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The Blackcloud Railways web presence has been rebuilt. The blog remains here on playingtrains.wordpress.com until such time as the site’s photo storage capacity is exhausted (probably some years off yet) but I have migrated the layout pages over to blackcloudrailways.wordpress.com where any future additions will also be found. The internal navigation for both websites is interlinked, so you should still be able to find your way around. If you require access to unlisted layouts the search facility in the sidebar here on Playing Trains may be of assistance. If you still cannot find what you’re looking for please get in touch be email (oscalemodeller@aol.co.uk)..

Allt-Na-Ballt becomes Alta Nabout

Alt-Na-Ballt is moving from the West Highlands to Sierra Oculta where it will become Alta Nabout, an intermediate station on the line from Arroyo Dublo to Quécarajo.

The cluster of buildings was originally a Ferrocarril Internacional station, absorbed into the FCPyF when the most of the FI system was abandoned.

What’s in a name? Alta Nabout obviously mimics Allt-Na-Ballt which, in turn, was chosen to sound a bit like out and about due to the layout’s partially hidden circle of track. Allt-Na-Ballt was so spelt to appear like a Scots Gaelic place name, Alta Nabout hopefully looks as if it’s Latino. Alta translates from Spanish as high but Nabout is dubious. The only reference I can find is an Arabic surname. Maybe the area was settled by a family of migrants from northern Morocco who arrived with the Spanish. On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t need such in depth analysis.

Progress on this project may be slow at first, the garage is still a no go area due to displaced furniture and the new floor covering for the front room has been set back at least a week due to the carpet shop being short staffed.

All about Allt-Na-Ballt

This twenty inch diameter pizza usually resides in my living room. It is more of an ornament than a model railway and rarely sees any trains moving these days. Hold that thought for a while. The front room has been cleared while I get a new floor covering fitted so I have taken the opportunity to give Allt-Na-Ballt some TLC by brushing the dust and cobwebs off the scenery then repainting the waterfall and rapids.

Have you remembered that thought you were asked to hold? The footbridge is an adapted Hornby Dublo die cast model so it is nominally for OO even though it works well with On18 due to its coarse scale. If the bothy was to be replaced with a lineside hut made for OO the rest of the scenery is suitably vague to allow using the layout with OO9/HOe railcars. OO figures can be positioned using TackyWax to confirm the scale. The example shown below is an Airfix coal merchant’s office, I have a couple of Tri-ang huts that would also be suitable. Another option would be to use an early style Tri-ang waiting room and provide a paved “platform” area to make a proper narrow gauge station instead of it just being a shelter for p-way staff.

I have considered this before but this time I think it may actually happen. I like diesel railcars, and I have several in this scale.

Taper and paper

An early morning update on yesterday’s blog entry. I went for the matchsticks and tapered chassis option when beefing up the Playcraft hoppers.

The original details on the porches have been retained, the handrails and hopper door operating wheels are too low really but I suspect the vintage plastic wagons won’t take kindly to having glued joins prised apart. Apart from a repaint the only other work undertaken was the provision of wagon sheets (folded paper) to keep the payload dry.

The two new cars have been formed into a fourth set, the bogie hopper taken from one of the other sets has been replaced by two four-wheelers. I could have paired the smaller wagons with the new ones but I think they look better this way.

It takes three sets to operate the Cuarto/Grande mineral flow so one set will be kept in reserve and they’ll be rotated on and off the layout for variety. I have yet to see how the Playcraft couplers retained within the set cope with the reversals on the switchback. There’s a reason for this.

I am getting the carpet replaced in the front room. The garage is jammed full of furniture and books until the new floor covering is completed. I can hardly see the south end of the layout, let alone get to the controls in the corner between Grande and Pano Cucina.

There aren’t going to be any trains turning a wheel for several days, get a bus instead.

Winging it with Playcraft

I’m sure I have seen some of these hoppers converted from HO to On30 somewhere, I’ve been advised by email that it wasn’t where I thought it was and searching the NGRM forum is pointless due to Imgur’s blocking all UK access, resulting in a forum full of purple rectangles where the photos should be.

It looks as if I’m winging it with this then. I was hoping that “Cook’s Matches” would be long enough to widen the middle of the chassis while leaving the tapered ends and original steps as being original width but they’re just shy and would need a join between two pieces if used. However, if matches are used I can taper their ends to match the shape of the chassis.

The alternative is beefing up  the full length with coffee stirrers and adding full width verandas to lose the taper. I don’t want to alter the actual hopper bodies above solebar level other than fitting wagon sheets over them though.

Weather stopped play

I have cleared all surplus rolling stock off the layout and drawn up a draft operating sequence.

As yet to be tried out to check on the siding capacities and scheduled meetings before a full blown operations session can take place using the four newly completed diesel locomotives.

It has been a while since all three termini were clear of detritus from various modelling projects, not necessarily On30 related.

We are currently in a very unpleasant heatwave and the temperature in the garage makes it uncomfortable to spend any prolonged length of time on the railway so I have retreated to the cool of the kitchen.

But not before patching over the sound grilles and repainting the boiler of Echo locomotive No.1. If you’ve got a better memory than me you may recall it was four years ago when I had a pipe dream of building a garden railway for these two battery powered toy trains to run on.

As with so many of my plans it came to nothing in the end, the nearest I have got to a G scale 45mm gauge garden railway since then is SM32 in a window box, which was fun to build but hardly the same as a roundy roundy to watch trains trundling past!

That’s not to say it’ll never happen but until it does the two Echo locomotives will remain as static ornaments on a bedroom windowsill and my spade can stay under a pile of junk in the shed. I don’t do gardening.

After some email conversation I decided that maybe the Echo locomotives and plastic track are not really all that suitable for a garden railway, what would be better is the radio controlled SM32 loco in the photo of Syxtene Mill running on Hornby tinplate track (eBay photo above).

The little engines that can’t…

And one that can!

Two blog entries today, I was going to append this to the previous post but I reckon it rates its own individual URL. I have strengthened the Perejil/Cuarto mineral train to five opens, it looks much better for having the extra wagon but that comes at a price.

No.79 is back heavy and lost traction when the wheels started spinning as it encountered the tight curve entering Pano Cucina, followed by it doing a wheelie and the front axle landing on the ballast. Then I tried the pair of small diesels, 62 and 67, seen at the start of the previous post. These two have run successfully together on the main line’s easier gradients but their respective Lima and Hornby mechanisms did not cooperate with each other on this trial. The result was another derailment on the same curve.

I tried slightly bigger diesel 66 on the train next, all went well until it stalled when backing out of Pano Cucina after reversing at the switchback. Repeated attempts to restart the train on the hill resulted in repeated defeat.

Double heading with 67 and 66 met with success. Both locomotives have fairly modern Hornby mechanisms, their similar performance meant they were fighting the gradient instead of each other.

Out of curiosity I tried both 67 and 62 solo. No.67 stalled in the same place as 66 did. However, 62 coped magnificently with the train, but then again there is quite a bit of lead concealed in the petite diesel’s bodywork and Lima’s huge pancake motors take a lot of stopping.

Glazed look

I have been glazing the cab windows of three diesels today. Not a favourite task, it usually entails glue fingerprints on the paintwork but I got away with it this time. No.62 (in tandem with 67) is available for main line freight or passenger work as required.

That done I fitted Kadee style couplers to the two new locos, they now just need numbering to complete. Needless to say my vinyls have disappeared, two new sheets are on order. The chunky black engine will be assigned to main line passenger workings, the green one is to take on shunting duties at Grande.

A new bus has appeared, adding a bit of class to the infamous San Fernandez traffic jam. I’ve wanted one of these 1950 Mercs for a while. At £3.59 plus postage the price was right on this particular example. It’ll probably spend most of its time at San Fernandez central bus station once it escapes the queue on the bridge over the railway. It is, of course, German. I believe South America was once a quite popular destination for them.

Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower

If you’re aware of the farcical tale that was told over the last two weeks on my other blog you’ll probably consider the Beatles lyrics as being relatively sensible. You will also know that I ended up looking for another hopper wagon.

As it turned out I’ve got two, shown above in the vendor’s photograph copied from eBay. They claim to be Walruses, but that won’t last long, the vintage Jouef hopper wagons are destined for conversion to On30 when Royal Mail delivers them. It’s not just old Tri-ang toys that I treat with irreverence!

Steamy Sunday

Extra 79 North leaving Pano Cucina. Mixed freight, including mineral traffic, Cuarto de Pulgada to Sangriento via Colina Rosa, Perejil and Puente Guia.