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About this blog

Ian Holmes' collection of Model railway ramblings from a serial Railway modeller...

Entries in this blog

Continued progress

Safely returned from my trip home, recovered from Jet Lag and inspired by my visit to Pendon. This weekend I set to and did some more work on the APA box layout. Two of the three structures were ready to visit the paint shop for a coat of primer the third, and largest one still needed some work to get there. So I grabbed my scriber scribed some sheets of styrene to the pattern I needed. A long task, but inspired by what the chaps at Pendon do it wasn't really that difficult. With the third str
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

4

Track laying part 1

I can't put it off any longer. Track laying has to start sometime otherwise I will get distracted by something different entirely. The trackplan is really simple so tracklaying is no great difficulty. But I will need to be extra careful around the baseboard joins. Firstly I was quite shocked to find this warning on the back of the pack of code Micro Engineering code 83 rail joiners... Once again the state of California is out to ruin every single part of your life. Really the track laying i
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

1

Photoshop fun

I am not the greatest photoshopper in the world. Unlike some members of this forum who add snow and smoke and even themselves to their pictures. My abilities stretch to cut and past and crop and tweaking colour a bit. But that doesn't stop me wanting to have a go and do something really neat on the backscene. The only part of the backscene that really needs some detail is the section with the road between the two buildings. So for a while now I've been looking around for suitable scenes, w
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

3

Layout progress Jan 16th 2012

Having been presented with a day off work due to the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday and being rather fired up over my APA box layout concept. I devoted my day off to some serious construction work. Principally the structures. The first one to be worked on was the small low relief at left rear. It was already well on the way to being finished and some plastruct stone cladding, a Pikesfuff door and a scratchbuilt fire escape (which might just get re-made) coupled with some kin
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

A bit of a paradigm shift

I love that word. Paradigm. Makes me sound so intellectual. Yes, so a bit of a change of tack in the construction phase. Nothing too serious, nothing that will radically alter the project. But the way things have been developing made the change happen. As you will have seen in the previous days I've been posting pictures of the buildings around my place of work. All with a regard to actually copying them and placing them on the model. The way things started to develop in my head it became ap
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Stop press Development

A bit of a stop press development here. I was looking at the layout with the structure shells in place and it suddenly hit me how daft the building front left is going to look like it appears in the above picture. I felt like it was wasting valuable space on this tiny layout. So I thought it would be an interesting feature to actually use that area to model the inside of the building. A warehouse with sheves and forklifts and all other kinds of "warehousey" things. I also plan to model an open
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Guyers

Guyers is yet another one of those soulless concrete structures that are absolutely essential to re-create if you are going to accurately model the modern scene. The structure is called Guyers, but Guyers as a tenant have been gone for several years I believe and the rail connection to the rear of the building gone even longer by the looks of the pictures. Guyers were a builders suppliers so this building is principally another warehouse structure. When I was out walking past there on Friday wo
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

2

Construction Progress

Today it happened. I put knife to foamcore and started construction on the structures for the layout. The research pictures I've posted earlier in the week have shown that the structures in the area are all big concrete boxes faced with diiferent materials so construction of those is going to be pretty simple. Todays mission then, was to cut all three shells in preparation for facing them with styrene sheet. Really it was just a question of cutting the foamcore to size and fitting the shells in
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

2

Deltak traffic

Yesterday my plan was to take a stroll alongside the tracks in Plymouth to see what I can see of the rear of Deltak. As I left work and walked across Xenium Lane I could see a large load had just left the Deltak yard. I set off in hot pursuit . A pursuit that I lost and had to settle with grabbing a few shots with the zoom lens set at its 255mm maximum A short train only a Geep, a tank car which is probably a barrier car and the load itself, which might be a large radiator. With that disap
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

1105 Xenium

1105 Xenium is another large modern structure on Plymouth Industrial Park It's 730 x 380 feet or so. It's basically a big warehouse. The only tenant here currently is Office Depot. Fed Ex have recently left. There is a rail siding at the rear of the building and a line of truck loading docks at the front of the building. Currently the rail siding is not in use. I like this building. I think it has a lot of character with the block construction of the lower half of the building and the corrugate
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Deltak - a modern industrial structure

I've mentioned more than a few times in blogs and postings about how my office building overlooks a rail served Industrial Park. So I thought I'd get out and about and photograph some of the structures and the locale to give you a feel for the area. First up here are a few views of Deltak. Deltak make heat recovery and pollution control equipment. It is a rail served industry but it is actually quite difficult to photograph the rail side of the structure due to trees and bushes surrounding the
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

3

Taking Stock.

As you can see from the previous blog entries pictures. I am in the unenviable position of having enough track stock and structures to hand to build this little layout should I want to. The track I have is Code 83, Micro Engineering flex track and #6 switch as well as an Atlas #4 switch. The track will do fine. its all actually brand new. Stuff that didn't get used on previous projects. Though the two switches have different operating systems. The ME switch has a centre spring to lock the blades
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

New Year, New Start

Another year and I'm going to start off with the best of intentions of keeping a layout building blog going on RMWeb. I haven't done terribly well at that in the past. To set the scene, in the middle of last year I discovered the APA box from IKEA and presented it as a possible model railway baseboard structure. It's fair to say that many modellers have jumped on the product and are using it. So I thought it was about time I got in on the act. I was also recently asked to be a part of the Mic
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

3

It's been a long time

Too long. Almost 7 months since I made an entry on here. There was a time when I'd post all over the forum - daily. Not that I haven't been doing anything. Far from it. I've been working on projects that fire my imagination without making any concrete progress on a proper layout. To that end I'm currently working with Z scale . For what started out as a bit of fun to go with the T scale layout, I'm actually finding the scale quite rewarding. Which quite surprised me to be honest. This layou
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

4

Some sketches

(please excuse the shadows on the drawings my scanner is playing silly beggars and it's too much fuss to set up my copy camera arrangement at the moment as the lights are in use on Wingetts recycling ready for it's forthcoming exhibition) As I started to sketch out my "visions" I began to realise what was drawing me to the plan. It's that arrangement of buildings. Perfect for a small layout, obstructing your view and forcing your eyes to move around as you follow the train in the scene thu
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Oooh Look at that, and that and that!

Once in a while I'll drop in on the Hattons website,to see what is what in the UK R-T-R scene. Boy I got a shock this time! That Heljan class 17 looks great, the 14 looks brilliant, I have to have one of each and then there's the Railbus. I so have to have one of them. It really fires a person up to come back to 4mm scale UK outline in a hurry...
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Report from inside my mind as it happens

After a period of inactivity caused by various other things like an entire summer and some marathon running. My mind is going model railway haywire. Perhaps you'd think that's unsurprising now that my company has located to an office overlooking a small switching yard. That's not the reason. A while ago, I came across a page on the West Somerset Mineral railway website and it sat in my mind, like these things do waiting for the most inopportune time to strike before the visions start floodi
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

1

Confirmed

Confirmation arrived in the mail this morning for the World greatest Hobby on Tour Show. November 20-21st 2010 River Centre, St Paul, MN See you there. OK probably not for most of you...   Ian    
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Catching up

Not posted to this blog in the longest time so here's a quick update of the salient points of the past year. The Layout continues to be well received at shows in fact I was interviewed on Saint Cloud, MN local radio with it at Easter as the layout is based on an industry there. I've also been approached by folks who actually work at the prototype and have shared inside information with me that helps me to understand the models operation. The layout received an invitation to the Worlds Greates
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

This is what its all about

This is the latest blog entry from 7day model railroad. Everyone needs to read it. ...Todays post was going to be about the same steady performance of the layout at day two of the Princeton show and what tweaks I need to do to the layout before the next time I show it. Sure enough the layout performed as well as yesterday. But that's not important. Today was one of the most rewarding days I have ever had exhibiting a model railway and it was all down to two small children. Jeremiah and Brandon
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

7 day layout nears completion

Time to report some more progress to the 7 day layout as it approaches its first exhibition appearance http://7daymodelrailroad.blogspot.com/2009/11/almost-there.html I'd post a picture here but I'm at work and the firewall won't let me do that...   IAn
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Talking T

Well time to report something happening on the T scale layout - Gonou, this time. The layout has 3 weeks or so to its exhbition debut so I'd better crack on and get things done. You can read about it here http://more-t-please.blogspot.com/ and to give you a taster to take a look at the other pictures here's a shot of the layout
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

1

ExactRail Trinity Railbox review

I have purchased one of the the best HO scale model freight cars ever I think. You can read about it here http://7daymodelrailroad.blogspot.com/2009/11/i-love-my-railboxes.html
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

What you've missed

Still not totally sure on how to deal with the blog on RMWeb with 5 blogs out there already covering my layouts/projects. Anyway there has bee some activity at http://7daymodelrailroad.blogspot.com/ that includes a rather nice scrapyard vista, some rusty wheels and a railbox model review and an exhibition outing coming up for the layout. So you should get over to http://7daymodelrailroad.blogspot.com/ and check it all out.   Ian
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

0

Catching up

A week without RMWeb is a long time, we've all come to realise. What has gone on in the Ian Holmes Model Railway world in that time? Firstly on Friday there was the sad news of the demise of the Athearn Blue Box kit of Rolling stock. I started in HO Scale with them. in fact my fiorst ever layout 72nd Street yard was filled with athearn blue box kits. the term kit was a misnomer really as they were nothing but disassembled RTR models that you put together yourself. Didn't Corgi do something sim
Ian Holmes

Ian Holmes

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