Exchange Square - a cross section through a modern city in N gauge

[Gloucester Road]

Coming along nicely. What airbrush are you using for the weathering?

[David41283]

Hello Gloucester Road,

 

I spent ages researching airbrushes. I had eventually settled upon the Expo set you can get from most model shops for around £110 as this seemed to be the right balance between quality and price, but after a bit of time online and on eBay, I realised that the same set could be purchased under several different names, as it is a generic Chinese import which then gets badged up by whoever buys it for distribution.

 

I did a bit of shopping around and eventually managed to buy an Iwata Neo for around £46 with free postage and and suitable compressor with adjustable pressure and a small tank for around £60 including the braided 3m pipe and a moisture trap. So I managed to get what I believe is one of the best 'entry level' airbrushes with an adequate compressor for the same price as the Expo bundle. It all arrived within 3 days from UK suppliers via eBay. I can't vouch for the comparison with other air-brushes, as this is the only one I've tried, but it feels good quality and comes apart and cleans up nicely.

 

I am still learning, I still thin the paint too much at times, and there are times I am really pleased with the result, and others I need to wipe it off immediately, but there is no doubt you can get much subtler effects than with a brush. In particular I noticed in N gauge, the brush strokes were huge when viewed close-up.

 

Hope this helps - there was so much advice out there, which I found all a bit silly - along the lines of "buy the best you can afford". I do think that for most people there is a big difference between the 'most I can afford' and 'how much of my limited disposable income am I willing to spend on something that I am, as yet unsure about". Which was certainly the case for me.

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hello David,

 

This is a very nice layout and very well executed. Thanks for posting pictures of your progress.

 

As for airbrushing I've always felt it's much more about practice and paint mixture that is about the airbrush itself. But now I wouldn't be without mine as the range of weathering effects - plus the capability of getting a really fine finish on repainted models or kits - adds a massive extra dimension to my enjoyment of the hobby.

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[Gloucester Road]

Thanks for the info

[David41283]

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd joined the N Gauge society - and this evening I've more-or-less finished my first kit.

 

I am very impressed with the society shop - they have a disclaimer which states as they're run by volunteers, allow up to 21 days for delivery. My order arrived in less than 7 days. The Shark Brake Van kit came in a lovely little box and went together really nicely. I was a really satisfying kit to do, fairly straightforward, but with enough trickier elements to set it apart from an off the shelf kit.

 

Here it is, painted in faded Loadhaul with a few patches of undercoat outside the shed

 

And coupled with the wagons I plan to run it with.

[David41283]

I got most of a day's free time today, so I got lots of little jobs done. I have also made a start on what I think will be one of the main features of the layout - the retaining wall with the shops and station entrance underneath.

 

Progress so far - this is 5mm foam board clad with various thicknesses of brick paper. I have used some plastic moulding for the metal beam running along. I have a photo of this sort of arrangement for the shops and vaults below Manchester Picadilly (and a tram goes under that too!). Lots to do, I've only made 1/2 so far, and the edges need shading in, but you can start to get the feel of how this will look. The layout being exactly 120cm long, I have divided this up into ten 10cm x 3cm 'arches' with 2cm pillars between. This means I have 10 little 'modules' to make to fill the arches. 2 are taken up by the tram tunnel at each end, one will be the main entrance to the main line station. The first two I am working on are the two shop fronts shown here - new mouldings from Ten Commandments I got from the NGS shop.

 

They are so new that Ten Commandments couldn't send me a picture when I e-mailed as they hadn't made up a demo one yet. I decided to take a risk and ordered two for less than a tenner. I am really pleased with them - I have undercoated them, and they have separate glazing units which enable you to make a window display before you add the glazing.

 

Finally the tram stop has been installed and holes drilled for the catenary for the tram. I coiuldn't resist placing some catenary masts to see how it is looking

The poles are at a jaunty angle as they aren't fixed yet!

 

Thanks for the positive comments, I am thoroughly enjoying my first foray into N gauge.

 

David

[DanielB]

This is an incredible layout, your eye for details is beyond impressive!

[David41283]

After a couple of weeks wait, the postman delivered a parcel from Japan on Tuesday.

 

It still strikes me as strange that it works out at such good value to get things shipped half-way across the world, instead of buying things in a model shop 2 miles away.

 

These bits cost me less than £25 inc. shipping, or as I like to think of it, three structures for far less £££ than one Bachmann/Farish Scenecraft hut.

 

First up is a brilliant little kit I'd had my eye on for ages - with my station on a viaduct, and the entrance below, I needed a subway, but wanting to create an 'upgraded, modernised' look, I wanted an escalator. I contemplated buying a couple of the Peco subways, and modifying one, but even these little kits are £5 each. This kit cost around £5 + £4 shipping from Japan - it's made by Tomix.

You also get a little stairs-only version too. The main one had a roof, but I felt this looked too foreign, so this was discarded and the sides modified slightly. After putting it together, I have now embedded it into my platform.

 

It seemed a waste to just buy £9 worth of stuff from Japan (you've got to consider your carbon footprint!), so I also ordered 2 tomix office blocks - here they are straight out of the packet, all I have done so far is hack off the advertising hoardings off the roof of both buildings, as these just screamed Japan. One is a lot greener than it looked in the pictures, but nevermind, I am going to paint them both anyway.

 

I spent the next hour or so using bits from my scrap-box to add air handling plant and pipes etc to the roof of each building to make them look less toy-like. No prizes for spotting the 00 point rod components!

 

With a bit of work, I think these should look great at each end of the street level of the layout.

 

 

[David41283]

A few updates:

 

After a week or so worth of evenings working on the coffee table, sticking brickpaper to foamboard while watching telly, I finally got the various parts of the retaining wall glued in place, and added coping stones from 00 Metcalfe Paving slabs. Here is an overview of the whole layout with the wall in place.

The three 'arches' where you can still see the ply will have shop fronts in the two in the middle and the main station entrance on the right.

 

I also had a play at painting the two Tomix buildings which arrived the other day. It's amazing the difference a simple wash of light grey, rubbed off before drying can make to cheap-looking plasticky bricks! This building is just plonked down at the mo, I need to think about how to bed it in, with pavements, bollards etc..

 

The excess flock will be hoovered away tomorrow, once the glue has dried! This view also shows the tram line tunnel portal, now the retaining wall is in place. whilst taking this photo I realised how unevenly my coping stones were setting - they are now spending the night being weighted down by a steel ruler covered with Graham Farish and Dapol Boxes, to get them staying and stuck flat!

 

Finally, the reappearance of my de-icer GLV. This project has snowballed somewhat. It is now sitting on some NGS Southern Bogies, not 100% correct, but better than the MK1 coach bogies. I have also done a lot of filing to improve the smoothness of the finish to the front, and the fit of the front and roof, which I think is now much better. I'm just waiting for a set of BH Enterprises EMU shoebeams for me to decide this one's ready for propelling round the layout, and into the depot by a 73.

I had fitted this with a Rapido on the inner end, for connecting to the 73, and a Dapol knuckle on the front as it looks better, and would allow hands-free shunting with my 08 in the depot. However my super-glued NEM pocket fell off the bogie while putting it on the track for this picture - need to mix up some epoxy tomorrow!

 

Cheers

 

David

[David41283]

The last pic has a paticularly "north end of Sheffield Midland" feel about it

I am trying to be as geographically vague as possible, in order to run whatever I want, but having spent a lot of Saturdays as a child on on the end of platform 12 at Bristol Temple Meads it keeps returning to the south west in my mind!

 

I suppose it is loosely in the chunk of the country between Southampton, Bristol and the Midlands - if Cirencester were a bustling metropolis this would be the station!!!

[David41283]

Today brought another exciting delivery from overseas, albeit this time via Osborns in Bideford.

 

I have been thinking about the station platform for ages - I want this to be a small but central city commuter terminus, so needed buildings to match. I wanted to create a modern look and had been looking at options for this - I contemplated kit-bashing various Kestrel, Ratio canopies or even scratch-building something functional  but unmistakably modern like Bristol Parkway. However I stumbled upon this kit from Faller 222121 a German ICE station. This was £25, so I spent ages weighing it up before taking the plunge, but I figured you get a lot in the packet so by the time I'd purchased several cheaper roof sections, benches, shelters, clocks and notice boards I'd probably have spent more anyway.

 

When it arrived the box was far bigger than I'd anticipated - I assumed plenty of packing and bubble wrap - but no - the whole box was jammed full of sprues of tiny parts. It includes two platforms with intricate roofs, a glass waiting room and loads of platform furniture.

 

My plan (and unusually for me there is a plan this time!) is to use most of the roof sections for the platform and some of the rest to make a matching glass canopy over the road level entrance. Not only will this look the part, but it should make it immediately obvious which 'arch' is the station entrance thanks to the architectural similarities between the two.

 

I have used the platforms supplied in the kit, which are far too 'european' and low as a construction jig, and will also use them as templates to drill the holes in the right place on my platform I've already built, using the Peco sides and plasticard.

This is a great kit, but extremely fiddly - the upright supports are 4 individual parts each!

 

I've put together a section of roof skeleton, which is nearly 100 parts already! It does look unnervingly like a huge centipede at first glance!!

The roof frame is going to spend the night sandwiched between two glass place mats to ensure it dries flat and square, I plan to air-brush these parts separately into what I'd call "St Pancras refurb light blue" which seems to the the fashionable colour for posh stations now, before final assembly.

 

I am waiting for a delivery of 500 unpainted people from Hong Kong to populate the layout. God knows what they'll look like, but at £5.99 for 500 on Ebay vs £10 for 6 from Preiser I'm willing to give them a chance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David41283]

Several people have asked for the link to the 500 people I purchased on eBay, here it is:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/500-Unpainted-White-1-150-Scale-Model-People-N-Figures-/301045137389?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item4617b03fed

 

They're 1:150 so nearly 1:148 and better scaled than the European 1:160 figures. Cost £6:99 inc postage.

 

I must add that I haven't received them yet (they're due any day), so I have no idea what they're like at this point!

 

David

[Satan's Goldfish]

It's probably a similar supplier to one I found doing oo scale vehicles, they weren't bad at all for filling out a scene, the quallity is obviously not that of oxford diecast but still much better than Hornby's plastic examples from the 90s. And very cheap! For what I needed it would cost nearly £400 from oxford diecast but was less than £50 from China.

 

Liking the anglicised foreign buildings, good stuff.

[David41283]

[David41283]

Evening all,

 

It's nice having two or three facets of this project underway at once, as I'm able to chop and change what I'm working on. I had an hour this evening, so I've been adding detail to the platforms. Sorry for the rather random location - the under-cabinet lights in the kitchen give the best light!

Most of this is going to be somewhat hidden by the canopy, but i have enjoyed adding the detail.

 

 

 

In other news - my 500 people for £6.99 arrived. When I saw the Tiny padded envelope when I got home from work, my first thought was that I'd got it terribly wrong and it was actually 5 people, not 500!

 

They are very strangely packed the bags make them appear to be 500 'class A' people!

 

They look OK - a fair bit of flash and mould lines to the carefully removed, but loads of different poses and people. God knows how you paint these with normal human eyes!!

 

Thanks for the comments and 'likes' as ever - all feedback is appreciated.

 

David

[cklammer]

Hi, David,

 

This is a great layout already - I love to watch here

 

What happened to your German centipede and to the station entrance?

 

And have you considered consulting your opthamologist before painting 500 N-scale figures? I mean should you consider a Guide Dog or just a Tap Stick after you have ruined your eyes?

[cklammer]

Shame on me - I forgot to sign my previous post.

 

Best Regards,

Christian

[David41283]

Hi Christian,

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

The roof is being painted, but I wanted to get all the details in place before I fit it.

 

I actually painted the first few sitting people last night - they weren't too bad. Since this is meant to be an urban commuter station most of them are a shade of grey with a triangle of white around the collar! I've glued a short length of 0.5mm dia plastic rod to the back of all the standing people as it gives me something to hold when I paint them, and then a location pin to glue them onto the platform with.

 

David

[Mark Pelham]

Hi David,

 

The layout is looking great, the detail you are adding is stunning.

 

May I ask if the platform benches were scratch-built or purchased, and if purchased where from?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[jamest]

Hi,

 

I was following your OO layout, and continued silently with this one.

 

But I feel I must say it is excellent, the detail and subtle weathering will add up to an excellent end product I'm sure.

 

I will continue to follow with interset.

 

Cheers,

James

[David41283]

Hi David,

 

The layout is looking great, the detail you are adding is stunning.

 

May I ask if the platform benches were scratch-built or purchased, and if purchased where from?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

Hi Mark,

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

The benches, glass waiting room, litter bins and noticeboard frames are all part of the Faller 222121 DB ICE station kit. I thought it looked a little steep at £25, but it includes twice as much canopy as I've used so far and lots of other bits too, so it's turned out to be excellent value.

 

The vending machines and ticket machine are from an eBay seller - Wooden Railway Workshop. They appear to be simply small bits of balsa with nicely printed fronts. I'm sure someone with better IT skills and a better printer than me could do this themselves.

 

Cheers

 

David

[David41283]

Just realised that I've forgotten the lift! My station is not DDA compliant.

[Mark Pelham]

Hi Mark,

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

The benches, glass waiting room, litter bins and noticeboard frames are all part of the Faller 222121 DB ICE station kit. I thought it looked a little steep at £25, but it includes twice as much canopy as I've used so far and lots of other bits too, so it's turned out to be excellent value.

 

The vending machines and ticket machine are from an eBay seller - Wooden Railway Workshop. They appear to be simply small bits of balsa with nicely printed fronts. I'm sure someone with better IT skills and a better printer than me could do this themselves.

 

Cheers

 

David

 

Thanks David,

 

I was mainly interested in the benches which would suit my planned layout nicely, would be a bit excessive spending £25 to only use the benches and other station furniture!

 

I'm thinking as an alternative that some Evergreen siding sheet could be used for the seat backs and bases (if a suitable size is available) with plasticard strip for the legs. Alternatively plain sheet scored at the appropriate intervals would probably suffice. It would probably be more cost effective for my purposes!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[richbrummitt]

I like the vendos.

[David41283]

Tempted to put all 500 people on the platform - as we all know that is how many people there are jostling for position every time a 153 approaches a platform!