Another year has passed since the last entry and the progress in that time has been.......nothing. Lots of ideas but zero progress. A few pieces of stock built but that is all.
I was recently asked if I could show a layout at a local "arts & crafts" show so I took all the detritus off the layout and had a look. It wasn't good, the baseboard and one of the backscene boards were slightly bowed, I had a step in one track cross the board joint and a lot of work was needed to bring the layout
The blog hasn't been posted to for nearly a year so I though a quick update was in order.
Not a massive amount of progress due to health problems and getting distracted by building some 1980s Strathclyde DMUs and EMUs but the fiddle yard has had an extra siding added to add a little flexibility.
The station building has had the metcalfe slates replaced with slaters plasticard ones and a coat of paint. It looks a bit better but still needs some more weathering.
Finally, a vi
I did promise an update on the station building
Current progress is that the main painting is finished and the windows glazed. Chimneys have been constructed from mounting board, Metcalfe stone card and the inside of a ball paint pen!
I picked up some Peco doors which I've used for the most visible doors (i.e the ones on the right hand side of the building). The toilet interior has been made from a couple of bits of card with the "tiles" drawn on in pencil, given a wash of white acryl
The hut has been via the paintshop now.
An initial undercoat of Halfords grey primer was followed by a thin coat of Humbrol Intercity Grey. This was then covered with washing in shades of brown, black, green and rust. Odd panels were then picked out again in Intercity Grey.
The door is painted with artists acrylics and then matt varnished.
In situ :
Andy B)
On the layout there are only 4 buildings - the station building, goods shed, portacabin (for engineers use) and a small hut that stood between the main loop and the siding at Kyle until the early 80s. It can be seen here : Kyle Station 1982
As a diversion from work on the station building I looked at photos of the prototype hut and built this :
Basic structure is artists mounting board, the door is a peco one cut in half and the cladding is corrugated plasticard left over from makin
I finished this a while ago but forgot to post the pictures
The 24/1 is now painted and numbered. It still needs headcodes fitted and some weathering to finish it off.
Andy B)
Some progress has occurred with the 24/1 as I have had the filler out for other projects and did the filling on this at the same time.
Changes to the Bachmann bodyshell so far :
Replace roof domes with headcode boxes - Brassmasters resin castings
Replace side grille with 5-hole plate - Brassmasters etch
Fill holes from disks - filler
Fill recesses on roof - filler
Add vents above doors - Brassmasters etch
Add blanking plates where headlights were - Brassmaster
In response to requests to show progress on the station building, I thought I'd better get on with the station building
The window frames have now been fitted and look OK - not brilliant but I'll live with it. The glazing will be added once the building has been weathered.
The main roof structure is now in place as is the canopy structure. The roof will be covered with slate plasticard once I get some so for now I have painted it dark grey to see if I am on the right lines. The canopy
I've been looking at my stock and deciding on what I need to buy and what is excess. The main running era for the layout is 1975-77 with the odd foray back to 1972 (purely so I can use my Clayton ) and forward to 1985 (to use my Large Logo 37s). Some of the stock may be renumbered/renamed before it's used. I've put some links to pictures on the old RMweb/fotopic where possible.
Locos :
Heljan Clayton in BR Blue (currently D8529)
Bachmann 24/1 Conversion in BR Blue - D5116
Since the last update, very little has happened with the layout due to various other distractions. However, today I got some free time and decided to make some progress. The station building now has all of the doorframes and window surrounds fitted and most are painted.
A nice quick project was a portacabin for the engineers bothy on the front right of the layout. Starting point was the Hornby Skaledale R8765 Car Sales Office. The brandings came off with a light scrape from a cocktail stick.
The signature loco for the Kyle line in the 1970s was the class 24/1. I already have one 24/1 as D5116 which was converted by Rippers (and can be seen here D5116) but I fancied doing one of my own. Having done some searching I have decided to model 24115 as it was at the end of it's working life as seen here : http://80s-and-earlier.fotopic.net/p47427012.html
The basis for my 24/1 is a standard Bachmann 24 in BR Blue plus the Brassmasters conversion parts.
First up, the domes are re
Progress is fairly slow on the station building - a lot of cutting little bits of plastic strip and painting.
The whole building has now had a coat of white primer which will be the base colour. I've started to add window and door surrounds using 80thou x 80thou L-shaped plastic and 60thou strip (of course I ran out of angle before I got finished )
I'm painting the lower wall and the surrounds with Railmatch BR Loco Green as this seems to be a good match to the colour the station was p
Despite appearances to the contrary, there has been some progress on the layout in between stock building sessions. Today has seen the main section of the station building constructed based on the mockup Here (Old RMweb)
As an idea of scale the station building is around 26 inches long.
The front wall is made from three layers - the centre layer is mounting board with the window and door holes cut (fairly) exactly into it. The back layer is also mounting board but with larger window
On the layout there are only 3 major structures - the overbridge, the station building and the goods shed. The overbridge is simply thick card covered with metcalfe stone card.
For those of you who don't remember the how the shed started out it went from a basic mounting board shell with peco doors :
Corrugated plasticard was added to the outside and the whole lot painted with Humbrol green spray paint :
Finally, in the last few days the roofs have been painted silver, the
Some of you may recall this layout from previous versions of RMweb. The original plan was to build one side of Kyle of Lochalsh station in 4mm scale. The Mk1 version of the layout was 8' x 2' plus fiddle yard but this became to big for the room I was working in so Mk2 was begun, recovering as much material from the previous version as possible.
Main scenic board :
Overhead view showing trackplan :
Today the layout is fairly well progressed. There is still the main building to con
