Frappington Jct

Now that the layout's here, I've taken some quick pictures of the factories and breifly mentioned stables scene. Positions aren't final and there's the obvious bedding in to be done, but I'm quite happy with how it's all developing. Board 1: Board 2: The stables are a Scenix stables unit which I've hacked apart to create two units which sit opposite each other to form a cobbled stable yard. And then there's the obligatory gratuitous Peckett shot.

So, it's been a while since I did an update to this thread, primarily as a result of me and the layout being in totally different parts of the country! I still don't have the layout with me, although that will change as of Monday. What I do have, and have done work on since the middle of November, is some of the buildings and other little things for the layout and it is on these that I've been working - albeit rather slowly. The key achievement of this work has been the building of a pair of factory frontages to sit at the front of boards 1 and 2, representing the Filton Box Company. Both are modified Skytrex low-relief northlight units, shortened in both length and height, with small sections added onto the ends to allow the units to protrude slightly and clear the clasps which hold the files shut. The unit which'll sit on board one is a simple, plain unit which, if I remember rightly (I haven't seen the factory and the layout together for a few months!) stops just short of the end of the front-most siding, whereas the board 2 unit has a small vehicle loading dock. (Apologies for the picture quality!) In my head, the justification for the premature ending of the board1 unit/the very limited space for vehicular access around the loading dock is as follows. At it's peak, the Filton Box Company was a nationally renowned company who shipped 95% of their wares by rail. Board 1's front-most siding once extended further into the factory complex, which had a decent sized internal rail system and justified its own shunter, coincidentally a little Peckett W4 (it was too good to resist and will soon be getting some lovely new nameplates!) As a consequence, there was little need for a large road vehicle loading point, as all supplies in and most of those going out went by rail. This meant the small dock provided facing the railway sufficed for the horse drawn carts of the day. However, during the 1930s, the factory's output decreased dramatically, to the extent that the internal rail system was deemed unnecessary, and was closed in early 1939, all remaining rail-born goods being loaded/unloaded in the adjacent LNER yard. The Peckett lingered after the system's closure, the LNER hiring the loco to shunt the yard and run transfer freights up the short branch to the town's main yard, though was returned to its owners fairly immediately after nationalisation, being scrapped soon after. The small nature of the loading dock caused problems as soon as rail use decreased, a new one being created off-scene by modifying the old rail facilities. The original dock thus became seldom used, mostly seeing use for maintenance supplies and local deliveries. After I'd taken the photos of the factories, I thought I'd get the layout's current fleet out for its first group photo. The J50 I've had since the summer, but the Midland 1F I got for Christmas and the Peckett was a spur of the moment buy a couple of weeks ago. Until the line up I hadn't really ever thought of the J50 as a big engine, but it's significantly bigger than the 1F and literally dwarfs the Peckett. The size range is rather pleasing don't you think? Once the layout gets here next week I'll take some pictures with the factories in place, along with the stables I've been working on to fill a gap on board 3.

I'm feeling very chuffed having picked up what must have been one of the last Dodos available in the country from 53a Models in Hull. Admittedly I did have to email/phone ALOT of shops, and I did have two ultimatley flawed plans which would have got it to me much sooner, but it's coming now! PS, if there's anyone out there who still wants one, Holt Model Centre have at least one for £109. Bit steep, but there it is.

Maybe try ringing round the Antics branches - they haven't got any in store yet (all sitting at their central warehouse still apparently) but the Cardiff store has put one aside for me as and when they do arrive. I don't think Cardiff have any left to reserve but the person I spoke to seemed to think the others did

Thanks all for the positive comments, I'll try and post an update in the near future as I'm slowly working on the buildings in the extreme foreground. Thanks. The Stirling is a mish-mash creation that originated as a Bachmann USA Thomas & Friends model and will be very much shown-up if I do buy a Rapidi model!!!

If you mean the massive crawler crane, then I think they may actually be dismantling it - it was used to take the old bridge out on Sunday night but the new one isn't going in till September time according to an engineer at the sight u talked to, so the crane is probably going off to do something else in the meantime

Does anyone know what sort of bridge they're replacing this with? Is it going to be sympathetic or a cold and horrible concrete example?

Thanks. The cobbles are Wills Granite Setts, painted first with a base coat of Humbrol 225 middle stone matte, followed by a couple of washes of Humbrol 64 light grey matt - not chosen for any particular reason other than it was grey, any lightish shade of the colour would work - mixed with a bit of Humbrol 33 matte black. I just splashed them on until all the brown was gone and the majority of the gaps I'd forgotten to fill in were near-invisible, which gave the varied finish.

Thanks! I'm working on bedding in etc, but it'll probably come quite a bit later in the process.

Considering how much I've done, I probably should have done an update before now, but I haven't so hey-ho. I've now built and painted all the retaining walls, along with the boundary wall at the left-hand end (the gates are only temporary at the minute), a small bottom side of another bridge at the right-hand end to hide the fact that the layout ends there, painted a Ratio (?) p/w hut to act as a yard office and made up some cobbles to form the yard surface. The walls and office were painted first with an undercoat of Humbrol 225 mid-stone matt acrylic, followed by some matt black, the majority of which I immediately wiped off whilst still wet, giving a dirty, varied appearance. The cobbles were done slightly differently; they were given the same base coat as the walls but was then treated with multiple coats of grey acrylic wash made with a Tamiya dark grey paint of some sort. I appreciate that they probably shouldn't be flush with the rails, as I'm never going to create fully inlaid track, but there's a pair of wires running to the near most two sidings which stand proud of the cork which need covering so I thought this was the best way to do it. The layout also runs now, as I finally got round to ordering a new controller from Gaugemaster, though I could do with improving the layout-controller connection as it's currently a bit loose fitting. The next job is finishing the roads and ballasting the track, along with sourcing some ground cover for the random areas where there is no track/roads/cobbles (any suggestions are very welcome).

Considering I'm moving off to university soon, I have decided to build a small boxfile layout that I can work on in short, sharp bursts and hopefully complete relatively quickly, unlike my large layout which I've been working on for over 3 years now and I'm still no-where near finishing it! This layout is supposedly set in the north of England on ex-LNER metals during the 1950s and is built over 3 box files in OO gauge. The left most file (board 1) contains three sidings, exiting through 2 portals to the right - I'm still debating what I want to use for ground cover in this area. This board will hold the main yard, with a road gate heading off to the left. The middle board (board 2) simply holds a Y point to lead into the right most board (board 3), which is essentially the head shunt and also contains a purely cosmetic siding so I can display additional stock/fill space. The gap between boards 2 and 3 is bridged by a girder bridge on which the obligatory bus stands, and also serves to disguise the wire connecting the boards electronically - I haven't thought of a way to disguise the wire between 1 and 2. The back of the layout is going to be one continuous retaining wall built using Slater's O gauge Dressed Stone, as is already in place on board 1. I'm still experimenting on how to paint it convincingly...

Cheers both

Rather than a railcar update, I've jumped back momentarily to the Stirling Single. Essentially, after a visit to Taunton MRE on Saturday I had a fresh supply of coal and some Deluxe Materials "Glue'n'Glaze", which were actually deemed for various other projects, but I decided that I could also find use for them here. Thus, I have now put real coal in the tender, glazed the spectacle plates and also replaced the coupling on the tender with a small tension lock.

Or maybe layouts being run in preservation guises to accommodate a peckett!