Stockrington - Mojo ignited. Thanks, Heljan!

[Highlandman]

Thats a lovely piece of work, you must be pleased with your self. With that extra push from a successful test run things should start moving along.

 

Having checked the Youtube file formats you should be able to up load a .MOV file directly to it, with out going through a converter. Hope this helps.

[Sasquatch]

Well it's been one heck of a journey, but the most important milestone of all has been reached:  Stockington ran its first trains tonight.

 

http://youtu.be/J24Lnas1oqo

 

(try as I may, I couldn't find a simple app to convert the video file from my camera (a Canon mov. file)  into a decent quality YouTube clip. 5 mins of filming, and literally 4 hours of trying to convert and upload. 10pm was white flag time..)

 

I did a few laps with Kestral propelling the CMX on the up and down mains, then brought out Cock O' The North to christen the tracks.  In doing so found one turnout I'd not wired the frog up to - which says a lot about the Heljan's pick up ability.

 

Very pleased there's no major issues with my track laying - there are some tweaks to be done - but now also have a few weeks of trials with various stock to make sure it's all tickety-boo, before I start ballasting and scenery.

 

A satisfying weekend down here.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

That sure is impressive. Totally worth the effort of posting.  Those sweeping curves are great!

 

You have been wise laying the track during the summer months. The rail might contract/shrink when things cool down but wont buckle should they have been laid during cooler months. I have to loosen the base board joints by the time July comes around.

 

I replied to post due to gremlins. The vid. is just a blank in your original post but somehow pops up in mine.

 

Keep up the good work. Regards Shaun.

[jukebox]

Thats a lovely piece of work, you must be pleased with your self. With that extra push from a successful test run things should start moving along.

 

Having checked the Youtube file formats you should be able to up load a .MOV file directly to it, with out going through a converter. Hope this helps.

 

 

Thanks very much, Andy.  With the benefit of a few days contemplation, I can see that once I've fettled the spots that need minor attention, the bank behind the MPD area is the first section I need to complete scenery on, because I can't add the MPD baseboard until I've done all the "reaching over" there.  That has the advantage that it's also some distance back, so as I learn to do the scenic stuff better, the less finessed stuff will not be front of house.

 

I did upload the video direct to YouTube the first time, but despite it being filmed in 4:3 ratio, it somehow distorts it even further, compressing the horizontal axis.  The annoying thing is, I have done it before and it's been fine; I have videos of loco building taken using the same camera on my workshop thread.  It's one of those things that I can probably solve with a few hours shooting videos with the compact, and the DSLR, and mucking around with settings... but that time investment isn't high on my priority list right now. I can shoot high quality stills, and they convey the progress very well most of the time.

 

That sure is impressive. Totally worth the effort of posting.  Those sweeping curves are great!

 

You have been wise laying the track during the summer months. The rail might contract/shrink when things cool down but wont buckle should they have been laid during cooler months. I have to loosen the base board joints by the time July comes around.

 

I replied to post due to gremlins. The vid. is just a blank in your original post but somehow pops up in mine.

 

Keep up the good work. Regards Shaun.

 

Thank you, Shaun.  I agree about the curves - there are some tighter ones in the room corners that were a necessary evil to fit the station and bridge span in, but they have transitions that hopefully make them not so noticeable, whereas the ones along the East (window) wall were deliberately generous to give that part of the layout a mainline feel.  I had 60012 romping around last night, and quite enjoyed the sense of scale, watching it pass through the soon-to-be landscape.

 

By the way: Your advice on wiring the double crossing worked perfectly - the two turnouts control the polarity of the frogs on the diamond as planned.

 

The issue of extremes of temperature variations is a very real one here - on a cold morning, the railway room will be in single digits, whilst a hot day it can rise to high 20's or more, even inside (and I can't always be home to open windows and moderate any breeze). being on the second floor, the heat even comes in from the roof space between floors - I feel the heat underfoot on a scorching day.  I kept gaps between most lengths I laid, and changing from PVA to carpet clue means I now stick every crib to the trackbed, whereas using the PVA, I only was gluing 50% of the trackbed, so it should be more resilient.

[jukebox]

There's a dozen turnouts around Stockrington Station, and since I went live, I've been throwing them with a 9v battery.  That got old pretty quickly, so last weekend I set about knocking up a temporary switching panel.

 

That cunning Irishman, Murphy, paid me a visit, as it turned out I had one less DPDT switch than I need - which I only found out *after* I drilled the board.  Never mind, I can use a single switch to throw both adjacent turnouts there, as they work as a crossover.

 

Front view:

 

 

The Scotsman in me visited, too, as I collected up all the 50-100mm tails I'd cut off the DCC droppers, and used them to daisy chain the DC power to the switches.

 

And for those whose boat is floated by such matters, the rear view:

 

 

Turnout control 101, right?  I find this stuff tedious compared to painting and modelling, but it's a necessary evil.

 

I've bought some multicore cable, and will use that on the weekend to bridge between the tails on this panel, and the turnouts themselves.

 

When I get around to making all my permanent panels, I will include some form of LED route indication with the turnout switching - it doesn't seem too complicated to do, and once it's done, will be a big help in visualising what seems perfectly logical to me now, but may trip me up in my Autumn Years 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

[jukebox]

The Stockrington Station panel is now installed, making life a lot easier; no more racing around throwing turnouts with a battery...
 
I discovered one anomaly during the week - and am still not 100% sure I have diagnosed it correctly; there is a spot where I have staggered track joints, and if I run a Bachmann K3 wrong line running across it, it trips the PSX circuit breaker.  But if I run tender first, it doesn't. It's on a curve, and there is cant there. Thinking it was gap between the rails at the joint that caused a momentary loss of contact which the PSX reads as a surge, I soldered the joints solid during the week, but it makes no difference.  Looking at some of the DCC forums, the PSX does have an issue with being too sensitive some times, and there is an adjustment that can be made to the unit, but I'll leave things be for now, as it's unlikely I'll ever need to run a train in the way that causes the trip to happen.
 
But this incident has spurred me on to getting a few more locos out of storage and testing them - I'm about to airbrush all the rail sides, and would like to know the trackwork is sound before I do.
 
Today's running featured some NE region power - a K1 and a WD - and went without any issues; propelling a rake of 4 wheel wagons hasn't shown any show stopping issues - it does reveal a few places my track laying is a touch ropey - but not enough to need to fettle. I do like both these locos - the WD needs a solid weathering, though, as do the 21T hoppers.

 

(and shooting with my DSLR seemed to get me a format that uploads nicely to Youtube - hooray!) 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clpI9ZQdB4I&feature=youtu.be

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 9, 2017 by jukebox

[Brian D]

Hi Scott,

I've not visited your thread for some while but am so pleased I did today - it's really great to see your trains (especially the NE varieties) moving around this monster layout of yours - I'm truly envious of your space.  Have you got a Q6 yet? - I have two, highly recommended, beautifully smooth and slow runners, just what you need at the head of the hoppers and would look great crossing "Wearmouth Bridge" .

You must be delighted with the outcomes so far.  Keep up the good work.

Best Regards,

Brian.

[jukebox]

A belated Happy Easter, everyone.  I went transcontinental, for a visit home to the East Coast.

 

Whilst there, was able to address another material supply issue...  ballast.

 

I think ballasting scale track is not a simple thing to do well; there's a fine line between getting the size of scale ballast right, and losing the look of actual ballast. Also, my eyes are somewhat accustomed to heavy haul railway ballast, having worked on the iron ore lines in the NW of Western Australia for so long, that smaller ballast that was the norm in the stream era doesn't always look right to me.  Add to that the fact that much of the NER used cinders or fines, and it all becomes a minefield.

 

When I was on holiday in the USA a few years back, I brought back some Woodland Scenics ballasts.

 

 

Gordon, over at Eastwood Town, and Jeff at Kirkby Luneside, have used blends of this stuff quite successfully, but I'm a little put off that this is dyed crushed nut shells... 

 

There has been a rather well thought of supplier here in Oz, known as Chuck's Ballast, selling real crushed stone, and some time back, I got a sample of his wares, to see if I could find a suitable match:

 

 

Now that I'm approaching the time to ballast, this issue has come back to the fore.  Chcuk's Ballast is not distributed in WA, but my sheer luck, there was a supplier listed who was a 10 min drive from where I was staying in New South Wales: Gosford Hobbies.  So I made sure I kept some time free to go visit on Easter Saturday.

 

I didnt know what sort of range of ballast they would stock, and when I turned up, found no Chucks Ballast there.... but they did have bags of "Matt's Ballast". Chuck. Matt.  I'm not a stickler for names when it comes to crushed rock, so long as it looks right, and this stuff did*.  As a bonus, they also had a nice line in coal and coal dust, which will come in handy for surfacing my MPD.

 

 

These were the equivalent of ~£10 for a 1kg bag, which doesn't seem unreasonable - I chose a mix of grades and colours, and intend to blend them up into to a suitable looking batch. I'm thinking I will have three distinctly different "looks" for the three areas of the layout, to help suggest distance and differentiation - a cleaner, grey mix for the open mainline, a fines based mix for the area behind the MPD that is more industrial, and something different yet again for the station - perhaps the fines for the avoiding tracks, and the Woodland product mix for the platform roads.

 

*the store owner told me Chuck is not a well gent, and has some issues with health that means he isn't able to supply with any surety, whereas Matt has been given the okay by the relevant quarry to access fines in the long term - hence the change in supplier...

 

So that's one more item sorted!

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Back at Christmas, I bought myself a small hobby compressor:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63300-stockrington-1st-trains-running-finally/?p=2549292

 

The last 48 hrs has demonstrated this was absolutely the right thing to do.  I started work airbrushing the rail sides yesterday - using a combination of Floquil Rail Brown, Floquil Tie Brown, and Testors Schokoladen, each let down with cellulose thinners 2:1

 

 

It's always hard to visualise how these things will look once ballast is down, but I'm happy with the result.

 

 

I upped the Schokoladen content on the ramp down to the storage sidings, to suggest something like the branch off to Ryhope Colliery - the more russet tones, and a cinder ballast, should give the impression of a secondary track.

 

 

Knowing it took ages to do even a few metres of straight track using a brush, I was stoked to complete this task in just three sessions - the railway room windows are all open, and the vapour should be well dissipated by tonight.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

 

 

[danstercivicman]

Back at Christmas, I bought myself a small hobby compressor:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63300-stockrington-1st-trains-running-finally/?p=2549292

 

The last 48 hrs has demonstrated this was absolutely the right thing to do. I started work airbrushing the rail sides yesterday - using a combination of Floquil Rail Brown, Floquil Tie Brown, and Testors Schokoladen, each let down with cellulose thinners 2:1

 

 

Looks great

2004a.jpg

 

It's always hard to visualise how these things will look once ballast is down, but I'm happy with the result.

 

2004b.jpg

 

I upped the Schokoladen content on the ramp down to the storage sidings, to suggest something like the branch off to Ryhope Colliery - the more russet tones, and a cinder ballast, should give the impression of a secondary track.

 

2004c.jpg

 

Knowing it took ages to do even a few metres of straight track using a brush, I was stoked to complete this task in just three sessions - the railway room windows are all open, and the vapour should be well dissipated by tonight.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

I've been very impressed with the results Gordon (Eastwood Town) gets using the "Captain Kernow" ballasting method, so set about trying to recreate it Down Under.

 

The thing is, there are a lot more variables in this technique than you realise, so here's a bit of dialog on my learning curve.

 

Firstly, the model ballast.  I have three very different materials - Woodland Scenics, which is crushed nut shells, Matts, which is crushed stone, and my own material, based on coffee grounds.  Each of these has a different density, and this affects two things - how much they bed into the wet PVA and how close you need to get the vacuum head to remove the excess once you have placed the ballast cover.

 

Next, the glue.  PVA is not PVA is not PVA.  Right now I am decanting from a 5L tub of actual Selleys Aquadhere (the synonymous PVA brand here in Oz for the last 50 years - not saying it is any better or worse, just that it was my selection a few moths ago when I started track laying). This bottle is, to me, surprisingly viscous - which affects the pourability and the ease of spreading the glue between the cribs. You can alter this by adding a few drops of water, or IPA, but with anything that involves doing things in multiple sessions over a number of weeks, the ability to repeat the process is important.  I am tending toward wanting to use this stuff neat, and to that end have ordered some 50p needle applicators from China, and will experiment with those went they arrive.

 

The paintbrush. No one talks about this!  I started off using a quite long, narrow bristled brush - 30mm with about a 3mm width.  This was great for getting under the rails, but poor for filling the cribs, so I switched to a slightly fatter one, just 10mm long.

 

The vacuum cleaner strength. This ends up being rather important! I bought this vac second hand just for this job, as I thought the Dyson I have would be too strong, but as it turns out, even this old banger has a bit too much grunt. I started off using just a stocking over the end of the vacuum, but eventually added a double layer of old singlest to tame the beast, as it is way too powerful to control without.  With this triple layer, I can get the head to within 50mm before the loose Woodlands material lifts - the Matts rocks need to be almost touching - say 20mm away.  The only way to really get a feel for this is trial and error.

 

The last variable is the setting time.  I made the mistake of leaving the first batch I did, and on the Matts ballast, the weight of the stone, or the surface tension of the rock, encouraged capillary action, and so ballast above the sleeper top became damp and stayed put when it was time to vacuum. In all fairness, Gordon is quite specific that he vacuums almost immediately, and I found once I had got the suction to a manageable level, I was also able to remove the right amount of loose material within a few seconds of laying the bulk down.

 

So, to the photos:

 

A 2:1 blend of Woodlands medium and fine...

 

 

Left to right, three attempts - dilute PVA left linger, neat PVA, mild IPA dilution

 

 

Just to confuse you, this view is the reverse of the one above...

 

 

One issue I do have is not enough glue under the rail - the C+L ribs are visible.  Something to look out for when the layout ballasting gets going.

 

A 2:1 blend of Matts medium and fine...

 

 

again, left to right, three attempts - dilute PVA left linger, neat PVA, mild IPA dilution

 

 

and again, to confuse you, this view is the reverse of the one above...

 

 

and yet again, the underside of the rail needs a little more cover

 

This is coffee grounds:

 

 

Left too long, and the PVA soaked upward

 

 

this time removed a lot sooner.

 

So, the verdict?  I'm happy with both the Woodlands and Matts products - I don't like the look of the Woodlands in the jars, but confess that once it is down, it does create a good illusion of ballast.

 

The graininess of the coffee surprised me - as does the brown tone, as I'd used a lot of grey emulation to try and make it more like cinders.

 

 

This is the sort of look I have in mind that I want to achieve, on the ramps up and down from the storage yard, to suggest lesser used branch lines - but will also want something similar for the MPD eventually.

 

I will sieve a batch of the coffee, to try and make it finer, and also try some tests with just fine Woodlands and fine Matts, so see if I can better replicate cinders.  I think Chris Nevard used neat DAS in one of his dioramas, and I know some images of NER track to look like smooth dirt between the sleepers, but sometimes scaling something down perfectly doesn't quite look right - and thats sort of how I feel about ballast.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 22, 2017 by jukebox

[jukebox]

I had a bit of a revelation this morning about this ballasting caper.

 

Once you work out what material you plan to use, the important part - and I mean *really* important part - is taking your time to get the glue right when you fill the cribs.  If you rush, or don't do it neatly, or don't fill the cribs consistently, or take any shortcuts with putting down the glue, then the ballast you drop on it will show that.

 

And once you have the glue down, it's about 90 seconds from spreading the dry ballast to vacuuming it up - so the only part that will take any time is putting the glue down.

 

Think about that for a minute; with the Captain Kernow technique, it's not the placing of ballast that governs how your finished job will look - it's how you place the glue.

 

I would suggest that means keeping a close eye on the viscosity of the glue - even the small batch I made was getting thick at the end of each session; so topping up with wetting agent (water, IPA) will be important.  

 

And also, because some of my sleepers are skewed, I will want brushes of different sizes so I can deliver the glue neatly into the cribs.  One size (brush) will not fit all.  And with approx 75m of track to ballast, I expect I'll go through a couple of brushes as I do this.

 

*** 

 

One step forward, two steps back...

 

So here are the trials using just fine graded material.

 

 

 

 

These illustrate exactly what I don't like about scale ballast - it looks too homogenous, and the grains of material don't register as ballast to my eye - they look like sand.

 

(I used a mortar and pestle and ground the coffee grinds, but it still comes out overscale...)

 

 

 

 

I've decided I will stick with the coffee for the secondary lines and sidings - but will need to keep looking for something better for the MPD yard; I haven't opened the bag of Matt's coal dust, so there may be a solution in some shape or form using that.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 24, 2017 by jukebox

[jcredfer]

Hi Scott,

I don't know if it helps much, but I notice that the local full-size Ballast is grey, like yours, but unlike the Woodlands Scenic stuff has quite a lot of very much darker flecks in it.  I checked the stuff I did the Shunting Puzzle with and that was also quite distinctly flecked.  A check with the pot label revealed it was Gaugemaster GM114 Granite Ballast.  A quick feel inside the pot had a very Granite texture to it, so if it 'ain't Granite, then it is something very like it.  I think it may be the same as Noch 09363 as some similar products are re-badged Noch.  Noch -9365 is a darker grey and it may be possible to mix more dark bits into the Grey Granite, if you wanted more variety of stone colours.

 

Looking at the Shunting Puzzle Ballast, it does look more varied in colour than the Woodland, above.  It might be worth a look.

 

Regards

 

Julian

[jukebox]

Hi Julian - thanks for the feedback on the ballast.

 

As you'll see in the following post, for that initial test, I actually was just using the Woodlands Light Grey - a creamy colour - but because I've been acquiring this stuff over a number of years, have a selection of colours and grades.  So monochrome is definitely out!

 

Hopefully the end result is acceptable!

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 25, 2017 by jukebox

[jukebox]

So today was a bit of fun.  I started work on blending up some ballast mixes.

 

These were Woodland scenics tubs I picked up relatively recently:

 

 

When you look up close, you can see the difference in colour in the Mediums:

 

 

..and the difference in size between medium and fine:

 

 

I also had some creamy grey Woodlands medium and fine, that I can recall buying in bags back in 1993 or so!

 

 

Again, the mediums together:

 

 

and the fines:

 

 

So it was a relaxing couple of hours, spooning in variations of these to a tub, and mixing them around to see what they look like.  Sort of like one of those posh tea shops in China, where you can get a custom blend of leaves!

 

 

In the end, I discovered the light grey is useful to break up the very monotone look of the dark grey - and that the fines bulk up the material, without drastically changing colour.  These are the two batches of Woodlands I made, one with more dark fines, that I'll use on the avoiding lines behind the station, the lighter one for the station tracks.

 

If you click on this image below, the sample on the right looks (to me) especially like a photo of full sized ballast.  For me, that's a pretty good barometer I've got it close enough to use!

 

 

I also did a blend of the Matts stone dust - in the small jar on the right.  This was interesting, as the fine material seems to cake everything in it's dust - so the component colours are a lot less obvious in the mixed ballast.  I suspect that either during the gluing, or if I were to wet the finished ballast, this dust may be removed.  As I'm planning to use this on the mainline, and there's a lot of it, I'll do a test section off the layout, to see just what the end result looks like.

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 25, 2017 by jukebox

[Brian D]

So today was a bit of fun.  I started work on blending up some ballast mixes.

 

These were Woodland scenics tubs I picked up relatively recently:

 

2504a.jpg

 

When you look up close, you can see the difference in colour in the Mediums:

 

2504b.jpg

 

..and the difference in size between medium and fine:

 

2504c.jpg

 

I also had some creamy grey Woodlands medium and fine, that I can recall buying in bags back in 1993 or so!

 

2504d.jpg

 

Again, the mediums together:

 

2504e.jpg

 

and the fines:

 

2504f.jpg

 

So it was a relaxing couple of hours, spooning in variations of these to a tub, and mixing them around to see what they look like.  Sort of like one of those posh tea shops in China, where you can get a custom blend of leaves!

 

2504g.jpg

 

In the end, I discovered the light grey is useful to break up the very monotone look of the dark grey - and that the fines bulk up the material, without drastically changing colour.  These are the two batches of Woodlands I made, one with more dark fines, that I'll use on the avoiding lines behind the station, the lighter one for the station tracks.

 

If you click on this image below, the sample on the right looks (to me) especially like a photo of full sized ballast.  For me, that's a pretty good barometer I've got it close enough to use!

 

2504h.jpg

 

I also did a blend of the Matts stone dust - in the small jar on the right.  This was interesting, as the fine material seems to cake everything in it's dust - so the component colours are a lot less obvious in the mixed ballast.  I suspect that either during the gluing, or if I were to wet the finished ballast, this dust may be removed.  As I'm planning to use this on the mainline, and there's a lot of it, I'll do a test section off the layout, to see just what the end result looks like.

 

2504i.jpg

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

Very interesting, Scott.  I opted for a standard ballast mix, namely one of Gaugemasters N gauge granite products for appearance and a consistent colour.  I always remember from my 50s/60s trainspotting days the main line ballast being grey despite a lot of commentators saying that the NER used black ash, perhaps BR had replaced it all in the 1950s. - I hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction though.

Regards,

Brian.

PS I hope you were recording the mix ratios so you can replicate your chosen appearance round the whole layout, but no doubt you thought of that

[jukebox]

Very interesting, Scott.  I opted for a standard ballast mix, namely one of Gaugemasters N gauge granite products for appearance and a consistent colour.  I always remember from my 50s/60s trainspotting days the main line ballast being grey despite a lot of commentators saying that the NER used black ash, perhaps BR had replaced it all in the 1950s. - I hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction though.

Regards,

Brian.

PS I hope you were recording the mix ratios so you can replicate your chosen appearance round the whole layout, but no doubt you thought of that

 

One of the blessings (curses?) of having the space I have, Brian, is that I can have at least four discrete zones, and if I ballast each one a little differently, I hope that in photos it will help suggest distance, or at least difference, of location.  So the long straight behind the MPD will get one mix, the rural area along the window wall will get two - a different on either side of the small bridge there, the station end will get different mixes for the platform and avoiding tracks.  I've made up reasonably large "batches" of each grade - but until I start laying, don't yet have a feel for how far each type of ballast will cover.

 

Being so far away from the prototype physically, and having never seen NER track in the era I am modelling, I do have to rely a lot on photos - luckily there a couple of reasonable volumes with colour shots - but as I've suggested, I am not going to be a slave to 1:76 reduction, as there's some things that to my eye don't scale down well. I agree about they grey ballast - certainly in the 1950's and 60's it seems to be verifiable.  The b&w shots that prevail from the 1930's and 40's are less helpful!

 

The ratios?  Yep - I used a careful calibrated teaspoon:

 

 

And if anyone needs to know (?): 10 dark grey medium, 1 light grey medium, 5 dark grey fine, 1 light grey fine.  Double the amount of fine dark grey for the avoiding roads mix.

 

(how did I get to that?  To be honest, I added too much medium light grey at first, so just kept piling in the dark grey until I got a mix where the light stones were obvious but not overpowering...)

 

Cheers!

 

Scott

Edited April 25, 2017 by jukebox

[Brian D]

One of the blessings (curses?) of having the space I have, Brian, is that I can have at least four discrete zones, and if I ballast each one a little differently, I hope that in photos it will help suggest distance, or at least difference, of location.  So the long straight behind the MPD will get one mix, the rural area along the window wall will get two - a different on either side of the small bridge there, the station end will get different mixes for the platform and avoiding tracks.  I've made up reasonably large "batches" of each grade - but until I start laying, don't yet have a feel for how far each type of ballast will cover.

 

Being so far away from the prototype physically, and having never seen NER track in the era I am modelling, I do have to rely a lot on photos - luckily there a couple of reasonable volumes with colour shots - but as I've suggested, I am not going to be a slave to 1:76 reduction, as there's some things that to my eye don't scale down well. I agree about they grey ballast - certainly in the 1950's and 60's it seems to be verifiable.  The b&w shots that prevail from the 1930's and 40's are less helpful!

 

The ratios?  Yep - I used a careful calibrated teaspoon:

 

2504z.jpg

 

And if anyone needs to know (?): 10 dark grey medium, 1 light grey medium, 5 dark grey fine, 1 light grey fine.  Double the amount of fine dark grey for the avoiding roads mix.

 

(how did I get to that?  To be honest, I added too much medium light grey at first, so just kept piling in the dark grey until I got a mix where the light stones were obvious but not overpowering...)

 

Cheers!

 

Scott

 

Do you ever sleep? Wot time in Oz is it?  Get some sleep mate!

Sweet Dreams hopefully,

 

Regards,

Brian.

[jukebox]

Do you ever sleep? Wot time in Oz is it?  Get some sleep mate!

Sweet Dreams hopefully,

 

Regards,

Brian.

 

Up at 5am, and time to go to work, now!  Catching my morning dose of RMweb while having the morning toast

 

Gilbert usually puts an update on his PN thread round about now... yep, there it is!

 

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by jukebox

[DougN]

Scott have you looked at the Woodland scenic s Fine cinders ash ballast? http://www.hattons.co.uk/41863/Woodland_Scenics_B1376_Ballast_Shaker_Fine_Cinders/StockDetail.aspx

 

I have used it previously but found it brought the entire layout down, ok it was just a loco shunting plank! 

[jukebox]

Scott have you looked at the Woodland scenic s Fine cinders ash ballast? http://www.hattons.co.uk/41863/Woodland_Scenics_B1376_Ballast_Shaker_Fine_Cinders/StockDetail.aspx

 

I have used it previously but found it brought the entire layout down, ok it was just a loco shunting plank! 

 

 

Hi Doug

 

Cinders, coal, and coal dust...  I've cunningly avoided that discussion in my ballasting descriptions (till now!).

 

I *did* buy some Matts fine coal, and Matts coal dust from Gosford, with a view to using this in the MPD, but can see the stuff is fine, dusty and filthy, and as I've not got any more Moccona jars, have resisted the temptation to peek inside the poly bags.

 

But as the MPD will have a coaling stage, and I've a lot of locos to coal, this will be an important part of the layout in the future.

 

I have to be careful about what my Antipodean mind thinks of as "coal in a loco tender" versus what the NER/LNER actually looked like - reference photos are really important for me in that regard.

 

I have some local coal from WA, but when it gets crushed, it doesn't scale down well - again, mind you, I'm more experienced that that sort of thing now, so may have another go - but at the moment, my go-to for loco coal remains some wonderful stuff from Lanarkshire Models & Supplies.  I saw it reviewed in a Model Rail many years ago, and got a hold of Dave Franks who was able to sell me a bag - it's lovely stuff!

 

***

 

On the layout front, I want to wait for those pinpoint glue applicator to arrive before I start ballasting, so in the meantime, I'm going to build the River Idle-esque brick bridge over the stream on the Eastern side of the room - that won't take took long;  I have all the materials, and it's almost the weekend...

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

So, how to build a bridge from scratch?

 

Start with a photo for inspiration/reference:

 

This shot comes from Derek Huntress' On Great Northern Lines - and is one of three in that volume.

 

Then draw a scale elevation, adjusting the size of the spans to suit the gap you have to fill. In my case, I have 500mm to play with.

 

 

That means three spans, rather than five...

 

The only real governing factor is the size of the faux voussoir courses I have available.  I'm using the SouthEastern Finescast English Bond Arches sheet, and there's some smaller ones that are too small, and larger ones that are a little flat, but will do.

 

 

I actually cut these out first, and used them to govern how big the spans are in my drawing. Cart before horse, when you only have one sized cart, as it were...

 

Tidying these up will probably be the most time consuming single task - it'll involve lots of fiddly filing down of the curves, being careful not to remove any ring brickwork - the rest is just cutting out some ply sides, and then overlays of brick sheets.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[The Blue Streak]

 

I have some local coal from WA, but when it gets crushed, it doesn't scale down well

Cheers

 

Scott

 

Odd thing about WA ( collie ) coal Scott, is that apparently  it had to be kept damp to stop it breaking down to the consistency of dust.

If you ever get out to Midland and sneak around near the old WAGR workshops, You will find a bit of an area towards Woodbridge with newish town houses around an old dam.

That was in fact the old Dam in which the Coal was kept (wet) for the old "Midland Loco" that was originally on the site. There is still the remnants of the old wooden bridge across the Dam , which I believe the Loco's ran over and were then coaled.

We used to go down there and have our lunch when I was an apprentice in the workshops. The water was really cold and we used to hang king browns of Beer in the water on a bit of string at Morning smoko and they would be like ice to drink by lunch time. ( Imagine doing that with Today's OH & S, although it was slightly safer than running over the Pedestrian bridge to the "Stockman" and downing a few cold ones at lunch and then trying to race back before the the timekeepers shut the gates).

There was also a turntable close by, but which was demolished in the early '80's about which time there was still the odd DD tank engine or two sitting around awaiting their fate, I've still got some old photo's of it all somewhere, that I took just as it started to all disappear.

 

Sorry to Digress Mate

Edited April 29, 2017 by The Blue Streak

[jukebox]

Odd thing about WA ( collie ) coal Scott, is that apparently  it had to be kept damp to stop it breaking down to the consistency of dust.

If you ever get out to Midland and sneak around near the old WAGR workshops, You will find a bit of an area towards Woodbridge with newish town houses around an old dam.

That was in fact the old Dam in which the Coal was kept (wet) for the old "Midland Loco" that was originally on the site. There is still the remnants of the old wooden bridge across the Dam , which I believe the Loco's ran over and were then coaled.

We used to go down there and have our lunch when I was an apprentice in the workshops. The water was really cold and we used to hang king browns of Beer in the water on a bit of string at Morning smoko and they would be like ice to drink by lunch time. ( Imagine doing that with Today's OH & S, although it was slightly safer than running over the Pedestrian bridge to the "Stockman" and downing a few cold ones at lunch and then trying to race back before the the timekeepers shut the gates).

There was also a turntable close by, but which was demolished in the early '80's about which time there was still the odd DD tank engine or two sitting around awaiting their fate, I've still got some old photo's of it all somewhere, that I took just as it started to all disappear.

 

Sorry to Digress Mate

 

 

Digression more than welcome, Streak.   I was involved in demolishing the old CBH bin earlier this year, and also checking out the bogie exchange trackage inside the old Midland workshop, so know the area - will have a wander around the parts you mention if I get back out there.

 

The CBH bin... no longer standing

 

...what it looked like inside.

 

Gauntlet track for bogie exchange - used for the last time earlier this year

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 30, 2017 by jukebox

[jukebox]

My method for building this bridge will be the same as the approaches to the big span; a plywood shell that is structural, and plasticard overlays.  As with before, this suits me, because I'm not a finessed woodworker.  I could use card, but I am worried about the longevity of that material.  And I choose ply over MDF as a believe it's less inclined to warp.

 

Once trick I learned from the big bridge was to make sure the wood skeleton is slightly undersized - to allow for the thickness of the plastic car and the adhesive.

 

These are sides, marked out ready for the jigsaw:

 

 

No need to try and replicate the curve of the arches - the plasticard will take care of that.

 

Here's the kit of parts, ready to assemble into the skeleton:  

 

 

The main deck is 90mm wide pine - but I need at least 100mm - so I have plywood "spacers" I will need to attach to each side.  Pine is also used under the piers and the ends, to create a solid structure. 

 

Any irregularities in the cutting will be taken up by shims when I set the finished box on the layout.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 30, 2017 by jukebox

[manna]

Digression more than welcome, Streak.   I was involved in demolishing the old CBH bin earlier this year, and also checking out the bogie exchange trackage inside the old Midland workshop, so know the area - will have a wander around the parts you mention if I get back out there.

 

980x655_163002.jpg

The CBH bin... no longer standing

 

cbh inside.jpg

...what it looked like inside.

 

bogie exchange.jpg

Gauntlet track for bogie exchange - used for the last time earlier this year

 

Cheers

 

Scott

G'Day Gents

 

When I first saw the 'wheat bin'! I thought, he' gone a bought a bigger shed, that's going to be one 'Hell' of a layout.

 

manna