I’ve started adding some polystyrene to the foam board experiment to create some topography. Boscarne junction is cut into a hill side so at the rear there is a fairly steep bank. While to the front the same hillside falls down to water meadows and the river.
The whole exercise is turning into a little diorama and I shall experiment further with the surface dressings I might use on Bosmelin. Thus I shall need to include some ‘water’ and of course trees both of which I am less confident about.
When building a ‘model railway in the landscape’ the planning process is comprised, essentially, of three elements which are all inter dependent. Make an alteration to one and this will impact the other two. The three elements are the baseboards which must support the track and give a foundation to the landscape The track plan which must nestle in the landscape and look as though it was an integral part and lastly the landscape itself, the landforms, rivers, woodlands, embankments etc.
All thre
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<p>Norwich Model Railway Club hold their annual exhibition on April the 11th at Hellesdon High School on the outskirts of the city.</p>
<p>This show is a family friendly event with exhibits in all scales with a good selection of traders. I shall be helping on the Train Terrain Models stall. Also present will be Great Eastern Models, Bure Valley Railway Models, Bob Pearmain Books and several others.</p>
<p>All the show details can be found at:</p>
<p>&
Although Oby (see previous posts) is bubbling away my main project is and always has been a layout called “Bosmelin” and it is this that I shall be progressing in 2019.
I have found the history and operations of the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway, which linked the two towns after which it was named, particularly interesting. My library of books about the line and related magazine articles has grown over the last decade while the release of several ready to run models that were prototypical to
30587 at Boscarne Junction
I thought I’d start this with a picture of 30587 at Boscarne which is of course the inspiration behind Bosmelin. And anyway it’s a nice picture. Although I’m not really a ‘loco-geek/nerd/nutter,’ having more interest in railways as a whole, locomotives are a pretty vital component.
Rapid progress in building THE RSR has never been allowed to interfere with my inherent ability to let other activities divert me from fulfilling a goal.
Ashamedly I see that it is over 7
<p>Oby was mentioned in the Doomsday Book but is now classed as lost village. Look on a map of Norfolk and you’ll find the parish of Ashby and Oby lying east of the River Thurne and south of Potter Heigham.</p> <p>Of course the railway never served Oby. Why would it? Apart from Oby Dyke – Norfolk Broad speak for a short waterway usually serving a village ‘staithe’- and Oby Mill there wasn’t much there.</p> <p>Ideal then for a ficticious little railway. The M&GN
Although Oby (see previous posts) is bubbling away my main project is and always has been a layout called “Bosmelin” and it is this that I shall be progressing in 2019.
I have found the history and operations of the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway, which linked the two towns after which it was named, particularly interesting. My library of books about the line and related magazine articles has grown over the last decade while the release of several ready to run models that were prototypical to
<p>The layout I have had in mind for some time was to be based upon the Bodmin and Wadebridge – in all probability Boscarne Junction which I find quite an interesting place. This remains my overall ambition</p> <p>I had almost settled on producing the track in 4-SF (OOSF) that is to say EM-2. This gives a track gauge of 16.2 mm, a check gauge of 15.2mm and flangeways of 1mm. For details of 4-SF see “4SF on the Web” at http://4-sf.uk/</p> <p>The stated advantage of
I can happily report that the brass dowels work quite well and all the scenic boards aligned first time.
Dowels in place and before boards bolted together
Furthermore, by a coincidence or was it some long forgotten element of my plan the height from the floor to the bottom of the scenic boards is 100cm which just happens to be the one of the predetermined heights allowed for by my Aldi adjustable trestles. This is pretty handy as any for the obvious reasons.
Happily the bottom of the
Having spent some time happily carving away at the polystyrene I was eventually satisfied with the basic form I had achieved.
As the nature of this experiment has become more formal I’ve given the diorama a name – Bian Bos which is my East Anglian attempt at Cornish for Small Dwelling. No doubt a competent Cornish linguist will/might correct me if any grammatical elements are wrong.
I need to test a fake water medium so I’ve included a culvert and a small brook at one end of the board. The sto
There are many reasons why people build model railways from those who want to play trains and model villages to those whose creations represent a time and place of historical, social or geographic interest. I unashamedly place myself in the latter group though my aspirations are probably greater than my abilities can deliver.
At what point a train set becomes a model railway is moot but what is undeniable is that those layouts which appeal to me also show artistry.
In my mind Bosmelin is a ful
Boscarne station on the heritage Bodmin & Wenford Railway. There were virtually no trees of any size at the time the model depicts. Copyright: Richard Slipper 2016
The topography of Bosmelin (Boscarne Junction) is not straightforward as it comprises a variety of landscapes and the associated plant life.
The railway lines sit on a ledge carved into a hillside. The single line approaching from the west runs along the valley side whereas the two lines exiting the junction area leave on
Bosmelin will be a railway in a landscape. The track layout will be laid on a spine of baseboards with the main scenic sections added around it in a jigsaw manner. This has several advantages regarding space, manoeuvrability, weight, access and so forth. The visual experience is crucial and the jigsaw enhances this by avoiding continuous join lines. Joins being disguised by field hedges and banks for example in a random pattern.
To evaluate how large the spine boards need to be and how they nee
<p>It’s been a while since I ‘penned’ a few words to describe happenings at TheRSR. I have not been idle but have been otherwise occupied. What follows is a brief resume of the various projects previously mentioned in the blog.</p> <p><strong>Bohemian Saxony</strong> <strong>–</strong> the continental tram layout. The team decided to leave this project in the hands of the shop proprietor once all the electrics and control panels had been installed. The a
4 trams running. Apologies for quality This was the first test with 4 trams running. Went reasonably well More to do. https://www.youtube.com/embed/8ZueI1ojze0?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent'
The railways in the UK would not have been built without the labour provided by navvies. Navvies were hard working ground workers digging cuttings, boring tunnels and building embankments with shovels and barrows.
Now serious navvy work is not something you normally associate with model railways but over the last couple of days I have been doing some industrial scale topographical remodelling on Bosmelin. OK, I’ll admit it’s not navvying but the principals are not dissimilar.
The river
<p>After 4 days of trying, at last TheRSR is linked to RMweb.</p>
<p>Set up in WordPress.com, the link just wouldn’t work, whatever I tried, new themes, changes to various elements, nothing.</p>
<p>Eventually, with the help of a Happiness Engineer at WordPress the link has been established by running it through ‘Feedburner’ from Google.</p>
<p>I haven’t got a clue how it all works but it seems to.</p>
<p>RichardS</p><br /> &l
In my previous article I mentioned that the next job was to align and join the ‘stage boards.’ What I didn’t mention was a particular feature that one of these must have.
The board that needs to be removable is the one in front of the door on the left.
Portable layouts normally use some form of alignment which can be part of the joining mechanism or can be stand alone. Almost without exception these stick out and this means that some ‘wriggle room’ is needed to disengage a board from its
<p>Progress with the trams is now more rapid. Here’s a video of two trams running!</p> <div class="jetpack-video-wrapper"><span class='embed-youtube' style='text-align:center; display: block;'><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text/html' width='700' height='424' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/8ykVzg4VFJI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent'frameborder='0' allowfullscreen='true'&g
<p>It’s been a while since I updated TheRSR with news of progress on Bohemian Saxony. That, you will recall is the continental tram layout I am helping to build for a chap in Hertfordshire.</p>
<p>The last few weeks have seen some considerable advances with the landscape and the infrastructure. Although surface dressing has yet to take place we have coloured the ‘under-wear’ – plaster etc. which starts to bring the model to life.</p>
<p>We have to start addressing
There are many elements to good running on a model railway but the foundation is always the baseboards and this is particularly true on a layout that is designed to be portable. Making sure that the baseboards are straight, true and, where they should be, flat and level is absolutely vital and must not be skimped.
I have been keen to ensure that weight is minimised but true to form my baseboards for Bosmelin are starting to get heavier. I shall reduce the weight where possible in due course
Metamorphic rock, any of a class of rocks that result from the alteration of preexisting rocks in response to changing environmental conditions, such as variations in temperature, pressure, and mechanical stress, and the addition or subtraction of chemical components.
The underlying rocks of Bosemlin are plywood and deal and I am altering these by a process involving the application of a saw and drill slowly turning them into sawdust. Yes, I am still rebuilding the landscape at the River End
<p>There is nowhere quite like the Norfolk Broads. Lying between Stalham in the North and Beccles in the South, Norwich in the West and Great Yarmouth in the East this is a land of waterways and ‘broads’, reedbed and grazing marsh. It is flat. Very flat. The skies are vast; stretching from horizon to horizon, punctuated by few trees and the remains of numerous wind drainage pumps.</p> <p>The Broads themselves are mediaevil peat diggings which flooded resulting in shallow lakes
<p>I’ve been contemplating whether planting a fictitious station at Oby would be in context with the other railways in that part of Norfolk. Although I’m happy with a make believe scenario I still like to think it will be plausible. This is one reason I have a liking for ‘might have been’ subjects. Oby was never a might have been.</p> <p>Imagine, therefore, my delight when reading ‘The Norfolk Railway – Railway Mania in East Anglia 1834-1862’ by John Barney, pub. Mintaka Books
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