Dinfield Sidings

[pirouets]

Slow progress lately but have been working on the roof for the main warehouse and created the base layer along with the roof windows. This means the next job is the fun of creating the roof layer which will be from scalescenes tiles so an evening of cutting out strips and pasting them on one at a time awaits. I also need to have a think about how to put in the gutter that will be formed at the join of the roof pieces.

 

 

I'll also take a picture of how I am creating the dirt layer alongside the yard which for which I have used dirt fromn the garden as its the right colour and texture.

[pirouets]

So I have been mulling over the fiddle yard as I am finding cassette trays a pain to handle and am wondering whether to have a bit of a rebuild to the plan below

 

 

There are 2 levels with the continuous run at the higher level. My thinking is it would be able to hold 6 trains in total with only the outer most track being direction specific, but I would envisage being able to hold 2 5 coach trains, 2 similar length freight and then 2 shorter trains such as DMU or shorter freight. It would mean the odd bit of man handling if i decided I wanted more, or I put a single 3ft cassette in to the inner most siding to allow stock to be added/removed

 

The lower level then would have 2 4ft sidings , 3 3ft and a 2ft (DMU) which corresponds to the trays I have built along with a couple of loco roads at one end to which will help maximise space for stock.

 

To do this however it will mean a total rebuild of the boards to widen by 3 inches to ensure enough space plus buying the points, whilst the track can be recovered from some of the cassettes that will no longer be needed.

 

I was mulling over how much longer the layout would last as there are a couple of other flaws that annoy me, but for now I think this is the best idea as it simplifies operations and probably builds a set of boards for the fiddle yard that would last beyond this layout.

 

The joke of this is I am back to work on Monday having just had 3 very enjoyable months off and only now do I come up with this. Oh well, at least I have a plan for the winter.

[pirouets]

Cracked on with a couple of jobs today, the first of which is to finally finish the roof for the warehouse/factory building. I think that took longer than getting the walls and windows all sorted but I think its come together OK so far. I need to look for some down pipes now which would sit at the join between shallow and steep roof slopes.

 

 

I've also been filling in some of the space around the ballast and came up with the simple solution of using dirt from the garden to get a suitable brown tone along with a fine enough granularity. I do find I have to grind the dirt in a bowl to ensure there are no lumps in it and hopefully next week I can fill round a couple of other spaces.

 

 

Going back to my last post I am having a slight rethink as it may be possible to get the 4 roads for the upper track in the existing space. There is fair gap between the 2 tracks in place at the moment and using a couple of spare points I mocked up the 2 new tracks and it does seem to fit the existing space, so I will order a couple of short peco points in and try it out next weekend hopefully.

 

Still not sure how that will affect the lower fiddle yard but may be I can just screw on a piece of 44mm wood to which will gain most of the space needed rather than rip everything out. It would also help re-align the join between the 2 boards at the back which has gone out of alignment slightly. In truth I think some more thought and planning is needed for this before I rush in to anything.

[pirouets]

Managed to get the board changes done for the fiddle yard today. The upper level was simple as just needed board dropping in to the slot the cassettes went in.

 

 

For the lower level I simply screwed/glued on 44mm blocks of wood and then cut new tops so I now have 8ft by 6in to work with.

 

 

Finally I also added the base ground cover round the rest of the track round from where the lower level line arrives though I need to have a good think about ground cover for the area's where trains park up in the sidings for loading and unloading to the factory now.

 

 

Hopefully I will be able to order some of the points needed this week and get the upper level sorted but I need to sketch out some other options for the lower level as I think a double slip will give a better way of navigating between fiddle yard tracks.

[pirouets]

So the redesign of the fiddle yard is down and seems to have come together quire nicely. I did change the lower fiddle yard and did not have a ladder of points in the middle to enable me to move trains between sidings. Instead I went for section breaks so I can still juggle trains around off the layout but gained more space. It will hold 6 trains, but ideally 5 at any time thus always having 1 space available for juggling.

 

 

I've created a temporary board for the switches for now (which means it will be there in a year probably)

 

 

What this also means is I will have to go back to thinking about the timetable as no longer using cassettes in the fiddle yard means I cannot just pick a train up and store it on the shelf, so move in and out of the station will need to be more carefully planned.

[pirouets]

Nothing major over the last few weeks other than finding out the new fiddle yard space works better than expected. Up to I have realised I don't really need to worry about electrical isolation as I don't have a loco to go with each freight or passenger train. Instead I can simply juggle loco's around which works just as well, most of the time through the fiddle yard rather than by hand, but occasionally it will be pick up and move.

 

In the mean time I have started on the ground surface outside the factory. I debated between concrete and cobble and settled on the latter. I need to take care curring in around the track and will need to touch up the odd area of ballast to get a good seamless join. Only question is how far down the sidings will I cobble.

 

[pirouets]

So i've been thinking about the compromises and problems on the layout recently such as the amount of compression given the space, the dip in one of the boards as i put to much weight on it once and whether I want the roundy roundy bit and I realised I could improve the operation of the upper track by creating a bi-directional fiddle yard. I only use one controller so its not an issue that at either end the dual tracks have a point back to single line before then opening out to the fiddle yard.

 

In doing this I have probably increased the available space by 25% and can now run trains in either direction from the yard depending whether they are on the up or down line. I need to look at what sort of control to add as I think I can get around 8 trains in, but 6 will probably do leaving 1 track in the fiddle yard always available to receive an inbound train or simply let something go round and round.

 

 

 

On the scenic front i've put some more cobblestones down in the factory area as well as put the roof on to a low relief factory.

 

 

 

Hopefully I will get a few more bits n bobs done over the next 2 weeks before work calls me back including what am I going to use to make drain pipes for the buildings.

 

Till next time....

[Wigan Wallgate OO Gauge]

Now this is superb! I am glad to of stumbled upon it and will be watching with great interest 

[pirouets]

So here we are heading in to 2018 and all the normal threads seem to be starting such as Mornington Cresent 2018, 2018 Modelling Resolutions, etc which leads me to the first post of 2018.

 

Now before we get to the pretty pictures that show the buffers being painted up and installed I have decided not to make any resolutions in 2018 other than to try an think a bit more because it turns out I am just a TOTAL PLONKER when it comes to wiring. As you will see in the first picture I have added 2 green lines an a red one. Why I hear you all cry. Well, for a while now I had been wondering why the isolating section on the outer most line highlighted by the red line did not work and then looking at it I realised it has never worked because i put the dropper to the wrong rail as the droppers for the other 2 are on the rails with the greenline. #MUPPET

 

To fix this I will need to tweak the switches in the control panel so the switch has its own power feed rather than using the same common feed as all the other section switches.

 

Anyway now to the pretty pictures and though I say it myself, just adding a painted up set of peco buffers does make a difference. I have noticed i have not painted one of the lamps white which I will do later and I do plan to then dab a red blob on for the light colour itself.

 

 

For the factory sidings I decided the buffers would be a more brown/rusty colour

 

 

Not shown is also the fact I have also cleaned up the shed and have a dump run of old bits to do. Amazing the junk gathered over time.

[pirouets]

2 posts in a day. Going back to work next week will cramp my style. I've had Dads old stuff since he passed away a few years back hiding in the shed and finally got round to sorting it out. Most of it is pretty old and tatty and I remember it being on my layouts when I was a kid but the loco's came back to life very quickly. Also neither the Wrenn or Lima loco's seemed to care about code 75 track despite the pizza cutter wheels.

 

The Wrenn 0-6-0 (all £3.25 of it according to the box) amazed me the most given its age yet took a quick squirt of oil and 2 laps to move OK whilst the Hornby pannier was the most locked up. Everything however has had a good 15 to 20 min run in both directions and whilst I haven't got crawling speed back they will all potter fairly slowly. I've also given the wheels a bit of scrape to clean the real much off.

 

 

This picture is my Wrenn castle which won't go properly yet with Dads old Hornby coaches and I have to say whilst not up to todays model, it looks good. I think the castle may need a bit of proper care to get it running but we shall see.

 

 

Not quite sure what i will do next as I have a B set and Autocoach that go with these as well. Maybe the odd railtour will come out.

Edited January 3, 2018 by pirouets

[pirouets]

So a bit more thought about how I can use the fiddle yard for the upper lines now its bi-directional. By sheer fluke each road in the yard is made of 3 pieces of track with the centre sections all roughly in the same place. This got me thinking that if I want to store 2 trains of different length, put in insulating joiners and then wire the switches so either the left end + centre or right end + centre gets powered. I can then run them out which ever way I want and the yard will store around 6 to 8 trains in total which will give a fairly good variation in operation.

 

I have also added in centre off switches so that should I decide the simple act of walking the 10ft between the points to set them is to much for me, I can add point motors at a later date. This is possible the 1st time I have future proofed something. Also not sure why the picture makes it look as though the boards are warped because they are not.

 

 

Also the next photo is not showing off stock, but having been looking at (and drooling over) Wibble's Hornsey Broadway I am wondering whether to take the curve out of the backscene. This would give me a number of options for buildings but my initial though is sets of housing backs with a dirt yard area then between the corner of the sed and the track area. Not going to rush this but I have been struggling to think how I would fill the backscene round the bend.

 

Edited January 6, 2018 by pirouets

[pirouets]

So it turns out curved backscene's are a pain, so its gone. In my head I have 2 pictures forming now. The first would be a continuation of the factory buildings constructed as low relief and then have a yard area up to the track where as the 2nd and I think the idea leading the way would be have some housing which could either be low relief along the sides with wasteland or maybe fully constructed houses giving the impression of roads that end at the railway line.

 

Either way I think I have a better space to play with now.

 

[pirouets]

Hmmm, was that a good weekend's modelling or is a hammer going to be involved cos there is always a big enough hammer to fix an issue. I started thinking about the house backs that could fill the corner of the layout. Just before you get in to Paddington on the right hand side is a set of white houses and I have always though the backs would be good on a model. In a nutshell you have a 4 storey building but rather than simply being flat at the back, one side of the building has a room of each floor extending back giving a more interesting shape.

 

So after a bit of playing around with Powerpoint (It always starts with Microsoft) I had a drawing which I printed off and glue to card. I put the 1st one together with the view that there will be around 6-8 in each of the 2 low relief backs but something kept knawing at me. Had I got my size wrong as it just looked to small. So I got a ruler out and lo & behold, the 12cm I had told powerpoint I wanted was in fact 10.4cm. STUPID PIECE OF SO CALLED USER PROOF SOFTWARE. Now I accept there is probably something I did wrong and a setting I missed.

 

However in principle I do like the style.

 

 

So how did I fix it - The old fashioned way. I always enjoyed technical drawing at school and got a good O level so out came rule, protactor and pencil and I sketched it instead. Funnily enough I found this more satisfying in the end than sitting at the computer so will see how we go from here.

 

 

In truth I may mock up 2 versions as I do think using 2mm card the window depth is very thick before the glazing, so maybe I will also do a thinner layer that could then be layed over the thicker card with a window frame glued in the middle. We shall see.

[danstercivicman]

Nice layout, I like the concept a lot

[pirouets]

I haven't done much recently but finally got round to starting on a set of Lima CCT's I picked up ages ago. So far just done a couple of basic swaps to put new wheels in along with removing the old couplings and fitting new NEM standard couplings. Next job is to get some shawplan replacment glazing.

 

I probably won't run them as a set but will mix them in with the 3 parcels coaches I have to make 2 rakes, 1 for the upper line and 1 for the lower level which will add to the operation of the station itself.

 

[Sandhole]

2 posts in a day. Going back to work next week will cramp my style. I've had Dads old stuff since he passed away a few years back hiding in the shed and finally got round to sorting it out. Most of it is pretty old and tatty and I remember it being on my layouts when I was a kid but the loco's came back to life very quickly. Also neither the Wrenn or Lima loco's seemed to care about code 75 track despite the pizza cutter wheels.

 

The Wrenn 0-6-0 (all £3.25 of it according to the box) amazed me the most given its age yet took a quick squirt of oil and 2 laps to move OK whilst the Hornby pannier was the most locked up. Everything however has had a good 15 to 20 min run in both directions and whilst I haven't got crawling speed back they will all potter fairly slowly. I've also given the wheels a bit of scrape to clean the real much off.

 

Dads old locos Small.jpg

 

This picture is my Wrenn castle which won't go properly yet with Dads old Hornby coaches and I have to say whilst not up to todays model, it looks good. I think the castle may need a bit of proper care to get it running but we shall see.

 

Castle and Coaches Small.jpg

 

Not quite sure what i will do next as I have a B set and Autocoach that go with these as well. Maybe the odd railtour will come out.

If your Wrenn Castle has a Ringfield motor, can I point you in the direction of Scalespeed.

They do replacement motors which, not only are better, I've got four, two in 8Fs and two in Light Pacifics, but give you a semi clear cab for crew etc.

Last time I looked, their ad was in the 'Modeller.

[pirouets]

Well that just sucks. I've spent the last few days working on the templates for the houses at the back of the layout and had the 1st one comeing together quite nicely and had put it to one side whilst I started to cut out window frames. I heard a little splat sound and thought nothing off it as I had the tablet with me playing a downloaded programme. Thing is I then looked at the model to measure something and the splat was a drip of water through the roof and it hit straight on the model.

 

 

So back to square one on the model and also back to covering the nails in the roof again. Quite where the water has got through the roof felt I have no idea as 2/3rds of the felt got a double coating of ronseal pianted on to it to seal all around the nails in the felt.

 

 

[pirouets]

So the leak has caused a bit more damage to the area I laid with cobble stone. Not sure what the pln will be but I think I can come up with a new surface without to much trouble. The leak I think is from a nail in the roof felt about 12 inches away from where the water actually drops down so hopefully it will be dry tomorrow an I can seal it and any nails either side. The roof felt itself still looks good and I cannot see damage anywhere else though I am starting to sow the seeds for getting a large MK2 shed in the future.

 

 

I've been working on the house backs and decide that the water damage is not an issue so have now put 3 of the low relief buildings together and so far I am happy. The windows have been made using a card template backed with OHP accetate to give a better 3D effect than just printing into the accetate directly. The damaged area is going to have ivy growing over it and a bit further up the building. I

 

In terms if how the scene will be finished, each will have a small yard area leading out on to one of 2 options

- Wasteland area

- A greenspace with a tree or two which will break up the brown scene.

 

 

Finally I knocked up a new picture for the control panel as the layout had changed a long time ago with the station area then having 2 sidings but I never replaced this. In truth I might still make a new panel as there have been 1 or 2 issues with the wiring.

 

 

 

One other question that is bugging me is what sort of fencing would between the 2 buildings shown to seperate the factory area from the station yard area and store building? Also how would it align by the track as in reality someone can just walk round the fencing?

 

 

I've also managed a fair amount of playing trains and the fiddle yard for the upper level is working well as I can run any train in either direction now, so I am starting to redo the timetable to have all movements on it, and not just the lower level station/yard area. This does mean rethinking which loco's are in use on which level as I want to minimise handling as much as possible.

[pirouets]

Not a huge amount to show other than the flats have progressed and the basics of both blocks are now built. My thinking is that I need to add walls to create a small yard area for each and then between the houses and the railway wall will be either wasteland with kids playing or something slightly more looked after, maybe a patch of grass.

 

 

The other area that had been bugging me was the gap by the factory and leading up to the sidings at the station. I had mocked up a possible building but it did not really work however I found that there is a bus garage from Scalescenes which may just be the thing. It can fit in the space with the doors either facing the edge of the baseboard or the doors facing longways down the board. It will be a case of build it and then have a play. I guess this also means I will need to get a bus when I start thinking about vehicles for the layout.

 

[pirouets]

Like a few others on this forum, as summer progressed the shed got ignored as I was playing a reasonable amount of golf, some good and some terrible but over the last couple of weeks i've started going back out, run a few trains none of which seem to be complaining about their lack of activity and got on with a few jobs

 

I've been maning for ages to add the drain pipes to the low relief factory buildings. Simply had some plastic struts painted black and glued in place but its a detail that does make a huge difference.

 

 

After much mulling i've got the picture of houw the house backs will look. I've put them on a base so I can lift them out and work on them and the walls are added to the 1st set. I also had some water damage due to a leak this time last year, but that was easily covered with some foliage to represent ivy up the walls. I've various plans to add dirt to the back yards, bins, bikes, flower pots, etc so I think these will take some time to complete.

 

 

I've also put the base layer down for the yard, but in truth its to dark so the plan is to complete the coverage and then tone it down. I didn't want solid grey that matched the ballast so I will probably make a small piece on an offcut to test colours. In my head a greyish brown would work.

 

 

[pirouets]

Slow progress as ever. I have finally managed to get a ground covering over the failed attempt to use scalescenes cobblestones. Its way to dark at the moment so I have a small piece on an offcut of wood (see pic3) and the plan is to have a play using that to find the right colour wash before applying to the rest of the area.

 

 

I've been slowing cutting away at making a low relief warehouse based on the modular scalescenes warehouse. I have 2 of these coming to gether and this will fill a large portion of the backscene but I need to have a think about the spacing and would I try and create any simple scenes between the buildings such as some crates or people shifting stuff.

 

 

 

Away from this I have restarted in a new version of an operating model that will combine lower and upper level time tables though it does rely on getting another loco or 2 (dare I mention christmas pressies in November) so I will have a look at Warley next week and I might also try and get to Peterborough.

[pirouets]

So what's been happening over the last few weeks apart from Christmas and all that entailed.

 

The houses in the corner are now fixed in place and the basic surfaces for the back gardens / back paths have been added. I need to tidy up the join between the 2 sets of buildings but next I think will then be the scrub area between the houses and the railway wall. Not sure whether this will be wasteland or something with a touch of green an maybe a tree or 2. I was a numpty though and forgot to paint the grey tint onto the backscene 1st so I need to work out how I will get that done.

 

 

 

A 1st for me is trying to signal the layout. I go these for Christmas so they are positioned and needing to be wired in. Once done I will then look at getting the other ground signals needed for the lower part of the layout. The upper part will not have any signals as there is no way I can run the wiring as I probably should have installed it before the railway arches.

 

 

The first signs of life at the station have appeared as I picked up a some packs of people along with the Metcalfe newstand and benches packs. I still need to get rid of the white edge on the stand.

 

 

Finally, because of getting the signals, how was I going to add this to the control panel to which the simple answer was decided to be - Start again from scratch which so far has led to

 

- Removal of all the old wiring except for the droppers.

- Created a new schematic which is better labelled than before which was then covered with a transparent layer to better protect it.

- Added the labelling for the signals.

- Added point switches and labels so I can move from manual points to electric given I have a bunch of gaugemaster motors, though this will be the last thing to do as I have yet to install the motors.

- Ensured I have the wiring tidy so I can easily add/fix any connections.

- Decided to go back to my Gaugemaster unit rather than the panel mounted one for now. This may be long term though it could just be for simplicity whilst the wiring goes in. I have got the upper loops running though as a result.

 

 

 

I will start the main rewire over the next few days so hopefully by Monday the lower layout will be back in action.

 

[stivesnick]

Hi

 

Like the houses, very neat.

 

I would go for a bit of green space in front of the houses with a few trees. The grass would not be in top condition if used as a play area. And old shopping trolley or burnt out car would complete the scene. From the photos it looks like the houses are close to track level, so you might want to increase the height of the viaduct wall or put a higher fence in front to stop people accessing the track.

 

Regards

 

Nick

[pirouets]

Nick, I think you may be right about the wall. Its a scale 5ft and originally the backscene curved alongside the line but I decided to change it to the houses. In fact it may be that the whole brick wall along the back length of the layout gets changed for a higher wall or fence.

 

In other news my final Christmas present turned up. I ordered it to be click and collect of ebay but for some reason the store rejected it so it was sent back and had to be posted. The seller was really helpful and kept me in the loop with what was happening. This means I now have the classic oil train headed by a 33. It does need re-numbering and I will look for some old wagons to work on as I need to learn how to weather them down as the whole train looks as though it just came out of the factory.

 

 

The control panel is coming on and everything that can be wired for now is working with the exception of 1 switch. Luckily I can bypass the switch for now as putting and it feeds the lower fiddle yard line on to the layout so not a huge problem, but a bit of a pain. I have checked the feed wire sends power and its not that as when I apply voltage directly to the pin of the switch, it still does not connect.

 

 

As I said, everything is wired which means for the 1st time on 1 of my layouts there is light in the signals, so time to save a few pounds and order the rest from Kytes Lites.

 

 

I've also put a place for the timetable to go so I can follow it. I need to add some extra info so each line also has what switches to set for the movement. Even more importantly under the timetable is a mount so I can take my tablet in an watch something whilst I model if I choose.

 

All in all, not a bad amount achieved over the last 3 weeks so back to work tomorrow - happy days.

 

 

[pirouets]

So i've been slowly pottering along and am currently very confused as the whole top fiddle yard has stopped working bar 1 section so I need to pull the control panel down and have a look. Quite why this has happen when I have touched nothing and apart from it being windy outside, its not extremes of heat and cold in the shed - Its a mystery.

 

In the mean time the 1st layer of ground cover is down by the houses. I'm currently leaning towards the idea proposed by Nick as I have the tree's and static grass.

 

 

Another slight change is the fact I was thinking the factory building would be a pottery, but I am wondering if will be simpler to take the clay traffic off the layout and it becomes furniture and despite it being the later 70's they still ship by train to London. I've made some wood pallets and piles of wood from match sticks so now need to work out how to weather them to the right colour. Along with that I have some boxes I bought. I did try and make the boxes but quite frankly it was to tedious so happy to go with these for now. Again they will need painting up.

 

You can also see that there is a fence now between the factory tracks and the station shunt siding.

 

 

Last but by no means least I have finally figured out what goes at the end of the station yard area and this will be Dinfied Drinks - the local wine and beer wholesaler. The idea for the building got stolen from a picture I saw on one of the sites where you can buy downloadable buildings (not scalescenes). Lots still to do round the windows, add doors, etc and I am thinking of fitting out the insides with shelving for storage. With this I will need to find a forklift as well as the right vehicles.

 

I'm off to hobby craft now as I have been watching some video's about creating the right surfaces so I need some paints and talc initially to try out various colours. What I want to avoid is a sea of grey and have a subtle enough difference between the ballast and surrounding areas.