Modelling Martin

Adding a little water to it should soften it quite nicely. For my layout I prefer to apply it by hand so it is not perfectly flat (I used it for general ash/oil build up in a shed). Once I'm happy with the general surface I find stippling using an old paintbrush works well to smooth everything together and obviously afterwards remove the clay around the inner track face for the flanges, I used an old set of wheels.

Thanks! Apologies for the late reply, I do miss the layout from time to time, it always had a bit more of a gritty feel than the WSR, looking forward to seeing your layout though, preservation layouts do seem to be gathering traction recently, Gary

Hello all, Slow but steady progress being made on Minehead shed. The concrete and general ash base layer have been added and painted with a couple of locos shown to add a bit of interest to what is a mix of DAS clay, plaster, filler, Plasticard and MDF in different areas. I've tried do define a different area for concrete and ash build up which I'm quite happy with. Next thing to do is sort out the fiddleyard and give the whole thing a 'test'. Anyway the base layer can be seen below, loads more muck and general shed spillages to be added yet: Thanks, Gary

Hello all, Despite the lack of updates work has continued on the layout spurred on by the release of the PECO bullhead track range which has allowed for the laying of track and the first run of my locos. Before this though legs and a fiddleyard extension were added to the baseboard seen prevoiusly: These legs are collapsable folding beneath the baseboard to allow it to fit in the back of the family Polo should it need to be moved, they are also hinged two thirds of the way down for either sitting or standing operation. After this was finished I set about laying the track over cork tiles as well as installing the inspection pits. Overall with the testing with Braunton the PECO points seem to be a lot better than the kit built SMP ones I used previously although at nearly three times the cost I would have hoped so! Here is the old shed on to give it a more 'Minehead' look, I want to rebuild this in the future as I'm not too happy with it, Thanks, Gary

Hello James, As you are aware by having an angle to your station you will lose some width from the station which, as you stated later, is something you would not like to do as naturally having them parallel allows you to 'fit more in'. I think the problem is how people interpret 'making full use of the space', for me this is allowing for things such as sweeping curves and town scenes for example where for you it is an opportunity for track. Of course this is not a bad thing just different opinions on what to do with available space which I believe others on the this forum with views more similar to your own will be more useful in helping you, Good luck with the project, Gary

Hello James, I see you have your key operational features such as the station and engine shed but have you thought about any scenic features? With the track so close to the backscene near the station you may find it difficult to create a convincing backscene as the illusion of depth usually works better when there is some space between the two. Also even plain scenery can add a lot to a layout allowing it 'to breathe' and not looked so cramped as in my personal opinion your station looks rather more like a scenic fiddleyard than a realistic model. As you may have heard before having the station simpler and at an angle to the wall of your shed would help a lot with this but of course you will lose some operation. Of course if you are after something focused on having the most complex signalling possible then I am sure your plan fits the bill but if you are after advice on constructing a realistic model of a railway then perhaps think about some of the above. I have also found that, with some thought, a simpler plan can actually be more complex as you restrict the operations you can do which I have found more enjoyable in the past, Gary

Hello all, A (not so) quick update on Minehead as i haven't updated the thread in quite some time. I spent a few months after the exhibition last year thinking about what I wanted to do with the layout but track problems with the SMP point kits and some of my rolling stock was the final nail for the layout. A few weeks ago I stripped the baseboards saving what I could for my next layout which will be much smaller and more manageable. I arrived at the conclusion that Minehead was just too big for my space but I already had all the rolling stock for it so the logical solution was to model a section of the station, in this case the shed. A few days ago i started cutting the wood and this is the progress so far: A short snippet of the terminus station which I hope I will be able to capture the atmosphere of the much larger seaside town. I am now awaiting plans from the WSR as well as PECO to release their points so I can crack on with the new layout, Thanks, Gary

Building the second traverser: After thinking about the direction of the layout over the past few weeks I've decided I want to extend it from running three coach trains to six coach trains- more prototypical for Minehead which I think will give a good enhancement. For this the first thing I needed to do was make a bigger fiddle yard however extending the old one which was already 5ft would make moving it an impossibility so I made a second traverser board which should bolt to the old one to give a 7ft long sliding piece of wood over four runners- should be an interesting wood working challenge! First of all replicating my standard design I made essentially two baseboards using the materials below: The two baseboards are made out of 9mm birch ply with braces, the traverser was packed up with MDF to get it to the right height (it's a bit short but you won't see the back of it hopefully): After the basic wood construction I installed the runners- it's imperative that they are parallel: Maybe I should have attached them to the traverser first as they now need to come off to align holes in the metal to allow me to put more screws into the traverser but this is what it looks like screwed together: I intentionally overlapped some of the wood to keep it as flat as possible, all I need to do now is get the sander out to finish up the edges and fettle with the screws between the runners, and baseboards to get the best fit which is by far the most time consuming element of the construction, I am focusing on the fiddle yard at the moment keeping a keen eye on the PECO bullhead track which I may replace my SMP with for improved running, Gary

Hello all, Well after the reasonably successful exhibition in September I've been taking a rather long break from the layout trying to decide what the next step for it is. During the exhibition I encountered more than a few problems with the SMP points which, along with an extension may contribute to just replacing them with the new PECO bullhead points when they come out. Anyway on a more positive note today I dusted off the stock boxes to give the locos a maintenance run on the only board I have up at the moment- the traverser, where i took some pictures of 6009 as you can see below: Kind regards, Gary

Apologies for the late reply, you are right they are modified Bachmann coaches, Gary

Thanks Joseph, I use OS X but when I use photos to export pictures at even slightly lower qualities it seems to really affect them, Gary

Hello all, As promised here are some shots of my newly renumbered and weathered locos, obviously as they are for a preserved railway I tried to keep weathering to a minimum. First up is D1010 Western Campaigner, a Dapol loco renumbered with Fox transfers: Secondly is D6575, not a home fleet loco but owned by a member of the diesel group at the WSR so was a good enough excuse for my layout: I'm still attempting to adjust my camera settings to bring the image size under 1MB without compression, Gary

Thanks Andy looking forward to getting it into the garden tomorrow to sand the platforms down and get some good light for better photographs.

Hello all, Lack of updates recently have been due to working on the layout working towards the mid September deadline: The backscenes have now been done and and attached to the layout too I've also finished the fencing and scenics on the other side of the board Finally the Morrisons car park has been started but still needs a lot of work, Currently looking at the diesels at the moment so I'll upload some pictures when they're finished, Gary

Hello all, I've been pretty busy over the past few days turning this: Into this: Should get some proper photos of them soon once I've finished the roofs, they're all 'de-ribbed' but when I got my airbrush out all it did was spatter the paint so I will have to look into that, Pretty hot in my bedroom at the moment with the recent heat wave but at least it means the paint dries quickly, Gary