Vonzack

Hi John, I crossed the post with a PM prompted by Revolutions PFA announcement, so apologies for that. The problem with the containers is the volume of material and machine space they take up just makes then so expensive. Trust me, this is something I'm struggling with too as I want to put together a Manchester BinLiner train. They are usually around 14 to 16 wagons and this would work out at around £400 for the containers alone with them printed in FUD. If anybody has any ideas how these could be produced economically then please PM me, I would welcome any suggestions. Cheers, Mark.

@Mike, Ah see what you mean, it's quite obvious from those photos, thanks for that.

I've expressed an interest in the model, but would have liked to see a few more options for people, such as a shorter set, inclusion of the buffet cars and as somebody has posted on another forum, 41001 and it's remaining coaches as they are currently in preservation. I think if I had the choice my preference would be to commit to a HST-P as it would have run prototypically, maybe from the feedback Dapol might include some more options for us. <Edit> Some more thoughts: Will both power cars have a motor or are we talking the more usual Power + Dummy approach. Also, I think a nod toward the inclusion of sound might be good, either engaging with someone who could produce / has a sound project for the power cars that might be available as an option or to modify the chassis design so that fitting a sound chip would be easy (Next18s anybody?)

@njee20 - It's not a problem, will only take 5mins and I'm kind of interested to know anyway. You do avoid the per piece FUD charge, so it might be close. I have a foot in the American camp too and the 1:160 containers are surprisingly smaller than the 1:148 versions. @bigP - Yeah I see what you mean. I guess I'm worried about the pintpoint axles running in the FUD Material more than anything, so it would be great to hear how you get on with them over time. I might have a go at printing some of my bogies in FUD and see how they wear over time. Just had confirmation from Shapeways that the test prints for the Biomass Hopper Doors and the PXA / JXA have been shipped, so should know what's what in a few days. Cheers, Mark.

@njee20 - Yeah, I finished them off and produced some test prints which are great, but in my opinion they work out a little expensive in FUD, the 45' is £20, 40' Hi Cube is £19, 40' Cube is £18, 20' Hi Cube is £13 and the 20' Cube is £12.50. I bundled the containers together to reduce the price for my prints, so if you know what type and how many you'd need I'd be happy to sprue them together. Cheers, Mark.

@Ben A - It's actually not that bad, you can get a scalpel in there to cut the spure's. Now that I've thickened up the lift gear it should be easier to handle. I take your point about doing them separately or adding them under the doors. Shapeways has an interesting pricing policy, there is a charge for FUD for each item, so you have to connect the parts together with sprues. A volume charge for the material, so you try and use as little as possible. A machine space charge if they can't place other models into the bounding area of your print. Then finally a handling charge if what you're printing is going to be difficult to handle. If I join the lift gear to the ends of the print, it would make the bounding volume quite large, probably difficult to handle and it would make the print too costly. I doubt they'd ship too well like that as well, even though Shapeways take a great deal of care with things. Printing the Lift Gear separately would probably be a good compromise. I'll see how I get on. @Mike - an etch for the Lift Gear would probably be a good way to go. I'd considered just shaping some wire into the 'W' shape just to provide an effect of the gear and it may be that's an option for people who want some doors. Are there differences with the Farish model or is it just the livery that was applied to them? @bigP - I print all my bogies in Shapeways Strong and Flexible plastics and these seem to work quite well, even though the detail is a bit rough. How do you cope with the pinpoint axles in FUD? Do you design space in the bogie sides for Top Hat bearings? Cheers, Mark.

Hi, It's been a very long time since I posted anything on this thread, so my apologies for that, but I've been doing the odd bit here and there recently so I have a couple of things to show. IIA-C Biomass Doors (GBRf) I've been interested in trying to model a Biomass train for while now. As I had some Farish IIA coal hoppers, these could be used as long as I produced some hopper doors for them. I didn't really want to have to alter the wagons, as it was my intention to swap them from Coal duties to Biomass by just changing a 'load' if possible. The only complication being the lifting gear that sits on the ends of the wagons as these would have to be removed with the 'load'. After taking some measurements I had a test print done in WSF to see how things would look. I really wasn't expecting the lift gear to print as it was so fine, but it did and it actually looked pretty good all things considered. The only problem I had was that the hopper doors weren't thick enough and sat well below the top of the wagon. When you look at the prototype, the hopper doors are raised slightly from the sides of the wagon, so this meant a little re-design. As I was pretty sure of the dimensions, I decided to do another test print in FUD from Shapeways. I knew the lift gear probably wouldn't survive being printed using this method and the fact that it hangs down so far would increase the volume and make the print very expensive, so I decided to detach it and print it on the underside of the model. When I got the test print, I was pleased to see that the lift gear had made it, but in FUD it was desperately flimsy. I'd even doubled up the lift gear expecting a breakage, but I ended up losing both sets of them, one during removal and the other while spraying. The hopper doors had worked out perfectly, they just needed to be a tiny bit wider to nicely fill the opening on the wagon. I've just re-ordered another test print to take advantage of the free shipping at Shapeways and I've thickened up the lift gear arms, not too much, but hopefully just enough so that they can be handled without breaking. PXA / JXA A while back someone asked me if I'd look at producing a PXA / JXA hopper wagon and at the time got a little confused with the various different versions that there seemed to be with that TOPS code. I'd have to say I'm still a little confused, but I've produced two basic types which when you look at reference pictures always seem to have a JXA TOPS code, even when they were painted up as 'Sheerness Steel' wagons. I'm calling this style V1 and have also designed bogies for it This is the first time I've designed closed end bogies, so will have to see how this affects the running and how easy it is to fit the wheelsets. This style is V2, I still need to design the bogies for this version. FEA-F (RHTT) / KFA (Binliner) I've finally got round to painting up some of my own wagons, here we have an FEA-F which is going to be used on one of 3DR's RHTT sets and a KFA which is going to be used to model a Manchester Binliner operated by Viridor. Cheers, Mark.

Hi, Received my Eastern Blue Grey and Swallow TGSs today, here are some pics alongside the full rakes. The Eastern Blue Grey came with the light grey roof, rather than the black that came with the bookset, so this matches the other coaches. The coach number is very small compared to all of the other stock, probably prototypical, but when all the others have larger numbers, it stands out a bit. The seat backs also seem to match the first class colour and not standard class. The Swallow seems to be spot on for me, apart from missing the swallows in the door windows, but I'm pretty sure these were dropped for this livery after the bookset and the initial release of coaches which had a slightly lighter grey, so in my case it matches the all but 3 of the coaches. Cheers, Mark.

Just had an email from Hattons to say that my Swallow TGS has been processed, so they must be here. Cheers, Mark.

Same as njee20 for me, Ordered from Hattons June last year, had the email about expected timescales, but still waiting for anything else.

Hi, Well it's been a busy few weeks since the last update and Heworth was shown officially for the first time at TINGS in September. Network Rail Building One of the last bits of work we did prior to going to TINGS was to make some small changes to the centre board. We'd planned to have a few small buildings either side of the Main Line, to the rear of the layout there would be a small shunting frame and at the front of the layout, there would be a Network Rail building containing switch gear and signalling equipment for the Main Line. The problem we had was that there really wasn't any defined way that this building could be accessed, so that meant that we'd have to install a track to provide access for vehicles. We also decided that we'd place the building far enough away from the side of the main line so that vehicles could be parked outside. As the existing terrain sloped gently down towards the edge of the running lines this meant that we'd have to cut away some of the banking and install some small retaining walls. Main ground works done and base colour applied Blended in a little more, some scatter and weathering applied to the track Bushes and crash barrier added Point Heaters To add a bit more detail to the track side, heaters have now been added to the main line points (circled in red) Back Scene One of the things that Heworth has been lacking for a long time is any kind of back scene for the layout. The main problem that we had here was what to do with the curved boards. Pretty early on, we'd discussed the pros and cons of having either an angled or curved back scene and it was always our preference to have one that followed the curves. This does provide for an interesting set of problems, first of which is what material do you use. Standard ply is OK, but you're pushing the limits of it's flexibility and you don't get a great finish to either paint or fix something to without allot of extra work. Flexible ply works quite well, but again, the surface would need allot of work. Flexible MDF seemed to be a great compromise, you could easily form the curves and it had a nice surface to work with, but it was almost impossible to work with once it was cut to size. Any trimming or shaping that needed to be done would just end up destroying it. In the end, we decided to use Hardboard as a compromise because it's flexible, has a decent finish and you can work it with hand tools without making a complete mess. The downside is that we'd need to be very careful with it once fitted as handling and moisture could be problems in the future. The pictures below show the hardboard being fitted to the modules and being test fitted. Once the back scene was fitted to the modules, it was time to take it all off again so that it could be decorated. We'd originally decided to paint the sky line, but somebody had seen a diorama that had used a sprayed back scene which had looked really effective so we decided to give that a go. Initially the boards were sprayed with a mixture of blue tones, then white was sprayed over for clouds. This gave us a really effective back scene, but when we fitted the first board to the first module, we found that it was way too bright. After a bit of head scratching and various pictures taken and shared of real sky / clouds, we decided to spray the underside of the clouds with primer to darken them up a little. This worked really well and just lowered the bright colours that we had previously enough to tie them into the rest of the layout. Curtain Something else that Heworth had been lacking was a Curtain to hide the underside of the Scenic Boards. We'd decided to use a vinyl banner for the curtain, as it could be easily printed allowing us to design our own signs for the layout. As we'd chosen to paint the front of the layout in BR Blue (RAL 5020), we thought it would be a nice idea to have the layout name printed as if it was a loco nameplate. After a bit of searching around on the web and questions on the forum, we found a font which could be used for the lettering and found the prototypical colour used for the background of the nameplate. We had a little problem getting the artwork ready as it needed to be sent in a 'ready to print' format, but with a bit of tweaking it was OK and was sent off for printing. As part of the production process the company we used fitted eyelets so we could easily mount it to the front of the layout. Fitting the banner to the front of the layout Left hand side complete All done Cheers, Mark.

Hi, It's been a couple of months since the last work update, so there's quite a bit to catch up on. Shows TINGS 2015 - 12th / 13th September 2015 (4 weeks) - http://www.ngaugeshow.co.uk/ Going Green....er Allot more work has been done on the Scenic Modules, we have started to build on the base layer of scatter and clump material that we had already applied. We have been adding trees and larger bushes to the top of the retaining wall. Again we've been using some more of the Woodland Scenics product range, this time Fine Leaf Foliage, which is quite easy to work with, but for 2mm, we have to do quite a bit of trimming to get things the right size for planting. We've also been adding some detail to the base of the Retaining Wall, adding clump foliage to represent smaller bushes which are growing out from it's base. Here are a few pictures to show progress so far. Industry Fencing We have always wanted to fence in the Industry Buildings on the right of the Scenic Modules and had previously bought some 8' Pallisade Fencing from N Brass Locos. The fencing is available in 10cm strips and there is also an etch available which contains gates that you can fit. The etches themselves are very finely detailed, but surprising easy to work with and even forgiving if you're a bit heavy handed. As we needed to put together quite a few sections of the fence, rather than using super glue, we decided that it would be better to solder them together. This is a little tricky, but as long as you are careful the results are fantastic. You get some additional posts on the etches and we made use of these to add some angled supports which you often see on long runs of fencing. We opted not to drill holes in the baseboard to mount the fence and instead decided to use some of the spare posts and bent them at 90 degrees to provide feet, which we could then glue to the modules. Rather than spray the fence grey, we decided to use dark green to provide a bit of contrast. Here's a pic taken just after spraying. Shunting Frame Our on-scene sidings are not intended to be part of the rail network as they are privately owned by the industry, as such we have built a small shunting frame which will be sited near the entrance. Access to and from the mainline is assumed to be controlled remotely from a signalling centre. The Shunting Frame itself is just a small version of a signal box and it has an associated brick built equipment building at the side of it. We have also decided to place a fence around these buildings, probably more for the safety of the workers than for security of the buildings. Track and Lineside Detail As part of the Scenic work, we are adding further track and lineside details. In the last week we have added: Equipment Cabinets - located near the signals initially, but we need to install more for other uses AWS Ramps - placed a scale distance away from the Signals (about 180m) TPWS Grids - with Arming and Trigger grids before the Signal and a double Arming/Trigger grid at the Signals location Here are a few pics. Equipment Cabinet and an AWS Ramp Single TPWS Grid and a drainage Catch Pit waiting to be dug into the Ballast Double TPWS Grid and a drainage Catch Pit Running Session We decided to have a little running session so that we could do some fault finding with the Signals. At the Middleton show, the signals although operational were showing what seemed like random aspects, so they were shut off and used just as dummies. Without the pressure of people arriving to view the layout the solution of the problem was quite simple in the end. After watching the trains go round a couple of times, it was obvious that the signal aspects were reversed, so the aspects would be lit when off and unlit when on. After a quick click in JMRI to reverse the sense of the Accessory Addresses controlling the aspects the signals were working perfectly, so we had a little time to play trains, here's a short video. Cheers, Mark.

Hi StewMac, I had this problem a few months ago after installing the latest Arduino IDE. Basically the 'DCC_Decoder.h' library is using some syntax which has now been deprecated, so it no longer parses correctly for compilation. The community needs to have the 'DCC_Decoder.h' modified so that it uses the newer syntax for defining this constant. You can get round this by installing an older version of the Arduino IDE, version 1.0.6 works for me, go to the Arduino web page, downloads and look for older versions. Hope you get it sorted. Cheers, Mark.

Hi, Well, we've got the first public event under our belts as we attended the Middleton Railway Exhibition 2015 at the weekend. I was really impressed with the way the layout performed and also how we operated it during the weekend. More so when you consider that as a group of individuals, this is the first Exhibition layout we have built and operated. That's not to say we didn't have a few teething problems along the way, we did....... Friday 26th - Setting Up We'd arranged with Middleton that we would be there to start setting up around 15:00, the idea being we could take our time and make sure everything was up and running OK for the next day. We started setting up the modules and levelling out the layout, this took us around an hour and a half, and left us with plenty of time to start doing other little jobs. As we've been doing allot of scenic work over the past few weeks, the track on the scenic modules had gotten quite dirty, so we gave it a pass with track rubbers. Then as we still had loads of time and we needed to attach a signalling module to one of the scenic boards to get the signals working properly, out came the soldering iron / wire and off I went fitting the module. Now having fitted 4 of these modules already, this was a routine job, mount the board, provide a DCC / 12v DC feed from the bus wires, connect up the signals and job done. After about 30 mins, everything was finished, time to get the module back in place, connect up the bus wiring and give the layout a test. However, when we switched on the control systems, our PM42 was flashing erratically along with the LED on the PSU powering it. As the PSU was new, the first instinct was to suspect it was duff, so we disconnected it. This meant that we wouldn't have power districts until we got a replacement, but we just wanted to test the layout, so that wasn't really a problem. The PSU could be swapped out the next day for one that we knew worked OK. Anyway, on with the testing and the layout, which seemed to be going as expected, our test loco's doing loop after loop while we placed buildings and setup the catenary masts on the layout. Happy that things were OK apart from the PSU, we decided to call it a night, but before I left I decided to just run a loco up and down all of the on-scene and off-scene sidings, to make sure the track was nice and clean. With the testing almost complete, I decided to run the loco back round to the fiddle yard, rather than just lift it off the layout. In hindsight this proved to be a very good decision, as one of the slow action motors on the pair of points that control access to the off-scene sidings decided to fail. Lessons to learn: Don't take untested equipment to an exhibition Make sure to bring along the spares that you've bought for the layout Saturday 27th Loaded up with replacement PSUs for the PM42 and another slow action TT300 Point Motor, I set off early so that I had some time to sort out the issues. I started by replacing the PSU for the PM42, but when I connected the power the unit was still not running and I suspected that for whatever reason the PM42 had given up on us. To compound the problem, we use the PSU that supplies the PM42, to provide power to the MERG accessory decoders fitted to the Fiddle Yard to drive the solenoid motors and these were also out of action. I decided to isolate the PM42, disconnecting it from the PSU, but this didn't restore the control of the Fiddle Yard points. In the midst of the blind panic I was descending into, a moment of clarity struck me, so I disconnected the bus feeds from the Fiddle Yard to the rest of the layout and suddenly everything sprang back to life. Including the PM42 when I re-connected the power to it. Knowing that the Fiddle Yard and control systems were working OK, the only other explanation was that we had a wiring issue out on the main board somewhere, so I started systematically adding module after module until the fault re-occurred. No prizes for guessing where I found the fault, yes, on the board that I'd fitted the signalling module to. As long as we didn't connect the bus feeds at both end of the module, everything was up and running correctly. As the other guys had started to arrive by now, they started to stock up the Fiddle Yard, while I set about replacing the TT300 point motor. I'd already set the DCC address for the unit, so once it had been swapped out we were fully operational. With only 10 minutes to go before the doors opened, we gave a crash course on how to operate the layout using JMRI to a couple of our club members who had arrived to help us and then we were off. During the first few hours, I think it was safe to say we had a few mishaps running the layout, but these were mainly down to getting things in and out of the Fiddle Yards as people got used to the controls, once the stock was moving it was all pretty much trouble free. The biggest issue we we're having was that for some reason, we were losing control of certain loco's as they were handed off between our Digitrax hand throttles and the JMRI computer control. Basically the operator on the front of the layout would return a loco to the Fiddle Yard as part of an industry movement, but then the JMRI software wasn't able to then control the loco. It seemed locked to the hand throttles and nothing seemed to work to free it up. By around lunch time, we'd got quite a number of these loco's which could only be controlled by hand throttles and they were starting to cause problems for the operators as they had to remember which loco's could be controlled from the JMRI system and which were working from the hand throttles. To sort out this creeping problem, we decided to re-start the Command Station and purge all of the loco addresses. We'd also sorted out which loco's were going to be used for block trains (run from the Fiddle Yard) and which were going to be used to drop off and pick up wagons from the Industry Sidings (run from the hand throttles), so we decided to make sure that we didn't swap them between the two roles. This immediately seemed to be working better and we had much more success driving the locos and the operators had much more time to concentrate on what they were doing. Lessons to learn: Don't perform last minute changes to wiring on the eve of a show (really this should be added to Fridays list!) Have a plan and clear rules for Operation Sunday 28th We made sure we started the day as we finished Saturday, with our new rules of operation. We also did a pre-emptive purge of the Command Station at the start of the day as well. We decided to rotate some of the stock to give a bit more variation and ended up putting on some Nuclear Flasks and some 350 DMU's. The Flasks were being run with a pair of 37's and the 350's were going to be run together, so they needed to be consisted. As they were going to be run in and out of the Fiddle Yard, then we decided to consist them with JMRI as we would use the JMRI throttles to control them. This appeared to be going well, the JMRI system provides a nice enough form to set them up and then you just call up the primary loco address on the main throttle and use that. However, this seemed to re-introduce the problem with locos becoming unresponsive, so we ditched the idea, purged the Command Station again and reverted back to the way we had run things the day before. Lessons to learn: If you have a plan of Operation and it's working for you, don't change it Conclusion I'd like to have been writing this reporting that everything went smoothly, but it was a real roller coaster of an experience for us. Over the 3 years that we've had our layout operational, it's never caused any major problems, so I guess we paid the price for being a bit over confident with it. There really is no substitute for being prepared and making changes on the eve of a show is a little silly. Also, it's important to have at least trialled the operation of the layout and we have on many occasions said we were going to do this, but for one reason or another, it's just didn't happen. I'm pleased to be able to say though, that despite some operational glitches, we were able to put on a good show for people. We received allot of positive comments about the layout, our stock and how well it was running which was very nice. Allot of people were very interested in how we were controlling the locos, as they could see the JMRI system on the laptops at each end of the Fiddle Yard and it was nice to be able to give them some advice about how they could use something similar for their layouts. Anyway this post would be pretty useless without some pictures / video from the weekend. Cheers, Mark.

Hi, It's been just over a month since the last update and we're in the middle of a mad dash to be presentable for our first public outing. Shows Middleton Railway, Model Railway Show - 27th / 28th June (12 Days) - http://www.middletonrailway.org.uk/ TINGS 2015 - 12th / 13th September 2015 (3 Months) - http://www.ngaugeshow.co.uk/ Storage Boxes Not too much progress has been done on these as we are concentrating on other work, but the inner frames have been assembled and are awaiting cladding in 6mm ply. Signals The signal controllers have been added to the Scenic Modules. Each module can control 8 addresses as they are currently configured, but by using the Arduino devices, we can expand on this if we needed to in the future as we haven't used the full capacity. The modules need a DCC feed to listen to the DCC Bus and a 12v DC supply which we use to power them and run the Signal LEDS. As the Arduino only runs from a 5v supply, we are regulating the 12v on the module. Going Green By far, most effort over the last month has been put in on the scenic modules, putting down a base layer of scatter material and then starting to build on it to create a more realistic looking model. We are tending to use the excellent Woodland Scenic scatter and clumping material. I for one have been quite surprised how easy it is to apply to the baseboards, we are basically painting a watered down mixture of PVA onto the boards and then covering in a layer of Scatter. Once this has dried and then the excess has been removed, we then start to add highlighting scatter and clump foliage. When we started adding to the base layer of scatter we'd been using another diluted PVA mix with the highlighting scatter, but this ended up being a bit hit and miss. So we then tried some WWS Layering Adhesive, which seemed to work much better for us. We've found it much quicker to apply and you can also direct the spray a little better, so you can work in tighter areas. We still have a long way to go though, but it's quite amazing what an hour or two does for the overall look. Cheers, Mark.

Hi, It's been another couple of months since the last update, but this time there's a fair bit of progress to show for it. Shows Middleton Railway, Model Railway Show - 27th / 28th June (2 Months) - http://www.middletonrailway.org.uk/ TINGS 2015 - 12th / 13th September 2015 (4 Months) - http://www.ngaugeshow.co.uk/ Storage Boxes Allot of progress has been made with the storage boxes. The 3 storage boxes for the straight scenic boards have now been completed. They are a fairly uncomplicated 2" x 1" internal frame which is then clad in 6mm ply. The closed and open ends of the box being made out of 9mm ply and have rope handles added to them. The storage boxes have a set of 1" x 1" rails fitted internally and the scenic boards have a pair of 1" x 1" slides added to them and this allows the boards to slide into the boxes. This still leaves us with 2 boxes to make for the curved boards. The intention is that these will be constructed in exactly the same way and that the curved boards would again use the rail and slide system to lock the boards into the boxes. Currently we have the top and bottom of a frame made up to test the fit, but I can see allot of head scratching when it comes to getting the rails and slides working on these Signals More work has been done on the signals, the decision on what connector type to use has been made and we have chosen to use 5 way JST connectors (similar to those found in Dapol coaches for the light bars). These give us a nice reliable connection and hopefully we can plant a working signal on the layout in the next few days. We are also going to be adding signals onto the end loop boards, to protect the entrances to the Fiddle Yard. Catenary The Portals are now completed with the remaining Register Arms having been fitted. We've had an issue with the Portals for a little while, in that the 2 track Portals are slightly smaller in height than the 3 track versions. To fix this we lowered the 3 track portals by shortening the legs, but as the 3 track portals were done in 2 or 3 batches, one of the batches ended up being slightly higher than the others. Although this wasn't a major problem, it looked a bit strange visually, so the offending portals have now had their legs trimmed. This meant we had to re-attach the magnetic bases we are using, and as we didn't have access to my wife's canned goods, we used glasses to keep the portals vertical while the epoxy resin set. New Bridge Now that we're starting the final push on the scenic work, one of our team had previously built a diorama of a local bridge near Colton Junction on the Leeds - York line and we've decided to incorporate this on the right hand side of the layout. He had to re-work a little of the terrain, but it looks quite at home there now. Shunting Frame Our 'bridge builder' has also been hard at work scratch building a small shunting frame that we will position close to the entrance to the on-scene sidings. As the mainline points would probably be operated from a signal box some miles away, we thought it would be a nice touch to include a building that would effectively control the siding points and the access to the off-scene industry. Head Shunt Loco Platform We're also adding a raised metal platform which runs alongside the Head Shunt, this would be used by the loco drivers when they were switching ends and also to provide easy access to a small office which will be positioned at that end of the sidings. The platform is actually a kit which comes as a very nice brass etch from PH Designs. In order to get the desired length we wanted for a mainline loco, we've actually built up two of these kits and will fit them back to back. Allowing for my poor skills with a soldering iron, I think it's come out pretty well and its going to look great on the layout. Cheers, Mark.

Looks like the quality you'd get from Shapeways FUD. Promising to see it even in FUD, but a long way to go yet I suspect.

Let's say I had a window of opportunity and didn't abuse it. She arrived home to find me sweeping up, which immediately made her suspicious, doh!

Hi, Again it's been quite a while since the last update (3 months this time). Work is still progressing, but the pace has seemed painfully slow over Christmas. TINGS 2015 Countdown - 6 Months Retaining Wall With the Retaining Wall having been finished before Christmas, it was time to paint it and then apply some weathering to it. The brickwork is intended to be Blue Engineering brick, so a suitable colour was found to represent this, then the Arches / Capping Stones were picked out to represent stone work. The wall then had a light wash applied to it to pick up the mortar and tone down the brick colour, followed by the arches being dry brushed black. There's quite a bit more weathering and detailing left to do, but it's a great base to work from. Ballast The ballasting is now finished. There were a few places around the sidings that needed some attention and we went back over each of the points filling in the areas that we'd originally avoided. In the main this worked out OK for us, but there were one or two points that needed a bit of attention afterwards. Nothing was too far gone though and a little scraping with a craft knife was all that was required to clean out a few bits of ballast from the switch mechanisms. In the next few weeks, we'll be adding the switch cabinets and hopefully some drainage catch pits that we're making if they turn out OK. Storage Boxes One of the main areas of concern for the layout has been the Storage and Protection of the Scenic Boards. At the moment the boards are bolted together into packs, but otherwise have no protection from accidental knocks and we have found that parts of the retaining wall had been damaged while moving the boards around for working sessions. Our solution to this was to create a box that the modules would slide inside. The box would be a 2" x 1" frame which would be strong enough to take the weight of the modules and also to allow other boxes to be stacked on to it for transport. This frame would then be clad in 6mm ply to provide extra strength and finally a closed end and an opening end added. Here are a few pics of the design and the first test frame with the centre module inside it. The construction of the frame is pretty simple and has to be as we don't have access to allot of tools or carpentry skills, so we've gone for a simple glued and screwed approach. Signals We are intending to drive our signals from Arduino boards that will be acting as DCC Accessory decoders. We have proved that this is a workable idea and one of our electrical wizards is busy building the necessary circuit boards to house the Arduino Nano boards and the various power, DCC and LED connections we will need for each one. One snag we have hit though, is that we want the Signals to be easily replacable and to facilitate this we wanted to use some kind of pin connector that the signal would effectively plug into. Unfortunately our choice of connector didn't seem that reliable and our wizard spent many hours scratching his pointy hat and mumbling incantations to himself before the problem was found. Hopefully we'll have some pics or video of a working signal for the next update Catenary A little more work has been done on the Catenary, although the Portals have been completed for some time now, the Register Arms had been stuck in the bottom of a box unfinished. Anyway, the arms are all finished now and the remaining two portals on the centre board have had them fitted. We just need to complete the Portals on the 2 remaining boards on the RHS of the layout and they will be ready for painting and weathering. Here are a few pics of the completed Portals on the Centre Board (hadn't trimmed the arm masts when I took the pictures). Cheers, Mark.

Sure is, just trying to get them out of the boxes (the ones with yellow foam inserts) sorts out the ladder problem ;-)

Hi Acko22, Yes, I'm talking about where the white is on the livery. It looks like the laser has either been absorbed or refracted away from the scanner, giving a less dense point cloud that we can effectively see through. As the scanner was moved around and the various point clouds combined, in this instance we can see through what should be a solid side onto the point cloud taken for the top of the bogie. The first CAD image looks spot on, just looks to be an interesting effect from the scanning process. Cheers, Mark.

Hi Ben, Is the first image a combination or just the point cloud from the scan. Interesting how the laser, seems to have seen through the side of the car above the front bogie and the livery has come through. Cheers, Mark.

It's cost, the Buffet and TGS will require different moulds or slides in the moulds, the TSO and TFO can be produced from the same one. If the Buffet and TGS had been planned for the bookset, I doubt we would have seen the HST at all from Dapol.

I already have one of the older Intercity DVTs and purchased one of the new one's in the hope it would get a corrected livery. Won't be happy if Dapol haven't paid attention to their QA again.