Black Country Blues

[Stubby47]

My wife said that a posting like this should be blocked by Andy. As cream scones are one of her favourites, and you cannot get any part of them here. Or only allowed if all readers are supplied with said scones.

 

Would be happy to send you some, but I'm not sure the food would be that edible when it arrived...

[TheSignalEngineer]

Steve, they were all laid with pristine ballast at first even if using recut rails. Dereliction like that takes at least a couple of seasons of neglect to get going then several years to achieve perfection.

[Mythocentric]

Ah, the well-known French city - Toulouse!

 

Is'nt that where the little fella's live?

[Mikkel]

A phone box would also be good for educational purposes.

 

"Dad, what's the red building?"

"That's a telephone box"

"Eh?"

"Well, basically a house built around a telephone"

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"The old days were nuts!"

[Stubby47]

Ok Dad, what's that red building then ?

Oh, that's an outhouse.

A what ?

A toilet, with a building round it.

A toilet, outside ? The old days were really nuts!

( and the nuts were cold, too )

[Worsdell forever]

Reminds me of the Goon show - Tales of Monmartre

 

GAUGUIN: (Sellers, Grytpype voice) Oh, good evening, is your mother in sonny?
TOULOUSE: (Neddie) Sonny? I, I, I, I'm Toulouse-Lautrec.
GAUGUIN: Oh? And where are you going to lose him?

 

TOULOUSE: I am Toulouse-Lautrec, the famous French impressionist.

BLOODNOK: Alright, do Al Jolson.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Worsdell forever

[wagonbasher]

it is an age old problem but you cant make cr****y track and expect your stock to run well. Industrial railways always feature things like the curved rail straightening slightly at joints and never flat.  The problem is Authurs loco doesnt weigtht 50 tronnes with independant suspension.  The best you can do is cosmetically degrade the track which I am sure we will add to in time.

 

Andy

[Arthur]

The problem is Authurs loco doesnt weigtht 50 tronnes........

 

Andy

I could have crammed in quite a bit more lead but it was starting to develop it's own gravitational field.......

[Old Gringo]

2.  However, further study of Simon Dewey’s photograph in “Wolverhampton’s Railways”, showed that the shape of the arch was different to the earlier ‘Stephenson’ designs employed on the London & Birmingham and this may have been changed by Joseph Locke.

 

3.  Later, a photocopy of the drawing was checked against the first fix scenics of the cutting and the shape of the tunnel mouth was adjusted to more closely match the photograph, by reducing the height of the arch.  This, however, didn't effect the main shape of the structure and wasn't adjusted until about half way through the build - a bit dangerous and not to be recommended!  Watch carefully as the shape of the arch changes gradually in the photos!

 

4.  To begin the build, the major details from the drawing were transferred onto two pieces of 5mm foam-board (7 ½ “) 192m wide by 166mm high (6 ½”)  –  one piece to form the face of the tunnel mouth and the second piece, 10mm shorter, which will be a reinforcing piece.

 

5.  The tunnel mouth was carefully cut out from both pieces and then they were stuck together to reduce the possibility of the foam-board warping.   

 

6.  The formers for the buttresses, found on either side of the portal, were made from sandwiches of triangular pieces of foam board and then added to the tunnel front.

 

7.  The buttresses were finished with a piece of 2mm card, leaving a perfect, gently curved surface. .

 

8.  Next I cut a piece of .015 plastikard and stuck it to the front of the structure between the buttresses to use as a base for the detailing.

 

9.  As I hadn’t any suitable coursed rubble stone for the seven rows found above the voussoirs and keystone (and I had a lot of offcuts of Wills random stone), I decided to build up the courses by cutting small sections and polybonding into place using tweezers and the point of my scalpel blade.

 

  Although this took quite a while, I thought that it was worth the trouble!

 

 

10.  The coursed rubble was given a base coat of Tamiya acrylic grey (XF 66) and then Deck Tan, over which several other acrylic colours will be used to get the model to match the prototype photographs

[Tricky Dicky]

Saw the layout at Doncaster and what a fine layout it looks. The backscene was particularly good. Well done chaps!

 

Richard

[Old Gringo]

11.  I then set about making the voussoirs, the shaped stones surrounding the arched front.  As they are made out of dressed stone, I carefully scribed the stones into sections of 1.5mm Plastikard.  I began by cutting the section of the top nine voussoirs as a single piece, before working down the side sections.  And before I began scribing, I gave all the voussoir sections a coat of Tamiya acrylic Deck Tan, so I could see how deep I was going with the scalpel blade.

 

 

A fiddly job to score and scrape the shape of each stone, but I think well worth the effort to get each voussoir the right shape.

Here's the revised arch nearly ready to fit.

 

12.  The buttresses were also constructed of dressed stone and two pieces of 1mm thick Plastikard (24mm x 135mm) were cut and stuck onto the gently curved formers.  Then I worked down the butresses, carefully scribing each individual layer of stone. 

 

13.  The string courses had been added above the coursed rubble stonework.

 

14.  And the brickwork was added to the parapet above the string course. Now, why is there a toothbrush in the photo?  Because, scribing makes a mess and I find one of the best ways to remove plastic (and other materials) dust and shavings is a medium toothbrush.

 

Both sides of the parapet were covered, as the reverse area, the debris trap, would be open to view from above the industrial line.  Many tunnels have this feature, but it’s not often modelled.  To match all the other structures, I used South Eastern Finecast English Bond Brickwork.  First painted grey, lightly sand-papered and then dry-brushed with Precision Paints P954 Engineer’s Blue-brick.

[Old Gringo]

15. Whilst under construction, the arch section was offered into the space prepared in the base of the cutting and after some of the scenery had been cut away, the section was trial fitted into the scenery. Work then turned into working out the wing walls and ballasting the track.

16. As originally constructed, the brick- built wing walls were symmetrical and curved gracefully away from the central section down each side of the deep cutting.

17. So, as did the engineers, once I had worked out what we needed to do, the wing walls were made up to fit from 1/16” card faced with SEFEBB, plasticard.

As with all the other brickwork, grey undercolour first, lightly sand-papered and then dry-brushed with Precision engineering blue P954.

The stone string courses were added next, using layers of scored plasticard, finished in Tamiya acrylic, Deck Tan.

I now had a kit of parts for the tunnel, a nearly finished centre section and the two wing walls.

18. Another trial fit was attempted and some more of the cutting had to be removed before the wing walls made a tidy and level fit.

The end pillars and capping would be added later, onto the end tabs of the walls.

19. Then it was time for the board to go back to Chris for some more scenic greenery.

So, at "nearly finished" stage, I glued into place the kit, held in place with a series of clips and sticks!

20. Later the tunnel board returned to my dining room for the dwarf walls to be fitted along the bottom of the deep cutting, between the tunnel and Andy (Wagonbasher's) industrial skew bridge, which had been finished and positioned many weeks earlier! (and was currently "cooking" under a protective tinfoil cover).

 

21. The last civil engineering task was to fit a short retaining wall, from the left-hand wing wall pillar to run alongside the industrial line, where it exits the diorama. The paint on this wall was still damp when we packed the van for Doncaster show and nearly all the walls need the stone capping fitting over the next few weeks.

See Chris's photograph in post 30, to see how far I got by Doncaster.

 

Right, that brings progress on the tunnel up to date. Hope some of it proves useful - there's more to follow, when I get the baseboard back!

[TheSignalEngineer]

Just an impression, not a criticism, I think the trackwork is too good.  My memory of non-passenger lines in the era was of rotted sleepers, dropped joints with clay slurry pumping to the surface, scars from past derailments, missing keys, no doubt all this is already on your to-do list.

This bit at Hednesford in 1982 takes some beating, not helped by a broken sewer at the top of the bank. The 47 is heading an MGR train to Rugeley B on the Down Main. The dark thing to the right of it is the top of a stop block in the sidings. IIRC at this time there were still Class 1 drags across the Chase for engineering works between Wolverhampton and Stafford.

[2ManySpams]

Geoff / John, looks like I need to bury your track and ballast in green fluff ;-p

[Stubby47]

It'll save on clingfilm !

[Anotheran]

I must say that the colouring is fantastic. Well, it's actually quite nasty, which is why it's fantastic as it's realistic. As Mikkel says above, it's inspirational as I have to admit I probably wouldn't have dared go that wild with colours until seeing how effective it is. Great piece of work.

[Indomitable026]

Working for the railway in the LNE headquarters you can imagine the support I get from peers with regard to 'the' hobby.....

 

 

 

 er?

 

 

 

no....

 

 

 

 

Monday morning meeting this week everyone turns up with cups adorning various captions....

 

 

 

 

Other captions couldn't be published

[Stubby47]

Were you wearing your BCB polo shirt ?

[Andy Y]

so has anybody got a progress shot of the bridge to bring this thread up to date please?

 

 

Sorry John, just realised that I did take a quick shot of one of the grander canal bridges on an exhibition layout. Lovely job.

 

[Indomitable026]

Were you wearing your BCB polo shirt ?

what three days in a row?

[Andy Y]

No, he was still eating scones.

 

It looks like Ronnie Barker was there, hadn't noticed him but we all know who's Ronnie Corbett after Saturday night's tale.

[DonB]

Sorry John, just realised that I did take a quick shot of one of the grander canal bridges on an exhibition layout. Lovely job.

 

Bridge.jpg

 

In the vernacular.... Bostin' job!!

[Worsdell forever]

 

Evening Gazette, 12-2-1975.

 

From our East Cleveland correspondent...

 

Car Abandoned in Greyscroft!

West Country Seafarers On The Run!

 

A green Ford Cortina was abandoned yesterday afternoon outside the Cleveland Klondyke pub in Greyscroft. The occupants, described as a pair of rough seafaring types with West Country accents, are wanted by police for a number of motoring offences on the A1 and A19 between Doncaster and the Cleveland area on Sunday evening. They gave the police the slip near Guisborough by threatening to 'let off the long nines'. The men, one of which is believed to be called 'The Captain', entered the pub at around 3pm and having drunk all the rum and eaten all the pies, staggered out at around 10pm without paying. They were last seen heading towards Middlesbrough docks, it is believed to 'commandeer a ship' saying something about going after a group of 'Prussian scoundrels'. 

 

Do not approach these men as they are believed to be highly dangerous. The Captain can be identified by his accent, beard and aversion to cobbled streets, his sidekick whose name is unknown can easily blend into his surroundings by the use of a crafty apron.

 

The Ford Cortina, after the police had finished searching it, was removed to a scrapyard near Whitby.

 

[Worsdell forever]

Stage one of distressing the Captains Cortina. 

 

The boot lid has been cut open, this took a bit of doing as in some places there's no where for the saw frame to go!

 

[Old Gringo]

Geoff / John, looks like I need to bury your track and ballast in green fluff ;-p

 

How much depends on whether we still want to backdate the layout to 1965 at a later time.

 

I've no problems with messing up the sidings.  To be frank, I was going to muck them up myself.  But remember, it's easy to mess up something if it's right to start with - however, it's a lot harder to reverse the process and things look "righter" when nothing stands out above the general scene.