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Marlott

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Planning

The Project

This blog will cover the development of a very small diorama type N gauge model railway. The subject matter is to be the ubiquitous Great Western branch line terminus. It was chosen due to space restrictions, some existing stock from a previous layout years ago and the wealth of information available on the subject.   It is a pilot scheme. If time allows, all goes well and my re-kindled interest from childhood actually results in a finished working layout then I may progress to somethi
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Planning

Best Intentions

A short list of best intentions I would like to adhere to for the layout: Diorama presentation controlling the viewing angle Continuous backscene with curved corners Effective hidden lighting Lightweight rigid ply wood baseboard Analogue control - too many N Gauge models of the type in which I am interested would be difficult to chip Peco code 55 track Mechanical remote point operation Only large radius points Try to get the colour co
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Planning

Track Plan

The proposed model is not based on a prototype. I have a lot of admiration for modellers who create accurate representations of real locations and often find them the most interesting layouts at exhibitions. Part of the enjoyment for me however is to decide what I want and where I want to put it. I do however want to create something that is at least credible; allowing for space compression!   I have spent much time studying other layout plans, internet resources and experimentating wi
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Ballasting

Ballasting

For ballasting I use sandpit sand bought from ToysRUs before it disappeared. It is reasonably coarse so can pass for ballast in n gauge.    One of the things I do not like about commercial N gauge track is the depth of the sleepers. I therefore wanted to use the ballast to hide this depth consistently. After some experimentation I came up with a scheme to achieve this.   Once the track was laid, I lined the edge of the sleepers with evergreen 1mm quarter-round StripStyrene. T
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Scenics

Presentation

To support the back-scene, control the viewing angles and support the lighting a presentation box was required. This is constructed out of the same plywood used for the baseboards plus a few odd bits of wood found lying around the garage. It is held together by half round moudling and glued with water proof wood working adhesive. It fits snugly round the outside of the based board and is bolted to it using large bolts with glued captive nuts. This works because the design of the Billy Bookcase m
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Scenics

Scenery

The size of the layout means that scenery is at a minimum. I do however want some different levels in the ground, raised behind the station building with a slope down to the yard, raised behind the yard and raised more to the right where the trains disappears back stage.   I have used two approaches. The raised areas behind the yard are so small that they do not warrant traditional methods like mod-roc. Instead I have built them up using DAS modelling clay, glued down with PVA.  
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Scenics

Bridge

The line exits stage right through the back-scene. I have decided to use a low relief bridge to disguise this exit. The exit is just a hole in the back-scene board and also cut in to the back-scene sheet:     The idea of the low relief bridge is that it will just slot in to the hole to make it look more bridge like. Since I want it to recede in the gap on the underside, it also has to be removable to allow separation of the layout from the fiddle yard.    Here are a
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Yard

Coaling Stage

The coaling stage is built from the excellent Poppys Woodtech laser-cut wooden kit. Despite the small scale the kit goes together very easily. The fact that it is real wood makes painting and weathering easy. I used a combination of water colour and pastels. I just need to get some coal on it now.  
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Cattle Dock

Weathering Cows

It is not every day that when I am asked what I have been doing that I am able to answer "weathering cows". I had that opportunity today so I grabbed it with both hands.    My original plan included the possibility of a cattle dock. The time has come. The cattle dock is going in the original planned location at the back to the right.    I want to make most of the features on the layout either scratch built, or made from less familiar kits, in the hope that it will look a litt
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Control

Control

I opted for DC rather than DCC for a number of reasons including:   I have a number of older locomotives that would be more difficult to chip I felt that DCC was unnecessary on such a small layout – although I am now in two minds and I ended up over-engineering the DC anyway!   I chose cab control as described in Wiring the Layout Part 2 (my copy is about 40 years old but I do not think cab-control has changed much) mainly because it is what I had done before on a pre
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Yard

Yard Crane

To yard crane or not to yard crane. That is the decision facing me now. Am I going to start building this yard crane today and, if I do, will it have a place on the layout?   
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N Gauge

Grafar!

So pleased to find this reproduction of the 1973 Grafar (Graham Farish) catalogue. The models were so basic compared to the amazing ready-to-run that we get today but in 1973 when I was still a child, making the first move in to N Gauge, this was the first I saw of what was available. It was very exciting at the time. I ended up with a 94xx pannier which, despite the original plastic chassis worked very well; it ran reliably for years and had excellent slow speed performance. I also got a Hall (
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Scenics

Marlott on a late summer Friday afternoon

A new picture for no better reason that it is a Friday. Not a train in sight!     Below is a photo I took of some long grass during a cross country walk in the summer . It is my inspiration for what might go in the foreground in the above image.  
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Scenics

Long Grass

In my last post I said I was aiming for long grass in the foreground. These were my inspiration shots from a walk in late summer:     Armed with a mid-green for the base at 1mm and a straw colour at 6mm, here is how I got on. First a close up attempting to show the detail:     A wider shot:     One thing I learned is that it is not easy to get a photo that reflects the actual colour of the grass. It looks a bit more vivid in the photos
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