Bishops Park BR(S)

[Matloughe]

Good Afternoon,

 

Things have been rather quiet on the western front. The layout has had its wiring tidied up underneath so it can easily be traced, on the fleet front my Beattie Well Tank has had a chip fitted to it which now lets me have two Southern Steam Locos on the layout at a time. With some ingenuity I have managed to get the Gronk and a 3F Jinty from an old Hornby Digital Set to work on the layout despite neither being in my area of interest they have both proved rather useful and I am sure will be regulars on the layout - even if not publically that is.

 

One thing I have started on is painting the track - now its all wiried up there is no real excuse not to have a go at the scenery. What Ihave done is currently put a a coat of Citadel Beastial Brown onto the rails and sparingly on the sleepers to bring out the detail of the moulded grain sleepers - the next plan I have is to get a much darker wash and apply that to the sleepers as well to give a non-uniform colouration and dull the sleepers down more. In the flesh the current painting style looks more effective then on these photos - my camera doesn't like picking out the differences in the browns I don't think.

 

Initial paint coating.

 

Better photo then above.

 

Aside from that I have just been experimenting with card mock-ups of buildings on the layout - the station building itself I am currently using a mock-up of Eridge which looks quite effective for the size of the layout and on the otherside a single carriageway road bridge will disguise the entrance from off scene complete with the obligatory bus on the bridge

A question I do have is that of ballast now on my last layout 'Ifield West' I used woodlands scenic ballast as in the picture below:

 

However would this be prototypical for a the period in time? To me on reflection the ballast appears far too brown - however that can be easily toned down with a wash of filth just like what I am planning to do on the sleepers - I am intrigued because I have half a bag left of the Woodlands Scenic ballast and was considering if it is worth ballasting the siding or if I should hold off until I have more materials or something more suitable.

 

Thank you for reading - and thank all of you who contribute your views and comments its nice to pop on here and see kind words even if I know what I am turning out is a load of tosh.

~ Gary

[RAY NORWOOD]

Hi Gary

I used C/L Ash Ballast on Yard Shunter and Humbrol No 29 for the rails. I do like the third rail is it peco rail and rail surports.

Hope to see you with Richard at Exeter.

 

RAY70B

[Matloughe]

Thank you for your kind words Ray - I have made a slight failure with the 3rd Rail by not making a jig the rail is laid by the Mark I eyeball I have spotted that my Well Tank occasionally clips some of the insulator pots - but hey you learn by doing I know next time to make a jig to get the pots in the correct location, today I have been working on the layout with the good weather I have been working outside on the patio with the layout. I managed to get some painting done to the track like below:

 

I am still a little unsure on the colours however - its better then no paint at all as shown by the track in the foreground compared to the track in the background. Work today has been on building the platforms and priming the wood; the layout now looks much better, its amazing how a little paint improves matters greatly:

 

 

The next step is for the wooden platforms to be painted grey I am thinking of facing the platforms with brick paper or brick sheet to make things look better. As for the station itself I am not sure yet for the station design or anything yet. I do have a couple of more photos which I took today which I like and I'll share them:

Brighton Works Shunter in the Parcels Dock/Pilot Loco Siding.

 

Torrington at the stops with a couple of Bullied Coaches

 

This shows that I will not be able to run around a loco larger then a West Country/Battle of Britain Class... Pity but at least I can use the pilot loco to pull coaches off of the train to release the locomotive.

 

~ Gary

[Guest oldlugger]

Good progress Gary! The flow of the track looks very nice in the photos above.

 

Cheers

Simon

[RAY NORWOOD]

Hi Gary

It's looking great Gary I see your W/C is a bit tight for a run round and your colour for the rails look good to.

I spoke to Richard this evening he said's you are coming on sunday, that will be great to see you.

 

RAY70B

[jamest]

Hi Gary,

 

Looks like very good progress to me. I like the outdoor shots of the layout - they really show up the nice flow of the point work and track in the station throat.

 

I too will be wandering around the show in Exeter on Sunday.

 

I will be visiting Orchard Road as I've spoken to Richard before and I'm very much looking forward to seeing Ray's yard shunter too.

 

Cheers,

James

 

All the best,

James

[L49]

This is coming along really nicely.

 

Regarding track colour, I would say the best thing to do is to paint the railsides as you have been doing, then once the ballast is in, overspray the whole lot with a dirty mixture from an airbrush. This will blend in the rust and the wood and the dirty ballast, and also allows you to add extra dirty spots where locos tend to stand for any period of time without making it to obvious.

 

Over time the whole lot started to blend towards one colour anyway, so you really don't need a huge amount of contrast between the different materials.

[mudmagnet]

This is coming along really nicely.

 

Regarding track colour, I would say the best thing to do is to paint the railsides as you have been doing, then once the ballast is in, overspray the whole lot with a dirty mixture from an airbrush. This will blend in the rust and the wood and the dirty ballast, and also allows you to add extra dirty spots where locos tend to stand for any period of time without making it to obvious.

 

Over time the whole lot started to blend towards one colour anyway, so you really don't need a huge amount of contrast between the different materials.

 

What he typed ...

 

Seriously though Gary, looking good.

The track colour, and indeed with most other buildings / scenary etc the colours are built up gradually.

The first colour applied is the base colour and then you can add various tones afterwards.

Once the ballast is applied, it changes the appearance of the rail colour.

 

See you Sunday.

 

Richard

[Natalie]

Gary

I have just caught u with your layout and I like what you have achieved so far. Having an interest in London railways and especially electrics I am glad you have decided to have these fine vehicles. The Minories plan seems to work well also. Nice to see those beautiful Southern kettles too.

 

You mentioned that you were not sure about the placing of the 3rd rail etc. It maybe too late if you have finished laying but and you are probably already aware of it but Russ Elliott's page on 3rd and 4th rail electrification is well worth a look with plenty of info, pics and drawings. It can be found at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/russelliott/3rd-4th.html .

 

Onto signalling, having studied a lot of Southern terminal signalling plans if you would like me to I am quite happy to suggest some suitable signal locations for you. You also mention that you are going to have an ARP box based on Dean's Hill. I have some 4mm drawings of this box if you require them- just ask and you shall receive.

[Matloughe]

Thank you all,

 

Yes the West Country is a little tight in the run-around loop. However as a general rule it wouldn't be used for such a large loco - the coaches would need to be pulled off before running-around because a 4-coach train will foul the loco release crossover. ;-)

The idea in my head is for example early morning timetables a short Newspapers & Parcels train being run around & shunted etc perhaps the odd freight working. Its there to provide some variety and certainly causes some head scratching at times. Yes I will be there with Richard on Sunday - it'll be lovely to see you all and get more inspiration to carry on for the layout as well, its always nice to see a 'completed' layout rather then have to continually use the imagination like I have to at the moment - I've been trying to tart one of my locos up without much success - adding Headcode Disks to the Well Tank was an unmitigated disaster the glue melted the plastic coating on the disk leaving me with a white gum-like mess to scrape off the lamp iron - oh well live and learn, I might just settle for dusting the M7 instead.

 

That's a very kind offer Natalie - I would be grateful for any assistance. My Southern Signalling book sadly doesn't have too much information on a wartime ARP box - neither could I find much details about them online. Likewise I have just started planning the signalling (already missing a trap point) I started a thread in the signalling section on here I thought I might as well plan it out to drill any more holes in the board prior to ballasting so I am certainly receptive to any suggestions for signal placement as well.

 

Thanks to all,

~ Gary

[RAY NORWOOD]

Hi Gary

It was good to see you at the Exeter show on Sunday and your BWT ran and looked good on Yard Shunter thats defiantley going to be my next loco for YS, got to do some save up my pennys after buying that Bachmann 08 on Sunday.(dont tell her in doors).

 

RAY70B

[darren01]

HI Gary

Was good to meet you at the show this weekend ,your layout looks very good and comming on very well, if when you are going to get round to ballasting the track i would look at CL 2mm light and dark gray mix and for your sidding i would use ash ballast .

You can even add some of the ash in the station area ,but do mach sure you get the dark/black ash from them as this looks a lot better for yards and dirty station ballast.

The station run round could you not take a few mm off the end of the platform ,just to give the loco a bit more room?.

Keep up the good work

All the best

Darren

[Matloughe]

Its been a little while since I last updated on Bishops park - so I thought it might be a good idea for a mini-bite update. After having not been well for nearly three weeks having no voice for most of it - and attending five interviews in four days for jobs (none of them having replied to me either...) I decided 'sod it' today will be a "Me" day and I am going to play trains & do some work on the layout.

 

In the meantime I had managed to paint the wooden bases of the platforms grey and undertook some clearance tests using stock like the 4-CEP to make sure everything is fine - there are a couple of tight spots which will need to be attacked with a rasp or files etc before I can fit platform edging (thinking Peco Concrete) and using very fine sand & paint to give a gravelly or asphalt effect to the platform surface.

The start of play:

The 'tight spot' on the layout - no stock has platform strikes but as can be seen there isn't much room for negotiation.

 

After some thinking on the backdrop for the layout - I settled on an arched retaining wall behind the rear most platform. So cutting a template and some scrap card up resulted in this effect:

 

I am quite pleased with the effect - really close up it looks a little rough however from normal viewing distance it looks perfectly acceptable. The wall has two layers of card stuck together with the front layer cut with the arches removed, if I had some brick paper to hand I'd cover the bits and see how it looks. I think for this wall I am drawing some inspiration from the Metropolitan Railway's Subsurface Circle Line stations somewhat. I am also investigating the idea of having arches at the front and some form of roof - however when I've tried it I can't get the effect quite right so am not sure at the moment if it'll progress further.

The 'Action' shot; West Country Class Torrington awaits departure with a portion of a train to the coast. Meanwhile 2-EPB has just arrived on a working from Coulsdon North and the Drewery shunter will be removing the box van from the parcels platform to make up a train to be tripped to Clapham Yard.

Ratio Starter Signal roughly positioned & with first coat of primer on - this is a bloody fiddlely kit to put together and I am not overly enthralled so far. I am thinking that I'll need to practice soldering and do some MSE Kits eventually.

 

I hope this has been mildly entertaining. The events considering the station has given me some food for thought - for example if I have an overall roof access to the release crossover becomes slightly problematic and likewise uncoupling locos from stock would be interesting to do.

 

Cheers,

~ Gary

[Tim Hale]

Gary,

 

These sinuous curves are the signature of your layout, truly excellent and amazing to see what you have achieved with RTR track.

 

Congratulations and thank you

 

Tim

 

 

[Pacific231G]

Its been a little while since I last updated on Bishops park - so I thought it might be a good idea for a mini-bite update. After having not been well for nearly three weeks having no voice for most of it - and attending five interviews in four days for jobs (none of them having replied to me either...) I decided 'sod it' today will be a "Me" day and I am going to play trains & do some work on the layout.

 

 

 

I hope this has been mildly entertaining. The events considering the station has given me some food for thought - for example if I have an overall roof access to the release crossover becomes slightly problematic and likewise uncoupling locos from stock would be interesting to do.

 

Cheers,

~ Gary

 

It's coming along very nicely Gary and, apart from the releasing crossover, it's interesting that you've ended up with almost exactly the original Minories plan just a bit longer which Cyril Freezer recommended in any case. Do you know yet what sort of fiddle yard you'll be using?

 

David

[Matloughe]

Thank you both Gentlemen - I can assure you any good looks is more luck then judgement.

 

David at the moment I have another board I just rest track onto I was thinking about cassettes however at the moment I haven't had the interest simply to do anything more on the layout. Its stored on its end by my bookcase at the moment. The original plan is the best - I think if I would do the layout again I would definitely have wider boards perhaps adding in a carriage siding between the two platforms and moving the run around loop to the front platform. Perhaps even a few sidings on the Right-Hand Side of the layout masking the fiddleyard somewhat however we live & learn. I know for next time.

 

At the moment interests are currently focused on a potential 7mm Scale layout in a completely different setting & era (Pre Grouping) however I am keeping that close to my chest for the moment. Post-Payday I suspect there will be some more development on the layout. I am leaning towards a semi-suburban third rail entirely layout at the moment here with just a hint of steam - but we'll see.

 

Thanks for the comments guys.

~ Gary

[Mike W2]

Gary - I'm looking at the possibility of doing a very similar layout for similar size trains and was wondering what points your using there. Also what are you doing for the fiddle yard?

 

I'm struggling to work out how to fit it all in.

 

thanks

Mike

[Matloughe]

The Pointwork is Peco Streamline, Code 100 Short Radius Insulfrog Points.

 

Again, for a Bishops Park Mk II I would shell out for Electrofrog Points and man up for the slightly extra wiring. For the Fiddleyard I literally have a third 4' x 1' board and I just plonk the controller on that and spare track that's been glued to wood batons to make some rudimentary cassettes. On the last post I have with pictures forth picture you can just make out in the bottom right the fiddleyard board with some settrack on it. At the time the layout wasn't being used hence the lack of a F/Y wasn't too bad.

 

Next time I would plump for incorporating the fiddleyard board into the layout making all the boards two feet wide and the F/Y board being 4'x 1' and having the front 4' x 1' for some scenery perhaps a small mail depot or civil engineers siding something to add a little more choice of movements.

 

Hope I have helped Mike, feel free to ask for any questions or photos if my poor camera work is any use.

 

Cheers,

~ Gary

[Mike W2]

It's looking good Matt.

 

The problem that i've been wrestling with is the fact that 4 coaches plus a class 37 or 47 diesel (standard Scoctrail fare!) are about 52/53 inches long or 4ft 4/5in. So that means I'd have to start the fiddle yard in the middle board. Unless I'm mistaken, that would rule out a 4 track traverser (my favoured option), I ruled out cassettes as they might be a bit too big, so that left using a pair of points to split the 2 tracks into 4 but that's going to take a foot off the middle board to fit them on and have the sidings the required length!

 

I've done a plan on anyrail that seems to fit using small points and y points and then I saw your layout and wondered what your solution was!

 

thanks

Mike

[Matloughe]

Hello & Welcome to Bishops Park

 

Apologies for being quiet for some time; I have started a new job and have been spending long (50/60 hour) weeks at work getting the shop ready, open, deliveries sorted & customers while the hype of the new store continues. Not much progress has occurred, today I decided to have a go at ballasting the dock road. Now looking on RM web in the past a technique I saw which caught my eye that I wanted t otry was shown on Eastwood Town whereby you paint neat PVA glue between the sleepers and then brush the ballast between the sleepers and leave it to dry before hoovering the excess off. Right so lets have a go I says.

 

I decided to do a small area first on the dock road; the reasoning being that if it doesn't go well or looks bad - its at the back; its also a dock road not a main line so would (to a degree) be more unkempt then the main platform roads. So following the instructions I loaded up a small brush of Woodlands Scenics, Scenery Glue and luckily finding a half-bag of WS Dark Brown Medium Ballast.

 

So this photo shows the scene after the sleepers have had painted glue put between them and then the ballast applied via a teaspoon & tamped down with a large brush to get the majority of it in the correct location.

 

So leaving it to dry, and with a quick hoover up with a small low-powered hand held hoover and I was left with this:

 

Hmm has to be said not quite the effect I was looking for, I know the previous times I have seen this technique used was with finescale track - so I do wonder if its simply a case that the Peco & Hornby track I have here on Bishops Park is simply too chunky for the technique to be employed effectively. I do think I might pop down to the chemist tommorow and grab a syringe and do some more ballasting in the traditional PVA & Water solution as I am in the mood for some modelling. Anyway this was simply a test of a new technique that might have proved interesting for me to use. The tamped ballast in the first picture with the thinly washed brown sleepers I really like at the moment.

 

Thank you for watching - hopefully a more substantial news post in the future. If anyone has any suggestions for where I may have made a mistake with the neat PVA ballasting I am happy to accept such wisdom & have another go.

Cheers,

~ Gary

[HeavyDuty]

Congrats on the new job, Gary! You've really showcased the beauty of the Minories trackplan here.

[Matloughe]

Thank you for your kind words Ken;

 

I can assure you that the effect of the track is far more luck then judgement. Today I have gone back and re-ballasted the Dock Road with the usual 50:50 Water/ PVA Mix and I am quite pleased with the effect.

 

While that was going on I also took the opportunity to paint the approach tracks to the two main platforms; the running rails, conductor rail & sleepers have all got a coat of the Beastial Brown from Modelzone. I also thought it was a good idea to take a couple of photos of the 4-CEP to show the effect:

 

So after painting the rails - I still wasn't happy with my ballasting technique and have decided to continue my work on the two main approach tracks by ballasting them and adding the water & PVA mix until this was the result:

I only have half a bag of ballast and still have a good quarter or so of it left. But I have decided that this was a good place to stop for the day, after ballasting, painting & some more ballasting all I can do now is wait for it to dry and see if my mixtures for the water & PVA are good enough to stand up to the test after they have dried. The ballast was liberally soaked with water and then I was not exactly stingy with applying the watered down PVA ensuring that when I had finished the ballast still had a similar look to coco pops in milk.

 

One final photo I want to leave you with is one I am quite proud of and I think offers a very good insight as to what can be done with ready-made components a bit of ingenuity & imagination; as scene that I feel will be relatively familliar to all who have travelled on the Southern Electric system and I think offers an insight as to where this model is going:

I love it; all those years waiting for a 4-CIG to show up... seem to be summed up here. Yes it needs a little toning down and the ballast looks like its been drenched in ice cold milk but when its dry I hope it looks fantastic.

 

Thank you for the continued interest, undeserved kind words and a general forum where people with similar interests can gather. Have a good weekend RMWeb!!

~ Gary

[Matloughe]

Just a mini bite before I head out to work; the track ballast has dried nicely. And the B&G 4-CEP and Terrier have had a play on the line to make sure everything works well.

4-CEP Arriving at Bishops Park

 

Cheers,

~ Gary

[mudmagnet]

Hi Gary,

 

Track work looking much better now that you have started your ballasting.

 

The 4-CEP would look with a little light weathering!

[RAY NORWOOD]

Hi Gary

The ballasting looks really good. keep up the good work Gary.

 

RAY70B