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About this blog

An O Gauge BR Branch Line Terminus Model Railway set around 1980 in or about Somerset. Ish.

 

The lock-down diorama kind of got out of control.

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Entries in this blog

The S&T Team Arrives

During earlier ramblings the subject of signalling got raised, and with progress at the point such things need deciding it's time to be decisive. The heart wants colour light signalling, because it's pretty really. Though there are some excellent brass kits for light signals at a pretty nice price (plus a few detailing accessories), working dummies (ground signals) working are .... £45 each! The head says that it's pretty unlikely such a location would actually be re-signalled, the head also rem
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Baseboard Building With Off-Cuts

A day sorting through bits of baseboards that started out life for one layout, got chopped up for use in another and are now doing it all again. Amazingly there's exactly enough! Had to stop when next doors kids go to bed, so it will be finished tomorrow. Even more amazingly, not one of the timbers fouls a point motor! This is in breach of the laws of physics and must be a mistake. And I had the loft so tidy... All done - creative carpentry rocks. No, sucks. Pretty chuffed that I got it all
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Baseboard Building With Off-Cuts

A day sorting through bits of baseboards that started out life for one layout, got chopped up for use in another and are now doing it all again. Amazingly there's exactly enough! Had to stop when next doors kids go to bed, so it will be finished tomorrow. Even more amazingly, not one of the timbers fouls a point motor! This is in breach of the laws of physics and must be a mistake. And I had the loft so tidy... All done - creative carpentry rocks. No, sucks. Pretty chuffed that I
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Actual Track Laying :-)

So the point motors arrived,along with some switches, cable, pins and PVA. Though not the cheapest motor, I've gone with Peco 'Twistloc' ones, mostly because installation is simple and doesn't involve quarrying a huge hole in pristine baseboards. More in a bit. The first operation was to position the double slip where it goes for real. Unfortunately Wine has decided it doesn't want to pay with Anyrail at the moment, there's two versions of a library in use by different packages at the same time,
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The Point Of Old Points

With lack of points causing a bit of halt to progress I got to thinking about what exactly to do with the points I had made for a previous, never finished (or started, really) Soddingham. These were designed using Templot and it seemed such a waste not to use them, despite beng flat-bottom rail. The original idea was to put them in the headshunt to the left, with some concrete sleepered track, as an indicator of renewal coming to the station (so many depict defunct lines on layouts these days it
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Radio Control Revisited

I was babbling on about battery powered radio control above, and had literally got to the point of ordering stuff when I spotted a show-stopper flaw, well 1.5/2 ish flaws. I'd found all the bits to set up 11.1V battery power, r/c controller, r/c receiver board and a way to charge from the track (using a 'special' powered section on an otherwise dead-track layout, at the fueling point) for about £120. Not only that but the bits were actually in stock (a very rare event in r/c land it seems)! Just
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Old Metcalf Kit

Amongst the pile of stuff I didn't sell back then was a couple of Metcalf kits, one low-relief front of a pair terrace houses and one low relief of the rear of a pair. In all this time I never noticed one is stone and one is brick. Ooops. I picked these up at the that garden centre, with the controller way back when Metcalf decided to abandon O gauge (bet they regret that now!). There's probably not a whole lot of point in doing a complete build as there's nothing tricky making these kits, the o
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Platforms (from LCUT)

Platforms - the curse of all my previous model railway endeavours. Platforms can make or break a layout, I've seen so many in exhibition videos (insomnia and YouTube!) that mar an otherwise nice layout. The first thing was to establish if there is such a thing as a 'standard' GWR/BR(W) platform design, and the result was no, at least in the time frame being modeled. This is due to so many on the fringes of GWR being built by constituent companies - the same goes for station buildings etc. It see
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More Metcalf, Lots Of Bits...

Having built the low relief house fronts, doing the back seems like a logical next step. These were bought intending to make a whole house, but in all the time they've been lying around I'd never noticed one was stone and one was brick. Ah well. I'm not sure how these will fit on the layout yet, especially as I can't get any more to form a streetlet. Anyhow, on with the build. I photoed this one as it has a lot of bits, and I'll be modifying it a bit for lighting purposes. So, step 1
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Wizardry

Having concluded point rodding and signal wire posts are going to be a thing, I ordered some bits and bobs, mostly by MSE, form Wizard Models. Point rodding and associated signal wires are a whole thing in themselves. I'm currently mocking this up while I work out exactly how it all fits together. It 'ain't going to be cheap neither. Not something to start and hope for the best I think. I just couldn't help myself with the speed signs - quite fancied having '125' for the branch though...
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More Housing

The lights and stuff turned up incredibly quickly from Layouts4u so on with finishing the Metcalfe kit. First thing is to fit the lights. I went for small soft white LEDs, ready resistored for 12V. One got stuck to the ceiling of an upstairs back room and another in a downstairs room. I just cut 'V' notches in the floors so the wires go down the front of the back wall where it meets the extension and out through a hole in the base for one. For the other I 'drilled' a hole at ceiling level,
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Wiring Frankenstein's Monster

Back to the layout, and it's do all the wiring time. In the absence of four point motors (unavailable anywhere!) the cables have been placed so all that is needed is to fix them whenever they can be. Starting at the far end and working towards the control panel the cables were made into a harness using small ty-wraps (and tape when I ran out of them). All the cables were idented with masking tape, with branches popping in and out as required. When the control panel was arrived at, all the leads
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Removing The New-ness

Model railways, or perhaps modelling in general, must be one of the few endevours where you take nice shiny new things and make them unshiny. To this end all the track, bar the concrete sleepers, got a good sprayed dose of Railmatch 'Sleeper Grime'. The can was six years old and wouldn't play ball to start with, but after fiddling with the nozzle for an hour it suddenly sprung into life. The rail heads were wiped off (with a little thinners for the stubborn bits) with a cloth. The transformation
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Back To Concrete

This is the concrete sleepered section after going round concreting over the grime brush slips. As few bits of painted ballast to remove and all will be good.   View the full article  
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More S&T - Rodding First.

Spent a long time making four, three, two and indeed 1 lots of stools and 'concrete' supports. Last time I forgot to mention about cleaning up the webs between adjacent roller stools. While it's kind of satisfying to know the webs have been cut away, the reality is that what with ballast, painting/weathering and just smallness in general it will be impossible to see the difference, so after a few I didn't bother. This week's big blunder box item was also rodding related. I should
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Signals - And Progress

Had a bit of a grumble about dummies (ground position signals for the posh) in an earlier post. In a kind of desperation, there being no picture of what you are getting, I ordered a pair of BR(M) kits from Wizard/MSE. This was on the basis that apparently the Midland Region ones were BR standard and the MSE signals I built are really nice. So, this is what you get, and very nice it is too. They do seem massive after OO! Yes, these are what I wanted. And it says on the packet they can
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Two More Point Motors

Two point motors turned up, from apparently the only people in the country left with any stock. With 'only' two more to go, when these are installed the 'North' end (the geography is starting to settle down now) will be fully electricated. The remaining section switches should arrive imminently too - nearly done so I can play trains without getting off my bum (No.1 priority). Well, when I've finished cleaning the rail heads. Ballast has arrived too, more on that in a bit. Gold dust.
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And The Signal Box Interior

The signal box it going to be lit, ergo and interior is required. After looking at several options I went for the Severn Models one. This is what you get. It's beautifully etched and the detail is amazing. The etch itself was so shiny it didn't need cleaning before soldering. It's brass by the way, the lighting makes it look nickle-silver. There's a very helpful sheet containing instructions and advice on building. The maker is pretty pro-glue, but with my involvement with glue involv
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In Go The Point Motors - Eventually...

There 's no photo to go with this really... Somewhere along the line the two curved points that these two motors drive had moved a bit - the heels were about 4mm from where the should be according to the marking out. This might not sound a lot, but when the hoes for the operating rods are 6mm it mounts up a bit and both motors would operate fine in normal position, but not quite do it reversed. Both needed their holes opening up by about 1mm. Lesson 1 : The Twistlock motors have to operate
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The Dummy Experiment

So here's the LEDs. You can get them with the connections to the LED insulated, but they were out of stock everywhere so I went for these, warm white ones, from Layouts4You. They come ready fitted with a resistor for 12V operation - it seems to make sense to stick to one voltage so all lighting can go on one bus round the layout. Next was to add the arm/disc and the shutter on the back, remembering to add an extra hole in the shutter for the rod that will operate the signal. The lamp
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And...Ballast!

Ah yes, ballast. Now there's a topic that can run and run. I guess everyone has their favourite, and favourite way of laying it. I spent a few years wondering around on the dammed stuff and a lot of layouts use a much too big a size. I guess it depends on taste really, and as with the long point timber saga earlier not everything scales. My choice was essentially based on the observation that you can hold a lump of ballast in your closed hand pretty much. While searching I stumbled on a spec she
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To The Box (Tea Up)

Painting buildings is something I've never done before, and to be frank me and art share different universes except on occasional musical moments. So I've had a bit of a read up and looked at, seemingly, hundreds of photos of brick signal boxes. I've got it that bricks aren't all the same colour (well, weren't - modern ones seem to make more of an effort on the colour front), and the mortar has re-pointed bits and all that. Note to self : Guttering. So, Railmatch light and dark brick r
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More Paint...

Well, ok, the first go painting the box wasn't great, but I guess you have to start somewhere. It need another coat for a start! In hindsight the individual coloured bricks look nice, but in a dolls-house sort of way I think. So... Still looks a bit 'red' to me - dark brick red base with light brick red and dark earth brushed over. I'll wait for the paint to go off and then see what happens if I apply some mortar to the joints.   View the full article  
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Forgotten Paintwork

I forgot to paint the rails of the concrete sleepered section of track, and doing it after ballasting isn't easy - especially when you have to practically do a back-flip-hand-stand to get to the backs of the rails, which can be seen from the other end of the layout unfortunately. I've decided I don't like concrete sleepered track, one miss with the brush and it's there forever. With wooden sleepered track it doesn't matter! I used sleeper grime again, the various shades of rust would only look r
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What To Do With The Metcalf Houses

So what to do with the two Melcalf over-scale buildings? Plan A was to box them up and stick them on e-bay, but then I'd put lights in one. So Plan B, move them to somewhere where the distance from true scale things wouldn't be so obvious. This wouldn't work on the current layout, but I figured a raised extension would work well enough. So, the extension. The houses will made to look like they are then ends of roads where it all gets a bit badly surfaced and slips into scrubland. Betw
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