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About this blog

Originally built as a Modern Image layout for the 2007 RMWeb Challenge . The blog now also covers my other layout (the Boxfile),  wild ideas for new layouts and general reflections...

Entries in this blog

Layout schemes

In which Ravenser finally locates the "Create Blogs" page

Longer-standing members will remember the 2006/7 Layout Challenge which started on RMWeb2 before we broke it. This produced a number of rather fine layouts including Keyhaven. It also - mostly - produced Blacklade.   The basic remit of the Challenge was to produce a small layout providing a showcase for some of the high standard RTR we have enjoyed in recent years . LisaP4 defined the rules to require layout to have a maximum footprint of 6 square feet . That killed off an idea of mine
Ravenser

Ravenser in Layout schemes

5

The Donkey and the Bales of Straw

I said in a posting on my workbench blog that layouts required seperate comment, and I've remarked a couple of times that I got myself hopelessly overcommitted on far too many fronts , even before work matters absorbed all my energy in the first half of last year. The two things are linked..... so perhaps a survey of my layout commitments is over due, at least to show where I'm coming from   For quite a number of years I was extremely heavily committed to a layout project in my club . It wasn
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4
Operational

Layout Operation - Some Definitions

This arises from the recent thread on Ally Pally.   Blacklade's modest experiences at the show are matter for another post, but one aspect of the post-show discussion was the claim by several people that many or most of the layouts were not running trains, and somewhere [probably at post 358] the idea arose that this was because the layouts and their operators were using timetables or sequences or something of that kind.   As will be evident from the subsequent discussion htt
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Ravenser in Operational

10

Route One

With DCC Installing the point motors and decoder isn't necessarily the end of the story. Yes, it gets the points working , but more than just that is possible, and yesterday I took the final steps in commissioning the installation   Working the points one by one through the handset is a little slow and clunky . Probably no slower than flicking a set of switches on a DC panel, but just as liable to operator error. I suspect that one of the major causes of derailment and intermittant running on
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1
Layout schemes

Shifting Sands

This is by way of a speculative post.....I've remarked before that it's been a very long time since I started a new project. Over a decade in fact. Between 2000 and 2007 I launched into 4 different layout projects, all 4mm/OO - Tramlink, a club layout project, the Boxfile, and Blacklade - but since then, nothing.   I've recently resurrected the Boxfile - see postings here - and though I'm still hunting gremlins in the stockbox it's working a whole lot better than ever before. Proper sy
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

3

Multiple, as in Diesel Multiple Unit

The obvious thing to be done when you have a new model is to run the layout... So the 101 was given a thorough workout during a running session, just to make sure there were no hidden bugs   :   Tail traffic is an operational feature of the layout - the CCT will be attached to the outward working of the morning parcels. Hence DMUs need functional couplings. This gets in the way of full end detail, and I'm toying with the idea of giving the 114 fully detailed ends to use the Craftsman pack I
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Electrical

Hanging By A Thread

One of my outstanding projects is to do something about electrical connections and points on the boxfile   This arose from some comments from a fellow DOGA member a couple of years ago. DOGA had their stand at Watford show that year, I was helping on the Saturday, and I took along the boxfile as a display item , and also something to provide intermittent movement (We had a Hornby Sentinel on it for a while and it looked the part - I really must built my Judith Edge Vanguard Steelman..)
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Ravenser in Electrical

0

Thoughts on Track

I wouldn't normally touch on controversal subjects in a constructional blog. But in the case of the current OO track thread, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79416-poll-ready-to-lay-oo-track-and-pointwork/ my views arose in the context of the layouts on this thread, and are best explained in their context , and flow back into "matters outstanding" with the layouts, and things that need to be done.... So really it's more sensible to reflect on how my own approach to OO track has
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0
Boxfile

Served Up On A Tray

This is by way of a short "statement of concept" note.   The Boxfile (formally Whitefriargate Goods) has been out of commission for a couple of years, after the end of the fiddle yard track became damaged. At one level this simply means a basic and fairly straightforward repair. But it has thrown into sharper relief the main problem with this layout.     That's the board joint. The two files are currently held together - when assembled - by fishplates connecting th
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Ravenser in Boxfile

0
Reflections

The Ghosts of Flaxborough

A very long time ago, I read an article by Cyril Freezer in the Railway Modeller. It was called "Modern Image is Easy" and if you judge by the impact on my modelling it must have been the most important magazine article I've ever read. At least it's the only article that has ever resulted in me scrapping my layout, selling up my stock, and completely changing direction in my modelling.   Mind you I was a highly impressionable young teenager at the time.   I was then attemptin
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Ravenser in Reflections

0
Layout schemes

Messing Up Sydney Harbour

This is another of those speculative posts about possible layouts, so here goes....   Not so long ago someone posted a video to Clive Mortimore's layout thread that got a few people going - including me.   http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87205-sheffield-exchange-what-a-to-do/page-66   In short it was a rather eye-opening documentary film about operations at Darling Harbour Goods in Sydney in its dying days during the late 1970s. Backed up with anot
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

5
Reflections

First Night Nerves

The layout has been to its first show. We survived. (Actually it went quite well.)   Some years ago I was involved with a rather unhappy club project. That layout's career culminated in a disastrous trip to a show as a part built item. Some of us in the group had hoped that this would mark a turning point in the project and that we could put on a good show for the public to re-establish some credibility. Unfortunately that was not to be, as someone who technically was not part of the g
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Ravenser in Reflections

0

It Looks Better on the Big Screen

You may have noticed in these postings occasional mutters that "I must build the screen walls for the station" . In most postings in this blog , in fact.   Well, with the electrics more or less done (only the Kadee electromagnets and a couple of signals remain to nag at my conscience) I've finally attacked what is the last big scenic job on the layout. Quite a bit of tidying up, fettling and detail work remains but this is the last big block of new construction   Here we have the back screen
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Layout schemes

I'm Not Committed to Building this, You Understand...

In a previous posting , I mentioned trams . I am trying quite hard to be a good boy and finish things off ,not take on new projects and commitments; but despite my best intentions there have been stirrings on the tramway front.   It started when something caused me to look at the Street Level Models website. I spotted a card kit for Manor House tram station (LT), and that started something stirring. Wasn't Manor House the northern terminus of one of the Kingsway Subway routes ? It was
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

3
Tramlink

Skeleton in the Cupboard

A very long time ago, I went to one of the CMRA Workshop events. The bookseller was selling a copy of "Tramlink - Official Handbook" published by Capital Transport. (It was Geoff Gamble - I told you it was a long time ago)   Anyway I bought the thing, discovered that Alphagraphix were doing card kits of light rail units, and I got fired up with the idea of building one , and making a working model. This obviously would need somewhere to run, so the idea of building a small layout based
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Ravenser in Tramlink

1
Boxfile

Served Up On A Tray - Main Course

The deed is done - or at least most of it. On Saturday I duly trotted off to the local DIY sheds. Unfortunately Wickes and B&Q locally do not cut timber , and Buildbase - who might - were closed. But a sheet of 5mm ply in B&Q was only £5.47, so I bought it anyway.   Having got it home and marked out the cutting plan I discovered that if you heavily score the desired cutting line on both sides with a Stanley knife you can snap 5mm ply along the line much as you would do 40 thou
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Ravenser in Boxfile

0

Time-slip (with continuity errors)

This blog hasn't been too active recently. Not a lot has happened on the layout in the last 18 months , though it's been up and run a few time. I had some time for modelling in the early part of last year , but that was almost completely absorbed by a bout of stock building. Only some of that was written up in my workbench blog , and I must add the other items.   Basically the idea was to try to sort out the outstanding/stalled projects , plus the easy bits and pieces then get stuck into some
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0
Boxfile

Served Up On A Tray - Dessert

We left the Boxfile last time safely installed on its new tea-tray, but with the track joints still to patch, and scenery to touch up.   The track joints were not at all good - they never have been. In the worst place I think there was a horrifying 4mm long gap in the railhead.   The solution was a bodge I've used in one or two places on Blacklade, though not on quite such a scale. This is to cut a sliver of 40 thou plasticard and superglue it in place in the gap. Once the
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Ravenser in Boxfile

0
Layout schemes

I'm Not Committed to Building This, You Understand - Mark 2

It's been a very long time since I last started a layout project. For the last few years I've been stubbornly trying to get on top of the long, long list of stock projects for Blacklade, and the nearest thing to a new venture was the decision about 3 or 4 years ago to sort out my stray bits and pieces of steam stock, fill in the gaps, and try to have a "funny trains" steam period nominally set in 1958 . That inevitably resulted in me buying cheap new projects as fast as I cleared existing projec
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Ravenser in Layout schemes

4

"For you ze Var is ofer!"

The sirens have sounded the final all clear, the blackout and the blitz are things of the past - and about 40 years after it should have , Blacklade has finally acquired station lights and station signs. I'm even intending to sort out the "bomb damage" behind the station facade and actually finish off the station building. Not before time, either...   In short over the last couple of weeks I've had a big burst of detailing on the layout, and it's made a huge difference.   Not, I must admit,
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0

Magpie's Nest

A couple of weeks ago I was meant to have someone round to see the layout . Unfortunately they went down sick on the day, Blacklade was up so I had a bit of a play - and things weren't running especially well. So I started fixing things and well...   In fairness I'm not sure the layout had been run more than once since Shenfield last September. My attention has been fixed on sorting out the Boxfile for the 4 months. If you don't use things it shows, so action had to be taken. I bought a rollin
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3

Decoders: "Walk thrice round the room widdershins and don't think on a fox tail"

[What with a new job and sundry other distractions I've been pretty quiet on here for a while, though a certain amount of modelling has taken place. This entry has been sitting unfinished in draft status for some months - rather than delete the thing I've finally tidied it up and released it into the world out of its time slip....]   I had the layout up and the result was a bout of decoder fitting and test running. And I'm beginning to see why some folk view DCC as black magic.   Four locos
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0

Railway Modelling without Modelling

I've been pretty busy on the hobby front in the last few weeks. The trouble is that it hasn't involved making any models....   A few weeks back I was helping with the DOGA stand at a show in the Midlands, which meant a couple of days away. Very nice and hopefully productive, some nice layouts , and I was a good boy on the spending front.   Then the following day someone from one of the magazines came over to photograph the layout for an article, which will (I hope) appear in the next few mon
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0

Bits and Pieces

I've had the layout up for a few days, and as well as a couple of operating sessions, I've taken the opportunity to sort out various jobs , as someone is slated to come and see it...   The big one is that at long last the station building has been finished off, with an end, back wall and door, and the "bomb damage" is no more. Quite deliberately the effect is that a section has been taken through the building - rather than paint the back wall black , I used some Superquick red brickpaper - thi
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A Bit of History

I think I may have sketched the background for Blacklade a very long time ago , probably when it started as part of an RMWeb Challenge some yearsago. If so , the original posting was probably on a version of RMWeb which disappeared into a vortex in cyberspace/a hosting company's servers, and it was probably buried in other comments anyway.   So it's probably worth giving an outline of the assumed history as a seperate posting - if only to provide a baseline from which it's obvious which bits o
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