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About this blog

Previously documenting the recreation of a small sliver of Oxfordshire in miniature finescale with regular deviations into the rolling stock being built as a distraction this blog has been renamed to reflect the decision not to finish Littlemore in the near - mid future.

Entries in this blog

How to Not Letter Wagons

For the first time in several months I had very very little on this weekend. Apart from a plan to get the first BBQ of the year in, that got rained off both days and is rescheduled for this weekend ), and a short visit to some of our significant others family I had a good chunk of time to use. Like many modellers I have more than one stash of stuff that I'd like to make one day. There are others that I would like to start soon. I have further stashes of stuff that I bought that is likely to rema
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

10

Back from the Dead

It's been a while, 6 months I see from the last entry, but like buses three come along at once. Various real life (what model trains are not real life?) issues prevented much (any) progress with things for a long time. A couple of exhibition visits of late have really got me motivated again and after I treated myself to a frankly ridiculous desk light that Precision Paints had on offer at the Watford show I had to have a test.   I've been working on the trio of Bachman Macaw Bs that were acqui
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richbrummitt

10

One at a Time Please, But is this One Right?

I finally unfolded the layout on Sunday night after it's trip out the previous weekend. I haven't tested it yet, but I believe that it will work again now that it is in more comfortable climes (even if the room does get hot in the evenings, having a west facing).   Something that I became aware of is how much more stock I need to build for the layout and in the meantime I have started to chip away at the shelf of unfinished models (that have spread to the desk behind my window workbench). I pu
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

7

I enjoyed playing trains

I had an enjoyable but tiring weekend. I was surprised by the quantity of layouts in attendance, including some that I had not seen before (even excepting the challenge layouts). The layout was transported and erected without problems and ran pretty well too. I had problems all day Saturday transferring from the layout into the cassettes with almost everything derailing, but the so far not very scenic section only has a few niggles. The problem with the cassettes is with the haste of constructi
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richbrummitt

13

You Shall Go to the Ball

The aim was to have a portable layout that wasn't a micro shunting plank that would fit in to our (rather small) car. There's nothing wrong with shunting planks but I wanted the whole station, preferably uncompressed. I drive a Citroen C2, and there's not much room in the back. Unfortunately hobbies that require large objects to be moved don't fit in well with a love of small French hatches.   Initially I thought the layout could fit behind the rear seats, but this is a daft shaped space that
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richbrummitt

3

Normal Service Will Be Resumed

My internet is broken somewhat broken, hence the lack of pictures. I am down to 18kB/s on up to 4Mb broadband! On top of that the Sky+ box died overnight, refusing to come off stand by. That said there is very little to see with the layout.   I booked the week off work to do finish the to-do list so that the layout can travel, and would work. I even wrote the to-do list. This went something like:   Finish power supply enclosure Build some cassettes Fit adaptors for the cassettes to fit to
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

5

Double Heading

I'm still working on having things moving on the layout at Expo with under three weeks remaining.   Several weeks ago a pleasant suprise landed in my inbox, an opportunity to test build two new locomotive chassis kits. A short exchange of emails later and a subsequent jiffy packet arriving through the letter box and we were away.   The chassis are to fit the GF 57xx body and the Dapol 0-4-2T     Also included was a jig for assembling the frames     First the frames are bushed befo
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

11

Where'd it go?

I visited Littlemore recently to take some photographs of the site as it is today and better understand the topography. Here are just some of the pictures I took to help with the layout, along with some explanation to help make sense of them.   The site of the station itself is now occupied by a fabricators. Here is how the approach looks today from the road:     and the approach itself:     The station buildings are long gone. The road is carried on an overbridge, mostly built up ov
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

0

All Aboard - Let's Play Trains

I fixed the last of the wires yesterday evening. The layout has been electrically finished, but untested, for about a week. I just had to finish boxing up the controls and transformer. The controller is a Malcolm's Miniatures Pictroller housed in a Maplins box of appropriate size. This is the closest thing I could find to a Pentroller without the uncertainty of supply. The only major difference as a user is that the brake is not continuous - it has a pot to set and then the brake can be applied
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richbrummitt

3

An expensive mess

I've lost count of how much I've spent on wire, and yes it looks almost exactly like last time you saw it. It is however fully wired up. Unanswered questions still include: Why does it all take so long; and is it possible to make it neat? Here's a gratuitous picture from the other end of the layout.     I have used 3PDT switches (a 4PDT in one case) to allow the track to be double isolated unless the correct route is set. This should, in theory anyway, work just like insulated turnouts - on
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richbrummitt

2

Getting Hooked Up

There haven't been any entries recently and this is not due to a lack of progress. My main focus is on getting the wiring complete. This always takes me far longer than I would like, looks disorganised, costs too much, and generally fails to work quite as well as I hoped - hence there are no images to accompany this entry.   Perhaps tomorrow will be a fruitful day and the TOUs (revision - I've lost count) will be installed and working and attention can turn to a pair of locomotive chassis that
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richbrummitt

0

Ready to Run?

Not yet but I did have a productive weekend wiring up track. All the dropper wires bar the vees and wing rails are now in place and soldered up. I used up some stranded wire that looked small enough without being silly with flexible insulation. The wire (pre-tinned) is passed through a hole drilled adjacent to the rail on the operator side. The wire is bent towards and then parallel with the rail, fluxed and then helod underneath the rail whilst the soldering iron (with a small pointy tip) is in
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richbrummitt

1

Hang On - These Will Test Your Patience

I mentioned working on Masterclass brake vans in a much earlier post. The kits go together very well but then there are the handrails. I've been doing some other things to give me a break from bending and cutting wire before *ping* and it's out of the tweezers goodness knows where! I think you have become a seasoned model maker when you can make a valiant attempt to recover the small parts based on the sound of what they land on or against? I must have half a set of handrails in the carpet some
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richbrummitt

9

Wagons Also Spin

Actually that's a lie because although last night saw the wagon turntable installed it is permanently fixed in line with the main siding.     The outer slots are from when the turntable would have been broad gauge. Information that I have been able to locate suggests that the castings that formed the outer ring were hacked on site when the gauge conversion was made.     The wood deck is removable for the moment to facilitate painting. It also requires the planking scribed in.   The e
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

0

Wagons Roll

After a frustrating Easter weekend trying in vain to produce TOUs to any design that might have the necessary pre-requisites I eventually figured something out. This has allowed me to get on with track laying. I'm not convinced that Easitrac is any quicker than soldered construction. It is undoubtably easier if you are scared of a soldering iron and will probably have improved appearance compared with solder blob chairs. However I am in no doubt that Versaline is the current daddy where appearan
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

6

Leg Problems No More. Stability Success

I now have the legs complete with stays and locking pins and I've had a clearout to allow the 'layout' to be installed in it's displayed state within the hobby room for work on the track and scenics. All the legs have adjustable feet on now too to compensate for uneven floors and my inability to cut eight legs to precisely the same length!   I fitted a lower brace to the outer legs, improving stability, that meant the cassette ends had to be shortened a little. This was carefully calculated th
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

2

Stop. It's the end of the line.

I haven't given up! This evening I've put together one of the new range of buffer stops available from the 2mm SA.     The etch folds in half to make up double thickness portions. A Z-fold makes the alignment of the three 'rail' portions to be joined quick easy. A choice of wood (represented by six thickness' of etch) or rail cross beams are supplied on the fret, but nothing looks quite as good as wood as wood itself. Using wood for the cross beam also solves the problem of isolating one ra
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richbrummitt

8

The rain stopped, briefly.

The weather eased for a few days at the same time as I had booked some leave. I had hoped that the two would coincide and must have got lucky. As a result a lot has happened to the baseboards, but nothing picture-worthy. What I have done is organised a lot of items for the layout. I have had a couple of orders of baseboard fittings arrive. These are all now fixed so the boards lock and peg together when folded. When unfolded the feet are adjustable in height. After a large amount of corrections
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richbrummitt

0

Diamond geezer... ...or should that be lathe abuse?

Quite a bit has happened in the last two weeks whilst rmweb has been on it's travels. The weather to go outside and finish the legs, extensions and bracing on the boards has still not been forthcoming. I booked a couple of days off work to get extra daylight and the heavens sent rain (and snow). So instead I've been building brake vans and getting a sore throat. More on them another time.   I figured that to make the short diamond a jig was in order so I figured out a way to make it on my lit
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

2

Slow Progress

After a more off than on January I've finally got my backside into gear. I realised that I was getting behind (that's if I was ever up to date?) and have set myself goals on a monthly basis. The first of these is to have the track laid and operational at the end of February.   So far all the rails are in the blocked crossing area that makes up the east end of the platform. I'm really impressed with how it has come out, and running stock through it appears I only have one tweak to make where th
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richbrummitt

3

Crossing work begins

After reading several times through the GWSG publication on GWR switch and crossing practise I felt ready to begin creating timbering diagrams for construction. I used the A3 photocopy to scan into CAD and then stretch and scale to size then drew over the top. This took much longer than I thought, and it would probably be quicker to recommend that anyone else thinking of doing things this way stopped after the initial splines and then added all other detail afterwards.   There were two main ar
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0

Beginning with baseboards and a bit of history

I planned to model a larger station on the line, but did not want to compress any of the track plan so settling for one of the smaller stations (although one with plenty of goods traffic) made for a much better option. The only wall longer than 10' in our house is in the living room and that is out of bounds for model trains. On top of this I have a small car, and if the layout was going to be portable then it had to be compact.   I took the track plan from a map in a book and increased the si
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richbrummitt

3

An introduction

I thought best to introduce what is to follow.   I intend to keep the thread up to date with what is happening across my workbench (wherever that is in house or garden) but the primary reason for getting on with it now was to allow others to see how my layout Littlemore* is progressing towards that ever closer date in June when the 2mm Scale Association is celebrating it's 50th Anniversary in Oxford with a 2 day expo.   I have kept a record of my completed (or near completed) rolling stock
richbrummitt

richbrummitt

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