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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

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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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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Buffer Stops

Looking to assemble the first set of buffers properly, I couldn't help but think I can get an LED in that lamp moulding. Looking for coloured 'glass' now... These buffers, being a headshunt, the platform ones and the ones at the end of the run-round will get the treatment. The ones at the end of ordinary sidings didn't usually have them, so the lamps will be cut off them. Watch this space.   View the full article  
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Old Endings & New Beginnings

So this is where it ended, and this where it started. After just putting my soldering iron down to open the door to get my nice new shiny (but not very good) guitar I never went back into that side of the loft, except to round up all the 30 odd wagons (O gauge) I'd built, brass and plastic, to sell on eBay to buy a moderately seriously expensive (but gorgeous) new guitar. Not a yard of track had been laid. All that was left was a set of home made points (the Great Plan required about twenty sets
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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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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 g
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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 one
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