Southwich

Looking good Paul - liking the trackwork. Are you swapping wheels over or are you pulling out the existing ones? Kind regards, Will

Thanks Will! Over the past few weeks I’ve continued on with the trackbuilding and laid another 2.5 metres worth of track on the four sidings at the front of the layout. Unfortunately I’ve now run out of chairs so I’m awaiting a delivery from the S4 society before I can continue with finishing the trackwork. A few photos below: I managed to collect my fiddle yard board from Tim on Saturday so hoping to make a start preparing the layout to be married up with that this week as well. Kind regards, Will

Some really nice work going on here - although very much out of my area of usual interest your modelling is of an exceptional standard! Regarding the issue on the point, I’ve had a similar issue over the past few months laying my P4 points. This may not help but I’d suggest testing your printer settings, as I found a lot of the templates I printed were massively under scale. I ended up printing at about 104% to ensure the common crossings accurately fitted over the top of the Templot. Alternatively you could get it etched into ply like I did which makes things a lot easier! Keep up the good work! Will

A bit more progress over the past few weeks - the “throat” of the layout is all but complete now having had the points glued down and droppers fitted. There’s one final point to be glued down which can be seen in the forth photo below. My next focus will be the four sidings at the front of the layout before gluing everything down then wiring/testing can commence! Kind regards, Will

Very nice work on the roof fan grille Steve - that looks exceptional! I think the short answer is not really, but I think you may be able to get away with it given you won’t be handling/touching the fan grille. I thought it was all surfaces but was watching a tank modeller prime brass etches and he used this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325286470709?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=HtbJIXXrQn-&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=YHj02LytQxq&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY I’m not sure if there is a dedicated UK supplier - I need to order some as well so will let you know if I find anything. hope that helps! Will

Hi David, First of all I just wanted to thank you for your extremely kind post, it’s really nice that people have a genuine interest in my modelling! A few friends have very kindly sent me your excellent articles, they’ve been very helpful thank you! I think the operations are the key bit of interest for me in this project, to try and get something as close to the prototype as would have happened. Thanks for the info on the MEAs; I’ve identified these as a key piece of rolling stock to have - just need to get round to starting converting mine to P4! Given there isn’t too much in the way of buildings my plan is to have the layout operable in multiple eras if friends can provide suitable stock. Dreadnought Road certainly sounds good - thank you for the suggestion! My plan is to finish the trackwork and ground cover, then settle on a name once I’ve tested the track. Thanks for your second post - I think it’s a long way off being exhibited but I would love to one day! Given this is a project just by myself and not a group project I think it’s going to take me a while to finish the layout and make suitable stock to a good standard (I don’t work particularly quickly or with much direction at times!). My plan is to put some videos on YouTube when I start testing the layout Looking forward to the next article! Thanks again for your excellent comments. Kind regards, Will

Thanks 97406 much appreciated! Let’s reserve judgment until we start testing though 😉 Kind regards, Will

As a bit of additional investigation has been done, it appears it is the drivers that are the issue, although I’m none the wiser as to how to remedy this! Kind regards, Will

Thanks Nigel really helpful - I’ve posted up a topic on there so will see what we get back. I don’t think the drivers are working properly on the new system so hopefully can get this sorted and trains running soon! I’ve found under extensions that the USB serial driver isn’t loaded so I’m assuming this is the issue but can’t find how on Earth to resolve this! Kind regards, Will

Hi Andrew, Thanks for your response - I ran through that exact page earlier and I'm still getting the error. I think it may be down to the drivers installed on my Macbook but I must confess I have very little idea how to sort these. A quick pic to show the JMRI settings: I’d never had a problem previously after installing the drivers so not sure if something is going wrong with the new operation system! Kind regards, Will

Hi all, I’ve today purchased a new MacBook and gone to reinstall JMRI (release 5) to use with the DR5000 and for the life of me I cannot get it to work. I’m trying to connect to JMRI via USB, but via LAN has also not worked. I have reinstalled the suggested drivers, and tried the troubleshooting tips on the JMRI website which seem to suggest everything should be working. I’ve retried the DR5000 on a windows computer and it seems to work well with the app (haven’t tried JMRI as this computer is so slow it hurts). This is the error message I’m now getting when trying to open JMRI: The MacBook is a brand new 2022 version and I have installed Java 11 as well. I’d hoped to use JMRI given the functionality, however iTrain is now looking a lot more attractive purely for ease. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to remedy the issues I’m having please? Thanks in advance, Will

It does yeah - I have used levelling thinner as it’s cellulose, make sure you wear a mask with it! I haven’t used a smoother primer so can’t recommend it enough Will

Looking great Steve! The bufferbeam sits really nicely on the loco. Given Lima moulded in black plastic I’d prime it and paint it Matt black and then Matt varnish it before weathering. I’ve use Mr Surfacer 1500 black and personally found that the best primer. Then a coat of Matt black either Tamiya or railmatch will do the trick before weathering. James Wells’ 31 which he did over lockdown was fantastic and has loads of articles on his blog: https://westhalton.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/project-lockdown-weathering-preview/ Hope that helps! Will

A bit more trackwork today - I’ve built the final point for the layout and started to get the “throat” of the layout glued to the track base. A few photos of the state of play this evening: Following these photos I’ve spent the evening connecting the points together with the straight sections so I can begin testing the track work. Tomorrow I’ll hopefully glue down the final point at the back of the layout and start laying the four main sidings at the front of the layout. Finally one of the IZAs under the light of the layout - having fettled them slightly more I’m really happy with how these are now running! Kind regards, Will

A great weekend was spent at Scaleforum this weekend - Boston Frodsham and Ravenscroft Sidings being particular highlights as well as David Furmage and Robert Austin’s demos. A few shots of the layouts: Sunday afternoon I had a chance to test some of my converted stock on Tim’s layout: Unfortunately the sprung IZAs didn’t work very well and constant fell off, which seems to be down to the Gibson wheels spinning on the axle and coming out of gauge as can be seen below: These have now been remedied with a rather expensive trip to Branchlines: Much better now! Hoping to make some more progress on the track this week. Kind regards, Will

All of the trip workings that I’ve been taking notes on! Thanks John! They look excellent and have been following your thread with interest since you started. Only reason I didn’t get Tim to do it was I didn’t have the track plan finalised when he did me the boards! Will

The last few days I’ve been focusing on the back sidings and getting these laid first. One of the main advantages of having the Templot engraved into the ply sheets is that I can work on the track off scene rather than being hunched over the layout (thanks again to Martin - @Rammstein2609 for his help with this!). A few photos of the completed back sidings: And then tested out with rolling some stock over it: 37422 needs a lot more work doing to it but it was the only loco I had outside in the cabin! I’ve also been looking at converting some stock - the first being 6/12 of the Accurascale PCAs which are very nice wagons: As well as finishing the four Polybulks, 2 BDAs and a BBA: Next will be focussing on the four front sidings in between the Polybulks and then looking at the pointwork on the right hand end of the layout. Not expecting much more progress this week as I’ll be at Scaleforum this weekend with Cavalex so if anyone is attending please come and say hello! Kind regards, Will

Thanks Bill! It’s something I’ve never nailed before on a layout but I think this is as good as I’m going to get it. The light is so even it’s ridiculous! Certainly not a cheap option to do it in but I think the cost is justified by the result. Kind regards, Will

You know it! Given there weren’t many holding on in 2003/4 it’s looking like one of 410, 675 or 896. Some inspiration: Kind regards, Will

A bit more progress on the crossover this weekend - now completed, droppers wired in and the points glued down to the track base. A few photos of this weekend’s progress: My plan is to get the back sidings completed this week then I can move onto the front sidings. Kind regards, Will

Looks excellent that Rich! Looking forward to some layout progress Kind regards, Will

A bit more trackwork this evening: Not far off completing the crossover on the back run around sidings. The back most point just needs the switch blades and the other outside rail gluing down tomorrow. Then just cosmetic chairs, check rails and droppers to add before it’s ready to be installed on the layout. Kind regards, Will

That is absolutely excellent! Haven’t come across that site before - thanks for sharing :) Kind regards, Will

My plan is to have a few TransRail locos Rob - a tractor and a grid me thinks! Mainly will be EWS though given the phasing out of locos 2003/4 ish. Kind regards, Will

Looking excellent Will! Love the cutaway warehouse. Looking forward to seeing the traverser wiring and further updates! Kind regards, Will