Northwick a oo gauge layout by Twickenham & District MRC

[Northwick Group]

More progress was made last Friday evening, the first job was to work out exactly where the road was going so that we knew what parts to paint brown for going under the static grass. once this had been done then it was time to lay the new surface for the road which is plaster with a few drops of black paint in to get the colour that we were looking for, we also decided to re-do the road surface on board 3 as we weren't too happy with it. Below are some pictures of the work in progress.

The rest of the boundary fence for the engine yard was installed.

Once the plaster had dried off sufficiently (didn't take long as it was very hot and the layer of plaster was very thin) it was time to apply the static grass.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[Northwick Group]

The new hedges that will line the edge of the current fields have started to be installed, they currently have the middle of winter look to them (no greenery) but that will change this Friday, also the fencing has been installed on the edge of the road nearest to the board edge. We took the opportunity to put some rolling stock that we had on the road and track and took some pictures.

 

 

The old stone walling that ran around the edge of the cow field has been replaced with a new hedge row and the field has been extended slightly to the board joint to help disguise it a bit more.



There will also be grass added to the gap between the road edge and the hedge/fence.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[Northwick Group]

Bit of a late one this week, I have been on holiday with next to no internet access. Last week the green fingered members of the group attacked the dead hedgerow on board 4 which were treated to some scatter to provide some much needed colour - there are only a few things to do around the hedges before we take the layout to the Woking model railway exhibition on the 10th & 11th September. 

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[Northwick Group]

More progress was made last Friday, with the final preparations being made to the layout in readiness for the exhibition that we will be attending this weekend - The Railway Enthusiasts’ Club Model Railway Exhibition 2016, which is being held at the Woking Leisure Centre - hope to see you there.

 

The first thing to be done was to make the final connections to the turntable so that it will be fully operational for the exhibition - we intended to take a video of the turntable in action to show but we forgot    , so here's the next best thing - a couple of photos of Frankton Grange on the turntable.

 

 

Next job was to repaint the road surface to cover up where we had sanded the plaster a bit too much so had exposed the surface beneath.

 

 

Another job tackled was adding the static grass to the track way that goes through the field on board 3 - here is a before and after shot.

 

 

Whilst we had the static grass applicator out we decided to do the road verges on board 3 and add grass to some parts of the loco yard.

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[Northwick Group]

Here are some pictures from day 1 of The Railway Enthusiast's Club Model Railwayexhibition at the Woking leisure centre.

 

 

If you are wanting something to do tomorrow then why not come along to the exhibition and see Northwick in action!

[Northwick Group]

Here are a selection of pictures from day 2 of the Woking show.







There will be a video of the action on Northwick from this exhibition to follow.

The next exhibition that we will be attending is the Farnham & District MRC exhibition which is on the 8&9th October and is being held at the Connaught leisure centre.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Northwick Group

[Pacific231G]

I enjoyed seeing Northwick at the Woking show and thanks for the insight into your use of long cassettes in the fiddle yard.

I think  the forward extension of the two left hand boards by six inches does help to set the railway in the scene. (Shame none of the Scout camps we had in the last years of steam were that close to a railway!)  

[Northwick Group]

As promised here is a link to a video of Northwick at the Woking exhibition.

 

Edited September 15, 2016 by Northwick Group

[sbduck]

I enjoyed seeing Northwick at the Woking show and thanks for the insight into your use of long cassettes in the fiddle yard.

I think  the forward extension of the two left hand boards by six inches does help to set the railway in the scene. (Shame none of the Scout camps we had in the last years of steam were that close to a railway!)  

 

You're welcome,

 

Watch this space for the forward extensions of the other 2 boards (and the town board).  Our plans for those boards should really put the icing on the cake.

[Northwick Group]

Recently one of the trees has been replaced on board 4.

 

Here is the tree before.

 

 

Here is the tree after.

 

 

What do you think? is it an improvement?

[TEAMYAKIMA]

Recently one of the trees has been replaced on board 4.

 

image.jpg

 

What do you think? is it an improvement?

 

Yes.

Edited September 19, 2016 by TEAMYAKIMA

[Northwick Group]

Last week saw some progress being made to the fields on board 4, since the extension there has been a large gap between the hedge that runs along the side of the road and the field boundaries that separate the scouts, horses and cows. this involved pulling up the fence that runs between the cows and horses and replacing it with a new one, whilst replacing this we decided to change the orientation of the fields so that the boundaries that separate them are not parallel with the board ends, the new boundaries will carry onto the other side of the railway track to make it look like the railway just cut straight through the existing larger fields and split them in to two smaller fields. Here are some pictures of the new field boundaries:

 

 

Here is a view from "the other side" (operators side) this view would not have worked before the scenic extensions to the front.

 

 

Also the newest item of rolling stock for Northwick was brought down, it is a Wickham type 27 trolley and trailer that has been built from a brass kit by Tim Thomas and was being returned to Steve Bolton for painting.

 

 

The wickham will hopfully be painted and ready for it to take up residence in the wickham hut for the next exhibition! (Aldershot 8&9th October)

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[Northwick Group]

More progress was made with boards 3 & 4 last week. On board 4 the fencing was continued to the other side of the track, bushes were added to the existing fencing and the grass verges were added to the road sides.

 

 

On board 3 the issue of there being too much ballast around the tracks that lead to the turntable has been resolved by digging out the existing ballast and adding a far smaller amount and covered it with ash, whilst this was being done the opportunity was taken to cover up a few holes that had appeared in the ballast. We also added a small amount of static grass around the water crane to simulate weeds growing there.

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[Northwick Group]

Last friday more trees were replaced, all of these have been built by Tim Thomas. The first one to be replaced was the second tree that is in the field with the cows in, here is a picture of before and after.

 

Before

 

After

 

This was then followed by some of the trees that go along the back of the layout, again here is a before and after shot

 

Before

 

After

 

We have also added another tree to the layout, this one being in the corner of the field on the extension of board 3.

 

 

Here is a shot of the underside of the tree showing the apples (the apples look so luminous because of the flash on the camera)

 

 

Hedges were also added to the fence boundary between the field and engine yard.

 

 

The layout has now been packed up and is ready for its outing this weekend to the Farnham & District MRC exhibition which is being held at the Connaught leisure centre, hope to see you there.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[sbduck]

Northwick is now setup in the Sports Hall of the Connaught Leisure Centre, Tongham Road, Aldershot in readiness for the Farnham Model Railway Exhibition this weekend http://farnhammrc.org.uk/?page_id=158. If you're in the area, why not come over and say hello and check out our recent changes and additions.

[Northwick Group]

Here is a selection of pictures from day one of the Farnham Model Railway Exhibition.

 

[Northwick Group]

Here are some more pictures from day 2

 

 

If you went to the exhibition we hope that you enjoyed seeing Northwick in person. There will be a video of the layout in action to follow

 

Our next exhibition will be Wycrail 2016 on the 5th November at Cressex Community School.

[Northwick Group]

Here is a video from the weekend

 

[sbduck]

After the debut of the unpowered Wickham trolley model at the Aldershot exhibition I decided that the model looked to have a little too much maroon colour.  A quick look at some reference photos confirms that the roof on the maroon trolley's is painted grey (similar to Maroon coaches) with a slight variation from trolley to trolley.  Some trolleys have the 'forehead' of the trolley (the section of body between the upper part of the window and the roof) painted grey as well as the roof while other trolleys have Maroon 'foreheads'.

 

The model has now received a grey roof.

 

 

 

[sbduck]

One of the 'Northwick irregulars' is approaching completion.  A pair of Southern match trucks, as they are going to be semi-permanently coupled, the pair have been 'married together' by a 3-link chain.  All that's left to do for this pair is the application of another coat of paint and some transfers.

 

 

 

[sbduck]

With the extensions on boards 3 & 4 nearing completion it's time to start thinking about the extensions for boards 1 & 2.

 

Board 1 will incorporate a revamped goods yard.  We have never been happy with the design of the current weighbridge, or it's location so we're going to take the opportunity to replace and relocate the weighbridge in the yard.

 

For the new weighbridge I've selected the laser cut kit from Ancorton Models, partly because it has the appearance of being stone built like the rest of the buildings in the yard and partly because it has a large window at the front which invites the viewer to look inside which means that this is a kit just begging for extra detailing.

 

Here is the kit at the halfway stage with the coping stones and arches fitted and the newly assembled roof beside the main body of the building.

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few shots of the building with a test fitting of the roof.

 

 

 

 

 

The next stage is to paint the various components in readiness for final assembly and to build the weighing equipment (which should be interesting as it will be my first scratch build unless I can find a ready to plant version of the equipment).

[tim4948]

With the extensions on boards 3 & 4 nearing completion it's time to start thinking about the extensions for boards 1 & 2.

 

Board 1 will incorporate a revamped goods yard.  We have never been happy with the design of the current weighbridge, or it's location so we're going to take the opportunity to replace and relocate the weighbridge in the yard.

As well as the weigh bridge being replaced the opportunity is being taken to replace the cattle dock, currently the cattle dock on the layout is about 1/4 of the width that it would be normally, this being dictated by the edge of the current base board. Once the extension has been added to the front of the base boards then this will enable us to put a full cattle dock on.

 

The cattle dock that has been chosen is a ratio one which is being modified by replacing the fencing that comes with the kit to a wooden fence (instead of posts with wire going through them, as supplied with the kit), an end unloading ramp and side unloading platform is also being added to the ratio kit.

 

Here are some pictures of what the current cattle dock looks like (excuse the poor pictures of it but they're the best that I can find).

 

 

Here are some pictures of how the new cattle dock looks so far, the basic structures side unloading platform and end unloading ramp have been built from 1mm plasticard and the side was then covered with dressed stone plastic sheet from slathers to match the rest of the structures on Northwick, the top surface was then covered with grey coloured plaster.

 

 

The fence was then constructed, the posts are made from 2mm square plastic rod, the top 2 rails were made from 1mm square plastic rod, the bottom fence palings have been made from ratio GWR station fencing (each fence panel was cut out from the length of fencing supplied by ratio and was the cut in half so that you ended up with 2 panels at half the height) a piece of 0.5x1mm plastic rod was then added for the second rail that runs behind the palings and a diagonal strengthening piece was then added to each new panel. The same process was repeated until there was enough made up for the whole cattle dock, with the panels that go on the ramps the same process was followed but each of the palings had to be cut off and stuck on individually.

 

 

Here are some pictures showing the fencing posed on top of the cattle dock.

 

[Northwick Group]

2 weeks worth of work to report on this post.

 

With the extensions to boards 3&4 we are happy with how the join between the existing boards and the extension have so far been disguised, there is however one part that lets the side down which is the road as you can clearly see the join between the new road and the existing road. Here is a picture to show where the problem is. 

 

 

The first job was to give the new road some texture as the existing road has got some fine ballast on it. This was achieved by grinding down some ballast that we had in stock to the same fineness and sprinkling it over the road and then sticking it down, a couple of layers of paint were then applied. 

 

 

This was when we discovered that we had made a huge error, what we thought was ballast was in fact cat litter which is aiming to be used as a light weight ballast by another group within the club. The problem is (which wont come as a huge surprise) that the cat litter expands when it gets wet so we ended up with a lot of texture to the road! we picked off the worst of it whilst it was still wet and the rest was left to dry fully. We then returned the following Friday, got the layout out and started trying to think what the best way to move forward was. We found out whilst experimenting with other things that if you rubbed the road with your fingers then this broke down the cat litter and left a fine uneven texture to the road, the sort that we were aiming for!

 

It was then just a case of weathering in the new road to blend in with the existing road so the section which new road joins directly with the existing road was given a browny-grey colour to match the base colour of the existing road which slowly faded to the colour of the new road, this was then followed a mixture of browns, blacks and greys that were dry brushed on the road to give a more uneven colour. Below are some pictures of how the road looked like by the end of last Friday.

 

 

Let us know what you think of the road so far, do you think that it could be improved in any way?

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group

[Northwick Group]

Last Saturday we took Northwick to the wycrail exhibition, if you saw us there we hope you enjoyed seeing the layout in person. Here are a few pictures from the exhibition.

 

Evening Star passes fellow class mate 92192 in the engine yard.

 

41661 shunts the goods yard.

 

Sir Ironside passes ivatt class 4 43038 in the engine yard

 

Jinty 47482 was on station pilot duties.

 

Newly finished coaches also appeared on the layout (The 2 blood and custard ones) which are a Ex LMS articulated third open + third open, these have been built by Tim Thomas.

 

Ivatt class 4 prepares to depart with a goods train.

 

Trematon Castle arrives with a passenger train.

 

[Northwick Group]

As we are not going to another exhibition until April 2017 we have decided to do the extensions on boards 1&2 the base board extensions have now been fitted in the same way as boards 3&4 were.

 

Here is Board 2 once the extension has been fixed on (as you can see it is being load tested and just goes to show if there is a convenient place to put something then it will be put there!)

 

 

Next up was the extension for board 1, before the extension was applied the opportunity was taken to take some pictures of how the board currently looks as this will change quite drastically once the extension and scenic work has been done. Here are some pictures of how it currently looks.

 

 

 

 

Once the extensions have been applied.

 

 

Now for a brief description of what is planned for this board. The line taht currently serves the cattle dock will be pulled up along with the cattle dock, the line will then be replaced and will come out closer to the new edge of the board the new cattle dock with an end unloading ramp will then be put next to this line, this will open up the area that is currently between the cattle dock line and what is currently the brake van line. We are also thinking of moving the coal staithes and coal merchants hut so that the brake van line will continue up to the yard light, this will then become the new coal siding and the coal staithes and merchants hut will then be placed in the space between this line and the new cattle dock line. Here is a picture showing the rough location of the new cattle dock.

 

If any of this doesn't make sense or isn't clear then I will crate a diagram showing the old next to the new.

Edited July 6, 2017 by Northwick Group