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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 Signal Box & Platform Saga

I was still not happy with the brickwork on the signal box, or the platform for that matter. A while back I ordered from Wizard Models and when rooting round their site found the only 'scenic' product they do - a set of 12 Weathering Pastels. On the basis that this seems to be a shop that knows it's stuff and they must sell these pastels because people want them, and they want them because they work , I ordered a set. I tried them on the old desk-tidy tipper, but really it's to far gon
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Mucho Plunder Arrives

A couple of days drift by... Much excitement! All four sets of points turn up, so up to the loft with a gallon of coffee. First to be laid was the curved points that connect the the, er, 'West' end of the double slip, forming the exit to the main line. This straight forward really, drill assorted holes as outlined earlier and there we go. Here's a picture. Above : The first curved points in place. Some sleeper shoving to do, see later. Next I decided to lay the link from the reception
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Paper Mache...

With walls in place, the general ground level sort of said what it wanted to do, so... And then... On the right of the main line there's a cardboard former that supports the footpath. It came out a bit higher than intended, but actually allowed the addition of another set of 'steps' - a fancy crossing will ensue at some point. A huge mountain of green and similar stuff should be arriving in about a week, that will really move things along.   View the fu
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Brick And Stone?

It has been noted that Soddingham has a mixture of somehow Midland looking brick structures and stone for the engineering side of things. Further research has shown that original earthworks were undertaken by the Thasteephill & Watbrakes Railway Company that went insolvent after the Foreman lost sixpence at a game of cards. Construction was completed by a bloke called Frank, who happened to have a job lot of red bricks going spare, on behalf of the Pennipincher & Cheapp Railway. No evide
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The Ground Signal Projects Nears The End

It's been a while since the bog has been updated. Stuffs been going on, but musicy stuff has also been happening so the blog got a bit ignored. So, the dummies... The dummies got assembled in a sort of production line after the first one proved successful. That's seven (I did say somewhat over-signalled!) and one double one. This is essentially like the others, but with just one stand. The LED hole was drilled right through the lower one and the upper ones wires passed through. T
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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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More Slartibartfast Stuff.

And back to the landscape. While doing the papier mache for the other side of the tracks it turned out that the hill was a bit steeper than intended, so another set of sleeper steps went in, glued to a cardboard former as previously. The flash messing the photo up again. The steps have been weathered since - you guessed it, chalks again. Time to un-mow the grass. But then I looked at the pile of bits left over from the assorted walls and got this idea of having a
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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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The Headshunt Is Done(ish)

After a deal of uming and aring about it, the headshunt has been clayed, a bit of ballast pushed in before drying, and then painted with sleeper grime. While still wet, a very dilute black was dabbed onto get the good old oily stains. The sidings will ballasted with clay and black N gauge ash ballast, suitably smoothed where walkways go and washed with sleeper grime and any other yardy colours to hand The first dummy is in place too, working and illuminated (but not at the moment!). T
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Electric String Time

So, now, to wiring it all up. Although it's all a bit of a lash up for now (until I get correct wire and know where I'm going a bit) I did still need to mount the point motor switches, as trying to use them dangling about seems likely to lead to cooked point motors as I fumble about with them. To this end I marked out the control panel with something representing the layout and mounted the switches. This will be re-visited later when I've worked out exactly what I want. Putting the 08 on the tra
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The Hills Are Alive...

Essentially just so I can ballast the headshunt, scenery has started appearing. For my terra-forming I'm using good old papier mache - not lest because you can make a bucket of wallpaper paste and it lasts days. Peco O gauge point boxes are a brilliant source of good strong cardboard. And then fix the steps in place (about half way between the slightly over-scale oil can and the wall). And add lashings of paper strips. This will get a brown 'undercoat' then flock, static gr
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Cork, Cork, Lovely Cork!

Cork... I went for 3mm to allow a nice shoulder on the ballast where appropriate. Elsewhere cork goes pretty much everywhere, effectively raising the formation 3mm in general. Right Here is the posy controller I talked about above. When I bought it I thought it was pretty gimmicky, but did like the 'throttle lever'. However I'm quite converted now, it adds something having to brake to stop. I guess you can do this with DCC, but expense. All is now set for tomorrow's (hopefully) triump
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Static Grass. Man.

This is something that just didn't exist the last time I built a layout, but Chris Nevard's photos of it's use convinced me that it's the way to go. So, over to Youtube and see how it works. Obviously the first thing is getting a static grass tool. Some googling revealed news that would not impress the bank manager, so I looked up the technicalities of how it works and got wondering if there was a Plan B short of making a Van Der Graff generator. Indeed there is, cheap and nasty bug swatter
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The First Parcel Arrives.

So here we are, a nice parcel arrived... Being in big kid mode, I opened the slip first. There's just something about them, isn't there? Ok, just me then. There's not a lot else to say other than in O it's pretty impressive. And big. So to the 08. Sad old me had watched an unboxing video of one, luckily as it happens, because getting it out of the foam had no obvious route. The bod in the video broke his, so with some trepidation I tried tipping it out into my hand - all was good, except on
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Inevitable Irrational Rationale For Highly Improbable Scenario

The era wasn't going to be an issue : BR blue is the best train livery ever (there, I said it), not least because that was the colour when I worked on the Railway. It is going to be set in Somerset. Or Wiltshire. Or, for technical reasons, Aberdeen. Plan A was a simple wagon repair facility but... Technology Ramble Alert ... I had bit more room than it looked, about 14ft x 3ft, with a 4ft wide bit for the last 3ft. So, out with Templot and... well, I admit it, building one set of points was
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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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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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More Signal Box...

Half way through having a go at weathering the signal box's roof I realised I'd forgotten to paint the chimney. Then it occurred to me that every signal box I went it had a stove, whereas this box would have a have a mighty chimney breast to support such a large stack. In fact, there wouldn't be much room in the box for anything else. Some googling confirmed it - BR(W) boxes don't have chimneys, they have stove pipes (with an 'H' on the end). Doubtless a raft of exceptions exist. And some one ma
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Buffer Stops Plan Works

Having had a good look at what is needed to light up the lantern on the Peco buffers, a coupe of holes were drilled, 1.5mm upwards for the LED to go in, and one the size of the 'lens' on the lamp (3mm?). A small hand-drilled hole, done with the pin vice, ensured the larger drill followed the correct path to Nirvana. Then, with a blob of Evostick on the wires where they go in, stick the LED in. I made sure it was facing outwards, but with hindsight having it facing the back might have
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Signal Box Complete(ish)

Having got rid of the chimney and having added the gazing the signal box has assumed residency of it's real estate. Wires are in place for the interior light and cork laid to bring it up to sleeper height. The white thing is the ramp that goes in front of the box to provide a walk way, and somewhere to hide the ends of the rodding. Oh, I did take a photo.   View the full article  
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A Banner Repeater

Whilst painting the inside of the tunnel I got to wondering about Starter signals. Plan A, not that one, the other one, was to put a Section signal at the tunnel entrance but even by model railway standards the Station Limits would be ridiculously short, especially when there's quite a lot of shunting moves that would require blocking back inside the home signal all the time (an even bigger pain in the bum on a single line with tokens going in and out all day). While perusing the Wizard/MSE site
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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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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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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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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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