Midlands Coal & Freight, Late 1980's - N Gauge

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11 hours ago, rob D2 said:

N gauge ? No way ! That’s O or a real one !

 

Thank you Rob. This was my first loco weathering attempt, the first time I've aimed an airbrush at one too!

 

I have to say I'm very pleased with the result, it makes me excited to do more.

 

Which is good news... I also have a few hundred wagons to weather!

 

11 hours ago, Model Railway Noob said:

Very impressive and a great area to model. I admire people who work in N gauge. I am working with a mixture of 009 and 00 and the 009 is so tiny. It's made me want to do 0 gauge next time

 

It's frustrating (I drop so many small pieces and spend an hour looking for them) but rewarding. I just love the scale and minute detail. You have to be more precise, that's for sure, but you can fit so much in to a layout! I don't want to offend 00 here, but to me personally - they feel toy like in comparison and less like a model. That's not to say I don't appreciate 00 models, because I really do  - I'm just keenly biased towards N.

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Brace yourselves - another thrilling update!

• Blocks are all wired for this section, I tried to be neat and label things
• The twisted bus wire is now gone as I don't need a traditional 2-wire bus
• All track droppers are wired for the Cobalt point power

Just waiting on my accessories bus wire to arrive, to complete the install

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I've been experimenting with pre-colouring ballast.

 

To be honest, I think it looks better than colouring ballast that's already glued down. I would of course weather the rails, and airbrush over the top of this to weather it down.

 

This is just acrylic paint mixed with water, about 80% water in fact.

 

Bottom of the plate is standard Scenics N/fine ballast. In reality, it's a bit 'blue' to the eye. Top of shot is a darkened version, it takes a little blue off.

 

 

Next is more colours but with bathing sand, far right is Gaugemaster ballast (I don't like it).

 

Obviously it needs sieving but the effect is really good. It looks more natural to me and has a very good mix of fine grains.

 

 

I need to ballast some actual track to test, but what do you think?

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Progress, the loft is now insulated and boarded.

 

I've 16ft x 12ft to play with, which is good, about a 50ft loop.

 

Velux goes in hopefully within a week, or so, as do full electrics and lighting.

 

Not the greatest of photos, I was using a very poor light.

 

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And behind the chimney stack, plenty of room to run rails:

 

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I also finally finished my departmental Class 37.

 

It's been worked hard, and as per many of the prototypes - it looks tired!

 

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Regarding the ballast .....either of the two on the left hand plate in the lower photo for me.

 

Cheers,

Ian.