Leaderboard

Continuing with the Tweemoor Yard scene, one of the things indicated in the grand plan (shown a couple of blogs back) was a road winding in from the front and over a railway bridge at the back. Unfortunately the yard has spread out more than originally intended, so the road has had to be squeezed in rather tightly at the front. Its more of an N gauge road really, one of those narrow lanes where you wouldn't want to meet a tractor coming the other way. Previous road surfaces on the layout consisted of a flat layers of painted card, and that is exactly what they look like. For the scene here I decided to use a different method that I hadn't tried before - cork underlay. This actually turned out to be rather wonderful stuff for roads. Its more flexible and stretchy than card, making it easy to add a camber even on winding roads without it rucking up or introducing unwanted speed bumps. Not only that but it also has quite a nice texture when painted. The base of the road was roughly defined in card. Some thin card was glued along the centre line where the camber is to be. This is what I'm aiming for... Glue was applied just along the edges of the cork and it was stuck in place. The surface was sealed with a couple of coats of light grey emulsion from one of those little tester pots. After that was dry, the road was coloured and weathered to taste with washes of poster paint. The camber is quite subtle, but makes all the difference in the appearance of the road. This is how the Tweemoor scene looks so far, still rather bleak. The card surround shows the eventual extent of the viewing window. I haven't taken the road all the way to the bridge as there will be a view-blocker of trees in that corner, into which the road will disappear. The next steps will be to add ground cover and lots of trees, which should brighten things up. Cheers Alan.

I've made some reasonable progress in the past couple of weeks with the various locos under construction. First the Crab had a front AJ coupling added and a shed plate, which I had somehow overlooked, a crew in the cab and coal in the tender. Since then, I've almost finished the Jubilee, the latest jobs being coal in the tender, cab glazing and fixing the roof after adding a crew. Just waiting for the glue to fully dry in the tender before reconnecting loco and tender. The Caprotti Black 5 (loco and tender bodies) was collected at the Warley show after painting. Today, I've fitted the buffer heads, AJ couplings, number and shed plates, glazed the cab and re-assembled the bodies and chassis. There will need to be some adjustments to the chassis and body weathering to blend them together and there is still the crew and coal to fit. The Caprotti and Jubilee are shown in these photos. It's clear that the Jubilee loco and tender are not connected. Neither is the Caprotti, but that pushed together to the proper positions, unlike the Jub. First, the Caprotti, with the Jub peeping in: Then the JUb. with the Caprotti tender: And finally, a front three quarters showing both: Dave.

I've taken the plunge and decided to share my modelling efforts with the wider world .... "Blackford & Hinton" has been under construction for about 12 months since a house move enforced demolition of its predecessor. The basic premise is that it's somewhere on the former GC between Brackley and Leicester giving an excuse to run ex-GW, LMS and LNE locos side by side. So, Woodford Halse but a much more urban setting ... The available space is a generous 19' by 16' providing for a continuous run of double track with a diverging junction at one end (one line to Marylebone, the other to Banbury??). There are 18 storage loops "off-stage". The main circuits are now fully operational but still being de-bugged. Current energy is being devoted to constructing the loco depot. More to follow along with pictures ....

The basic timber framework follows the method set out by John Aherne (of Madder Valley fame) in his book "Miniature Landscape Modelling, originally published c.1950 - see photo. The surface is half-inch chipboard. I've used this method for 40 years and it's relatively easy as no carpentry skills are required The exception is a removable section at one end where in order to accomodate a Metcalfe bridge, I used thin ply for the track bed - less than ideal but it works - see picture. This section has been wired with multi-pin connectors at each end and can, if required, be removed to enable access to a radiator behind. It's located using the time-honoured method of door hinges with removable pins, one at each end. All surfaces were given a coat of neutral grey paint before track-laying commenced. The completed baseboards are free-standing and do not touch the room wall at any point.

So far so good, i've managed to pretty much overhaul the locomotive and tender to give a decent representation of a J27. Unfortunately when I was looking over some images of the engine i was going to represent it turns out the dome was the wrong type. Being that anal I hunted around for another J27 with NER Pattern buffers and dome in the Teesside region...eventually finding 65870 which spend most of it's life in or around Area 51 and have the correct pattern details I needed. Following on from this, I just need to add some more obscured loop couplings, make up some three linkers and glazing otherwise she's ready for a repaint. Saying that, I am considering making a slightly bigger balance weight for the centre wheels to help hide the other splashers as the J27 had them only on the centre ones.... maybe I should have done a J26 !

BR Standard 73066 heads 'The Queenshead' block cement train at High Wycombe on 28-09-1963 7929 'Wyke Hall' on a mixed freight at High Wycombe in May 1964

I accepted at the start of this project that commercial support in the form of ready to run locomotives and rolling stock would be non-existent. That's not a new experience, some forty odd years ago I started serious railway modelling by choosing to represent the South Eastern Railway in the 1890s and there was no commercial support for that either. The difference between now and then however is the range of technology that can be brought in to assist. I have a personal computer with drawing packages which I use to produce art work for brass etching and laser cutting, I have a Silhouette cutter that I use to cut thin Plastikard with, and these days home resin casting is feasible and safe. All very different from those days where scratchbuilding was slow and laborious. There being no commercial support does remove the temptation, or pressure, to deploy a loco or carriage type on the layout because a model is available rather than because it fits the overall scheme. Funnily enough though, the temptation to include items because you like them doesn't go away, and the problem I have with Thonburi is that there are things I want to model which are not appropriate for a strict model of Thonburi. I had encountered that issue when considering the scenic treatment, hence my station is more generically Thonburi than accurately so. With the locos and rolling stock though there is the danger of everything just being a free for all and there not being any theme, the curse of freelance layouts. Back in the day you'd have thought no Southern branch in the West Country missed out on it's own bit of the Atlantic Coast Express if you went by the layouts featured in the Modeller, and I did not want to revive that phenomenon. My starting point is the timetable of the real Thonburi, photographed at the station itself (and two pictures stitched together for this blog) This is actually quite a nice timetable for a layout. There are two sorts of trains. One is described as "Comuter" and these are made up of a two car railcar set shuttling back and forth. (Salaya is a small place some 19 km from Thonburi). The other type of train is the "Ordinary train", basically an all-stations stopper with only third class accommodation. There are two runs to Nam Tok (this is the infamous "Death Railway", the one built by Allied POWs and Thai and Chinese forced labour) and two heading down the Southern Line for a few hundred kilometers. As far as stock is concerned these trains require me to make a pair of Japanese railcars and a number of third class carriages. I did the necessary measurements while in Bangkok a few years ago and had drawings published in CM. I've also produced the artwork for etches of the third class carriages and currently have two built and a further three under construction. One thing I would like to include though is an excuse to run the Thai version of the BREL Class 158. As the layout is being built in England and could potentially be exhibited in England, that is really a layout requirement. (The other "by popular request" item is of course THAT market, but that's not going to happen. Someone else has done it already anyway) The major shortcoming though is the absence of any freight. Thonburi did have freight facilities but that was before the last 500 meters of line were donated on government order to the Siriraj hospital extension. Bangkok does have a suitable freight only terminal, so the idea is to somehow combine that with Thonburi. The terminal in question is Manum (or Mae Nam in some translations). It's in SE Bangkok, on the other side of the river from Thonburi. It's one of the end points of the freight only Khlong Thoei branch. I am preparing an article on this line so I have a summary map already drawn up. The traffic on this branch is crude oil in and refined products out to an oil refinery and containers to a dock on the river port. Just the sort of thing I have in mind. On my layout plan I have trains coming in along a single line which serves the passenger station and then the line splits so there are two exits at the other end. On the real Thonburi these were the lines to the original passenger platforms and freight shed, but on mine I envisage one leading to an oil refinery off stage and the other to a ship dock where small container ships dock. (The large behemoths can't come up river as far as Bangkok). Now Thailand's first railway, the Paknam railway, ran through this part of Bangkok too. In reality the Paknam railway was never connected to the rest of the system. It was also turned into an inter-urban electric tramway some time after World War One and was closed in the 1960s. In the near future it is likely that the overhead BTS Sukhumvit line will be extended to Paknam, it's getting there bit by bit. That is fact. Now my alternative history is that the Paknam railway was linked to the main network by a line laid towards Chachoengsoa, possibly the junction is near the present Survanabhumi airport, the freight traffic to the river ports was run over this rather than building the line from Makkasan and that sometime in the 1990s, land requirements for redevelopment caused the last mile or two of the Paknam line to be closed and passenger services turned towards the freight stations and a new, temporary looking, station building erected and platforms laid to service passenger trains In this alternative history I can run oil tanker and container trains and on the passenger side I can have railcars serving Paknam - the Paknam Comuter - and ordinary trains to places like Kabinburi and Rayong. That leaves that desire for a 158 set. Well, the notorious resort of Patthaya lies on the way to Rayong. In reality Patthaya has one train a day connecting it to Bangkok's Hualamphong. In this fiction it will gain a Rapid Train from my station, operated by a class 158 railcar set - the Patthaya Express. So, in my alternative Bangkok, the city has an extra passenger terminus. In addition to Hualamphong, Thonburi and Wongwangyai, there is the terminus of the South Eastern line. As this is a combination of Mae Nam and Thonburi, the name of Maenamburi might be appropriate - and with a meaning of "river fort" it sounds reasonably authentically Thai as well.

Seems I have been slacking off a bit with my blog entries of late. I blame the weather. Now that it's warming up, I'm spending more time outside and less in the train room but that doesn't mean I have been slacking off in the room altogether. The ongoing project of the grounded coach body continues and seems to be slowly turning into a diorama of its own. After my last entry, I have added a window box, outdoor seat and "resident" as well as giving it a coat of paint. The painting was unintentional but I wanted to try out an acrylic wash and a 1/2" wash brush that was given to me by my wife as part of a set last Christmas. As the coach body was really only ever intended as a learning tool, it seemed the most obvious choice for this trial. I must admit that I am rather pleased with the result and the coach has taken on a whole new character to what it was in white. Speaking of paint, I have made a couple of purchases recently which have really helped eliminate the various storage containers that have been the home of my paints and brushes for many years now. The first one was a steel pencil case with a tray in it which I use to store my brushes, stirrers and mixing pipettes, The other (and more important) is a small 2 draw organiser which is just the right height to hold my numerous 15ML Humbrol paint tins along with the aforementioned pencil case and other paraphernalia. The whole lot is now one tidy unit that fits nicely into the draw that used to have 3 different boxes and various bits and pieces in it. Unfortunately, the draws aren't high enough for paint jars from the likes of Tamiya and Model Master so they are still in a separate box. All up, it cost me about $40 AU at "Officeworks" which is a large stationery chain of this shire. I'm not sure what the UK equivalent would be but I'm sure someone from this forum will have that answer. Unlike the paints, another collection I have is more by design than accident. For about 10 or so years now, I have been collecting Tri ang / Triang Hornby trains. For the main part, these have been kept in various boxes and parcels in cupboards until a couple of weeks ago when I decided to pull them out and see just what I had. Three hours later, I'd managed to cover a 17'x2' bench with no room left. Think it's time I got a display case on the wall. A little side project (I know, there are many) that I currently have is a scratch built shed that I started a great long time ago (When the train room was still the garage). This was built using plastic rod and "timber" from an Atlas "Mill lumber" kit. Not sure why I started this but I think it had something to do with the plan of a men's facility that was published in one of the Volumes on the SEVERN & WYE railway. Somewhere along the way though, it morphed into becoming the basis of a small, slightly run down, garden shed. At this time, it is still a work in progress but it may end up joining the grounded coach body at some time. A new trick this old dog has learned recently is making trees. I know many of you are saying "But that's easy, I've been doing it for years," but I really only knew the basic concept of tree construction and not the technique. However, thanks to a video on You Tube (isn't the internet wonderful?) I finally cracked the mystery of tree making. My first attempt was not so flash as I used the wrong gauge wire and ended up with something that looked not unlike a very sick weeping willow and so that was consigned to the "I might need that one day" box. At this point, Mrs Milkman came to the rescue once more with some florist wire that she no longer needed. Attempt number two was a vast improvement as far as the frame went but I feel I was a little to gung ho with the latex (First time I've used it) so it looks just a little chunky although still very passable as a tree. As I type this, I am waiting for the adhesive to dry so I can add more foliage. Attempt three, at this time, is looking the goods and I am quite pleased with it. Of course, practice makes perfect and I will be practicing a bit as time goes on although nature is not perfect so you could almost say near enough is good enough when it comes to trees. For now though, I must leave you dear reader until next time. If I don't manage another entry before then, have yourselves a merry little Christmas and I hope that the big guy in the red suit brings you much joy on the day. The grounded coach with it's "new" paint, window box and the resident reading the latest copy of his favourite railway modelling magazine The organiser that now holds all of my enamel paints and painting paraphernalia. General overview of my Tri ang collection. Trees! The one on the right is attempt 2 with attempt 3 on the left. The scratch built "shed" and the Atlas kit used to build it.

Late in 2016, after a long period of playing trains, but not doing much with the layout, I decided to remove the little used "freight loop" and with it the diamond crossings and three way points that caused more derailments than I was happy with. By asking handyman Mark (whilst visiting to do some work in the kitchen) to put a larger fillet in one corner of the fiddle yard, a siding could be extended, and brought all the way round the layout to become the 4th circuit. This gave the opportunity for another platform, which soon became an island platform (mainly from spare piece of timber just the right depth.) and finished in the same style as the others. Because of a lack of space it's very narrow, and slightly shorter than the others (approx. 6 Mk1s, whereas the other 3 are 7 Mk1s). A shortened Airfix/ Dapol footbridge provides access to it, and a lengthened Airfix/ Dapol footbridge spans the four track mainline elsewhere. I also moved the steam shed a bit, to utilise a redundant area and create a larger area for a village.

For the last few months I have been looking for a specialised freight train to model. I have, in the past, built a bogie fish van or two and had another gifted to me, so you might be thinking a fish train would answer the bill, but my understanding is that fish trains usually ran to 30 or more vehicles, just a little too long for my tastes and storage. It was whilst discussing some alterations to an N gauge cattle wagon with a friend that I first found this image, courtesy Steve Banks' website. A bit more manageable, I think. The loco- yes, you can get those quite easily. The brakevan?- built one of those previously and got the drawings for an improved version. It's the cattle wagons that need a bit of thinking about. So, having a look at what is available (and more importantly available on my budget of maximum £20 per wagon). The Bachmann ex-LMS cattle wagon- the framing is wrong. The Oxford LNER wagon- well there's the obvious issue of the sides being identical rather than handed, then the framing being of approximately the right pattern but the wrong material (angle iron rather than timber). It did give me an idea though- the Dapol (ex-Airfix) kits. Well, I had one of those to hand (one I built many years ago) and offering it up to the drawing in Tatlow's LNER wagons book suggested that the overall dimensions were about right. Worth a shot? Well, this is what we're aiming at. And the starting point. First impressions? Overall dimensions are suitable, framing is about the right pattern but the wrong material, the doors are wrong and there are probably a multitude of little details that are wrong but would pass my 3' viewing distance yardstick. Better put in an order for a lot of plastic strip and sheet.... To see some progress at an early stage the first thing I did was to build the chassis. This is a remarkably robust set of mouldings and went together quite well, once the flash had been removed. Each panel of the body is an individual piece. Making for an easier job of the conversion- especially when it's all still on the sprues! First job is to cut away the excess strapping to the bottom of the body panels. We don't need it for these wagons. Then the angle iron strapping has notches cut into it at the joints. Why would we cut those notches in? Because we're turning the angle iron into timber- a strip of 0.5mm square section plastic down each side of it to bulk it out. Don't forget to add the extra vertical to the top of the body panels. Then some plastic sheet into the corner. Well, I managed to butcher two panels- leaving another pair to look at, and the ends, and the other five kits, but then the pink elephants told me to stop for the evening. I don't know where they went last night after I packed up but they weren't at the table this morning.

While on holiday in Cornwall over Easter I visited the bookshop of the Launceston Steam Railway and purchased a copy of the Robert Hudson Light Railway catalogue from 1915 as reprinted by the Narrow Gauge Railway Society. I decided I'd try to draw up and print a U skip more as a scenic feature than as a working piece of rolling stock. I trust one small picture is allowed under 'fair use' rules and I'd strongly recommend the book. The 3D model took me a few hours to put together, modeling the skip body, chassis, wheels, bearing carriers and end supports. I'm getting better at this 3D modelling lark, I've decided the vital piece of equipment is a pencil and paper to work out the order I'm going to draw things. I know it sounds mad but thinking about which surfaces you are going to draw and then how you are going to extrude or otherwise manipulate them before diving into CAD saves an awful lot of time. The resulting models were printed out on my Wanhao, the process wasn't fast, the skip body taking about 6 hours to print! The wall thickness is only .8mm but it is surprisingly strong. There was a fair bit of surface finishing to do in order to get rid of some of the banding associated with the layers of printing. A bit of filing, filling and a couple of coats of primer have covered most of the them and by the time I've applied 2-part rust compound I think it'll look pretty good. Every item in the catalogue has a telegraphic codeword so, if you want to buy one all you need is a TARDIS and send the word 'Porfidos' to 'Foundry, Gildersome' David