That Model Railway Guy

Merry Christmas everyone! Parcels have arrived at Pickwick Yard ready for tomorrow

Hi everyone, I'm doing a live running session tonight at 7pm over on YouTube to celebrate the channel hitting 900 subscribers! I know lots of people have had their Christmas plans suddenly ruined or disrupted due to the last minute restrictions that have been brought in place, so if you're at a loose end or feeling a bit lonely do feel free to pop in and say Hi. Doesn't matter whether you've subscribed or not but if you'd like to watch some model trains run and hang out with like-minded people in the chat you're more than welcome to join us. It's turned into a lovely little community lately. Here's the link for those that want to watch live

Thanks @STATO, glad you're enjoying it. Ooh, that's a really interesting idea and I'll definitely have to look into that. Unfortunately the room it will usually be setup in isn't long enough to have the buffer module as well as the curves in that configuration but it's definitely worth keeping in mind for all the potential options it opens up if space ever isn't an issue! Thanks for that

Hi Folks, earlier in the thread I sort of explained how I'm connecting the baseboards and aligning all the track and scenery in a way so that it's consistent across every module. That said, if anyone's interested in seeing it action I've made this video of me adding the endplates and dowels to a module and getting it to a stage where my stock can cross the join smoothly. I did this mainly for my audience on YouTube as they wanted more information on how it worked, but thought I'd post it here in case it's of interest as it's relevent to the layout. As much as I'm fumbling my way around building this layout, I'm glad I took the time to really think about how I was going to join the modules, as I knew it would either make or break the layout! Thankfully it seems to have paid off and doing the ground work was worth as so far all my basebaord joins have been nice and smooth. Additionally, some of you may have noticed that this video features a new module which is currently under construction. This is the "bufferstop board" that, when finished, will complete Phase One of the layout and then I'll be able to move onto the station area, which I'm rather excited about. I've been taking pictures along the way so hopefully I'll get round to posting those soon

And for those of you who like pictures that move...

I'm sure by now a few of you have twigged that I'm quite a fan of the Hornby Pecketts! I had both the W4 and the B2 on the layout the other day so here's a few stills from the running session. The B2 was mainly on mineral wagon duties, bringing in full coal wagons and taking away the empties. Meanwhile the W4 was kept busy working the smaller factory siding.

Fantastic! One of my favourite types of loco so I'll definitely be picking up at least one of these... most likely two or three Well done Rapido!

Another little job I've been working on lately is to add coal loads to all my open wagons. The Dapol kits were nice and easy as they have the moulded load that slots in. I just painted it black and glued some Hattons coal to the top. For the rest of my wagons I had to make the coal loads from scratch which meant having to do... some actual modelling! In reality it's such a simple thing but it's made a really big difference to the layout. Wagons and movements now appear to have more of a purpose (even though I'm still just aimlessly shunting things around) so it's definitely been worth doing.

Mine arrived this morning too. Have just put together a quick video showing off some close ups and a little bit of them running behind Rocket, just in case anyone wants to see them in action.

Ooh interesting idea. I don't think it would work for me with these particular modules as the trees are generally on the higher ground but it's good to know in case it's useful for future modules. In this instance though height is very much at a premium when it comes to storing these and so it's ended up saving me a lot more space by having the trees be completely removable.

As I've mentioned before I'm also documenting the build of this layout over on my YouTube channel. I tried to film as much as I could while building the scenery up and have edited together a little video of my efforts so far. Here's the link to watch it if anyone prefers that to reading my rambling posts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlqnN3o_kVo

Thanks @Alister_G, sadly the road isn't anywhere near as smooth as it looks in the photos. I certainly wouldn't want to ride a bike down it! I might try painting it to see if it makes it less noticeable before I take any drastic action but I'm not too worried considering there's still fencing/walling and bushes to go on either side of it.

Just in case anyone's wondering - in the pictures on my previous post the modules were aligned but not bolted together, which is why the baseboard join looks very noticeable. It's much better when properly connected but I also want to do some work on the static grass at the edges of the modules to hopefully disguise the join even further.

Lots more progress today! This morning I had a go at the road surface across the bridge - it's not come out amazing but it'll do for now. Funnily enough it actually looks better in the photos than it does in reality (usually it's the other way round!) but I imagine I'll end up going over it in the future to get something slightly smoother. I also added a dirt verge alongside the road and the track too just to blend it into the grass a bit better as that was something I wasn't quite happy with on my first module. There's also a dirt patch where my two buildings stand with a little path leading down from the road - this will be getting a gate in the future. Then it was on to the static grass! I was looking forward to this as it always seems to transform the layout and I wasn't disappointed. Several shades have gone down and it all dried fairly quickly so I was even able to attach some basic bushes and foliage around the bridge before I called it a day. All said and done, here's the result of today's adventures... There's still lots more to be done (track weathering, fencing/walling, grass tufts, more bushes/trees/wildflowers, etc) but the big jobs are all complete and it's more about adding the details now to make it feel real. To finish off I couldn't resist connecting the two modules together and taking a nice wide shot - I think I've definitely captured the feeling I was aiming for of the railway running through the open landscape... just need to get a train on it now!

Thank you. They've continued drying this evening and are now a bit paler than they were in the pictures... presumably as the plaster absorbs more of the paint. I'll plough on with the static grass tomorrow as planned but I can always touch up the rocks with a tiny dabs of watered down black/grey here and there if it really continues to bother me.

Just a quick update from the last few days... rocks have been made using the woodland scenics mould and have been added to the module with a little bit of modelling compound. These were painted using the leopard spot technique which was mostly successful (though I know what I'd do differently next time!). Once this was dry the entire module was painted brown before I did the ballasting. I'll leave this to dry overnight before I hopefully starting on the static grass tomorrow.

So far I haven't had any trouble with aligning the rails because of the markers on my endplates. There's also bullet dowels in each baseboard which keep the entire module aligned in a consistent way when joining up. That said I have no idea what the longevity of this is, it all works today but in a year or two things might start to slip a little. The rails are soldered to brass screws at each end so I wouldn't expect it to happen but if it does retro fitting fishplates shouldn't be too much of a problem - it'll just make connecting up the modules a lot more fiddly! Long story short: I'll carry on without for now but the option is there to retro fit them in the future if I ever need to.

Thanks @Jeff Smith. No problem, the rails aren't actually connected across the joints at all. On each module I'm making sure the rails are lined up to markers on my endplates so that they're consistent on every single board no matter which order they're setup in. When the boards are bolted together there's only a 1-2mm gap between the rails which so far hasn't presented any problems with locos. For power, there are bus wires running underneath each module that feed power to the track. These have push connectors on each end to transfer the power from one module to the next. Hope that all makes sense, it's a bit difficult to explain.

Put on the plaster bandage this morning and it's now set rock hard! Speaking of rocks, I'll be adding a few small ones to the side of the cutting since I have one of the Woodland Scenics moulds which I've never used. I mixed up some plaster for those a minute ago and am now waiting for them to set. All being well I'll add them to the layout tonight and then paint them rocks tomorrow morning before painting the ground brown in preparation for static grass. If anyone's wondering what the flat area of expose polystyrene is on the right hand side, that's where my two small buildings will go eventually.

Finished off the landform this morning and then spent some time this afternoon doing the messy job of putting down a layer of paper mache. The cutting is taking shape even if it is a bit soggy at the moment! I'll leave this to dry overnight and all being well I'll be able to add the plaster bandage on top tomorrow

Wow, what a great little layout! If you hadn't said I would never have guessed it was your first attempt at serious modelling. I'm currently building my first serious layout too and if I can get it looking as good as yours I'll be very happy indeed. Great work

Following on from last weeks review of the Hornby Sentinel, I've put together a video of it doing some shunting alongside the Ruston 48DS. I was actually really impressed with the slow speed of the Sentinel and how controllable it was while filming now that I've cleaned a lot of excess grease out of the gears. I personally still prefer the Ruston but both of these locos look great on my small layout.

Thanks @Alister_G. In some ways I prefer the look of the Wills stone sheets but the Slaters ones are just so much easier to cut and come in bigger sheets too which I can imagine is more useful for larger projects. Haven't heard of EA Finecast before but I'll definitely have to check them out.

Today has been a very productive day! I've been slowly working away on my little barn/toolshed scratch building project and have put the finishing touches on it today. Really pleased with how this looks considering I'm a complete novice at building things from nothing. If you'd have told me I could achieve something like this a year ago I would have laughed! Looking at the bigger picture, work has now started on the scenery for the second corner module. Currently I have it connected up to the first corner module and it looks a bit like a real life equivalent of when a video game hasn't loaded the next area! The bridge that hides the fiddle yard entrance is a metcalfe kit which had been built for this purpose a while back, so it's nice to finally see it in place. I've left a little bit of space from the edge of the board so that, if anyone ever looks through the bridge, there's a little bit of scenery behind it rather than being able to see directly into the fiddle yard. Finally, I've also made a start on putting down the polystyrene blocks which are supporting the cardboard road and chicken wire. Just the bit to do at the front of the module now where the two farm buildings will go... hopefully I'll be able to finish this off tomorrow.

In the background I've quietly been working away on plans for the next module. As this one will connect to end of the fiddle yard I'm planning to have the line in a bit of a cutting with a bridge across the track to create a scenic block hiding the gap in the backscene. I've also decided to have a couple of buildings up on the hill, just something small. The first is the Wills Forge kit which I painted and built for a bit of fun and I think it'll fit quite nicely on the layout. The second is one I'm in the process of scratchbuilding! I'm not particularly good at making things from scratch, I built a bridge on my previous layout which is passable from a distance but I'm much more hopeful about this one given the way it's going so far. I'm using some spare mount board and Slaters brick sheets as I found the Wills sheets I used last time too thick. So far it's going well and I'm finding the Slaters plasticard much easier to work with! Still quite a bit of work to do but even if I don't end up using it I'm enjoying making it.