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

[Sasquatch]

Hope you don't mind me cropping this Al, but it is one of the best pieces of modeling on here. So realistic.

 

[Andrew P]

Wow, and Shaun's re touched image just shows how good a Model this is, I think you should start to do Demos at Shows Al, as your skills are above and beyond mere mortals.

 

Thanks Shaun for re doing that image, and Al for making it possible.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Andrew P

[ChrisN]

Al,

They look great.  What did you use for the door furniture?

[Alister_G]

Hope you don't mind me cropping this Al, but it is one of the best pieces of modeling on here. So realistic.

post-17302-0-01919200-1483008299_thumb1.jpg

 

Wow Shaun! Thank you very much, I really appreciate the compliment, and that does look good cropped like that.

 

Thanks mate,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Al,

They look great.  What did you use for the door furniture?

 

Hi Chris, thank you.

 

The door furniture is made of tiny slivers cut off the end of some 0.3mm round styrene rod.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Yesterday evening I made a start on modelling what is possibly the most iconic building of my chosen location - one that immediately screams Grindleford even to none-railway enthusiasts: the main station building better known now as Grindleford Café.

 

Here's the prototype:

 

 

 

and from above in plan view:

 

 

Unfortunately, the way the layout is built means that there isn't room for the full building to fit on the baseboard, so this model will have to be a half or three-quarter relief.

 

So I started by making a flat scale representation of the plan view:

 

 

I then carried this off to the layout, and did some fiddling to see how it would fit.

 

The result is that I will have to cut a diagonal across the building, like this:

 

 

That should make life interesting, with all those pitched roofs...

 

Anyway, having done that, I was in a position to start the build, and so I cut my first wall of the shell out of 40thou plasticard:

 

 

Apologies for the quality, my camera really doesn't like focussing on flat white sheets.

 

I then did lots of marking out to get everything in the right place:

 

 

and then I used some 3mm x 6mm styrene tube to provide the relief for the stonework:

 

 

This was then clad in the SE Finecast Dressed Stone embossed sheet:

 

 

and the chimney and stonework detail added:

 

 

That's as far as I got, more later.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Jaggzuk]

Fantastic terrace Al.  everything just look right with it now and the outside shots make it look great.

 

I think you have your work cutout on the Cafe, but I recon you will create a great model in the 'next few days' ;-)

[Alister_G]

This afternoon, a slight departure from structure building.

 

I received an ebay purchase this morning, a Hornby Railroad Class 31 with heavy weathering. In anticipation of it's arrival I had already bought a sound chip for it, so I set about fitting it and adding a driver, and so on.

 

However, this is the railroad version, and therefore, has absolutely no interior detail, no cab, nothing. You can see the first job I did was to add some lead, as the model is exceedingly light:

 

 

so I ended up building a cab for the driver to sit in.

 

Here's the poor bloke, after a terminal encounter with a razor saw:

 

 

I gave him an all over coat of Humbrol 96 to start him off with:

 

 

Whilst that dried, I made a start on the cab.

 

First, I cut and filed to shape a bulkhead for the rear of the cab:

 

 

and test fitted it in the loco until I was happy with the shape and fit:

 

 

Then I added a floor, a front bulkhead, and some strengthening to hold it all square:

 

 

Then I built up a crude representation of the cab interior - it's not much like a real Class 31, but it's better than nothing:

 

 

and added a chair

 

 

Then I sprayed it all grey:

 

 

The rear bulkhead was then painted cream, and the driver, now painted, was added:

 

 

So here's the DCC Chip. the loudspeaker, and the cab interior all sitting on top of the lead sheet on the chassis:

 

 

I've run out of iPhone speakers for the moment, but the current monstrosity will be replaced when I get some more. Due to it's size, I had to take out the transparency for the body, and chop a hole in it for the speaker to fit:

 

 

 

and here's the cab structure in place:

 

 

Some views with it all in position:

 

 

 

 

Again, as it's a Railroad model, it has no provision for added buffer beam detail, just some token mouldings, so they were cut away, and replacement hoses and a coupling made from styrene rod, and wire were added, and painted up:

 

 

 

 

I hope to have some video of this up soon, but in the meantime, thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Marcus 37]

Nice work on the Ped, Al. The old Lima body still holds its own against the later Hornby offering and of course you won't have the trouble of the Mazak chassis suddenly exploding.

A nice representation of the cab. Looks much better than the normal open space.

Nice to see a start made on the station building. Looks good already.

Cheers

Marcus

 

P.S Hope you didn't mind me mentioning the sound chip in the 37. You'll probably be needing one of Buxtons finest 37/5s for the layout so that chip would fit nicely in one of those.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Marcus 37

[Alister_G]

P.S Hope you didn't mind me mentioning the sound chip in the 37. You'll probably be needing one of Buxtons finest 37/5s for the layout so that chip would fit nicely in one of those.

 

Not at all mate, I'm always willing to learn, and you're the man when it comes to 37s.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

So here's the video of the Class 31:

 

 

Thanks for watching,

 

Al.

[Marcus 37]

Definitely looks and sounds good. Looks like a proper beat up 31. Funnily enough the last loco hauled train I had across the Grindleford end of the Hope Valley Line was a 31 way back in 1989. It was on a railtour from Leeds to Mallaig. Cant remember the number but it was in RF Red stripe. Bit of a long way round I must admit but the traction was good. Especially the Scottish bits....

[emt_911]

A Happy and Prosperous 2017 to yourself and the family Al

[vulcan product fan]

Super work on the cab of the ped and well done for fitting the the sound chip into the 31. Great start on the station building Al looking good already and a Happy new year to you and your family Al.

[Alister_G]

This afternoon, a major civil engineering project has taken place in Grindleford.

 

Despite the public consultation coming out overwhelmingly in favour of preserving the status quo (what's left of them), and despite numerous residents signing a petition, and even demonstrating, the whole of the area to the north of the west end of the station has been dug up, and will be re-landscaped.

 

There was some shock to discover that although nothing was shown on the survey, under the gardens of Midland Cottages there appears to be a lot of insulation foam!

 

 

 

 

 

To address the issue that eastwestdivide described as a "ski-slope"  for tenants of Midlands Cottages exiting their back doors, I've decided to make the transition from platform height to Terrace height a lot shallower and smoother.

 

Some suitable offcuts of ply were found, and screwed together to form a gentle slope:

 

 

 

 

which were then securely screwed to the baseboard:

 

 

 

A piece of hanging-basket liner was then cut to shape and layed on top of the ply:

 

 

 

The terrace was then reinstated at the top of the hill:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think you'll agree it looks far better, and I can now begin to create the gardens.

 

I just hope the residents are happy now!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Whilst I was taking photos of Midland Cottages (that's their real name by-the-way, I only found out today), I had to crawl under both Grindleford and Bakewell, and fight my way up into what's left of the operating well, now the bracing for Grindleford is taking up most of the room. Once there, I noticed a few other photo opportunities from that side of the tracks, so here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, whilst squirming between the timbers supporting Grindleford, I found something else, which I'll talk more about in my next post.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Marcus 37]

That looks so much better mate. The cottages blend much more into the scene now. Always a brave move ripping stuff back up but its certainly paid off this time. Top Work.

Happy New Year to you and Courtney.

All the best for 2017

Cheers

Marcus

[Alister_G]

Thanks mate,

 

All the very best to you, Anthony and Di.

 

By the way, I'd love to see the photos Anthony took of Grindleford, if he wants to put them up here.

 

Did he happen to get a sound chip for Christmas?

 

Al.

[Iron Horse]

More amazing work going on here........Happy New Year too!

[Andrew P]

Nice changes Al, coming on really well mate

[Alister_G]

So, whilst fighting my way under the baseboards, beating off the ravening hordes of spiders, and banging my head on things, I came across all the locos for Bakewell, packed away, and I thought they looked very lonely and unloved.

 

So a New Year's resolution: use my steam locos more, and resist the banger blue tin boxes sometimes.

 

Here we are then, a bit of steaminess:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and here's the video!

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

More amazing work going on here........Happy New Year too!

 

Thanks very much Adrian, all the best to you and yours.

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

I've been playing:

 

 

 

 

 

Al.

[emt_911]

Al. The landscaping is a vast improvement. It looks far more natural.

 

Great to see steam on the layout as well

[Alister_G]

This evening I've managed to sneak an hour's modelling, and continued with the Café.

 

Basically I've been cutting out the shell from 40thou plasticard, and adding the stone base to each section.

 

I haven't cut any windows or doors out yet.

 

Here's all the bits I've done so far, propped up against each other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can begin to see how it should look eventually.

 

A bit like this, hopefully!

 

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Al.