Grindleford Station Hope Valley Line 1960s BR - Station Café build

[Marcus 37]

Blimey Al. Been away for a few days, come back, and you've restored an entire Land Rover. Now that really is attention to detail. It looks absolutely fantastic mate and well worth the effort. Another great bit of modelling.

Cheers

Marcus

[ChrisN]

Al,

That is a nice conversion, you obviously know the prototype well to add all the relevant details, and very well done.

 

Spraying paint.  How do you get that passed the local authorities in winter, I assume you did not do it outside.  Planning permission?  When they were not looking, or when they were out?

[Alister_G]

Thanks Chris,

 

Luckily I have a utility room / extended porch affair off the back of the house which contains the washing machine etc, and lots of fresh air, so spraying can be conducted without offending the household.

 

Al.

[JZ]

I think you will find that this Land Rover kit was originally produced by JB Models in the early 1980s.

[Jaggzuk]

 

You know what, I'm really quite chuffed with the way it's turned out.

 

Thanks for looking, I'm off to bed.

 

Al.

 

So you should be a great effort!  And it looks right, if not a tad to clean ;-)  Love the cameo scene.

 

Whats next?

[Alister_G]

I think you will find that this Land Rover kit was originally produced by JB Models in the early 1980s.

 

Hi JZ, I'm sure you are right, the kit certainly has an eighties feel to it, with big chunky parts and massive injector marks.

 

Thanks,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

So you should be a great effort!  And it looks right, if not a tad to clean ;-)  Love the cameo scene.

 

Whats next?

 

Thanks very much mate, funny you should say that...

 

This afternoon I weathered it a bit, and gave it a blast of Matt Varnish. Here's the results:

 

 

 

 

 

Next, I really ought to crack on with sorting the boards out for Grindleford, Marcus is bringing some rolling stock with him in  December when he visits, and there's no track laid yet!

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Jaggzuk]

Perfect!

[Alister_G]

This thread has been awfully quiet for the last ten days, but this isn't because I'd given up and gone away!

 

I've been continuing to work on Grindleford, but my main PC at home decided to die on me last week, and so I've been unable to edit and upload photos.

 

I ordered a replacement, but it still hasn't turned up, so I've borrowed a laptop from work to at least be able to post some photos.

 

Unfortunately I can't run Flash on this computer, and I'm having to upload each file individually, so I won't be posting many...

 

So, first, I finished off painting the Down platform buildings:

 

 

 

 

Here's the loo...

 

 

Then I started to work on the second board of the layout, building the platforms to their full length, and laying the cork for the track:

 

 

 

The track isn't stuck down yet - in fact it's not the track that will be laid, as the final fix will be C&L Flexi, not code75, but this is just to get the curves right.

 

 

 

And that's as far as I've got. Hopefully my replacement PC will be here tomorrow or Friday, and normal service will be resumed.

 

One final thing, an early Christmas present has arrived:

 

 

I now have a proper DCC controller at long last.

 

I haven't played with it yet, but I'm hoping it will do double duty on Bakewell and Grindleford.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

 

 

[ben pez]

Cracking work on the Land Rover pal.

 

Really looks the part!

 

cheers

 

Ben

[Alister_G]

Cracking work on the Land Rover pal.

 

Really looks the part!

 

cheers

 

Ben

 

Thanks Ben.

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Gat work on the Building and Layout mate, also a Nice control system mate.

[vulcan product fan]

nice work on the station building the colour looks good like the view down the platforms and like the dcc controller . Hope you have better look with new pc pal

Edited November 24, 2016 by vulcan product fan

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Al, I have the NCE set-up but not the booster, even on my 25' long layout I can have 3 locos going without problems. One thing I would get unless you have not shown it in the photo is another handheld slave, so you can control up and down lines separately.

[Mrkirtley800]

Very nice work on the building and the station Al. Going to be a really superb model.

Derek

[Marcus 37]

Great work on The Landy Al. Definitely worth the effort you put into it. Looks the buisness.

Love the view down toward the bridge from the platforms with that lovely sweeping curve. That's going  to look superb with a lovely long freight train passing through.

As for the urinal, well that looks so realistic you can almost smell the stench of stale p*ss from here.   

[Alister_G]

Hi Al, I have the NCE set-up but not the booster, even on my 25' long layout I can have 3 locos going without problems. One thing I would get unless you have not shown it in the photo is another handheld slave, so you can control up and down lines separately.

 

Hi Jonathan,

 

I spent some time looking at the various controllers on offer, I know that Andy P and a fair few other people uses the Gaugemaster Prodigy, but the drawback with that is it doesn't support computer interfacing except with their own propriety software. The NCE however supports any software, including JMRI which I already use, so that swayed the decision for me.

 

I chose to get the booster so that I can, should I want to, run signals and points off DCC without fear of overloading the system, but the main reason was that with the NCE Power Cab on it's own, if you unplug the handset, everything stops and resets, as the the controller brains are in the handset. If you get the SB5 booster as I have, the controller brain becomes located in the booster, and the handset reverts to being a dumb controller, so you can unplug and move around without disturbing running trains or resetting all the points. This is something I considered important to be able to do.

 

I am going to get a second handset, so that particularly for Grindleford, I can have a fiddle-yard operator and a "front-of-house" operator.

 

Please forgive me, but the idea of getting a separate handset for "Up" and "Down" lines seems to me to be a very DC-centric way of looking at things - with DCC you are driving the locomotives, not the track, so it shouldn't matter where on the layout it is, you can control the locos individually.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Iron Horse]

Not sure the Like button is right for Marcus' post

 

I do however also love that view down towards the bridge

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Jonathan,

 

I spent some time looking at the various controllers on offer, I know that Andy P and a fair few other people uses the Gaugemaster Prodigy, but the drawback with that is it doesn't support computer interfacing except with their own propriety software. The NCE however supports any software, including JMRI which I already use, so that swayed the decision for me.

 

I chose to get the booster so that I can, should I want to, run signals and points off DCC without fear of overloading the system, but the main reason was that with the NCE Power Cab on it's own, if you unplug the handset, everything stops and resets, as the the controller brains are in the handset. If you get the SB5 booster as I have, the controller brain becomes located in the booster, and the handset reverts to being a dumb controller, so you can unplug and move around without disturbing running trains or resetting all the points. This is something I considered important to be able to do.

 

I am going to get a second handset, so that particularly for Grindleford, I can have a fiddle-yard operator and a "front-of-house" operator.

 

Please forgive me, but the idea of getting a separate handset for "Up" and "Down" lines seems to me to be a very DC-centric way of looking at things - with DCC you are driving the locomotives, not the track, so it shouldn't matter where on the layout it is, you can control the locos individually.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

 

Hi Al, controlling two trains with one controller isn't my idea of fun. Perhaps it's better to say one controller for each moving train rather than one for the up and one for the down. I have three controllers, the main one and two slaves. One can control locos just moving round the MPD or shunting the yard. With two controllers I can have simultaneous departures on the branch and mainline.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Rowsley17D

[Alister_G]

Hi Al, controlling two trains with one controller isn't my idea of fun. Perhaps it's better to say one controller for each moving train rather than one for the up and one for the down. I have three controllers, the main one and two slaves. One can control locos just moving round the MPD or shunting the yard. With two controllers I can have simultaneous departures on the branch and mainline.

 

Ah, yes, I can sort of see that making sense, although swapping between locos on the controller is very quick, I'm told.

 

Do you use the miniature (or smaller) NCE controller with the round knob on the top for your secondary ones? I was wondering which sort to get.

 

Al.

[Guest bri.s]

Great work on the station building Al I love the view looking down between the platforms and through the bridge onto the tunnel

 

Im going to be using C&L flexi I bought some to check out and I was very impressed with it difference is huge

 

Brian

[Rowsley17D]

Ah, yes, I can sort of see that making sense, although swapping between locos on the controller is very quick, I'm told.

 

Do you use the miniature (or smaller) NCE controller with the round knob on the top for your secondary ones? I was wondering which sort to get.

 

Al.

 

Yes, that's the one, I have two of them. Does that make sense?

[Andrew P]

Good choice on the Controller Al, I'm sure you'll have some fun with that.

[Classsix T]

I can see Mr. Rowsley's point to a certain extent, my only experience of digital control has been on an MPD layout with short sidings. Moving, and more importantly stopping, multiple locomotives off one controller at once was something I undertook more to relieve the onset of boredom than anything else.

I don't think on a relatively expansive roundy Alastair should encounter problems on the mainlines with one controller. Siding shunting will inject complications, but as Al has said slave units will cater adequately.

 

It's not for me Al, but I'd be interested to know how you get on with digital.

 

C6T.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Classsix T

[Jason T]

Surely as an exhibition layout, more than one handset will be a necessity as you will need at least one fiddle yard operator and two out front (especially as you will spend much of the time answering questions and chatting. I guess one of the things you will need to plan is how the layout will be operated, as that will have a bearing on many aspects.