Newcastle Emlyn - Early goods rolling stock

[Anotheran]

Oops. Don't know how I managed to do it, but somehow I drew my North face 120' long instead of the 110' that I had arrived at from various sources and calculations. So I had to lose 13 bricks over the length to bring it back into the right size. Doesn't look very different of course as I dropped the bricks evenly between the various sections of the building (or as close as I could without having to start my brickwork again! But for the sake of completeness here's the revised set of walls.

 

 

As you can see, I've still not done the road side. I was about to start it when I spotted the discrepancy in length. So my available time was taken working out what to do about it and then fixing it. So the South face will need to wait just a little bit longer.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by Anotheran
Adding back images lost by site change

[ChrisN]

Oops. Don't know how I managed to do it, but somehow I drew my North face 120' long instead of the 110' that I had arrived at from various sources and calculations. So I had to lose 13 bricks over the length to bring it back into the right size. Doesn't look very different of course as I dropped the bricks evenly between the various sections of the building (or as close as I could without having to start my brickwork again! But for the sake of completeness here's the revised set of walls.

 

Facades.png

 

As you can see, I've still not done the road side. I was about to start it when I spotted the discrepancy in length. So my available time was taken working out what to do about it and then fixing it. So the South face will need to wait just a little bit longer.

 

I am not sure whether to rate it as Friendly/supportive, Like, or Craftsmanship.  I think if I did things right the first time I would be further on than I am.

 

The station is obviously a standard GWR pattern.  The Ratio kit of Shepton Mallet(?), where you get off for Glastonbury, has the same pattern of doors and windows, although it is not so long.  I am in no way suggesting you kit bash that, you would be better off starting afresh.  How do you intend to do it?  Brick plasticard on cardboard?

[Anotheran]

Of course, I should probably also have posted this at some point in this bit of the thread... a simplified plan of the station building. It was created in AnyRail as I needed it for the building on my main plan.

 

 

The grid squares are 10 mm and the diagram shows the main building including the platform canopy. North is at the top (or pretty close to it!). It is only approximate. For example I think my end walls are 62 mm instead of 60 mm to make them correctly fit brick sizes.

 

Next job to tackle is that South wall...

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by Anotheran
Adding back images lost by site change

[Anotheran]

The station is obviously a standard GWR pattern.  The Ratio kit of Shepton Mallet(?), where you get off for Glastonbury, has the same pattern of doors and windows, although it is not so long.  I am in no way suggesting you kit bash that, you would be better off starting afresh.  How do you intend to do it?  Brick plasticard on cardboard?

 

Hi Chris. Yes, very definitely a standard GWR pattern, though I've not been able to find one that is quite the same. They either have stone around the windows instead of brick, or flat tops to the windows, or some other item that makes it just slightly different. It's definitely going to be a scratch build mainly as I want to do that, so no kit bashing for this one.

 

As for how do I intend to do it. Plasticard facing is definitely the way I'm looking. Though whether it will be on a cardboard former, or styrene I'm not yet sure. I was thinking of doing a reasonably quick mock up using Scalescenes bricks over cardboard (which would be English instead of Flemish bond) and may still do that in BR WR colours just so that I can have that to swap out when I want to run my diesel in. I intend to do two anyway, but as most of the time the station will be solidly GWR I'm leaning towards the BR WR building being a quicker build.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Anotheran

[Anotheran]

A bit more research, and I've returned to the Britain From Above website which while it's no good for counting bricks does have a picture of the South elevation that allows me to see the arrangement of windows and doors. Adding this to the size information that I already have from the other elevations should give me a good representation of the road side of the station.

 

The full picture can be found here and reproduced here in accordance with the BFA site rules:

 

 

At the bottom right hand corner you can see part of the station including the main station building. Zooming in on that I get the following detail...

 

 

To my surprise there were no doors at all facing the road. I was only expecting one to the booking office, but that's not even there. So all passenger traffic would need to have gone through the gate to the left of the building and along the platform to the booking office door there. So now I have what I need to complete my elevations diagrams.

 

There's lots more information that I can pick up from these few photos, of the goods shed for example as well as the other buildings around the station. As they are from angles that aren't shown on the ground photographs that I have. As with this one, they're not that good for close up detail, but show the arrangement of elements on the structures, and I can get scaling from other pictures that I do have. But for now I'll continue to work on the main station building.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by Anotheran
Adding back images lost by site change

[Anotheran]

So I've managed to get the information from the above picture into Paint. Which gives me a full set of elevations...

 

 

In case the text isn't big enough they are from top to bottom, North, South, then West and East. Looking at it I realise that my windows on the South elevation aren't wide enough when compared to the space between them. So they will need adjusting. That will need to wait for a while as I have some work to get on with. After that will be to try out how the roof works, but that will probably be easier in 3D, so now I really need to get on with actually building a quick mock up in card and paper covering.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Anotheran
Adding back images lost by site change

[ChrisN]

So I've managed to get the information from the above picture into Paint. Which gives me a full set of elevations...

 

Elevations.png

 

In case the text isn't big enough they are from top to bottom, North, South, then West and East. Looking at it I realise that my windows on the South elevation aren't wide enough when compared to the space between them. So they will need adjusting. That will need to wait for a while as I have some work to get on with. After that will be to try out how the roof works, but that will probably be easier in 3D, so now I really need to get on with actually building a quick mock up in card and paper covering.

 

Neil,

Like you I would have expected the window sections to be the same width but looking again the double ones are larger than the triple ones,  Good work so far.  The research part of modelling is very rewarding.

[Anotheran]

Like you I would have expected the window sections to be the same width but looking again the double ones are larger than the triple ones,  Good work so far.  The research part of modelling is very rewarding.

 

Yes, that was me getting carried away. Maybe also a bit of wishful thinking as the brick arches are a pain to do in different sizes.  I'll sort it out tomorrow. 

[Anotheran]

So not just the one change but two. Firstly I noticed that for some reason my plan had been mirrored, so here it is the correct way round and with the bays (not sure this is what they should be called when they are on such a large scale, but I don't know the correct architectural term) moved slightly towards the centre of the building as per the aerial photograph. As well as being swapped East-West, the stacks have been resized to match my brick counting exercise from previously and re-positioned slightly to match with the photograph which is only important if you want to avoid overheating the gents urinals!

 

 

 

I've also modified the South elevation to have the double windows more to the correct size and thus reduced the gap between them. I think the end result looks a lot more like the elevation shown in the aerial photo. The finished South elevation actually lines up pretty well with the plan but it looks like I may have some doors on the North elevation slightly out of place as they line up too well with chimney stacks.

 

 

Thanks for looking... Now for some mocking up!

Edited June 13, 2022 by Anotheran
Adding back images lost by site change

[Anotheran]

So no movement on the main building as yet. I'm working on a guesswork internal plan so that I can have the front and back windows and doors and also the stacks all lined up perfectly. But in the meantime I've also had a look at the engine shed.

 

Newcastle Emlyn had a corrugated iron shed about 48' by 15' out to the east of the station on the north side of the beyond the 30' turntable. It was a simple structure with an arc roofline and should be fairly easy to fabricate in Plastikard. My intention here is to use my Silhouette Portrait that I've had in a box for the best part of a year now!

 

I have some, but not a lot, of reference for this structure. There is one, fairly detailed, photograph on the Disused Stations site that shows an oblique view of the shed together with the mess room, lavatory hut and water pump hut. Unfortunately, the position of these huts means that the windows of the shed can't be seen, except for three vaguely on the far side through the main door. What can be seen of them seem to be 4 lights across by three down.

 

Britain from Above has a couple of shot that show part of the shed building. The following are extreme zooms on these photographs:

 

  

 

 

The first shows less of the shed, but does give a good indication of the relationship with the pump hut and the buffer stop beyond the shed. The second indicates that there are three windows to the right of what I take to be the line of the telegraph pole that is half way along the shed. This indicates that I should have six windows on each side of the shed.

 

Two pictures of the front of the shed are also included in Great Western Railway Journal 37, which I won't include here for copyright reasons. One is a better copy of the Disused Stations photograph and a second is a more square-on view of the Western end that gives me a good view for scaling the rest of the building, given the known width and track gauge.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by Anotheran
Adding back images lost by site change

[Anotheran]

I missed describing a third, critical, photograph in the journal. That is a dimly lit view of the inside of the shed that shows the internal rib structure. While the inside will be almost invisible on the model I will build a reasonable copy so that where it is glimpsed it won't look completely out of place. So with that, and the pictures from the previous post in mind I opened up Silhouette Studio and started drawing in it for the first time.

 

The external corrugated panels were first, as they were the easy bit. Walls were scaled from the text of the journal and the various photographs and the area of the roof from a bit of maths based on the fact that it is a proper arc. The roof will be curved around a suitable former with hot water. I will either add in scribe lines for the individual corrugated panels or scribe them by hand after cutting, which is probably easier as they're all straight lines!

 

 

Following on from that I created a second document (I only have the free version of Studio, so don't have layers) to generate the cutting file for the windows and ribs. My intention is to form the ribs from two laminated layers of 15 thou styrene. I'll then attach microstrip around the outside edge of these to make the T section ribbing that appear in the internal photograph. I've included an extra set of windows parts and rib parts, just in case, as there is room on the sheet.

 

 

I know that two layers of 15 though equates to about 2.5 inches of steel, which is a lot thicker than prototype would have been, but as the thickness definitely won't be visible and they make up the structure of my model which is otherwise a single skin of corrugated styrene I want to have the extra strength. I may use 10 thou sheet for the windows elements though as they appear pretty insubstantial where they can be glimpsed in the photographs. The Windows will be a sandwich of two external frames with the panes in between, the latter I'll glaze either with cellophane or a glazing liquid. The resulting sandwiches will then be inserted into the holes in the corrugated sides protruding internally and externally as per the prototype.

 

As it's my first venture into Studio and the Portrait I'll try it out on paper first. But that will need to wait for a short while again. Once these element have been completed then I'll look at how I can manufacture the box roof vents that are visible on the pictures and also the internal structures where they are appropriate to be included. I'm not going to go mad on this, but am already getting into the idea!

 

Both of my files need tidying up a bit to reduce waste, and I may add in the various parts to make the huts as well to use as much of the corrugated sheet up as possible in one go.

 

That's all for now though!

 

Edited June 13, 2022 by Anotheran
Adding back images lost by site change

[BG John]

Have you tried Inkscape? It has layers and other useful stuff, and it's free.

[Anotheran]

Have you tried Inkscape? It has layers and other useful stuff, and it's free.

 

Hi John.

 

Thanks for the prompt as I was thinking of being lazy and leaving this as it is in Studio. I actually thought of Inkscape... after I'd done the work in Studio. Unfortunately I didn't refer properly to the relevant threads and downloaded and installed (the wrong thing) from memory. Having done that I assume I'll need to start over as while you can import dxf to Studio I can't see any export to it. But I'll probably go the Inkscape route before I go any further.

 

.....hmmm...  yes, I'll download Inkscape now and bite the bullet!

[Anotheran]

.....hmmm...  yes, I'll download Inkscape now and bite the bullet!

Even more annoyingly I've just found that I downloaded the current version of Inkscape two months ago and didn't install... If I had done I'd probably not have gone up the wrong (Studio) path!

[BG John]

I use Inkscape for everything, and haven't learned how to draw in Studio. I worked on the assumption that sooner or later I'd want to do complex stuff, so there was no point learning a program that might not handle it.

[ChrisN]

Neil,

I assume you have looked at Andy G's or JCL's thread to name but two on the silhouette cutter?  Very informative about layering and warp.  I have yet to laminate my first coach.  Interesting times.

[Anotheran]

I assume you have looked at Andy G's or JCL's thread to name but two on the silhouette cutter?  Very informative about layering and warp.  I have yet to laminate my first coach.  Interesting times.

Chris,

Yes indeed. I have looked at those, and Mike's thorough tutorials on Inkscape. It was simply a momentary lapse of reason that saw me install Studio instead of Inkscape! But I've started the reworking in the new tool now so will report here anon.

[BG John]

You still need Studio for cutting. Once you get the settings right, saving the Inkscape file as a DXF and importing to Studio is straightforward.

[ChrisN]

Neil,

I am not saying that you should not use Inkscape but when I make files of coaches I do the different layers in different colours and then just select the colour when I wish to move it out from underneath.  I have the free download and Andy G very kindly cuts for me.

 

Just a thought.  I have worked on my first coach from a drawing.  When I made the file I used the drawing widths.  Of course now I am at the point of thinking about putting it together I realise that it will have to be slightly longer than prototype as I have not taken into account the thickness of the plastic.  It will be about a millimetre over all, which if you do on your building will not notice at all.

[Anotheran]

John, Chris,

 

Thanks for your continued encouragement. I may do a cut from Studio for this one as it's a simple building. But I want to do it in Inkscape for the practice. I actually took account of the plastic thickness in my diagram,  which given the dimensions are estimated was probably not required! But I thought I should get into good practice from the outset... just with possibly the wrong package as I move onto more complex models.

 

Kind regards, Neil 

[aberdare]

Hi Neil

 

I may have to see if I can make any time to investigate Inkscape as it seems to be the preferred package for a lot of people now especially for more complex work, so far I have stuck with the supplied software as it has been capable of doing everything I have asked of it so far, the trouble is the time to use what I learn before I forget it again and end up back to square one.

 

I really need to make more use of the cutter though rather than it sitting back in its box for months on end, maybe I need to spend more winter evenings drawing stuff up ready for cutting later, then again I already have a few other bits waiting for me to use. Back to that thing called time again.

 

Glad to see that you are making progress though and I will keep an eye open for more posts when I can.

 

All the best

 

Jim

[Anotheran]

So after a whole year of limited activity and no thread updates I'm back on NE. It's still not going to progress quickly, and until I've sorted out suitable space (which may be accomplished by a house move) then all I can do is buildings and stock rather than layout itself. But I've been inspired by Edwardian in this approach (even though he's now got onto the layout itself).

 

I finally got the Silhouette Portrait out of it's box (after almost two years!!) and tried it out. With very good results. I fired up studio (after upgrading the copy I already had installed from last year) and cut the plain sections of the shed using 200 gsm card as a test. When I saw how narrow the window structures were at 0.5 mm I thought that I'd never get them off the sticky cutting mat.

 

 

However, they had all cut really well. So after a fair amount of fiddling around with a scalpel to prise them off the sticky surface I had a pile of card bits.

 

 

At this point I was very impressed. I started thinking about forgetting Plasticard and building using the card test pieces that I had just made. There are a few places where they'd delaminated a bit when getting stuck on the cutting mat, but I had spares and I thought I'd have plenty to build with. Or so I thought.

 

It was at this point that I realised that my cleverly laid out cutting file was wrong. I'd had plenty of internal ribs needing seven and having printed eight sets to laminate. I'd also printed an extra window set, seven instead of six... oops! There are six windows on each side of the shed. I was five short! So I was faced with two options. Draw up another cutting drawing with the extra windows and cut them in card and continue with that or modify the master cutting drawing and cut again, which I would do in Plasticard as originally planned.

 

I decided on the latter for two reasons. Firstly I think I'll get sharper edges without the blurring that you get with card and secondly, it's easier to laminate Plasticard with a quick spot of limonene through capillary action than it is to do the same with card and PVA. So decision made I was about to change the drawing when I remembered that Plasticard sheets are a long way from A4! Glad I checked that first. So the new drawing was made to the correct size for the sheet. I've done sixteen window sets (plenty of spares as they are so delicate) and also added in a fair number of 1.5 mm strips that I'll use to make up the angles on the rib girders.

 

 

Of course, having gone through all of that I now need to get back to work, so won't be able to cut it until later! But now I've started again I'll keep going albeit slowly.

 

Thank you to anyone who has stuck with me this long. I hope there will eventually be something worth seeing

 

[ChrisN]

So after a whole year of limited activity and no thread updates I'm back on NE. It's still not going to progress quickly, and until I've sorted out suitable space (which may be accomplished by a house move) then all I can do is buildings and stock rather than layout itself. But I've been inspired by Edwardian in this approach (even though he's now got onto the layout itself).

 

I finally got the Silhouette Portrait out of it's box (after almost two years!!) and tried it out. With very good results. I fired up studio (after upgrading the copy I already had installed from last year) and cut the plain sections of the shed using 200 gsm card as a test. When I saw how narrow the window structures were at 0.5 mm I thought that I'd never get them off the sticky cutting mat.

 

card pieces on cutting mat.jpg

 

However, they had all cut really well. So after a fair amount of fiddling around with a scalpel to prise them off the sticky surface I had a pile of card bits.

 

card pieces out.jpg

 

At this point I was very impressed. I started thinking about forgetting Plasticard and building using the card test pieces that I had just made. There are a few places where they'd delaminated a bit when getting stuck on the cutting mat, but I had spares and I thought I'd have plenty to build with. Or so I thought.

 

It was at this point that I realised that my cleverly laid out cutting file was wrong. I'd had plenty of internal ribs needing seven and having printed eight sets to laminate. I'd also printed an extra window set, seven instead of six... oops! There are six windows on each side of the shed. I was five short! So I was faced with two options. Draw up another cutting drawing with the extra windows and cut them in card and continue with that or modify the master cutting drawing and cut again, which I would do in Plasticard as originally planned.

 

I decided on the latter for two reasons. Firstly I think I'll get sharper edges without the blurring that you get with card and secondly, it's easier to laminate Plasticard with a quick spot of limonene through capillary action than it is to do the same with card and PVA. So decision made I was about to change the drawing when I remembered that Plasticard sheets are a long way from A4! Glad I checked that first. So the new drawing was made to the correct size for the sheet. I've done sixteen window sets (plenty of spares as they are so delicate) and also added in a fair number of 1.5 mm strips that I'll use to make up the angles on the rib girders.

 

Updated plain print.png

 

Of course, having gone through all of that I now need to get back to work, so won't be able to cut it until later! But now I've started again I'll keep going albeit slowly.

 

Thank you to anyone who has stuck with me this long. I hope there will eventually be something worth seeing

 

Neil,

Glad to see you are finding time to model again.  Before our move a few years back I built stock and kits for my narrow gauge layout which is still waiting to get started.  My problem is that when I come back to things I forget where I am and what I have done, or most annoyingly where my tools are or where is the model that I have put away for safe keeping.

 

It all looks rather good what you have done and I shall continue to follow.

[Anotheran]

So I've made my first plasticard cut with the Portrait. I'm using 0.010" Slaters Plasticard. The Portrait settings I've used are from Mike Trice on the incredibly informative Silhouette guide thread started by JCL. They are:

• Blade depth = 3 (I understand each increment is roughly 0.1 mm, so 3 gives a full depth cut through 0.254 mm plasticard)
• Speed = 1 (I wanted it as accurate as I could get with those 0.5 mm window features
• Force = 33 (The maximum as it's pretty dense material compared to much that is used on the cutter)
• Double cut

As it was a test run, and also between conference calls, I only sent one set of the pieces (out of the eight) to the cutter. I didn't time it, but even that must have taken ten minutes or so. The results were pretty good! I had to use a scalpel to finish a couple of the corners and to ease the pieces off the sticky cutting mat (especially the individual panes in the windows), but the cuts were generally all the way through and nice and neat.

 

 

The photo is quite an enlargement when opened. The actual size of the windows is 17 mm wide by 22 mm high. At the magnification you can see some rounded corners. But they are still vastly better than I could manage by hand, and reproducible many many times.

 

I took the card pieces that I'd cut previously to compare them. The photo below shows the two with the card pieces at the top of the picture.

 

 

The card ones still look good, but the plastic ones are cleaner and probably don't need much in the way of tidying up. They'll also be easier to laminate, for which I'll use D-Limonene.

 

So now that I'm happy with the result, and also know what Portrait settings I want to use, I can cut some more when there's time and then I'll be able to start lamination. I have to say I'm looking forward to it. I'm very much aware though that this is just the internal structures and the windows. After they're cut the next bit will be to cut the corrugated pieces. I've no idea how that's going to go but I'm assuming that it will be a score and snap rather than a complete cut. More experimentation to come!

 

[Anotheran]

Some among you may remember that I had originally decided to switch to Inkscape. However, when I got back to it, and knowing that I will only have a little time here and there, I decided to keep to Studio for the engine shed as I'd already done it. I really didn't want to spend time learning Inkscape and redoing it in there. I know it's not portable and so I will probably move to Inkscape for future work, but the engine shed is going to stay in Studio. If I need to port it for some reason in the future then I'll worry about that at the time

 

Kind regards, Neil