Humble beginnings…
Entry posted by Dale
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Make no mistake, if you’re reading this seeking hidden lore or the dark arts of modelling then your in the wrong place. I am a rookie to this wonderful hobby and blundering my way along. I have in the last three years, made a lot of costly mistakes and changed tack more times than a yacht in a fickle wind.
Why a blog?
Primarily it’s to serve as a diary as I build my layout. A documented history of the pitfalls, triumphs and inevitable frustrations I am about to experience. If it entertains or even helps others then that’s the icing on the cake. It will also serve to keep those friends who I see infrequently, to keep abreast of progress.
So what are you modelling?
I could spin off an extended answer to that, and I will shortly but the briefest answer is Bodmin. Penstemon is to be a fiddleyard to terminus layout, measuring 20’ by 3’ with 15’ scenic and the final 5’ being a traverser. Modelled in 4mm OO gauge, I plan to use the layout to learn my craft. I have looked though a lot of reference material for a prototype which ticked all of my boxes and whilst it has been modelled beautifully by the guys from the North London Group of the Scale Four Society, the track plan of Bodmin answers all of my ‘Givens’ and all my ‘Druthers’ too. I am going to twist it, mix it up a little and try to create something that, when viewed casually looks original but when viewed again the penny drops "ahh, it's Bodmin".
One of my bugbears in this hobby is scouring through Ebay for some obscure limited run, rare as hen's teeth white metal casting of the piece you need to be accurate to your region, line or railway and then paying three times its original cost when you eventually find it. Where possible I want to use readily available suitable RTR stock and currently available kits but I also want to try my hand at white metal, brass etch, scratch building, das scribing, static grass, making trees… the list goes on. Ebay - i want a divorce!
The jury is out on track at this time – one argument is to use peco large radius points and the large radius Y point and then switch to exactoscale sleeper sections and hi nickel bull head rail for the rest. Certainly the cheapest option. The next option is to splash that former with a little custom pointwork from Norman at ‘Just Tracks’. The final and most expensive is to have Norman build all the pointwork in bullhead with the right sleeper spacing. I am leaning toward the latter but need to sell a leg and maybe an arm to medical science first. Quality comes at a price but making track is the one thing I really don’t want to have a go at and Norman does it really really well.
So there we have it.
That’s where I am going – 45XX and pannier tanks, B sets and cattle wagons, set in idyllic rural countryside.
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