Clatterbach Valley Light Railway

[Tom the blacksmith]

Hi CSL,

First thing, great to hear your 5yr old is getting stuck in and I think they've got a good eye, I quite like the back to back bench there but maybe that's because I like the chap who's checking out the back of the mamod.

Steam raising areas are handy, gives you somewhere to splash oil about the place. However it would also be completely pointless if you don't think you'd use it. I'm a great fan of the 'If it ain't broke' saying, I think if your happy then leave it be. I like the station, even if you don't use it, it makes a great feature. I like the idea of the platform height, doesn't obscure too much and flexible for different stock .

Clearly your wife is a keeper!! My Mille was my wedding present from Mrs Blacksmith, I'd love to say she gets it but she doesn't really .

How did you form the viaduct, especially the arches?

Tom

[CSL]

Tom the blacksmith: I promise that I'll get on to the viaduct soon! Needs a couple of photos and a bit of time to compose the post (which I'll try to keep concise).

My preferred location for the station nameboard and benches is the other side of the building - so even better positioned for looking at the stock in the bay. (Now that sounds like a song...)

PS: you described yourself as "a sucker for a good viaduct". I rather fear you might be in the wrong place for that, but it's a viaduct anyway!

[Tom the blacksmith]

All viaducts are good viaducts!!!! Quite like bridges too.

[CSL]

Time then to talk about the viaduct (Part 1, unillustrated). I fear the obvious flaws shown in the photos that will follow will be uncomfortable... And apologies for the length of the description.

When I first laid out the line (slightly frustratingly the area had the only decent turfed lawn in the garden, but we had originally earmarked it for something else anyway) I put the "far" loop above ground level because I knew that would be good, but I didn't have a solution in mind. I toyed with the idea of a wooden structure with a passing resemblance to a Brunel timber viaduct, which could have developed my efforts in my parents' garden all those years ago - but most importantly my wife didn't like it. And then I thought of Glenfinnan...

I had the ingredients for concrete, I had timber for shuttering. What I wasn't sure about was whether I had the ability, especially to get it right first time as a trackbed.

So I cheated. You will see that the deck is far deeper than a "real" viaduct. That's because I cast the arches first (with estimated sufficient depth over the top to stand freely) and then laid a further layer on top of that.

Also, the piers - especially on the outside - are far too wide; this is because I couldn't cast curved arches with the materials to hand.

A rough concrete base was laid all the way under the path of the viaduct, following the ground contours but slightly below ground level for susequent covering, so wherever the piers came down, they would have foundations.

Except for one incidence of exuberance when I made two arches simultaneously with imperfect results, the arches were cast individually. The mould for the arches was two quarters of a perfectly-shaped log found in the garden, the product of earlier tree-felling.

Small rectangular sections of board were placed underneath the outer edges of the semi-circle to form the piers' vertical lower sections, with soil packed between them to support the quarter logs and prevent the pressure of the concrete pushing things out of place. A narrow space between the quarter-logs was left and filled with sand which could be dug out after setting to release the quarter-logs.

The whole lot was shuttered on all sides (supporting the downhill shuttering got entertaining!) and plastic sheet cut to size and laid over the quarter-logs to separate them from the concrete and enable reuse.

To be continued ... with pictures (definitely of the finished structure, possibly of construction too if I can find and embed the photos).

[IanC]

Your viaduct looks ok to me. Even better since it made use of materials to hand.

I don't think I would even attempt a curved viaduct. As an aside I once posted a picture of a viaduct on my Flickr account and was told by someone it was an aqueduct even though it didn't carry or go over water!

Ian

[Tom the blacksmith]

The mould for the arches was two quarters of a perfectly-shaped log found in the garden, the product of earlier tree-felling.

Love it, my kind of engineering, thanks for sharing

Tom

[CSL]

OK, Viaduct Part 2 - Illustrated.

This view shows it all well (a bit too well, perhaps...):

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The malformation of the arches is due to the plastic sheet not sitting perfectly over the quarter-logs. The shortcomings of my shuttering are rather obvious too!

The separate deck layer is cast on top of the arch sections, interspersed with transverse timbers to which are fixed both the track and the basic side walls. This was the CVLR's "This is meant to be!" moment, because - with no pre-planning whatsoever - the depth of this layer turned out to be EXACTLY, TO THE MILLIMETRE, THE WIDTH OF THE AVAILABLE TIMBER. Magic.

The next photo shows the view from above. My trial arch was the one to the left of the centre one. When I had all the moulds and shuttering in place I stood back, looked at it, and thought "Hmm - it doesn't look quite right". I measured it and couldn't find anything wrong. As you see from the track alignment, my first impression was right! No matter - I have an idea for using that feature for scenic (and possibly comic) effect.

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And another view from on top, this time from the other side.

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The small pond wasn't very obvious in my previous photos. There WILL be an outflow from the pond into a stream running through one of the arches. One day!

I admit that my viaduct is a little scrappy, and at times I wish I had done better. But the important thing is that it exists and trains can run over it! And I never set out for the finescale look - it doesn't work against the plants in the garden anyway.

[Peter Butler]

Well I award you top marks for effort and the only criticism I hear is from yourself, so be proud of your achievement.

[Dwayne]

It ain't pretty. But it is loaded with character.

[bazzer42]

Like Dwayne said, bags of character. You could clad it with scribed foamboard but personally I like it as it is. I've found that this branch of railway modelling is full of learn as you go opportunities, it's trying to solve these that make it fun (for me at least). I can assure you if I started casting in concrete the results would be....interesting

[CSL]

Thanks for the comments. I'm still promising myself that I'll mix some more concrete and face it better - but I've been thinking that since I built it in summer/autumn 2016!

One thing I don't actually want to do is pretend it's a brick viaduct - it really is my mini-Glenfinnan and I want to keep it as that.

[ge_rik]

Like Dwayne said, bags of character. You could clad it with scribed foamboard but personally I like it as it is. I've found that this branch of railway modelling is full of learn as you go opportunities, it's trying to solve these that make it fun (for me at least). I can assure you if I started casting in concrete the results would be....interesting

It will probably weather in time so you'll hardly notice its composition, after all the curved Glenfinnan (Harry Potter) viaduct is made of concrete.

Rik

Edit: I wrote this while you were writing the above ..... great minds ......

[Lonsdaler]

You can hide a multitude of sins with a bit of paint. My bridge parapets lack elegance, and some might say so does my painting!

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[ge_rik]

You can hide a multitude of sins with a bit of paint. My bridge parapets lack elegance, and some might say so does my painting!
bridge21.jpg

Blimey, Phil. The weather where you are is lot different to that we're having in the NW of England!!!!!

Rik

[Lonsdaler]

You can hide a multitude of sins with a bit of paint. My bridge parapets lack elegance, and some might say so does my painting!
bridge21.jpg

Blimey, Phil. The weather where you are is lot different to that we're having in the NW of England!!!!!

Rik

Yes - overnight snow, then the sun comes out and it's 30 degrees by 10 a.m.

On a more serious note - we've lived here in the REAL NW of England (North Yorkshire! but close to Kirkby Lonsdale) for 11 years, and we have never seen the local rivers and streams so low - a bit of a spring dry spell is not unusual, but nothing like at the moment
Apologies for topic drift CSL - back to you.

[CSL]

The Mamod had a run this afternoon, and the station furniture was arranged a little differently.

Incidentally, the building's doors on the canopy* side were painted by a seven-year-old; the rest is down to me...
*Really ought to do something about the droop!

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P1030131.JPG (166 KiB) Viewed 13045 times

[Dwayne]

Very picturesque.

[CSL]

Your Bertie is a stunner, I was very tempted by that blue, and seeing how well it suits your loco I kinda wish I had gone for it, stands out so well against the plantings.

Yes, I'm really pleased with the DHR blue, and glad I went for a couple of embellishments on top. I was thinking about the Brunswick green for a Great Western feel with some brass, but then I figured it would just blend into the background. The yellow attracted me for a bit, but was vetoed by the family! We actually had a family conversation and one of the children pointed out that I'd always said that my favourite colour is "Mallard" blue. And the decision was made.

What finish did you go for with the Millie?

[Just Julie]

Very nice

[Tom the blacksmith]

Hi CSL,

I went through exactly the same thought process, I too was quite keen on the Brunswick green but feared it would disappear into the garden. I quite liked the Victorian maroon, I've seen it on a few locos and thought they looked smart and quite a classic colour. In the end I went for blue (bs105) which contrasts well against the garden, just not my garden yet . I did think about Darj blue and after seeing your Berti I wonder whether I should have chosen differently.

Lovin the low down shots, nice to see your cats marking it's territory "hmmm new platform......mine".