This is a lovely little model by York Modelmaking. Made from laser cut Rowmark which behaves pretty much like styrene sheet. This went together in a couple of hours.
View of the carriage sidings at the North of Newport Station. Just a few more turnouts and lines to lay at Newport and then it is on to Cowes......
Chris
I took the bull by the horns this morning in order to start experimenting with my ZTC DCC kit, and bought a secondhand Hornby Terrier from Alton Model Centre. I managed to shoehorn a decoder inelegantly into the cab. This involved removing the floor of the cab (in fact I removed more than was needed there is now a gap between the footplate and cabsides). There was some rewiring of the inside of the loco, but the job was comparatively easy. This chip only has four wires (which helps) but no doubt
Giles and John from Elite Baseboards arrived with the boards and worked like Trojans in the sweltering heat. 29 degrees with the air conditioning unit on full blast! The boards are now installed for Cowes to Newport and brilliant they are too! Now it's up to me to get the track laid and wired up, make difficult decisions regarding analogue and DCC, etc. etc. Years of fun lie ahead!
Chris
Here is a link to a photo of Newport shed. Can anyone confirm the construction. It looks like timber walls and corrugated iron roof to me. But I am uncertain how to replicate the look of the timber - specifically which Slater's, Evergreen or Southeastern Finecast sheet in 4mm scale will give the best reproduction?
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/n/newport(iwc)/index27.shtml
Any help gratefully received!
Chris
Here's the trackplan of the empire. Newport is on the left (majorly compressed trackplan), Medina Wharf at the top (freelance track plan, this exists to replicate the function of Medina Wharf rather than to look like it), and Cowes bottom right, the only part of the layout which has the full prototype trackplan. With work going on on Medina, almost none of the layout is actually operational at the moment and once the Medina trackwork is done I have some serious "fettling" to do over a baseboard
I have finally started work on Medina Wharf, the last section of track for the small empire in the loft. The pictures show the trackplan and the boards covered with cork, with some trackwork laid out to finalise the positioning. The wharf uses a section of the layout originally earmarked for scenic treatment of the Medina River, and it is much too small to permit a faithful representation of the real location. I've used my well-worn modeller's licence to arrive at a trackplan which will allow th
Been a bit quiet of late. The loft is ready. I have been assembling small shelving units to go under the baseboards and have moved all the railway "stuff" up from the garage into the loft. Still need to get a workbench and something to sit on up there. Baseboards are on order from Elite Baseboards whom I met at the Bristol show a few weeks ago. Installation is scheduled for late June/early July.
I made reasonable progress on the model of Newport Engine shed but got to the point where the ac
New coach for the layout - first model I've built in a few years, but I'm really pleased with it. It's origin was a couple of Ratio Midland suburbans which have been "cut and shut" together, had vertical ends added, scratchbuilt trusses, whitemetal battery boxes and whitemetal bogies. There are some things wrong, such as it shouldn't have stepboards but it meets my criterion of "looking the part". I'm very fond of this bright livery which I can just about remember from my earliest days. The prot
Steady progress on Newport at the moment. I have finished wiring the Station throat board which has a scissors crossover and one other turnout. All fitted with Fulgurex Motors, and Sprat & Winkle electro magnets installed in strategic places. Most activity has been directed towards developing the method of installing the Fulgarex motors. I have read a number of criticisms of them, and I do now appreciate they are difficult to install - beginning with the need to completely ignore the "offici
Despite my silence, there has been a lot of progress on the layout. As usual, each step forward has been accompanied by a step or steps backward. Tracklaying is well progressed at Cowes - I have switched from PCB construction to fully chaired construction. Firstly I tried C&L pointwork with plastic sleepers. Whilst these looked good, I experience a strange gauge reducing effect once they were completed. In the course of constructing a number of plastic-sleepered turnouts I learned a lot abou
I am starting work on the hidden loops which will lie behind Cowes and the line along the Medina. To do this I had to get a sighting shot on how Cowes would fit, which is what the photo shows. The track templates are generated by the Trax3 software. Behind are some Peco turnouts (the hidden section will be laid using Peco Streamline. Important things here were to see where the turnouts would be in relation to the baseboard frames (I'm using underslung Peco turnout motors on the hidden section) a
Gosh - it's a long time since I posted any progress, but it feels like a lot has happened on the layout in those 6 months. The most recent milestone was completion of all the originally planned trackwork, all running, with turnout motors, electric uncoupling magnets functioning and locos running on DCC without hesitation or deviation, but with repetition. I have three locos chipped now and DCC has been some learning curve. Whilst not after sound or lights, I did want to capture the running chara
After a break of more than a year to work on my Ventnor West exhibition layout, I am finally making progress on my loft layout. Starting with Newport. I've ballasted the track and given it a weathering spray. You may also notice the uncoupling magnets. I am in the throes of converting from Sprat and Winkles to Kadees. The main reason for this is that I have a number of tight curves on my layout and my Sprats are really not happy, especially on long wheelbase 4-wheeled utility vans. I am finding
I had a big modelling hiatus between January and March, caused by breaking an ankle and not being able to get up to the loft. I had the excitement of Ventnor West appearing in the Railway Modeller March issue, but had to pull out of the Stafford exhibition. Still, we are booked for November at Tolworth with Ventnor West and Merstone.
Meanwhile, I have been building rolling stock for both layouts, and an engine shed for Newport. Now I am able to get back in the loft I will be able to
Photo showing progress as of tonight on the hidden loops (using Peco Streamline for expedience's sake). The tracks leading off to the right are the return loops representing the Sandown and Ryde lines. Each will hold two trains of the maximum length I have planned for (the equivalent of loco, four full length carriages and a 4 wheeled van). All trains will travel clockwise around the loops, with entry being controlled by a pair of crossovers allowing entry and access from either line out of Newp
Here is the trackplan for the planned layout, designed using the Trax software developed by Geoff Geary. This produces the templates for constructing the turnouts too.......
Despite my silence, work is progressing. The last couple of weeks have been building trackwork. The layout has been designed using "Trax" which I bought some time ago when I found the intricacies of Templot beyond me and more than I needed for the level of realism to which I was aspiring. That's not knocking Templot at all, because it is clearly the Rolls Royce of track designing software. Trax I found quicker to use and it generates turnout templates. My aim has been to get far ahead with track
A small section of track at Cowes ballasted and probably can be rated as "not bad". Work continues on the rest of it...............................................
Things have been moving on apace at Newport. When I last blogged I think I was still at the "track positioning" stage. Now all the track at Newport is laid permanently, glued down with Copydex, and has been tested digitally (i.e. pushing stock using finger power!).
There are four boards of which one is now wired and one is partially wired.
I have also finished the Modratec interlocked lever frame. With the change of track plan and complete rebuilding of Newport I needed to commission a
The last few months have been a case of taking a step backwards before moving forward again.
By July the layout was fully operational, and I had even started putting in the foundations of some scenic treatment. Testing locos and stock continued apace, but time spent "taking stock" whilst on holiday in the West Country confirmed something which had been on my mind for sometime which was that two sections of the layout needed drastic attention. The photos here show the results to date.
Fir
This has been a long haul, but finally approaching the point where I can remount the individual boards which make up Newport. All the track is laid, and wired, the pointwork motorised, the control panel built, and each board has been fully tested in its own right. All that's left now is to test the boards in combination, as any faults will be more easily rectified when the boards are unattached to the layout. I don't fancy any upside-down soldering!
So, here are the two boards for Newport No
I'm busy wiring the hidden loops and staging sidings. This board has the most wiring of any because I am using electric turnout motors in the hidden sections, as well as infra-red detectors for automation, and a separate control panel for the hidden section which will hang off the Newport viaduct board. 10 turnouts, 8 infra-red detectors, spread over 7 separate boards, though most of them will have less wiring than in this picture. I'm keeping an index of connections and colours as I go, which f
