West Kirby Town: narrow gauge may be coming to town.

[Hroth]

On 24/07/2020 at 22:01, Barnaby said:

Hello Rod I can't find the tinny I was after but here is another one so I must be getting close.

 

I'll keep looking.

 

Best

 

Going by that, the best way to paint the wriggly tin would be to have a rust base layer and then drag the "finishing" colour over it with a mostly dry brush!

 

I was thinking, as well as the 14xx, if you can borrow one, a Heljan Large Prairie numbered as 4122 would fit nicely, as it was the last loco to haul a passenger service over the Joint.

 

(Apparently, as well as the passengers, it also hauled a couple of vans containing elephants* who contributed to the leaving cacophony of detonators...)

 

* Elephants?  I suppose there was a circus somewhere....

[Dmudriver]

Hi all.

 

Thank you, Barnaby and Hroth for the comments about the rusting.  I think the answer will be a light coat of rust all over (the intensity varying).  I'll just do it over what I've done so far and see how it looks.  I'll make a thin mix and then I can get to use my new compressor.  My old one gave up and even defeated my son-in-law who is an aero engineer and helped keep Tornados flying during one of the Gulf Wars!!  I thought a little compressor would be no problem.  I was wrong!!

 

However, for the moment, that work has been overshadowed by the fire station.  Having done the brickwork on the warehouses, I set to on the fire station again.  I've completed it and glued the 4 sides together.  I've tried it on the layout and here are some pics.  (It's not complete yet - needs the doors fitting and the roof gluing on, with a parapet.)  I've had to alter the orientation to enable decent access in the space I've got.  The first is from the front:

 

 

Exit from the station will be to the right (as we look at it) along a road in front of the station, next to the railway line.  Access back into the site will be to the left of the building, between the police car and the staff car park on the left..  There's just enough room at the back to get into the bays on full lock - well, I think so, but I'm not 100% sure of the turning circle of a Dennis pump.

 

The next pic is from the side:

 

 

The road on the bridge over the railway (a part of it just visible to the right of the pic) will descend parallel to the exit road from the station and they will meet up off scene.  How I'm going to hide that, I haven't a clue at the moment but I'll get there - sometime, somehow!!

 

In the final pic, I started sketching out the overall layout:

 

 

I've marked the road roughly: after the parked cars there will be a fence and then some allotments will take up the rest of the space.  The road will continue, and give access to  the business near the houses and to the p-way area.  This road will be pretty rough - no pavements - the decent surfacing ending at the entrance to the fire station site.  On the extreme left there will be a turn round space and a bit of parking for the allotments.

 

So, ..... now I need to start looking in more detail at fire station yard layouts (thank goodness for Google Earth!) and how allotments are set out.  All good fun and is going to keep me out of mischief for a while!!  The plan is to take the paper up and build the scenery on foam board off the layout and then glue it on when it's done.

 

Well, that's the plan - and as we all know, no plan survives first contact with the enemy - the enemy in this case meaning starting work on it!!!  So, as I always say, watch this space!!

 

More soon.

 

 

Rod

 

 

[Simond]

Rod,

 

it’s coming on very nicely.  
 

rather than glue down your allotments, you might want them just to sit in place on a sort of sub-baseboard, indeed, you might make the fire station a “scenic subassembly” too, as you can then lift it out for detailing, cleaning, changing lightbulbs, evicting spiders, photography or whatever.

 

might be worth having a look at Little Muddle, on RMW.  Kevin has made extensive use of this technique, and it seems to me to offer some real benefits.

 

of course, you’ll need a bit of Morecambe & Wise - “you can’t see the join”

 

atb

Simon

 

 

[billy_anorak59]

All good stuff Rod!

I was going through some aerial photos I have of the Bromborough area, taken in the early 60s and I spotted the Fire Station at Bromborough Pool on one of them (which is probably about 10 miles or so from West Kirby). Immediately thought - 'West Kirby'!!!!

 

So here's a crop - no idea if it's any use to you or not!!:

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by billy_anorak59

[Hroth]

And this is where the replacement for West Kirby Fire Station is

 

 

Its basically a wooden shed with one of those eco grass roofs, situated in the middle of a network of B roads, the direct one to WK is narrow and wriggly and an engine would have to go up Black Horse Hill to get onto the A540 to get to Meols, Hoylake or West Kirby quickly...

 

Dunno what criteria was used to site it!

 

[billy_anorak59]

Sorry - forgot to add this, but you may have seen it before. Particulars of "West Kirby Fire Station for sale" PDF which may have some use as it gives some dimensional details...

 

Edit.... Hmmm, adding the pdf as an attachment doesn't seem to work, so here's a link:

 

West Kirby Fire Station

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2020 by billy_anorak59

[Simond]

8 hours ago, billy_anorak59 said:

All good stuff Rod!

I was going through some aerial photos I have of the Bromborough area, taken in the early 60s and I spotted the Fire Station at Bromborough Pool on one of them (which is probably about 10 miles or so from West Kirby). Immediately thought - 'West Kirby'!!!!

 

So here's a crop - no idea if it's any use to you or not!!:

 

the building top right has now gone but was the Lucas Girling Railway Brake division.  The offices you can see were the factory management, hr, costing, etc.  The engineering office (where I worked in 83, and from 86-88) were off shot to the right along the road with the pipes.  The row of cars that are not parallel to Thermal Road are where the disc brake dynamometers were housed in a purpose built shed, and the staff car park moved to the triangular area between the fire station and the pipes, upper left.
 

thanks for posting, took me down memory lane!

Simon

[billy_anorak59]

16 minutes ago, Simond said:

thanks for posting, took me down memory lane!

 

That's a fairly zoomed in post, Simon - I can send you the full picture if you want?

Apologies, a bit OT for Rod's thread...

[Simond]

Billy,

 

thanks, it did the trick as it was!  My desk used to look out on those ruddy great pipes...

 

cheers

Simon

 

(if anyone’s particularly interested in train disc brakes, I could reminisce a bit  )

Edited July 31, 2020 by Simond

[Dmudriver]

5 hours ago, billy_anorak59 said:

Apologies, a bit OT for Rod's thread...

 

No problems at all, gentlemen.  It's all related to the layout!!

[Dmudriver]

14 hours ago, Simond said:

of course, you’ll need a bit of Morecambe & Wise - “you can’t see the join”

 

Hi Simon.  Yes, that's the plan: at first it was going to be one big sheet but that will be too big to handle, so I was planning on smaller pieces, but the problem was how to hide the joins?   Looking at Google Earth, the fire station yards were surfaced in concrete and that was laid in sections.  That will help with that large area so I'm hoping to disguise the joins as joins in the concrete (and add extra ones obviously!!)

 

With allotments, etc it should be easier to hide the joins but I'll certainly look at that thread you mentioned (I have found it).

[Dmudriver]

Hi all.

 

Not much modelling progress chronicled in this post but I've been laughing to - and at! - myself yesterday and this morning.

 

A week or two ago I was asking about colours for "wriggly tin" on my warehouse backs and Barnaby found one that he posted above.  Well, last week I was driving on one of my usual routes and I pass a flag proclaiming that a football club known as Liverpool FC have won something recently.  It's rather a big red flag and being an Everton supporter I averted my gaze (but not too far from the road ahead!!).  What appeared in my new line of vision was a building partly clad in wriggly tin.   I thought "must take a photo of that next time I'm passing".

 

On the next trip I saw another one - different shades this time and I thought again "must take a photo of that next time I'm passing".  Then it struck me!! 

 

Where I live is pretty rural and scattered about are farms.  And farms have outbuildings.  And a lot of these outbuildings are either fully or partly clad in wriggly tin (apologies to engineers, but I like that expression!!).  And there's even a manufacturer/erector of such buildings in the village!

 

Now what made me laugh was that I've lived in the same village in this pretty rural area for nearly 50 years and I hadn't taken any note of all these buildings around me!!

 

My excuse is that I was born and bred a city boy and whilst I've got interested in birds and other wildlife, woodlands, rivers, streams, canals and (of course) railways, farms and their associated buildings have never really been an interest.  But loads of answers to my query were sitting in fields within a radius of a 10-15 minutes drive from my house!!    Doh!!

 

The moral of the story?  Keep your eyes open!!  I'm pretty good when I'm anywhere near a railway line - in use or disused - but now I'm beginning to take an interest in farms, too!!!

 

As for modelling, the fire station is progressing quite well and is not far off completion.  So, keep watching this space!!

 

 

Rod

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by Dmudriver

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Dmudriver said:

My excuse is that I was born and bred a city boy

And obviously not bright enough to support a winning team...

 

(Sorry, simply couldn't resist. My only interest in LFC is down to "Zico", who I had seen playing more locally when I was still in short pants.)

[Hal Nail]

57 minutes ago, Regularity said:

My only interest in LFC is down to "Zico"

 

I'm missing the Zico link...?

[Dmudriver]

6 hours ago, Regularity said:

And obviously not bright enough to support a winning team..

 

Oh no, no, no, Regularity - it's because it's in the family genes!!!     Grandfather, father, me, then son and now grandkids, too!!!

 

And I'm old enough to remember the really good times for the Toffees!!!  Yes, there were some!!  

[Dmudriver]

5 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

'm missing the Zico link...?

 

Me too, so I googled him.  The only one I could find was a Brazilian who ran rings round Liverpool in an intercontinental match - in the 1980s, IIRC.    

 

[Regularity]

Phil Neal.

[Hal Nail]

On 05/08/2020 at 21:33, Dmudriver said:

 

Me too, so I googled him.  The only one I could find was a Brazilian who ran rings round Liverpool in an intercontinental match - in the 1980s, IIRC.    

 

I remember Zico - just not where liverpool came into it!

[Simond]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Neal

 

paragraph 3

 

atb

Simon

(another one)

 

 

[Dmudriver]

On 08/08/2020 at 15:51, Simond said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Neal

 

paragraph 3

 

Whilst I don't mind thread drift, straying into the subject of Liverpool FC will very likely become a no-no!!!      

 

And I can't find a blue heart emoji!!!

[Dmudriver]

I've finished the fire station building - finally!!  Here are some pics of it.   There's no fire engine standing outside as I took it round to a friend's yesterday.  He's going to strip it and repaint it for me.  Whilst the station is empty inside, I don't think it will look too bad once the floor is black and the engine is parked outside the open door.   I know I should add more detail inside but there's more pressing things first!!!

 

I am rather pleased with it now - I took some pics yesterday but they showed up some imperfections, so I've sorted them.  Much happier now!!

 

 

More stuff being worked on - for round the p-way hut, but I'll photo them when they're painted.

 

More soon.

 

 

Rod

 

PS  There's also 2 minis missing from the car park.  They're both promotion branded: I've tried getting the transfers off but to no avail so I'll try and sell them.  Anyone interested?  I'll buy some "ordinary" ones from Ebay.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Dmudriver

[pwr]

Looks really impressive Rod. Don't forget to have a car with its roof cut off by pneumatic shears in a corner of the compound - one that they practiced on. or is that too early for your timeframe?

 

Paul R

[Dmudriver]

20 minutes ago, pwr said:

or is that too early for your timeframe?

 

To be honest, I don't know, Paul.  I'm not really into fire engines, rescue procedures, etc.   But friend Google is always available, I suppose!!

 

I'm going on to it shortly to find out when number plates became white/yellow with black letters as opposed to white on black!!

[5BarVT]

27 minutes ago, Dmudriver said:

when number plates became white/yellow with black letters as opposed to white on black

Silver on black please!!!

Our new car in May 64 was old style.  I think I recall seeing C reg (Jan-Dec 1965) in black on white/yellow.

Paul.

[shedman]

Yes, I had a C Reg Austin 1100 which was 1965 and had black on white/yellow plates. Love the layout. Keep up the excellent work. Trevor