Ydna Posted March 20, 2012 Share Posted March 20, 2012 Hi Andy, Thank you, the way it'll fit in the car will be in the boot (we have a Astra Estate) and the process will be as follows (hopefully): 1.) Unit will be taken to car 2.) All Boards / stock / power boxes will be taken off and placed into car 3.) Unit will be put on it's back into car 4.) Car driven to venue 5.) Once at venue, unit will be taken out of car and stood up 6.) Unit contents now taken from car and placed in unit 7.) Unit wheeled from car to position in hall 8.) Layout set up That's the plan at least. The unit was not designed to hold it's contents while in the car, just as a way of moving everything needed at once from the car to the position in the hall in the easiest way possible (I'm a lazy sod I know! ) Simon Ah, I understand now. Thanks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted March 20, 2012 Author Share Posted March 20, 2012 Hi, Tiny update now... Roads A-C is now booked for another show this year, you may have seen it mentioned in the exhibitions forum, so can see it at: Saturday 19th May - Thames Valley Model Rail Expo at Knowle Hill Community Centre, near Maidenhead Saturday 3rd November - Wycrail '12 at Cressex Community School in High Wycombe (Note: the layouts attended is not advertised as yet) I hope to see some of you there! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 6, 2012 Author Share Posted April 6, 2012 Hi, I don't know how to say this, but with only a month to go to Roads A-C's exhibition debut at Thames Valley Model Rail Expo I've taken the tough decision to....... scrap the orginal extension boards for the layout and......start again. I know this sounds like a stupid idea, but there is reason for this turn of events; The boards as they stand don't line up properly, are poorly built, and in my opinion looked rubbish. Unfortunatly, the transport unit still twisted and moved around after bracing it. Some electrical connections haven't been accounted for and I ran out of wood and motivation on it. So Dad came to the team to rescue the project and to get it ready in time for Knowle Hill, which he will also be attending with his layout Loughborough Road. We have decided to replace the two boards with one single board and make it wider, but is still within the space I put on the TVMRE invite! (but keep the same length). Here's the new plan: The trackplan is basically as it is at the moment, but with a couple of changes, firstly, the road that was coming off C-road is extended to and splits into roads for E-road and F-road, which are offset. Secoundly, with the wider board, we have added the Aylesbury - Aylesbury Vale Parkway / Clavet mainline line, which will be operated by a shuttle unit and a 2-car unit and is no way connected to the yard. The only change in scenics is the addition of a low relief representation of the Friarscroft car park, which means I can improve my scratchbuilding skills even further. There are reasons for this change in plan: More interest More operational moves Gives some depth Only 1 scenic board joint instead of 2 Can model the car park at the back for model interest. Your probably thinking that it'll never be ready, but we think it will be if we start now and crack on with it basically because all the builds are made (apart from the car park), we already have the points, the ballast and the control panel wired up, I hope I can lift some of the track already on the boards for use on this one. See not as stupid as it sounds! Hopefully, the wood will be brought today and the mainboard at least finished today. Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluebell Model Railway Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Good luck simon glad your not scraping it well not completely, I like the additions to the layout your making, sounds like its going to be a tough and tight task to get it complete in time. What I would say if time runs short, is not to concertrate on modelling everything in time, if you get something that looks presentable and then add the bits later, at least it will be good to look at without bits missing. I neve like working to a deadline as its too much pressure to get it working and finished. I wish you luck simon, and good luck with it, I'll be down Wickes getting my wood too! Right where to start.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 6, 2012 Author Share Posted April 6, 2012 Hi, Thanks Matt, yeah it's going to be really tough getting it finished, and it's all taking part when I'm doing exams which will make it even more difficult! However some great progress has been made today, i got out and managed to pick up the wood and cork needed to build the baseboard, and with a couple of hours of fairly good weather, I cut and framed the board as well as dropping the level for the car park area down. I've tried the board out for size with the existing board and it fit likes a glove: The Anglian 170 is on the mainline and the DVT / MK3 and 168 are on A-Road and B-road respectively. As you can see, 90% of the builds are finished or iin the progess of being completed. Some of you may have spotted the Sliver-Roofed MK3 behind the DVT, well that's this: It's Hornby's new Wrexham & Shropshire liveried MK3 TSO, it still has buffers to be fitted (which are in the box) and it rides quite high, so that'll have to be looked at, Otherwise it's a fine model and representation of the livery. Tomorrow the cork will be stuck down and hopefully the embankment mod rocked. Comments and Questions are welcome! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ydna Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 The new plan seems to be coming along well. Good luck with finishing it in time! Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 The new plan seems to be coming along well. Good luck with finishing it in time! Andy. Hi Andy, Thanks I'm going to need a bit of luck, but thankfully dad has agreed to help out and do some suff while I'm at school! Today I will start the car park! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ydna Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Hi Andy, Thanks I'm going to need a bit of luck, but thankfully dad has agreed to help out and do some suff while I'm at school! Today I will start the car park! Simon Nice. What materials are you using for the carpark? Is it multi-story? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 Nice. What materials are you using for the carpark? Is it multi-story? Hi, The Car park is the one that can be seen to the left here: http://www.flickr.co...ger/4773553232/. If I were to build it to scale it would take up the whole board, so I'm only modelling half of it, to around the 2nd level of windows I'm using 1 mm plasticard as a 'false' front to which I'll add a top layer of Slaters 7mm red brick embossed plasticard. The blue iron work is going to be 1 mm thick Acrylic which will be lazer cut the week after next. I'll make the building low relief by glueing some pine stripwood to the back of it. Here it is so far: It still needs the engineers blue brick painting on and obviously the iron work and mounting, but it's coming along nicely Another change will be the time the layouts set it, the clocks will be turned back to late evening, so the layout will be bathed in a dark blue light, well that's the plan anyway! Comments and Questions Welcome! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ydna Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Looks good so far. The idea of a dusk setting sounds great. Can't wait to see more progress on this multi-story. Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 Hi, Thanks, the car park should be mostly finished by the end of the week. Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 10, 2012 Author Share Posted April 10, 2012 Hi, Some fairly rapid progres has been made over the past couple of days on the layout. Firstly, the board has had it's legs built (well, modified as the basic legs were already made, they just had to be widened) and it has been tested on it's legs. We do think that the board is bowing a tiny bit, but that'll be fixed soon. A Sunday night saw the board primed to protect it from moisture intake and the cork underlay glued on, with it being painted an earth colour ready for track to laid. Unfortunatly when I tried to lift the track from the existing board, all I did was end up with some bent rail and a couple of wounds on my fingers! So I've had to order another load, which will teach me not to do something like this again! Luckily I managed to save the points, so that's saved me a few quid! Anyhow with half the family out for the day today Dad and I could get down to some modelling, he was making up some coaches for his layout ready for Knowle Hill and I got on with some parts of the layout that I could do without track mainly the front car park using some strip wood purchased this Morning. I started with cutting and glueing the walls that surround the fuel tanks. Then I did the framing for the the back of rear car park to make it low relief before moving on to making up the little cut out in the embankment at the front of the layout (see post #11). This meant that I could then Mod Rock the embankment. Once this is dried I can move on quite quickly to get the very front of the layout finished, but here's how it looks at the moment (sorry about the quality again, I will have to look at the camera again!) None of the buildings are in place, the portacabins are still to be finished as is the Rear Car park, but you get the feel for it. I have been looking around for suitable ways of setting the layout in the evening and have started a thread in the questions forum, if you have any suggestions post them there. Work will stop for the next couple of days as I will be in Wales visiting family so sorry if I don't reply for questions and comments quickly, but hopefully the track will arrive during this and I'll be able to get it all built and laid by the end of Friday with the aim of having it wired and ballasted by Monday (I don't go back to school until Tuesday), but that all depends on Her Majesty's Postal Service! Comments and Questions welcome Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ydna Posted April 11, 2012 Share Posted April 11, 2012 Coming along nicely Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 Hi, Well after a couple of relaxing days in the heart of Wales, and with the end marked by a couple of low level fly past's by a Tornado GR4 (without a sonic boom ) I arrived home to find a package form Kernow Model Centre which arrived on Wednesday (very good service considering that I ordered it on Bank Holiday Monday, no connection), along with an email taht it had been delievered from the courier ! Anyway, I spent the morning constructing the track needed to complete the Depot Area. I spent from 10:30 to around !3:00 making the track and I've finished B-Road and C-Road as well as the small section of track between the points leading to E and D-Road's, so far it looks like this: The track isn't stuck down as yet, I have to solder feeds to the bottom of the rail then I'll stick it down using PVA and lay the ballast at the same time, two jobs, half the time. A-Road will be made up when the rest of the track is ready to be stuck down, as I'll glue one rail to the sleepers, then stick the sleepers down and then add the final rail, this make the curve easier to form. The Rear running roads will be standard PECO code 75 concrete sleepered track to save time and money, that'll hopefully be purchased tomorrow at the Amersham Show, I couldn't get it at the same time as the other track as i needed to order 12 for mail order, if I can't get them, then it's ok to wait for a few days! As you can see in the above photo, I discovered that part of the mod rock along the embankment had not stuck properly and peeled off, not happy to say the least as it puts me pack a few days while replace stuff dries (which was put on about an hour before this post). Anyway, that's it for now, comments and questions welcome! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ydna Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Looking great Simon. Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 Looking great Simon. Andy. Hi Andy, Thanks, some of the track (B-road and C-road) has been laid and ballasted, but I'm going to wait until most of it is laid and ballast before I show some photos. Plus I have news of a further exhibition invite in the pipeline, all to be annouced! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ydna Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Hi Andy, Thanks, some of the track (B-road and C-road) has been laid and ballasted, but I'm going to wait until most of it is laid and ballast before I show some photos. Plus I have news of a further exhibition invite in the pipeline, all to be annouced! Simon Sounds good. That's good that you've received another invite, and kind of extraordinary with the layout not even finished yet! Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted April 27, 2012 Author Share Posted April 27, 2012 Hi, Well, long time, no update, due to a number of reasons, firstly the down time of RMweb and a rather bad / stressfull week at school! However, this has been no excuse for modelling, you'll be pleased to know! Firstly, the iron work for the car park was lazer cut last week with light blue High density polyethene, and then fitted, so it looks like this: As you can see, the track there is still lose, and this brings me onto the next couple of things that have happened, last weekend, the track was finished and glued down as well as ballasted. This includes the main running line along the back: The front car park has also been painted ready for buildings. The ballasting isn't quite finished as I ran out . However it gives me the chance to lay some Ten Commandments cable trunking before finishing it! This does mean though that scenic work on the wooded area and along the back is basically ready to begin. I also took the oppotunity before scenics started to wire the whole thing up. This includes wires from the exisiting board (which now inlcudes feeds for the lighting on that board). The yard is all wired up, apart from D and E-road, the mainline is ready, but I'm going to wire that in to a seperate DIN-plug that will be mounted on the board, so this has got to be fitted before that can be wired up. This is the underside of the board: The red and black wires are track feeds and the blue and yellow are lighting circuits, once I've finished the points the lights will be installed. This is because the board as it is difficult to lie on it's back, so I want to finish anything on the underside before starting to add lights and scenics as the board sometimes falls over on it's top. According to my partner in crime, aka dad, it's very neat! Some of you may know that I'll be attending the Taunton Members Day this Sunday (April 29th), kindly organised by Tim Maddocks (Captain Kernow) with my other exhibition layout, Hythe Parkway, so come along and say hello, but I also plan to get some ballast and fencing to go along the back. Anyway, that's it for now, there won't be any work done tonight as I'm deputy stage manager for a school show or over the weekend due to the members day. Questions and Comments welcome! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimleygrid Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 Looking good simon, very nice work. The car park is great! I am looking forward to seeing more photos showing progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ydna Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 Coming along nicely. The iron work on the car park looks great. Good luck with the school show. Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted May 12, 2012 Author Share Posted May 12, 2012 Hi, Well, it's been along time without an update, but there has been progress, alot of progress on the board, including fencing, trees, vegetation and a fiddle yard! One thing that will be a success hopefully, will be the plan to set it at night, after finding a way to do it this afternoon, which is all to be reveled! I won't show any pictures of the finished article just yet, maybe some photos late next week... Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluebell Model Railway Posted May 12, 2012 Share Posted May 12, 2012 Your going to get your audience to wear sunglasses indoors? haha Must say like the carpark structure and the laser cut iron work very clever good idea, wish i did some of that before i built a few things! Look forward to seeing it complete, good work. regards matt Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted May 24, 2012 Author Share Posted May 24, 2012 Hi, Well, after being distracted by very important AS level exams, and this: An RAF 11 squadron Typhoon training for QRA flights during the olympics, I can now recall Roads A-C first show! The Thursday before the show, it was clear that unfortunatly the layout wasn't going to be complete for the day, so a decision was made to take long the layout as a work in progress. The kayout as it stands is around 90% complete, scenic wise not much has to be done, and actually overall not much needs to be done: Finish Portacabins Finish fiddle yard on right hand end behind orginial board Finish the rear car park Signals must be installed Flashing lights connected up. It doesn't seem like a long list of jobs, but they are main things, there's probably lots of little things I have forgotten! Plus there's the way we'll be putting the layout into dark, well, the idea is to lay a 3mm thick sheet of Dark Blue transulcent arcylic over the whole layout, this is down to a very helpfull company in High Wycombe called Abbey distrubution which had sheet the right size left over which they let us have for £20! Anyway, on to the show! You can ready my report on this in general here but I'm going to concentrate on the layouts performence hear. Well, it went up very easily and my simple slot in legs with diagonal bracing worked well and actually was pretty ridgied. All the lights on the layout worked, apart from the walkway lamps, I spent 3 hours on Friday trying to wire them up, but they would not have it! Unfortunatly, when the fiddle yard was put up, the problems became apparent, due to a measurement error, it turned out that holes in the backscene that the trains go through were slightly too narrow and too short. Plus for some reason the board kept slipping and leave a large jump between boards and the cassesettes didn't line up! Theses problems meant that I couldn't run trains around the layout and is stayed as it was when first set up, I did manage run the Shunter up and down A-road a couple of times, but that was it! So, here's some piccies! An overall view: Class 168/1's Nos. 168110 and 168111 stand on B-road and C-road respectively ready to be sent to South Sidings after having a B-exam: A Class 165, still unrefurbished, runs past the depot with a service to Aylesbury Vale Parkway (I know this would of never of happened!): A view from the fiddle yard down the layout: A Wrexham Shropshire is propelled into A-road ready to have some new buffers after some accident damage, with an undentified Class 168 on B-Road: A line up of a pair class 168/1's and a class 165 is framed between the fuel and oil tanks at Aylesbury Depot: We've had a look at the fiddle yard and probably going to rebuild it with a traverser or sector plate, will have to see over the next few months! You'll probably be able to see the finished layout at Wycrail 2012 at Cressex Community School on November 3rd! Comments and Questions welcome Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 Hi, Well a very long time without an update, this was basically because I have been busy with school work and that I lost total motivation on modelling (again), but after building a (quite large) Revell aircraft kit, I have found my mojo again, plus with Wycrail looming I thinking I better look at some of the problems encountered at Knowle Hill: Fiddle Yard Walkway lights Some running problems Flashing lights in the Depot. Plus I also have to finish various pieces: Piping around the fuel tanks Portacabins Night Time Effect Mainline So tomorrow I'm going to start working out some of the problems, starting with the fiddle yard and running, then I'll crack on with the night time effect, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have some sort of work to show for myself. Also something that has been bothering me is the black backscene on the original diorama board, this was to create a quick night time effect as well as not being able to find a suitable photograph! I can't really take it off and cut it away because it might damage the rear wall of the depot, so I have decided to construct a feature of the depot that was very short lived but will do the job of hiding the black nicely and that was a temporary fueling shelter that was placed over C-road, as seen in this photo. I may start this in the near future, probably during club nights on Mondays & Wednesday as 2nd year of sixth form is during close and I need to buckle down really! So, hopefully a nice update tomorrow with some progress! Comments and Questions welcome as always! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
St. Simon Posted September 1, 2012 Author Share Posted September 1, 2012 Hi, Ok, well I didn't do an update yesterday as by the time I had finished working, I was knackered! But I'm not now, so I thought I'd update you with whats been happening over the past couple of days; firstly, I set the layout up in the dining room and setabout making the front fascia and a frame for the plastic, which will hopefully create the evening effect (see post #73), to sit on: It all still needs to be painted & signage put on and I'll probably do that tomorrow, but this is how it'll look, the whole arrangement is quite rigid and the front fascia is easy to dismantle, below is how the Acrylic sits: Obviously the coverings will come off when it's ready to exhibit and I'll have lights with Blue Bilbs shining through to increase the evening effect. As you can see the plastic does not run to the back of the layout and needs support in the centre, we'll fix this with some aluminium rod suspended about the layout. The plastic will be screwed down to prevent movement whilst allowing to be removed easily for getting at the layout for track cleaning, derailments etc. You can also see in the photos a new arrangement for the control panel, I made this as the one I used at Knowle Hill meant having the control panel upside down! So this one holds it the right way round and acts as a joiner keeping the fiddle yard in the correct place. Speaking of the fiddle yard, I have now fixed the issues that arose at Knowle Hill, primarly the slipping down of the fiddle yard and the gaps for trains being too narrow, I have fixed the issues by adding a plate for the fiddle yard to rest on and getting the central divider in the backscene respectively. The problem of Cassette alignment has fixed by switching to my dad's cassettes, which are slightly different to the ones used on Hythe and work a bit better. Yesterday, I also managed to get the walkway lights working, this involved striping the wire down and sanding it abit to take away a insulating coating on the wires, and this is the layout looks in darkness, light by just the layout lighting and my Hornby Wrexham & Shropshire DVT: Today's has seen some extensive playing testing , and this found some hickups, mainly very dirty track and the track join on the rail closest to the front of B-Road, which was just enough out to cause the flanges of wheels to ride up and derail, so I have fixed this by cutting out a section of rail and inserting a new piece that is correctly aligned, and it now works! Also out of alignment was C-road, between the new board and original Depot Board, but seen as there is only around 8 inches of track on the Depot board, I have left it and no trains will go on to the piece of track. Just before this post, I spent the past couple of hours finishing the bottom portacabins interior and installed it's lighting: I'm afraid that the interior is hard to photograph, but it is a crew signing on point, this probably isn't prototypical, but I won't know what's in the portacabins at Aylesbury, so I did what I thought might be in them, so the top one will be office, again with interior and lighting. So, as of now, this is how the layout looks in the day: And at night: Tomorrow will see the mainline wired up, hopefully wood painted & secound fiddle yard finished, and top portacabin finished. Comments and Questions Welcome! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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