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Railway Modelling Ramblings

Entries in this blog

Clare Telephone exchanges - ready to receive your call

After several weeks and lots of help from RMwebber UAX6 I now finally have the Type A and Type B telephone exchange completed. For such relatively simple building there are some subtle details which are quite difficult to get right. The slight 'pagoda' look to the hip roof of the B and the little tiles on the quoins of the smaller Type A.   There a a few very interesting websites with lots of photographs of different exchanges and these have lots of photographs of similar buildings fro

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - Driver's eye view

I had a bit of fun with a miniature camera.       I've also continued to work on the low-relief malting buildings for the far corner of the layout. I'm rather pleased with the brickwork, just trying to pluck up the courage to add the mortar mix. The different colours of brickwork came out very well thanks to Tamiya masking tape.     I'm quite pleased with the way the loading area looks. Even though you won't be able to see much of it in the end.

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Clare Maltings and telephone exchanges

In my previous blog entry I talked about using planning records to help research buildings at Clare. These have certainly help but what has helped even more is the advice and assistance from another RMweb contributor. Uax6 immediately recognized two small builds as Type A and Type B telephone exchange buildings and was able to give me loads of information regarding their construction. The 16 page 1950's tender document informing contractors the requirements to build one of these buildings was fa

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Researching buildings - Check out local planning applications

So I'm finally making a start on the buildings adjacent to the goods yard at Clare. We have a large maltings, still existing as an antiques centre, and a pair of buildings, one with a hipped roof and the other with a pitched roof. One of these is marked on one site plan as 'telephone exchange'.   The maltings has been heavily altered but the current 'Greek portico' is just an embellishment of the original loading area where lorries would reverse in to tip grain.    

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Christmas engineering work

One of my Christmas presents this year was a Sunfounder 10' touch screen designed to fit a Raspberry Pi. How my wife knew I wanted one of these is a mystery, must have been something to do with the hints I dropped. Today I managed to get JMRI installed on it and make up a simple panel to show the fiddleyard of my Stour Valley layout. I intend to also try using it on Fen End Pit. The touch screen works rather well as just touching the point changes it, also if the point get changed by other means

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Building a kit, and actually following the instructions. An RT Models Sentinel

Last Christmas I was given an RT Models sentinel kit and I have to say it was thoroughly enjoyable to put together. Also, given that the kit comes complete with a gearbox and motor, I thought it represented excellent value for money. Readers of this blog will know that there aren't many kits that I build which don't involve remaking at least some parts, either having to get bits etched where the original design is wrong or 3D printing components where features haven't been supplied. With this li

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Back with the blog - Stour Valley progress

After over a year away it is time to return to the blog. A lot has happened during the last couple of years which has got in the way but I'm to be back in a position where I can share what I've been building.    Progress on my scalefour model of Clare has continued slowly. The most noticeable progress being on the area around the level crossing. Thanks to some help from members of this forum I was able to get some plans of the '1865 standard' crossing keeper's cottage. Like all standar

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - One step forward - Two steps backward

Over the last week I been able to build up the road surface around the level crossing and but in the Sculptamold between the road and river. I also 3D printed some picket fencing and the wicket gates for the crossing and fastened these in place. The overall effect doesn't look too bad.     But then I looked back the the river and saw that what had initially looked like a perfect pour of Woodland scenics 'deep water' now looked horrible! I think the issue was that I poured on

Level crossing - now in situ.

I've been working on and off on making a level crossing for some years now. I've bounced between the electronic and purely mechanical option but finally come back to the electronics using an Ardiuno to drive a pair of stepper motors with simple micro-switches to detect the limit of travel. There is a 3D printed unit under each gate which can actually drive the gate nearly 100 degrees, this allows some over-travel in each direction to take account of the back-lash on the gates caused by there bei

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - Water, water and fortunately not everywhere

Some more progress on the larger of the two bridges at the Haverhill end of the layout, Ironically I'm building a model of the Stour valley but neither river is actually the River Stour. This is actually a mill race rather than the main river.     I had to purchase another set of Woodland Scenics deep pour water to finish the job. Excellent service from Hattons, ordered on Sunday night, delivered Tuesday morning. Mind you, the price of the stuff probably implies that is it ma

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - End of the pier show

I've been working on the second of the two river bridges on my model of Clare. For most of the building I've been using the laser cutter to make the brick work but the centre pier of the bridge has two different shapes at the ends. The upstream end is rounded and the downstream end is shaped to a point. The curve is impossible to cut flat and then bend and the multiple corners on the pointed end would have a some nasty joints to hide. I thought I'd give it a go on the 3D printer.  

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - Progress in the goods yard

There has been a bit of progress on my model of Clare in Suffolk over the last few weeks. The goods yard area around the cattle dock is coming on and I've planted the shunting signal which protects the exit from the yard (just in front on the J15)     Looking the other way and the castle mount is coming on with the start of some walls on in. These have been molded in sculptamold and I've had a go at painting lots of 'dots' to represent the stonework which seems to be lots of

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - Castle mound (mk. 2)

Taking onboard the comments on the mound I added the best part of another couple of inches to the top. I also altered the shape to I hope better match the rather pointed shape of the original. I've added an initial layer of static grass and made a couple of trial little bits of wall from Sculptamold (I just wanted to see if I could make a wall with it, I need to get the shapes better)   I've got the goods shed bedded in a bit better (obviously still needs windows, capping stones etc. e

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - Castle mound

Clare station was built in the bailey of Clare Castle (you could do that kind of thing in 1865!) and the castle motte is still present behind the goods shed. I don't have the space to model the whole mound but need to try to make something that gives the right feeling. There needs to be a bit of forced perspective going on too which complicates things. This section of the aerial photograph gives some idea of the scale of the real thing. To those who have visited over the last few years it will b

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

Stour Valley Dream - strange wagon loads

I found pictures of a couple of interesting wagon loads on the Stour Valley line at Clare and Sudbury.   I asked on the Scalefour Forum what these might be, wondering if the round tank might be a septic tank. In the end the consensus of opinion was that the cylindrical tank was probably a pressure vessel being installed as some kind of industrial plant. I decided to have a go and make them as wagon loads. I modeled these up and printed them out. I also modeled up a Fibre-glass se

Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in Stour Valley

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