Hi folks, you will have noticed a lack of updates on this blog. Towards the end of 2015 I had two outings with the incomplete Speedlow layout. Firstly, to my home show the Hazel Grove & District MRS show at the end of October and that was really its first proper public showing. The weekend went well and no major problems except for a dry joint on one of the point feeds that I soon got sorted out on the Saturday morning. Although the layout was only the bare boards with track and ballast laid down plus the part completed quarry buildings it was well received and I spent a lot of time explaining to the visitors what it was the layout was aiming to achieve. Following Hazel Grove I received an invite by email from Mark Henshaw aka TheLongLine inviting me to take the layout to the two day The Model Show at Poynton in December. Another good weekend and the layout was well received. Although I don't have all of the correct freight stock ready for the layout yet I was able to keep an operational interest by running substitute locomotives and wagons to try and illustrate how the layout would work.
I had a good audience at Poynton by the esteemed line up of Wigan & Wirral Finescale Modellers immediately opposite the layout for the weekend and when I had a chance on Sunday afternoon I received some good comments as to how the layout had been operated and the potential once it was fully finished. So that was good to hear!
Having laid the track and wired all of the boards together and some more testing done it was time to crack on with the weathering and ballasting work. To make life easier I decided to just buy a load of Humbrol spray cans and used the Matt 29 brown shade which looked well. Fortunately, the flat I lived in at the time in Bolton had a covered balcony so I could take the boards out there to be sprayed and leave them to dry off knowing they wouldn't get wet if it decided to rain. For the ballast I used two different grades; a very fine almost silt grade that I had brought some years previously and used on the Hazel Grove club layout Smethurst Junction. A slightly coarser grade would be used on the main running lines and sidings with the finer grade used in the two quarry areas.
I was originally going to use Johnson's Klear to stick the ballast down with as per an article that Andy Y wrote on how to improve the appearance of the Peco code 75 track but in the end I just stuck with the tried and tested dilute PVA method of sticking the ballast down.
Board 1A and 1 at the ballasting stage and being left overnight for the PVA to set.
The two grades of ballast the coarser darker grey for the main running lines/sidings and head shunt and the finer lighter grey stone in the quarry area.
A taste of things to come with a pair of Buxton Limby 37s showing the sprayed track work awaiting ballasting.
Fresh ballast laid down and awaiting the PVA.
Part way through an evenings work of applying the dilute PVA onto the ballast.
At the time I was fortunate to have the use of a spare second bedroom that I could work on the layout in. But as is often the case in life things change not always for the better and it was with sadness that I took the decision to move back home and so the ballasting work was completed and the layout packed up awaiting the day when I moved home.
Once I was back home I switched to working on trying to get the layout buildings planned and built so they at least would be ready for the Hazel Grove show at the end of October. I had originally considered building totally scratch-built buildings based on examples at Dove Holes and Dowlow quarries to at least have some authentic buildings on the layout. However, having received the Hornby Magazine year book at Christmas 2014 and seen the construction of the cement works layout gave me inspiration to consider the Walthers HO range of kits as a quicker alternative to making the buildings. Plus the plastic kits lend themselves very well to being adapted as was shown in the HM articles. And so it was this route I decided to take to create the quarry buildings I needed with the advantage of being able to adapt them.
Cheers until next time
Paul
Edited: 2nd April 2023 missing images restored.
Edited by pharrc20
restoring lost photos
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