Leaderboard

Continuing with the Tweemoor Yard scene, one of the things indicated in the grand plan (shown a couple of blogs back) was a road winding in from the front and over a railway bridge at the back. Unfortunately the yard has spread out more than originally intended, so the road has had to be squeezed in rather tightly at the front. Its more of an N gauge road really, one of those narrow lanes where you wouldn't want to meet a tractor coming the other way. Previous road surfaces on the layout consisted of a flat layers of painted card, and that is exactly what they look like. For the scene here I decided to use a different method that I hadn't tried before - cork underlay. This actually turned out to be rather wonderful stuff for roads. Its more flexible and stretchy than card, making it easy to add a camber even on winding roads without it rucking up or introducing unwanted speed bumps. Not only that but it also has quite a nice texture when painted. The base of the road was roughly defined in card. Some thin card was glued along the centre line where the camber is to be. This is what I'm aiming for... Glue was applied just along the edges of the cork and it was stuck in place. The surface was sealed with a couple of coats of light grey emulsion from one of those little tester pots. After that was dry, the road was coloured and weathered to taste with washes of poster paint. The camber is quite subtle, but makes all the difference in the appearance of the road. This is how the Tweemoor scene looks so far, still rather bleak. The card surround shows the eventual extent of the viewing window. I haven't taken the road all the way to the bridge as there will be a view-blocker of trees in that corner, into which the road will disappear. The next steps will be to add ground cover and lots of trees, which should brighten things up. Cheers Alan.

I've made some reasonable progress in the past couple of weeks with the various locos under construction. First the Crab had a front AJ coupling added and a shed plate, which I had somehow overlooked, a crew in the cab and coal in the tender. Since then, I've almost finished the Jubilee, the latest jobs being coal in the tender, cab glazing and fixing the roof after adding a crew. Just waiting for the glue to fully dry in the tender before reconnecting loco and tender. The Caprotti Black 5 (loco and tender bodies) was collected at the Warley show after painting. Today, I've fitted the buffer heads, AJ couplings, number and shed plates, glazed the cab and re-assembled the bodies and chassis. There will need to be some adjustments to the chassis and body weathering to blend them together and there is still the crew and coal to fit. The Caprotti and Jubilee are shown in these photos. It's clear that the Jubilee loco and tender are not connected. Neither is the Caprotti, but that pushed together to the proper positions, unlike the Jub. First, the Caprotti, with the Jub peeping in: Then the JUb. with the Caprotti tender: And finally, a front three quarters showing both: Dave.

I've taken the plunge and decided to share my modelling efforts with the wider world .... "Blackford & Hinton" has been under construction for about 12 months since a house move enforced demolition of its predecessor. The basic premise is that it's somewhere on the former GC between Brackley and Leicester giving an excuse to run ex-GW, LMS and LNE locos side by side. So, Woodford Halse but a much more urban setting ... The available space is a generous 19' by 16' providing for a continuous run of double track with a diverging junction at one end (one line to Marylebone, the other to Banbury??). There are 18 storage loops "off-stage". The main circuits are now fully operational but still being de-bugged. Current energy is being devoted to constructing the loco depot. More to follow along with pictures ....