Penzance 1913 - GWR in Linear Motor T Gauge

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, martink said:

The buildings are all done, except for some minor cleanups and detail work that will come later (fences, gardens, etc).  As usual with this tiny scale, the closeup photos are extremely cruel, but at a normal viewing distance they look good enough to do the job.  So, onward to the backscene!

 

If you didn't know how small these really are, that low-relief terrace against the end board could almost be a Bilteezi kit. Great stuff!

[martink]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

If you didn't know how small these really are, that low-relief terrace against the end board could almost be a Bilteezi kit. Great stuff!

Your comment isn't actually all that far off, but more Kingscene than Bilteezi.  I couldn't find any usable pictures of Edwardian-era shops (well, one hardware store when I needed a mixed couple of dozen), and didn't want to tackle the street furniture part, but there are plenty of card models of shops of a generation later, so the shopfronts are taken from pictures of models.  Since the largest is about 9mm x 5mm, all you really see at a distance is a riot of colours.

That row of shops is almost freelance anyway, since I had to significantly distort that part of the street geometry. Albert Street should be angled right out of the layout at about 30 degrees, but I couldn't easily adapt that to the space and the balloon loop around the granary needed for the working roadway.  The row of shops at the very back is correct, although still with arbitrary shopfronts borrowed from models.  A few, such as the hotel and motor garage, are pretty much correct.

[Mikkel]

I've had a look around some of your other layouts and videos. An impressive output. Measured in scale feet you must have single-handedly covered more railway ground than most clubs would do in decades!

 

Personally I think Penzance is your best yet. The scale really comes into its own here, being able to capture the whole area prototypically. The finished result with the approach along the sea etc will be very special.

 

How do you find that people are receiving the scale and the linear motor approach? It can be a conservative hobby sometimes.

 

 

[martink]

6 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

I've had a look around some of your other layouts and videos. An impressive output. Measured in scale feet you must have single-handedly covered more railway ground than most clubs would do in decades!

 

Personally I think Penzance is your best yet. The scale really comes into its own here, being able to capture the whole area prototypically. The finished result with the approach along the sea etc will be very special.

 

How do you find that people are receiving the scale and the linear motor approach? It can be a conservative hobby sometimes.

 

 

Thanks.  T Gauge really does make for some interesting opportunities, most of which are simply not practicable in the more popular scales.  Acres of empty grassland could be another metric!

Penzance is certainly my most ambitious project to date, building on experience and lessons learned from the earlier ones.  I have, alas, had to distort more aspects of the model than I would like in order to make everything come together.  Limitations of the track geometry and especially the track-to-track spacing means that the whole station area is significantly wider than the prototype, to the point of having to widen the station building and overall roof.  Even then I can still only fit one siding between the platform roads instead of two.  Most models of Penzance choose a later period with 4 platform faces, but I went for the earlier option so as to include the wooden approach viaduct and MPD.  It also pushes the operational aspect further than before, with enough flexibility and complexity that it does not have to be solely an automatic layout.  I may end up adding a semi-manual control option as a future project, with the automation mainly limited to handling the next signal box up the line (i.e. the storage loop).

Reactions to the scale and drive system vary enormously, with the lack of proper wheels and track being the big obstacle for many.  I also get a lot of "too small for me" comments, although since I use much simpler models it actually works out to about the same amount of fiddliness per square inch.  The tiny size doesn't really come across in photos and videos, so it tends to just look like a very rough and ready piece of modelling.  At exhibitions, where people see it for real and at the proper distance, the reactions tend to be very different.  Some viewers are completely blown away, and there are always a few that keep coming back around to see again and again.  I enjoy watching the expressions on peoples' faces at shows when they see one for the first time.  Priceless!

[Mikkel]

10 hours ago, martink said:

to the point of having to widen the station building and overall roof

 

It's not that noticeable in my opinion. When I saw the construction photos I only noticed because you had written it.

 

I can well imagine the reaction when its seen live. That said, I think the videos are impressive too. It's like watching real trains moving through the landscape.

 

 

[martink]

Progress on Penzance is continuing in fits and starts. The backscene is now done, as well as the basic ground cover. The next steps are adding the beach sand and installing the buildings. Then it will finally be time to get it all running properly and make a new batch of trains. The layout will share a lot with Dauntsey Lock, but there needs to be a lot of extra pre-grouping stock and the Edwardian road vehicles.

 

The basic hills were generated by an AI tool called Canvas, the overall town is a combination of snapshots from several drone videos, small scenes with roads are from a combination of Google Earth, Paint and a little program of my own that places rows of houses with scaling and perspective.  All of that was followed with a lot of editing in Paint and GIMP to tidy everything up. 

[Mikkel]

Very effective. A lot of work must have gone into that in front of the screen. 

 

1 hour ago, martink said:

and a little program of my own that places rows of houses with scaling and perspective

 

That sounds useful for railway modellers. This hobby never stops developing!