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Bits and Pieces


Ravenser

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I've had the layout up for a few days, and as well as a couple of operating sessions, I've taken the opportunity to sort out various jobs , as someone is slated to come and see it...

 

The big one is that at long last the station building has been finished off, with an end, back wall and door, and the "bomb damage" is no more. Quite deliberately the effect is that a section has been taken through the building - rather than paint the back wall black , I used some Superquick red brickpaper - this marks the fact that this isn't really a wall of the actual building, but goes with the brown of the fascia, and gives a more muted effect. The overall result adds a seemingly substantial building as an end view block and adds surprising "weight" to the station. It does now look like a significant terminus in a substantial town.

 

In a similar vein, the buffer stops that I started about 2 months ago are now done and in place. These are balsa buffer planks , painted red with some spare buffers fitted - a packet of old brass buffers which the header card described as GWR but which must have dated from Sir Daniel Gooch's reign , as they seemed to be Victorian solid buffers, plus two spare Mk1 coach buffers - the latter for the centre platform which is supposed to have been added by the LMR in the late 1950s when they were planning to divert trains from the Chesterfield Central line into Artamon Square ahead of the GC closures.

 

Half a packet of Bachmann TMD figures have been installed - we now have a shunter on Platform 3, to avoid any awkward questions about how the driver of a departing loco-hauled substitute service can see the aspect of the starter when the cab of his 31 is past the signal

 

While I was about it I had a rummage through my compartment box of small scenic details for any other figures. I came up with some rather useful BR figures and others which now turn out to be these http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69215-1980s-model-people-in-00/

 

A driver plodding down the platform with his bag, a member of platform staff , a woman in a leather jacket and a standing male passenger have been installed. I don't want a crowded platform - just a handful of people dotted around a half deserted station. After a hasty field survey of prototype examples locally I've come to the conclusion blonde is extremely difficult to paint effectively because it's generally a variable overlay over a darker colour . (I hasten to say I'm not married.... "Oi , what are you doing?" "Researching model figure painting , officer") Basildon station platform at 8am would be a figure painter's nightmare assignment .

 

Otherwise a second Kadee uncoupler magnet has gone into the fiddle yard , for the release of kettles of the 2-6-4T and 0-6-0 varieties (it should also handle a 20 or 23) . The first one , on the long road, has proved effective in uncoupling the 31 on an incoming loco-hauled : meaning less physical handling of stock/fiddling with poles , which is useful when access to the fiddle yard is restricted and getting things on the rails properly distinctly awkward.

 

Running with the BR Blue stock is now pretty rocksolid reliable, and certainly better than the steam stock - I have a feeling I'm going to have to do something about the pony truck on that L1 and the bearings on three axles of the LNW TK have been eased with an Antex so it runs reasonably freely

 

The next job is sorting out the wiring on Tramlink so I have a proper DC test track.....

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