Johndc120

This is the section across the bridge, it’s a good example of how heavily we have rusted the track. Once the ballast is in and we weather it, the rust will be toned down a lot

Finally we have started the lengthy process of track painting, this is all done with Vallejo acrylics. one lesson learnt from Shwt, when you weather the ballast it tones down all of the weathering on the sleepers so we have gone heavier than you might expect with the rust but it won’t end up like that. the first task is to prime everything The whole thing is then painted in German camouflage black brown we then use a mix of ‘dark fleshtone’ and ‘filthy brown’ to then give us the rust colours which we use for the side of the rails and the rust wash onto the sleepers once the rust was applied we have then started to pick out some of the concrete parts, these include the GWR concrete pot sleeper the other tedious part is picking out all of the concrete stools and legs of the point rodding and mechanical signalling equipment

Oooh I recognise that! Haha

It seems ages since I did my prototype and after a lot of rework particularly on the mechanical workings on the base Can finally say it’s to a standard I’m happy with. Seen below on a friends layout who has fully finished it including hanging the block on the chain. I’m really happy with the way it hangs If anyone is particularly after one then give me a message and I’ll be happy to do one for you john

Last week I managed to thread all of the 0.45mm wire for the fencing of the cattle dock. Fitting nickel silver wire instead of the plastic recommended in the kit really improves the strength and it should survive a knock or 2

It’s the way to get it past management! Little does she know as well as some playmobil stuff for him I also have a few kits stashed!!!

After a few busy weeks working on a garden railway for my boy (still WIP) I’ve finally had time to do some more on Elmore. In particular the cattle dock which is now nearly fully assembled apart from the 5 posts on the front to back runs where the wire needs to be sprung into place, also lots more wire to be fitted which I have just ordered the tedious job of adding the raised brick detail also continues, the first pen is now all fitted and I’ve just done the first few in the second. At some point soon I’ll also have to think about lamp positions too.

I would tend to agree with you, carry on as you are and maybe that is something for future layouts, I do think the Will looks good when buried in the ballast etc but as I said just avoid having to many rods together regards john

Hi Graham, slowly catching up with this thread thanks to Paul linking my page to it. lovely work so far. a fantastic effort so far with the rodding. the wills rodding is very good although a bit fiddly as it's quite short lengths. my biggest advise with the wills rodding is to rationalise it a little. it is quite overscale when you compare it to the real thing and modelu's efforts which is pretty close to scale. this is most noticeable when you have many rods together as it gets extremely wide with only a few rods. if you just miss a point or fpl as you go down the run it can look a bit better even if it's not 100% correct. I happened to do a comparison for someone else which is the photo below of the wills vs the modelu. hope this helps and keep up the good work regards John

Moving back over to the station area, We have started to install the cattle dock. We are using the ratio dancing to make our pens which are unique in shape to our layout. Instead of the plastic rod we are using 0.45 nickel silver wire the floor of the cattle docks was very rarely flat, especially on bricked surfaces the animals could have problems standing up if they laid down. To help them get grip often there were patterns of raised bricks, we have started this pattern off in the corner of the first pen. It’s definitely going to take a while to do them all

Some of the smallest bits take the longest! This has certainly been the case with the brick platform surface. It’s taken quite some time to get it to fit into all the corners! So this has been all the progress this week

I’ll message you now john

Thanks Tony, Here’s some pictures of the 6T yard crane, it is the same as the Helston one. Same as the 1T it’s one of our 3D printed items with then a few extra details added in nickel silver. It’s rarely seen in model form so it was something we definitely wanted and as you say they were pretty common place.this is the second version as I originally designed it from photos and a bit of guess work for the drive mechanism. After sharing some photos of the original one of the Pendon lot kindly shared some drawings and detailed shots of the workings I have sold a few and this was one to a friend Barry Sargent who has done a nice job of painting it

Progress on the engine shed and crane today firstly on the shed, we’ve added the edging strips and brick walling to the platform, the verdict on the platform top is still out at the moment, I am possibly thinking of a brick platform top. Also more progress on the crane, I had to modify how it was printed to get some of the detail to come out fully and it worked much better this time. We’ve added the bracing wire to it and that has made a huge difference. It’s nice to compare it to the prototype which is the one at princetown, it’s not perfect but hopefully a good representation. swung out over the track it sits nicely over the centre of the track It fits through the doorway nicely with plenty of room for the load swung over the road access it sits nicely over the centre of that and then as per the photo it can be stowed out of the way fitting snuggly into the corner as a comparison the 1T of the shed and the 6T yard crane, the plan is to have both of these linked to servos so if the point is set for the other siding for any length of time the cranes will swing out over the track

it's just a little bigger than the 1T which I've just done

No problem at all. you mention you're after a 6T, is this the sort of thing you're after???

A touch of progress this week on the goods shed, this has been held up with lack of CAD time for finishing the goods shed crane. Finally we can say that it’s 99% there with the design and we’ve got a test print off. (a few alterations needed to the way it’s printed) the prototype is a GWR freestanding light goods shed crane, capable of only lifting 1T it was very limited it what it could do but anything over this would use the yard crane. now we have the crane we can now check the size of the platform so the crane when swung out ends over the centre of the tracks. Oops it was 10mm too big so it’s had to be trimmed down!

Now you’ve said it I tend to agree, maybe just some brick steps low down to assist getting up rather than a full set of steps

A nice bit of progress once again on the platforms, all of the 2’ x 2’ slabs are now stuck down, We have now started on the fully paved surface infront of the station building, it does appear a bit strange swapping the orientation but we’ve got plenty of photos where it’s like this. On the main platform face we have added the brick face and the 3 extra layers to build up the over hang. The face of the end of the platform has now been added which now ties in the end loading dock into the platform. We are considering a set of metal steps down between the buffers for access. Lastly work on the edging of the cattle dock and the brick floor has gone in, we need to now add some of the raised bricks in the floor to help cattle stay on their feet Note the correction to the gates on the trackside, thanks to @Fishplate for pointing out the error in my ways!!

So this week, time has mainly been taken up with chopping a couple of sheets of 40thou plasticard into tiny little pieces, these will make up paving slabs. This was done using a proxxon mini table saw to produce strips and then a proxxon cut off saw to then chop the strips into individual slabs GWR paving had a lot of variation across the periods but we are going for the edge slabs using 3’ x 2 1/2’ laid lengthways along the platform. For the uncovered section of the platform it was common to see extra rows of 2’ x 2’ laid lengthways behind the edging slabs, we have gone for 2 extra rows before then having a gravel infill. In front of the station building it was common to have a fully paved surface, usually of 3’ x 2’ slabs but this time laid widthways across the platform, this is what we will model. The edge slabs were also thicker being sometimes up to 6” in depth, to give the impression of this depth we have stuck a second layer under the slab where it overhangs the edge of the platform At 12mm long we have made 115 to cover the 4’ long platform and have a few spares To fix them to the platform we first stuck a few temporary slabs in at the correct distance to the rail, the edge slabs can then be stuck onto the platform using a steel rule as a guide. once all of the edging slabs are in the front edge is lightly filed to neaten the edge, the paving slabs can then be added behind, this is the first bit of the uncovered platform going in at the moment we still haven’t quite finished the 2 additional rows, hopefully next week we’ll. finish this and get some of the fully paved section done as well. Some shots of the platform back on the layout

A possible alternative for the cattle dock, this one has the pens equalised is size but also slightly bigger by pushing the back up against the edge of the raised section, I think this looks better

Continuing progress with the station today, we’ve now added the bull nose edging stones to the bay platform, underneath these we have added the 3 layers of brick to build up the overhang. On the other end we have sketched out a plan for the cattle dock, we think it might end a touch bigger as there’s no need for the gap at the back. Happy that we can get a full van on the end dock before the cattle dock starts, perfect for a Mogo or a horse box

More work on the platforms and station area today. We are starting to add the bull nose edging on the sections which don’t have the platform overhang, bits like the end of the bay and the cattle dock. After a successful print of the end loading dock ramps we have now constructed the dock, this is a raised brick section with a concrete beam on the loading section and bull nose bricks on the sides The cattle dock, as well as having it’s edging has also had the brick frontage which ties in with the catch pit

memory seems to be serving you pretty well!! certainly it was in use before the requirement for the overhang, however I seen several examples where modest overhangs are present and then there’s this platform https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrha1419b.htm which is really ornate and had quite a bit of overhang so I would guess they were still using bull nose when they introduced overhangs john

This week we have continued our efforts on the platform, we have now added the section around the end of the platform tracks and built the section for the cattle dock to go on. finally we can start to see how the catch pit will look, previously I've felt it doesn't really make sense. We have also put the first piece of the ramp coming down to the yard level, this is a bit of trial and we're not quite sure if the angle is right yet. We do however like how it confines the coal yard area. on the bay platform we have now added the first layer of brick, this is now ready for the bull nose stones and 2 more layers of brick to build out the overhang. At the end of the cattle dock line we are having an end loading dock, I've been doing some research for it and came across this lovely shot by Mike Black, it shows 2 metal ramps fitted to the wall above the buffers, I really like this feature so with a bit of 3D design we are now planning to do the same!