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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

SIgnals

Banner Repeater Kit Build - 5 (And A Bit Of Lighting)

So with the ripples of quantum uncertainty passed, back to the train set. The operating rod has been added, so the signal now 'works'. It's awfully cramped but it all went in. This was a bit of a pain with having to take it out each time to put the kinks in so it goes down through the centreline of the platform. It works nicely.  I'm thinking that drilling the tell-tale on the back of the lamp might have been unnecessary - no one can see it with the post in the way. I'll probably blank it.
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Now Awaiting Paint.

So having settled on Railmatch acrylic Sleeper Grime... I've run out. More on order. There's a coupe of pics in different lighting of the test piece now it's fully dry. The difference in the light is just the camera being a few inches higher in one that the other.   As the pullies have arrived, I've made up the three sets needed for the platform signal and dummy I'd omitted. I've used Design No.3(a-198) for these - because I'd not ordered enough. Rather than making a pair represe
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All Moved.

So that's everything moved across. Just need to figure out how to get pics into the blog post listing rather than the default snazzy designs.    Back on the layout, more ballasting has been done, all but the RBO trees are made and placed, though not fixed yet. The signal wire posts are fitted and the point rodding chairs painted, the remaining cranks fitted. Ballast has been quarried for the point rodding to pass under the rails. Quite a lot of fencing to do, but that'll have to be wor
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Warship. Ahoy?

About 6 or seven years ago work on the Warship came to a halt along with everything else as the music kicked in. On resurrecting Soddingham, or more accurately actually starting it, I pondered about what to do with it. The bit that was blocking progress at the time was glazing. I'd spent hours cutting out 'glass', with many failures - and then promptly lost them. This was, shall we say, disheartening. With the reprise of Soddignham I've been pondering whether to gather all the bits up and sell i
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Adding The Poles

As ever, having made the telegraph poles it was time to position them. First step - how far apart should they be? Well, to be scale, it would appear that 1.1m or so would be right, but mocking it up they just looked like they'd been planted randomly. Clearly telegraph poles, or at least the distance between them, don't scale at all well. So I just went full aesthetic  mode with them. I'm happy, so all is good.
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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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SIgnals

Banner Repeater KIt Build - 2

When the paint had dried on the arm and 'opaque glass' it was time for a trial assembly. The first of these I built I didn't make work, because it's sat about 40mm from a tunnel mouth and 70mm from the wall and there seemed little point so I just did the lamp conversion.  This is new territory now. It all went together nicely, except that the arm was jammed in between the 'glasses'.   At this point I remembered commenting in a way earlier post the strip seemed a bit thin and I'd try a
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Exponential Point Rodding

It seems like every time I look there's another bit I've overlooked! Hopefully though, the south end up to the signal box is now down. Good old geometry stuck it's oar in now and again, yet while not claiming perfection I'm happy with the results - a bit of paint will hide the anomalies. He said. In a hopeful sort of way. Oh, signal wires - that's going to be fun. Also, the banner repeater now has the correct black handrails. And the Bobby's Defender has arrived (from under the scarily high stac
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SIgnals

Banner Repeater KIt Build - 3 (Going On A Bit ISn't It)

A good deal of time on the information super highway has confirmed these signal were not available in mechanical flavour, so plastering it with cranks to make it work is no longer a plan. Neither is the rod going up the post, since with three ninety degree bends there would be way to much flexing going on.     So the plan is now to turn the drive through ninety degrees with a crank or similar. Having soldered the bearing tube to the pivot support and doing a trial assembly i
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The Big Move

It doesn't seem I can just transfer my blog across from it's old home, so... rewind to the start of the great lock-down and hopefully things should catch up quite quickly.
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Yep, More Signals

Settling down to a nice session to finish the Stop signal. First off a hole was drilled in the lamp post bracket and the post to take the (still not arrived) LED wires, easily done with the pin vice. The wires will (hopefully) go down inside the post to keep things nice and tidy. Next the lenses got put in the spectacle plate, which had been attached to the arm. The kit came with some not over substantial sticky back plastic for this, but I chose to use some 'lens' material I'd got from MSE. Bas
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SIgnals

Banner Repeater KIt Build - 4

It's been a couple of days mostly waiting for tiny bits of paint to dry... and some musicing. Finally everything is coming together. The case, or whatever you call it, is finally in place as is the ladder. I added a small washer before the signal arm so it sits 'in the middle' of the case nicely. When all folded up (for the umpteenth time) the arm turns nicely, just tight enough not to wobble but free enough for a servo to drive it.      There's no base with the kit so I've
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Signal Wires...

Originally I'd decided that just having the signal wire posts and pulleys would be sufficient, but having done most of the point rodding I thought I'd just try a guitar string since I'd mentioned that might work and thought it would be fun. So I did, and entered a whole new world of "this is actually probably insane". The No. 1 problem is actually being able to see the dammed things... Still, the experimental one went ok, putting a nice bend in it round the pulley at the box (my needle file is t
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It's Finally Coming Together...

At long last The Signal is done! Hoorah! The lamp lines up with the lenses, it's fully painted, the control rods work correctly and it's installed. Now I've got a Train Set :-) It's had to move a bit though, so the dummies are a bit ahead of it - somewhere there will be a prototype ;-) This was due, again, to the underlying geology - another stratum of wrongplacius shale due to a four inch tectonic shift between the formation being created and the layout being, er, laid out. Luckily some angular
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Scenery

Been A While...

Musicing has been occupying me somewhat over the last few days, but bits and bobs have been done. Wanting to do the claying between the two crossings at the station end I realised that the Curse Of The Point Rodding and it's associate Signal Wires could not be avoided. So a ruck of single stools was made, together with a set of buffer stops for the end of the General Goods road. The stools are mounted on squares of cork, as I've concluded the cork, when painted with 'Concrete', gives a good repr
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As Thoughts Look South

With the end in sight, though still quite a distance off, thoughts are turning to the other end of the layout and what to put where and why. I have a plan, but I suspect it will evolve somewhat as things roll south just like the north did (i.e nothing like the plan at all). For now it's a bit of a stuff park.
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SIgnals

Signal Kit Build - 3

The part of the instructions, which have only a couple of sketches and reminded me today of Airfix instructions back in the day when they purely text, is to add either a signal wire pulley, or a crank arm (cosmetic). This is different from the other kit I did which just offered a crank, so naturally I've gone with the pulley - though this is I suspect not prototypical for the period. It uses the same part as the bracket on the post and folds up with a pulley on another short bit of rod. This is
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SIgnals

Signal Kit Build - Paint

And so to painting and finishing. First off was to pop out to the garden and spray it with good old Hafords etch primer (the can's about eight years old and still going strong). Before I did this I intended to mask the lamp 'lenses' with a bit of Blue Tac but forgot. I got away with it. The signal was then appropriately decorated. The black is possibly a bit shinier that intended, I'm going with having a very keen S&T Dept rather than mess about. The grey is just the aforementioned Halfords
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SIgnals

Banner Repeater Kit Build - Done (At Last!)

So the last bit was cap for the post. The bits I found in the signals odd-and-ends bag turned out to not be what was desired. However, further rooting around produced a brass disc (I'm guessing a counter-balance weight) that was only slightly oversize. Filing this to fit, it needs to be a kind of dome affair going by the drawing, was not going to be easy. Then the little grey cells had a conference and Plan B arrived... I soldered it to a off-cut of the correct size post, then it was easy to fil
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So Far So Good

I finally knuckled down to doing the point rodding. Somewhat to my surprise it's all gone well, if a little slow. Under the branch track the crank for the facing point lock went it and using Plastruct square the rod the headshunt point rod placed. The the FPL and branch points were connected to the run back to the signal box. These are 's's of round 0.7mm round brass kinked to drop the height from the rod in the chair to the crank and soldered to 0.7mm square rod . They are perhaps a little exag
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No Signals. Almost.

The signal had a coat of white, where appropriate. Not overly exciting. The power supply I was using to test LEDs caused a ripple - the signal suddenly stopped working not long after glueing the lamp on... Supply the died. Replacement on the way. Ah for the days of popping down to the local electronics junk shop to rummage around for a replacement. Maybe not.   A coupe of signal wires are now in place. The castings of the pullies have gaps-ish above that, if drilled out,  would allow t
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Progress...

Finally the crossing is now complete. I've cut some wood to represent a railing that was protecting whatever it was that caused the wide bit to be built, this will appear when I've worked out how to make it look a bit derelict.  The real reason is that yard of track the headshunt came from had been mounted on a plinth, complete with barrow crossing, for photographing a ruck of wagons I sold some years back. When I came to lay the track for Soddingham the middle bit of the crossing wouldn't come
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Tree Planting. And Ground Frame Planting.

Here's some photos of the trees that are now officially planted. One shows how I'm using the 'roots' (with a 'tap root' going straight down) to keep the tree upright. After putting a good coat of brown/black acrylic mixed with PVA where required the stuff is wetted quite a lot with dilute PVA using a dropper, this makes the PVA soak into the papier mache and give a surprisingly strong fixing. Not good enough for a portable layout though. I changed the arrangement of the trees a bit so the walls
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Stone. Loads Of Stone. Walls.

And so to the excellent tunnel mouth and stone walling from Invertrain. The first thing was to paint everything grey (a match pot from B&Q). I kind of assumed the plaster would suck the paint right in requiring many coats, but it just needed the one. Not the greatest photo, the flash on my phone is way OTT, but here's the bit I tackled first - the tunnel mouth. After the grey had dried I got out my chalks (did I mention I love chalks now for weathering). Basically I 'drew' wh
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