In case anyone is following this blog and hasn't noticed, I've moved the progress updates on Buckden to a Layout topic here:
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/103103-buckden-on-the-kettering-and-huntingdon/
As I'm doing lots of minor updates and photos and a topic seemed more appropriate.
Thanks for reading the blog though!
Marcus.
So over the weekend I finished my new fiddle yard for Buckden. There was a little bit of a gap in the foreground so I got a lineside hut - I've always been fond of these little southern concrete ones and as this isn't "on scene" I didn't mind it being a bit out of place. The absence of humbrol 95 meant resorting to a mix of Humbrol 90 and 64 for the concrete, and then revell 39 for the woodwork. After almost always using Phoenix Precision Humbrol enamels feel so thick, and Revell so thin! Just a
I was on a train back from Prague all Saturday because of work, so took Monday off in lieu and decided to tackle a fiddle yard upgrade. The yard I had was cobbled together from what I had at the time, and was always supposed to be temporary (originally until I completed the loop around the room, but I decided against that - for a line which was end to end it made no sense). It ran poorly, with dead spots, wobbly bits and frequent derailments. So needed doing.
After driving all the way to Gas
I've been doing some light weathering of some of my stock, photos below of some I'm pretty happy with. Generally they've just had dirty light washes with Phoenix Precision Track Dirt (P991), Dirty Black (P981), and Weathered Wood (P990) with a dry brush of Track Colour [Rusty Rails] (P977).
Marcus.
For this one I applied from the top and then wiped downwards with a cotton bud.
My namesake was caught, illuminated by light cast from the signal box last night. Presumably pausing before departing Buckden to refresh her head lamps...
The last train of the day has gone, the yard is still. The coal wagon is ready for pickup tomorrow and the empties stand on the dock in front of the locked shed.
Just a quick update today - in order to do the grass right to the back of the boards I had to demount them, a nerve wracking operation as although built to be portable, they're not exactly designed with doing it very often in mind. That and grass application successful I took a few picks from unusual angles....
Marcus.
It's the first train of the day and the crew have clearly stepped off the footplate as the 0851 to Cambridge stands at Buckden with J15 65390 in charge.
It's been quiet on the blog but I've been busy on the layout! A few quick pictures of progress - the photos are improving but I definitely need to get a tripod...
I've been grassing up using my FMR Maxi applicator and their mixes of spring and winter/autumn 2mm grass (FMW-SG001/SG003) , which the applicator handles quite nicely, I think I'd prefer some longer fibres, but I may dust those over later. This certainly gets a nice ground cover. This was my first patch and is the flattest - I got
Look what arrived!
The long anticipated and quite delayed J15 from Hornby (R3231) made it to Model Railways Direct yesterday, apparently to the surprise of everyone involved (and much to the horror of my bank account). This is the DCC Ready Early BR crest version as 65356 (and as this was a Cambridge shed number likely to stay that way http://www.railuk.info/steam/getsteam.php?row_id=18587!). Several of these saw service on the line, and as I haven't built it a Huntingdon East shed to r
Back in June 2013 Wiggoforgold very kindly posted some pictures he had of Buckden in 1978 (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1362/entry-11926-buckden-station-1978/) showing the signal box and weighbridge hut/yard office. It spurred me on to do the signal box, and confirmed the colours, but, although I made a basic start on it, I never finished the yard office. SWMBO was on a train to Newcastle all day today (Lucky thing!) so I had time to get back to it. The roof was tricky (and a
Just before I went away for Christmas (partly to Buckden itself!) I made a start painting the station building for Buckden. I've been putting it off for a while, but there was an excellent "Railway Modeller Shows You How" by Craig Tiley in the November 2014 issue (v. 65(759), pp. 908) on painting resin models with acrylics which gave me some pointers and a little confidence, So I bit the bullet. I finished the roof off today, and a couple of quick snaps are below (neither quite get the colour ri
I only have a very small stud of locos for Buckden at the moment - cost and necessity (Buckden was one engine in steam and the line only had a few regular classes) means I've only bought an Ivatt 2MT(Bachmann 32-829A) and an 0-6-0 3F (Bachmann 31-626A) so far. I am looking forward to the Hornby J15 (although like Alex(wiggoforgold) I'm going to need to build it a working turntable so it doesn't get homesick) and have been toying with picking up an 8F for lost ironstone trains and a J94 so that
Cambridgeshire, as many who know it as well as I will not need telling, is flat. Very flat. So it is that I wasn't too concerned with using bowling green flat boards as a starting point for Buckden. The layout did however need some topography at one end, for the embankment at the Kettering end where Brampton Road crosses the line. The embankment is long gone and was well before I was born, but it slopes gently towards the north and Buckden village to meet the gently raising ground, and on the Br
I popped to Modelmania in Bristol today (my local shop, and well worth a visit!) for the first time in AGES today, and as usual picked up mostly what I went to get (loco crew, this month's Railway Modeller) but also got drawn in to an impulse purchase of a Cooper Craft Any Name Signal Box kit (No. 2008) because, well, it was ONLY £2.50 and I thought it was neat!
If you haven't seen it, the kit is made up of 4 sprues of plastic letters and a blank nameplate blank apart from SIGNAL BOX at one
It's been said many times before but the first and easiest thing you can to do make a RTR loco look better is bung some real coal in it. So ok this is by far the first thing I did to these two but I finally got around to it and it really makes a difference I think!
The Ivatt was simple as the bunker is fully modelled below the plastic load, so you just whip that out and stick some in. The 3F required a little surgery to get enough depth for a convincing pile but that done I think it looks lo
So a little expansion a around the room has given me a neat fiddle yard, which will be a "through" yard once I drawbridge the door, and will have an extra road when I change to streamline points. 46444 and Wiggoforgold may be slightly upset at the yard contents today as I've been playing with modern image. No fear though- Buckden is still being built firmly in steam era and that stock will be back out of the boxes soon. I'm going to ballast and ground cover the fiddle yard so it will be semi-sce
Yesterday me and K went on a cycle ride down the Avon to Portishead, which gave the opportunity to visit my not-quite-closest model shop (Model Railways direct). The recent release of the Bachmann Midland 20T break van is perfect for Buckden, so I'd been planning to slowly build up a collection over a few model shop visits. However, the lovely people at Model Railways direct were out of stock, and also let me know that Bachmann have completely sold out of all of them - which is impressive as the
Things have been slowly progressing at Buckden, but I've been very bad at finishing anything! So here are a few work in progress shots. I've got the station building just about ready for painting, which I think will be done with acrylics once it gets a blast of car undecoat. I've used plasticard, faced with Wills textured plastic cladding. For the main brickwork I actually used flexible brick arch sheets, as I like that the mortar isn't so deep as their normal sheets. Windows were done in micros
So safely back from the high seas I moved house (and so moved Buckden). My new train room is going to be a great home for the layout, but has meant there needs to be some reconfiguring. It'll return to continuous run but for now it's set up with a fiddle yard at the one end and nothing at the other. As this means it's now a shunting layout I decided to finally wire up the points. I'd installed SEEP motors under the boards for the four points on the scenic boards ages ago but hadn't got around to
So I mentioned in a previous post that one of the reasons progress on Buckden stalled for a little while is that I got a little distracted by another project. It all started months ago when I caught a glimpse of something odd and yellow flying past outside my kitchen window late one evening. Some googling later and I had fallen down the rabbit hole of Network Rail test trains (until that point unknown to me) and I liked it!
This obviously lead to a modelling project, spurred on by the galler
A new arrival was at home when I came back from a week in the field today - my new TMC lightly weathered eastern region horsebox. Seen here being shunted in the yard.
This will make an appearance from time to time at the end of a passenger train at Buckden.
So there has been steady progress at Buckden since my last post. The first thing to do was work on some further ground cover. This started with a rough paint of earth colour over most of the yard with burnt and raw umber acrylic paints, and application of some DAS white clay to fill in the sleepers at the end of the long siding (over a coat of PVA) before this too was given a coat of the same acrylics. I've then been using a mix of woodland scenics material (having found Model Railways Direct sh
Things have been a bit quiet at Buckden over the past month, both on the blog and in the railway room. This has been mainly been to work and travel, and as I'm heading off on Eurostar today that isn't going to improve soon! I've also been distracted by another little railway project not directly related to Buckden, but which I might share here sometime.
Anyway! One thing that has happened at Buckden and not been blogged is ballasting. Buckden, like many Midland branch lines, was a lightly la
So I've been making some (alliterative) progress on Buckden. Starting with the Ratio 536 Midland Signal Box kit to make the Buckden box. As the box was much smaller, platform mounted and had the earlier, smaller windows it took quite a bit of bashing to get something satisfying. The windows and roof were actually the most fiddly, but after some filling and filing I'm quite pleased with the results:
I've modelled it with the earlier step arrangement, although I realised a little late on
