Upbech St Mary, Upbech Drove and Pott Row a journey through 00 and then into EM and 009.

[mullie]

Had a great day out at the SWAG event last week. Seeing the various layouts and talking to their owners was really inspiring. A huge thank you to Devon Seasider who took the time to discuss chassis construction with me and allow me to give his loco stock a thorough look over. The locos on Thorncomb run really well, a testament to their construction. The absence of rtr tank engines for my era/region means I will have to start building kits to get what I need and I am now thoroughly inspired to have a go at some point this year.

 

Nothing inspiring happening this week but more necessary jobs:

 

Carry out routine maintenance on locos, cleaning wheels and lightly oiling

 

Work carried out on the left hand cassette fiddle yard as the transmission of electrical current wasn't reliable enough between track and cassette. The change in wiring meant a slight adjustment to the back scene.

 

Replace the point motor at cassette fiddle yard end. Despite the fact that this is the newest motor it has never thrown properly as their was a fault in its manufacture (yes i probably should have sent it back) so didn't always change polarity.

[mullie]

I've been distracted!

 

I disposed of my box file layout over a year ago and as much as I enjoy working on Pott Row I like to have something else that lives in the house and can be plugged in and off it goes. Therefore I have been working on a four by one folding micro layout possibly as a way of dipping my toe into exhibiting. This weekend I've started working on the baseboards and once it's recognisable as a layout I'll start a new thread.

 

 

Idea is for as late 60s/early 70s urban grotty terminus possibly based on the West London line although I keep getting drawn to lines around North Woolwich/Silvertown. I already have some buildings, Peco points and SMP track so it will be a sort of using up bits and pieces layout. Having backdated Pott Row I have a class 121, class 24 and an 08 will be available once I've built suitable shunters for Pott Row.

 

The hole at the left hand end is where a traverser will be and on the right the hole could allow for through running, sort of future proofing the layout!

[mullie]

I appear to be hijacking my own thread!!!!

 

Finished the baseboards for the new micro layout today> There are two main sections to the baseboard and then a folding flap which acts as an extension to the fiddle yard. Fiddle yard will use cassettes as I have some aluminium angle in stock from the original version of Pott Row built at least 15 years ago. I did say this layout was about recycling! Any track planning is very provisional and it will be some time before I lay the track. Hope the photos make it clear how it works.

 

 

 

 

When it is all folded up the fiddle yard flap holds it together as you can see below. As with all my carpentry it is almost square but it seems as though the idea will work. 

 

 

 

Need to get back to working on Pott Row, might post some photos of that later

 

 

[mullie]

Meanwhile on Pott Row the J39 is the latest to go through the weathering shop. Various bits of work have been done on the tender including a respray of the sides and it all needed blending in. Also, the original weathering was done some years ago and needed touching up. This is a standard Bachmann model around 15 years old running on the original chassis, tender running on a Mainly Trains chassis and fitted with TCS M1 decoder.

 

 

[NXEA!]

Looking forward to your new project mate! Having grown up in Manor Park for 8 years (albeit in the 1990's) and being a regular visitor to Canning Town I'll be watching with interest! 

[mullie]

Bit the bullett and started ballasting the MPD board and extension into the fiddle yard tonight. What you see is about half an hours work using the 'Nevard' technique of Das modelling clay which I'm a big fan of in station environs having looked at various pictures from the period. At least this time I only have two points to do, the main board was two normal points and two three ways! Pointwork is scratchbuilt using SMP parts

 

[mullie]

Bit more progress today with the ballasting. First shot shows a view not normally seen as there is a back scene and lighting in the way. Joins to the rest of the layout via luggage clips, alignment dowels and hinges with the pins removed. This is how trains exit to the left hand fiddle yard between the two buildings:

 

 

Next two show progress today on the mpd board. I have to work in shifts of about 30-40 minutes as despite raising the boards the work still causes me back pain (have dodgy back amongst other things!) if I do it for too long:

 

 

 

Garage lighting is very yellow so colouring is really nothing like this under layout lighting. I've just bought myself an LED lamp so that when I paint indoors colours will show how they will look on the layout. Up until now its been largely guess work!

 

 

 

[ginger j]

You've got some nice building there in pic 1-just needs some washing out on (what I presume is) the washing line in the back garden of that house. Having said that, its proximity to the railway would probably leave some nice sooty deposits on the clothes whenever a train passes

 

GJ

[mullie]

You've got some nice building there in pic 1-just needs some washing out on (what I presume is) the washing line in the back garden of that house. Having said that, its proximity to the railway would probably leave some nice sooty deposits on the clothes whenever a train passes

 

GJ

If there was washing, the layout would have to be set on a Monday, the year could become irrelevant, it would have to be a Monday!!

 

It's surprising how people did put washing out no matter how close they lived to the railway, I suppose they had no choice.

[mullie]

It's been snowing!!

 

It took around four days to complete the Das ballasting and this is what it currently looks like as the last parts dry. I have to do it in periods of no more than 30-40 minutes as it plays my back up and it is quite mind numbing putting tiny bits of modelling clay between the tracks. However, once painted the process is really effective. Areas around the turntable and between the tracks were in filled with offcuts of wood and card, then covered with a supermarket version of  'No More Nails' which is light and very strong. 

 

 

 

 

Whilst the fiddle yard and MPD boards were separate I also built up the land forms along the front. I used card formers and newspaper fixed with hot glue and then went over it with more DAS clay as always mixed with PVA. These photos sort of show the process:

 

 

 

 

 

Once everything is thoroughly dry and the last gaps infilled I wil begin painting with Artists acrylics and charcoal. While the layout is in its component parts the track will be thoroughly cleaned and a few small jobs carried out on the station board. I also have to finish the water tower.

 

 

[mullie]

The weather has improved, there have been some changes since the last post!

 

Spent about three hours yesterday giving the mpd board a basic scenic treatment and finished it this afternoon.  Having in filled all available areas with DAS or No More Nails a basic colouring was applied using artists acrylics mixed with talcum powder, barbecue ash and charcoal sticks (much denser in colour than conventional charcoal). Basic colour is warm grey mixed with burnt umber and yellow ochre. Any areas of soil that will eventually have undergrowth are also predominantly grey as I've never seen brown soil in a warm summer. As it dries it becomes a grey/brown colour.

 

Track has been given a preliminary clean but will need more attention before trains run again and I need to finish the water tower, based on a Peco model. This has been seen in previous photos but needs modification for this site. Progress in the last few days is seen below:

 

 

 

 

 

This is how trains leave this end of the layout. There is still some work to do on blending the base board join and the lighting needs sorting out as it is too dark. Still three strands of LEDs were only £7 so won't cost a lot!

 

 

The angle is also a bit unfair as you don't look at it from this angle when operating.

[mullie]

Finally gave up with the spud bogies and have been looking at alternatives. The J70s currently languish in the fiddle yard unused. Briefly I managed to get them working ok but they were just too unreliable. On Ebay I found the Tram Workshop and their range of bogies and bought this for just under £30 post free.

 

 

 

Had it running round the test track (circle of Hornby 3rd radius curves!) this afternoon and with some running in it appears promising and shouldn't be too difficult to convert to DCC and fit inside the J70. 

[mullie]

Found some photos of the original Pott Row mpd taken in the 50s!

 

 

[mullie]

These are the colour versions:

 

 

 

The scenic part of the layout is around 7ft long and apart from the curve at the end is just 12 inches wide. It had to be made wider at one end to accommodate the turntable and a second fiddle yard.

[mullie]

Back to the J70 this weekend and not much to report. Knocked up a simple floor with suitable hole for the motor so I can attach the tram bogie.

 

 

As it was designed for Corgi trams which I believe are metal it seems to like a lot of weight so the small wheels can gain traction. Today I've been experimenting adding lead weight (sorry no photos yet), keeping the loco balanced and with the centre of gravity as low as possible. Will hopefully post something in a few days although looks like another hectic week at work  next week!

[mullie]

Added some greenery yesterday, the first since the layout was started way back in 2008 (is it really that long!). Just an embankment along the front and around the buildings at the fiddle yard exit but it does make quite a difference, still some detailing to do. A combination of hanging basket liner, Woodland Scenics, Noch tufts and static grass.

 

 

 

The locos make quite a contrast, the J39 renumbered and weathered, the 4f as it came out of the box. Needless to say the 4f won't be staying like that. Water crane is Peco with an extra 10mm added to the column to make it taller.

 

This give a little idea how the whole scene looks as you enter the garage.

 

 

And this is a view along the layout.

 

 

The layout is quite deliberately divided up into scenes. I really can't put off building that MSE signal much longer!

 

Also need to work on the area round the back of the turntable. That will be next!

Edited June 21, 2014 by mullie

[mullie]

Need some fencing for the mpd area so came up with a bit of a solution that might work. Found all the offcuts of SMP rail left laying around from point building and drilled, added lengths of handrail wire and soldered them to create post and rail fencing. First bit is not perfect but I think it might work and makes a change. Future bits should be a little straighter and once painted and weathered might look OK.  A small piece of 25mm wood is used as a gauge, photo shows work in progress.

 

 

The finished piece about 30cms long, the lengths can be cut once I've drilled holes to fix it to the ground cover.

Edited June 23, 2014 by mullie

[mullie]

Nice surprise to see the layout featured in the latest update of Carl Arendt's Micro layout site. I sent the new web master details about a year ago and had forgotten about it. Whilst the photos are really now out of date they don't look bad.

 

Carendt.com

 

The site itself has been completely overhauled and is well worth a look, I was one of the people asked to proof read certain pages, it must have been a mammoth task to update everything.

[ginger j]

Many thanks for that link mullie. I was wondering about when the Scrapbook reboot was going to happen and, to be honest, I don't really like the new style of the site. But those pictures are rather nice   How are those fences you were building in the last update?

 

GJ

[mullie]

Many thanks for that link mullie. I was wondering about when the Scrapbook reboot was going to happen and, to be honest, I don't really like the new style of the site. But those pictures are rather nice   How are those fences you were building in the last update?

 

GJ

I think web site design is quite a personal thing. The new site is quite different to the old one but is still quite easy to navigate in my opinion and it is good to have the site back. I manage two Wordpress based sites and they are quite different to anything I've done before as you can post to the site via social media which is a great way of keeping the site looking fresh. Web design has come an awful long way in the last few years.

 

Hopefully the last section of post and rail fencing was completed tonight and it has all been washed to remove any traces of flux before being sprayed chaos black and treated with my usual dry brushing technique.

 

I've also treated three Peco buffer stops with the chaos black treatment then they have been coloured using oil pastels and sealed with Games Workshop Purity Seal (matt varnish). Hopefully at the weekend I will add working oil lamps as I have done with other stops on the layout. I managed to track down First Class trains and buy some stock before he retires fully. These are the buffer stops so far. What you can't see is that each one has been shortened slightly by a different amount front to back so as to fit the site.

 

 

 

[mullie]

Added the relevant buffer stops to the turntable yesterday, all fitted with an LED oil lamp supplied by First Class Trains. Now need to sort out fencing and scenic detail.

 

 

By way of contrast the siding supplying coal to the stage will have a short length of track and stop block, photos of which anon.

 

Also wired in a small lamp in the loco crews office to give a warm glow in those dark evenings.

 

 

 

The shots aren't well focussed as I turned the layout lighting down to create a subdued atmosphere but hopefully it gives some idea of the mood I am trying to create. All layout lighting is controlled by the various outputs on an H&M Duette,  now nearly 40 years old!

[mullie]

Four lengths of post and rail fencing are currently drying having been painted tonight and as the photo shows the basic ground cover is now done around the turntable. Tomorrow night hope to install the fencing then on Saturday add some greenery.

 

[mullie]

Post and rail fencing added, made out of offcuts of rail and handrail wire!

 

Scenics have since since been added and are drying, hopefully some photos tomorrow, bit white at the moment due to the drying PVA!

 

 

 

 

Fencing has since been weathered.

 

just noticed I've knocked the ladder on the lamp, whoops!

Edited July 12, 2014 by mullie

[mullie]

We've gone from this:

 

 

 

To this:

 

 

 

To this:

 

 

And most recently to this:

 

 

 

 

 

For a variety of reasons, buffer stop and building lighting were turned off, looks even better with the lights on! Overall I'm quite pleased with the progress though from the first to the last photos is around a year and there is still some work to do. Need to remember that this scene is under four feet long and just over a foot wide at the turntable end, metric feet of course!

Edited July 13, 2014 by mullie

[john flann]

Well Mullie that certainly looks mucky. But were things ever so bad as that?