Jump to content
 
  • entries
    64
  • comments
    60
  • views
    14,353

About this blog

UK outline train ferry terminal project in n gauge loosely based on modern southern region prototypes borrowing heavily from Dover Western Docks, Admiralty Pier, Folkstone Harbour, and a little bit of Harwich. Imagine if the channel tunnel hadn't caused the train ferry to close and instead the two complimented each other and built international traffic upto the present day. 'Seahaven' is my realisation of that idea. 

IMG_20200826_212559_1.jpg

Entries in this blog

A quick update...

Just a quick update tonight as I didn't have much time. The shrubbery has grown dramatically today with the rest of the embankment covered up. I've left a small amount of embankment clear for a small diorama depicting a landslip.    (embankment fully vegetated)    There are two structures that will adorn the top of the cliff. The first was an abandoned WW2 observation bunker. These were always very crude bits of architecture so thankfully quite easy to model. Digging th

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Reflections on progress...

So it's been a while since my last update. Progress has slowed on the railway through January and February as I have been volunteering at a vaccine clinic many weekends, work has been taking up a lot of time, and two children's birthdays needed attending to. I found myself with a spare couple of hours this afternoon so decided to work on the side back scene. Having spent a couple of hours trying to sketch in convincing perspectives to carry the quayside into the back scene it was proving impossi

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

A place to stay...

With the advancement of the back scene into the townscape I needed to create some building facades to try and link the painted back scene with the main model. The first building I tried was to the left of the station bridge. I thought this might work nicely as a slightly down at heal establishment whose heyday of catering for well to do passengers eager to catch the first ferry of the morning to get into Paris by midday has long since gone. Its clientele are now more likely to be railway workers

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

The hills are alive...

The back scene painting has come on from doing the sky last time. I started with painting the hills into the cliff face. I had sketched in a viaduct in the background to suggest a mainline that the station and goods branches end up connecting to.    (initial hill painted in. A hint of woodland copses and hedgerows on the hills with scrubby embankments either side of the viaduct)    Following this I carried on with the hillscape round the layout until it came to another

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Sorting security...

With the completion of ballasting on the upper section of the layout yesterday I decided to get the security fence up between network rail and port authority land. This was laser cut palisade fencing from scale model scenery. Having painted it a suitable olive drab green on the sprue I predrilled holes with my hand drill and glued down.    (security fencing in place)    I had some further signage to put around the tunnel mouth along with a temporary crossing for road /

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Finishing the permanent way...

This weekend saw a milestone reached on my layout as I finished off the last of the permanent way with more das clay and a final ballasting of the station branch line. It certainly feels like an achievement covering the last of the plywood after 5 months of solid work. The first area to be done was the station layover siding. This will be for boat train stock and the odd civil engineers train. I therefore wanted the siding to have a similar well worn feel to the lower yard and used the same das

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

More signs, barriers, and some point levers

More detailing around the lower yard today having painted the track work yesterday.    (das clay and ballast on the lower yard)    (trackwork painted)    The first detail around the yard were more crash barriers to prevent vehicles driving onto the tracks   (barrier by the parking bay)    The next detail was point levers. I made these by bending some 1mm brass tube with plyers and sticking them in some 3mm thick balsa.   

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Putting up the barriers...

Having finished my Christmas Dinner duties, boxing day allowed me a little modelling time. I had bought some styrene I beam some time back to create armco barriers to protect the Linkspan headshunt from wayward vehicles. Having completed the French drain and ground plain I thought I could give it a go. There are several ready made armco type barriers on the market but you are always paying a premium for not trying to scratchbuild so I thought I would give it a go.    Initially I tried

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Building the gantry sign...

It must be the inner geek in me but I've always found gantry signs interesting structures and have wanted to model one. This wasn't going to be a motorway gantry sign as the prototypes I've seen at Dover are a thinner a frame type structure than the massive monolithic structures put up by Highways England.    (prototype signage at Dover with a frame structural supports)    I started off making the sign face out of a piece of balsa sheet. I wanted this lit as per prototy

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Shedding more light on the matter...

Having learnt my lessons from yesterday I carried on with the lighting. Trying to get as much wiring done as possible so it could be hidden by the remainder of the landscaping.    The first item tackled was the Linkspan winding house. I had left the roof removable when I had first made it to allow lighting to be fitted later on. I wanted a white light shining down to illuminate the bridge immediately beneath the winding house along with my first try with fibre optics to provide some li

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

A little lighting...

Not much time to progress over the last few days but before I did too much more I wanted to get some lighting in to ensure I could cover up the wiring fairly easily.    My first go at the high masts was with a yellow LED to represent a sodium bulb. Unfortunately having tried it out there wasn't enough light coming out of it for the effect I wanted and I didn't have enough room in my brass rod to get any more LEDs.    Initial trial with a yellow bulb. Can you spot the li

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Advancing the asphalt...

It's been a few days since I last posted but progress have been steady. I've been focusing on completing the das clay roadway around the Dock area.    More rolling between balsa formers to get the right depth before smoothing off with a shaping tool.    (rolling out the das clay to correct depth and standard width before laying on a pva layer)    There was a lot of cutting and shaping the clay to get it around lots of tricky corners.    (all th

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Taking care of the tarmac...

Having completed the cliffs and having an evening to spare I decided to tackle a fairly long section of road. Having learnt from my earlier mistakes with the overbridge and Linkspan I didn't try to put the ironworks in first. They can be a finishing touch instead which stops them getting bashed about. It also saves a lot of fiddly cutting about the das clay. I used the air dried clay again as overall I was pleased with the result last time and I still have a large block to use up! Sticking two s

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Some more progress

An evenings tabletop model railwaying and progress around the Dock area, bridges, Linkspan and ferry with plenty of balsa wood put in to fill in gaps and tidy up plywood edges

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

The landscaping continues...

So having left the plaster to dry overnight today was a painting day.  Firstly I painted the soil a lightish soil colour having seen some photos showing how the underlying chalk affected the upper soil colour   (pic of light brown soils on the white cliffs)    (soils painted-its lighter than it looks)    Having painted the soils I then painted the cliffs some very light shades of grey and white. Initially my son asked me why I was painting my cliffs

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

Painting the billboards...

You might have seen sometime back that I had created a sign sheet with some billboards. To test the theory and the new range of acrylic paints that I had just got I thought I would knock up some billboards and give it a go at painting them.      This was the sort of look I was going for which seem pretty standard with a timber close boarded base. So once again it was out with the balsa wood and marking and cutting    (a base blank marked out with the dims of

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

Mind the gaps...

There were lots of large gaps in the ferry woodwork which needed filling. The chimney stacks consist of 3 pieces of 5mm ply stuck together which had been cut out with a jigsaw so not desperately accurate. Whilst balsa helped to cover over the crude edges there were a lot of visible gaps between balsa and ply. With not much time for modelling today (I had a big odd job 'to do' list) I decided that might be a good small job to fit in around chores. I had bought some balsa filler which seemed to of

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

Linkspan structurally complete!

So a busy day of modelling today with the aim of getting the Linkspan winding house structurally complete.    Firstly I assembled the leg structure cutting the tops and bottoms of theain structural supports to get them sitting at an angle as per prototype.    (leg structure coming on ready to be attached to main support structure made yesterday.)    Having created the legs a quick check was made to ensure the legs lined up with the 'concrete' pile caps. 

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

A start made...

Starting the Linkspan winding machine house building tonight. This will take more than an evening to complete. My styrene I beam arrived today so could get on with it. Firstly I started with the housing base structure which will eventually stand on legs above the Linkspan bridges.    (first stage - styrene beam structure)    Once I had finished with this I started on the housing itself made from Wills corrugated plastic sheet.    (progress on the upper h

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

Found it!

Researching the structures I'm wanting to build is always an enjoyable part of the hobby for me. Unfortunately if you are trying to build something that has been demolished you are left to scouring the internet for photos, the odd scaled drawing, and perhaps a book on the subject if you are lucky. One online article that has proved a mine of visual information and reference in planning for this project has been http://www.doverferryphotosforums.co.uk/ and an article on the Admiralty Pier Train F

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

A temporary office...

So today I had a bit of time to do some more modelling and advance my scratchbuilding skills. I need a portakabin type structure to act as a combined office for the ferry and train staff on the quayside. Having done a bit of research on sizes of units and suitably scaled them down to n gauge I started to produce the model   (my sketch drawings and scaled dims of a standard 12155x4050mm portakabin. I initially cut the floor and roof out of thick balsa and glued together with stren

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

A mini production line...

So having created a security kiosk I was happy with yesterday and with only a limited bit of building time this evening I decided to set up a little production line to produce the two others I required.    (sort of cabin I was looking to create found on a Google search with some useful dimensions that just needed dividing by 148)   By close of play I had managed to complete all three:   (three completed cabins)    And located on the layout

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

My first scratchbuilt building...

As well as more work on the civil engineering today I also made my first scratchbuilt building. A security kiosk. I need to make about 5-6 of these so this was just a trial run   With a bit of painting and so correct signage I think it should do the job. Greater scratchbuilding challenges lie ahead.    (first attempt at a light mast base. Unfortunately couldn't cope with my drilling a hole in it)    (attempt no2. Working better. This 5mm diameter 3

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

Bridges, boats, and lighting mast bases...

So today has been spent on alot of detail. Taking lots of thin balsa strips and neatening tunnel mouths and providing a bit more structural detail on abutments (additional bridge abutment detail)    (tunnel mouth neatened up ready for some 'concrete' paper   After a comment from another user here I spent a lot of time checking clearances with two types of wagon before sticking down the walls to the HM customs warehouse    (an early train load

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

Sign of the times...

With family games night limiting my time on the baseboard today I decided instead to do a bit more on the signage sheet I've been putting together. I noticed that with the commercial sheets you buy there is inevitably quite a lot of wastage as I don't need most of the signs they supply. Also due to the very specific nature of my project there are also a lot of signs that I require that are not available commercially. I therefore decided to try and create a sheet myself. For the standard signs th

Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson

×
×
  • Create New...