AngryMeerkat Posted July 28, 2013 Author Share Posted July 28, 2013 Just another quick update to let you all know both me and the layout are still alive!! Fortunately there have been plenty of changes in my personal life in the last few months, having PTSD and being bi-polar I've struggled for many years just to function as any sort of 'normal' human being. The stigmas and denial of these conditions is very slowly being dealt with, and medical advances are being made, which means I've now found a suitable medication that "keeps me level". This combined with a fantastic new job that keeps me local to home, the summer finally turning up, and a boat and new (to me) Alfa Romeo to play with have meant that for the first time in many years I'm actually enjoying spending time outside with other people. But I'm still doing little bits on the layout as and when time allows!! The 33/1 is now painted and has just been gloss varnished, I'm half way through a kit for a Plasser tamper, and have various other bits either started or half completed. I will update with some pictures when there is something worth taking a picture of, until then thanks for reading. Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryMeerkat Posted August 4, 2013 Author Share Posted August 4, 2013 Well finally some pictures to add. The following is an update of progress over the last month or so, and demonstrates perfectly my 'shotgun' approach to building a layout - my work is scattered in different parts of the project! First of all a Bournemouth special, a class 33/1. After scouring pics on Flickr I decided to just pick a random number that has been in Bournemouth and didn't have a front spotlight, so I chose 33108. This is a Lima 33/0 with various detailing bits added, and is still only half way through completion. It's had a decoder fitted but still needs final details adding and then lots of weathering. I've also been working on a Plasser kit I got from eBay for cheap money. It's been laying around for a while, and it's a kit version of the current Bachmann RTR tamper in HO scale. And a quick shot of all the current loco's in the collection. Quite a mix, but means I can change eras as and when I choose. And an overview of the station area and sidings. Some ballasting has been done, and some of the road surface has been laid, but nothing is even close to finished yet! And lastly, more as an experiment than anything else (checking the glue holds) I've decided to lay a length of 3rd rail. Again this still requires a lot of work, but for a first go I'm relatively happy with it. Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornish trains jez Posted August 4, 2013 Share Posted August 4, 2013 That third rail looks excellent! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danemouth Posted August 5, 2013 Share Posted August 5, 2013 'scuse me mister do you know somebody's parked a diesel on the roof of another diesel? The ballasting and track look really good, Regards, Dave Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryMeerkat Posted August 11, 2013 Author Share Posted August 11, 2013 Managed to get some work done on the layout today, again using my tried and trusted shotgun approach. Another length of 3rd rail has been laid, more ballasting has been done, some of the older ballasting has been weathered, the sleepers on the concrete section have been painted back to concrete colour, I've laid some cable trunking, started building the carriage siding platforms, and started building the signal box!! This is the second piece of 3rd rail in place. It's the Peco system and is an absolute nightmare to do!! Each time I lay a length I end up with my fingers and tweezers covered in cyano glue, but no other glue seems to hold the plastic in place. This also shows the weathering of the ballasting, which to be honest I'm not very happy with. It's a bit too dark and dirty, and I think I'm going to be adding more grey to bring back some of the ballast colour. This gives a general overview of the new ballasting and trunking. The signal box is a card RTP item that is almost a match for Poole box. What I'm hoping to do is add a skin over the card box using brick embossed plasticard to add the final proper details and make it into as close a copy as I can. Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ess1uk Posted August 24, 2013 Share Posted August 24, 2013 Coming along Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium lash Posted August 24, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 24, 2013 Really like this Mark and showing signs of a proper southern atmosphere On the subject of third rail have a look at my Portsea Town thread, I am a fellow sufferer but sounds like I am finding it a bit easier than you. This is how I described my method I made a jig from an offcut of two sleepers with a hole in the correct position for drilling the location hole for the insulators and then turned this upside down ,positioned on the rails and pushed it along and drilled every fourth sleeper . Insulators where cut from the sprue, trimmed and threaded on the code 60 before pushing the insulators into the drilled hole and fixing everything with a drop of liquid plastic cement . It is hard work but the results are good so far. I find the liquid cement applied with a brush works well and the only time I have used superglue so far is when a slight twist made the rail spring up and the polly liquid could not hold quick enough Enjoying your efforts so keep at it Richard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctor quinn Posted August 25, 2013 Share Posted August 25, 2013 Hi Mark Looking good there. Definitely caught the character of Poole. Nick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryMeerkat Posted August 27, 2013 Author Share Posted August 27, 2013 Some more work done lately, again never finishing anything but starting plenty!! The carriage sidings have been started..... Still plenty to do here, 3rd rail to be added along with trees and lighting and so forth. Also made some progress with the signal box. Having found some pictures of Poole box and checked against what was available RTP I soon realised there was nothing doing, and that scratchbuilding might be the only solution. But my skills aren't far enough advanced for that yet, so I wondered if there was anything close that I could modify to suit. As it happens the Metcalfe signal box is roughly the right shape and could be modified to look as close as possible within my skill level. Using the Metcalfe model as a carcass I have added brick sheet over the cardboard to cover the middle front window which isn't present at Poole, and also changed the material from the imitation wood of the Metcalfe box to brick as per Poole. I'm happy with how the top half looks so I'm now preparing the bottom half ready for the same treatment. There are some compromises - the shape of the roof is slightly different to Poole, and the positioning and number of the lower windows is slightly different. But overall it's close enough for me to be happy, but not get frustrated or disappointed by a failed scratch-build. I must apologise to the purists, but needs must. Maybe in the future when my scratch-build skills improve I may completely rebuild the box, after all the station building will have to be completely scratch built. Links to some pictures of Poole signal box for comparison. http://tillyweb.biz/gallery/pp/poole2.jpg http://tillyweb.biz/gallery/pp/poole3.jpg http://tillyweb.biz/gallery/pp/poole4.jpg Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryMeerkat Posted September 7, 2013 Author Share Posted September 7, 2013 Things are still progressing on Poole, slowly but surely. As usual I've got many things started but nothing really finished, about right for me! The carriage sidings have had a little more work done on them, places for various buildings have been marked out, the path from the station platforms is now present all the way to the carriage sidings, the rail 'barrow' crossings are all in place, and some more ballasting has been done. The signal box is about 80% complete, the brickwork is all fitted to the outside and it is ready for painting. I have some questions about this at the bottom of the thread if anyone can help? I've been planning how to build the station building. This will have to be completely scratch built, so I'm a little nervous about doing it. But I was chatting with Derek in Bournemouth Model Railway Centre today and he has offered some excellent advice on materials and options on how to proceed, so work will hopefully start soon. While looking at this area today I realised I've hit a small snag - my track is laid on the baseboards, the station platforms are raised, but the area where the road and station entrance would be is also at baseboard level. When entering Poole station the road is almost the same height as the station entrance, which is the same height as the platforms. So I will have to do some serious work with raising areas of the layout before I start building anything! Nothing I've done so far is picture worthy, so I'll wait until there is some proper progress before pictures appear. Some questions about Poole signal box if anyone can help? Pictures of the outside are hard enough to find, pictures of the inside just do not exist!! So what sort of interior will Poole box have? The older style with point levers, or the more modern control panel type? I've tried looking to see how the points are moved, but the pictures don't show much and I don't know what I'm looking for anyway!! I can't see any side mounted point motors in the Poole station area that would indicate an electronic control panel, but I also can't see any cables that would point towards lever operation? Thanks, Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete 75C Posted September 8, 2013 Share Posted September 8, 2013 Hi. Take a look at this link - hope it's useful. Pete. http://www.flickr.com/photos/g1ulz/2216511380/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryMeerkat Posted September 23, 2013 Author Share Posted September 23, 2013 Just thought I better hop in here and let everyone know what's been going on....... The answer is not a lot at the moment. A little game called Grand Theft Auto V has just been released and it is taking up pretty much all of my free time. I'm a fan of gaming anyway, but GTAV takes it to a whole new level. Work on Poole hasn't been abandoned, it's just a small sabbatical. My Xbox is located in the man-cave with the layout so I'm looking at it every day and constantly thinking of ways to do various bits. There are parts I'm not entirely happy with, and having this break is allowing me to look at them without the 'pressure' of spending time working on the layout and having to do something just because I'm there. I've managed to design various parts of the layout in my head, and these designs are evolving each time I look at the layout. When I feel the time is right and I'm happy with what's in my head I will be putting these ideas into reality, but at the moment I'm still unsure of a few parts. If it doesn't feel right, it probably isn't right, that's a lesson my late father taught me and it's something I've tried my best to stick to with much success. Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryMeerkat Posted October 27, 2013 Author Share Posted October 27, 2013 So a rare glimpse into how the mind of a person suffering mental health issues actually works..... I'm modelling Poole station, which means I need the station building. I've had a quick look at what's available RTP and Poole isn't available, so I'm gonna be scratchbuilding!! Surely not the most difficult thing in the world to do, right?..... That's the road entrance to Poole station. Double glazing with slim alloy framing, a mixture of doors and solid glass, and a lovely multi-arched roof. No wonder it's not available RTP then!! Picture courtesy of Google Earth So next up I need some dimensions. It's a bit windy and wet outside so I'm not going to drive down there with a tape measure, but that's ok, the above image can help. Zoom in to a pre-set size, and keep at that. I chose the left doorway and zoomed until the height of the door frame on my iPad screen was 3.5cm. Using the male about to enter the door, I estimated his height at roughly 6'1. That would make the real doorway approx 7ft tall. Using that measurement I worked out the doorway is 6ft wide, and the large panes of glass each side of a doorway to be 5ft wide. A little estimating and I came up with this..... Converting all of these random guesstimated numbers into 4mm scale gives me a scale length for this side of the building as 35cm. That's great, except I only have 10cm space for the building due to the way I had to compress the track plan.... So scaling down the full building to be 3x shorter wouldn't work, and would throw out the look and dimensions completely. Will the building still look enough like the real Poole station building if Instead of having the 5 arches in the roof I cut it down to 3 arches? Any thoughts? Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted October 27, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 27, 2013 I'd say go for it. I've had exactly the same problem on Green Ayre where the Goods shed should be 3 bays long but it's sitd where there has been a lot of compression and some different curvature to the real thing so we built the goods shed at 2 bays length and it looks fine as it's in proportion to the layout in that area. Best make a cardboard mock up and try it. Alternatively you could reduce the dimensions of the arches and try seeing what it looks like with 4 of them. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Kazmierczak Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 I'd scale them down and go for four arches. You can see that the verticle girders each support two arches, so I feel any less wouldn't quite work. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryMeerkat Posted October 28, 2013 Author Share Posted October 28, 2013 I'd scale them down and go for four arches. You can see that the verticle girders each support two arches, so I feel any less wouldn't quite work. For some reason I completely forgot to look at the vertical roof supports! I was concentrating so much on the actual side I didn't notice the symmetry that those girders create, and you're quite right that 3 arches wouldn't work for that reason. Lesson learned - always take in the big picture!! I will also use Jamie's suggestion of a cardboard mock-up to check for size and scale, thanks for the idea. Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted October 28, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 28, 2013 For some reason I completely forgot to look at the vertical roof supports! I was concentrating so much on the actual side I didn't notice the symmetry that those girders create, and you're quite right that 3 arches wouldn't work for that reason. Lesson learned - always take in the big picture!! I will also use Jamie's suggestion of a cardboard mock-up to check for size and scale, thanks for the idea. Mark If you use 4 arches and the vertical girders at joints 1 and 3 you will still get a form of symettry. I look forward to seeing teh results. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 22, 2013 Share Posted December 22, 2013 Looking great!I live about a mile away from this station! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RSLR Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Hi,What make of ballast have you used here? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 This may prove of interest to some... This is a track plan of Poole station, prior to the removal of the Holes Bay Junction, so before May 1977.I thought it may be of use to some... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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