Traeth Mawr -Building Mr Price's house , (mostly)

[ChrisN]

Chris

 

When I stored Hemyock I made sure that the tops of the baseboard faced each other and that the back of one lined up with the front of the other, that is hill (back of layout) over river and pasture ( front) and if I ever have to cut it and move again I will do the same.

 

Looking forward to seeing you make a start.

 

Thanks Jim,

I had intended to use the sides to stack over the scnery but I am not sure that I can do this but it may be possible to do this to save height.  I like your idea of matching areas and this could work but I would need to actually have a definate scenery plan before I started building.  I know what the area looks like in my mind but that is how it wold be if it was a straight run and not with curves at either end.  Maybe I will do that this afternoon and not what I had intended.

 

I have seen my son's F-i-L but only to warn him I need his help.  He also goes to the other side of the world in April so I need to be quick but I am very busy this week and the week after I may be working four days not two. 

 

I think building the baseboards will be the easy part as I have never used live frogs before, or wired a double slip.  All good fun.

[ChrisN]

As I said yesterday I went away and began to draw out where my structures would go.  I have always imagined the station and line as a straight line, ( see Tywyn, Barmouth and Harlech), so when I looked at it last night I was a bit thrown. 

 

The bay has moved the station building from where I imagined it to the left and so the coal staithes and therefore the coal yard is more removed than I had thought.  However I think I have sorted that.

 

I have always wanted to have a cobbled road with terraced houses opposite the station that on the left will cross the railway.  "In real life" the railway would then run behind a row of hotels which are directly in front of the promenade, so the road crossing the railway is no problem.  I think I have said that when googling Barmouth and Tywyn the type of houses opposite are three storey so I will have to do a row of them, but amybe only four.  I will need a lot more than that but I will do them as rows of four, or semis with the tiniest gap between them.  I will also model the house I lived in in Tottenham.  It was not built until 1906 but I am sure they copied the design from Traeth Mawr in Wales.  I only had the downstairs but it was full of character, well mainly my flatmate.  It had four bedrooms and a flat roof.  When built it had a garden on the roof.  Yes a proper garden complete with soil and flowers.  In the twenties when the roof began to leak they removed tons, (6 if I remember correctly) of soil etc.  The couple upstairs still used it as their garden in the summer.  You can see why I want to model it.  There were six in a row, although I am not sure how many I would do.

 

At present I am not sure how the road will run once it has passed the station althogh I do not want it to cross the line again as it should run straight to the market square on the other side of which is the Traeth Mawr and Twill Ddu narrow gauge line into the hills.  I will try and use a cottage to hide the line as it disappears.

 

I have roughly put in postition where things are with an estimate of how wide things will be and the houses for a least part of it will cross the baseboard joins.  This in itself is not a problem as I will make some of them removable and they will cover the join.  The other issue is that houses are usually back to back and if I do a similar row on the other side I will not have much room for a road, some houses may actually disappear into the back scene and on the whole there will be a gap between the houses and the back scene.  I will need to think about this.

 

On the left I could have a school to hide the disappearance of the track, although other ideas will be welcome.

 

I will post my plan later in the week.  I am at work for two days, yes I know, it is a hard life, and I will be at my son's tomorrow so I may have time to work on the plan there.  I will also post pictures of the houses I am thinking of modelling.

[Jaz]

I would consider several things. Kal and I changed our first build for a more sturdy. We changed our second to our third to allow bits to be removed for access to track issues. 

We have cleared out fiddle yards underneath because there was not enough height for us to get in properly. And had to change the way we hang the wires because the sticky type eventually failed and we had to use the screw in type inside. We also have made areas easier to climb underneath, because how ever much you want to avoid this it happens, and you need to ensure trains can't speed offf the edge of tracks and take flight...before coming to a sudden halt! with an inevitable noise that means something needs repair. 

Check these out now avoid some serious heartache later.

[ChrisN]

Jaz,

Thank you,

Getting underneath should not be a problem as it dismantles I should be able to turn it on its side. Trains coming off the edge doing a scale speed of 250 mph may be more of a problem.  Can you limit the speed in modern DC?  I will need to incorporate some sort of edge, but not too high as it has to be feasible for young people to reach over.  Maybe acryllic or similar as the thought of a wooden wall around it I am not too keen on.  Something else to put on and take off.

[aberdare]

Hi Chris

 

I look forward to seeing a more detailed plan, it sounds very promising.

 

Even though mine is a prototypical layout I spent ages drawing it out to get the right look, this continued onto the baseboards where I used a dry wipe marker pen until I was happy then drew over it with a permanent marker. I still changed it though and it was only the use of mock-ups that finally nailed the track line and structure positions.

 

I'm sure you will have plenty of changes of mind before you reach your final design.

[ChrisN]

Hi Chris

 

I look forward to seeing a more detailed plan, it sounds very promising.

 

Even though mine is a prototypical layout I spent ages drawing it out to get the right look, this continued onto the baseboards where I used a dry wipe marker pen until I was happy then drew over it with a permanent marker. I still changed it though and it was only the use of mock-ups that finally nailed the track line and structure positions.

 

I'm sure you will have plenty of changes of mind before you reach your final design.

 

Jim,

I think I am lucky in that I think my track plan is fairly fixed, unless someone comes up with a brilliant idea, and where it is on the baseboard is more or less the only place it can be.  The prototype I have chosen really needs twenty feet of straight track and it would fit into about 18". 

 

The town itself is another matter.  If you had not suggested it I would have not drawn a plan but allowed it to evolve as I went.  I am still guessing as to how big the station yard will be, how it fits with the coal yard, how the exchange sidings work, (umm should I actually have the possibility to run a 009 engine back and forth with slate wagons?), and how the road fits in.  It could go a from a few mm to a few cm either way.  The important thing is though I know about where the road is likely to be and therefore how to fit the baseboards together.  Thanks for pointing me in that direction.

 

I now need to find examples of a line of houses without another along the back, or else make them narrower.  We shall see.

[ChrisN]

 

 

 

This is the plan of the buildings, although not all the buildings as I am running out of inspiration.

 

In the front is the station with the station building and behind that is the station entrance .  On the left is the goods yard and shed.  On the right of the platform is the Station Master's house and probably garden.  Further to the right is the signal box but I may bring that closer to the station.  On the right of that is the coal yard and the exchange sidings with the narrow gauge track.

 

Behind the station the dotted line is a street, probably cobbled.  Cobbled may be wrong but I have always imagined it as cobbled.  The square boxes behind that are groups of houses, two 4s and a three.  Far right is a line of terraced cottages, single storey.  This is supposed to hide the railway as it disappears but is really in the wrong orientation so I will have to think about it.

 

In the far left at the back is what probably a school, again to hide the track as it disappears.  Traeth Mawr boasts two senior day/boarding schools, a boys and a girls.  This will probably be the girls as teenage victorian/edwardian girls are more plentiful than boys.  Boys tended to wear long trousers and as yet I have seen none that would do.

 

In front of it on the road is a cottage which is the Head's cottage and so the main entrance of the school is round the back of the houses along as yet and unmarked road.  There is a dotted line which marks the edge of the school boundary which will be grass etc. 

 

 

The next bit has not been planned but there will be a chaple and not sure what else.  That is where the insperation has run out

 

 

The houses are the ones in Tywn which I will model.  I still need to get pictures of the houses in Tottenham and upload them.

 

As Al says, thanks for looking.  If you have any ideas please feel free to tell me.  The houses opposite the station have been in my mind for nearly twenty years so are probably fairly fixed but I am open to any ideas.

 

PS. In my attempt to not make the lettering to big I have probably made it too small.  Not sure I can change this on this one but I will try on any later version.

 

PPS. The small suares are 50mm

Edited February 18, 2014 by ChrisN

[ChrisN]

I said I would put up a picture of the houses I would model from when I lived in Tottenham and here they are.

 

 

I actually lived at the far end of this block but the vagarises of Google did not allow me to take an image of that end.

 

These are brick, and I was thinking that they would need to be stone although I think there are a mixture although maybe not on the same road.  I will have to look at some old photographs and see.

[Jaz]

If you are doing flavours of real thing, grabbing googlemaps of the real items, then printing, then checking the scale on the print off, and making squares to a set size, can help you work out how uch space it really takes, because many people treat their layout like a TARDIS and are sadly disappointed when all the stuff does not actually fit in.

We chalked ours out, so you can just sponge it off if you change your mind. 

We marked out the grid, then on a piece of paper worked out what fit in them.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Jaz

[ChrisN]

Jaz,

Thanks.  I have tried to scale the size of the welsh houses and taken the depth fron the Wills Craftsman kit.  I will try and do the same for the others but the picture of the house in Tottenham is closer so there is more distortion.  They will be a representation, one that might be recognised hopefully. 

 

When the baseboards are built and the track is down, and oh yes, wired I will have to do that.  Actually before it is wired as I may start to build., although perhaps I should finish some of my projects on the way first.

[Jaz]

That's the trouble only so much time, and so many things you can do, just go at your own pace, and enjoy what you do.

BUT I will warn you you do not want points over the supports because those seem to drive the guys crazy.

[ChrisN]

Jaz,

Absolutely.  I spoke to F-i-L 1 today, (eldest son's father-in-law), and will see him Tuesday morning hopefully, to discuss baseboards.  I will take my plain track plan with both 6" and 50mm squares on and we will see what we come up with.

 

Will 4ft x 2ft need further bracing?  We shall see.

[ChrisN]

I saw F-i-L 1 today and the baseboard plans have been finalised, well more or less.  I now know what I should be doing and that it will work.  He gave me some good ideas as well, about legs and support.

 

We also discussed moving the boards and he suggested a racking system for the back of the car, or drawers, both of which are interesting but I will need to work on that myself.

 

The next thing to do is to get myself an over 60s card for B&Q and head down there one Wednesday.  They will do all the cutting for me so all, ho ho all, I need to do is glue and ?screw or nail together.

 

As I lay awake last night, I thought about my double slip and realised that although that is prototypical, I probably would not use it and a single slip would do just as well.  I had hoped you could get an electrofrog in a single slip but it does not look like it.  We shall see.

 

Thanks for looking and any comments, suggestions welcomed.

[aberdare]

Chris

 

it's good to see you are now about to make a start and I look forward to following the build and tracklaying, obviously I am really looking forward to the buildings arriving - a long way off yet though.

 

I must remember to get my B&Q at the end of the year so thanks for that little reminder.

[ChrisN]

Jim,

Thanks.  If you have any ideas as to buildings then just say.  I do not wish to do back to backs as there will be a gap just in front of the backscene.

 

My wife has asked that the house is not filled with plywood on 4th March as we will have lots of people round.  Umm, that's next Tuesday.     If I have two days on my own next week I may be off to B&Q next Wednesday, if not it will be soon as I know that I need to get started.

 

I am not sure how quickly buildings will appear.  I already have a cottage under way.  However the way I will model is that the baseboard and stuff will happen when my wife is at work, and not sure how quickly as I am always busy.  However, when my wife is at home she sits at the table and works on her computer, so I sit next to her and model, so projects will happen in parrallel, although if you look in the lounge you will see my list of unfinished projects.  I will probably start to share some of those on here soon.

 

Hope things are going ok with you.

[ChrisN]

I will post this here so hopefully everyone I know will read this and get the message.  The power supply to my laptop died last night and until I can get another one I will be on my wife's laptop when she is out.  (When she is at home she tends to work on it and even when not in front of it the laptop is number crunching for her.)  This means that I will be playing red sauce, ketchup, catch up on all the threads I follow

 

I have it in my mind to go to B&Q on this Wednesday, and maybe Hobbycraft for some mounting card, as they are near each other.  

 

I also intended to start a workbench thread but I shall probably do that on here as I will be doing them in parallel and if I van get my pictures loaded.........  Of course I cannot do that as I will not be using my computer so picture updates and workbench will have to wait until at least next week

[aberdare]

Hi Chris

 

I couldn't make up my mind whether to give a friendly/supportive for the power cable or a like for wanting to start a workbench thread, so you can have both verbally instead.

 

I lost the power supply to this one - frayed cable -  and had to buy a new one and then the wireless card failed and had to get the dongle, I need a new laptop really.

 

Please do get yourself out to buy that card as I'm looking forward to your build thread.

 

All the best 

 

Jim

 

I added a like in the end.

[Jaz]

Look at is as a positive thing. You now need to concentrate on research for your layout, and the free time allows you to work on it. Hope you checked silly things like fuses. Other than that....sorry to hear your news. And hope you get a replacement.

[Jaz]

Oh and you can work on really nice back gardens for those houses.

[ChrisN]

Oh and you can work on really nice back gardens for those houses.

Jaz,

I think the back gardens will evolve once the houses have been built.  I have been looking at pictures in my Cambrian over the last couple of days and there appears to be a distinct lack of footbridges in 1895, interesting.

 

I really need a new laptop.  I bought one for my wife last year as she uses it continuously when at home doing high powered maths analysis on it and I was due to get hers.  Before she had got her new one ready to use it died, well it corrupted some software.  We have not done anything with it as she still wants to get at the data some time.  My laptop is old and needs replacing and we probably will but will be looking at options like PC Specialist, great computers but not lots of software, and maybe Ebuyer and then back to PC world to see what they have.

 

Must get on I need to try and get to B&Q today- Diamond Geezer day.

[ChrisN]

Hi Chris

 

I couldn't make up my mind whether to give a friendly/supportive for the power cable or a like for wanting to start a workbench thread, so you can have both verbally instead.

 

I lost the power supply to this one - frayed cable -  and had to buy a new one and then the wireless card failed and had to get the dongle, I need a new laptop really.

 

Please do get yourself out to buy that card as I'm looking forward to your build thread.

 

All the best 

 

Jim

 

I added a like in the end.

 

Thanks Jim,

I think the first thing that will go up is a coach conversion followed by some very poor figure painting  I will have to see how I can do it as all the pictures are on my own laptop.  I will have to think carefully about what structures to build as I will need to make sure that they fit.  The school and maybe the chapel.

[ChrisN]

Well, I am now the proud owner of some 9mm ply.  I was quite pleased with myself as I had worked out that the sides should not be as long as the boards when they had been cut  However, I forgot to tell them the right length when they were cutting it for me and I only realised when I got home.  Umm.

cam

Rather than cut little bits of the sides I may use the long side pieces and fix them underneath and fix the ends on the ends of the boards which will make the layout approximately 36mm longer.

 

I was going to post some pictures of it as I know some people want pictures of everything but when I came to resize it on my wife's computer which runs Windows 8 the Microsoft program that I use on mine is not on here so I am a bit stuck.  I cannot even remember which program it is,  I will have a look on Friday on the Microsoft website.  If anyone has any ideas or can tell me how you do it on Windows 8 I would be grateful.  Answers on a postcard please.

 

On a brighter note I went into Hobbycraft and bought some mounting card plus I found out that they sold Revel paints so that I could buy Revel Bronze Green which is the right colour for Cambrian Coaches.  It is a different colour from Humbrol Bronze Green.

 

If I can sort the pictures out I will post my coach modification in the next few days.

[ChrisN]

Just an update for those who follow this.  I had hoped to build at least one 4 x 2 board this week but life intervened.  On Monday my Father-in- Law fell over and hurt himself.  It was eventually found out on Wednesday that he had broken his collar bone and now his arm is in a sling.  They only let him out after we had told them that he was going to come and stay with us.  (This is one reason why we moved.)  Needless to say he found excuses once out of the hospital not to come but he is coming today.  This means all baseboard work will probably be put on hold until he is able to stay at home and hospital visits have finished.

 

However, this does not mean modelling has stopped completely.  I have been getting on with things and will begin to post 'workbench' stuff on here.  This leads me onto the next problem.  The power pack for my laptop has apparently left Singapore on 8^th March according to my tracking number but has not reached the UK yet.  How long does it take?  I have looked at new laptops but everything is on hold while we look after 'Grandpa'.

 

Keep popping in as I will try and put up things as soon as I can so that I can underwhelm you with my modelling skills

[aberdare]

Hi Chris

 

When I got my replacement power pack it arrived in two days, it appeared that the shipment had arrived the same day I ordered and I got one of the extra ones. They don't call me 'Lucky Jim' for nothing.  A new laptop has certainly made my life easier.

 

Still looking forward to your workbench thread appearing, I'm sure we will be pleasantly surprised by your modelling as I think you are under selling yourself.

 

All the best and hope your problems are soon sorted.

 

Jim

[ChrisN]

I am still on my wife's computer as my new power pack has, apparently, left Singapore but has not reached this country.  It was sent by Singapore Post so perhaps the little man on his bicycle is having troubles

 

Anyway, I threatened last week to post pictures of the 9mm ply I had bought and have had cut up, incorrectly as it happens!  I had intended to make one of the 4 x 2 sections this week but we are looking after my father-in-law who is staying with us so I was not able to.  This post is an experiment to see if the images I am resizing using the forum's Image Editor are correct.

 

So here for your delight is 9mm ply.