Shelf Marshes (first attempt at a cameo layout)

[ISW]

Richard,

3 hours ago, 47137 said:

The backscene is fixed, it is a structural part of the baseboard. The two wings (front left and front right) are fixed too. The dust cover is a loose piece of 4 mm ply.

Interesting, not how I imagined in would be. Mind you, I guess you have good access from above and the front to all parts of the layout.

3 hours ago, 47137 said:

I have offcuts of ply on the inside and narrow strips of wood on the outside. This is fairly clear in the first photo here.

That's getting quite intricate. A neat solution.

 

Ian

[47137]

5 hours ago, ISW said:

Richard,

Interesting, not how I imagined in would be. Mind you, I guess you have good access from above and the front to all parts of the layout.

 

The home for the layout will be a recess in the corner of the room, but to be honest it will be nigh impossible to work on the layout there. I have a folding picnic table in the middle of the room, this is ideal for building a new layout but blocks access to the rest of the system.

 

So - the plan is to build this new layout as far as its track and lighting and electrics - I'm nearly there. Then install it into its recess, connect it to the rest of "Shelf Island" and enjoy running trains while I build the structures to put onto it. Then, bring it back to the picnic table and work up the scenery.

 

Ian, your note about the Tri-ang dock shunter has proved expensive. I had a look at Elaine Harvey's web site for dock shunters, and her Trix catenary maintenance railcar arrived in the post today. It is Continental not British outline, but fabulous all the same.

 

- Richard.

 

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Richard,

I'm liking your woodworking, it looks very neat. I think you've done Mr Rice proud! 

I also like your recent purchase, I've drooled over those little things for some time and it was a good price too. I *think* the platform is movable, maybe under digital control? It's been a while since I saw one demonstrated.

Enjoy!

John.

[ISW]

1 hour ago, 47137 said:

 

Ian, your note about the Tri-ang dock shunter has proved expensive. I had a look at Elaine Harvey's web site for dock shunters, and her Trix catenary maintenance railcar arrived in the post today. It is Continental not British outline, but fabulous all the same.

Richard,

 

Not exactly my 'cup of tea', but a lovely looking model none the less. Are all the moving parts motorised (DDC controlled, maybe)?

 

Myself I've just spent a similar amount on Peco track and turnouts, after I found shop that actually had stock!

 

Ian

[sb67]

Looking good Richard. This an interesting project, and some great work happening already.  looking forward to seeing it grow

[47137]

5 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Richard,

I'm liking your woodworking, it looks very neat. I think you've done Mr Rice proud! 

I also like your recent purchase, I've drooled over those little things for some time and it was a good price too. I *think* the platform is movable, maybe under digital control? It's been a while since I saw one demonstrated.

Enjoy!

John.

 

5 hours ago, ISW said:

Not exactly my 'cup of tea', but a lovely looking model none the less. Are all the moving parts motorised (DDC controlled, maybe)?

 

The platform is manual. It pulls up and turns and you can raise the hand rails along the sides. The most striking thing about the model is its mass - about 330 grams! It feels like it was machined from a solid lump of steel. Running is perfect, and this one whilst second-hand has no visible wear on the wheels.

 

 

This vehicle really has no place on a layout purporting to represent British practice, but the temptation to have something self-powered, with crew accommodation and a cab at both ends, proved too great.

 

I think there is something in there to prompt a DIY conversion of an Airfix/Dapol railbus into something fictional but more recognisably British.

 

- Richard.

 

[47137]

5 hours ago, sb67 said:

Looking good Richard. This an interesting project, and some great work happening already.  looking forward to seeing it grow

 

Hi Steve, I am so glad you have dropped by. The scenic treatment has got to be worth some discussion when I can get it underway. What I want to do first, is simply operate this layout for a while and then build up the scenery to suit the operations.

 

The layout is between 8 and 9 square feet so about double the size of a micro. But the major structure (the chemical plant) is decidedly "micro" in its design and if I can include features I have seen or used in micros then the layout should look bigger than it really is.

 

- Richard.

[47137]

Finishing off the initial build (a working layout, no scenics)

 

I have tidied up a few loose ends and quite a lot of loose wires ...

 

This is a switch I feel I need, but not often. It isolates the 12V supply to the circuit of "operating accessories" on the layout, whatever they end up being. I have put it out of the way on the baseboard frame, not on a control panel.

 

I have installed my DIY route setting panel on the layout. I have put it into the right-hand wing:

 

The two crooked bits of wood here are shims wedged in to hold the assembly in place:

 

Finally, I have put the covers onto the cable trunking and all of the wiring now looks respectable, especially around here:

 

I now have a workable layout and I can try putting it into its alcove in the room and connecting it up to the rest of "Shelf Island".

 

- Richard.

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by 47137
Simplified

[47137]

A mate had a look at the railway yesterday and gave me some fresh ideas. He is the first person to come to see the layout. Here are a couple of photos to compare my mock-up six weeks ago with my new mock-up as we left things yesterday.

 

  

 

I have decided a few items, these are unlikely to change:

• The two Kenco coffee tins bottom right will be storage tanks and they work well as a view blocker for the exit through the mouse hole.
• The location of the chemical plant is fixed.

We discussed quite a lot of other details:

• The block of flats helps to create a visual balance.
• The layout will be much better if the tram platform (top left) is a passenger platform, not a maintenance depot. Just forget what the purists say and imagine whatever protection measures the line needs are off-scene.
• Have an ancient hut here, repurposed for use as the cleaner's store. This needs a pitched roof not a flat one.
• The platform can have a bus stop style shelter for passengers and not much else.
• If I have a passenger platform I can have one of those OLED display panels. Just imagine, "Next tram: Fairport *non stop*" or whatever.
• The chemical plant hides the too-tight curve well, but it is good to be able to watch the trains moving across behind it. You can see they are going around a curve, but not how much their bogies are swinging out. 
• I was thinking of a lagoon behind the chemical plant. Forget this, it will be impossible to see.
• Possibly a Ratio pump house behind the chemical plant.
• In the PW depot (top right) add some loose track materials and a mess hut. He likes huts.
• The refuelling point can be smaller and have a single-sided roof. Possibly a Merit bus shelter.
• The vehicle restorers needs a high wire fence behind it, to separate it from the railway.
• The semaphore signal middle-right will be worked by the route setting panel not the local lever frame, to represent access granted by a signal box in the section off-scene to the right. This signal is an LMS design to help reinforce the British setting.
• The sea wall along the front could be finished with sheet piling. The area in front of this ("the marshes") should stay empty. I quite like having the name of the layout being the one thing I didn't model.
• Some grass would be good, especially at the bottom left corner below the chemical plant. This grass needs to be rough and patchy.
• To begin, the backscene will be plain sky with clouds and not much else. I want the scene to look fairly open and desolate, not at all hemmed in.

My main interest at the moment is in the roadways. I have drawn these onto white paper. For the time being I have moved the classic vehicle restorers (the Samsung cardboard box) from the top centre to the top right. The idea is to squeeze in a length of Magnorail between here and a mini roundabout (the 10p coin) to let classic cars go on little test drives. I think this would be fun. The cameo presentation seems to make fore/aft compression easy. The mini roundabout is far too close to the tracks, but this doesn't seem to jar visually.

 

So - most of the engineering part of the layout is now done; but fresh ideas for the scenery would be great.

 

- Richard.

Edited October 17, 2020 by 47137

[ISW]

3 hours ago, 47137 said:

 

Richard,

 

If possible, I'd avoid the road crossing the turnouts. At the 'top' there seems to be just enough room between the 3-turnouts to squeeze the road in, and at the bottom you have a bit of plain line between the 2-turnouts to use as the crossing point. The only place I've seen road crossing 'in' a turnout is inside factory complexes.

 

Before you commit to anything, it might be a good idea to think about fence / wall routes as these really enhance a layout if done realistically.

 

Ian 

[47137]

 

1 hour ago, ISW said:

If possible, I'd avoid the road crossing the turnouts. At the 'top' there seems to be just enough room between the 3-turnouts to squeeze the road in, and at the bottom you have a bit of plain line between the 2-turnouts to use as the crossing point. The only place I've seen road crossing 'in' a turnout is inside factory complexes.

 

I was probably inspired by faded memories of Southampton Docks, but there is a prototype with a public road "inside" a turnout a few miles from me. The level crossing taking the A137 road across the railway at Manningtree station goes over a turnout:

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9495919,1.0485755,3a,75y,215.93h,64.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s58VrQs0fLt_thPFpw64nnQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

This turnout is connecting the Harwich branch to the main line. Actually, this is quite an interesting location as there is a bridge carrying the railway over the same A137 right beside the level crossing. Network Rail are removing level crossings but this one lets high vehicle cross the railway. The bridge is quite low. The whole scene is really compact.

 

This still doesn't make my suggestion "good" and I agree, I could move my roadway a little to the right, and take it between the turnouts instead of across them.

 

I am rather constrained by including the mini roundabout. This is only here to make a place for Magnorail cars to do a 180 degree turn. When the Magnorail arrives, I'll see if I can turn cars inside a building behind the chemical plant instead of a roundabout. Right now, DHL say the box is at the export centre in Germany :-)

 

My "road" in the foreground is actually a footpath to let twitchers get onto the marshes. I could get rid of this path entirely - I've decided to leave the marshes themselves off the model.

 

 

1 hour ago, ISW said:

Before you commit to anything, it might be a good idea to think about fence / wall routes as these really enhance a layout if done realistically.

 

I agree entirely. The fences and walls will glue the scene together and help to make it coherent. The treatment of the bottom of the backscene especially needs some thought - no pretty hedgerows here.

 

I need to decide whether the chemical plant should extend beyond the track with the 90 degree curve. That is to say, whether the "main line" runs through the middle of the plant, or the plant is virtually landlocked by railway lines.

 

- Richard.

[ISW]

48 minutes ago, 47137 said:

I was probably inspired by faded memories of Southampton Docks, but there is a prototype with a public road "inside" a turnout a few miles from me. The level crossing taking the A137 road across the railway at Manningtree station goes over a turnout:

Richard,

 

Now that's a really weird level crossing, a dual carriageway with one side using an underbridge and the other a level crossing. One assumes the original layout was with just the underbridge, and that the level crossing was added with the conversion to a dual carriageway. As they say, there's a prototype for everything.

 

Ian

[47137]

The layout is in its alcove

 

Yippee! If I remove the lighting rig (the top of the proscenium arch) so I can reach across the baseboard, I can pick up the whole layout on my own and put it into place in the alcove in the hobby room.

 

So here it is:

 

The wide-angle lens makes it look so small!

 

Please excuse the tripods. The big one is a monster of a thing, bought for pennies and so cumbersome I understand why it was so cheap. It holds my studio camera, for when I want to try old-fashioned photography.

 

The layout is sitting on two home-made brackets like this:

 

The spur shelving is simply passing behind it.

 

- Richard.

[sb67]

A perfect fit Richard, looks good 

[47137]

4 hours ago, sb67 said:

A perfect fit Richard, looks good 

 

Thanks Steve. It was almost too perfect!

 

I left a gap of 30 mm, but forgot about a light switch on the wall to the right of the layout. So the free space is really about 15 mm - just enough to slip the layout into the space.

 

I have removed the display cabinet seen in my last post. It got in the way, and somehow the style is now wrong.

 

- Richard.

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Richard,

The layout does look really good in it's home, good job you allowed 30mm clearance - there's always something isn't there! I had a similar problem fitting my little Prussian layout in my box room, the clearance was there, just barely enough room to allow for the baseboard dowels that stick out from each board end.

Keep up the good work,

John.

[47137]

I am supposed to be digging the garden today. It is probably a sensible time to mention the main corrective actions so far:

• Early on, I reduced the width of the baseboard by 30 mm so it would go through the doorway without tipping.
• For the baseboard framing, I gave up on 2 mm thick aluminium box section and went for traditional softwood.
• I went through too many iterations on too many servo mounts, but I think they are all good now.
• One length of plain line kept on coming adrift, I have no idea why. In desperation I roughly ballasted it, and when I vacuumed up the loose bits most of the ballast came up too! This was my first go with "Ballast Magic" powdered glue and clearly this needs some experimentation and practice.
• I have given the layout a mains lead with a right-angled connector, so the mains lead isn't heading straight into the wall bracket.
• The little strips of obechi on the lighting rig split very quickly, and I've pared these off. This whole assembly is a nice neat fit between the two wings and really I am better off without them.

So really, I'm in quite a happy place.

 

The next stages are to connect this railway to the rest of the layout; and then probably try to firm up on the arrangement of the roads, kerbs and fences.

 

- Richard.

[ISW]

1 hour ago, 47137 said:

• One length of plain line kept on coming adrift, I have no idea why.

Richard,

 

Could be quite a few things causing that problem;

• chemical residue on the underside of the sleepers or the baseboard top
• some polish/wax leftover (even off your sleeves)?
• As you used unpainted plywood, there might have been some 'sap' in the wood. That I have seen on some sawn timber. 

Not a problem I've come across, yet, using neat PVA to fix the track down.

 

Ian

 

[sb67]

1 hour ago, 47137 said:

I am supposed to be digging the garden today. It is probably a sensible time to mention the main corrective actions so far:

• Early on, I reduced the width of the baseboard by 30 mm so it would go through the doorway without tipping.
• For the baseboard framing, I gave up on 2 mm thick aluminium box section and went for traditional softwood.
• I went through too many iterations on too many servo mounts, but I think they are all good now.
• One length of plain line kept on coming adrift, I have no idea why. In desperation I roughly ballasted it, and when I vacuumed up the loose bits most of the ballast came up too! This was my first go with "Ballast Magic" powdered glue and clearly this needs some experimentation and practice.
• I have given the layout a mains lead with a right-angled connector, so the mains lead isn't heading straight into the wall bracket.
• The little strips of obechi on the lighting rig split very quickly, and I've pared these off. This whole assembly is a nice neat fit between the two wings and really I am better off without them.

So really, I'm in quite a happy place.

 

The next stages are to connect this railway to the rest of the layout; and then probably try to firm up on the arrangement of the roads, kerbs and fences.

 

- Richard.

 

What have you used to stick the track down Richard? I'm thinking of using PVA to stick down the track on my next layout and a different method of ballasting.

[47137]

I have done 1 hr 10 min of digging and my body is saying it is time to stop this until another day.

 

I sealed the top of the track bed (6.3 mm birch ply) after I built the baseboard but before I laid any track. I used dilute PVA, but of course this is clear and so invisible in the photos. I left the underneath of the ply bare. Incidentally, I put the fair face underneath and the "no.2" face upwards, because at the end of the day only the underneath will show.

 

I laid the turnouts on Evo-Stik Timebond. In the end I got this down to quite a fine art. Strips of masking tape around the outline of the turnout and under the tiebar, then spread on a layer of the glue. Without waiting, peel off the tape, lay the turnout on the glue and leave under some weights for a while.

 

 

This is the turnout where the servo ripped out the hole in the end of the tiebar. I was thinking about taking the photos so much, I forgot about the wire for the frog.

 

Timebond is a neoprene adhesive, and neoprene is synthetic rubber. Peco track base is rigid polythene, and this resists just about all adhesives. I can only guess, the Timebond moulds itself to make a perfect fit around the track base, and the track is held by static friction (stiction). The bond is certainly strong enough to hold until the ballast is there.

 

PVA is working in much the same way - it is forming a close layer around the track base. Most likely, where the length of plain line came loose, I didn't use enough PVA.

 

- Richard.

Edited October 18, 2020 by 47137

[sb67]

Thanks Richard. I've been looking at the Missenden model weekend on here and like the Barry Norman method of laying track on a thin layer of PVA then ballasting, I was thinking of trying that. 

[47137]

23 hours ago, sb67 said:

Thanks Richard. I've been looking at the Missenden model weekend on here and like the Barry Norman method of laying track on a thin layer of PVA then ballasting, I was thinking of trying that. 

 

Steve, do you possibly have a link to this ballasting method? All of my searches for Barry Norman are returning the late film critic.

 

- Richard.

[sb67]

Hi Richard, here's the link to the method at Missenden weekend. I'm not sure how long the content will be on there for but the whole weekend is worth checking out.

There's a clip about trackwork in a goods yard which is really good. I'd like to try it but not sure how it would work out putting a length of flexi track on a layout.

https://www.missendenrailwaymodellers.org.uk/index.php/virtual-missenden-laying-track/

 

The weathering Zoom session is good as well.

 

Enjoy

[ISW]

6 hours ago, 47137 said:

All of my searches for Barry Norman are returning the late film critic.

Richard,

 

I did a Google search with 'barry norman ballast railway model' and came up with:

https://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=27412

 

Look for the photos about 30% of the way down, or search the page for 'barry'.

 

Ian

[47137]

I like the way Timebond is controllable and doesn't creep under a tiebar when you lay a turnout. Also you get an almost instant bond, so you can add track to what you have just laid quite quickly.

 

I would try the "Barry Norman method" for plain track if I was using track as supplied by the manufacturer, but I think it would be hard work and too difficult if I was gapping the sleepers.

 

For "Shelf Marshes" I imagine much of the ballast and the ground surface nearby being a homogeneous grime. Only the "main line" through the layout and the tram spur being ballasted to anything approaching a decent standard. I have a feeling, the ballasting will pretty much define the layout; apart from the roads there won't be much other ground needing a different scenic treatment. There will be hardly anything growing here.

 

- Richard.