Far Wittering - inspiration from a 1984 Railway Modeller

[sb67]

I like that railbus 

[steve W]

12 hours ago, sb67 said:

I like that railbus 

So do I. 

Iv'e got one on the shelf without a purpose and having watched this splendid build I'm eyeing up a spare bit of plywood in the shed!

Steve W

[sb67]

10 hours ago, steve W said:

So do I. 

Iv'e got one on the shelf without a purpose and having watched this splendid build I'm eyeing up a spare bit of plywood in the shed!

Steve W

 

Me too! too many ideas on the go at  the moment as well, I will get round to building something for it though. 

[sb67]

Hi booking Hall, I was looking back over your thread for some inspiration and wondered where did you get the template for the wire and post fence? I'm looking at making some myself and I'd like to give your method's a try.

[Booking Hall]

On 24/01/2020 at 06:09, sb67 said:

Hi booking Hall, I was looking back over your thread for some inspiration and wondered where did you get the template for the wire and post fence? I'm looking at making some myself and I'd like to give your method's a try.

Hi Steve, I drew it myself in AutoCAD. I've actually just revised it as strictly speaking there should be at least 5 wires, and 7 was not uncommon with them more closely spaced lower down where animals would be more likely to break through, but putting 7 on in 4mm scale is just too much. I've attached the file as a PDF if you want to try it for yourself.

post and wire lineside fencing - timber 5ft spacing 4 wire Model (1).pdf

[Booking Hall]

The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that the remaining cutting side has now grown grass and sprouted two large trees. The original designer of the layout (Ludus 1) used the common enough tunnel as an entrance to the fiddleyard, but I wanted to get away from that, hence the cutting. I always intended that there should be some trees here to act as a visual 'foil' to help mask the obvious and abrupt change from scenic to 'offstage'. Again, I've made the trees from suitable twigs pruned from the long-suffering shrubs in my garden, lightly draped with postiche and sprinkled with flock. I've tried to keep them a bit 'airy' to suggest that the leaves have not yet fully developed, and so that some of the branch structure can still be seen. As before, I obtained my wife's seal of approval before glueing them in place, and I'm happy with the way they look and work.

[Booking Hall]

On 23/01/2020 at 19:07, steve W said:

So do I. 

Iv'e got one on the shelf without a purpose and having watched this splendid build I'm eyeing up a spare bit of plywood in the shed!

Steve W

Steve, your comment got me wondering whether I should turn my Cakebox Challenge entry into a micro layout!

[DLT]

Lovely project Mr.Hall, thanks for sharing.

Dave

[sb67]

10 hours ago, Booking Hall said:

Hi Steve, I drew it myself in AutoCAD. I've actually just revised it as strictly speaking there should be at least 5 wires, and 7 was not uncommon with them more closely spaced lower down where animals would be more likely to break through, but putting 7 on in 4mm scale is just too much. I've attached the file as a PDF if you want to try it for yourself.

post and wire lineside fencing - timber 5ft spacing 4 wire Model (1).pdf 4.61 kB · 6 downloads

 

Thanks for that, I'll use that. Do you know how a wire and post fence would go round a corner? Would the wire bend at the post or would there be 2 posts next to each other? 

Hope that makes sense.

[Booking Hall]

21 minutes ago, sb67 said:

 

Thanks for that, I'll use that. Do you know how a wire and post fence would go round a corner? Would the wire bend at the post or would there be 2 posts next to each other? 

Hope that makes sense.

Hi Steve, most likely just a post at the corner with a strut in both directions of the line of fence, and the wire just continuing around the corner.

[steve W]

3 hours ago, Booking Hall said:

Steve, your comment got me wondering whether I should turn my Cakebox Challenge entry into a micro layout!

Ah! spent quite a bit of time at Boscarne inthat period, had a camera (a poor one) and never did get any good pictures ... all memories now, that's why there's a railbus on the shelf!   Lovely bit of modelling, captures it very well indeed.

[Booking Hall]

The last few days have been spent adding small details to the scene such as a few commodities stacked in the yard and general clutter dumped wherever it was convenient!. One thing that struck me from watching an archive film about goods handling on the LMS was the huge amount of straw used as packing in both opens and vans. It was everywhere at the loading dock! It's also something that you don't see modelled very often so I've added a bit to my scene, both in the goods yard and cattle dock.

 

The final few jobs are to add one or two people (already painted and waiting), add the telephone wires, remove the backscene to add some static grass to the bottom of the print where a white line is showing, and to make some small knobs for the point operating wires. Oh, and to retrieve a bicycle from the belly of the vacuum cleaner into which it vanished during a general cleaning up session, then it can be glued in place! After that it's back to painting stock and weathering both it and the locos.

[Booking Hall]

As 'Far Wittering' is virtually finished, I decided to set it up in my dining room and have a play with it, to see if there were any wrinkles that needed sorting out. There are a few things that would benefit from tweaking, and I've time enough to do that before it goes to its first exhibition in April. Meanwhile, it was good fun sorting out interesting shunting moves and the bones of a working schedule of trains.

[sb67]

That looks great Booking Hall, have you got many shows planned for it? 

Steve.

[Booking Hall]

Thanks Steve. Two so far, in April and November, both local to me near Burnley.

[2996 Victor]

This is such a great layout - "Like" simply doesn't do it justice!

 

Do you have the dates of the exhibitions? Burnley is do-able for me, depending on whether it's a weekend for seeing my little ones, and I'd like to see Far Wittering in the flesh!

 

Please do keep posting the pictures as well.

 

All the best,

 

Mark

[Booking Hall]

Hello Mark, thanks for those kind words. I'm glad it's come together in a way that 'speaks' to others besides myself! The April exhibition is at St Lukes Church in Brierfield on 4/5th April and the November one is at Padiham Unitarian Church on 7th November. Do say 'hello' if you manage to get to either of them.

[steve W]

YES! you get 17/10 . On Jan 10 is a nice pic with two fully assembled platform lights. Now, in the pic above, one has succombed to weather/rust/ bored youths/ ....and resides on the platform in the grass, never to be replaced I suspect. Well done, terrific build.

Steve W.

 

[Booking Hall]

19 minutes ago, steve W said:

YES! you get 17/10 . On Jan 10 is a nice pic with two fully assembled platform lights. Now, in the pic above, one has succombed to weather/rust/ bored youths/ ....and resides on the platform in the grass, never to be replaced I suspect. Well done, terrific build.

Steve W.

 

And YOU get the prize for observation Steve! However, the truth is rather more prosaic. I knocked the lamp with the vacuum nozzle whilst sucking up surplus static grass, and the metal bracket I'd so carefully fashioned from a beer can pinged off into the never-to-be-seen-again region of the railway room. I was about to make another when I saw the lamp lying on the platform looking just as though it had fallen off, which, I suppose, it HAD! so I glued it there. I'm glad it looks like it was intended, although you now know differently. Please don't tell anyone else 

[Booking Hall]

One of the tweaks I've had to do is to reduce the gap at the crossing on the two left hand turnouts. These are fairly old PECO Streamline ones, and as such, the flangeway gaps are quite wide, meaning that stock lurched over them as the wheels dropped into the gaps. I've superglued some plastic microstrip to the wingrails and filed them to follow the closure rails. This has cut down the gap considerably and wagons now roll over it with hardly a jolt.

[2996 Victor]

On 03/02/2020 at 09:23, Booking Hall said:

Hello Mark, thanks for those kind words. I'm glad it's come together in a way that 'speaks' to others besides myself! The April exhibition is at St Lukes Church in Brierfield on 4/5th April and the November one is at Padiham Unitarian Church on 7th November. Do say 'hello' if you manage to get to either of them.

 

Thanks! It a free weekend, so I'll definitely try to come along, and I'll be sure to say hello!

 

Best regards,

 

Mark

[Booking Hall]

7 hours ago, 2996 Victor said:

 

Thanks! It a free weekend, so I'll definitely try to come along, and I'll be sure to say hello!

 

Best regards,

 

Mark

Excellent! Look forward to meeting you Mark.

[Booking Hall]

The second tweak I've had to do is reposition the telegraph pole route. This is because I realised from playing with the layout that if I added the 'wires' they would be in the way when I needed to uncouple the loco in the station to run round, and whilst I was sure i would remember they were there, it's inevitable that they would get snapped .

 

So, they've been repositioned along the front of the layout and the wires added. As there is a 90 degree change of direction at the end of the goods yard siding it meant I had to make another pole with two cross arms at 90 degrees to each other, both fitted with 'J' insulator spindles. I then took the opportunity to make a further pole with just one insulator on it to continue the route towards the (at the moment, imaginary) military depot.

 

Whilst I was tidying things up I weathered the road using the airbrush to represent tyre tracks and then sprinkled some brown earth powder along the centre as country roads often do have 'detritus' on them from carts, cows, sheep etc.; and to emphasise the point I've repositioned the cow being driven by a herdsman from near to the backscene further forward. Perhaps I should add a trail of 'presents'  in the direction from whence it came!

 

[Booking Hall]

As it's a Sunday, there's normally no workings to Far Wittering, but an urgent requirement for some stone and cattle feed has brought the R1 up from town with a couple of wagons. I just hope the farmer appreciates the service given and the train staff are suitably rewarded!

[Booking Hall]

Been adding my figures to the layout today.