turtlebah

Just stumbled across your blog, that is quite a baseboard structure you’ve got going around all of those beams! Super work. Must have been very fiddly.

Desperately need to get those arches airbrushed. Been really bugging me that they’re still in Wills plasticised red!

I’d love a loft layout! One day I hope to have the space to attempt one of the through stations on the Wolverhampton - Birmingham route. You should start a thread if you haven’t already! Dead keen to see your plans given your increased scope.

I realised that a few weeks ago i passed the 2 year anniversary since the birth of West Park. I must admit that i thought i would have made a lot more progress since then, but family life and work mean the best laid hobby plans have to take a backseat every now and again. Sadly (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), work has been incredibly busy during the pandemic and so modelling has not been the relief I know it has been for some through all these crazy times. Going to try and get a two year anniversary running session posted up at some point this week! I've also got a few well earned days off around Easter so will try and get my head down during that time and make some serious headway. I want to at least get the main board buildings finished before the summer kicks in (and the fishing season!). Meanwhile it's early 1962 and Abergavenny Castle, by now demoted to short formation cross country stoppers, waits to depart for Hereford, whilst a Black 5 waits in the centre road to take over an incoming Shrewsbury service. The Pannier shunts a lonely van into the warehouse sidings. In these days the daily warehouse freight sometimes only consists of 1 wagon, sometimes hauled by an 8F, a massive power overload! The station running board is just leaning against a station lamp that probably doesn't work. The days for West Park are numbered...

Hi Paul - apologies, work and family life have been all encompassing recently and so i missed your message. The white rivets are simply slaters plasticard rivet sheets cut out. The black rivets that i'm working through at present are from Archers. Both are an excellent products, but the Archers transfers allow for more flexibility even if they take an age to apply.

Work has got super busy again and so progress on West Park has been a little slow of late. I did manage to crack on with the detailing work on Waterloo Road bridge. The abutment looks loads better and I’ve made a start on the painstaking process of adding the rivet transfers. The archer transfers are awesome! It’s going to be at least a couple of evenings to get the whole bridge done.

Finally some trains running... A local service for Shrewsbury waits in platform 2. The vans for the daily warehouse goods have arrived and are waiting to be marshalled in between passenger services. Some footage of the Shrewsbury service departing. By now the vans have been marshalled into the warehouse sidings.

A black five rests at the buffer stops in platform 2 after bringing in a Shrewsbury local.

Thanks, Liam. It's been a while since I've posted a new vid, but as you'll see, I really wanted to make some progress on the layout buildings. Hopefully I'll be able to do a running session soon. I was keen to get some sprat and winkle couplings fitted and the un-couplers wired up so i could do a proper session, but that might have to wait a while.

West Park station platform entrance and the Great Western Hotel are nearly ready for their coat of primer (I ran out of grey plasticard brick, lol).

The Great Western Hotel that borders platform 1 is underway. Still loads of detail to add but getting there slowly. A class 121 ticks over in platform 1 before making the return journey to Dudley.

Haven’t caught up with this thread for a while, but it’s looking great! A lot of atmosphere created.

Thanks Dan. It’s slowly getting there. I’m sure once work starts again in Jan the modelling will have to take a bit of a back seat. By the way, full of admiration for your forthcoming Class 126 attempt. I’ve often mused over the silver fox models (I’d love a class 120 for West Park). Never had the bottle to give scratch building / kit bashing on stock a go. Will be watching your efforts with anticipation (and hoping for a bit of inspiration). Good luck.

The bridge warehouse frontage is coming along nicely. Obviously the letters need centring, but I was mocking it up in a rush. The factory name, although not synonymous with the Wolverhampton area, is a homage to my daughter, Edie. A very dirty Black 5 leaves platform 3 with a stopping service for Wellington.

The first section of the bridge is complete. I couldn’t manage to do the station side as well as I ran out of styrene tee sections so had to order some more. Probably a good excuse to leave West Park for a day or two and get on with some true scale DIY jobs around the house. ....or maybe I could get cracking on the warehouse, station or Great Western hotel!?

Todays activity, after giving the retaining walls a once over with the airbrush to get rid of any brush stroke marks, is to get to work on Waterloo Road bridge. Hoping to finish it in Shell form this evening. It might take a little longer to detail given the amount of rivet strips that need to be cut.

More bus help! Much appreciated. Hopefully i can find something based on the advice above for a reasonable price.

Thanks, Nigel. Being honest the retaining walls were something I was dreading doing. Arches have not been my friend in the past, but setting the layout in engineers blue helps hide a few of the imperfections around the edges. Retaining walls aside, I've not seen an update on Wyvern Road in a while. How's progress?

This evening I managed to get the imposing platform 1 arched retaining wall built and painted (although it still needs the mortar coat and weathering added once dry). The station throat scene is really starting to come together now. about 6 hours work in total and really fiddly bending the plasticard for the inside of the arches. I ended up having to use super glue to hold them in place.

Thanks Terry. Appreciate the comments. I knew in my heart the bus wasn’t quite right, but couldn’t find any decent research to point me in the right direction so thanks for the insights. Having a quick scan it looks like the yellow and green Guy Arabs are a little difficult to come by, but hopefully eBay will be able to sort me out. Any other insights along similar lines would be more than welcome!

Starting to mock up scenery on the embankment just to get a feel for what it might look like. Had a good tidy up of the train room after Christmas to hopefully make it easier to get stuck into modelling. A standard class 4 tank pulls away from West Park with a stopper service bound for Stafford.

Thanks - that’s pretty much the tactic I ended up employing. Having your vid to hand was a great help though. And HLJ!!! What a layout by the way. Almost enough to make me want to get involved in 7mm....almost

4160 rolls in to platform 3 making light work of the single ex midland brake and parcels van. The 9.16am arrival from Stourbridge via Wombourne would normally be in the hands of a pannier, which failed earlier that morning.

thanks Ade. I bought a can of this stuff and found that with the addition of a little weathering powder it’s worked a treat. It’s also taken some of the shine off my platform surfaces too! Amazing stuff.

Thanks. Aside from copying a couple of prototype locations it was designed to make the platforms feel longer and give more of an urban feel to the layout.