Forsinard and the Far North

[Ben Alder]

I have somewhere a  picture clearly showing the abutments on a similar bridge and spent about an hour and a half last night looking for it, with the only result being the already obvious  realisation that my collection of HR photos needs some serious collation....

[class26]

13 minutes ago, Ben Alder said:

I have somewhere a  picture clearly showing the abutments on a similar bridge and spent about an hour and a half last night looking for it, with the only result being the already obvious  realisation that my collection of HR photos needs some serious collation....

I am going to revise my abutments along the lines of that outside Achnasheen station as in the photo above. There is more than one lattice bridge on the northern section of the FNL and I  guess they all will have different abutments as the topography will be different in each case. As that part of the layout is not based on any specific place but more of a general impression of Flow Country it ought to be acceptable !

Will still be interested to see any photos you may find. 

Edited November 25, 2020 by class26

[Portchullin Tatty]

Good to see the thread and another Highland based layout.

 

Did you know that the bridge at Achnasheen has been drawn up and published in my old man's book the Dingwall & Skye Railway - A Pictorial Record?   There are a couple of photos too but I have lots more because I measured it up!!  If you want these let me know via PM.

 

I also have a batch of photos from 1982, which is presumably dated about right?  I would need to ask someone to release them to you, I suspect it will be fine.

 

 

Mark

[David Bell]

I remember a fairly recent book devoted entirely to bridges on the Highland section. I will need to go into the loft tomorrow and see if I can find it.

Cheers

David

[class26]

7 hours ago, David Bell said:

I remember a fairly recent book devoted entirely to bridges on the Highland section. I will need to go into the loft tomorrow and see if I can find it.

Cheers

David

Would love to know the title of this book when you can find it. 

 

Many thanks

[David Bell]

It is called Spanning the Gaps, Highland Railway Bridges and Viaducts, by Anne-Marie Paterson. It is a Highland Railway Society publication. ISBN NO 978-0-9927311-1-3 . My wife bought it for me. I think she got it in the Bookshop in Dornoch. It is dated 2017. I attach a couple of photos which might interest you.

Cheers

David

[David Bell]

I checked the HRS website this morning. The book is still available.

Cheers

David

[railroadbill]

Just found this excellent thread,  having been to Forsinard (by 158) some years ago to visit the RSPB flow country reserve, I reckon you've got the look and feel of Forsinard station just right. Look forward to seeing how it develops. 

[sulzer27jd]

On 22/11/2020 at 21:30, class26 said:

 

 

I love the way you have placed the railway into the landscape and used the width of the baseboards to to build the scene. Others would have jammed that full of track. You are developing a model of a railway rather than a 'model railway' and doing a particularly fine job. I'm looking forward to watching this progress.

 

John

[class26]

2 hours ago, David Bell said:

I checked the HRS website this morning. The book is still available.

Cheers

David

Thanks, will order a copy.

[class26]

7 hours ago, sulzer27jd said:

 

I love the way you have placed the railway into the landscape and used the width of the baseboards to to build the scene. Others would have jammed that full of track. You are developing a model of a railway rather than a 'model railway' and doing a particularly fine job. I'm looking forward to watching this progress.

 

John

 

Hi John,

 

Thank you for your kind  words.

That`s why i choose the FNL or Kyle line, rather difficult to fill with track, at least if you opt to model a stretch of line outside a station. The scenery is what I prefer not being that great at scratch building. I think the real progress  isn`t going to come until the spring when its dryer. I also don`t want to go charging ahead with the scenery until the backscenes are in place for which I need to go to Caithness to take some photos so I am  handicapped somewhat by a certain virus and the lack of daylight at this time of year. It will all happen from Spring onwards    

I also need to finish the track on Thurso for which I am waiting for Peco to deliver some bullhead points.  Will have a go at the train shed over Christmas. Haven`t even started to properly wire things so that is another job for the dark winter months but of course will have no real visible effect.

Edited November 28, 2020 by class26

[TravisM]

I was looking on RTT to see what the M-F service was like, and I noticed that the first two trains leave from Wick.  Do they stable two units overnight at Wick, Thurso or run them empty from Inverness?

[Ben Alder]

A double unit runs north on the last train, with one set locked and they form the two morning Wick departures.

[TravisM]

1 hour ago, Ben Alder said:

A double unit runs north on the last train, with one set locked and they form the two morning Wick departures.

I’m going to ask the stupid question of does the crews of these trains have something like a crew room to spend overnight or is there a very small signing on point at Wick and they live locally?

[Ben Alder]

Wick based crew takes the train north and man both south.

[young37215]

On 28/11/2020 at 11:59, class26 said:

Haven`t even started to properly wire things so that is another job for the dark winter months but of course will have no real visible effect.

I am enjoying your thread and looking forward to seeing the layout evolve. I will disagree with you on your point about wiring having no visible effect because I think it has a very visible effect. For the first time in my modelling life on my West Highland layout I have wired each and every piece of track on the scenic sections and the improvment in running is beyond belief. I cannot recall ever having had a loco stall or the sound interrupted which I attribute to the hours of soldering droppers. It might be a ball ache but based upon my experience the dividend it pays is huge.  

[class26]

1 hour ago, young37215 said:

I am enjoying your thread and looking forward to seeing the layout evolve. I will disagree with you on your point about wiring having no visible effect because I think it has a very visible effect. For the first time in my modelling life on my West Highland layout I have wired each and every piece of track on the scenic sections and the improvment in running is beyond belief. I cannot recall ever having had a loco stall or the sound interrupted which I attribute to the hours of soldering droppers. It might be a ball ache but based upon my experience the dividend it pays is huge.  

I probably didn`t make myself clear. i mean the wiring will have no visible effect on the scenic development so not many new photo in the weeks to come

Droppers are soldered onto MOST , if not every piece of track . maybe I will regret not doing all pieces later ? Only time will tell.  Now I just need to get the bus in and connect the whole lot up. The scenic sections use the new Peco Bullhead unifrog points and I have not had a single stall in over 6 months of running trains over them . The hidden sections use older code 75 electro frog points. I would highly recommend the unifrog points, they are (to me) a big step forward, only wish there was a larger  radius version.

Edited November 30, 2020 by class26

[mallaig1983]

Only just come across this thread. It's looking a bit special already. Great to have another BR blue Scottish layout to follow. I will follow with interest. Best of luck with it.

 

Andy

[class26]

Not much progress over the winter for two reasons. Firstly it was so cold out in the shed despite the heating and secondly waiting for Peco to send me the long awaited bullhead points, track and joiners 

 

Now the weather has improved and Peco has obliged work can re commence. 

 

The other reason preventing work over the winter was my mulling over the location of Thurso. About 6 months ago and up thread it was located along the window side of the shed and led straight out into the Flow country section. Well, I was never totally happy with this as I had always envisaged the Flow Country taking the entire one length of the shed. For those not familiar with the Flow Country it is a vast area of peat bogland, (in fact the largest in Europe,) fairly flat and in its own way very beautiful but desolate with few trees and I always felt it needed lots of space to do it justice.  Squeezing in Thurso meant loosing about 40% of this side and as I mulled this over winter I hit on the idea of relocating Thurso in the central aisle thus giving back to the Flow section the entire length of the shed. Thanks here to Jools 1959 for his input into the thinking.

It will be a bit of a squeeze with slightly under 2 feet to walk in between the sections but that`ll stop me having that extra slice of cake !  Three new baseboards have been purchased from White Rose and assembled yesterday. Today I have crudely laid out Thurso to get a feel of how it will be. If I am honest it could do with a little extra width but I can`t diet that much !

 

Here`s a photo of the result and is now waiting for the baseboard supports 

 

Other photos show parts of the Flow sections where Thurso used to be.  The balance of the layout is now much better I think. 

 

I am now moving onto the backscenes. Sadly John from Art Printers has sold the business so the option of a him doing a custom made backscene isn`t there anymore. I have found a local printer who will oblige so am now in the process of selecting suitable images. 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by class26

[class26]

Some progress at last. This morning I collected from a printers in Lincoln  the backscenes for the Flow Country section of the layout. I had hoped to travel north to take photos myself but due to lockdown  my impatience got the better of me and I bought some suitable images on the internet and then found a local printer (strangely  on the same street as Digitrains!) to print them. 

I have just placed a couple roughly in position for effect and the images below shows this. There will be 6 x 5 foot lengths in total. I am now faced with the dilemma of how to fix to the actual back scenes boards. These are a mixture of hardboard and marine ply. My first thought is to attach first to some stronger card which can then be fixed in place either by Spray Mount or by two sided tape. I will welcome any advice from those with previous experience. 

Edited March 26, 2021 by class26

[sulzer71]

Just now, class26 said:

Some progress at last. This morning I collected from a printers in Lincoln  the backscenes for the Flow Country section of the layout. I had hoped to travel north to take photos myself but my impatience got the better of me and I bought some suitable images on the internet and then found a local printer to print them. 

I have just placed roughly in position the first couple of 5 foot lengths for effect and the images below show this. I am now faced with the dilemma of how to fix to the actual back scenes boards. These are a mixture of hardboard and marine ply. My first thought is to attach first to some stronger card which can them be fixed in place either by Spray Mount or by two sided tape. I will welcome any advice from those with previous experience. 

Looks fantastic , I've seen a couple of posts recently about using Foamex for the backscenes

[Jamie]

2 hours ago, class26 said:

This view will be spectacular.  I love the generous use of space and how the scenery is going to dwarf the train - the only way to really capture this prototype location I guess.

[lmsforever]

I like the way you have captured the Flow Country ,not to long ago I purchased a dvd of the Far North line and your layout looks just like it is if real life.You have captured the character of the area especially with the back scenes they give a real feel to the layout.There is something special  about Scottish railways they have a captivating aura and are worth modelling and I now model them slowly changing my layout to a Scottish feel.

[class26]

More shots of the first sections of backscene. here they are just held in place crudely with paper clips to give a visualisation , the Spray Mount arrived this afternoon so over the Easter weekend they will be properly mounted  and so the next set of photos will hopefully show the entire Flow Country section complete with backscene.  For now though a few from this afternoon with 26027 leading 5 mk1`s . Please excuse the rudimentary nature of everything, I will attempt to tidy things up prior to the next set of pics. 

 

 

[TravisM]

1 minute ago, class26 said:

More shots of the first sections of backscene. here they are just held in place crudely with paper clips to give a visualisation , the Spray Mount arrived this afternoon so over the Easter weekend they will be properly mounted  and so the next set of photos will hopefully show the entire Flow Country section complete with backscene.  For now though a few from this afternoon with 26027 leading 5 mk1`s . Please excuse the rudimentary nature of everything, I will attempt to tidy things up prior to the next set of pics. 

 

 

Looks really good and I think the end result will be stunning.