Booking Hall

More progress has been made with the second box. The loading bay doors to the factory have been increased in height to take account of the need to raise the building up by 9mm so that goods vans won't hit the canopy, and the boiler house has been built from a Scalescenes download and suitably modified to fit the location. It separates just above the door lintel so the lid will shut. I also added a representative interior so that I could model the door in the open position. We're all ready now to fit the power connector socket and fix the feed wires down, before building up the ground levels and planting the buildings. Also complete are the struts to hold the box lids in the open, vertical position. These were simply made using some plastic tube epoxyed onto strips of card, which were in turn fixed to the box using double sided foam pads to allow a little 'give'. the struts themselves are pieces of steel rod.

I've recently used Pledge multi-surface polish for ballasting with considerable success. A 750ml bottle only costs around £6-7 at the supermarket (I got mine from Sainsbury's) and it goes a long way. Applied with a pipette it rapidly runs into the ballast without pre-wetting, the ballast doesn't 'ball up' and it doesn't set rock hard, nor does it seem to affect the colour, although I haven't tried it on very light coloured ballast.

Hi everyone, thanks for all the useful information. It seems that lightning conductors were the rule rather than the exception so now I'll be sticking one on my chimney. Thanks again for all the help.

Lightning conductors are fitted to pretty much all tall structures these days, but were they that common in the early 1960's? I have just built a scale 70ft brick boiler house chimney and wonder whether to fit it with a conductor rod and earth tape. Unfortunately, pictures of the period don't seem to be of good enough quality to see whether similar chimneys had them then.

Here is the boiler house chimney just about finished. It needs weathering of course, next time I fire up the airbrush. I haven't added a lightning conductor, as I'm not sure they were as common in the early 1960's as they would be now. Anyone know more about this subject?

Not had much time for this project recently, but finally got back to it. I've realised that the canopy over the goods loading doors on the warehouse/factory is too low, and catches the roof of the van. The way round this is to raise the whole factory building by about 8-9mm which is no problem as I can build this into the loading platform, but it does mean that I'll have to modify the bottom of the doors so there's no step. In the meantime I've finished off the parapet and roof. I've also found myself waking up in the small hours of the morning thinking about mill chimneys, or at least how I'm going to build one! The Scalescenes kit for the boiler house, which I'm going to use, does include a chimney, but I wanted one that was slightly taller, around 260mm (65ft). I could turn a round one out of wood dowelling on my lathe, but getting brick paper courses to line up horizontally on a tapered former was always going to be tricky, so I went for a square one instead, which gave me problem no. 2. The Scalescenes brick paper only provides a maximum of 176mm without a joint, and joins can be tricky to colour match and hide. This actually worked in my favour, as I need to split the chimney at around 60-70mm so the box lid will close, so I decided to make the bottom, fixed section square and the removable section tapered. With some oversailing corbelling and a brick capuchon around the top, this should get me the height I want. I intend to disguise the joint between the square and tapered sections with a projecting gallery, like the one on the boilerhouse chimney at the place my dad worked. So, the chimney is in production. Once again, the two sections will be held together with a magnet. Also arrived are the 3D printed yard gates, which I'm very pleased with. A little cleaning up is needed and they can be painted and fitted. Finally, I've been making some corrugated iron sheets out of some bits of foil I had left over from an Indian meal. These will be used to fence off the boilerhouse yard. Unfortunately (seriousy!?), I didn't have enough, now where's the takeaway telephone number . . . ?

Coming along nicely, Jerry.

Tunnel now lined and drainpipes added. Low relief factory cut down to length and divided at first storey level. The joint is hidden behind some galvanised ducting (thanks for the idea Stubby!), a cable tray and the canopy over the loading doors. Still need to add the roof and copings, and magnetic joiners internally, then to build the loading platform. To the left of the factory will sit the boiler house and chimney, with a yard fenced off from the railway but possibly incorporating a coal unloading platform if I can fit one in. I'd also like to fit in an oil tank and above ground air raid shelter if I can!

Thanks, it's turning out rather more detailed than I originally intended! This is a recurring theme, as the same thing happened with my ironing board layout!

Accrington's no problem Simon.

If it isn't too far from Burnley, and doesn't conflict with either the Padiham show on the 4th(see post #27 for details), or our club exhibition weekend (25/26th) I'd consider it Andyram.

Well, not much has happened in the last two weeks, due to half-term both my wife and daughter have been at home so model-making activities were seriously curtailed! However, I have been thinking hard about the scenic arrangements in the second box and I think that I've got it sorted out, so I've made a start on the tunnel entrance and second retaining wall. This too will have a detachable scenic top section which will sit on the top of the box ends, like the footbridge. There will be a wall, with recessed brick panels above a stone string course, and behind that a narrow cobbled alleyway and the backs of tenement style houses in low relief. These should hide a direct view into the fiddle yard box. Think 'The Ladykillers'!

Glad you're enjoying it. I'm certainly having fun building it!

Kind of you to say that Andyram, we'll have to see if any other invitations come up after November!

Glad you've found it interesting Owd Bob. You're right, there is a similarity with Manchester Victoria (as was).

Very neat, and looks to have lots of potential.

I do hope that you de-consecrated the church first. . .!!

Good luck with your new project Jerry, I'll be following with interest.

Extract from 'Bridges for modellers'.

Mine was too, forty years later it's still not finished!!!

'Bridges for modellers' by L V Wood contains many detailed drawings and photographs.

I used some double pole slide switches to both operate and switch the frog polarity of the live frog 3-way point I fitted to my ironing board layout 'Weydon-Priors' (single-pole ones would do). You connect the two factory fitted wires to the slide switches as I've shown in the photo below, and connect + and - to the appropriate terminals, bridging between the two switches as shown. You just need to ensure that you connect the right 'point' feed to the switch that operates the point blades for that particular route. This is easily determined with a continuity meter, or even by use of a loco on each road in turn, to see if it moves. If not, swop the wires to the point over.

Wow!, thank you. I'm pleased that it is beginning to capture the 'look' of a geographical area.

Hello Nick, thanks for those kind words, I'm glad you found the topic interesting. To answer your question, no, apart from ensuring that the cut edges were tightly butted together, I didn't do anything else. The joints were fairly prominent to start with, but as I added more layers of varnish they have tended to merge. They are still visible, but not obtrusively so. Possibly, colouring the cut edge with a felt tip pen before sticking them down might have helped. Here's another photo showing how they look now (of course, the one under the bridge is where the canal is cut between the two boxes!)

Thanks for the encouragement andyram. I thought I might have overdone the canopy dereliction, but looking at this photo from 'Railways in Lancashire - a pictorial survey', perhaps not!!