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  • SouthernRegionSteam

    Coastguard Creek - 15 months of planning!

    By SouthernRegionSteam

    Hold on to your socks - this is going to be a lengthy one! (In fact it's so long, I've now split it into 2 separate posts - the next will be up soon...)   I think it's fair to say that you are all long overdue an update on Coastguard Creek. Due to other commitments, no real progress has been made since the last post way back in March 2021; almost 15 months ago! If anything, things went backwards for quite a while, as I kept finding more and more inspiring locations that I really wanted
    • 7 comments
    • 559 views
The 1/50 scale project

The 1/50 project, Buffers and couplings

Looking at a lot of photos it seems that there is a very wide variety of buffers and couplings fitted to metre gauge stock. Knuckle couplers, chopper types, single buffers with one or two chain couplings, all the way through to fully automatic stuff on modern stock. I researched both knuckle and chopper style couplings which would be about the right size for 1/50 scale. A  few might be suitable, but would be difficult to achieve what I’m looking for.   Since this is a freelance project
Dave John

Dave John in The 1/50 scale project

3
Bury Goods 0-4-0

Bury goods, part the fourth.

A little progress today, trying to keep out of the heat! Having now milled out the copper firebox to make space for the gearbox, at least nearly, (I still need to take a bit more out before it fits properly), I cut and soldered in place the boiler bands. These were cut from thin brass sheet, bent to shape and tacked in place.    The little turned brass lock-up safety valve cover was then soldered on after drilling an appropriate hole towards the front of the boiler. These little covered
5&9Models

5&9Models in Bury Goods 0-4-0

4
Upgrading the old layout

Making the new track plan.

The next time I went round next door, my Grandad had kindly painted the baseboard white. Now we could progress on and decide on a new track plan.    At first, I wanted a roundy-roundy but upon testing a circle of track, it would not fit within the space and would overhang the baseboard so that was a no. The next idea was to have a U shaped track plan with a fiddle yard one end. The other end would have a round round big enough for a 2-6-4T locomotive, (which I had), and two coaches. 
Reflections

Message in a Bottle - 2022

I am very late with my annual review this year, even though a stub has been in draft for several months . But rather more has been done than might appear.   The 1:72 Fairey Battle took up much of my modelling activity in the last months of 2021. A full write up is here , and it has now recieved final painting (which needs writing up..). It is already a bookshelf ornament on its stand, and I still intend to build a simple runway diorama as a test piece, on which it could be posed.
general

Old Model Updated

Introduction   The last few months have been busy ones for my household, with little time to think about model-making. The spells of hot weather have not been conducive to spending time in my workroom either and, on top of all those things, I have had another failure of the feeder mechanism in my 'Geeetech' printer.   Broken Filament Feeder   I think the root cause of the problem was a faulty temperature sensor in the print head, which caused the feed tube to j
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in general

2
Structures

Building the A180 Flyover #2

The concrete deck itself is simply a length of wooden shelf with a wooden strip either side forming the footways. Simple and strong should keep it's shape and stand up to occasional handling, the weight keeps it in place very well with nothing more than some rubber pads were the bearings are on the prototype.
Paul G

Paul G in Structures

2
Buildings

Temporary Station using Metcalfe Kits

Hi My 3D printer is on hold at the moment so in a bid to get my trains up and running I'm working on a temporary station using Metcalfe kits. I have promised myself that the proposed model of Acklington station will prevail eventually but I want to get trains fully operational by Christmas. I have found since I started this layout that approximate deadlines help to keep things moving and like most of the children I used to teach I leave everything until the last minute!   So,
The 1/50 scale project

The 1/50 project,power and control.

Over the years I have spent a lot of time cleaning wheels and track. Carefully designing multi wheel pickups with exotic contacts. I do get good running but I have to keep on top of it, never found any quick solutions to it all.   I have also tried dcc and I just didn’t get on with it. Sure, I made it all work, the electronics is fairly straightforward. My issue was that I ended up watching the controller not the trains, all the button pressing to make the right light come on and remem
Scratchbuilding

Update 8/6/22 - Hong Kong Style buildings, road network + more

Hi everyone! Its been a while since I have really posted anything on youtube or RMweb so today I just wanted to share with you all the progress of my layout. If you're not familiar with my railway please have a look at the previous introduction post about the area I am modeling. Since the last post, a lot has changed on the layout, I was able to finish all the wiring and pointwork and now trains can run smoothly around the layout. Since then, I have mainly been working on the scenery of my layou
Structures

Building the A180 Flyover

I wanted the deck to be removeable which meant the legs needed to be strong enough with out being integral. I originaly started cutting some out of wood but in the end I had some lazer cut by York model rail. They were of course able to get nice sharp precise angles and edges and the lines of the concrete molding so well. As these would be right by the track they'd be very seen. Only 4mm sheets of ply that I chose for the durability could be done by the cutter so each leg was built up in layers
Paul G

Paul G in Structures

2
Lighting

Lights etc

Glazing and transfers complete, I have made a start with some lighting. LED interior lights fitted and wired in via the DCC Function 1. Complete with stay alive capacitor- not too authentic for a 508 with their flickering lights over points!
508EMU

508EMU in Lighting

0
Figures

Edwardian mischief - Modelu & Andrew Stadden figures

I’ve been painting 4mm figures. Here are some photos and platform scenes.     I wanted to find a better way of holding figures during painting. Above is the good old bluetack solution, straightforward and good for spraying, but it doesn’t hold the figures very firmly during brush painting.       Another well-known solution is wire in the legs. Useful for mounting on the layout, but not always an option, I find. Some 4mm shoes won’t take a drill well, and
Mikkel

Mikkel in Figures

38
Locos and Stock

More new locos and stock

I have been busy working on the layout over the last year and have not been on here for a while only having started to use the site a while before it went down. I have some images saved of it's development that in time I may post in retrospect. At the present with the layout senics and all largely finished I'm just aquiring some last items of stock. Pictured is the last of three Bachmann 37s I've just purchased additional to the two I already had. These all need weathering along with q
Inglenook

I like Metcalf, but I’m scared I’ll ruin them if I colour the edges in

I really like Metcalf buildings. They sometimes feel a little over scale for N, but if you’re consistent they don’t look wrong; just don’t mix them with some of the Liddle-End models that look decidedly under-scale 😊(Rye station and Hornby factory spring to mind).     But.. I can’t bring myself to colour the edges in. I know I’m not alone in this as I’ve seen many a photo showing a layout with white-edges to the otherwise normally looking buildings, but I feel I should Grow S
Inglenook

I’m Rubbish at Ballasting Track

I’ve avoided ballasting points since the debacle when I was 13 - I saved weeks of pocket money for that point (a left-hand Peco settrack; I can picture it now) only to ruin it nearly as soon as I’d laid it. I couldn’t tell anyone so my one siding ended up a bit of a space invader.   Because of this fear I started ballasting from the edges of this layout. With an intention of building up my skills and confidence by ballasting some straight pieces of track before tackling the points.
Inglenook

I’m Rubbish at Laying Track

The baseboard I bought was only 5mm ply. This means that I needed to glue and pin some 2”x1” to the underside where my track was going so that it could pin properly and not just pop-out.   Unfortunately, I’d already laid the track, fitted the Twist Lock point motors and trimmed their pins to length (more on that later) before I realised this. So I had to leave “gaps” where the point motors were, which means the actual points themselves couldn’t be pinned down or else the pins ended up
Inglenook

Track

Its only a small layout, I don’t need to get complicated, so what’s going to wrong with just using Peco settrack?     Two things it turns out (1) the small-radius points (2) deadfrogs.   The small-radius points help the Easyshunts not work.   The deadfrogs cause my little shunting engine to stutter and need the occasional Finger-of-God to make them move; and as this is “N” gauge the FoG needs to be accurately applied or you poke the engine over onto its si
Inglenook

Couplings

I decided to use Dapol Easyshunt couplings; the clue was in the name. Obviously, this meant I spent the next few weeks butchering/converting eight Peco/Dapol/GF wagons to nem couplings and fitting the Easyshunts.   I looked at the Inglenook diagram and decided I’d only want one point at which to uncouple, at the top of the “first” point; that way I could pull wagons back to there, uncouple and delayed-uncouple the wagons I didn’t want back into their siding.   Nope. I could g
Inglenook

Rolling Stock - Not exactly prototypical

I have Private owner wagons from the 40s; an 04 early-crest shunter from the 50s and a Nun from the 60s.     I wanted a small shunter and the 04 had just come out screaming “cute”. I do have a Dapol Terrier but it’s not well and doesn’t like going forwards or backwards, so I’m waiting for a new batch of those before I pick up another one -second-hand wasn’t the way to go there ☹     Rather than painting numbers on a set of 16t mineral wagons, I wanted to b
Inglenook

Introduction - Whither IngleNook?

I wanted to build a small layout that I could be “happy” with. Something that would be interesting to “play with” and interesting to look at and interesting to build. Something small that I could take from room to room without doing my back in again.   I decided a “N” gauge Inglenook sounded nice. My “N” gauge stuff to date has been Kato Unitrack laid out on a spare table as and when I get the chance. Unitrack points are fairly large and putting a few lengths of track together it still
Swan Hill

No 88 - the Horse Box

The famous GWR horsebox No 88 - no layout complete without one.  This is the drawing I made to work from and to program the Silhouette to cut out the panelling and openings.  I illustrated the cut out and assembled sides some while ago (2 years+) but stoppages on other aspects of Swan Hill and an awareness that a few things are getting a long way behind has seen an effort to try and tie up loose ends.  No 88 is one of them.    This post deals with the body - the underframe will follow
kitpw

kitpw in Swan Hill

11
Bury Goods 0-4-0

Bury goods, part the third.

A two week break has given me time to ponder a couple of tricky areas regarding the Bury goods and this weekend has seen some progress, the most obvious being the smokebox and boiler.   I toyed with the idea of producing the smokebox as one cast lump to provide a bit of tractive weight and to balance the weight of the turned copper firebox. However, since this is a one-off scratch build I felt that might be a waste of mould space and also I was too impatient to go through that process

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