S Scale Layout - Y Wladfa - somewhere on the Brecon and Merthyr railway

[Timber]

Y Wladfa is a small cameo terminus somewhere on the Brecon and Merthyr railway.  If coal had ever been mined at Y Wladfa then I am confident that the railway to supply the people and mine of this Town would have looked just like my model.

 

The layout has been designed to start life as a small terminus and then to expand in time to a through station and potentially beyond that to a continuous loop.

 

The layout follows no prototype norms.  I am simply trying to pack as much operational interest into the smallest possible space.  The design requirements were:

 

·       A turntable so I can run tender engines

·       A coal mine to recognise the coal mining heritage of the B&M and enhance operations interest

·       Goods and cattle facilities to enable a wide variety of rolling stock

·       Engine Shed repair yard to allow several locomotives to be kept operational at any time

·       A small station with passing loop.

 

After a number of false starts I arrived at the attached track plan.  Plenty of curves, no straight sections and enough track to provide interest without trying to cover every square inch of the baseboard.  The current available space is 16 foot, but there is the potential to extend beyond this but I would rather grow the model than start a project I never finish.

 

I am relatively new to S Scale modelling and my interests lie much more in building locomotives than signal boxes and stations, so I suspect that this will be a slow build.  But hopefully the updates to this blog will energies me to one day finish the layout.

 

I am starting this blog at the point that I have built baseboards, laid track (using Templot) and completed the electrics (basic)

 

Building track in S Scale is the same as 4mm.  All of the parts are available from the S Scale Society stores.  http://www.s-scale.org.uk/,  

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Timber

[ianb3174]

What is the overall layout size? 

[Timber]

I have started to ballast.   Its been a while since I have ballasted track and I had to remind myself how not to mess up the track.  I tried a few different ballast types and settled on a Hornby product.  I liked the colour it took after the PVA had been applied and by varying the PVA strength it takes a different colour as I tackle each section.   

 

The sleepers I stained with dark oak and then gave a grey wash to make them stand out as sun dried oak.  The side of the rails have picked up the wood dye which will remove the need to seperately paint.

 

On the picture below there are a few pieces of ballast to pick out but that can be done in time.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Timber

[Timber]

Bored with ballasting i decided to make a Goods Shed.   It is not based on any specific prototype but i have tried to capture the architectural features employed by the B&M.   I have drawn this in Tinkercad and will print on my Filament printer.

 

I am making the walls etc as seperate pieces and will glue together at the end.

 

As with my engines I will share the STL files but this is probably a bit early in design to share too widely.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Timber

[Timber]

Off the printer - the lose stones on the edges are intentional......I am sure that the B&M did not spend too much time repointing their goods sheds.

 

Here is the link to the STL

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g_zTGBjTH4cWNgQ6_ngR3fAGmTppwzpI/view?usp=sharing

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Timber

[Timber]

This is a Tinkercad slate roof I have drawn up- I will see what this prints up like before drawing the complete roof..

Edited April 4, 2022 by Timber

[Timber]

That has come out OK.  Attaching an STL.  Anyone interested can mesh this together to make a larger roof section.  I will work on the other sides first and then come back to the roof when I have the overall dimensions worked out.

 

STL location....

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eTtI8_sYVauoKuayOH8M8VgYV4SpXJzO/view?usp=sharing

Edited April 6, 2022 by Timber