AJon30

Well D-Day is here, the layout is all packed in the car ready to go. Let's hope we have a good day and if you coming stop by and say Hi. I've decided to keep posting progress as there is still a bit to do! However it's back to QUESTA next week as that is appearing at the ALSRM show at Reading on 11th May so need to brush the dust off! The SHLR is appearing at Northampton on 20th of July (Don't worry Les, it will be ready!!) Andrew Jones

Here's some more pictures, the Ceynix trees are great, the grass is looking good, although it is a little too "lawny" at the moment, I've also finished the wall around the gas works, which is hopefully the last of the hard scenery completed. Just loads of buildings to be done.

Hello. The static grass applicator has been in full flow and the station building at Pertenhall & Swineshead has now been properly planted.

Hi, well just over a week to go and panic is setting in! Being away on buisness for 4 days (nice though Malta was) has not helped. Taking advice from other club members I am not going to rush to finish and spoil things, so there may be the odd sign saying work in progress and some of the mock-ups will be pressed into service. That said, Pertenhall & Swineshead station is nearly complete, the station building is all done, the lock-up is nearly complete, the cattle dock is finished, will need bedding down into the scenery, the pie factory buildings and the bridge have been weathered. The water crane is an ex GER one from Duncan models.

Hello, here's the latest happendings.on the SHLR. After the trial exhibition, I have re-erected the middle sections at home and found the electrical problem was down to one dry joint, so soon fixed. Working on buildings and scenery this week. Here's the other removeable bridge at Pertenhall & Swineshead, with the ground built up with Sculptamold. This is the base of the cattle dock, which has to be removeable to get at 2 of the point motors This is the tar tank and loading dock at the gas works. Waiting for a Duncan Models crane for offloading supplies etc, the dock is used for loading of small drums etc. Pertenhall & Swineshead Station building, which is very loosely based on Mid-Suffolk Light Railway buildings. Following from GeorgeT's workshop, built around 2mm ply, which is easy to work with. The basic structure will be covered with my home-made corrugated metal sheeting. The open waiting area is built around a frame with metal covering, so you need metal sheeting with corrugations both sides (which plastic sheet is not very good at). Will look suitable run-down when fully painted. Only 3 weeks to go!!

Thanks to Colin, one of our members who is becoming a dab hand at video's, here is a short Youtube presentation of the layout operating on Saturday.

Thanks Don. Yes, that's why we booked to hall to enable us to trouble-shoot problems without the paying public looking on.

Well we had our away day yesterday at the local church hall. A good day, enjoyed by all, 4 layouts operating and great food - thanks Mick! The layout went together quite easily - i hour to erect. A couple of minor gremlins, a bit of wiring to look at, and some fine tuning on point action, otherwise quite pleased how it all worked. Now its full steam ahead with buildings and finishing off the scenery. Also need to have a good look at the stock as it has, in many cases, been bought and never run - it was a problem at time deciding if it was the layout or the stock that was at fault if it derailed. Will use the Ixion and the Dapol wagons as "test" stock and if they run OK it must be the individual wagon or loco.

Hello. Well Saturday rapidly approaches and still loads to do. Having run the Pertenhall section, that has now been crated up. On kimbolton, finished off the ballasting, laid the platform and loading dock and built up the scenery. The platform has an old van body as somewhere for the (few!) passengers to shelter. Like Winteringham on the North Lindsey Light Railway, the station building is assumed to be at ground level and thus "off stage" The loading dock will have a cattle dock and crane. The little shed is covering one of the point motors. Started to lay the cobbled area around the brewery. The walls on the gas works have had pegs fitted so they located into the baseboard but will need covering in brick paper before final fixing

Thanks. Still a lot of work to do but is coming together. These are the 2 ends for the Pertenhall board, so that it can be shown in a short form ( 9 feet ) or as a connector to Kimbolton for the whole 19 feet.

Hello from a snowy Luton Had a change round and have put the 2 Kimbolton boards up in my conservatory. Track painted and ballasting under way. Here's a general shot of the Brewery / Maltings (not sure abouit the maltings buildings, they seem underscale, although maltings did come in all sizes). Have started on the wall around the gas works and that has made a big difference to the look of that area, has a much more industrial feel. We have hired a local parish hall to have a running session this weekend, so the other boards have been erected in my living room so that I can check electrices etc. Not much room to swing a cat at the moment!

Hello. Well the Pertenhall board is just about done for the moment, the ballast is all laid, just waiting for it to dry before parting the boards. Lots more to do to the buildings, weathering, details etc, but need to press on with the Kimbolton Town boards. Station platford edge has been done and a rough surface of Sculptamols applied. My ixion and one of the 4 wheel coaches. Here's the mock up of the grand station building(!) roughly based on the MSLR examples. Also another bridge, simpler this time, but still needs to be removeable. At the same time I have been working on the short end, so that it matches.

Here's a quick couple of pictures as work progresses on the Pie Factory, final stretch now with painting underway. Another new addition to the stock - a Bachmann brass tanker - a Class B tanker so ideal for tar etc Did you go to Huntingdon in the snow last week? What did you think of the show / venue?

Hello, a quick progress report. Trying to get the Pie factory finished so that I can get ballast completed etc etc. This was the loaded dock in its unfinished state Here’s a general view of the Pie Factory (Yes I know one of the ventilators is too low - trying to cut holes in a rush - measure 27 times and still get it wrong! There will be a signboard that should disguise that, and once its painted should be less obvious - hope) There is a factory at one end, a loading dock and then the boiler house so both van and coal traffic. Spent too much at Kettering last week - including another Dapol open - limited edition produced for the show they said - I suppose they have all their OO wagons that they just need to tweak the artwork and ready for O gauge - if they keep producing specials for shows this could get expensive! Off to Huntingdon this week-end for St Neots show - not exhibiting but we are providing the free bus service - so don’t give the conductor too much stick!

Now that the bridge is nearly complete, time to move the baseboard sections around so that I can continue to work towards Kimbolton Town. So its by by to the brickworks and hello scenery! But a quick look behind the scenes. This is the sector plate that hides behind the Brickworks - 2 roads for the run-round loop and 1 for the hidden siding. Here's the hidden siding with the control panel for Pertenhall and one of the train cassettes. Hopefully the spring connectors will work getting power across - they do at the moment but under exhibition pressure? Need to have a fall back plan! Here's the next section of board attached, its the rest of Pertenhall & Swineshead station, an overbridge (which marks the divison between Pertenhall & Kimbolton control) and a bit of scenery. I have some Ceynix trees to go here and the end of the next board, to try and give short visual break.

Hello. Just a quick up-date, moving forward slowly towards our exhibition date of 27th April 2013 at Dunstable The bridge is nearly finished, been painted, road surface added just needs grass verges to be done and some weathering to dull the finish down Road surface in N scale granite, the smallest I had, still looks a bit too rough (appearence is not so obvious in real life). Here's a picture of my gaugeing wagon, for platforms etc. Although I only intend to run small loco's and 4 wheel coaches I know that when we go to exhibitions all manner of things will turn up!

Thanks. It was a pain but I think it was worth it in the long run.

Hello. Not a lot to report at the moment, a lot of last week was spent sorting out wagons and loco’s for QUESTA’s visit to Milton Keynes. We had a good day on Saturday, seemed to be very popular show and the layout performed well, although with a few small things to be sorted out. Here’s a Youtube video which also features Westbridge, an O gauge layout by another Luton MRC member, Jeremy Everett. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-DQOVuS6Ns All that has really changed has been the back scene has been painted and a start has been made on laying some ballast.

Hello, an update from a Bridge to Far! Well I went for the riveted finish in the end after trying a small piece. Time consuming and most of it is hidden, but at least I will know its there! I used a Metalsmith riveting tool, which I found a little difficult to keep the rivets is a straight like on long thin strips of plasticard. I think that a larger “table” arrangement around the riveting head is required so I can keep the strips straight. Anyway that’s the explanation of the wonky rivets. The bridge is nearly finished just the final pieces of Slaters brick plasticard to finish off. I would hate to think how many individual pieces there are in this bridge. However it has turned out to be nice and rigid which was the aim as it will be removable when the layout is broken down I laid the ground surface with Scultamold and it has been a given a coat of my favourite mud colour. The back scene ground cover is rather steep but I have an idea how to disguise that. Next up finish the bridge, ballasting and static grass. However Its back to On30 for the next few days as this weekend we are exhibiting our On30 layout QUESTA at the Milton Keynes show, hope to see you there.

A quick update Bridge is coming along OK, if a bit slowly. Completing the detail parts of the metal girder sections and brick arches. Don’t know if they will really be visible or not when it’s finished. Big question is: to rivet or not to rivet the girders: I think they may look too plain without, but the sheer number is off-putting! The track work has all been sprayed brown and the rails rusty read, just a bit of touching up around the points. Started on the scenery, there is a brick retaining wall at the back which will be finished in the same way at the bridge, with a short, steep section of embankment. At the front I have glued in a ply facia board and glued small pieces of foam which will be covered in a layer of Sculptamold and then just grassed over. Latest acquisition to the growing Dapol open wagon fleet: a Stewarts & Lloyds 8 plank open - that will loaded with coke from the gas works for the steel making furnaces at Corby.

Help required Does anyone know ot a source of model pipe fittings (elbow's bends etc) for 7mm scale? I have a pack of the Knightwing pipe sections which are great for small section pipe but I am looking at something a bit larger, 5 - 8mm od. I seem to remember somebody may have done these but for the life of me I can't think of the name! Thanks

Morning all Well for the first time in ages I had a whole day free yesterday to get on with some serious modelling. Apart from some minor catch-up with the wiring associated with the moved point motor and some running repairs on the legs (design flaw - they could collapse if the retaining bar came out, so I have added some safety chains to stop that. How did I know this could happen? I was underneath the layout when it did!), the bridge covering the baseboard joint/sector plate exit was top priority. Being removable I need it to be strong to stand knocks etc while being transported, while being able to fit into the layout and looking as though it was a permanent feature. I had constructed a couple of cardboard mock-ups to get the dimensions sorted and to look at how it would be constructed. Initially I thought of using foam board, but soon realised that would not be man enough for the job, so decided to go for 4mm ply. I had bought some relatively cheap sheets of 4mm plywood to put an internal roof in the garage but these are now gradually being used on different modelling projects. Above picture shows the initial pile of pieces together with the 2 mock-ups. When I started construction I followed georgeT’s idea of using Powerbond to get a quick joint and keep progress moving. However on a build of this size I would have been going through the bottles at a great rate of knots, so fell back on woodworking PVA. As this gave me some time on my hands I started to cut out the shapes for the pie factory building, which will be a low relief building in front of the fiddle yard. I also dug out my supply of windows and doors to see if I have sufficient. Will need to give Invertrain a call as I will need so more for the brewery/maltings and gasworks for Kimbolton Town. By the end of the day I had got this far. And how it looks in position. I need to apply a little more detail, then it will be clad in Slaters plasticard and the Girder Sections built. Why are the bridges different? Well the story goes that when they first built the railway to Pertenhall & Swineshead, the brick works horse drawn tramway was extended under the road via a narrow bridge to a trans-shipment platform. However as business increased it was realised that the tramway was a bottleneck so they rebuild the bridge and laid a standard gauge line to a new loading dock they built next to the kilns. They also laid a second siding to a small coal yard at the same time. I reality I just liked the idea of different bridge styles!

Hello. Started to have a good look at what is required for scenery building etc. Across one baseboard join, and hiding the sector plate, is a bridge, which is removed when the layout is broken down. It also hides one of the point motors for one of the three-way points. However the other point motor is in front of the bridge and I had thought about a small building to hide it. However, looking more closely the ground level would have been very strange so I have decided to move the front one under the baseboard which will allow a more gradual slope to the ground. I will make the bridge slightly wider and that should cover the other point motor. I cannot put that underneath as there is framing in the way. Also on view is my new J71 acquired at the Leamington show. It was ready built but not wired up or finished. I have wired it up to prove it works so all it needs now is a good clean up and the final bits on the chassis to be completed. The J71’s did work on the Easingwold Railway when their own motive power was out of action so there is a precedent (although whether they would have got this far south is another thing!).

As I have had to draw up a track plan to go on our new club website, I though I would post it here as well

Hello Jack Thanks for your kind words. The fireless is an Eric Underhill kit, that I purchased at the Langely show a couple of years ago. Great little runner, resin tank with white metal cab etc. Very heavy, can pull all the wagons I can put on it! I've only seen one other, on the Foston Mills layout. Put the layout sections together yesterday and applied power (fingers in ears!). Luckily only a couple of minor gremlins (a couple of copper clad sleepers not cut through properly and a bit of dodgy soldering) and it works as it should do, apart from the feed to headshunt where I tried to be too clever with some diodes and it has not produced the result I wanted (loco will only go one way - very confusing). I have been given some good advice by my friend Nigel Adams (Willowbrook Marsh) so hopefully a couple of new switches will solve the problem. So now its on to scenery, ballasting & bridges/buildings.