Pizza base

[47137]

I have just built a narrow gauge loco, and have a Kato chassis for another, so this seemed like an excuse to lay out a circle which might become a pizza layout one day. I have made this up as I have gone along over the last three evenings, but there is provision for a dropped section (viaduct over ravine with river/waterfall), a small halt (on strip of ply) and an overbridge for a narrow road or footpath. It stands up without wanting to topple over too. I am thinking of a rural landscape without many 'scale' features where I can try out and photograph models from 1:87 to 1:64 scale. The whole thing will sit on a base with a ball-race bearing so it can turn round to change the view. Track radius is nine inches.

 

 

[Job's Modelling]

Always nice to see something totally different.

Like to see your progress.

 

Regards,

Job

[47137]

I fixed the track down with UHU which was a mistake, it slid sideways within a day. This is Peco 'mainline' with their usual tough but shiny polythene base. Hence the temporary screws in the first photo to hold it back in line. EvoStik Timebond would probably have worked but the tube was empty. Incidentally UHU was fine for the cork to plywood bond.

 

One of the nice things about micros is you can sit the thing on your lap to do awkward things like painting the track in some comfort, and also you can hold the model so you can see what you are doing. I sprayed the track with CarPlan red oxide primer (in the garden!), then brushed the tops of the sleepers with Citadel acrylic 'snakebite leather' and the sides of the rails with their darker/redder 'bestial brown'. So far so good.

 

The next stage, which may not work at all, is to arrange a fascia panel which varies in height as well as curving around at a constant radius. The idea is to make a model which (apart from the viaduct section) appears to be floating in the air. This will need some decisions on the shape of the landscape before I fix it ...

[dave_e_k]

Looking forward to seeing this progress, as I'm thinking of something similar to do with a OO Caley Pug train set my wife bought me for Christmas...

[maunsel]

I suddenly realised where the original idea came from!

 

http://www.derbymuseums.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Hero_TheOrrery-800x600.jpg

 

Sadly Joseph Wright had a while to wait before Messrs Hornby & Tri-ang arrived on the scene

 

I'll be following with interest

 

 

 

Good luck!

 

Eric

[47137]

Exactly!

 

I have left the model untouched for the last week. I am half way through ballasting it, but other commitments have got in the way of progress.

[47137]

Postscript.

 

I kept falling over the model and it went to a new home through the bring and buy stall at the local model railway show last weekend. I recouped the cost of the track, which was the only thing had I bought specially for it.

 

It was the wrong size. I wanted to built a viaduct over a stream, a waterfall, a passenger platform and a tunnel - three levels. The model also needed to work at 1:64, 1:76 and 1:87 scales. It was too small to build this landscape in any believable 'scale' form, but too big to use a few cliff faces and retaining walls to compress things. It was the size it was to use a nine-inch radius, which I felt would be a test track for every narrow gauge item I would ever own.

 

It seems to be always better (for me anyway) to devise the layout first, then choose the trains to run on it. Test tracks are better as temporary affairs with some abrupt gradient changes and reverse curves, not simple circles. Unfortunately I keep buying trains because I like them and without much forward planning.

 

- Richard.