Chinahand

Hi Stephen, There are some excellent texture files on the CG Textures web site which are free once you register and will save you the cost of the Scalscenes ones. CG Textures

Oops. Sorry about that Kris but a belated thank you for the info.

Thank you so much for that information Steve. However, although I have already retired I don't actually hit 'Retirement Age' until May so, as I'm not in a great rush and there is a not insubstantial financial benefit, I will postpone applying for membership until then.

Hi Steve, I really like the look of those etched bufferstops but presume they are only available to members. If that is the case could you please advise me how to join and how much the buffers cost. They look so much better than the plastic Peco ones. Having said that I presume they are equally at home on standard Code 55 track.

Hi Simon, It would seem to me that maybe the attic window in the gable end is a little on the large side and that a smaller window would give a better impression of it being an attic.

Notwithstanding the paralax problem that's not a bad piece of work at all. I would say that if it works then that is a major achievement and you can only get better with practice.

Good afternoon all. Well it's been another very pleasant day here in SW China. Started a bit overcast but soon cleared away to give bright sunshine and the temperature pushing up to 16°C. Not looking forward to next week though as I'm heading for Beijing on 3rd Jan and the temperature there at the moment is minus 11°C.

Hi Steve, When I first read through your post and saw the iron in the vice I had wild imaginations of you getting clobbered by SWMBO when she found out. As it turns out my fears were unfounded and you have my total admiration for your track building. I just do not have either the skill or the patience for it. Keep up the good work.

Thanks Stephen, I'll drop them a line in the New Year.

Hi Stephen, Those storage tanks and fueling points look very good and even seem to be partly weathered. What make are they, if you don't mind me asking ? The layout is certainly starting to come to life now.

Hi Blacksheep, I have much the same dilema. I am theoretically modelling the GWR in the very short period after WWII but before Nationalisation. However. both the King and Castle producd by GF are in early BR livery. I therefore have to decide whether to move my chosen time frame to 1947 - 48 and say that the smaller locos have not yet been re-liveried or re-livery my Kings and Castles to GWR. The other problem is finding vehicles of the right time frame and there, I'm afraid I do cheat a little as I have a couple of Morris Minors that post date 1946. If it's of any help I think I will probably re-livery the Kings and Castles to GWR and hope nobody spots the odd vehicle or two. With living in China I will certainly get away with it as far as the locals are concerned so it's just here on the MRF that I have to worry about.

Well it's 7 a.m. on Christmas morning here and the weather is a b**** awful. 4°C and tipping it down. SWMBO has decided to stay in bed so I'm getting on with fabricating some N Gauge MBD couplers.

Certainly 1 in 13 is far too steep. Most locos will think twice about anything steeper than 1 on 30. Personally I try to get my gradiemts to 1 in 50 or less.

Hi Steve, Notwithstanding the revised domestic arrangements you are still achieving things that I would not even attempt. I continue to enjoy your thread and look forward to following it in 2011. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful New Year

Mornin' all. Well it's 6:50 a.m. here in China but I suppose most of you are just about thinking of going to bed. The weather here has turned a bit nasty. After being a nice sunny 19°C for the past few days it's suddenly raining and 10°C. Ah well, at least it's not snowing. I can fully empathise with you on the pain front Gordon and hope that your treatment proves a positive move towards a cure. Having had a trapped Sciatic nerve for the past 6 months I have become something of a junkie myself. 2 Co-codamol + 2 Tramadol + 1 steroid, 4 times a day certainly takes the pain away but at what price. Added to which the nerve is still trapped and my foot is completely dead. Sorry for the winge but I just felt the need.

I do feel sorry for all of you freezing your 'whatsits' off in the UK at the moment. It certainly seems that Winter has come with a vengeance. It's a nice balmy 18°C here at the moment but the forecast is not good for the rest of the week. Gradually getting cold and -2°C on Christmas Day. Apparently there's a cold front coming down from Beijing.

Yeah. Been there, done that, got the T Shirt. Used to play bass and sing in a band back in the 60s. We were rubbish but we covered the cost of petrol to and from the gigs with a bit left over for a few beers. Went through a 'revival' in the mid 80s when I was working in Indonesia and teamed up with a bunch other 'old rock'n rollers' (a la Swinging Blue Jeans). We had a couple of Queen songs in our repertoire and even managed to ge onto the BBC World Service that time. Guitar well and truly hung up now but thoroughly enjoying railway modelling again.

Hi there jbqfc (whatever that stands for ) and welcome to RMweb from a fellow N Gauger. You look to be making a good start and some steady progress which I will follow with interest.

Hi Steve, Sorry for the delayed response but glad you found my little offering useful. It will indeed be interesting to compare notes at some future point in time when/if any 'bugs' have surfaced.

The station cross-overs will become quite complicated if you introduce a third track into the equation.

I'm using 2 layers of 2mm thick wood floor underlay, the theory being that the first layer, which will be put down over all areas, will prevent any sound being transmitted to the plywood track bed even if some ballast escapes the track bed profile. The top layer, which will only be laid in the actual track areas, will help form the ballast shoulders and provide the primary sound insulation. The following is a demonstration of the system using a short bridging section as a sample section. Please excuse the state of my 'workbench' but I can only do this sort of thing out on the balcony. Tools used:- Scissors, Craft Knife, Felt-tipped pen, Glue Brush, Small Wooden Roller, Stain Brush. Materials Used:- 2mm Closed Cell Foam Underlay, Masking Tape, PVA Glue, Water based Wood Stain. Here's the plywood track bed with a couple of areas masked off where screws will fix it down to plywood risers. I don't want the foam to be glued down here until after the section is permanently fixed into position. Here the foam has been roughly cut to shape, PVA glue brushed onto the plywood track bed and the masking tape removed to leave the 'non-stick' areas. Here the foam has been applied to the plywood and the small wooden roller used to ensure overall contact. This was left to dry for 24 hours. When dry a 50:50 diluted wash of wood stain was applied as I wasn't sure how strong the stain would turn out to be. I had previously trialled various types of paint on the foam but found that, due to the smoothness of its surface, water based paint did not adhere well and solvent based paint had a tendency to melt the foam leaving a hard surface. Wood stain coloured the foam without affecting its properties and, once dry, did not come off. After this had dried the full size track template was laid on top and the outline drawn with a felt tipped pen. The track template has been trimmed down so that there is a 5mm shoulder outside the sleepers. The template was used again to mark and cut out the top layer of foam. This was then glued down to the first layer with PVA and rollered down. This was again left to dry for 24 hours. Once everything was dry I then gave it an application of neat wood stain which, I think, now gives a good base colour to the track bed. A check fit of the track template to make sure nothing had shrunk or moved and everything seems to be OK. The surface of the foam is still nice and supple so it's sound absorbing properties should still be intact. Track will be fixed down to the underlay using Copydex. Finally here it is positioned back on the layout. That's all for this installment but I have now established a methodology for laying the track underlay which will be applied to the whole layout.

Just in case you're not aware of it, Peco Code 55 track is actually Code 80 with the bottom part of the rail buried in the plastic carrier so that the visible rail height is only 55/1000ths of an inch. Because of this you can join Code 80 to Code 55 without problem.

Is there a particular reason for using Code 80 track as Code 55 does look much better ??

That's what I'm presently planning to do for this, and several other buildings, but the 'Station Hotel' is such an archetypal building that I feel a lot of modellers could find a use for it and that maybe John would give it some consideration.

I would like to have a large hotel building, something like this one which is part of one of the Townscene Backgrounds. I was planning to use this as the basis for a scratch-build by layering and spacing the various layers out to form a low relief structure.