Yes I know…. It’s been a while. I seem too busy building stuff to be writing about it, although not as busy as Steve’s been…
There’s a popular myth that the only water troughs in a Tunnel were at Standedge on the ex LNW transpennine route…not quite;
Some have been discovered in a tunnel near Saltney….
Made from plastic channel and constructed “in situ”, the many support brackets were glued down as the channel was laid. The planking (provided to stop the water from washing the ballast aw
Steve’s finished the footbridge over the lower yard and I think it’s blended in well and adds a bit of interest.
Still in the lower yard, some of the sidings have been partly buried in plaster to represent the ash and general waste material that was traditionally used to ballast the track in sidings during the steam era.
Still a lot of work to do on it with bits of grass and weeds etc.
The goods shed looks a little more “planted†now as well.
I’ve now fitted
After a pleasant couple of hours at the Gresford gauge 0 get-together, (where I met fellow RM Webbers Dikitriki and Dibateg, nice to meet you fellas!), I returned home to daub a bit of paint on ET’s replacement, the stone bridge.
The results can be seen below and I’ve left it with Steve to install and bed-in.
Once it’s in, I’ll blend in the surrounding stone-work and I’ll then be ready to re- install the signal gantry.
This will be moved so it’s on the “approach†sid
Fitted a banner repeater signal and the home signal it repeats. Both are worked by the now standard micro servos.
Steve has finished the cottages. Someone's moved in and got the washing out already .
Work will now concentrate on building & fitting the rest of the mainline signals and monitoring the working of the Dingham couplings fitted to some of the stock.
Someone say Dinghams?... Next time we'll have a look at those....
More Soon.....
As suggested, a new little station has appeared by the loco shed along with a signal that has mysteriously sprung up . Must be the time of year. . As Steve has named the GW high level station Upper Mill, me and Kenny reckon the new station is called Lower Mill.
I think Steve will get back to me on that one...
A nice Marcway curved point has also appeared near the junction. I think it was one of those "I've got one of these going spare/free if you can make any use of it Steve" things.
Finally got round to painting the retaining walls along the edge of the LM yard. About 9 foot of it..
It was all painted in a concrete colour, allowed to dry then a colour mixed about 50/50 matt black and Humbrol 26 ("matt dark earth" I think) brushed diagonally over the raised bits. took about 3 and a half hours including brew breaks. I think it looks ok.
Steve's now started the GW station track laying. The station throat board is removeable at the moment, so
Firstly, must apologise if these entries seem to be coming a bit thick and fast. Just trying to bring it up to date without making each entry too big!
Steve had a bit of luck when someone gave him a load of photgraphic backscene sheets. OK they were seconds but very useful nevertheless. They were quickly mounted on boards and installed (to hide my point motors!)
A bit of work with the plaster bandage, paint and green lumpy stuff and a nice scenic area was the result.
I placed my detailed Alph
Ok here's a bit of an update. I can't currently include any pictures within the text due to what must be, to Andy and the dedicated admin team, frustating problems, but the link to the gallery should give you an idea of where we are now.
Steve and Les are much faster and more regular workers on the layout and have for the most part, completed the major scenic work on the main lines and surrounding areas. I've plodded on with my little area by the LM station entrance when I can, but work and oth
In our banker siding, Steve has provided a little coaling facility to feed the bunkers and tenders of the busy bank engines.
Another ex Talacre signal has been re-furbed and positioned at the LM jc; this is now the home signal coming off the incline from the GW station.
More retaining wall has had its lumpy stone added ready for painting and the yard at the LM station now has a cobbled area. Steve has left a space that might as well have a big arrow with flashing lights that says "The good
Seems a bit busy for a Sunday here in Chester PSB Interfering with my modelling time
Had a huge T3 block that had to be shortened and re-written then when the trains started running along come a load of diversions. tsk.tsk.
Still... managed to cut out a roof truss from foamex sheet for the goods shed. I reckon I'll need 6 or 7 so being a lazy b+++++r I'll draw round the first one a few times rather than mark them all up. They won't be part of the structure as such, just there to create a b
Decided to stick at 5 trusses, which I think gives a full enough look without being too crowded.
I've included an internal picture of Waverton goods shed (LNW wooden built, near Chester) as a comparison.
I think Steve likes a few lights in the buildings so some level of internal details is necessary.
Hopefully it's now time to start the "pretty" bits. Slaters stone walling and embossed slates.
I'll probably need some detaily bits from Invertrain(windows, doors, chimneys gutters etc., Du
While I battled with the wiring, Steve next turned to adding more detail and atmosphere to the MPD, getting the turntable working well, making a control panel and wiring up some lights. More green lumpy stuff was applied and plenty of colour sprayed to blend it all in.
To complete the scene, a Skytrex enginemans bothy was added and blended in after Steve worked his magic on it.
The goods shed at “Slugworth†(not convinced that name’ll stick) is now just about finished and in position.
I’ve built an internal crane from wooden coffee stirrers and assorted bits of brass from the scrap box, fitted gutters & downpipes, LED lights and the windows in the office.
The roof and canopy have been painted and weathered but there are still ridge tiles to fit and quite a bit more internal detail to add.
Steve’s now added the island platform to the G
Making a bit of progress with the goods shed for Slugworth.
It's not a model of any particular goods shed but a conglomeration of odd pictures I've seen and a major influence is the 4mm scale Townstreet LNW style goods shed that "Coachman" has made in his Buildings blog (thanks for the inspiration Larry )
I'll be using some resin window frames from Invertrain and yes I know it has different styles on each side. Couldn't decide which window shape I preferred so I used both.
A recent visiting loco in the form of J94 68006 brought an ER flavour to the layout. This was until someone pointed out that 68006 had done time at Birkenhead shed in the early 60’s! A bit more local loco than we thought..
My Arriva liveried bubble car escaped from Cardiff Bay and managed more mileage round the layout in an hour than the real thing does in a day (probably)
Another visitor in the form of a GW liveried auto trailer looked rather nice (even if it was with a BR liveried l
Well, it’s been a while since the last update and we’ve been busy with a lot of things, not all of them layout related.
The signal gantry seems to be behaving itself and has settled in well. I think I’ll eventually convert most of the signals to servo operation as the operation of them makes things like basic interlocking and route selection much easier to install (when I get round to it!).
Steve has laid and wired up the rest of the track in the high level station and made up &
Fitted the gantry at the LM Jc today, with it's associated servo gubbins.
Wired up to 12vdc, lit up and operative via on/off switches it twitched and grumbled into life, settling down to relative silence about 15 seconds after each activation.
As you can see there is still a little bit of "stand off" on the 2 miniature arms but this is mechanical rather than anything to do with the servo action. A little adjustment will be required.
Still a bit buzzy sometimes but nothing serious.
Very sa
Took the goods shed round to the layout to see if it would fit in the 'ole Steve marked out for it.
As it seems to, and doesn't look too bad, it's time to take it off again! (Then go away and finish it..)
While progress has been slow in my workshop, Steve's finished off his water tower and re-started laying track on the high level station.
To fill a hole in a corner, Steve dug out some old bits of low relief buildings from "Talacre" and added a few walls (with support) to create a nice dank scene behind the signalbox. When it was completed (much to Steve's consternation)someone noticed the similarity to a scene from a certain grisly British film of the early 70's. A suitable street name was printed up and applied to complete the scene.
(If you can't guess, you'll have to wait for a later post to see it )
Meanwhile, a scenic
After receiving an offer of 4 petrol tank wagons, Steve decided to squeeze a small petrol terminal in to the end of the LM station yard. Again, several bits and bobs were unearthed from boxes of stuff rescued from "Talacre" and fashioned into a representation of an unloading area. Although it's a "bitza" it began to look ok. We're not rivet counters here, it's more about having a bit of fun with the stock we have.
This gave Les and Steve a chance to fill a bit of space with a roadway. This pr
Yes, I know I said that the last entry was going to be the last but I couldn’t face starting a thread from scratch…
We reached at that time, what Steve called “the crest of a slumpâ€.
Astley Bridge station was all but complete, and everything else was just ticking over. There were a few bits of the layout that all of us liked and a similar few that most of us didn’t, there was too much stock, not enough operational flexibility and too many other distractions. It seemed we had lo
Well, here we go. It’s been ages since the last update, and quite frankly I’ve lost track of what’s been done since the last one. I’ve attached a little gallery as a bit of a “catch-upâ€
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/gallery/album/7179/1299-saltney-railway-catch-up/
but far more pics are available at
http://thesaltneyrailway.fotopic.net/
Things we’ve done that come to mind (not necessarily in date order!) are..
1. New roof on the loco shed. It dated f
When the track was layed into the LM station, we knew we were on the very limit of curvature for most of the locos (we reckoned some of the curves were 4' 6" radius) and this proved to be too much for some. A re-think was necessary which resulted in much alteration of the woodwork and a reduction in complexity of the trackwork. We had originally envisaged a double track into the station but this was reduced to single. Many attempts were made before a compromise was reached.
As the corner by t
Well not exactly all change, but Steve's Station (reputedly going to be called Upper Mill; doesn't sound very ex GW to me..) has already been changed before it's even reached the serious tracklaying stage.
The original wide board which spanned all 4 storage roads and the hidden lines leading to the LM station is now only half it's original width and the retaining wall will be moved back to suit.
This has now exposed the inbound and outbound lines to the LM station which run
As Steve had started the water tower building for the loco shed (Made from some parts of a Kittle Hobby engine shed and some Foamex with rivet details added from a sheet) I thought it was time I had a go. Heres a few Work In Progress pics
This is Steves tank
And the startings of my goods shed for Slugworth. Its made from 3mm foamex and will be clad in Slaters stone plasticard.
