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Hello This weekend has seen a change in direction with my modelling and once again I have returned to my layout Highclere. Enthusiasm for this comes and goes just as quickly as the seasons (much to exhibition managers annoyance!) but progress is once again being made in the form of ballasting this time. Now that the point rodding is finished (remember that!?!) I am now looking towards more scenic work and the next thing on the list was the ballasting. Ok, so I have only done one board so far but its the board with the most track. Anyway, I had a bit of a play this afternoon when I was sitting back admiring that fact I have actually done some work on the layout... Julia

We last left our intrepid adventurer holding a set of parts for a 2mm chassis but with no way of assembling them. So the first task is to find a way to hold the frames & spacers together. In this case, the frames will be screwed to the plastic spacers using 12BA screws. The first step is to mark out and centre-punch the screw locations. The actual position isn't critical so I decided to place the screws behind where the footsteps will be located. In this photo you can just about see the punch marks. They don't need to be huge, just enough to locate a 1mm drill. Then the frames are placed onto the assembly jig, held down by some tube which is tight fit on the 1.5mm rods and the 1mm diameter holes are drilled. While about it, I also put in some extra 1mm holes, the reason for which will become clear soon. Inserting some 1mm rods to check things are square, the frames are used as a pattern to drill the screw holes only in the spacers. The extra 1mm holes are left alone for now. The screw holes are tapped to 12BA. The correct tapping size is 1.02mm but for this plastic, 1mm will suffice. While on the jig, the extra 1mm holes are drilled to a short depth, 2mm or so and left as blind holes. Into those holes are inserted short lengths of 1mm rod, to act as locating pins for the frames in addition to the screws. The 1mm pins are fixed in place by Loctite 639 retaining compound. This photo shows the frame dropped onto the pins. No need to go mad with the pins, I use just enough to keep things in place. The pins are filed off flush with the outer faces of the frames. The screw hole is enlarged to clearance size for 12BA (1.2mm) and also countersunk. For this I simply used a larger drill (4mm) twirled in my fingers. With the pins in place and the screw holes ready, the frames can be assembled. This results in a fairly solid frame block. There's no need to overtighten the fixing screws, in fact doing so risks stripping the thread in the plastic spacers. Finger tight on a jewellers screwdriver is sufficient. Now its time to fit the wheels and gears. Here's the parts for the unpowered front axle: Going from left to right, we have a wheel, M1.6 washer, axle muff, M1.6 washer and a wheel. The washers are used to take up some sideplay, which was a bit excessive. Here's the rear driving axle: From left to right we have a wheel, a integral axle muff and 14 tooth gear, a M1.6 spacing washer and the other wheel. Mounted in the chassis, they look like this: Now let's look at the intermediate gear shaft: Left to right is a 1.5mm stub axle, 28 tooth 100DP worm gear, another integral 14 tooth gear/muff, a M1.6 spacing washer and the other stub axle. Mounted, they look like this: Because everything has been checked and aligned previously in the jig (see part 1 of "Framed"), the gears mesh sweetly and the chassis rolls very nicely. The chassis block is still overlength at present but it will be trimmed back soon. Also, nothing is locked or glued in place yet. This will be done at final assembly stage when the motor mount is ready. At this point, it's good to have a little gloat at having made a free-running chassis with all the wheels square and gears meshed correctly. Coming in part 3, mounting the motor and meshing the worm & wormwheel.

Before a start can be made actually trying to lay track work, I first decided to try to make some of the components for the Baulk Road track. The plain track work will be represented by laying HO scale (2.3mm wide) PCB sleeper strip longitudinally beneath the rails. However, the Baulks that lie beneath the crossing V's and the switch baulks themselves were somewhat wider (about 20" or so). So the first thing to do was to make some 3.5mm wide PCB sleeper strip - for this I have some 4mm scale baulk road PCB from the Broad Gauge Society that is now surplus to requirements since moving down to 2FS, the narrowest of this is 4.5mm. The milling attachment was set up on my lathe and this produced some strips of the correct width from this stock. These strips were then cut into 40mm lengths (20'0" long for my 14'0" switches). Once I had a little pile of these I then used double-sided tape to attach them in groups of 4 to the vertical slide on the lathe, and slots were then milled across the switch baulks for the tie rods and then for the dished out portions to allow the gangers to prise up the switch blades for maintenance and replacement : A Pair of milled and prepared Switch Baulks The switch blades were prepared from some association flat bottom rail by constructing a simple jig as described in the 2mm Scale Association "Track" book, and filing/sanding the embryo blades to shape. Once the side that will be against the stock rails were thinned, the rail head on the other side was carefully filed away at the thin end Filing the Association Flat Bottom rail to shape Embryo Switch blade after all filing/sanding Because the Switches on Brunel's Baulk Road were of the loose-heel variety, I decided to pivot mine on a pin (as I didn't thing that trying to replicate the "hinge" in 2mm was really a goer!!) To do this, I knocked up a little jig that could be used to hold the rail to allow a 0.5mm hole to be drilled vertically through the rail just short of the 28mm (14'0") eventual length : Once the switch rails were drilled, a 0.5mm pivot pin of phosphor bronze wire was soldered in place : The rail was snipped off just past this pin and the end cleaned up to provide the completed Switch rail with a pivot : The stock rail was added to the Switch Baulk from Association "Plain Rail" (after a joggle being introduced to accommodate the end of the Switch Blade), and a hole for the Switch Blade pivot drilled. Completed Switch Baulk with Switch Blade in place (Stock Rail view) Completed Switch Baulk with Switch Blade in place (Switch Blade view) Completed Switch Baulk with Switch Blade showing pivot pin That's one down, just it's partner for the other rail and another 5 pairs to do!!! What they should look like : Ian

Well the good news is this will be a very short update, in fact it will probably take me longer to type this than I have actually spent modelling (I can use multiple fingers - the problem is it multiplies the mistakes ) Anyway I have made a little progress on the streets around Foster Street and as you can see the Street lights are starting to go up, even though with the advantage of the camera (pesky thing) some of them appear not to be totally vertical . I have even started to add a little more interest to the area that climbs up over the tracks to the left of board 1, by modelling a scene of the railing being removed from the front of the stepped terraces. There is a war on you know and metal is metal (I got bored of cutting strips of plastic to made the railings) all I need is so obtain a suitable lorry, so more on this may appear in a future entry. I really need to improve some of the backscene too, another thing to add to the list I suppose the time is approaching, when the population of Foster Street start making appearances around the layout, so this will be one of the next tasks to be completed (started at least), speaking of the locals I have not seen that scamp Billy Grimes........I wonder what mischief he has been up to?? Until the next time Happy Modelling

Morning all! As I'd like to reduce the backlog of updates a bit, I should now like to present you with one of the oddballs to have been part of the DB Schenker locomotive inventory – bringing variety even to highly standardised locomotives as the class 152 electrics. The model we're looking at here is one of the newest releases of the highly refined Roco rendition of this class, and was marketed with catalogue number 72482. For basic information about Siemens Eurosprinter type locomotives, I should like to point you towards my baseline information posting, Eurosprinteristics. In 1993, Deutsche Bundesbahn held a tender for a new freight locomotive with three-phase AC propulsion which was primarily meant to replace the class 150 Co'Co' electrics, of which 194 examples had been built between 1957 and 1973. Eventually, Krauss-Maffei – who were still an independent enterprise at the time – and Siemens were awarded with a development and production contract. The locomotive, designated class 152, which emerged from this project was called the ES 64 F type, in keeping with the nomenclature established with the prototype 127 001, also known as ES 64 P. , and was to receive the DB class number 152 eventually. 152 001 was rolled out at the Krauss-Maffei plant in Munich on 10 December 1996, and then entered route trials together with four additional 152s which could be completed by 31 July 1997. Further production locos followed from 1998 onwards, with a total of 170 units for Deutsche Bahn and two additional ones for the Dispolok leasing pool being built until 2001. While DB Cargo – as Deutsche Bahn's freight sector was called at the time – originally meant to order 195 units, a change of plans was needed when the Austrian railway authorities refused to certify the 152 for the Austrian network. As a workaround, the last 25 orders for 152s were therefore changed into an equal number of class 182 locos, which were Siemens ES 64 U2 type locos as operated by the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) as classes 1016 and 1116. While Deutsche Bahn had also specified an additional option for 100 more 152s, this was eventually changed into an equal number of the four-system class 189 freight locomotive, or ES 64 F4. The two Dispolok locomotives were eventually sold to private freight operator ITL in 2005, retaining the basic yellow and silver Dispolok livery. Overall, the ES 64 F's specifications are largely identical to those for the ES 64 U2, except for the lower top speed and the fact that it is outfitted only for 15 kV AC: Overall length – 19,580 mm Width – 2,960 mm Height – 4,260 mm Power output – 6,400 kW/8,582 hp Initial tractive effort – 300 kN Service weight – 87 tonnes Top speed – 140 kph (87 mph) As it was primarily designed for freight traffic, the ES 64 F was built with bogies with nose-suspended motors, which at the time were considered suitable only for up to 140 kph. This model represents 152 089 as she appeared until summer 2013, having retained the "Railion I" logos far longer than any other loco from the DB Schenker fleet. This logo variant had the tilted blue square at the bottom left of the "Railion" text rather than at the bottom right. Furthermore, 152 089 had never received the characteristic horizontal warning stripes on the cab faces, but did have the UIC-TSI formatted running numbers applied by about early 2010 – thereby mixing and matching a number of oddball features. 152 089 was built in 1999 with the works number 20216, and originally accepted by then DB Cargo on 1 February 2000. The locomotive was most recently inspected at the Dessau repair works on 29 July 2013, and has lost her anachronistic markings. The model has NEM extension coupler pockets which can be removed for displaying it in a cabinet, and a pair of snow ploughs without cutouts for the couplers. Looking closely, you can see what I think is a faithful rendition of the bogie details, with the gearboxes being suitably compact and allowing a free view between the wheelsets. As cheek brake disks were a novelty on German engines at the time the ES 64 F was designed, one of the nicknames applied to the 152 in particular was "Ferrari" - due to the red colour as well as those "racing style" brake disks. Also note the LZB antennas inside the snow plough. The inscriptions on the Cab 1 end include the service weight of 87 tonnes and the usual braking gear data: KE-GPR-E mZ, disk brakes and ECP brake equipment; and the braking weights table: R+E 145 tonnes R 125 tonnes P 103 tonnes G 90 tonnes Also note the silver-painted PZB transceiver between the wheelsets and the very tiny warning signs on the outside of the ETS sockets. The inscriptions on the Cab 2 end include the owner - DB Schenker Rail Deutschland AG, Nuremberg - , overall length of 19.58 metres and distance between bogie pivots of 9.90 metres, as well as the builders - Krauss-Maffei and Siemens - and the finishing date of the last paint job. Roco also chose to make the windscreen wipers separate parts. As previously mentioned, the ES 64 F was given additional handrails and tread plates on the cab faces from 2005 onwards, which have been represented on this variant of the model. Originally, the central tread plate between the buffers and the one above the left-hand buffers as well as the handrails in the centre below the windscreen and the two on the left side of the fronts did not exist, and were basically inspired by the arrangement on the class 189/ES 64 F4. Looking at the roof, all there's to be seen is that it is fairly minimalistically equipped! The major features are only the two SSS 87 type pantographs, as the 152 and the contemporary class 145 medium freight locomotive developed by ADtranz during the same period were explicitly intended to have a tidy a rooftop as possible for easier maintenance and better protection. Therefore, the busbar and circuit breaker are located inside the loco's body. The no-skid walkway strips are represented as well. Thank you for reading!

Bit of progress on the Met 'E'.... actually quite a lot! The first thing I did was to build up the coal bunker with 0.5mm plastic sheet. I then added the tops to the wheel splashers using paper. Now the next thing to do was to paint the model.... two coats of Humbrol #73 provided the crimson lake livery whilst the tank tops and smokebox were painted up in Humbrol #33. The boiler was then given a wash with mekpak to smooth out the lingering roughness to the filler I'd applied earlier. Now came a bit of a conundrum. The drawing I was working off showed the loco in as-built condition, with condensing pipes from the smokebox into the tanks. However, photographs taken as early as 1908 suggest that the condensing apparatus was removed within a decade of construction.... so what replaced it? The preserved example has nothing above the tanks, and photographic evidence suggests that this was the case from the 1950s onward. However, photographs of the 1920s/ 30s show a toolbox and an air cylinder (Westinghouse equipment perhaps?) on the sidetankon the driver's side. So I decided to finish my model in this condition. Firstly I fitted a steampipe down the stoker's side, fabricated from 30A fusewire, then used bits from the spares box to fit the toolbox and air cylinder- the toolbox being a whitemetal lump from an old kit and the cylinder from an old Ratio carriage kit. Painted up again after some more filling and filing, and onto final finishing. Lining and numbering came from Radley Models- highly recommended for modellers of the Metropolitan and London Underground. Finally, a coat of stain varnish and some crushed coal to finish off. Onto the next project!

Knowing myself as well as I do, I quickly realised that if the layout went back in the studio again or got crated up all those little detail bits just wouldn't get done. I put up with tripping over it in the office for another couple of days therefore and just got down to it. Much use was made of PhotoShop and printable transfers so I came up with this lot. A lot of attention was paid to making sure that they didn't look like signs that had just been knocked up on a computer so no straight fonts were used. Everything was stretched or squashed or in the case of poor copperplate gothic, all the fancy bits taking off. Another bit of dodgy figure painting which doesn't look too bad in real life And a telephone insulator and classic blue French road sign I also took the opportunity to modify the wiring slightly and have put in another NCE circuit breaker by splitting it into two power zones. Also hit on a brainwave for stopping the rather too chunky wires from falling out of the clip connectors on the Cobalts - splice a bit of thinner wire onto the end and then shove that in. Looks a bit messy but seems to be working!

Watering at Ropley just got easier! Hi All. A very brief entry today to show a little bit of progress in finishing some loose ends. The watertower has long needed it's downpipe making, and so armed with some brass tube and a hammer I set to work. The whole pipe is one section of tube bent to shape, and one end flattend out to represent the rubber shroud. I had pondered how to approach this aspect for a little while, not really liking the use of elastic fabric as supplied in the Ratio kit because it just doesn't look either in scale or hang right. The final answer was brutishly simple, just flatten the end of the tube out with a hammer! The joins in the pipe were made by drilling a hole in a thin piece of plastic card and then sanding it round. Painting was deliberately patchy to represent the real thing, before it was freshly painted! A slightly cruel close up! Next is to fit the internal gubbins into the top of the tank and the ladder, however for the latter it's proving difficult to find N gauge etched later of the required length, both MSE and Ratio etches being too short. There is also some finer details to be added around the base, along with some more pipework, but this will wait until the tower no longer needs to be handled on a regular basis. Cheers all, Tom.

Somewhere to store N gauge things. Hi all. Well, as usual things down at 2mm scale Ropley have been moving at a glacial pace! Quite the opposite from the real world location it seems. As many of you will now know, Ropley will be making its first ever public appearance at RMweb live in September. Gulp. This will very much be as a work in progress, however I have drawn up a (short!) list of things I would like to have done by the time the show comes around. This is mostly finishing off elements which have been started but not finished, such as the carriage and bolier shop building, water tower and general ground work around the yard. Recent work has focused on repainting four Graham Farish containers to represent those next to the coal staithes. This was done using Humbrol enamels mixed to give roughly the correct colours, before being weathered. The two green containers have a multitude of different shades of green, and I have replicated this as best as possible. The first container, before another was added on top for additional storage. The model version. There is a whole multitude of 'stuff' to be modelled between the containers and the C&B building, and the plan for this is to build it as a separate unit which will then be dropped into the layout once complete. Doing it this way will allow me better access to the scene to add some of the smaller details found in the area and without having to drag the whole layout out each time to work on it. I am very much looking forward to bringing the layout to Coventry, in whatever state it happens to be in at the time! It may not visually change a great deal between now and then, but hopefully the fiddle yards will be complete and the layout will be able to operate as intended. It will also be interesting to see if the layout is up to exhibition levels of use!! Cheers, Tom.

Following on from the last post, here's a bit more progress on the scene around the level crossing. Mikkel made a good point that the shop looked like it could use a bit more weathering compared to the crossing gates. I decided to have a go at painting the window frames something other than white, which I reckon has helped to tone down the overall look of the building and made it more of a piece with the larger scene: I've also begun to add some foliage in and around the buildings, with a bit of Autumn tinting to contrast with the "high summer" on the left hand side of the module. Yes, the season changes from left to right - but as the middle bit is mainly buildings, I reckon the transition can be managed without looking too jarring. I've also done a bit of moving around of the buildings on the other side of the road, filling the previously vacant area with the cottage which was originally further up the hill. It was blue originally, then a sort of cream shade, but I've now given it another repaint to make it white. Where that cottage used to be is a Hornby Skaledale cottage, which I thought would look good with a bit of treatment to help it blend in with the existing buildings. As for the timber framed building, one of Superquick's finest, I repainted it a sort of creamy/orangey shade but on balance I think it'll look better going back to the original white. The idea is to keep the overall palette fairly restrained, with the buildings not trying to compete for colour with the foliage, which will look vibrant enough on its own. Cheers, and thanks for reading.

It seems to have been a long time coming but have now pretty much finished two boards and only have a very small patch to do on the others ans I am there! OK, don't get too excited, there are quite a few more details I want to get in there but it will very shortly be fit for public display. The final push involved a new shell hole to give a reason for the damage to the cafe and the building up of a bank (in very traditional manner by the barn Then went on to make a very long low wall at the front of the layout as I like to make it a bit harder to see into the scene and to help prevent things falling off as the track did get a bit close to the edge! Lots of my patent dirt mixture and various static grasses got things to this stage. Finally got around to painting the edges of the boards black as well. The back scene has now arrived from the printers but have not had a chance to unroll it yet - is a bit awkward at 16 feet long! Have got friends coming tomorrow so will get them roped in to hold it up while I stand back and admire (or say some very rude words when I find nothing lines up!). Still have to work out a way of securing it though as doubt I will manage to find anyone willing to stand there holding it for three days!

Well all this free time, has seen me in a frenzy of activity, well it would of, if the weather had not decided to gang up on me, it's too hot. Oh and my uncanny ability to find tasks on the layout that just eat modelling hours (more on that project on a future entry maybe). Anyway in between super gluing my fingers together with a brilliant hit rate (have you seen how quickly this stuff sets in the warm temperature, I barely had time to mutter "Oh sh*@t " before they were stuck fast), and being chased around the room by some rabid WASPS, I have managed to finish the 8F restoration I have been working on. "Thank heavens for that" I can hear you say or similar phrases are available, the old girl has been given a light coat of sooty black to look like an engine recently out of the workshops but put to work to earn her crust. I even applied a similar finish to the Fairburn as a nice change to my usual grimy looking loco fleet. just for the Spotter out there the 8f is No 8660 and the Fairburn No 2678 A pet hate of mine is the lack of crews in locomotives, and I have got them waiting for the 8F and Fairburn. They will report for duty as soon as I can remove them from my thumb (I wonder if thumbs are left or right hand drive?). Still here are a couple of pictures of the old girl and the Fairburn, until next time as ever Happy Modelling