Garden Railway Forum

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:06 am railway with elaborate Egyptian steam locomotives and stock running through a desert landscape with ancient structures in the background.

Talking of ancient structures and railways, Luxor station is a beautiful Egyptiansed Art Deco building, designed to look like 'ancient Egypt' with stylised lotus columns and the wings of Isis (with the head of Horus!) on the facade. The semaphore signals are pure British with Lattice posts and lower quadrant arms. Although most have been replaced by colour lights now. This "elaborate Egyptian loco" is a Class 66 diesel.

It looks as though the drivers of those locos don't want sand (or camels) thrown in their faces with the bars on the screen..... unusual feature but hardly 'elaborate.
What I meant was something like this.....

Great photo's Phil. I had no idea Egyptian Railways still had any mechanical signalling. Is that a calling on signal lower down the post? If it is I'm guessing their Rules and Signalling Regulations must also bear some resemblance to our own.

Fascinating stuff.

Andrew

Andrew, tbh, I'm not certain about the lower arm but it certainly looks like a calling on. I'd guess that their Regs would be based on British practice originally, since the contractor for the first Egyptian railway line, which started from Alexandria in 1851 (and eventually arrived in Luxor by stages built by other companies)in 1898, was no less than good ol' Robert Stevenson himself!

Peter, I'd have thought this one might appeal to your more esoteric tastes? It was allegedly the first loco in Egypt.

I could very easily live with both of those locomotives running on my 'Heritage Railway', I wonder when Roundhouse will produce one of them?

philipy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 3:36 pm

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:06 am railway with elaborate Egyptian steam locomotives and stock running through a desert landscape with ancient structures in the background.

Talking of ancient structures and railways, Luxor station is a beautiful Egyptiansed Art Deco building, designed to look like 'ancient Egypt' with stylised lotus columns and the wings of Isis (with the head of Horus!) on the facade.
Luxor_Station.jpg

The semaphore signals are pure British with Lattice posts and lower quadrant arms. Although most have been replaced by colour lights now. This "elaborate Egyptian loco" is a Class 66 diesel.
Luxor train Cl 66.png

Class 66 and IE Class 201 are both variants on the GM-EMD JT42 design, which also appears in Norway, Israel, etc.. seems to have sold well on the international market. The Irish version had some wheel/bogie issues as I don't think EMD were thinking about sustained 90-100mph running when they designed them. The signals look UK c.1900 so the 'dotted' miniature arm is most likely a calling-on arm of some sort.


Peter in Va

Thanks Peter.

Well after this lengthy journey down the branchline to Egypt, I'd rather like to head back along the main line to my stream, please guys!

By chance I just came across this video showing how somebody else did a stream. As always, each to his own, but it it doesn't look half a scenic as Rik's is, and I hope mine will be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5hT0AIhsgU

philipy wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:17 pm
Well after this lengthy journey down the branchline to Egypt, I'd rather like to head back along the main line to my stream, please guys!

Well you've only got yourself to blame - you led us there Phil!

philipy wrote: ↑Sat Sep 22, 2018 4:17 pm
By chance I just came across this video showing how somebody else did a stream. As always, each to his own, but it it doesn't look half a scenic as Rik's is, and I hope mine will be.

Reluctant as I am to criticise someone who works with a pint pot of beer beside them, I must agree with your comments about the water feature in the clip. It's a good effort but not a patch on Rik's superb piece of work. In my humble opinion yours is much more realistic than this one too.

Speaking of which - any more photos of yours Phil? Have you fully commissioned yet?

All the best,

Andrew

Speaking of which - any more photos of yours Phil? Have you fully commissioned yet?

[/quote]

Andrew,
Nothing has happened since the photo I posted on 10th Sept on page 2 of this thread. The branchline to the real Egypt got in the way of doing proper stuff!

Egypt had a rich history of 2' 6" lines (although none survive now), always tempted to do an Egypt based 009 layout set in the 1920s based on a fictional narrow gauge line from Port Said or Alexandria to Faiyum via Giza

Ooh, I'd not got the notifications for this thread and missed all the Egyptian stuff - those Sentinels are wonderful! And the carriages! One day, maybe, although I agree that vast amounts of SBR will be necessary, otherwise the poor 16mm versions of the Egyptian Delta railway are goingto grind themselves to bits after just a few runs round the sandpit...

Thanks for both the diversion and inspiration,

Andrew.

Guys, I really don't want to appear churlish, but can we stop the Egyptian stuff on this thread please? I know I contributed at the beginning but it has got a bit much now.
Back to stream construction and related stuff only now.

Phil, this is the first time i have seen your thread on building your stream, sorry after being ill, I am just trying to catch up on things I have missed.

Your plans for the stream are very impressive mate, I wanted to have a stream after reading Rik’s Blog also, but it got waylaid with the hospital. But your’s will look just has good has Rik’s I think. Just give it time and a few alterations and other things which you will come across can make it into something really unique I am sure. Putting a little bridge over it will also make it come alive and your plan for a bridge is really great.

Both Anne and I don’t want to spend our hard earned money on some other country’s economy. Not that we have anything against those that do go abroad, we find a lot more inspiration from visiting places in the UK.

Looking forward to more of your building of the stream Phil…Any name for it yet…

All the lines on the forum are worth a visit too hopefully……

FWLR wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 9:26 am Any name for it yet…

Rod,
Nothing definite yet, I'm currently torn between two thoughts, but it could end up as something entirely different. The two current options are : 1)"Solstice Brook" since the cottage is called "Solstice Cottage" or, 2) "Cuttle Brook" since I have a copy of the will of one of my 10xgreat grandfathers, dated 1680, in which he describes one of his fields as being bounded by "the cuttle brook". Although 'our' land is long gone, Cuttle Brook is still there and still called by the same name 340 years later and I thought it might be a nice idea to perpetuate the name.

However, gotta build it before it can have a name!

'Cuttle Brook' works for me, with such a wonderful family connection and an unusual name it is sure to draw interest from any visitors to your line.

Yes, I really like the family connection too. And you can stock Cuttle Brook with Cuttle Fish...

Andrew wrote: ↑Tue Oct 02, 2018 1:43 pm Yes, I really like the family connection too. And you can stock Cuttle Brook with Cuttle Fish...

LOL, yes, plays around that thought have gone through my mind as well! Actually, I rather suspect that it was probably originally known locally as the Cattle Brook rather than cuttle, which would make far more sense in terms of a medieval farming community. Late17th century hand writing isn't what you would call easily legible ( I had something of a struggle transcribing it!) and the parish priest who would have written it was quite likely not local and dealing with the accent on the Bucks/Oxfordshire border would have likely taxed his spelling somewhat!

Anyway, google maps still show it as Cuttle and there was a dispute about 30 years ago between Bucks CC and Oxfordshire CC as to who should unblock the Cuttle Brook bridge under the Icknield Way since the Cuttle Brook forms the county boundary.

However, I digress, yet again!

+1 for Cuttle brook.
We have a similar 'mispronunciation' nearby. Ordnance Survey shows a local farm as Kepp House, whereas a locally produced earlier map clearly shows it as Cape House. However, OS wins out and the house nameplate is now Kepp, not Cape.

+ 2 for Cuttle Brook…brilliant name..

Back on track now... or should that be, up the creek? Anyway, I've now got the water input system more or less sorted. The two spout pieces took just over 10 hours each, to print, and the two halves of the manifold section took about 7hours 25mins, each.

The following pictures are before more than a rough clean up, but with the two pairs glued together to check the fit. There are some gaps but easily fillable.

Tom, you asked about glue and in the end I've actually used Floplast rather than Plasticweld, since it is more tolerant of gaps and I don't want any leaks.


The two halves of the manifold and the two spout pieces glued together:
The two sub assemblies push fitted together:
Then hanging on the edge of the tray which will form the top end of the Cuttle Brook ( one day!). I still have to make the hose attachment/bend piece, but don't anticipate too much trouble with that.

I'm currently experimenting with mortar colour to try to get a reasonable match for the stone I'm using and I haver 4 mixes drying in the garage as I write this.

The stream bed is currently full of leaves, mostly ash and elder, the apples and willow haven't really started falling yet, but nothing much to do until its all dropped.