successfully completed my Network Rail initial signalling training which consisted of about 9 weeks in Leeds at the training school interspersed with the odd week working on the route I'll be based on from Woking to Alton in Hampshire. The training was tough and consisted of an "absolute-block" course followed by a "track-circuit-block" conversion course (both types of signalling systems used in the UK for those of you unfortunate enough not to be familiar with the wonderful world of the railway!). Of the 12 candidates who started only 7 made it to the end after many dramatic The Apprentice style departures following poor marks in the frequent end of week assessments. The course was very tough and you had to basically live and breath signalling to get through it all. Hence the lack of any progress in the Garage.

I have now moved onto the next stage of my training which is actually learning to work my first signal box, Farnham. This will take many more weeks because Farnham includes an absolute-block section to the next box at Aldershot, a single line section to Alton including a passing loop at Bentley, extensive carriage sidings belonging to South West Trains in the neighbouring depot, Holybourne oil sidings and a busy level crossing. More than enough to keep me occupied! Now it's obviously not possible to commute the 150 miles each way from Jones Towers to North Hampshire/Surrey every day so I am renting a room in a flat in Alton whilst down south and scuttling back to Lincolnshire whenever I get the chance. Hardly an ideal situation but needs must as they say. The bad news is the Alton line is due to be re-signalled in about a year's time with all the current L&SWR boxes being closed and new signalling panels being installed at Woking Signal Box. The good news is Network Rail employs about 35,000 people and I have been told to apply for other vacancies that take my fancy so I can ensure I still have a job in the future. This will hopefully dovetail with Mrs Corky's move to the new combined signalling and control centre currently being constructed at Three Bridges and due to open in a years time. If all goes to plan we'll sell Jones Towers, both find jobs within a relatively easy commute of Three Bridges and buy a new home which will hopefully be our long term base for the rest of our working days.

The net result of all the above is the magnificent Corkscrew-Lines project that we all know and love is in a state of flux. Do I continue to work on the layout when I cannot be certain how large an area I will have to shoehorn it into when we've moved or do I suspend building works until the dust has settled in 2013? Well, the pragmatist in me has won that argument (for a change) and apart from collecting new stock and the odd bit of armchair modelling no more will be done to the layout until we have firmer plans. You'll all be devastated to realise that means fewer Updates in the future. Now don't get too upset my lovely little Corkettes because the Corkscrew-Lines are safe and the desire to continue is strong so this is just a temporary hitch in the construction of what I know will be a fantastic layout for us all to enjoy........just a little bit later on than I'd hoped. Who knows, if I catch The Fat Controller in a particularly good mood she may even let me build an even bigger home for the layout than now in a future house....I can dream anyway!

New Arrivals on the Corkscrew-Lines

As you all know, the Corkscrew-Lines are based in the South West of England in ex L&SWR and GWR territory and in a loose 1960's time frame so I can be flexible with what I'm able to run. A few new releases by Hornby have arrived at Jones Towers which fit in perfectly with this theme. The latest ex Southern Railway bogie parcels vans from Hornby are an absolute delight with high levels of detail and separately fitted metal components including door handles.......absolutely Hellfire! As you'll know doubt remember from earlier updates, I have a soft spot for parcels traffic so a pair of these lovelies are now on the roster. They need Kadee couplers fitting and some extra weight to make them compatible with existing stock. The helix will bite and derail anything mid train which shows any sign of weakness regarding weight or poor coupler height so this is a standard mod' for my stock.

Another item of similar parentage and period is the fantastic Hornby M7 tank engine and matching Maunsell Push-Pull set which will be perfect for the branch passenger trains which will run off the layout into hidden storage sidings at various points. I also have a Kernow Model Centre 02 steam loco and Gate stock push pull set on pre-order so these 2 sets will compliment each other perfectly in the future.....absolutely Dreadful! I've included some shots of the train trundling past Shinbash Low Level Signal Box for you to enjoy. The loco is gorgeous and a complete train in a box for £160.00 seems like pretty good value to me.

I hope you enjoy the attached images which show the latest arrivals, some of the locations I've visited recently when not at signalling school and a few odds & sods along the way. I've also added a few images of my new "office" which may interest the railway traditionalists amongst you. The signalling lever frame shown in what appears to be a modern office block is just that! It is the simulator at training school for a fictitious junction station called....wait for it....Hornby Junction! It's located on the 5th floor with panoramic views over West Yorkshire. All a bit surreal really. The views from the hotel room in Leeds show the few remains of the old Leeds Central station approaches including the viaduct which stands in splendid isolation now and also one of the remaining original parcels towers which is now incorporated into a park. There is railway history and architecture all around us if you know where to look!

Welcome to the latest Corkette - James, who is a kindred spirit, another trainee signaller with model railway tendencies. You are amongst friends here mate, welcome to the epic adventure that is the Corkscrew-Lines. Check out the previous 29 updates but be warned....they are even more boring and peculiar than this one which has resisted the normal tendency to descend into complete farce!

And finally, congratulations to Rooster who has just ordered a brand new shed! It makes you proud doesn't it.....a proper blokey shed ordered and already plans to stuff it full of model railways......Oh My Lords!

Take care my friends and fear not, Doctor Beeching will not be allowed anywhere near my beloved Corkscrew. I don't know what the future holds for the Corkscrew-Lines but there will still be a model railway and there will still be insane rantings and nonsense!

Corky.