Leaderboard

Work has started on the fourth layout in the Farthing series. This will be named “The stables” and continues our meandering walk through the goods facilities at Farthing in the early 1900s. The layout is inspired by my interest in GWR stable blocks, including the larger variants of the standard design that began to appear in places like Slough and Park Royal around the turn of the last century. Slough, 1928. Source: Britain from Above. Embedding permitted. https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW021896 Park Royal, 1930. Source: Britain from Above. Embedding permitted. https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EPW033806 Searches on Britain from Above show that stable blocks tended to be located near the entrance to goods yards. This provides an excuse to incorporate another favourite scene of mine, namely the roadside views into Vastern Road yard in Reading – including those lovely trees in the foreground, as seen in the excellent GWRJ articles on Reading goods by Chris Turner and John Copsey (Nos 81 and 82). At this point you are probably expecting a large sprawling layout with an intricate trackplan - but, er, this is the trackplan: The layout will be a micro and follows what I call a “matchstick” design, i.e. a few very short tracks. Ridiculously small, I know, but I like the challenge of making such a seemingly dull trackplan scenically interesting, and working out a shunting puzzle for it. My goods depot layout (below) followed a similar concept, and has become my go-to option when I need a quick shunting fix after a long day at work. So I want another one! With the new layout, the idea is to use roadside trees, fencing and the goods yard entrance as foreground view blocks and “see-through” structures. The stable block will be the main event in the middle distance, while the trackbed behind it will be raised to a higher level. An Inglenook style shunting puzzle will be applied. That said, it would be nice for the locos to stretch their legs on occasion. So I've allowed for the option of a possible future modular approach, whereby some of the Farthing layouts could be joined up for occasional running sessions in our living room, e.g. as illustrated below. Whether that ever happens remains to be seen, I’m taking it step by step. As usual, the baseboard was made from 10 mm foamboard. This time I used actual Kappaboard, which is clearly a better quality than the imitation product I used before. The basic baseboard in place, braced inside with more foamboard. Neoprene foam will be used for noise reduction. I’m now at the mock-up phase, testing the scenic ideas. As some may remember, the stable block has already been built and is a model of the prototype at Park Royal. The one at Slough was almost identical but a little shorter. Incidentally, both of these prototypes had sidings crossing close by at an angle (hard to see in photos of Park Royal). The layout fits on my workbench but will have to be packed away frequently. The 66,5 x 48,5 cm baseboard is therefore designed to fit in an Ikea “Samla” bedroller (55 L version), which can be stored under the bed - or stacked with other layouts in the attic. I’m aware that longer boxes exist, but they tend to be quite narrow and I like visual depth. The backscene and major structures will be stored separately. The Ikea version may not at first seem ideal as it has sloping indents at the ends. However these conveniently hold the baseboard in place whilst allowing room for fingers to be inserted. The bottom does have a slight curve at the middle – not a problem for me as my baseboard has legs at the corners, but it won't work for everyone. There remains the issue of the fiddle yard. I can’t use the normal one I have, as this will be a two-level layout (part of the fun). So I need a fiddle yard arrangement that allows me to move stock vertically as well as horisontally. The simplest option would be to move a fiddle stick back and forth by hand, but I'd like to stabilise the movement somehow. One option is a flexible arm of some sort. There’s a whole world of these, including holders for monitors, keyboards, tablets, smartphones, microphones and lighting. The challenge is to find something that is cheap, of reasonable quality and – importantly - does not require too much fiddling with alignment. Another option would be to do a sliding cassette arrangement with a slope. A few tests showed that, contrary to what I thought, the stock stays put on a light slope. Sides might help too! 🙂

I have been reading “Operating the Caledonian Railway”, volume one, by Jim Summers. It is an excellent book, explaining many of the technical, economic and social reasons that led the railway to operate in the way that it did, and I have learned a lot from it. Let me give you an example. Here is a picture of a goods train passing through Kelvinbank. It might be argued that it is a bit on the short side and that there should be a few more sheeted opens, but generally the stock and the layout are all in period and modelled to a reasonable degree of accuracy. But let’s have a closer look at the rear of the train. You see that is completely wrong. CR brake vans did not have duckets and so it was considered bad practice to marshal a van or similar high vehicle close the the brake, thus obscuring the view forward for the guard. Indeed written instructions to the effect that a few lower vehicles should be in front of the brake were issued. Now thats a lot better. Just looking at the train as a whole it makes obvious sense once you see it. I am slowly looking at timetables and the actual makeup of trains. I want to present as far as possible an accurate working picture of the Caledonian. Limitations of modelling mean that in some ways I will never get it totally right but I would like to move towards a working schedule in which the vast majority of the trains run are close to how they would have actually been. As I said I have learned a lot about how things should be done (and how they should not be done) from Jims book. Volume two should be illuminating.

Back last October, I started construction of an Academy Boeing B-29A Superfortress - however due to railway commission work I didn't get very far (and it was proving a challenging kit) A big box of parts.. Start of the cockpit.. Test fitting in the fuselage Cockpit, tunnel & rear crew area test fitted together. Crew area's painted. Fuselage nearly ready to close up, along with a few other bits.. After an awful lot of coins in the swear jar (and insulating tape)- the fuselage is together.. In order to create the A version - there's a lot of filing & sanding involved. Dry fit of the wings (tail empernage is fitted) Also a lot of ballast is needed to get the center of gravity right! Even more filling and sanding needed.. And imagine the swearing when I saw where they'd put the ejector pins on the nose wheels!! Aftermarket to the rescue there - courtesy of Hannants.. Somehow the main canopy needs a 20 thou styrene packer on the port side to fit properly! And on that disappointment - that's all for now.. .. till next time TBG

Hi all! These are my latest paintings. Abandoned track #1 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 70 cm. Abandoned track #2 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 70 cm.

After a little over a month away from the build (and feeling slightly demoralized by the B-29A build - blog entry to come), I felt it was time to complete the Sea Hornet.. Assemblies were given a wash in soapy water and allowed to dry. I then masked up the canopies and used foam to mask up the undercarriage bays.. Then painting could begin... First up the Sky underside Then I hand painted the undercarriage bays silver (as per the instructions) and once that dried masked up the assemblies that needed a top coat of Dark Sea Grey (this varies from era to era for the correct shade) With masking removed, not much touching was needed (tail empernage fitted). Inner wing sections added Outer wings and assorted parts painted. 3 quarters of the transfers/decals added.. Just awaiting the handed props.. Props fitted and certain baby sister making a cameo of sorts... Posing in the late afternoon sun.. Usually at this point I'd say 'that's it for now' But this time it isn't, as there'll be another blog entry coming later today TBG

As the next baseboard to work on contains the station platforms I started studying photographs and plans to work out the exact size the buildings on the platforms. This includes the main station building and also the timber build signalbox. I'd already bought a Wills kit because it matches, or so I thought.... It turns out that the kit is for a building of the opposite hand to that on the platform at Clare and is not manufactured in a manner which allows you to swap the ends around. Clare Signalbox So, faced with the issue of how to reverse the kit I looked at Eileen's Emporium 'Extreme Products' section. Unfortunately, even there I couldn't find the Matter Reversing tool so I had to make one of my own. It turns out that these are complicated to make! So instead I opted to model up the signalbox end in CAD and then try to print it on my Anycubic Photon. The result wasn't too shabby, there are a number of issues but none of them insurmountable. In order to print the part I orientated it to about 75 degrees. This has the effect of limiting how much resin has to get peeled off flexible film which forms the base of the resin tank on each layer. I could have printed it almost vertically, this would probably have been better but would have taken about 4 times longer. The down side of this was that some of the detail on the underside of the part (the inside of the building) was covered with uncured resin when the part came off the machine. I did not remove the support material before final curing because I wanted the part to have the best chance not to warp at all. Again, in retrospect it might have been been best to take that risk, remove the support material while the part was still 'soft' and wash off the uncured resin in the alcohol bath before final curing. So, here is the original molded end. And here is my 3D printed, reserved, reversion. ( there are also a couple of minor changes to the bracing to match the photographs. While all this was printing I spent sometime on more traditional modelling, making the first of a load of bushes. I used some string to form the basic bush and spread PVA over the bottom 20mm to stick the fibres together, once that first layer of glue has dried I tease out the 5 or 6 large pieces of the string and then cover the lower part of each of these parts in more PVA. Once dried again I tease out the individual fibres of the string. I sprayed with Woodland Scenics 'Scenic Cement' from a tiny cosmetics spray bottle I purchased from the pharmacy in Sainsbury's (sold with the transparent bottles for taking liquids on aircraft). Once dried I coloured the bush with a quick burst of brown from the airbrush. More Scenic Cement is then sprayed on and then the bush dunked it Woodland Scenics foliage material. Another quick blast of Scenic Cement and the bushes are finished ready for planting. It is very interesting looking at the aerial photographs of the station site I have from the 1950's. Anyone who has visited the Country Park which now includes the station will be aware of the trees and dense undergrowth that forms the sides of the old cutting. The 1950's photographs show a very different picture with only small amounts of growth on the site. Batch building the bushes has been quite therapeutic. David