Langford Lane & Marlingford - GWR 1940s Oxfordshire

[The Stationmaster]

4 months or so, 2 signals complete and a rake of post and wire fence.

 

 

 

Only another 9 to go...These were the easy ones and a lot of trial error and some false starts. With the practise my model engineering skills are slowly improving, but it's a case of two steps forward, one and a half back most of the time.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jon

They definitely look the part Jon, rather nice!

[The Great Bear]

Having done a bit of a tidy up, here's something that's been missing from my posts for a while - a train:

 

 

 

 

Signal construction paused for a while, whilst I move on to adding scenery to the other areas.

[phixer64]

Excellent work.

Jeff

[NHY 581]

Lovely photos. I hope you won't mind but as a committed S&DJR modeller the photos above have a look very reminiscent of the S&D....Cannards grave area...Rock Cutting Bridge.

 

Lovely modelling.

 

Rob.

[Mikkel]

Apart from the train - always a welcome sight  -  your scenery work really is excellent. I'm particularly taken by the way the cuting rises with the backscene towards the bridge. All very convincing.

[The Great Bear]

I'm now focusing on the station area, starting with the platforms and the Up side (the outside of the layout) shelter. 

 

Before cracking on with the canopy and roof I thought a few minutes add some detail to the building interior would be worthwhile. Not sure how much of it will be visible eventually but better to do just in case. Not especially grand or neat work but better than nothing.

 

 

More updates on this building soon.

 

By the way, thanks for the "likes" and kind comments on the scenic work to date: reassuring and encouraging for me.

 

Cheers

 

Jon

[The Great Bear]

The bank holiday weekend was productive. Mrs Bear went away on a spa weekend, Mr Bear spent it in the shed.
 

 

 
Some details like the brackets aren't an exact match for the original and I have had to improvise - using ones from York Modelmaking. The Lions heads I got from Cornwall Model Boats, again not an exact match but look pretty close (not helped by my dodgy painting) along with the walnut corning used for the top edge of the canopy. The valence I got from LCut Creative. The lamps are from DCC Concepts.
 
There's a few small bits and touch ups left to do, but very nearly ready to be put in place.

[NHY 581]

Where's the bloody good button thing?

 

Rob

[The Great Bear]

More work on the scenery, this time toward the front of the layout. Several times I've mocked up things and again did same before progressing, in particular how the canal, access to station might work.

 

Orignally I wanted a pub next to the canal. My orignal idea of having it left of the overbridge didn't work - lack of room on the baseboard as the curving track cuts the corner and also the railway being in a cutting didn't feel right, not enough room. Nor did trying to squeeze it in between the access ramp and canal on the other side. (In real life at Kidlington there's 50m or so between Station Approach and the canal with the pub (now called "The Highwayman") parallel with the road.

 

 

 

(Please excuse the mess, again!)

 

Hence I've dropped the dea of a pub; makes things less cramped, one less building to do and in my world it can be on the other side of the canal.

 

So, on with making the earthworks. The method I use is "glueshell", corrugated cardboard supports overlaid with a lattice of thin card all held together by using a glue gun. Then diluted PVA glue brushed onto the lattice, bits of paper towel placed on it and the glue worked in, then another layer placed and so on, three or four ayers seems to be enough. Once set after several days it is quite robust. The way I do it does seem to leave a bit of ribbing following the lattice but the hanging basket liner hides that. Indeed, the glueshell almost isn't necessary but when I tried not using it fixing things later like fenceposts invariably found gap in the lattice...

 

 

At the moment I'm going to stop the scenic work this far forward, leave the canal until later once everything outside sorted, inded may reconsider whether I have that feature or not.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jon

[The Great Bear]

Taking a pause from the scenery, and after a tidy up, here's another train. The photo is a bit of a test, my new camera I can control via smartphone or tablet so placed on the layout then took several photos with different points of focus then merged them together in Photoshop; what the guv'nor does for his photos I think. Early days but seems to work fairly sweetly.

 

 

I was thinking what the heck is happening in the bottom right of the photo, blurred and blue blobs: reaslised smudge on lens and bits of Peco track rubber! I am pleasantly surprised with how my recent hacking off of the chairs on the Peco points looks - not a complete mess and not a waste of time, I think, matches reasonably the C+L track, though ideally, I should add a bit more ballast to disguise the thicker Peco sleepers.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

[The Great Bear]

The last week I've gone back to making some signals.

 

The first ground signal in place:

Getting the balance weight to move has so far eluded me, the wire link between the disc and the arm being just too fiddly for me. (Edit: realise point set wrong!)

 

I've also made progress on another signal:

 

 

Getting the balance arms not to foul each other, I ended up scratch building the mounting and adding several washers between each arm. The cranked rods move the line of them out to suit the mounting and also so the other arms don't clash with them. Not that pretty and not sure how prototypical but seems to work ok on the workbench at least.

 

Six months ago I thought making this signal would be beyond me so I am quite pleased with how this is going.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jon

Edited October 26, 2014 by The Great Bear

[The Great Bear]

Here's the signal above finally on the layout:

Fingers crossed it works when the servos wired up and lamps connected - the lamps and wires to them are very fragile.

 

I've also completed a couple more signals:

 

So, pretty much all the signals and ground signals are now in place, awaiting connecting up the lamps and the servos. Phew! That's taken up most of this year, on and off. I've also been slowly hacking away at the points and adding chairs as covered earlier - tedious stuff; two hours or so per point. Only a couple more to do.

 

Here's an overview of progress:

Please excuse the mess - this is after the tidy up - well, just enough to get trains running!

 

Nows it's back onto the scenery and finishing off the buildings - progress hopefully will speed up.

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jon

[The Stationmaster]

Coming together really nicely Jon - and a very Great Western look to it.

[NHY 581]

To echo the SM,this is very nice work , Jon. The scenic area the other side of the over bridge has a nice, restrained look about it. A good indication of things to come, methinks.

 

Rob

[gazmanjack]

Looking good Jon. As they say, 'slow and steady wins the race...'

 

Cheers, Gary.

[The Great Bear]

A few shots of the staion building, more or less finished:
 

 

 

 
Here's an example of the station type it's based on, Aynho

 

Now to tidy up and get it on the layout!

 

Thanks for the interest,

 

Jon

[The Stationmaster]

Looks absolutely gorgeous Jon!

Edited February 2, 2015 by The Stationmaster

[The Great Bear]

Looks absolutely gorgeous Jon!

 

Thank you, Mike (and Jules). Close up there's a few niggles - the windows and doors could do with something better in hindsight, laser cut perhaps - but it's gotten to the stage where fiddling was doing more harm than good, not helped by doing a few things in the wrong order - the canopy brackets being particularly vulnerable; so best get it off the workbench and on the layout, marginally less chance of damage there.

[The Great Bear]

I've been pondering where/whether to add the stationmaster's house. There is some space on the baseboard beyond the up (outside) platform. Based on photos I made a quick mock up of the house from Kidlington.

 

Take 1: House based on prototype

It's too big and overpowers the shelter

 

Take 2: smaller house

Better...

 

Take 3: forget it

Best, I think. Better balanced, and the backscene can follow a sweeter line. Also means I can crack on with the scenery on the outside, one less thing to do for now. So similar conclusion to when I was considering a farmhouse on the outside behind the signal box. Less is more.

 

The stationmaster is therefore homeless... temporarily at least. I may try and find him a home on the inside of the layout in due course.

 

Your thoughts welcome...

 

Jon

Edited February 5, 2015 by The Great Bear

[Stubby47]

Could you use the same design, but at 3mm / ft, so it's smaller ?

[The Great Bear]

By the way, in the real thing, the stationmaster's house was in the field adjacent to where my footbridge is, a bit further away from the tracks. It can be seen on the left here

 

(image by Stephen Craven, from Wikipedia)

[The Great Bear]

Could you use the same design, but at 3mm / ft, so it's smaller ?

Interesting idea, will give that a go. Seem to recall something similar in one of Iain Rice's books, he mentions the clay dies on Trerice at the back being H0 scale?

[The Great Bear]

H0 scale, turned around and set a bit lower:

Better...one to sleep on...

[The Great Bear]

I've made some progress with Stationmaster's house, now located nearer its real location but in low relief, following suggestions made elsewhere.

 

 

With enough bushes and trees (the green paper towels for now!) the bodge of the low relief house is reasonably concealed, especially from my favorite low level views.

 

I've also cracked on with adding the earthworks beyond the station, on the lifting flap section. Having done that and cleared the mess, time for a train:

 

 

Thanks for looking

 

Jon

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Yes, the Low-relief house and flora looks good.