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Br. 85 zwischen Falkensteig und Hirschprung by Will Vale, on Flickr Br.85 no. 85005 brings a short train down towards Freiburg some time in the early '50s. It's nice to see a bit of steam power on the line, especially when it's such an attractive loco. This weekend I managed to spend a fair bit of time working on the layout. The landscape around the left-hand end has been built up to about the right height, and I've been carving away at the rock faces. This is an interesting pass-time - it's fun but I worry that (my) carving doesn't capture detail at a high enough frequency to look like the real thing. It's also really easy to leave 'tells' as to what the scenery is made from - the usual suspects with Styrofoam rocks are knife marks, cracks which don't go anywhere or make sense, and slivers of Styrofoam which stick out and give away that the material is really light. After the initial carving I painted a coat of terrain goo (gesso, raw umber paint, and a couple of pinches of fine sand) over the whole landscape. The sand is great at giving the surface grip, which helps when applying scatter later. The problem is that (as I realised when looking at the results) in Z scale at least, it doesn't look right on vertical rock faces. My fix for this was to apply DAS clay in a thin layer over the worst bits of the rock face, and then impress more rock-like detail in this with the old standby of crumpled-up tin foil. After the clay dried I sealed it with dilute PVA (like the tunnel mouths) and another coat of painty gesso. The sand helps anchor the clay, so all is not lost! The later rocks I've remembered to undercoat without the pinch of sand. The right hand end of the layout has also tarted up with brown goo, and I've started building a big tower of Styrofoam slices to make the basis of the Hirschsprung rock formations. It's starting to look more interesting, but I think there's still more detail needed on the rocks. Possibly when some greenery and small rocks are added it'll balance out? The next step (apart from the landforms at the right hand side) is maybe to paint up a bit of rock face and see how it looks. At the bottom I've started adding the pavement to the roads with 5x0.5mm styrene strip. It curves just enough to go around the gentle bends, but I'm going to have to cut out some curves by hand (yuck) to fit the sharper bends. And finally (as John Craven would say) I discovered a new peril when working in the smaller scales: The 4-wheel open you see in some of these images is hanging around the layout for track testing, and was parked in a tunnel while I was working on the scenics. I went to hoover some styrofoam particles off the track near the tunnel mouth, and before I could react the wagon was sucked out of the tunnel and rattling down the hoover pipe Luckily I recovered it, and it was none the worse for wear when dusted off

With work looming for many tomorrow, here's a little cheer up snapped earlier today in the car park at Scaleforum! Brewhouse Quay, not you you can tell was balanced on the roof of my car, it not being officially part of the show. The lovely little loco, an Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 is owned by Captain Kernow - oh lucky chap! Click on the photos below to enlarge.....

Next step towards getting the stock ready for the new layout means I have been working on a few wagons. First up are a couple of open wagons built from Cooper Craft kits, one of which has a sheet fitted. Covered vans are again from Cooper Craft kits, slightly weathered. Private owners are Slaters kits, loaded will real Welsh Steam Coal (as used in my 7 1/4" gauge loco). The Wilmer Swindon wagon has been hand painted. The cattle wagon is another Cooper Craft kit, modelled in the days when the inside of the wagaons were lime washed. Lastly a couple of brown vehicles. The horse box is the new Hornby item, a little late for the period I am modelling but such a lovely model. The fruit van is built from a Falcon Brass etched kit. All the wagons have yet to have the Sprat and Winkle couplings fitted (3mm scale version) Next up will be some brake vans, a loco coal wagon and something from the other companies of the big 4. I hope you find this of interest and I'll keep you posted with updates. Paul

cornish interlude 01_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. I like doodling and thinking of ideas for small layouts, small layouts appealing to me because they can cater for all the different type of railways I like. I don't think I could ever commit to just one big project, I'd probably get bored halfway through. Here we have a back of an envelope plan for a 3x1 foot (excluding fiddle yards) micro depicting a fictitious halt and crossing on the Wenford Bridge branch line. The forthcoming Kernow Model Rail commissioned Beattie Well Tank being the catalyst and now on order! The rear of the layout will be about 3 inches higher than the front which will be a gnat's todger lower than the rail height, the halt being set into the cutting on the far side. High 'Cornish hedges' will add a nice and easily achieved feature. The backscene will be photographic as with Catcott, (see here) this I'll shoot myself, and prepare for the local repro/printing house (I have just penned an article for the popular press on how to do such). I will probably use a flexible 1 foot high plastic base for this which will give me the all important curved corners rather than using 'Bendy MDF' as with Brewhouse Quay. The photographic image will be treated a little in Photoshop (with 'Paint daubs' as with Catcott) to get rid of the pure photographic look, it's important that the modelling takes centre stage rather than the backscene, but it's also important with such a small layout that it feels like it is part of a much bigger landscape. Bigger version of the above sketch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/6186238153/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Furthering the debate on the Hornby 4VEP thread elsewhere, another problem found was that the trailing bogies at each end had been designed incorrectly. The damper should face inwards, towards the centre of the train, and the guard irons were also on the wrong end, as shown below: This had another affect, as moving turning the bogie around and putting the guard irons on the opposite end would mean that both the steps and the 3rd rail shoes would be in the wrong position - in the former, they would be on the wrong end of the bogie, and no longer under the door, and in the case of the latter, they would be facing the wrong way. The solution was to cut the steps out and remount them carefully at the opposite end, and with the 3rd rail shoes, to simply swap them from side to another to get the correct orientation. My thanks to everyone on the 4VEP thread, firstly for discovering this inaccuracy, and secondly for helping me fix it! The bogies are now correct orientated throughout the train, and both trailing bogies have been suitably modified. The next stage was a little weathering using Tamiya weathering powders, to try and make the bogies and underframes look a lot less like black moulded plastic and more like heavy duty metal. I started with the bogies, dusting on Tamiya "Gunmetal" and "Mud" to give the bogies a little relief, before a light sprinking of the Tamiya "Orange Rust" in specific areas to bring out the colour more. Sealed with Gamesworkshops "Purity Seal", the bogies were returned to the trailer end for photographing: This was also repeated at the opposite end of the coach with the other bogie, along with an attempt at weathering the corridor connection to look a little more workstained: I remember the brown dirt and rust used to seem to converge on the centre of the partition, so checking a few photographs and careful applications of weathering powders resulted in this, after sealing: Overall I think it is getting there. I am awaiting a few components before I start on the next "fix" for the 4VEP - roof horns, vents and piping to replace in the next week or two, along with a continuation of the weathering I started this weekend. Until next time!

Baseboard building continues a pace and these are few shots of progress. Holes have been cut for the streets and canal to pass under the station, although having checked google I'm going to have a cut a few more. Track laying on the Southern end of the station has also started. Cork underlay is used and this is glued down with contact adhesive, Which has also been used to secure the trackwork. I lay no claim to having built any of this. It was all made for me by "Hayfield" of this site, and a good job he's doing too. This is the first time I've used handbuilt trackwork and Code 75. My last layout was all Peco Code 100, but the complexity of the trackwork for this layout left me with no alternative. I've been very lucky to find someone who will build it for me. I can recommend his work very highly.

I have been to many car shows over the years where there are many interesting vehicles dotted around the car parks (some as good if not better than the ones on show). Does this mean we have to start looking round the car parks for impromtu layout displays?

Good work there. I am finding your posts of interest. There is/has been a reasonably comprehesive partwork on GWR horseboxes in GWRJ recently and many are not as modern as you think. The model looks like an N16. The roundel 'lettering' came in in '34 so it could be fairly new in service for your time period. What I believe is out of period is lime washed cattle wagons. The lime wash was found to cause damage to the feet of the cattle and its use was discontinued in the 1920s.

Thanks for the kind comments, I'm definitely keen to make it look bigger than it is - the code 40 rail is a good start I think, and the B&W photo goes some way to hiding the enormous coupling on the front of the loco... Now there's a thought. I have an old issue of MR somewhere discussing techniques for propelling boxcars in hump yards - maybe the vacuum cleaner is the answer they were looking for?

This looks great - it certainly looks a lot bigger than the tiny scale you've chosen. Sucking things up in the hoover remind me of the brief time we had a cleaner and on her first day said "I thought I'd hoover the trainset, I think a few figures got sucked up" (always the nice white metal ones we spend hours over of course). She didn't last very long and was banned from the layout room.

Looks better all the time, Will. The "slant" of the rock face is very convincing, I think. The hoover experience is interesting, you may have discovered a solution to the problem of simulating non-loco wagon shunting!

Looking good, especially that Bachmann Farish Tornado! From memory Tom the track runs to the end wall of the carriage & boiler shop. Martin