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About this blog

The highs, high-rises, lows and low-reliefs of constructing a West Midlands set fictional AC electric layout in a shed.

Entries in this blog

You wouldn't think I'm a Planner...

...although to be fair, I'm a retired Chartered Town Planner not a project planner.  If I had been a project planner, I'd have made sure I installed the DCC Concepts track controlled signal before I did any ballasting. I know they say it's designed for clip-fit compatible set-track but it can be made to work on PECO flexi track.  Just make sure you get it set up before you start flinging glue and loose rocks around like coke at a banker's ball.  After a lot of self-generated difficulty I ev
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Wombourne, Take 2...

I have had to re-hang Wombourne. The backscene which I had applied developed bubbles and creases, which I assumed was due to me using Spraymount, or the conditions in the shed, but as the Spraymount had cured by the time I found the backscene has creased, in a fit of temper I decided to try again, turn the backdrop round, and this time use double-sided tape to stick it on.  I decided to go for Gaugemaster's 9 inch "village" backdrop, and duly stuck it on. I also gave the access track a
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Where are we?

Having 3d printed the platforms, I can't say as I'm completely happy with them, so I decided to bite the bullet and buy some Wills kits to replace them, so pending their arrival, track laying is on hold.  So, I've been thinking of how to do the platform signage.  As said before, as the layout will be in a shed, it will be subject to possible weather affects, so I want to remove as far as possible paper based signage which might be affected.  So, I developed my own design.   The idea is Wednesfor
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Welcome to Wednesford...

First post on the new blog recording the progress on the shed layout. Funny to relate, I first started planning the "shed layout" just after Bachmann announced their revamped Class 158, and expected to have it all done in time for it's arrival in the shops.  Amazingly, Bachmann beat me to it when they released the 158 back in December. I purchased the shed off eBay from a company in Bassets Pole near Sutton Coldfield, who delivered and erected it free of charge as I was within their 15
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Wednesford TV need a new cameraman...

Had a bit of a running sesh today using 1986 stock. I had intended to film it but the idiot cameraman forgot to switch on the external mic to the main camera. Fortunately I had parked the phonecam in St Flo's churchyard but whilst it got the noise, it suffered some flaring and focus issues. However, it gives you a good impression of where things are at the moment.   I'll probably do some more detailed vids outlining the thought process and products I've used in the hope it might inspire o
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Wednesford Morning

Been slowly - very slowly - reballasting, weathering and adding backscenes.  Typically, I underestimated how much backscene I needed and could have probably made my own using a cracking and very reasonable one man band printer in Barmouth I've used several times for other stuff, but I ended up buying off the peg. I've had a rethink of the "Old Town" and moved the Hornby Skaledale "courtyard" shops to next to Tudor Row, which works much better.  The space formerly occupied by the lock-ups ne
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Weathering, take 2

You wait months and two blog entries come together... Having experimented successfully yesterday with neat paint pigment powder as a trackbed weathering medium, today I turned my attention back to the rolling stock, to test a possible source of significantly cheaper pigment: Ladies eyeshadow.   Yes ladies, your eyeshadow will now be under threat from the modeller in your life. My brother, an expert sci-fi modeller, suggested this hack, so I bought a pack of 6 Goth-like shades
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Weathering

It's been a bit quiet on the blog, but not on Wednesford.  I've turned my attention to weathering,  I had a go at weathering some rolling stock with Tamiya weathering pigments, which my brother had pointed me in the direction of.  I've really enjoyed weathering using these powders, although my brother has pointed out that ladies face paint is a similar pigment but can be bought at a fraction of the price.  It seems that rust, road dirt, toilet effluvia and brake block dust are this year's eye sh
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We're Getting There...

...as BR were fond of saying at one point.  Wednesford and Wombourne v2.0 is now in the final stages of completion, with ballast laid at Wednesford, and some overdue tidying up of some dodgy modelling.  Longer term I intend to install street and building lighting and passive provision has been made by raising the scenic boards by about a centimetre.  Today was the first chance I had to see all the boards in place alongside the station (I still have a little work to do on the Swan Centre scenic m
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We return you to the Test Card...

...well, not really, but it was time to do a test layout of the scenic modules to see if clearances needed to be tweaked prior to track laying starting in earnest, particularly as I had now finished 3d printing the platforms.    Ooh look, a train!  The 3d printed platforms aren't actually very straight but now I've weathered them with the airbrush, and having 3d printed combined bench and planters to help disguise some of the joints, I think it will work out once I've laid the track a
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Track laying underway!

A video update this time, of a test run on the newly laid track on the main circuit.  I decided to try a propelling move using a Heljan 86 with their notorious droopy couplings and a three car rake of semi-permanently coupled Bachmann Mk2f and Oxford Mk3 RFM.  This triplet set is coupled using the Bachmann bar couplings because when I installed lighting in the RFM, the gimcrack Oxford coupling cams lost their springs and as it would be spending at least 50% of it's time being pushed as well as p
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Today's Shed Talk: Park Life.

As the weather has been quiet again, and with the help of a small fan heater, work on the layout is progressing nicely. Despite My Herpes having lost track of a roll of instant lawn for the layout, I found I had sufficient to finish off the park area so I decided to do the park, after having weathered down the roads on the Poplars estate with neat black powder paint. Really, I should have ballasted the track and installed the OHLE before doing the park, but apart from a couple of trees, everythi
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Time now for a commercial break

Following on from the discovery of shrinking plastic, I've tried to get the product to produce scale 48 sheet advert hoardings (in real life 10 by 20 feet, so a scale 40 by 80mm) but trying to work out the shrinkage was proving a problem, and the larger the original, the more distortion crept in. Then the brain kicked in. The main reason for me wanting plastic signs was down to paper or card not liking damp or changes in temperature, and whilst it is possible to apply a lacquer to pape
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The Wombourne Identity

Helped by calm and relatively mild weather I've been catching up on the rebuild and have now moved onto the revised Wombourne.  I also discovered a few more pieces of the Kibri office block I managed to demolish before it could be used on the Civic, so have been able to stretch the Aunty Edna's confectionary admin offices and development labs.   A quick post out by the Model Tree Company from where I bought the half depth trees has meant I can finalise the backdrop.  In reality,
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The Virtuous Corner

The "church in a corner" is almost as much of a model railway trope as the bus on the bridge.  Of course, I decided to follow suit... The Parish Church of St Florian was always going to be a mini Coventry Cathedral in that it would be a burnt out ruined ancient chapel alongside a modern replacement.  I chose the name St Florian - an Austrian born saint who is the patron saint of firemen - to add a bit of irony in that the original chapel dedicated to St Florian was destroyed by a firestorm
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The Summer of '66

The prolonged nice spell has enabled me to progress some bits and bobs on the layout, but the main works have been an extra heavy clean, stock sorting and a rethink on the backscene, to make it easier to remove for access to the fiddle yard behind.  However, I've also been doing some work on the stock. Today, I repaired and converted a DC Kits AL1 in 1966-7 livery, which I had bought many moons ago and which was fitted with a Black Beetle, to which I fitted a DCC converted Hornby 86 chassis
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The Sky is Falling In...a.k.a. never ask a Planner to Plan ahead.

If things have gone quiet on the Wednesford and Wombourne front since the video was uploaded, there is a reason. I'm rebuilding the station. Let me explain.  Having had a few running sessions, it became clear that despite my efforts to design in access for track cleaning, by mounting the scenery on removable boards, actually getting my banana fingers under the OHLE without demolishing the station in the process was going to be difficult.  The presence of the island platform severely re
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The Scenic Mantlepiece

Continued relatively quiet and mild weather has allowed me to move at pace with the scenic "modules" on the shelf which will now run behind the track.  I bought a number of A4 sized 3mm deep plastic sheet offcuts from Tatbay which have rigidity and the weather resistance needed for the shed, so I have broken down the developments along the back into A4 sized lengths, roughly.  Unfortunately the "mantlepiece" isn't quite A4 width, so I've had to wield the Dremel to the boards to cut them down a b
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The Rebuild Continues

With the weather being nice and quiet, today I made a start on making the new higher level scenic shelf onto which some of the previous scenery is being moved and expanded. Moving the tracks to the centreline of the baseboard has given me some room behind, which I decided should be a brick retained higher level area to create the impression of the approaches to New Street or Walsall from the Rugeley direction, creating an urban backdrop which should highlight the trains nicely. Originally I was
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The Poplars Estate

Another short work session in the shed today as I've had a bit of gippy gut but long enough to do a bit of scenic work on the Poplars estate board, mainly sticking down the paving I recycled, some landscaping and making a start on painting the emery cloth roads. Now you might think why the hell paint the emery cloth, which is pretty black, with a grey asphalt colour only to then add black paint pigment when dry? Well the answer is the emery cloth is too uniform black, and roads tend to, just lik
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The Old Town nears completion.

Short video showing progress on the "Old Town".  I spent a sunny day outside yesterday (in the garden, well away from anyone else) sticking down InTheGreenwood laser cut MDF cobblestoned plates which I had airbrushed, plus the 3d printed "asphalt" road I designed which is in front of the station.  A little bit of landscaping and a rearranged "townscape" trying to hide as best as possible some of the inevitable joins in the cobblestone plates.  It was as much an experiment to try out the new vide
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The Final Countdown

Ok, I don't have Ozone layer-threatening amounts of lacquered big hair and a pomp-Euro rock backing track but at long last I'm sort of heading to Venus (at least I hope that was the lyric, it could have been p - whatever) and beginning to restring the OHLE, clean down the track and do some final tittivating although I still need to work out a method for lighting and invest in some people. I've also revisited some of the areas I laid out with cobblestones and repainted them, and have been nu
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The Art of Tomfoolery

In a previous life, I worked for Centro in the Midlands for ten years and one of the things I got to deal with was a public art programme of involving artists to try and work on the presentation of new infrastructure projects.  This wasn't anything new, London Transport had done it for years in the 1930s when a pride in providing public services was more important than the post 1970s mantra of Get Everything Cheap and treat your customers as criminals, and quite a few transit agencies in the US
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Test Running Commenced

Today I needed to sort out the pointwork in the fiddle yard that my brand new, and very expensive Class 47 diesel took a dislike to. Fortunately I had some spare points, and one happy consequence of the rejigged fiddle yard is I do now have a loop long enough to take a full length 7 car HST, or 8 Mk2s without fouling the other loops. However, nothing ever quite goes to plan as whilst I now have pointwork the 47 can cope with, I found the equally pricey Bachmann Mk2F coaches seem to have a proble
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Still counting down...

Having had to take a day off yesterday due to a combination of a mystery dose of the Eartha Kitts, a raging runny nose and feeling like lightly reheated death, once my stomach stopped doing an impersonation of the Battle of the Somme I was able to carry on the Final Countdown.  Today comprised giving the track a deep clean, restringing more OHLE, cleaning up a load of stray ballast and generally getting things in place so I can run some trains.  I still need to add figures over the next week or
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