will5210

Not much progress this week. Since the clocks changed I’ve been doing a bit more cycling & doing a few outdoor jobs. On the layout I have done a bit more ballasting (not really worthy of a photo I think), and tonight I carried on doing the initial ‘laying out’ of the station building (including the long retaining wall) with the printed texture and foamex. Very useful to start seeing it in 3D. I can already see a few bits that need adjusting! The tower on the right was a prototype to test construction methods- it won’t be on the finished layout. Thanks!

Cheers & thanks for looking in!

That’s very kind - thank you.

Enthused by the positive start to this layout thread, I’ve finally found time to tentatively start the station building. I cut the windows out from my printed ‘wall’ pictured above, then placed it over 5mm foamex board and marked up the window holes with pencil before cutting them out with a craft knife and tidying them up and chamfering the edges with files and wet n dry. I then gave the foamex a squirt of Plasticote chocolate suede effect which helpfully matches the darkened sandstone I printed. All the cutting, filing and sanding takes a bit of time but I’m happy with the effect of wall thickness it gives.

A couple of fish vans been constructed from a couple of Nucast 12ft wheelbase kits bought from the Preston show in March. Not much fun compared to the Parkside version. The one on the left is built as the instructions with all its frustrations in 12ft form. The next night I furiously attacked the 2nd with a knife & cut it down to the 10ft wheelbase version (more suitable for my era too really). I’ll stick to parkside kits in future.

Yes there’ll be a bit of fudging fact and fiction here but my signal box will be closer to the station due to selective compression, so I should’ve said freight trains will reverse close to the station i.e into the scenic section cheers

Cheers I'll take a look

More detail here courtesy of Irishswissernie: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/33664200428 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/32598444777

Clever stuff indeed & food for thought. What model of printer did you buy if you don't mind me asking?

Hmm, I hadn’t considered 3D printing. I’ll need a lot of it so it could get expensive. All the valence is mounted on the same type of girder, but that’s hidden away so a simple X shaped plastic section would suffice there. The Girders between the canopies could be more detailed using 3D prints, etched brass or scratch build brass construction.

Oh that’s very useful indeed! Thanks for posting that. I was thinking of ordering one of their chassis jigs too. Heres the real thing along with a useful interior shot: Does anyone know where I can get etched or plastic girders in that style or similar? Cheers

Hi David. It has certainly helped to get my head around the construction. I can also print out multiple copies for when I cock it all up! Will

The Fort William station building is unique & quite a complicated shape. https://flic.kr/p/XJEgue Getting this correct will be tricky but I've been encouraged by this nice version of FW in N gauge: So, using the station building plans in Ian Futers' Scottish Layout Plans book I've started effectively drawing up my own card kit using scalescenes textures. I can print this on matte paper on the large format printer I have at work & mount it on 5mm foamex with pritt stick. The windows will be cut out by hand and replaced with thin clear plastic. The window frames will be microstrip. The 'tower' will be a separate structure. Thanks for looking in

Hi Corbs. No luck I’m afraid. Can’t think for the life of me what I did with it. It might be worth messaging gr.king as he did 3 of the conversions and may have one he could spare. Sorry I couldn’t help. If it turns up I’ll let you know. Will

Hi, well I’m not hard & fast on 1939 so I’ll squeeze in a K2/Glen or K2/K2 combo here and there. Of course all the Mallaig trains would be K2 hauled so there’s variety there too. I cant see me having room for 8 coach trains in the fiddle yard to be honest. In my head i thought 6 would be enough to give the right impression, though the 8 coach day section of the ‘Northern Belle’ with double headed ‘Glens’ is tempting!

Hi, yes I got a copy of “All stations to Mallaig” on your recommendation in another thread. A very useful resource it is too! Particularly useful with details of the shunting arrangements. What I wouldn’t give for a day watching it in person though. The SMP track works ok with the Peco points using the new Peco fishplates. There is a height difference as the SMP has thinner sleepers, so I packed it up with thin card around the pointwork. I used SMP as I had 10 lengths lying around. If I was starting now I’d probably use Peco flexi

I’m hoping starting a layout thread will help get my backside into gear, end years of prevarication and hopefully speed up the whole layout building process! After 20 odd years as a modeller I’ve never had anything like a complete model railway and I’d quite like that to change. The Fort William station I’m modelling is the original one which existed from 1894 to 1974 when it was flattened and the site is now a dual carriageway through the town. There’s more info and loads of pictures here: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/f/fort_william/ The station layout (basically 2 points & 3 platforms) was cramped and operationally difficult, with trains (often double headed) usually arriving into the longest seaside platform and a fresh engine(s) being attached (after much shuffling of stock, either by pilot or the loco taking over the train) before the train continued to Mallaig or Glasgow. Add to this all freight trains had to reverse from the goods yard back to the station for the section Token before they could proceed up the line & this should hopefully make for interesting operation. My chosen period to model is immediately pre-war with apple green & teak loveliness together with some pre-grouping North British stock in there too. Lots of double headed trains, fish traffic from Mallaig and a J36 shuffling about on pilot duty. Here are a few (awful) pictures. Track is Peco bullhead points with SMP flexi. I’ve omitted the crossover between the platforms as it was rarely used anyway. Concrete Platforms are 3x layers of 2mm foamex for the top, with strips of 10mm foamex for the bottom section. The top was painted with white and grey primer, with a darker part for the asphalt section and lighter grey squares for the concrete panels under the (eventual) canopies. The bottom platform section is covered in scalescenes concrete texture I’ve made a start on ballasting with fine brown woodland scenic ballast and copydex. This is tedious but I’m quite happy with the colour. The track was sprayed with Railmatch sleeper grime and the rails brush painted with Revell ‘rust’ colour. The barrow crossing is from Costa’s finest stirrers painted matte brown. These were a packed up to rail height with plasticard. Building up stock is a slow process and most of it is on my workbench thread (link in my signature). Above is my latest project: A K2/2 (G.King resin kit) along with my first K4 (of 3) and my only D34 ‘Glen Loy’. I’m particularly lacking in coaching stock and may buy a load of the old Hornby generic teak coaches as a pragmatic stop gap for now, but we’ll see. Hopefully there’ll be more to come soon! Thanks for looking in

I may do, but it’d be the Railroad version not the nice version pictured above. I’ll have a root around later for you

After a couple of coats of Halfords red primer: a little filling needed where cab meets footplate but nothing serious.

Hi, I'm needing a couple of these cabs (the side window variant) - maybe someone will have one or two in the spares box from kit builds Thanks

Bodywork now complete enough for paint (I think) and with its own tender too. Posed here with its future partner in crime. Thanks for looking in!

Well, after a long time with no modelling mojo to speak of, I was minding my own business when suddenly I go the urge to cut, glue, solder, paint & generally start making a mess again. I've mostly been making a start on my Fort William layout, but yesterday I just fancied starting the resin K2 kit I bought from Graeme King many moons ago. So here is the (soon to be christened) 'Loch Lomond'. The resin kit went together very nicely with a 'Scottish' cab I pinched from an unbuilt nucast K2 kit Posing with a nucast tender for now after a productive Sunday & I built up courage for the valve gear mods. By the way if anyone has any spare K2 side window cabs lying around I could use at least 2 to save me having to scratchbuild! C9058379-FAA7-46CD-8F11-4FDAEEFE12BB by will5210, on Flickr CA44441C-EB73-4CC3-9447-DA9C01DCC037 by will5210, on Flickr Cheers for now

Really enjoying this so far - It's great stuff!

Nah I decided 3 K4s were enough (for now anyway) so I knocked the resin idea on the head. I might use resin as a short cut to get multiple J37s & J36s though. Cheers

Gentle progress. L1 wheels, return crank & crankpins added & cab painted (needs blending into existing paint when dry) Seen here alone & with classmates Cheers