PaternosterRow

I really love photographing my layouts and my ultimate aim is to make the locos and settings as realistic as its possible in 00 Gauge. Getting as much as possible in focus has always been a bug bear of mine. The relationship between F-Stop, shutter speed and ISO is complex to understand and I should imagine professional photographers spend a long time to master it. I haven't quite managed this and have always found that the higher the F-Stop then the yellower the image simply because the more depth of field (or more in focus you want) then the smaller the aperture. In addition, my camera will only stop up to F8. A medium aperture but one that still restricts the amount of light you need. This always spoils the photo and no matter how long you keep open the shutter you can never get rid of the yellowing effect. Camera's therefore love loads of light where this is concerned so I decided to cobble together my own powerful lighting rig. It had to be on the cheap because professional lighting rigs are an astronomical cost. The above shot under the rig. F8 at ISO 400. The camera sets the shutter speed itself and I set a two second timer delay to defeat any camera shake. The 'Heath Robinson' style lighting rig. I found an old overhead projector at my local tip and took it apart. I put the fan and bulb assembly into a wooden box, created a reflective direction device out of hangers and mounting card and put the whole thing on top of a stand that I bought secondhand from a builder for a fiver. It was really cheap to construct and it works quite well. Mind you, despite the fan it gets very hot so I don't leave it on too long in case the whole thing falls apart! The rig is about as good as it gets in creating artificial sunlight. It's either that or lug the layout down from the loft and wait for the sun to come out and you could wait a long time over here for that! Now to get rid of those pesky shadows on the backdrop! This is my take on a smashing prototype picture in Hornby's latest mag regarding coloured light signalling on the Southern. The picture was of a Class 33 double heading with a BR Standard 5MT out of Waterloo in 1966. A summer afternoon at Folgate Street. Note how the light rig casts realistic shadows under the signal box gantry. Light and shade. Notice how the focus drops away and yet this is the best my Fuji Bridge can do. It's a lot better than my other smaller 'snap' Panasonic Lumix which has a much narrower field of focus. The only other route is photo stacking, but this seems like a magic trick far beyond my capabilities. I guess I'll always be an analogue fuddy duddy!

Hi David. That looks quite recent! I’ve thought about it believe me because it’s a beautiful little place with its strange head shunt arrangement. However, I prefer Tralee Station as it still has its old signal box and although it’s very much the same style it has a much larger siding facility. The route of the old narrow gauge track line (the Dingle/Tralee) can also still be traced in part and you can still see the gates at the rear of the Station. Tralee has many personal connections and I love to tell the story of my Uncle John who did National Service in Britain in the late forties (RAF). He was so proud of his achievement that he wore his uniform on a visit back home to Kerry to see his Mom and Dad on Leave. He got off the train at Tralee and a group of men threw stones at him and called him a Black and Tan! He stood his ground, stared back at them and told them to get off their backsides and do something useful with their lives instead. He owned a shop in Birmingham for many years and always thanked his lucky stars for having the gumption to go to Britain to seek a better life. Like my Dad, he was a man that knew his own mind and always refused to follow the crowd.

Thanks very much, Killybegs. It's sort of a freelance structure that has been copied from many different types of this sort of station roof. It's so important to get everything straight as the one thing this hobby demonstrates is that the eye will forgive a lack of detail but it wont tolerate things out of true. Mind you, if a qualified engineer put his eye along some of my joints then he'd have no choice but to condemn it!!

Cheers Simon. That sort of London grot, canyons of brick feel is exactly what I was after.

Just a few night shots to show off the under roof section. I quite like this shot - look at those superb valves and cocks under the cab. It's a beautifully detailed model. A final shot of the whole layout. The points are all push pull and the frogs are juiced by the blades, as in the old days, and as long as you keep the blade contacts clean they give no trouble at all. I'm rather proud of the small control panel and took my time with it. All of the connections are push together types and were salvaged from an old 'on demand' boiler that was being disposed of at work.

Great praise. Thanks, Mikkel. You know, my modeling obsession drives my wife batty sometimes. I’m not a drinker so this is my way of relaxing and, consequently, my out put is very high. I’m not a great Telly watcher either so that probably contributes too. The lock down was very boring and we weren’t able to go into Killarney for our usual walks, meals and cinema trips so there was little else but to get my head down on the bench. However, we were luckier than most and could still go for long walks down the country lanes out our way - so I’m not at it all the while! You mention that you only seem to post when a small detail is completed, but ‘what’ detail it is! I am, as always, in awe of your skills and patience. That’s another problem I have; impatience and a need to find shortcuts toward completion. Hence the wire and 2D textures - not everyone’s idea of railway modelling though.

Thank you David. I couldn’t agree with you more. Micro layouts have always suited my style and I prefer them entirely to Chocolate Box scenes. There’s something about the urban environment that draws me, perhaps it’s simply because I grew up in a city. Also thanks for the advice about the Q1.

Thank you, Mike. High praise indeed from a great modeler. I spent a while this morning looking at your very interesting blog. I die a happy man if I could create that picture of yours of the Broad gauge train. Early steam is a fascinating story that is rarely modeled.

Cheers Alex, all well here although I had a wee stint in hospital (not virus related fortunately). Hope all is well with you and yours.

Brilliant work, Mike. I’ve lately become fascinated by early steam locomotives and have been investigating the various range of kits. Brass stuff is hard to construct and paint and it obviously takes years to learn the skills. 3D printing therefore seems the fast forward way of construction for this era and you seem to be in front regarding this. In awe of anyone willing to experiment and lead the way - just like the prototype! Gooch was years ahead of his time too and Brunel was lucky to have found him because, I believe, his initial loco designs weren’t up to the job. Great stuff.

Wowzer! Fantastic attention to detail and research as per usual. This is just a lovely model and think you have amazing building skills in this fiddly scale. I can feel another story following along shortly with the Dean Goods as star. As always I am in awe of your abilities. Brilliant workmanship.

Some initial pictures of my latest scheme. Like most of us modelling fanatics I haven't been idle during the lockdown period! These are strange times indeed and I have no doubt that many of us have worried about income and job security so, with the exception of purchasing a second hand Hornby Q1, I have managed to construct the layout with materials and track I had to hand. Folgate Street is a fictitious slice of third rail London and is an old scheme that has been revamped for the purpose. The original station throat was constructed about 11 years ago and was made at the start of my railway modelling journey. I was still fumbling about at this earlier stage hence the use of Code 100 and Insulfrog points. It was a copy of a throat drawn up by the famous Cyril Freezer. The original layout was actually once used as the basis of my 1984 model (see previous posts) and was gathering dust in a forgotten corner of my loft so I thought I'd put it to good use. The fabulous Hornby Q1. This was picked up cheaply from Hattons. It had a missing sand box and steps which have been knocked up from bits out of the spares box. Despite a thorough wheel clean it runs intermittently and I wonder if has anything to do with the DCC decoder that it is fitted with? I don't need it as I'm analogue and I know they'll run on DC current. If I remove the decoder will I need a blanking plate? - any help would be greatly appreciated as it's a smashing model and it deserves to run properly. The roof is another of my soldered wire schemes - to add a bit of interest I've used a downloadable texture from CG Textures for the roof lights. Note the cardboard strips at the side of the track. These have been made form thin card to replicate the wooden boards used at Southern stations to contain the third rail - they help to hide the absence of insulators and also disguised the oversized profile of Code 100 track. A Hornby 2 HAL emerges from the right hand scenic break. The Lyceum Theatre is a freelance structure made from Scalescenes Textures whilst the buildings on the overbridge are downloaded photographs from CG Textures. These have been layered to give a little relief. The superb Heljan Class 33. The station tower is another freelance structure loosely based on the Towers found at Cannon Street Station. Again, I've used Scalescenes sheets to construct it. The station roof is loosely based on the Suburban station one at the side of Kings Cross Station. Two tracks on a slight incline were added to the front of the original layout to add a bit of operational interest. The signal box gantry, based on the one found at Holborne Viaduct Station over the Widened Lines incline, has been made from Plastruct girders and bits from various Dapol kits. All the signals work apart from the one on the signal box - I think super glue seeped into the fine electrical wires and have caused a short circuit! The 5.5 foot layout is an end to end scheme with a main 5ft long fiddle yard to the right hand side. The half station side is fed from a three foot long 'black box' section during normal operation. I utilised a mirror at this end to lengthen the look of the station for the above photographs. More pics to follow.

Excellent idea! Love to see more of this develop as it is a pity that you can only mostly get carriage kits in brass which is notoriously hard to paint. It would be brilliant to see them printed with the colours and lining if this was possible. Very clever stuff.

Beautiful job. I had a go at at a Southern Pride 304 a couple of years ago and found it a really hard kit to build. Your painting is superb and makes the model for me. Quick build too! Well done.

Hills of the North was a brilliant piece. It was a delight to watch the video of the layout. The way the banking engine worked in tandem with the train and then slowly tailed off at the top was like watching a magic trick. Really slick piece of control. Fab issue yet again and happy birthday Hornby. Looks like having Simon back in the driving seat will ensure Hornby will continue going from strength to strength for a good few years to come.

We used to call the base layer of stone Scalpings back in the day. They were anything from 6 to 8 inch long by 4 inches wide and were roughly cut shards of granite. This layer could be up to 18 inches thick depending on the ground conditions. They were a devil to dig out for road crossings (for services like water, electric or gas) afterward. These were covered over by smaller stones we’d refer to as 40 mil Down (down simply meaning ever decreasing diameter down to dust). All of this was compacted by vibrating rolling machines or compacting plates (these were awful machines to use as they had to be walked from behind - not the lovely current types that have seats etc.). A base layer of tarmac with 10 to 20 mm stones was then laid and rolled followed by a fine grain topping layer. All of this was for major/minor road construction - motorways were a different beast altogether and were deeper layered because of the heavier traffic use etc.

Never saw this till today. Beautiful model. What patience cutting out those vents.

Another pleasant half hour sifting through your first blog. There are some brilliant modelers on RMweb - the likes of Mikkel and Alex Duckworth stand tall amongst them. You have what Alex calls ‘the eye’ and you have it in spades. You are indeed an artist rather than just a modeler. I still can’t quite get my head around the fact that Monk’s Gate and Midland in Bristol are your first layouts, it’s no wonder you’ve caused a bit of splash on here. When I saw that first picture of the Goods Office I swear I was looking at the real thing; the scribing and painting of the brick walls was modeling perfection. The idea about printing on the crates with Laser print and nail varnish was also genius; how on earth did you come up with that? I look forward to seeing much more from you and I’m seriously thinking of going to 7mm from 4mm myself because of your layouts. Really inspiring stuff and thank you for sharing it on here.

I only came to this beautiful layout via MRJ yesterday. It is a truly stunning piece of work and I spent a pleasant time reviewing the whole blog. I lost count of the amount of oos and ahhs emanated along the way. Despite the speed of this build, the attention to detail is incredible and it seems to have been wrought from hands that have been modeling for a whole lifetime. Yet, I understand from the MRJ article, that you have only been practicing the hobby for a few years since your family has all grown up! There is always a danger that layouts try to stuff in too much, yet your creation is exactly the right balance. Truly blown away by this work and my mouth waters at the thought of future creations from you. Midland in Bristol is testament to what can be achieved in the hobby when the creative juices are allowed to flow untapped. A lovely work of art that has been precisely executed.

Welcome to world of model railways my friend. I’ve been back at the hobby for the last 11 years and I still get things wrong regarding track laying and electrics etc. The hobby can be very frustrating but also very rewarding. Just keep plugging away and it’ll all come together in the end. Keep posting too - you’ll get plenty of help on here. Good luck and regards, Mike.

Lovely work, Wenlock. Fabulous paint job. Really impressed with the accuracy with all the leather horse tackle. How I wish I had your patience and steady hands.

Great recovery! Painting stuff is a pain in the proverbial. Loved the four stages video and you are, as per usual, brilliant at the technique of showing rather than telling the tale. A great example of the trials of the modeling bench.

Beautiful precision as ever.

Great piece of modelling. Love the accuracy and how dead square you have got everything - great craftsmanship and attention to detail. Beats my wire efforts hands down. All that brass must of cost a pretty penny? How much has been your outlay so far? Mike

Thanks, Andy. That film is brilliant. I’ve just watched ‘First Man’ and a documentary about Armstrong - fascinating stuff. He must have been an easy choice for the administration - just all the right attributes.