reddiamond

For those with a keen eye and were at Doncaster over the weekend, you will have seen a previous layout that I built to a very similar design but, based in Scotland in the 1970's. Borders Reach which featured the beheaded cabs of two Hornby 29's. Looks fmailiar! Cheers keith

Just catching up on things after being away for a week playing with the big trains. To answer the questions, Oil storage, Bill All i did with the Scenecraft tanks was to weather them, along with the inside base. I also had to reposition the pipework as they had to come off from the sides and not the front as supplied, the use of the knightwing plastic pipework kit was used here, along with the scenecraft pump that sits outside of the bund. I think I have a close up during layout construction (quickly looks on the hard drive). This is the best I have, will have to take some more. I added the down pipe and surrounded it with a rail barrier. Its all about adding the small detail to make it blend in and not look out of place. A good chance was made to practice some different techiques in weathering, the use of powders and acrylics for example. David The fuel point is a mixture of all sorts. From the canopy down I used, hunbrol metalic, white and grey for the supports, then I used the scalescenes weathered concrete printed sheets for the base,carefully cutting out the shapes required around the drains, painted with more metalic humbrol. it is then all weathered/blended in together. Cheers keith

Chris A deep bladed razor saw, using the back of the cabs as a guide. The depth of the blade keeps it nice and straight. Cheers Keith

Chris Yep, a simple case of trawling through the scrap box and finding two old 56 models and cutting their cabs off. I also trimmed the front of the bogies off aswell (including the wheels) and glued everything onto a piece of black plastic card. The idea came form viewing many images of depots from the outside looking in. All you would see is just the front of the loco and depot shed. This allows max sidings space in a small space. A full shed would have not been possible on 4ft x18 inch. heres a pic of it pre fitting onto the layout. Cheers Keith

certainly look good in green after a bit of renumbering and weathering. Cheers

It wil be useful to inform all as to what research you have done, where you have looked etc, to stop people who wish to help from twlling you what you already know. Have you used the internet at all? The biggest research source there is. Here is a good starting point. http://www.railbrit.co.uk/location.php?loc=Ferryhill%20MPD Cheers

Gary I understand your feelings towards yet another depot layout, though this time there was little choice when the remit was to show off and promote the class 56. I do wish I had space, time and budget for a power station unloading point showing MGR trains being unloaded with 56's in slow speed mode but, even though the chairman of the group would have also liked to see something of this scale, it would have broken the group financially I would hope people see it as an exercise in small space modelling, rather than just anohter depot layout, that illustrates thet you don't have to model the whole depot building and loose vital siding space. This approach would work well if modelling something like Knottingley when viewed by the classic angle from the hill. Cheers Keith

Yes, the office block is a mirror image of the one at Colchester, it came from a previous wagon works layout that I had built. It was positioned onto the back of a heavily modified Peco loco shed, just like Colchster. I took some close up images of each panel of the office block and counted the bickwork to give me the basic measurements. This image shows the terraced house as a removable section and a pic of the hole it fills. This was done so access was easier to the fiddla yard and 3 way point underneath. It's base is made up of polystyrene sheets, cut and curved to shape. The house is a Metcalfe card kit. I had lots of fun adding all the small detail, including a football just in front of the goal and TV aeriel to the chimney stack. Shopping trolleys are the etched Bill Bedford efforts, paths and cobbles are from Scalescenes. Cheers Keith

Gary It is actually, mentioned in my second post. Some more pics. One request that came in was that the layout had to feature some 56 compressors somewhere, this was because the 56 group had to do a lot of work on the actual compressors on 040 to get them working and some very careful work on a JCB had to be done to fit them onto the loco back in 2008. We also had to change one last May the day before the Battlefield line diesel gala. They are our achillies heal as they still don't work properly. I was coupled up to 31130 waiting next turn of duty during this gala and made the mistake of piping the locos together, opened the taps and the 31 sucked all the air out of 040, took the next 20 mins to charge the brakes again. Anyway, I made use of the old Hornby 56 once again and carefully cut out the compressors and covered them partly with some tarp. Secong pic shows 56080 on the fuel point with the lights on. The LEDS under the fuel point will be changed for osme of hte LED light strips from Maplins, These are a lot smaller and less obtrusive when viewing under the canopy. This 56 is actually one of a small fleet of Hornby 56 that have been purchased for re sale for when we go out to exhibitions. They are all DCC, renumbered and weathered. Thanks for the kind words. Cheers keith

Thanks Chris Just wanted to add these pics to show how the track was painted. I tend to paint and weather the track before any ballast is laid, I then weather the ballast in with the track after and usually with a lighter coloured mix. Ideally there would not be much ballast at all around the smallerfuelling points and depots but, I had to use what was easiest to hand which, in this case, was a tub full of ballast. In between the sidngs earth was laid, painted and weathered. This is used down to the fact that it is in endless supply and free, just needs a bit of time to process. The images also show how I mask off the switch rails using invisible tape and a fresh knife blade to trim. Even though i have electrically bonded the stock and switch rails, I still masked off the area to keep it from clogging from paint. Cheers

Hi Steve Oh yes, it will be in our corner. Anyone one on here form the Anglia region and is planning to come to our show inApril, make sure you come and say hello. We have a good selection of layout, a certain Warren Lane for one B) Other quality Deisel era layouts feature also. Cheers Keith

A nice sunny day and a trip through photoshop by a fellow group member produced these rather fetching images, followed by my own personal favourite shot and a genral view of the layout. Just a few repairs to do since its return from Barrow Hill, it was actually stored in the cooler group of 58016 for a while before it made its way back home, via a trip in the back of a 7.5ton lorry full of class 58 and 56 spares. I also plan to add a few more lights esp, some security lights by the warehouse. Will try and get some images taken under the layout lighting some time soon. Cheers Keith

The third picture shows how I was going to model the depot without it taking up too much space. I had done this before with the previous Sacottish layout too good effect. The beheaded old Hornby 56 being a good doner for the cabs. There is always someone who looks behind the backscene to see if the rest of hte loco is the other side. Arnold lane is actually based on a cartoon that features in our society magazine 'Gridiron'. The carton is titled 'BigEnders' and features the humourous adventures of Grid, Tug, Hoover, Bone, Syphon and the soon to be introduced character 'Fugly'. The name Arnold Lane is reference to Pink Floyds first single 'Arnold layne' (a you tube search will soon inform you further) and Arnold layne can be seen on the layout, see attached pic). The layout is DCC and is also fully lit with yard lamps and is best operated in the dark for the full effect. The fiddle yard is a simple Peco loco lift that sits under the terraced house (see pics). Trackwork is code 75 peco. use of RTR scenic items have been used where possible, mainly down to the time constraints though, much use of items found in the scrap box such as, the rail built barriers and backscene warehouses were used. More pics to come.