Horsehay Railway Modeller

I've posted this over in my thread in the track planning forum but thought I'd post here: A revised signalling plan, any ammendments needed? I've only really changed the signal locations / a few feathers near the mpd.

Over on my main thread you will have seen ive changed the tmd design to be more representative of a small MPD which has had a diesel Facility added at one end. This means the Signals previosuly discussed on this thread no longer align. Ive re read this thread and come up with a guesstimate plan for the new signalling . the main change being the gantry mounted signals. Overall Plan Zoomed in gantry plan

Just a quick question on electricity poles. I'm thinking of adding some poles to this street scene. Am I right in thinking the wires would go up and over the embankment? The poles will be taller than as seen in my rough sketch. I'm going to be stringing both electrical and telephone wires from the same pole as seen in my village. David

I would say opt for the slightly longer Kadees just to prevent buffer lock around the curves. As far as I remember I've only used normal Kadees on my Bachmann mk1 and they line up perfectly with my locos height wise . I'd also recommend hunt couplings for Inbetween the coaches as they work well with the coupling mechanism and provide close coupling on straight track and allow the coaches to swing out on curves.

My second purchase has been on my wishlist for years... A Dapol class 52 western. Before anyone mentions it I am also looking at getting a Heljan example in the next few years and will run both. This example is western consort. I've reblown the loksound v4 chip myself with legoman biffo sound and have adjusted some of the lighting. I've also fitted some detail parts (more to follow), as well as the etched plates ( made a bit of a hash of it as I only had superglue on hand) When I visit home I'll fit all of the etched lifting eyes to the roof and do a full weathering job. I've installed a 1v headcode as I think it'll pull my chocolate and cream passenger set and have some crew on order.

Very busy away at work but here are some recent arrivals. I've been wanting an accurascale class 37 since they were announced however for a variatey of reasons I ended up cancelling my first preorder. Having changed my mind a few months later I made a new pre order for the second batch but I've been keeping my eye out for any of the split headcode versions on ebay. I came across this limited edition "1st east anglian" for retail price and snapped it up. I was then able to cancel my pre order. (6v headcode to haul my mixed freight set) I've now dcc sound fitted it with a legoman biffo loksound v5 and accurathrash speaker, Fitted the name plates and changed the headcodes. I understand it only ever ran with the plates covered up from April 1963 to September 1963 as the Regiment it was supposed to represent never actually existed. However due to familial connections to east anglia I've decided to use rule one and run it with plates on and say it was on a rare secondment to the western region. The detail is superb and I particularly like the lighting effects. I have some crew on order and I will be fitting the detail pack, kadee couplings and weathering the Loco when I'm next visiting my parents ....

took some fettling and ive decided to save space i can only model the front half of the shed. But it does mean more locos will be visible outside. the three lines to the ttbl allow for a few locos to queue for coaling, some mineral wagons to be clearing ash and then the third line allows coald locos off of the table and back towards the shed. The sidings below the shed allow me to run around fuel and coal trains as well as to park up coaches, engineering trains and rusty locos etc. Red: Diesel Area Blue: Sidings Black: Coal and Ash Yellow: Mainlines

Carrying on from above to add more photos... I also managed to weather up my pannier tank based on a photo seen in a book. It was weathered by the previous owner but was a little boring and had an early emblem. The book gave me an excuse to run Plain black and save on decals. I would credit the auther but can't remember the book now im back away at work. Having weathered up the pannier I decided to weather up my plumb and custard coaches ( I believe collet and Hawksworth) to complete a small passenger service as seen on the Wenlock branch in the early sixties ( a rule one exception to my 65-71 date) And whilst in a weathering mood I sprayed up a rake of maroon coaches I recently purchase to for a local passenger service. (2 mk1s a Hawksworth and a collet) . I've read some articles on Hawksworths in the late sixties and the collet is again a slight stretch simply because I like the look of them. This is probably the level of weathering I'll aim for on the rest of my maroon stock. Dirty roofs and some frame dirt spray, with a faint panel wash on the body sides to hilight door closures etc. For some final miscellaneous jobs I finished the lighting rig ( one led strip needs repairs) for the viaduct board and added some grass (another grass mat) and a shed (3d printed) to the shopkeepers garden. That's pretty much all I got done in my 4day weekend at my parents house. Hope to get some more work done next time, but for now it's back to planning and loco buying. David

Evening all, Finally got time to upload some photos. There will be a lot more detail on my YouTube channel in the next week or so but here is the rough process : I started by installing a lars opt hof grass mat to make the field ( I could have grassed it by hand but wanted to test some new scenic products). This mat is called "pasture with weeds" I then used my new wws static grass applicator and wws glue and layering spray to apply a mix of autumn, patchy, muddy and dead static grass, followed up with some straw and mud colours through the airbrush. I also put in a hedgerow using rubberised horse hair, seafoam and woodland scenics turf. The finishing touches were my 3d printed fence with some EzLine a wire twisted tree from MP scenery and various seafoam bushes that I quickly made up. The horse was downloaded online and then printed on my resin printer before hand painting based on a horse that lived in the field opposite my house growing up. Took me a while to paint and dry brush but I'm proud of the final look. I think it is much better than any off the shelf offerings which also tend to be under scale. Overall I'm. Very happy with the finished field. (This photo was before I filled and painted the facia black) I also came back and re touched the old static grass with my new applicator and techniques. This signal still needs bedding in with ballast. (once again I re-painted the facia after this shot) ...

Will upload rest of photos after work today. This one shows my old Hornby 61xx vs the new Dapol version. Also the difference in my weathering style and ability from 2022-2024 I'll be keeping the Hornby edition but renumbering it. It will probably end up sat on shed whilst the Dapol version will be added to my running roster. David

Should have made more clear. I used polystyrene sheets and a hot wire foam cutter for the embankment

Dapol 6167 weathered this morning before leaving my parents house. Now en route back to work. Will post layout progress photos in next few days.

Will post more photos this evening, but for now...

I then proceeded to paint the sculptamold brown and airbrush all of the track with some rail match sleeper grime. Before finally ballasting the track using some woodland scenics fine grey ballast. More to follow tomorrow. David.

My week stay at my parents has turned into a long weekend due to work commitments. Final day tomorrow so I hope to get a decent amount done. Here's the rundown so far. I started by dcc sound fitting 6167 with a loksound v5. Then I set about building a lighting rig out of 38mm square pine. The top section is slotted into some aluminium box and is therefore easily removable. 3 rows of 5000k 24v led strips were added and the backscene was prepped for painting. An initial layer of sky and clouds painted on ready for more detailed painting after scenery is finished. It wad then time to make up and paint the bridge abutments and retaining walls using various wills kits. Meanwhile I added a valance to the lighting rig and added an extra set of warm white and cool white leds shining down from the front. Today it was time to start scenery and I began by forming the embankment and the start of a horse field using foam. Here is the view after some sculptamold was applied (upper railing section of the bridge is yet to be installed). ...