As mentioned in the last post, I'm still fiddling with the trackplan. '3' was definatley my favourite - until I considered changing the orientation of the bottom set of points;
That resulted in this - 'Version 3B'
Whilst fiddling with that one, however, and having a re-read of the A.C Elliott 'Cuckoo Line' book, I noticed from the plan of Hailsham that the Cattle Dock was behind the platform. I still liked the idea of the Engine Shed as a view block though, so after much moving arou
After placing the dock temporarily in position, I thought I'd take a photo - as much for my benefit as anything else - of progress to date.
Plenty of basics to put in, let alone anything else, but the 'bones' of the goods yard side at least are now nearing completion.
I hope this gives a general 'map' of the layout which will help anyone interested to get their bearings when I start to add further structures and scenery.
It's been many a moon since I did any modelling - aside from a half-finished Tamiya Ford Capri which is still awaiting painting of the bodyshell (unless cross-stitching several Christmas cards counts!)
However, times they are a changing. I last updated in August 2013. Since then we have moved, I started a new job and have subsequently obtained promotion. Leah is now a cheeky little miss of 20 months and we celebrate our third wedding anniversary in July. I'm not really sure where the time ha
In the last update I talked about a scenic identity, and mentioned the common use of flint in Sussex for building and construction.
I'm off this week, and whilst I planned to spend a lot of time on the layout real life has somewhat got in the way, although having said that it has been a lovely few days so far with another couple to go.
One thing I've long wanted to make a start on is the retaining wall, as it will be a clearly visible feature, and it needs to go in first before I can sta
'The Grouping' as it came to be known saw The LBSCR merge with the South Eastern & Chatham Railway and the London & South Western Railway, as well as several smaller companies, to form the Southern Railway, one of the Big Four. For a while, little changed, although gradually LBSC fixtures and fittings began to disapear to be replaced by the roundel of the Southern. At Litlington, a new 'White Horse' was cut in 1924 to replace the original which had become overgrown (1), whilst the Brickw
Is of course, not money, not beer, but Google.
In my last post, I mentioned the runaround.
All was well and good. I then had an idle moment at work (we have had some IT issues over the past couple of days where our system has stopped working at times!) on Thursday and googled 'run round in goods yard' to see if any inspirational, real-life examples came up. The eighth link was to these virtual hallowed halls, where member jamest of this parish asked for a critique of a layout plan.
You c
Well, as predicted in my last update, the first running over the layout did occur the following evening, using the bus wires temporarily lashed up to an old Hornby controller. Much to my pleasure, and a little surprise, the whole thing worked perfectly, with my new-to-me (a £60 secondhand bargain!) Bachmann C looking very smooth as she coasted down the gradient into the station, before exploring all the sidings.
I fitted the feeds to track through the bottom of the baseboard, using some cut
And Build a Baseboard.
Not how they tell you to do it in the magazines, but when I saw the above offered for free on Facebook, my thrifty side couldn't resist.
It is (or was!) an Argos 'Cubes' TV Unit - link here; http://www.argos.co.uk/beta/static/Product/partNumber/6090746.htm, and, no doubt, did that job very well. It was described as 'Free to collector, has some marks on top', and was outside waiting for me when I picked it up yesterday evening, but the short spell out in the cold se
So after the last two plans I've been continuing to play around, and re-reading the excellent 'An Approach to Model Railway Layout Design - Finescale in Small Spaces' book which has given me so much inspiration for this project.
With that in mind, and a nagging 'is it the best use of space' thought in the back of my head regarding 'V2', see Version 3 below.
This borrows shamelessly from Iain Rice's 'Witheridge' plan in the aforementioned tome (Page 44, and sadly I can say that witho
Over the last week I've been mostly working on some rolling stock, but today have been able to put together the first of the baseboards.
As has been explained previously, I intend to use the 'Jigsaw' method of construction. This has been giving me headaches over the past few days, but today I bit the bullet and got on with it.
The first board is below;
Click image to enlarge
The result? - Not half bad, especially the slabs underneath (photo taken in the garden for natural ligh
The wiring is now complete for Ripe - not a great deal of it! - and the frog juicer has been installed to deal with the polarity switching.
It needs testing, but lack of a suitable test loco means that this will have to wait for the time being. The annual bonus from work was lower than expected (across the board, not just me!), which, combined with Charlie's birthday and the Car Insurance stymied my plans to buy a Bachmann E4 last month. I do have some BR Blue stock to move on which will be
Work has continued on the Ripe layout since the last update, with some significant progress on the 'boring bits', with all track now laid and wiring to be tidied up tomorrow, once the glue holding it down has had plenty of time to set.
Going back a little though, this was the scene a few nights ago. Excuse the snapshot again, which has been taken on my phone and edited for size.
As you can see, the pointwork has changed, which I have salvaged from the previous Litlington board, as I
From my previous posts not-so-subtle hint, you may guess that I have selected Ripe as the new area of the line to receive my attention.
My previous posts, setting out my history for the Cuckmere Valley Railway, have barely mentioned Ripe, as a small hamlet (both historically and at the present time), a station here would be pushing the boundaries a bit, but there are plenty of real locations which barely merited a station and had one (in some cases more than one!), so Rule 1 applies here!
Progress has continued with some more additions and work on the Ripe layout/cameo.
After screwing the various pieces together (angle brackets and a couple of mending plates from Screwfix, and some 19mm screws from Wickes), I used some spare Fablon/Sticky Back Plastic purchased from Poundland ages ago for one of Charlie's homework projects to neaten the front up, as there were a few marks and chips from the process of screwing it all together. This neatens the front of the layout up nicely. I
So after my ballasting issues, and a much needed - and enjoyed - four nights away with the family, I have now moved on, and have begun putting the basic landscaping in.
A picture tells a thousand words, so;
This shows what I've done so far - I have used screwed up newspaper (the Friday-Ad comes in useful for all sorts!) underneath, stuck down with PVA then covered in strips of the same. There is still a fair bit to go in, and more strips will be needed to cover the paper fixed onto
Whilst there has been no updates for a week or so, progress has continued apace, with the bulk of the platform now completed as well as the cattle pens.
As previously mentioned I want to ensure a local flavour to the layout, starting with the building materials, but also continuing to the structures. Typically, a cattle dock in 00 Gauge has meant using the Ratio Kit, which is of a GWR style with wire and post fences. Locally though the cattle docks I have found in my research - Hailsham for
So after posting the various plans on Friday evening, there was still something which I wasn't quite happy with, and I couldn't put my finger on what it was, although a lot of it was around space, or lack of it, in what passes for a goods yard.
I've now had a chance to look again, and have come up with what I hope will be the final plan which I invited comment on
It was the change to a curved point which I think pulled this all together for me, I think it gives more of a natural flo
As promised, I've been playing with various plans for a week or so now.
This is the latest and, hopefully, final iteration of the smaller 6' Plan.
This is the basic version - I've printed out the plan a few times and have been drawing the structures etc on to get the best fit.
Starting from the right hand side, the branch curves in, crossing to the left hand side of the board and then heading offstage over a level crossing. The track below this is the headshunt for the goods
Following the somewhat fractious planning and construction of the line, the route settled down quickly to return a modest profit over the first few years of operation, with the shingle and brickworks especially profitable traffic. For a short time, there were two 'Berwick' stations - before the one serving the main line was renamed Berwick & Selmeston. Services were operated by the LBSCR, who had regained their financial stability by the middle of the 1870's (1), with Stroudley's A1 Terrier,
Now that the baseboard is built, things are moving on, and tonight I have been able to get the track out and see if it all fits together as planned.
This is always a worry, especially when you are converting an electronic plan to a full-size one, but on this occasion all seems to have gone has planned.
As mentioned last night, I'd like to include a gradient, and with a 3/4 inch rise decided on, I was quite pleased to find a CD box (Driving Rock, inevitably! ) which matches the correct he
A couple of days ago I mentioned that I had finalised the plan, at long last. Of course, a layout is much more than just a track plan, something which I feel is sometimes missed - that's why I've generally tried to call it the plan, rather than the track plan, as whilst the track is obviously important, it is how that it fits in with the 'minds eye' vision I have for the layout as a whole, that is more important to me.
That leads nicely onto the change - the bay. Most of the variations of th
Now that I've written the history and dreamt up the rationale, it's now time to think about the layout.
Attached is the first draft of Litlington, my chosen station. I am hoping to draw up a nice 'pen and ink' plan, but wanted to make sure everything 'fits' properly.
It is pretty much as per the 'Route Guide' published recently, except I've decided that the brewery entrance would be better 'offstage' - it just seems to suit the open feel of the place a little more. There is room for
Tonight has seen a productive session on the layout, after a frustrating evening with the soldering iron on Sunday. Soldering is one of those things I cannot seem to get to grips with (that's blown any pretensions of being a Finescale modeller!) and after some soul-searching, I have decided to go with the Peco pre-wired fishplates, at least initially. If I somehow develop the ability to connect a piece of wire to a piece of track using hot metal in the future, I will change it.
These though
OK, so first things first (at risk of boring my regular readers and contributors to tears!) - another plan.
Combining the best bits from previous ones - reintroducing the river which guides the eye, a bridge over said river - and keeping the shed and station building as a view block. I've also 'flipped' the layout - whilst I liked the idea of passenger trains traversing the length of the layout before pulling into the station, it would have produced an issue with operation, in that the loco
