Rotherhurst - A slice of Southern in Norway

[Norwenglish]

Thanks Phil. Quite fantastic and inspiring for us to hear we're an inspiration to someone on here, especially with this being our first layout...we must be doing something right! I have to admit that I do find myself wishing we were close enough to invite people over to 'play trains' and let them see it in the flesh.

 

Also Dad came home today and made a surprising suggestion that we start on something for the layout this weekend that came as quite a surprise, so we might have an interesting update on Sunday evening or thereabouts.

 

Stuart

Edited January 8, 2016 by Norwenglish

[Norwenglish]

So time to reveal the 'surprise'. Dad decided we should start on the boards for the fiddle yard, so today we took a trip to the local timber merchants and picked up the wood and made a start, I also took a few pictures of the progress. The baseboard method we use is the one shown in the Right Tracks DVD.

 

Unfortunately we had to rag the table saw out of the workshop due to there not being enough space inside to make the cuts we wanted, and being Norway it was a balmy -6℃ with a nice chilly wind to make sure we didn't overheat due to working hard.

 

After the cutting work then moved rapily to the cellar with the wood fire being lit. The ply strips get placed in a homemade jig which helps us locate where the spacing pieces of wood go. These get glued in and stapled.

 

Another strip of ply is then stapled to the other side an all staples then given a tap with the hammer to make sure they sit flush with the face of the wood.

 

After being left for the glue to cure the 'girders' are then screwed and glued together into frames, the square will have 90 degree curve from the tunnel connecting to the rectangle which we hope to fit a 6 road fiddle yard onto.

 

Finally here is how far we got today with the ply top glued, screwed and clamped onto the corner piece, once this is done on both of them we will the add cross bracing and legs.

 

Not sure if it's been mentioned before, but the whole layout has been built so that it can be easily taken down and transported as we are hoping we can get it finished in time for the local exhibition in september time (if they will have us of course).

 

Stuart

[SR Rich]

Going on from Stuart*s post yesterday, here is today's progress.

 

Here's the two base boards screwed together with the cross bracing in ready to be lined up to the tunnel opening. A few extra blocks of wood were added in the frame, so that we get a better and stronger place for bolting the bases together.

 

 

Here we have the boards being leveled up, so I can fix it to the layout in the correct place. It is just propped up on a table for now.

The legs will be added later, after we have had a good tidy up.

 

 

 

This is an idea I have for the layout of the fiddle yard. Stuart mentioned 6 roads, but I have managed to squeeze 7 roads into the space.

As Stuart mentioned in the previous post we hope to take this layout to an exhibition in the future, which means we will have to turn the corner through 90 degrees and take the fiddle yard to the other side of the layout. If this does not make sense then we can cover that in a future post. So this is the best solution I have come up with so far.

 

 

Another pic from a slightly different angle, one thought I've had is to carry on the scenic hill over the corner piece, what will go on there you will have to wait and see.

 

 

More to follow.

 

Richard

[SR Rich]

Just a very quick update.

 

The layout has been progressing steadily, the fiddle yard has been totally corked and most of the track work is now finished.

The large grass area are now largely complete, as seen in the pictures below.

 

 

 

We are now working on fencing around the station and goods areas, the farm buildings are ready for fixing down on the layout, then progressing to line side fences.

 

There should be more to post up soon

[Mallard60022]

Ummmmm, I like that cutting. Very 'Isle of Wight'. Glad you have well behaved cork....................................

Phil

[bike2steam]

Just looked in at this thread for the first time, and I must say it looks pretty good - must keep an eye on this.

[SR Rich]

Ummmmm, I like that cutting. Very 'Isle of Wight'. Glad you have well behaved cork....................................

Phil

Hi Phil

I am glad you like the cutting,I am looking forward to seeing yours too..............................

Great to see you have track laid and trains running on SOSJ.

 

Yes the cork is well behaved, I used pva wood glue and drawing pins to hold it down while it was drying.

 

Stuart has found some great angles for taking more pictures on our layout, we just need enough light ie daylight, so hopefully tomorrow.

[ikcdab]

This is a great layout. Well done. So well built and designed. A great inspiration.

[Norwenglish]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone!

 

Even though it's raining (as usual), theres luckily enough light today to take the pictures that Dad mentioned yesterday.

 

Firstly we have the fencing that we've been installing over the last week.

Here we have the road down the side of the station building to the engine shed. The little piece of fencing laying down will be glued on in line with the gate once some groundwork has been done.

 

Here we have the fencing and gates around the goods yard and cattle dock, and the fence that separates the yard area from the line along the platform.

 

 

 

Last but not least, we have the pictures from nice angles Dad mentioned in his last post. I discovered last night that due to it's asymmetrical design, I can get the camera quite close to track level.

 

The view down through the engine shed.

 

Goods waiting to be distributed.

 

Looking through the booking office at a GWR intruder waiting in the platform!

 

Lastly, the signalman with nothing to do as he waits for a train to appear.

 

Currently Dad is working on a crane for the goods yard (which can be seen in our workbench thread) and I'm working on renewing some old rolling stock.

On the layout the farm buildings have been glued down and there has been talk of doing the railway boundary fence, which should be interesting, with all the posts that need gluing in and then threading all the wires through them!

 

Stuart

[Mallard60022]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone!

 

Even though it's raining (as usual), theres luckily enough light today to take the pictures that Dad mentioned yesterday.

 

Firstly we have the fencing that we've been installing over the last week.

Here we have the road down the side of the station building to the engine shed. The little piece of fencing laying down will be glued on in line with the gate once some groundwork has been done.

 

Here we have the fencing and gates around the goods yard and cattle dock, and the fence that separates the yard area from the line along the platform.

 

 

 

Last but not least, we have the pictures from nice angles Dad mentioned in his last post. I discovered last night that due to it's asymmetrical design, I can get the camera quite close to track level.

 

The view down through the engine shed.

 

Goods waiting to be distributed.

 

Looking through the booking office at a GWR intruder waiting in the platform!

 

Lastly, the signalman with nothing to do as he waits for a train to appear.

 

Currently Dad is working on a crane for the goods yard (which can be seen in our workbench thread) and I'm working on renewing some old rolling stock.

On the layout the farm buildings have been glued down and there has been talk of doing the railway boundary fence, which should be interesting, with all the posts that need gluing in and then threading all the wires through them!

 

Stuart

Glad to see you have also used the spare Cambrian SR B Van body for the basis of a hut..................................I think?

Duck.

[Norwenglish]

You're indeed correct! The brown patch it's sitting on will be an allotment for the railway cottages, and the spare body will become a garden shed.

 

Stuart

[SR Rich]

A quick update on progress during the week.

 

The yard crane is now in place ready to recieve the first container, if you would like to see how I made this crane, you can find it on our workbench thread.

 

 

Another picture of the crae from a slightly different elevation.

 

 

Another job that Stuart has started is the line side fencing, we are using Ratio posts with a 0.5mm florists wire, unfortunately I underestimated the number of posts we needed so we are about 40 posts short of the 140 that will be used on the layout. I am sure there will be more pictures to come when the fencing is complete.   I think the fencing gang were so quick, the Landrover ended up on the wrong side of the fence !

 

 

Finally for this post, the walling is complete and fixed in place around the farm and along the road.

If you look above the farmhouse you will see more of the line side fence posts, that go up around the cutting and over the tunnel mouth.

 

 

The weather is appalling at the moment, so I think it is a model railway day today. :yes:

The plan for this weekend is to get all the brown undercoated areas covered over the weekend.

[Norwenglish]

The plan to get all the brown undercoated areas covered was successful, although it took a little longer than the weekend. So as the weather is so good today, we have some pictures of progress.

 

Here we have the farm area, and on the left hand side you can see the duck pond which now has 'water' added, and is ready for visits from feathered friends.

 

The railway cottage/ allotment area.

 

A close up of the shed made from the spare Cambrian brake van body. Also as you can see in the background, the sausages are in the process of being delivered ready for the grand opening!

 

A view of the homemade hedges that I'm quite proud of, although we ran out of the materials to make them, so I only managed to make enough for this area.

 

Finally an overall view. As you can see the line has been quite busy recently, as we are also working on improving running qualities on our r-t-r stock/ testing some of Dad's engines which are older than me!

 

Next up will be building more hedges for the farm and fields, finishing the lineside fencing, adding various bushes and other bits of ground cover, and applying weathering powders and patches of grass/weeds to the road areas. Although progress might be a little slow seeing as hedges and lineside fences are my department, and I'm escaping to the UK tomorrow morning for just over a week

 

Stuart

[Mallard60022]

That is looking very tidy and I do like the colours of the scenic areas.

Phil

[Norwenglish]

Thanks Phil, we were worrying that the gardens of the cottages and farmhouse were too strong a green, so any opinions on them are more than welcome!

 

Stuart

[Nearholmer]

Talk about "fast forward"!

 

You chaps don't hang about, do you?

 

A great deal to like here, especially that cutting and tunnel.

 

Kevin

[SR Rich]

Hi

Thank you Phil and Kevin for your comments.

Here are a few more general views of the layout that I took today, to add to Stuarts from earlier.

 

This is looking straight up the layout to the tunnel, with the fiddle yard curving around to the left hand side, this will be the set up if we take the layout to an exhibition ( public viewing is the right hand side) and it also makes the layout easier to work on from both sides at the moment. When the layout is finished the fiddle yard will go to the right hand side and the left side of the layout will go against a wall. The control panel you see on the left, has wires long enough that it can be moved to the other side of the layout.

 

 

 

This is taken from the opposite corner, showing some of that "vintage" rolling stock as Stuart put it in his previous post.

The nearest train is  a "schools class" with 4 kit built items of rolling stock, the back 2 are Ian Kirk low window Maunsell coaches (pictures of their rebuild is on our workbench thread), next is a bogie luggage van and then behind the engine is a 4 wheel luggage van.

 

A view of the cutting and tunnel, with the farm and duck pond ( with "water",ready for the migratory mallards) in the fore ground with every thing fixed in place as Stuart mentioned earlier.

 

 

 

That is it for now, more updates soon.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Richard

[Nearholmer]

I will amend my previous comment to:

 

"......... especially that cutting and tunnel, and the farm and pond."

 

You've really captured the nature of these things, without making it look too "chocolate box".

 

K

[Edwardian]

This layout is another great find.  I particularly like the graceful curves, the sense of uncluttered space that convinces you that you are looking at a country station and the subtle ground colouring that goes so well with those excellently made Scalescenes buildings resulting in a harmonious whole.

[prtrainman]

This layout is another great find.  I particularly like the graceful curves, the sense of uncluttered space that convinces you that you are looking at a country station and the subtle ground colouring that goes so well with those excellently made Scalescenes buildings resulting in a harmonious whole.

Just come across this layout too & agree with Edwardian's comments. Details of the building process are particularly inspiring. The buildings & structures are particularly effective. I note that post 9 includes a view of the underside of the station platform. I would be grateful if you could advise what materials/construction method you used for this.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

PRTRAINMAN

[Norwenglish]

Thanks for the kind comments! It's a real help to our inspiration and motivation to see people like our work so much.

 

The platform was built using the scalescenes kit, and if I remember right we started by making the top layer using the flagstone printout stuck to 1mm thick card which we had made to size by roughly cutting it to shape, placing it between to tracks and running rolling stock along to check for clearance, although we have recently discovered that the Z Class does try to get onto the platform when it goes through the run-round loop! then the edging stones were glued along the length of the top piece and I marked along the underside where the brick walling pieces made from 2mm card would go (4-5mm from the edge if I remember right). As these were glued in with the help of a small square I measured the distance between each side and cut and glued in the bracing pieces (again 2mm thick) that go across between each wall. I also added more 2mm card behind any joins in the walls for extra support, and finally once this was done there are small strips of brick edging glued onto cereal box card that are put in along the top of the brick walls where they meet the platform.

 

I hope this helps and makes some sense, and if needed I can take some pictures when I return home from the UK (with more goodies for our workbench thread).

 

Stuart

[AireValley1962]

Just read this whole topic through, and I must say, I am very impressed with it.  I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but a funny thought occurred to me: most of what you've used to build this fabulous layout has been dead trees.  I am in no way a tree-person, but I though it was really neat the way one can use cardboard(from trees), wood(from trees), paper(from trees), and cork(also from trees), to make a terrific model. 

 

Anyway, best of luck in the rest of the work.  I look forward to the finished product.

 

Cheers,

William

[Norwenglish]

Quite an interesting thought! Almost makes it a shame that the hedges and trees won't contain any tree based products!

 

Stuart

[Mallard60022]

Quite an interesting thought! Almost makes it a shame that the hedges and trees won't contain any tree based products!

 

Stuart

Bonsai!

Phil

[Norwenglish]

Well today we have a shortish update, and a bit of exciting news!

 

Firstly for the update, the lineside fencing is finished, and all the hedges, gates and stiles are now built and in place (I've taken some stage by stage pictures of the hedge process incase anyone would like to see) and ground up pastels have also been added to the roadways to weather them slightly.

 

 

 

As for the news, we had a visit from some members of the local model railway club today, and after having a good chat and running a few trains, the layout is now booked to go to the Bergen Model Railway Exhibition (apparently the only one in the country) in the beginning of October! They seemed quite impressed with the layout and how fast it has come together. So we are quite excited, but also now have a time limit to get the layout upto a certain point and also to get a good amount of rolling stock running to a reliable standard.

 

Whats next for the layout itself? To be honest we aren't quite sure, but we are thinking trees, a platform building and adding a pigstye to the farm.

 

Stuart