Langford Lane & Marlingford - GWR 1940s Oxfordshire

[Kris]

It's a while since I looked in on this topic and was I surprised. I'd never realised just how small a space you'd build the layout in. That shed will make a great home for it.

[The Great Bear]

That shed will make a great home for it.

 

That is, if it will get down the stairs from its current 2nd floor location...hmm...

[The Great Bear]

Having seen what you can do on a proverbial postage stamp, cant wait to see what you get up to with all that space

 

Thanks, yes the space is good, but at the moment the plans I have are a bit too ambitious, all of a sudden 14 x 10 doesn't seem so large.

 

Progress looks great, almost done really. Convincing depth of scene and high level of detail in a small space. The joins are the one weakness with Scalescenes on larger structures, I struggled to see them on the creamery.

 

Again, thank you. Yes, only the signals left to do, I've held off doing them as they definitely wouldn't survive the layout's move.

[The Great Bear]

Having seen what you can do on a proverbial postage stamp, cant wait to see what you get up to with all that space

 

cheers, Matt

 

http://www.rmweb.co....out-in-14-x-10/

 

Possibly a bit overambitious, hence comments on that thread welcomed.

Edited October 20, 2011 by The Great Bear

[Neal Ball]

..... I looked at your model of Henley - the station building looked fabulous. Having read the Paul Karau book, Henley is a very interesting prototype and something inspired by that is an option for whatever follows this layout; but a true replica with the carriage sidings and the full length trains would be very large, presumably that's why you're working on another project?

Jon

 

Some time ago, I worked it out at about 20 plus feet, but I suspect that was just the station area. Lots of things appeal to me about Henley, but mainly the lovely station building and the types of trains that can be run. (Mix of main-line and Branch-line). Plus of course being so close to Reading opens out the operational possibilities.

 

My Lottery dream, would see it being built in its own purpose built railway room, together with Twyford, so I can get the main-line in as well.

 

Which is really why I have opted for Wharncliffe, rather than Henley. I now have a two track continuous run main-line, with a large typical W. London station, with goods and loco yard. This is housed in a shed some 12ft long, by 4ft wide. This will be extended over Christmas to add about 15inches to the depth. 1 ft wide inside is very tight and if someone visits, very cosy!

 

 

Here's some more photos:

 

 

 

 

Just dipped into the topic again and its looking very good Jon.

[The Great Bear]

Eventually I have got the layout set up in its new home:

 

 

Quite a bit of tidying left to do around it, mind!

 

In moving the layout it's gained a small amount of extra space, where the chimney breast was in its previous home:

 

The space is approx 300x300mm and I'm considering sneaking in a small gasworks here or part of one, likely use some of the Skaledale stuff. I wouldn't have space for a dedicated siding to it, though the back siding could be extended a little bit to allow a couple more wagons?

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

Edited January 7, 2012 by The Great Bear

[Jules]

Nice new home

 

Looks like you have room to add quite a bit more to it...!

[The Great Bear]

Finally I found the patience to have a go at the signals, using Ratio kits I bought a while ago.

 

 

The DIY shunt arm is a bit rough and in hindsight I should have tried harder to get the S (made from Coopercraft station nameboard letter) finer, I am not sure whether anyone makes proper ones?

 

More signals on the way, but also some questions!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

[devondynosoar118]

I suspect they are available from Model Signal Engineering via Wizard Models. There may also be a need for a sighting board or bit of whitewash on the bridge, doubtless someone better informed than I will confirm/deny this.

I recon that shunt arm looks ok, scaling isn't bad at all. Always room for a good gas works!

[Jules]

Nice signal - I think I need a similar one for my layout...

[The Great Bear]

Here's the other signals. The home signal and adjacent ground discs:

 

I know I couldn't have managed the original idea for the home signal, two brackets and four arms in total so this was an expedient/creative alternative developed with The Stationmaster's help here

 

...and the starter:

This was the first one I tried to build and boy did it test my patience, I just managed to restrain myself from throwing the bits across the room! The ready made signal arms in particular the pin I found particularly flimsy and ended up breaking several, so to build this signal took two kits. But I'm glad I stuck with it.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jon

[Guest jonte]

Compact but realistic.

 

Love it!

 

Jonte

[The Great Bear]

Here are some photos of the station area, the DSLR temporarily ditched for a compact to allow photos from a closer angle. I finally got around to painting a few Monty's figures to use instead of the Preiser ones, the Monty's ones fit much better on the station benches. As it's a bit dark under the station canopy you can't see my dodgy painting of the figures!

 

 

Still need to disguise that point motor!

 

Not exactly a rush to get on the train!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

Edited March 4, 2012 by The Great Bear

[Jules]

Great set of pics. Who makes the benches as they look rather good.

[The Great Bear]

Great set of pics. Who makes the benches as they look rather good.

 

Thanks, Jules. The benches are from Dart Castings, the ones I used were the smaller ones http://www.dartcasti...montys/MA18.php

Edited March 4, 2012 by The Great Bear

[Jules]

Thanks for the info - I'll add them to my shopping list!

[The Great Bear]

Firstly, a big thank you for all the comments and "likes" so far!

 

I am about to commence the big extension to the layout, incorporating Marlingford into a larger layout with a twin track mainline and junction station. I want a continuous run to give some stock I have not suitable for a BLT a run and, whilst to date I've been surprisingly restrained in purchases, I cannot resist any longer and will be adding to the collection. The continuous run will be a bit of a test to see whether that's my kind of thing or not. I can still then get some end to end operation by operating the whole of the Marlingford branch.

 

The idea was discussed here in the layout planning forum, but to recap the idea is largely based on Kidlington station, the junction station for the Blenheim and Woodstock branch. The reasons for this being:

• The branch diverged to the left which suits the existing Marlingford layout
  
• A mainline but not as busy as some
  
• Potential for non-GWR stock (SR & LNER) and locos (LNER) on cross-country workings
  
• Lie by siding to add to operating interest
  
• Relatively simple track plan
  
• The creamery on the branch will add operational interest to the mainline station not present at Kidlington.
  

Here's the plan:

 

 

I want to keep the woodwork simple and avoid gradients so it's all on a single level. The access to the staging tracks is blocked by the branch, but I intend to run fixed rakes for the passenger trains and mineral freight trains (Edit - I have been working on basis of 7 possibly 8 carriages for the principal passenger trains and up to 20 wagon through freights as a reaonable compromise), so fiddling would be limited to the pick up goods train, stopping services.

 

The extended layout will be DCC and as the electronics for the BLT were jerry-built, I have a lot to grasp in terms of technology and skill. The trackwork will be Peco code 75 with electrofrog points. although I've been thinking about using C&L flexi for the plain visible track.

 

The baseboards will be L-girder as that seems simple. The wood's just been delivered so I'd better stop writing and get on with it! Once I've enough woodwork assembled my plan is to mock up the station area to see how that looks.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

Edited March 17, 2012 by The Great Bear

[gwrrob]

It looks a good project so good luck Jon and keep the photos coming please.

[artizen]

Mixing Peco and C+L components will mean packing the flex track up to the height of the Peco stuff. This is easy enough because afterwards all is covered in ballast anyway. However, the C+L sleeper depth is only around 0.8mm which translates to about 1.5 pieces of ballast in depth so you will need to be creative to get realistic coverage, something I was never able to successfully achieve. Just remember if it needs packing, use something that can handle getting wet.

[The Great Bear]

Mixing Peco and C+L components will mean packing the flex track up to the height of the Peco stuff. This is easy enough because afterwards all is covered in ballast anyway. However, the C+L sleeper depth is only around 0.8mm which translates to about 1.5 pieces of ballast in depth so you will need to be creative to get realistic coverage, something I was never able to successfully achieve. Just remember if it needs packing, use something that can handle getting wet.

 

Thanks for the info Ian - I've ordered a couple of lengths of C+L flexi to experiment with. Maybe I could use different thickness foam underlay under the points and track? I've also read that there could be an issue with the flanges on some locos hitting the chairs, so that's something to test too - my Mainline 43xx the most likely contender? In any case given that the branch terminus used code 100 setrack, streamline code 75 would be an advance.

[gazmanjack]

The layout design looks great. I really like the way you intergrated your original module into the overall layout. This will give me plenty to think about when I wish to extend the layout I'm currently building. Looking foward to more updates.

 

Cheers, Gary.

[The Great Bear]

Having largely completed the baseboard frames, I've gotten a bit bored with woodwork so I've taken a break and laid out the layout to see how it might look. So I got some flexitrack, printed point templates, some blue tac, all the cardboard I could find in the house. For good measure, I got some of my rougher items of stock out too.

 

Looking over the station in the Down direction:

 

The overbridge and the canal:

 

The rolled up newspaper represents bushes to try and hide the bridge parapet wall/backscene join, from some angles at least (but not this one)

 

I had to amend the plan to pull the tracks further away from the window to get the side slope for the overbridge in. The canal still just about fits, a bit more tweaking of slopes/more walls will be needed

 

Looking in the up direction with the lie-by siding and the run around loop for the branch:

 

It's as well I couldn't find any cocktail sticks in the house otherwise I might have added some signals!

 

Whilst the baseboard frames are L girder as there are no gradients and in the station area there is large expanse of level ground I'll build the scenery up from the ply. The cross-bearers can be adjusted to avoid points motors, that's the plan at least. As I said above, the woodwork's not finished so all this will have to come off but hopefully this exercise will spur me on!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

[The Great Bear]

In the past month I've been playing with a short test section, trying out techniques to use on the extended layout. As mentioned before I'm going to go down the route of C+L flexitrack and modified Peco points.

 

For the plain track I got a test piece of the "Tracklay" sticky foam as used by Ben Alder and described in his The Far North Line layout topic. The tracklay was laid on 3mm thick Depron foam.

I'm pretty pleased with the result, pretty tidy for a first effort and am minded to go with this product for the scenic plain track.

 

For the points, I've modified Peco points following the advice in the DCC concepts Cobalt manual.

 

The point I laid on a thicker section of foam 5mm thick laminate floor underlay and then ballasted by sprinkling ballast on neat glue. I should have taken more care with this and the end result is quite messy. I think I might have a go at using Tracklay for the points as well, I didn't for this because the sampler pack was only a short length. In Ben's layout he has used Peco foam underlay for the points. I tried this but it was not to my liking, too spongy difficult to drill holes through, well find them afterward.

 

In various threads people have mentioned the shallower thickness of the C+L sleepers. There is a small difference but to me it seems near enough without resorting to fine adjustment with packing. The chairs on the C+L track more or less make up for the thinner sleepers as I see it anyway.

 

 

 

What you can't see is the point motor which is a DCC concepts Cobalt. Using their template I managed to install and align this painlessly. Also I've managed to wire the points in the recommended way for DCC again as per the Cobalt manual, frog polarity being switched by the point motor, switch rails bonded to the stock rails etc. In laying the track and modifying the points I've at last got around to tryinig my hand at soldering, something I'd been scared of.

 

At Ally Pally I splashed out on an NCE Power Cab and have been usign this little section as a test with an NCE switch-it decoder. I'm going to go with switch-its and switch-8's for the layout.

 

What I found difficult and you can see from the gaping gap in the rail joints was locating the droppers, drilling holes and adjusting the track. For the test I used a heavy wire 18 gauge for the droppers and I think this is too big, too stiff making it hard to adjust and hard to hide, at least for me, so I'm going to use smaller wire 7/0.2 for them as I move forward.

 

Having got this test section done, in particular got the wiring figured out, I've taken the plunge and ordered track and other items for the extended layout. I'm minded to start with the fiddle yard, that way I can improve my tracklaying skills before I get to the scenic section.

 

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jon

[devondynosoar118]

Well done. A sound way of testing new techniques, perfectly demonstrated.

[The Great Bear]

Finally, I have some trains running around the "shed", albeit far from smoothly.

 

 

 

 

 

Quite a bit of tidying to do!!! Should stop running trains and get on with that. I am very good at losing the body retaining screws on locos and the jumpers for the Switch 8's, down to my last one, hopefully i'll find them.

 

Still some track to lay and some problems to fix, derailments at the diamond crossover at the fiddleyard exit. Once I've tidied, there's the track to paint, not looking forward to that.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon