Twa_Dogs's jumps on the learning curve and aims it at the horizon

[Steve Taylor]

OK. Righto here goes. Having knocked around RmWeb over the last year or so, asked some dumb questions, played around with some kits and stuff, measured up a station and sort of planned out my longer term project for P4, I find that at nearly 60' it might just be a tad large for the challenge, though a what if version might be possible. So alternatives are needed. Simple ones preferably, after all the learning curve is still very steep. So the alternatives.

 

Enhanced Diorama format.

 

1. interior of an NER roundhouse such as West Auckland, Locos moving in and out and stabling for work. This can be made to fit the space requirements but the turntable might be a bit of a handicap.

2. Interior of a straight running shed. From a lighting point of view this holds more of a challenge - shafts of light through the gloom etc.

Both are designed for photography as well as some simulation of shed life and could be in pre closure steam days or, given the timescale avaialble and skill level, preservation days giving room for a modified RTR basis.

 

rehash - the longer term plan is a near to absolute scale representation of the Bowes-Lyon family station at Broomielaw, but at 60' approx length this is not going to happen in a year or fit the criteria, but assuming the line survived into the 70's serving the army bases, possibly some local quarries and possibly with a DMU service for Glaxo at B'd Castle, a stripped down corporate era version might be achievable, especially remembering what places like Dinsdale were like in the 70's.

 

Completely on a different tack.

 

Prospect Hill junction Whitby. Two versions are possible. One pre-65 steam era and the second pre-supposes that the proposal for a potash mine south of Whitby in the late 60's early 70's went ahead and Prospect Hill was woken from its decay to allow the passage of potash from the south via Larpool viaduct and then down to Whitby town to be formed up into full trains for onward transit to Teesside. Given the gradient between Bog Hall Jct and Prospect Hill Jct short sets of wagons behind 25's or 20's or possibly really small sets behind an 08 might be the order of the day. Whether Prospect Hill SB would be revamped or, given the lack of passenger requirements and possibly one engine in steam operation, done away with altogether and replaced by a ground frame and/or handpoints the rot and decay of the early 70's should be apparent.

 

Any thoughts/votes/reccomendations/large glasses of Laphroaig welcome.

 

Cheers

Steve

 

PS - this is all subject to housing issues and the management reserve the right to change anything at any point

[Steve Taylor]

Prospect Hill is looking more favourable now, cheers Geoff :icon_thumbsup2:

 

Especially after todays visit to Warley.

Whoever came up with Worcester Road

had more or less come up with the idea before me in 7mm. Ho humm, nothing original in the world these days etcetc. Lovely to watch and i suppose the steam equivalent with its attendant gloom, filth and general darkness would be in someways different but.......

[Steve Taylor]

Oh decisions, decisions.

 

I like a bit of feel of place and sense of scale and size hence Broomielaw despite only having 7 points needing nearly 60' so a little chat with the chaps from the 2MM Finescale brigade at Warley elicited a sample track pack and wagon kit. The 2mm thing is niggling away in the back of my head as a way of doing the landscape thing and getting round my slow work rate and appaling lack of ability: go for impression of the place and the operation over the desire for absolute fidelity to place and subject that ogling P4 for 18 months has given me.

 

On reflection, I may do one of the shed things in the fullness of time as a photo diorama, but i have neither the time or ability, or currently even space to leave stuff around, that would get me a enough locomotives completed in time. So farewell, I consign that to the ideas notebook.

 

It would seem the options now are

P4: Prospect Hill (the retro-years, pre-Closure)

P4: Prospect Hill (the what might have been, blue era freight)

Possibly even in 2mm?

 

Broomielaw in 2mm? I'll print out the 1:500 to 2mm scale and have a fresh look at that next week. I'd still like to keep that for P4. Its so simple in plan and operation that for impact it really needs the sense of scale of the real world and fidelity to the prototype would suit that and be visible in P4.

 

And a new outsider. A complete make-believe in P4. A coal depot. and assorted loop and sidings. One engine in steam. Possibly a dock or private siding access. 2-4 roads of coal drops, one loop some storage and cripple sidings. that may be sketched out later today. Wagons I could cope with constructing during the time it takes to sort out the house and modifying RTR locos with possibly a kit too. But with limited "passing traffic" this would need a small stud and having a hankering to recreate some of 51a's trip local freight j94s or possibly j72s with the odd j21 or j27 this might be a simple shunting plank with a regional flavour. Who knows.

 

tip of the day: the measure tool on google earth is your friend.

[Steve K]

Whoever came up with Worcester Road had more or less come up with the idea before me in 7mm. Ho humm, nothing original in the world these days etcetc.

Not wishing to make you too awestruck, but Worcester Road is actually Gauge 1 - 1/32nd, or 9.5mm/ft. It's mighty impressive!

[Steve Taylor]

Apologies, my mistake, its not a scale I'm familiar with. Anyway it caught my eye as visually attractive and held it too. So simple yet so effective.

[James Hilton]

A sound class 25 shuttling around in P4... hmmm lovely. Good luck

 

Why not ask the wider RMweb audience via a poll like I did?

[Steve Taylor]

[nitpicking] hmmmmm, reading the rules about the size, am i alone in thinking that

 

"The layout's maximum size is 2010 square inches for the maximum horizontal surface area of the layout baseboard, including fiddleyard" could be interpreted as the horizontal flat space must including fiddle yard must not exceed 2010 square inches?

 

In which case if i do Prospect Hill, i could go P4 with a 3.5m long scenic area, since the only approximately flat area is the actual trackbed and of that only the passing loop is horizontal...... a big sloping cutting with a gradient on one of the three roads is sudenly very attractive as an idea.

 

In the spirit of the rules though is it meant to be the actual horizontal "footprint" or floor space occupied by both scenic and hidden layout sections?

 

[/nitpicking]

 

Anyone care to comment? Sorry Andy to raise this, but it does influence my choice of design considerably.

 

Steve

[Stubby47]

I think it's the 'footprint' of the whole baseboard that counts, not just the flat track area.

 

Stu

[Steve Taylor]

To be honest I thought it was too. Tis a piyy it wasn't the flat trackbed or excluding fiddle yards: I could fit between the overbridges at prospect hill to absolute scale in 4mm then. Shorter loop or change the design or scale I guess.

[Steve Taylor]

Hmm, year's end and all that reflective nonsense. Well at present my entering this challenge looks increasingly unlikely. We can't get the house sold so time and space to do something become increasingly scarce, already every weekend in january is booked with work etc. It would appear someone else is researching prospect hill also so it really wouldn't be sporting to commit to that when there is someone out there with the time, space and commitment ot hopefully do it justice and even my long term broomielaw project has apparently got a rival version . Ho hum. One thought that did occurr inl ight of Worcester Road shed is that has anyone ever done a similar thing to show inside a large goods depot or under an overall roof? In the case of the latter some where like Richmond (N.Yorks) or one side of Alnwick might be an interesting proposal. Secretly I rather fancy depicting Middlesbrough pre-bombing but thats possibly an ambition too far.