I had to take a difficult decision today. Despite great patience from the exhibition manager I have reluctantly decided not to debut the layout over the May bank holiday.
The reasons for this are:
The station building and platform is unfinished
The control system is not finished- all switching would be via hand of god method.
I have 2 chipped locos, but key items of stock are still absent, despite offers of loans from Kris I feel I will not be able to do justice to the traffic in my chase
Just thought I'd add a few pictures from the line as it is now.
Bridge arch under the terminus
Not the Pw Hut- the weigh house!
Loddiswell station
Looking down the line from Loddiswell towards Kingsbridge on the 1:50 gradient to Sorley
Having got the basic shell done I guide coated it in Army Painter “ Skeleton Bone “ intending to use the beige as the base for my mortar tones. This was all I had done when we last saw the buildings in my previous entry.
Most of my painting on this was done at night, since that’s the only time there is peace and quiet in my place since lockdown. One of the key things I was looking to reproduce from the prototype is the very grey granite used on the stonework, vs the more brown “local” stone
Its been a while since I updated the blog, so having restored my mojo with some work on a micro layout I thought it was high time I put some effort into Kingsbridge again.
No station is complete without a platform, and my platform was far from complete! Regular readers will have spotted the rough shape in my last set of photos, made from a laminate of foam board, mounting card and leftover hardboard. In hindsight I should have done a single sheet of 10mm foam board for ease of construction but
]Went to the RM meet at Taunton today, a big thank you to the SWAG crew for organising it so well and to all the exhibitors for providing such high quality layouts. Thanks to all friendly RM web'ers for saying hi. What follows is only a few pictures, I am sure other more talented snappers will post a more complete set of pics. I did take shots of almost everything but not all were that good (my camera work, not the layouts!) so if I have not shown your work it is my lack of ability, not the asto
Just a brief update, further to discussions about the backscene, this is a picture of the test one on the scenic board.
This was an offcut of hardboard I found at work. Its 15" high but I may have to cut this down a bit to fit the crate or make it removable.
Has anyone done a removable backscene? This board is flat so should be ok as there are no curves in the backscene.
I have been looking again at the platforms and have noticed a glaring error on the facing, I have made it stone all the way around, as it was in it's original guise. Further digging and picture checking has revealed that it should be brick from 2/3rds the way down the main platform right around to the engine shed. This was done during the re building work of 1916 when the bay platform was added, and I had missed it when building my platforms.
To sort this out I decided the easiest way would be
Uncouted costs and grey hairs after beginning I finally ran my first fully digital train yesterday!
Thanks to help from here I fitted the decoder myself, it was nerve wracking but worked in the end. I was slightly annoyed to find that my Lenz Compact only let me alter 7 CV's, even on the programme track. If anyone knows a way round this I would love to know as I was hoping to do some more tweaking to the CT chip I put in.
I am going to be pretty busy this week as I have to get the Van ready fo
I must apologise for my slow progress but house repair tasks have taken all my time at the moment! Progress on Kbridge since last time has been confined to;
Wiring completed on the throat board and the ballast and yard surfaces laid. All the point motors were tested too and amazingly everything worked! Thanks to all those who contributed solutions from here.
Backscene added to the scenic section- this is currently a trial size as I am unsure wether it will all fit in the crate I have design
Am currently wiring and soldering everything! Apart from trying to find an all encompassing idiots guide to code 55 point conversion all suggestions from here have been adopted for the wiring, so thank you for encouragement.
I will hopefully have a day modelling on Tuesday so will post some more pictures of the track development. I hope to complete the simple tracklaying on the scenic base pretty quickly so I can experiment on it with ballast.
Fresh from holidays I didn't feel like wiring so I did some scenery on the single line board instead. I have used a mix of fine scatters for the grazing land as even 2mm static grass is a bit long. So far only 1/2 the planned texturing has been completed as trees, hedges and fencing etc is still to go on. I have more clump bits and static fibres to apply to the embankments too.
whole board
Branch passenger train in the entrance to the cutting. Little line of bushes is the start of the hedge.
Managed a walk along another section of line when it wasn’t raining. As I have been trying to push my compact camera a bit more lately I thought I’d do a few shots in B&W.
Here are just a few pictures of the remaining bits of infrastructure lurking in the undergrowth.
Crossing gate hinges
Crossing lamp (red glass removed)
Sleepers next to the track bed.
Line side fencing
Unknown post/sign
Remains of the bridges
Kris’s “Avonwick†brid
The initial plan was: Kingsbridge terminus plus some single line scenic sections in a modular system to enable me to alter the running length. Later put in more scenic sections and the passing station.
Period to be wartime as this had the most interest for operating and as an escaped wargamer I could still put in a few tanks.
to summarise about 6 weeks of frantic activity-
I found out how expensive it was going to be! All purchases would have to be carefully planned and I'd have to stop an
I was able to get the landscaping finished today including the bridge area pictured in my prototype pics post. Have now completed all the plastering as well, so its onto track and wiring next (gulp!) Here's the pictures from today.
all 3 boards together on temporary stands.
Finished third board and unshaped second.
View up the finished scenic board
Plastering the second board having shaped the underpass.
I finally got a couple of hours to play with the scenic board and both my grass machines. I have the WWS large one and their detail one, since they had a sale in summer.
Here is the back corner of the board in 2011, basic ground cover done. I always intended a strong mix of texture on the line side to reflect wartime manpower shortages.
I started by making a “shaggy embankment” mix, made of 1mm,2mm, 4mm and a few 6mm yellows to reflect autumn colours, there are 4 different shades and
I said I would update today, sadly no pictures- will add them to this block as soon as I can take them.
So far-
Controller has arrived- I can now test some wiring and scrimp for a decoder.
The ballast is all laid on the scenic section and I added the finer cinder edges around the track. This was then dyed with black indian ink added to the PVA mix, which will form the basis for paint fx- Will try to illustrate this with my pics.
The tricky join between the curved throat board and the mai
