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Maybe a few will remember my previous project on here, "Thameside". It is so long ago, that I cannot even find my own thread on here! 

Since life has gotten in the way of that project, I have been working on another little play-thing.

The original idea was something which would pack up into a briefcase sized box, and worked on or played with as and when.

More recently, it has found a more permanent home on a shelf.

Progress has been glacial, but I hope that if there is interest on here, as there was on Thameside, that it will inspire me get on with it. To put it into perspective, it was started in 2008!

The trackplan is a little bit crap, and breaks all the rules for making for an interesting layout - enforced by the desire to keep it briefcase sized, and use up an existing three-way point.

Afraid I am convalescing at the moment, and struggle to concentrate for more than about three minutes at a time, so I will leave it at that for now, and hope you like it.

 

Tref.

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Edited by Tref
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Simple and straightforward, and plenty of shunting in a confined space; I don't see how that equates with dull at all!  It looks to me as if it's got a lot of potential, not least because it can be fairly easily expanded in either or each direction should an opportunity arise (though some modification to the building at the left hand end would be needed for that).  That said, there's plenty of modelling and operating in it as it is!

 

The warehouses are very convincing.  If you could get that winch operating...

 

Hope the convalescing goes well and you are all mended soon, Tref; don't overdo it!

Edited by The Johnster
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Thanks guys. I think it is "three tracks parallel to the baseboard edge" To me it screams "trainset"!! I am hoping to overcome that scenically. The rail along the front is for a... "half-gantry" crane? Not sure what you call them. One rail on the ground, one rail in the air, usually supported off the side of a building. The operation is pure Inglenook. The end loading bay and bufferstops were positioned after checking with actual stock, it is possible to get 3 or 5 wagons in there, but no more without fouling. I am afraid the headshunt limit will be set by selecting an appropriate length loco. I wasn't really a fan of shunting puzzles until I saw an O-gauge one at a show somewhere, where it looked like the operator had somewhere else to be! It kind of made sense - sure we aim for good quality low speed operation - but apart from MGR, where was there ever a requirement for a shunting operation to be done as slowly as possible?

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Who made them? I did! Thank you! The large building on the right, and top half of the building adjacent to the rear siding are components from a Kibri kit. Werkstatt oder Fabrik I believe. The one between them is a Dapol engine shed kit or two. This was disappointing as the quality of the moulding of the brickwork is nowhere near as good as I remembered it to be. I seem to recall the window frames were so coarse I replaced them as you see, and scratch-built the hoist. The bottom half of the aforementioned building, and the building on the left side are from Wills sheet, and there pre-cut arches, and finally the apex frame building is from Wills siding, and I can't remember where the H section came from.

I seem to recall I spent an awfully long time cutting out little decorative bits of brickwork on the panels on the building on the right, to my mind to make it look a little more British.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Tref

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You are welcome.

I have stripped off the right hand side again, to allow me to add window frames to the building, and do something about re-gluing the led strip light into the lid. It has given me an opportunity to get the camera into an awkward to see at the best of times little corner:

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The skew bridge (yes, the ubiquitous Wills brick arches kit) is a scenic break, yes, but another cliché I know, the disused railway line. Here I have tried to make it look like the obviously dangerous end of the bridge has been fenced off with wiggly tin and timber. Now history an politics have never been my strong point. The large building on the right hand side will hopefully represent an old water pumping house that has now been converted into a trendy des-res - complete with one of the pumps still turning over, if not doing anything, for that "industrial chic" in the main foyer. Meanwhile, a few unemployed brothers find a little shelter behind the tin shielding the end of the bridge. I have yet to find suitable characters, but the brazier is waiting, and I'm sure I can find a pallet to fuel it from somewhere.

Can these to scenarios co-exist? I should know, I have seen them both, but time plays havoc of the memory - and I never had the memory for that kind of thing anyway!

 

Yes, with a brazier, the plan is that this should be set in the winter. I would say a discontented one - but that would be too early for the refurbished industrial residences...

It needs to be in BR blue period - well, it is - that is set - but what year exactly, I guess I would almost prefer it to be driven by the politics of the time that allow the creation of these back stories!

 

Tref.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Unable to make much other progress I thought today I could at least change the couplings on the Hornby 08. Using #18 or #19 (I have both available) they appear to be a little low, but I think I can shim them up in the NEM sockets. More worrying is the screw-couplings appear to clash. Anyone else had this problem? What is the solution - remove the screw-coupling?

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Well, I have made some progress... All of the stock I have (I need two more wagons to fill the "puzzle") is now fitted with Kadee couplings. At the moment the screw couplings on the 08 are just pushed up out of the way - I need a better solution, but it works. One of the wagons I found the coupling hooks are mounted up-side-down. Had I noticed it however many years ago when I bought it I could have taken it back - too late now... No matter - It is looking a little "Van heavy", so perhaps I can find something else, and make it that one I replace.

 

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The picture is a snap-shot of the layout as it is, right now. Believe it or not, that is taken with a 35mm DSLR - it shows that having the gear is no guarantee of a good picture! The 08 needs to be blue. This one is sound fitted, with a Howes reblow, and some-where I have a non sound blue 08 to swap bodies. But I have to find it first! The buildings on the left have been removed for further filling and painting - well, one of then has, the rest have been removed to get to that one. I have window frames fitted to the far building, except that I am two short, which is rather annoying. I have emailed Kibri, but no reply so far. I could brick them up, but didn't really want to do that... So if anyone has any spare windows for a Kibri Factory, please get in touch!

 

I have also had another go at sticking up the LED strip under the facia, which can be seen dangling in an earlier picture.

 

So I need to find another two wagons... I like the idea of a 21 or 24 ton mineral wagon - like the 16ton ones, but with the double doors - sorry I am no expert! I have a feeling that may happen, as it will also sate my desire to have at least one piece of kit-built stock - if I can find a Parkside kit. However... It is probably worth considering a little the supposed reason for existence, and shunting around, of stock here...

 

The buildings on the left are all part of a company called "London Tube and Pipe" or is that "London Pipe and Tube"? Don't know, but either way they have been manufacturing stock and bespoke tube and pipe fittings for years - not just little stuff, but big stuff too - the kind that is easier shifted by rail. Now I am not sure how stuff like this would be transported, but feel this gives me a choice - boxes of little 1/2" valves would probably go out in vans. Big 2' diameter flanges pipes would possible go out in a wagon - like an otherwise unused mineral wagon? Am I right? Am I wrong? should it all be on Flat bolsters? Interested to hear any ideas you have folks.

 

Anyway, I see that half of the reason for so much shunting will be the variety of store locations for stock, and means of loading it - from forklifting pallets, to the overhead gantry crane (that doesn't exist yet) from any of the four buildings of the business.

 

Your comments and suggestions appreciated.

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Well I have made a little progress - even if I have been frustrated by my own inability at the moment... Firstly there is the building on the left hand board, that needed a little filling... Is it just me, or does everyone have to mix up about 100x more Milliput than they can actually use before it goes off? Then I thought it would be a good idea to smear it over the brickwork in order to fill the cracks... and every moulded mortar joint that I wanted to keep! So apply with the tip of a scalpel blade just where required then - how laborious can that be? Still hopefully it is done well enough now that the paint can fill the remainder of the gaps!

 

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Then I picked up a Parkside 24.5 ton mineral wagon the weekend - Fareham show was a great source of inspiration - for me, primarily Croydon North Street - unfortunately that was most inspiring for my other, also incomplete, layout "Thameside", so I have to try and channel the inspiration to get this one done first, and buying a wagon kit seemed like a good way to do so!

 

I was actually looking forward to regressing to about 8 years old, and throwing an Airfix kit together in a couple of hours, all done, and finished... well no. however many days later and the only similarity is being able to smear glue down the side where capillary action not only drew the solvent between the base and the side as it should, but also between my finger and the side! Guess it will be heavily weathered then! I guess, so long as I don't wreck the other side in the same way, on this layout at least it need only ever be seen from "the good side".

 

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Nevertheless, some progress is being made with it, and almost now at the total required stock count... just one more wagon required, but what should it be?

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Firstly thank you all for the "Likes" - afraid I don't use Facebook and the like, so not really familiar with the protocol, but they are appreciated!

 

I wish I knew about colour. Plenty of articles on painting stuff, plenty of people sharing their methods, and some superb work, however, much as I try to emulate, read and understand, look at the real world, nope, sorry, I struggle.

 

I have been trying to look at the ground, and at least get rid of any remaining bare baseboard. First thing was to add something to make it a little less flat - DAS clay. In front of the main building, embossed to hopefully look like cobbles that have not been used/nature is reclaiming:

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What doesn't show up so well is that the ballast I had used had the odd gap, but I had ran out... Not being able to get the same stuff, and having some "buff" ballast to hand, I thought I would use it to look as if it had been patch-repaired. It certainly showed up when I painted the DAS bits though:

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It also shows up that the old ballast is, er, green! I can see it doesn't look right, but oh how to fix it? There are two heaps moulded at the right hand end - the idea was that one would be a heap of age-old coal, with grass growing through (will grass grow through coal?) and the other, spare new, clean ballast.

My (poor) recollection of the time was that pretty much everything below platform level was a universal brown colour, and to me, the best I ever managed to achieve was by painting everything in Humbrol "Track Colour". Unfortunately I haven't been able to find that in years, so have had to use Precision Paints "Track Colour - it doesn't seem to work so well, but it is probably better than me trying to mix something:

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I have left the fresh ballast around the sluice/race (yet to be built - the hole in the baseboard!) so I have an excuse for the heap of ballast, but otherwise painted the track all the same colour. I need to clean off the rail heads, and I have been a bit too cautious around the point blades, but since it is a simple, out of the pot colour, I can revisit those. I did mix some acrylics for the cobbles, and gave them a wash of black to hopefully fill the cracks, but I don't think it was enough...

What I probably need to do more than anything is find my tripod, and use the lights that are intended to be used on the layout rather than ending up with the flash going off on the camera!

 

I did have a rummage around, primarily for the sluices as to me, that is now the biggest hole in the layout that needs filling. Of course I didn't find those (a Wills kit, nothing flash) but did find the Dapol Dockside Crane that I have to modify, a Knightwing kit of pipes, that will hopefully provide loads for pallets and wagons to make it look like the factory does actually produce something! Also a couple of Parkside kits I forgot I had bought - a 21 Ton Mineral wagon, which would have done just as well as the 24.5 ton one I have just bought and started, and a Pallet Van - which is probably too many vans, not enough open wagons - but it is at least distinctive enough that it should be easy to distinguish from the other in its roll as a piece in a shunting puzzle:

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So that will be enough wagons when I get round to building/finishing them.

Time for a snooze!

 

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I did some "proper modelling" today - well at least by my standards! Having decided that most of the buildings are part of London Tube and Pipe, which justifies all of the traffic, I have wanted something to hint at that. A pack of Knightwing Valves Joints and Saddles provided me with a good start! I had the idea of putting a couple of valves on a pallet, ready to send out as part of a load. The pallet was from Modelscene.

Sounded easy - two problems though. One, the valves were too long for the pallet, and looked a little long to me anyway. Two, the Knightwing flanges are actually, I believe, a pair of flanges bolted together, intended to fit between two joined pieces of pipe.

 

So, I cut down the valves, and made up my own single flanges by attempting to cut a couple of discs of plasticard to the same diameter. Well the valves got shorter and shorter as I attempted to cut them square! They are still not perfect, and the flanges are not truly round, but they are good enough for me.

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They were then painted with my cheap box of acrylics - perfect for this with the garish colours looking like new stuff, but the matt finish leaving them not standing out too much, in my opinion anyway. Then simply glue it all together (I glued the flanges on before painting).

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Unfortunately then I got too ambitious, thinking of painting dots on the end to represent the ports of the valves, and flange fixing holes. My hand-eye coordination is not up to that, so I have a feeling I will paint this out, I think I made it worse, not better. Oh well, I was thinking of actually trying to drill holes in them, but decided I didn't have the patience!

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As these are supposed to be new, no weathering required. I will claim any strapping holding them down is too small to see. Now I have got making that out of my system, I might have more patience to make a couple more, and either drill them out, use darker blue paint rather than black for the holes in the ends, or try using a felt tipped pen rather than brush and paint for the holes in the ends.

 

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