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Scotswood Bridge


Ragtag

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Scotswood Bridge is a small fictional servicing depot for Royal Mail and RES rolling stock. Set in the early 90's, the layout can cover right up to 2004 or even the present day. The depot can house up to four coaches or locomotives. The layout itself was originally built in a set of small Ikea drawers and designed so that the vast majority of components go back into the drawer unit. However, I lost interest in the project then and part of the reason was a lack of operational potential. As a result I redesigned the depot using a 4' x 1' piece of wood left over from the construction of my Kielder layout.

 

The current plan is for two servicing platforms and a small fuelling point along with a short loco spur. A bridge (road or rail, currently undecided) will act as the scenic break.

 

Layout is DCC operated, with manual point operation.

 

An overview of the track-plan:

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An overview of the (admittedly simple) wiring:

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47808 on the loco spur:

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RES and RM stock in the servicing platforms:

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47808 on the loco spur, showing a bit of a rough job on the headcode box:

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RES and RM stock in the servicing platforms:

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47808 on the loco spur:

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A quick update today. The board for the backscene is in place - nice and sturdy (as it ought to be, it's 9mm ply!) I had two 4' x 1' planks left after the construction of Kielder, so it was cheaper than going out and buying hardboard and some soft wood for batons. wink.gif Ply was preferable as it's likely there'll be a hole cut in the backscene for the bridge, and I find hardboard to be a PITA to cut smoothly.

 

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Next up is to design the bridge for the scenic break, and to have a play with the scalescenes retaining walls.

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Work progressed today on the ScaleScenes retaining wall, looks to be shaping up nicely. Next job is to start on the bridge design. At the minute I'm thinking about a light wooden construction clad in scalescenes paper, but need to have a proper sit down and sketch session.

 

Overview from the yard end, showing the newly arrived site office:

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The yard pilot manouevres some stock into position past the new wall:

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Work progressed today on the ScaleScenes retaining wall, looks to be shaping up nicely. Next job is to start on the bridge design. At the minute I'm thinking about a light wooden construction clad in scalescenes paper, but need to have a proper sit down and sketch session.

 

Overview from the yard end, showing the newly arrived site office:

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The yard pilot manouevres some stock into position past the new wall:

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Ragtag,

 

Really liking the look of this. Glad to see Scotswood Bridge has reappeared as I liked what you were doing with 'Mark 1' as well. Will keep my eyes on this one.

 

Chris

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Just a small update today as I only managed to squeeze in an hour before heading to work - however in that time I started work on the wooden structure which will support the bridge. Pictures hopefully to follow on Thursday.

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That's right, they're the 'new' streamline LH code 100 electrofrog express points. At the moment they're using HoG operation. Any track weathering will be pretty light on the points as I haven't wired in the frog to be switchable - the point therefore relies on the switchblade making good contact with the stock rail. I realise that's probably asking for trouble in the long run but the main point of the layout for me is to practice ballasting and scenics before cracking on with Kielder.

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So, today I managed to crack on with the wooden structure which will support the bridge. There's a little bit of tidying to do to get the edges flush, but it's almost ready to be fixed to the baseboard. Stock on the layout today represents the EWS period.

 

The bridge supports:

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And from above:

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A new arrival from hardjeff models, a withdrawn RES Class 86 sits on the loco spur awaiting its inevitable fate:

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As a dirty skip arrives to take on fuel. This photo reminds me that I need to weather the replacement front skirt:

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A closeup of the 86:

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And to close, an overview of the layout from the yard end - the bridge seems like it will do it's job as a scenic barrier.

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Hi Mate

 

Love the Class 86... was that off hardjeff1 on eBay... it looks his type of work... I have several of his work and never fail to be impressed... even if it aint its a dam good job...

 

Keep the photos coming... dude...!

 

Regards

Jamie

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Yes it is one of hardjeff's, I think I mentioned it on the first pic of it. He's made a really nice job of it, and I picked it up at a very reasonable price - just a little over 50 quid. Given that the regular 86 in good nick seems to fetch around 40 second hand, I certainly wasn't going to complain. I can only aspire to be able to weather like that one day ;)

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Yes it is one of hardjeff's, I think I mentioned it on the first pic of it. He's made a really nice job of it, and I picked it up at a very reasonable price - just a little over 50 quid. Given that the regular 86 in good nick seems to fetch around 40 second hand, I certainly wasn't going to complain. I can only aspire to be able to weather like that one day ;)

 

 

Yes... I Agree...

 

I wish I could weather like that to, save me the money on the extra you pay, and got to say, you got a great bargain their, Ive started buy his AGED looking Bachmann Coaches and they are great to leave in the old siding at the back of your layout...

 

Just like I use to see in the 80s/90s/early oos, when I used to go to Bescot just off Junction 9, M6... You get that long line of ... well in my days it was Class 25s, now you get a couple of 37s if you are lucky...

 

But great... are planning on getting more, I would recommend him over and over...

 

Jamie

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Well today was a productive one, or at least it feels like I've gotten a lot done :)

 

I started by adding some styrene section to the underside of the bridge to loosely match rail bridges of a similar design in the area:

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And in situ:

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Then a coat of grey primer, and the bridge sides added:

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And again:

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The maintenance walkway finally arrived from ebay:

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The bridge and walkway:

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Site office and walkway:

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A short engineering train holds on the bridge:

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This is presenting something of a conundrum actually. I'd originally toyed with the idea of extending the track through the backscene but I've abandoned this. I'll be building up some embankments to either side of the track at the backscene, but I'm unsure what to put on the scene itself to represent the track carrying on.

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Hi Ragtag, good to see work coming along well. We had a similar issue of making a road carry on along through the backscene whilst working on my large 5' x 10' homelayout. We came up with the solution of actually building the whole street with road, buildings, pedestrians and vehicles before building sky backscene around the whole thing. Photographs were then taken and uploaded to the computer where the image was maipulated to fit the gap. Once the image was the right size all that was left to do was airbrush over the join on the PC and stick it onto the backscene where it belnds in perfectly.

 

(if you drop me a line at photographer@wensleydalerailwayassociation.com I'll send you some pics over).

 

This method worked well and is definately worth a try or if you wanted I would gladly give it a go for you...

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Hi Ragtag

 

I'll be following this layout as your using the same peco track as i am on my inglenook , thanks again for the tip on using blue tac over the points for weathering .

 

I look forward to seeing the track develope , keep posting progress , looks great .

 

Shaun .

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