Leaderboard

Well, another few years have gone by since the last post. The Lydney station project has ground to a halt, but the general plan has remained the same: I'm trying to work on smaller projects I can manage with the space and money available. I've decided to focus on Forest of Dean and roughly 1920s as a time period. I have braved the customs of the post-Brexit world and ordered some bits and bobs from Wizard and Cambrian, some of which have turned up. The Cambrian GWR 6-ton hand crane I assembled years ago is first on the list: it has finally been painted, filled with lead in the toolboxes, balance weight and under the chassis, and fitted with 3mm S&W couplings on the outer ends, and 3 link (crane) and instanter (match truck) between the two. Special thanks to KNP of this parish for inspiration and encouragement as regards the match truck lettering. Next it needs weathering and the jib retaining chain attaching. The crane itself is basically finished, I've managed to make quite posable, the jib can be raised or lowered and the crane can be rotated. I drilled some tiny holes in the chain drum so it can be rotated (with the help of a small piece of wire). I also had to fashion a new hook (plasticard, a fishing weight and a piece of violin E string), which is removable so you can thread the pulley for double chain lifting on. Over the years I lost the original hook, as well as the pon securing the crane body to the chassis, and while painting managed to break all four buffers off, so I turned some new brass ones with the help of a pillar drill and some needle files (very high tech). Now all I need is for Italian customs to get their act together and get the wheels I ordered to me. Next up (in hopefully less than a couple of years) a GWR loco coal wagon.

Before I press on with the construction of the other points on the Paynestown 2 project, I felt I'd gain a lot of confidence if I could test the first one thoroughly. To that end, I've begun building a small section of the final layout on foam core, which - if all goes well - can be integrated into the rest of it later on. Provided it's treated properly, foamcore is exellently stable, as the scenic modules I built for my American layout 10 years ago are still perfectly straight. So i've no qualms about using this material as the basic foundation for the track. In fact, I plan to go further and build much of the baseboard from the same material, albeit with strengthening against damage. This point is the entry into the bay on Paynestown. Immediately preceding it will be a right hand turnout, but for testing purposes I've lightly glued in a short stretch of track to give the loco a run-up to the point. The intention here is that all the wiring and point control will be arranged above the board, with operation from the rear. There'll be a steep retaining wall between the loco and the wiring here, with a hillside on top of that. Strips of copper clad serve as "north" and "south" rail buses, which should keep everything reasonably organised. Point actuation is to be manual, using wire in tube as shown here. I've added an Omega loop to absorb any extra travel, with the intention being to work the point via an SPDT sliding toggle switch, with the actuating wire going through a small hole in the sliding switch. I'm copying this from Marc Smith's layouts which I've operated and which work well. I like the idea of keeping this layout as simple and clean as possible, so no under-layout wiring and no point motors etc. Although there might end up being electromagnets. At the moment the frog polarity isn't switched, but touching the frog wire to one or other of the bus rails proves that the frog is working as desired. The Dapol pannier shown here won't traverse the point unless the frog is live. In all other respects the point seems to be working properly so I'm confident about building the remaining ones. The little Dapol engine has barely been out of its box since I bought it about 8 years ago so I was pleased when it whirred it life very happily. Together with the 56xxs it will be an important part of the operating roster.

It's a start, at least: The reason I've built this Code 40 point, from the Finetrax kit, is that I'm hatching a plan to redo my old layout Paynestown, except in N rather than 00. The idea isn't to copy it slavishly but to end up with something with the same basic design of elevated track and valleys architecture. The track plan of Paynestown was satisfying to operate so I've planning something very similar, the main difference being that the release crossover won't be on a curve this time. The scenic part of Paynestown was about 7 feet long so the idea is to accommodate the entire scenic portion in about 4 foot in N, on a single lightweight board. Why didn't I do it in N originally? Partly because the idea was to use up a surplus of old track and buildings, but also because the signature loco - the 56XX - was only available in 4mm in RTR. The Sonic Models 56XX, of which I've got two on order, was the motivation to start thinking about this new version of Paynestown. Since the layout only required six points on the scenic part, I was minded to try a finer scale approach than Peco Code 55, so a set of Finetrax point kits, rail parts and jigs was acquired. Control will be DC, at least initially, with DG couplings and electriomagnets for operation. Paynestown could be operated hands-off so that will be the intention. There is no timescale for this project, so developments will be intermittent.

It started as a quick weathering project, it ended almost two months after. A tangent has occurred... Many years ago I was inspired by Jim Smith-Wright's article of improving the 4mm scale class 25 from Bachmann. The article can be found here. I've yet to see anyone attempt such a project in 2mm, so why not? Here we go! The first job was the mill the plastic solebar under the cabs back, using photos as a guide and the buffer back plates as limit. Now cosmetic solebars can be constructed with small channel section and given a coat of black paint. Not a great photo but it does show the improvement to the model. Next was to tackle the fuel and water tanks. The Farish model has a cast weight in the way which forms part of the chassis frames, this was milled flush and a new clear plastic frame brace bar fitted and retained with 12BA CSK brass screws to keep the frame distances the same. The water tank was removed by chain drilling around a hundred 0.5mm holes. A new blade was used to join the dots and separate the tank to be retained for later use. The fuel tank and batteries were then milled off completely. A false floor was added from plasticard and three new T section cross beams added across the width of the underframe. New fuel tanks, battery boxes and bed plate drain tanks were milled from blocks of laminated plasticard. The water tank previously removed was modified into a three dimensional object and attached to the fuel thanks using nickle silver brackets. Final details such as a bed plate drain valve, fuel level gauge and water tank to boiler pipe are now added. A basic pre-weathering paint job was given after attaching all parts to the underframe. The driver is a Modelu 3D print and was painted using an acrylic base and oil washes. Weathering of the finished model is a mix of oil paints, oil washes and powders over a preshaded base.

The last post saw a basic shell of a third of a Cradley Bogie - the working title for which soon became 'Cradbog', hence the title. One thing that really stands out with Up the Line is the smooth, reliable and realistic running of the locos and we wanted this to be the case again with this project. Thus the formula adopted was to go for split chassis pick up and DCC with stay alive. It is intended to have a realistic overhead wire but this will not be live. While on traditional locos there is plenty of room to hide big motors and gearboxes, the trams leave very little scope for this. Here is where Trevor's engineering skills and experience come into the mix with some beautifully crafted solutions. So now we have a chassis which runs, albeit a bit noisily and with a slight wobble. Solution - wait for some new parts to arrive and move onto something else! This may sound like very promiscuous modelling but there is a justification! The whole point of this initial exercise was to establish the practicality and the limits of what we could achieve in O-24.5, so to do this we really needed a 4 wheel car as well! How else will we know what curves we can employ on the layout? Therefore, not much more has happened with the Cradbog for now but in the next episode I will introduce the DS9!

I've been quite busy making up more of the stock for Southwold. That busy in fact, I have forgotten to update the progress in the blog. I am aiming to make all the stock the Railway had. Sourcing the coaches is not a problem, thank you to Worsley works. And golden arrow produce the loco kits and van body's in resin, as well as the 6 wheels. ive also got the two 1-plank Wagons and the two 2-plank wagons. The main issue is the 4-plank wagons that were produced by NineLines. I have enough for Wagons 1-8. But I'm short for about 7 of the lower ended wagons, numbered 15-23.

This one might be the last for a while, because I get a little weary of doing too many of these sketches at a time. This one owes a huge debt to the Welsh Railway Research Circle's excellent publication on the Rhymney, Welsh Railway Records Volume 1, which was the source not only for the drawing I used as a foundation, but also provided some excellent photos. The sharp eyed who have the book might be able to see a number of (minor) areas where my interpretation of the photographs differed from my understanding of the drawing. This was a tricky one to shade. Dark Brunswick Green, apparently, was the chosen colour of the Rhymney, so I found a "Dark Brunswick Green" reference on line and constructed a shading palette from that, but together with the thickish outline I use for these sketches the result is perhaps not as clear as it might be. I may have to think about that, but if I go paler it would be getting closer to GWR middle chrome green than I would really like. I've always found these idiosyncratic outside frame locomotives rather appealing, and wish I had the skills to model one. It will be fun when I get on to the GWR rebuilt 0-6-2Ts with similar frames and pannier tanks.

A new O Gauge commission build for a Metropolitan ‘X’ Peckett, based from the Mercian Models 0-6-0 kit. The requirement for this model is broken down as follows: Highly Detailed Cab Interior, using various components Slaters sprung horn blocks DC control Locomotive number 101 Painted & Lined in metropolitan colours Firstly with all new kits a full inventory is checked and the parts laid out in ‘Loco Build’ box, this allows the parts to be organised and separated into left hand right hand components. Progress has started with the assembly of the main body rivet detail and the assembly of the boiler, there are over 500 rivets that needed to be pressed using our rivet press tool, this advantage of a press tool is to ensure all the rivets are the same. The next step is the assembly of the footplate with the main cab, followed by the boiler ensuring all the structures are square. The body has been assembled starting with attaching the cab to the footplate first ensuring all is square. The boiler wrap is quite tricky to achieve the correct profile, once this was complete the a P38 body filler is used to smooth out the curve and make it uniform. The front smokebox door has been added along with the window surrounds and handrail details. Work left to do on the body is the small detail pipework, chimney, dome, cab beading, roof, footplate steps and buffer beams. The cab interior firebox has been assembled with some of the supplied castings, more detail will be added with pipework and water gauges. The chassis has been assembled with slaters hornblocks, the hornblocks have been fixed to the frame by tinning both surfaces first. next step is to assemble the coupling rods and wheel assembly.

The original track plan had to be discarded as it was in too poor a state due to being used for constructing the baseboards. So during this last week I printed out and pasted together another full size track plan. This will be pasted to the baseboards and used to position the turnout along with laying all plain track in situ. First task was to make sure the new track plan fitted… Hmm overall the fit was not too bad but there were a couple of very minor tweaks to be made. I’m putting the slight misalignment's between the two track plans (the one used to cut the plywood and the new one) down to the difficulty in pasting all the sheets of A4 together. Also even though I’ve calibrated our two printers there seems to be a very slight twist in the printouts from them both. Only a very small difference but over such a large area it has had an effect. The above photo shows state of play a few days ago with the three sidings at the front having cork underneath and the new plan glued in place ready for track laying to start. At this stage the rest of the plan was only taped in position in an effort to check the fit before cutting the cork underlay. After redrawing a couple of areas to get the track to get a better alignment, with inspection pits and the rise up the coaling stage ramp, it all fits a lot better. I discovered that Templot has the ability to print out the cess at the track edge. This assured me that I’d cut the plywood for the mainline track bed to the correct width which should allow a small shoulder on the ballast. Phew! I’m not too concerned about the rest of the track as most of the shed area will be reasonably flat with possibly no shoulder to the ballast edge. As of this morning the entire track plan is now secured in position. Due to the size of the baseboards I think most, if not all, of the turnouts will have to be built on the bench. This may cause a few minor problems with track alignment if I lay too much plain track first. So bearing this in mind I’ll have to get to grips with turnout construction pretty soon. Two areas I need to think about soon are: How am I going to lay the track within the running shed? Is it to be embedded within the running shed floor or laid on top? Also, before I lay too much track, thought needs to be applied to cable runs for applying power to the track, as well as how many power sections to create which will help diagnose any electrical shorts that I’m bound to experience with DCC. For now though I feel the need to stain some timbers…

YouTube It’s a wonderful thing. I stumbled upon this 8mm cinefilm home video from the 60’s, just as the Clevedon branch’s working life was drawing to a close. This line is the inspiration for my layout, and I am trying to distill the general feel of it while giving it my own twist. (I wasn’t around to see the real thing, after all!) 1:30 > 2:15 in this video is all footage of the real Kingston Bridge, 5 minutes walk from my childhood home. I’m trying to create a representation of this as the titular bridge on my layout, at the far end where trains will emerge and disappear through to the fiddle yard. A 3D printed letterbox is in the works to be set into the bridge wall. Here are some then and now comparisons: You can just about see where the old postbox has been removed from the parapet, as well as the old (BR? GWR?) fence posts buried in the hedge. The rusty old excavator has been buried in weeds on the old track bed since before I was born, I think it will be given a nod to on the layout in some way. Grant me some creative license, I am trying to capture the essence of 4 miles into 2 metres....

Did a bit of progress on the Coach balconies. These had a very attractive style of safety rail, with a safety chain across the gap. the coaches had manually operated brakes, with a brake handle at one end of each coach. Three coaches (No.1, No.3, No.5) had brake handles at the Southwold end of the Coach, and the other three (No.2, No.4, No.6) had brake handles at the Halesworth ends. presumably this was so the gaurd was able to put the brakes on two coaches simultaneously, without having to walk through the carriage to reach the other brake handle.

Current status on 'No.4 Wenhaston'. Adding 3D rivets at the moment and building the Chassis, so not the quickest of work. The Southwold Railway purchased this loco in anticipation for the extra goods traffic due to the opening of the harbour. Although the harbour trade never took off as expected, 'No.4 Wenhaston' was still used on regular trains on the line, and was one of the last ones in steam.

The Southwold Railway was a British 3ft Narrow Gauge Railway. Built in 1879 and closed in 1929. The main line was 8 miles (14.15 km) long, running from Southwold to Halesworth, stopping at three intermediate stations, Walberswick, Blythburgh and Wenhaston. The was a link to Blackshore Quay, between Southwold and Walberswick, which was to be 0.25 miles long. The railway had with three locomotives for the opening, but a total of four by closure, built by Sharp, Stewart Company. They had a 2-4-0/2-4-2 wheel arrangement, and the design was similar to others that the company had supplied for light passenger work. Sharp Stewart also supplied rolling stock. Construction of the railway had cost £90,000, (equivalent to £9,220,000 in 2020). A maximum speed of 16 miles per hour (26 km/h) was specified, and it was worked by one engine in steam. At Halesworth, the single platform had a shelter for the passengers, and was connected to the Great Eastern Mainline station by a footbridge. There was a raised timber platform between one of the sidings and a standard gauge siding, where goods were transhipped. Many of the trains were mixed goods and passenger workings, with the shunting at intermediate stations adding to the journey time for the passengers. The stock did not have a continuous brake, and although the Board of Trade raised the issue at regular intervals, the railway was always able to point to its clean record for transporting passengers, and somehow managed to avoid having to fit one. In 1906 it was announced that the line would be widened from its present narrow gauge to allow carriages and wagons to come direct through from Halesworth. This was not carried out, and sadly the railway closed on 11 April 1929. After that the Railway lay dormant for a number of years, until the outbreak of World War Two, when the remnants of the Railway were broken up for scrap to help aid the war effort.

This was the progress I have made on the first loco 'No.1 Southwold'. Albeit not finished. The other locos, 'No.2 Blyth' and 'No.3 Halesworth' were of a 2-4-0 wheel arrangement. 'No.4 Wenhaston' was an 0-6-2 wheel arrangement. The loco kits are white metal and are sourced from Golden Arrow Models. I first built this when I was around 16, but have recently stripped it back to the metal, and rebuilt it. I also went down the route of adding 3D rivet transfers, as I felt it gave the model a bit more of a prototypical look.

The Railway had a a wide variety of goods wagons. There where multiple 4 wheeled Dropside open wagons with curved ends, Two 4 wheel goods vans, and an endless supply of 6 wheel cleminson wagons. Ive started building up kits of the 4 wheel open wagons that I have acquired from the nine lines range. The 6 wheel cleminson wagons are resin cast from Golden Arrow, and the 6 wheel coaches are Brass etches that arr from Worsley Works. The wheels are Parkside Dundas 00n3.

I've now painted and therefore completed the station building. For the most part I used Humbrol acrylic paints and was pleased with how I got on with them. I've had problems in the past but I like the matt finish (unlike some so called matt enamels), the way in which you can mix the paints and the ease with which they dilute with water. I collected a number of greyish acrylics whilst I was at Gaugemaster at Ford but didn't realise that some are a satin finish, this is not shown on the container. As a result the first coat of paint was with one of these, my puzzlement answered by reference to the Humbrol colour chart. My conclusion is that acrylics are great for painting natural colours, for representing painted surfaces such as locos and coaches, enamels are best. I would have liked the underlying brown to show through a little more though. The results of my efforts: Photographs of the end without the extension seem to show a lighter patch of stone in the middle of the wall with darker patches either side. I had thought about trying to represent this but thought that if I did anyone looking at it would say that I got the weathering wrong! As you can see, I have added a couple of notice boards. Photos of the station show boards in the position I've fixed them although these disappeared in the "goods only" days. In part 3 of his series of books on modelling GWR branches, Stephen Williams suggested putting a raised border round the edge of the board to better represent prototype practice. The flat surface of the Tiny Signs boards are just that, flat. I didn't feel able to cut out a square in paper as he did so used the finest Microstrip instead. I also fixed the boards with two battens each, if I was presented with the job of fixing a flat board to a rough surface that's exactly what I would do.Also, as Stephen Willaims suggested, both boards were given a coat of matt varnish. I really must refer to the Stephen Williams books more,they are full of simple ideas that can make such a difference. The roof has turned out well, if a little irregular, but I didn't do too much weathering. We had Sunday lunch at a local pub yesterday, the service was slow and I found myself looking out at a house opposite with a slate roof. It had been raining and the roof looked new, pristine dark grey with no staining at all. We probably forget the cleansing properties of rain and the Welsh border country has plenty of that. I'm now looking at the edging of the platform. I recently visited an excellent little model shop in Salisbury and found a sheet of moulded Plasticard with a very small diamond pattern. This is perfect for bricks (or slabs) that formed the edge of the platform. If I had felt like it I could have scored the strip to represent the separate bricks but balked at the thought. The separate bricks are hardly noticeable and bearing in mind my complete inability to consistently measure the same distance each time I thought it would probably look worse. If anyone would like to see photos of the prototype Google "Westbrook station" and any number will come up. Take out the photos of Westbrook station in Canada, there's no mistaking them, and you're left with fewer than half a dozen and only some of these show the station building. It's a gloomy looking station overshadowed by trees but did have quite a floral display. With two trains each way a day (three on Thursday, Hay market day) Station Master Knowles had plenty of tinme to ensure the gardens were tidy.

I'd read a couple of threads on here about using Sculptamold as a scenic cover and a bag was duly ordered by someone in the group for a trial. Previously tile cement had been used on the layout in rather industrial qualities. Not only was that very heavy but it had cracked when put over white polystyrene and wasn't providing the robust basic scenery the layout wanted for exhibition travel as well as sitting in the club room in prime 'leaning on' position! Sculptamold has been a revelation once we got some out of the bag to trial on a small offcut of spaceboard as shown below. Following advice on rmweb we added PVA to the basic mix so it was 2 part sculptamold, 1 water and one PVA, later covering added some black powder paint hence the grey hillside! It is much lighter than the tile adhesive when applied and even lighter once the moisture has evaporated out. The test piece was hit against a table a couple of times with no damage and it takes a bit of real effort to pierce the surface, the PVA does make a slight difference here. Now that the initial corner has been done our centre board is having spaceboard cut to fit around the canal bridge for what will form a removable section at the moment. It will make the front of the layout much more presentable though by hiding all of the wiring from viewers at least. A signal box will sit on the embankment to the left of the bridge controlling the junction. The canal bridge has now gained a nice finish to the brickwork and the completed wing walls. The previous attempt at the layout had the water level under the track much lower, land height will be built up to the bottom of the new bridge though there will be locks in the foreground. An overview along the trackwork showing how it will be elevated on the embankment. The goods yard will probably have a retaining wall behind it for a length before it meets the goods warehouse. Further scenic tests on the far board will be to determine the correct cess to embankment relationship while point motors still have to be installed on the main board. The yard is also being finalised as a warehouse will sit over the one siding with wagons visible through arches in its front. The running lines disappearing around the back of the warehouse will help hide the trainset curve into the fiddleyard from the front boards to a degree. Note the terraces being experimented with, there will also allow a nice viewpoint up to the warehouse and hide the edge of the layout from front viewing. Sculptamold is available on Amazon for £6.50 (as of 12-2011) and if used as thinly as we used it should provide good coverage. Spaceboard was bought from B&Q for £7 a sheet though is now in short supply as it was gov't subsidised insulation. Other types of extruded poly are available though.