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About this blog

The EMpire project is the MRC's new (and possibily first) EM layout.

Entries in this blog

Frantic activity at Empire Mills - anyone would think we have an exhibition next month!

I haven't posted for a while - this doesn't mean we haven't been doing anything we have - well I haven't but the team has. However, with an exhibition looming we have had a burst of activity that quite frankly puts our gentle summer progress to shame.   The show - its all about the show after all - is the South Hants MRC's exhibition in Portsmouth on 21 November 2015 at the Admiral Lord Nelson school. It look like there will be some excellent layouts there - the sage of Fareham's beautiful 'We
drduncan

drduncan

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Meetings, Planning, and Teaching

Yesterday we had our first official layout group meeting. Probably should have done it sooner, but better late than never. In this we discussed follow up from Ally Pally, things that went well and things that didn't. We also covered what needs to be done before our next outing (Portsmouth in November) and who is to do what. Up until now the layout has gone in the back of a 7.5T truck with other stuff/layouts for AP, but this has to change. We had originally intended to have the layout fit in the
garethashenden

garethashenden

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And its over - until the next outing...

After a very hectic 3 days Friday to Sunday, the Ally Pally show is over! And despite our fears on Saturday that we weren't putting on a good show for the public, people were extremely complimentary about Empire Mills thought the exhibition and we came away with about a couple of enquiries about magazine articles and half a dozen or so invitations to other exhibitions in the future - so we can't have been as bad as we through we were! We also managed to get a few photos taken before the public c
drduncan

drduncan

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The mad rush before a deadline

We will be at the London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace the 28/29 of March. As this is now less than two weeks away, we have been working frantically to get the layout presentable. Since the last post the entire team has been working hard and the sort of stuff we have been doing includes: Making a new 'roof' for the layout which will have an LED lighting rig attached to it (Gareth - who incidentally showed that, despite being an American, he has a full and extensive grasp o
garethashenden

garethashenden

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At last! A solution to our grass problem

Early on we decided to cover the front and back of the layout, most of the actual scenery, with carpet underlay. This produced a good effect, especially with a little bit of effort. It did, however, leave us with a dilemma about the middle of the layout. We tried a few different techniques for the ground cover round the various sidings, static grass, ground foam, but these didn't really produce the effect we wanted. There was too much contrast between the different materials and the change in co
garethashenden

garethashenden

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Hard at it at Empire Mills

Last Sunday the team met up to continue to work on Empire Mills.   The first job was to remove one of the lift out sections so it would be easier to work on the new loading bank area. To get the lift out section out, however, required lots of swearing, several broken knife blades, and a great deal of straining in order to break the seal of the glue and paint that had seeped down between the baseboard joints.     With the lift out section removed, Les was able to work on adjusting the posi
drduncan

drduncan

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MRC Open Day 16/11/14 11-4

The Model Railway Club's Autumn Open Day is Tomorrow 16/11/14. Empire Mills will be operating along with Copenhagen Fields, Lacey Dale and a visiting 3mm layout.   11 to 4 at Keen House, Kings Cross, London. £3 for non-members.   http://themodelrailwayclub.org/   Come by and say hello.
garethashenden

garethashenden

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Further Scenic Developments - Bushes!

Well I've spent the day making bushes and a hedge. I've found a pretty straightforward technique that gives pleasing results.   To start off, we had already placed rubberised horsehair around the layout as a first step. It had all be sprayed brown before placement but they didn't really look that good. So here's what I did to improve the looks.   I sprinkled fine dark green ground foam around and on top of the horsehair, then a little bit of fine black ground foam. I then sprayed a light lay
garethashenden

garethashenden

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Long time, no blog

Time for an update.   Over the summer we have been poking away at various projects on the layout and things are really starting to come together.   I've been working on a few early GWR wagons the past few weeks. Here is a mostly finished David Keen kit in front of one of the clay dries. Just need to finish the lettering and add couplings. Maybe a bit of weathering too.     I've got back to the water feature. I gave the whole thing a healthy coating of gloss varnish to simulate wet mud.
garethashenden

garethashenden

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A busy Sunday

The Empire Mills team have had a busy day.   Les has been hard at work first replacing the highly temporary loading platform that Gareth had to cobble together to show the BBC - who then cancelled the day before the shoot.     The new loading platform will be stonefaced toward the track, with the ground falling away gently on the platform side.     While the papiermache was drying Les then had a crack at placing the cosmetic chairs - a job that everyone had been working very hard to
drduncan

drduncan

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Emergency Platforms

Having removed a sizable portion of scenery yesterday I was informed this morning that the BBC would be filming something in the club later this week and could I please position some stock on the layout. I've spent my afternoon at the club making both the new loading dock and the platform on the large clay dry presentable.   The foamboard we had cut to rough shape was used as a base. All of this will have to be redone properly in the future so I wanted to make disassembly easy. I used double s
garethashenden

garethashenden

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Empire Mills: the new loading dock

Gareth has been pointing out for a while that a loading dock was a good idea. I had been resisting this on the grounds I didn't think one was needed what with two china clay dries on the layout. However, Gareth unfairly used both logic and prototype knowledge to undermine my case for glorious inactivity.   He noted that post WW1 sack traffic if moved by closed van (as was wont to happen in the BR period) couldn't be loaded as the dries platforms would be too high to allow the doors to on many
drduncan

drduncan

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Empire Mills: the Volvo strikes back

The open day went very well and we got a great deal of interest, so hopefully in the next few weeks we'll see some new members at the MRC and some new members of the Empire Mills team.   Last Sunday we had our first work session since the open day and one on which I had hoped to make progress with more cassettes for the fiddle yard. However, on starting the trusty Volvo there was a clattering noise as a bolt holding the alternator and steering pump failed and the cam belt disintegrated. The AA
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Empire Mills at the MRC Open Day

Well, the MRC open day was a success!!!!!   It was, in fact a very enjoyable day - if hard work - and many people stopped by to chat about the wider layout project, Empire Mills as currently displayed, or AJ couplings (must do a post about these sometime soon as it the thing that got the most interest on the day).   In fact it has to be said that any problems that were seen on the day were down to one of two problems:   1) finger trouble - ie the pressing of the wrong uncoupling magnet swi
drduncan

drduncan

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Empire Mills - come see us in action at the MRC open day 11 May

Come see Empire Mills in something approaching glorious Technicolor and almost Dolby stereo quality sound at the Model Railway Club's open day on Sunday 11 May, 11am to 4pm!   We will be running (hopefully) Western Region diesel hydraulics (and Gareth's class 25 interloper as well as my 08 if the wasp stripes are done), BR china clay and mineral wagons.   If that's not enough to tempt you to come along, also on show at the open day are: Lacey Dale, the MRC's new N gauge layout. Happisbu
drduncan

drduncan

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Empire Mills: the CME's report 3 - the class 42 Warship

Ultrascale drop in wheel sets are simply superb. They make converting loco's to EM gauge an absolute doddle - at least in theory...   Foxhound is one of Bachmann's creations and very nice it looked to, even if it was, to put it bluntly, narrow gauge. However, the loco's transition from OO narrow gauge ugly duckling to EM standard gauge swan was just a matter of throwing an acceptable sum of money at the problem and waiting the required half a lifetime for the wheels to arrive (I freely admit t
drduncan

drduncan

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Empire Mills: the Wagon and Carriage Inspector's notebook

There has, it must be admitted, been a hint of discord between the CME's and Operating Departments. The Operating department (Gareth), following Empire Mills recent foray to the nether regions of north London, had reproached the CME's department (Duncan) over the dross a certain Wagon and Carriage Inspector (again Duncan) had been passing as fit for use - apparently AJs were doing anything but uncouple at the time and place the operating department wanted, and his team were getting fractious as
drduncan

drduncan

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Empire Mills - The CME's report 2 - the Class 22

The plan was just to pull out the wheels and file away the backs of the bogies to provide clearance. A rather course file was introduced to the bogies and just over 1 mm removed from each side of the bogie. I used a (borrowed) GW Models wheel puller - I really must get one of these things - to deal with the wheels and with a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing between wheel puller and back to back gauge all was sorted. The wheel sets were tested through various point work and there appeared to be n
drduncan

drduncan

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Empire Mills: the CME'S report 1 - the western

Those happy few, that band of brothers (and sisters) who have seen Empire Mills in action will not have seen the projects' most shy and retiring inhabitant, the class 52 western hydraulic no 1067, Western Druid. The reason for this was simple; the line contoller (aka Gareth) had regretfully withdrawn it from the 1st XV (well 1st IV) due to antisocial tendencies: to whit pulling wagons off the rails on corners.   1067's history has been, it has to be admitted, rather problematic. One of messers
drduncan

drduncan

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The Water Feature

Water runs down hill. So, front and centre should be the wettest part of the layout because it it the lowest. I always find myself drawn to water on layouts so I thought I'd add something. The first problem is that there is no space for a sizable water feature. Adding to this, most of the basic landscaping had already been done, the hills are in place along with brambles and a tree so really all that can be done is the hint of water beyond the layout. The edge of a pond or marsh, even a small st
garethashenden

garethashenden

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Of dumb buffers and badly designed kits

My tastes in railways (particularly British ones) tends towards the unusual. I am completely uninterested in BR steam, for example, and find myself increasingly drawn to pre-grouping, if not Victorian, railways. While I can't claim to be a fan of the Great Western, Duncan's desire to model Edwardian GWR is at least the right era. While perusing the bay of E a few months ago I happened across a lot for five identical white metal kits for dumb buffered private owner coal wagons. Now dumb buffers t
garethashenden

garethashenden

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Empire Mills: An Overview in Picutres

So we have the track for the permanent section of the layout, built on cartridge paper in two sections (as there are two baseboards). That was just before Christmas 2012. In late January or early February 2013 the baseboards arrived: The track laid down: And a train (with kindly loaned stock) running! The layout was exhibited in this state on the demonstration stand at Alexandra Palace 2013. Throughout the next nine months progress was slowly made, most notably the addition of the
garethashenden

garethashenden

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Ally Pally 2014

At Ally Pally, Empire Mills operated with its china clay works option (to be fair, it’s the only option we have at the moment), using BR WR diesel hydraulics (a class 22, class 35, class 42 and class 52) and a solitary class 25 diesel-electric. I’m told (I wasn’t there – arrival of first born got in the way) that we didn’t disgrace ourselves. But for the next few week – if not months, there is a lot of work to do.   First we (I) need to persuade the Class 52 western to go round corners while
drduncan

drduncan

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Empire Mills: the plan

Empire Mills - the final name for the layout 'collective' that is the MRC's EMpire project, has just finished its first outing as something rather more than the bare boards state it was seen at Ally Pally in 2013. For the 2014 Ally Pally bonanza we had scenery and buildings! Yes, I admit, it isn’t finished, but you should have seen the layout at Christmas – it’s come on in leaps and bounds (more in a later post).   Empire Mills is a shunting layout; it is the end of a freight only branch line
drduncan

drduncan

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Me and my big mouth, or, how the MRC ended up with an EM gauge group project

It started, as so many things do which often fall under the category of 'it seemed like a good idea at the time', over a beer in the Model Railway Club's bar. At the time, I was involved with the MRC's American HO project 'Putnam' on the basis that they were a friendly crowd and used the same DCC system as I had purchased but not yet mastered. On the Thursday evening in question I was lamenting, in no particular order, the megalomania in railway modellers (apparently size really does matter to m
drduncan

drduncan

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