It is a month or so before Midhurst, so to check the electrics are okay and to practice operation sequences we hired the local village hall to set up Weyford in full.
Unfortunately, it will probably be shown as a 'Work in Progress' as various parts of the scenery are still far from finished...as can be seen. What today did allow us to do was run through a number of operating sequences as a practice for the show and fix one or two running problems; usually dodgy connections or short circuit
Further to a request on a previous posting, I have made a few modifications to the incorrect schematic for Weyford. Sadly my technical prowess does not go as far as putting in the scenery; although this took me long enough in MS Visio with all sorts of curves and stuff - as opposed to the usual process flows!
Attention has been focussed on Yamanouchi Oshika over the last few months, however following the photo session last week, it is now boxed up and sitting in a corner of the club room as work restarts on Weyford.
We have about six weeks (realistically) until Weyford is due to be shown at Midhurst - date for diary 27th February - so there is still a huge amount of work to carry out. It is all scenic work now, as the track and electrics are fine.
To start with, work has continued on the layo
A new year dawns, and the first club meeting of 2011 was down at the local village hall for a photo session for Yamanouchi Oshika. As a result of these we managed to get a fair number of decent pictures for various uses, thanks to the son of one of our club members who is a far better - and better equipped - photographer than we are!
The main problem with photos like this is that you get to see the enormous amount of work that still needs to be done...often just little things like adding a f
I made a chance discovery last night of a set of photographs taken of the club's previous 00 layout; a roundy-roundy named Millbridge Junction.
As with Weyford, it was set on former LSWR metals, and again depicted a fictional location. It was quite a large layout, measuring about 20' by 10' (there or thereabouts; I cannot recall the exact dimensions), and was of a junction station with small yard. Many of the structures were scratch-built; the station building for example, was based on Peter
Friday night's session was the last before Christmas, and an attempt to get some areas completed. Although we were not 100% successful in this aim, the park area is more or less complete and the hitherto neglected station area saw some activity with the fitting of canopies, some fencing, platform buildings and people.
Kato produce quite a good 'suburban station' accessory pack...which essentially covers structures and items in the area around the road side of a station...newspaper kiosks, pu
There aren't too many pictures of Cottleston park, essentially the donor for Yamanouchi Oshika; especially in full UK garb. These are some of the very few we actually have...
The town was quite radically different, especially in terms of the road layout. Seeing the road in these pictures explains why it ran along the back of the layout, as it was designed to tie the layout - which is quite long and scenically very low - together.
A slightly clearer impression of how the road threaded
It has been a couple weeks since we have had an update here...and things have been moving on apace...
During this period the hillside has move from this...
...to this...
Once the polystyrene/foam had been carved, it was covered with a mixture of plaster and textured surface (the new name for artex). The grey cliff faces were then painted.
You will see from the picture that the road surface has been completed. The Faller flexi-road was used for this; although one or two min
Last night saw some further scenic work taking place on the hillside along the back of the layout. Much hacking took place to give us some form, and the modrock was applied; hopefully improving the appearence considerably...
Next week the plan is to add the top coat of plastering, mixed with suitable shades of paint, before the trees are added. Potentially a very long and labourious task...
We also had some visitors to Yamanouchi Oshika. First up the Nankai Rap:t that has been ment
Sometimes you can spend weeks on a layout without there being much to show for your endeavours and then there are othere where a ten minute job can make a huge difference. Last night was one of those nights as the first part of the backscene was fitted to Yamanouchi Oshika.
It has taken ages for me to find a suitable picture to use for the backscene to give the layout a sence of depth and place. Hopefully the picture has gone some way to achieving this. I should mention that there are a nu
A good bit of progress was made last night, with further additions to the hillside structure being made. David and Ben were busy with the styrofoam/polystyrene etc.
The hillside behind the yard will be steep, with a number of retaining wall terraces to protect the railway from landslips on the less stable areas, and predominantly wooded. There may be scope for one or two small buildings perched on the edge of the hill, but we shall see as the scenic work progresses.
Moving further
Not a great deal has happened since we returned from the club open day. Yamanouchi Oshika was erected last week and some minor tinkerings took place, whilst Weyford is still boxed up. Hopefully this will be partially assembled next week so work can continue with the docks.
Things are getting tight as Weyford is due at the Midhurst show on the last Sunday of February. In fact doubly tight, as Yamanouchi Oshika is due out to a show the following weekend.
In addition to the shows, Yamano
As metioned on here ad nausium, we had our club open day yesterday. I did take a couple of pictures, however they were a bit rubbish, so apologies in advance...
There were a number of reasons for us deciding to hold a club open day; as a way of advertising ourselves in the local community; to operate (play trains ); to carry out much needed additional work on both layouts and to practice packing, transporting and erecting.
All in all, it proved to be a very enjoyable and successful day,
Just over a fortnight remains until our club open day, and there are still any number of things we need to sort out on the layout before then.
It seems odd, bearing in mind that work will be carried out on the layout during the open day, that there is this mad rush, however a number of jobs that have been ongoing have crossed the board joins. These need to be complete before the layout is split and transported.
Last night the track work was more or less completed; we now have continuous
Yesterday we spent a bit longer on the layout; working from mid-afternoon onwards. I would love to have said we made excellent progress, but the time flew and although quite a bit was acheived, not as much took place as I would have liked.
The major track replaying was completed, althought one or two adjustments are needed prior to the ballast being put down. Most significant is the bridge, which has been put into situ.
The bridge deck is constructed from foamboard, with a second nar
Another wander down memory lane for the club, and yet another video. This time I introduce Woodchurch, our 0 gauge layout, set on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line.
Construction started on this layout a good few years ago, with it finally making its debut at the Midhurst show back in 2005. There was one subsequent outing in the October of that year before the layout was put into storage, where it has remained ever since...we have no room to assemble it as it is about 40' in length...
We seem to be moving further and further away from a state of readiness the closer we get to our club open day.
Some significant surgery has been taking place to improve the return curves at either end of the layout. This involves a couple of lengths of track being soldered into one huge length to smoothly take the curve...without track joins anywhere on the curve. Net result; a huge area of track has been lifted and relaid (or at least a start has been made here...)
Further along, t
The EF64 was initially introduced in 1964 to replace a number of older classes then operating firstly on the Ou line and thereafter on the Chuo main line. It followed the now classic 1960s design for Japanese electric locomotives, sporting a Bo-Bo-Bo wheel arrangement. Power would be supplied form 1,500 v dc overhead. In total 79 locomotives were delivered between 1964 and 1976, where they were put to work on all types of traffic. When the Ou main line was converted from 1,500 dc to 20kv ac in 1
Last Friday the new wall behind the yard started to take more form. This will be a concrete retaining wall, holding back the hillside. In addition, the bridge carrying the roadway over the branch line has been moved forward in preparation for the road to be divered on a bridge across the tracks and towards the front of the layout.
The base for the hillside is polystyrene, with a foamboard facing. This will be covered by Scalescenes 'Concrete Walling' over the next couple of weeks. Further su
Hmmm, what do they say about whilst the cats away the mice do play?
Only a couple of us from the N Gauge group were at the club last night, and unfortunately a consensus was reached very quickly about something which had been bothering us for quite some time...the visible section of track behind the yard.
Perhaps one of the reasons why we had gone off this idea was quite simply the novelty had worn off. Another was that it had become out of place for the scenic evolution of the layout...
I've been away on my holidays, so did not get a chance to update on progress.
This week, positioning work has been going on for the backscene for Yamanouchi Oshika. It is still temporary, as we are still trying to assess the best way to do this. Backscenes are tricky blighters to get right...there is quite an involved thread on here discussing the pros and cons. I am pro backscene for a number of reasons, firstly to hide what goes on behind the scenery...really does anyone want to see the de
Another video..this time really short. A class 923 'Dr Yellow' Shinkansen takes a trip well off its usual route...and track gauge...to pay a vistit to Yamanouchi Oshika...
Progress has been steady this week, with the site of the fuelling tanks being levelled off and having some new surface added. We have also started work on the back scene...more of that next week.
In other news. Mr Spider has very kindly started to help with the overhead wiring!
Although fictional, the idea has always been to locate Yamanouchi Oshika in some sort of reality, or at the very lest plausiability. Early on the location was set 'somewhere on the Chuo line', which although a start, still gave us over 400km of line to be more specific with.
Immediately some areas were ruled out. The Tokyo to Mitaka was not suitable as it was part of the rapid line, which is four-track. Also, this section is very heavily urbanised, more so than Yamanouchi Oshika, and relativ
More activity took place on Friday night on the layouts.
For Yamanouchi Oshika, more of the platform canopies referred to in the previous entry were obtained and placed into position. They won't be fixed for a while as there is still much to do around them. What was striking was how much they improved the overall look of the station.
In the 00 corner, work is still progressing on Weyford. Here attention is being centred on the docks, with the platform canopies and various other structu
Something which has been bugging me for a long time on the layout are the platforms. They are too British, and to me broadcast this fact at the top of their voices. Whilst all around the station is looking more and more Japanese (I hope!) the plaforms resolutely remain forever England!
This however is about to change .
On today's trip down to the local emporium, I returned with one of the Kato Unitrack island platforms to see if this could be readily adapted to fit our station.
On
