IanLister

Hi. Talk about being sidetracked…………….. In my last entry I mentioned getting corners finished, backscenes fitted, boards aligned against back walls etc. Well…………………………………. A couple of weeks ago I was invited to demo my techniques for making stone buildings at the EMGS North East Area Group ‘Workshopwise’ day event; a really good day and met lots of interesting people. As all the buildings (actually just the one) are fixed down on the layout I had no finished models to take, so I made a short video and sat beside it making a couple of fairly small straightforward bits for future use; a low relief factory end and the base for Spittal signal box which will sit at the south end of the bridge overlooking the junction with the dock branch. I managed to get both made, scribed and painted on the day, so I had quite a productive time and had a few interested visitors. The idea was to put both on one side and come back to them in a few months when I needed to get them onto the layout. Unfortunately, however, in my enthusiasm I polyfilla’d over the locking room door on the signal box and scribed and painted it, and when I got home I could hear the signalman screaming to be let out, so I just had to ‘do a bit more’ as the saying goes…...something I’m tempted by too easily. So, the backscenes still aren’t fixed and the corner boards still aren’t in the corners, but I have a low relief factory: The lower section is as finished as it needs to be, as there is a yard wall in front of it. I also have a signal box, complete with stairs, gables and windowframes made of wood, just like the original, except that I used walnut strip. The railway structures on my layout are all based on Alnwick and Cornhill Railway prototypes, built in the 1880s by the NER; a choice made for 3 reasons: 1. They are contemporary to the building of the Spittal branch so the same architect would have designed them 2. Many are still standing and in good condition, and it’s only just down the road 3. They are my favourite railway buildings, which is reason enough on its own. So this was Spittal box this morning, showing the use of walnut to good effect, along with the rooftiles made of self adhesive photo paper: And this is it this evening, with all that beautiful woodgrain buried under thick layers of British Railways North Eastern region Sky Blue and Ivory: It even has a nameplate in glorious regional tangerine, so I can remember where the layout is set. Now, where are those backscenes……...or is there something else I can be getting on with instead?

HI Pete Just think how good it'll feel when it all works perfectly........ I've just made my third start on a set of signalbox windows; one day they'll look right, I hope. Ian

The scenery formers are XPS craftfoam sawn and sanded to shape and painted before static grass etc. Ian

Hi If you have trouble finding the flock, try artists oil pastels grated with a fine cheese grater. You can get a set of 50 for about a fiver and there will be several shades of purple in there. All the flowers in the pics below were done with this method:

Thankyou gentlemen....much appreciated. Don and Ian: I'm with you both on the backscene. It'll be a simple representation of the distant topography. Having now connected the corner board to the other corner one, I'm going to lay track round to the storage yard before fitting the backscene...it'll be much easier and triples the length of available run for my somewhat limited collection of stock. I need to learn how to convert the K1 to EM but I'm scared of ruining it!!!! Ian

Hi Mike. Thanks for the ideas and interest in the subject. Part of the backscene problem is that the U shaped layout, which in reality should be gently curving, has a whole length of around 90', and as it is set on a sloping river bank, would all need backscene. The dock end, nearer the bridges and Berwick, is OK as there will be a lot of tall buildings which will frame the harbour and maltings. The rest,Spittal station, Spittal Point and the line up to Berwick, are all situated on semi-rural, semi-cottage industry sloping terrain rising from the riverbank. I don't actually think anything beyond basic is necessary; we'll see. I use those NLS 25" maps a lot, especially since they increased the coverage to the whole of England. There's a great aerial photo on 'Britainfromabove.org", the Aerofilms website, if you want to see the area my layout is set in, though you have to imagine it without Tweedmouth station!! Search for Tweedmouth or Spittal Regards Ian

Thanks...much appreciated. Ian

Thanks Adrian. So am I...I just hope I live long enough to finish it!!!

Hi The corner board I've been working on is now finished. Tomorrow it will have a plain sky coloured backscene added and will take up permanent residence in one corner of the layout. How to do the backdrop has been a bit of a challenge; it's such an iconic location with the ECML and Royal Border Bridge in the background I've either got to do it very realistically or not at all, and I feel it would look a bit odd with a mainline railway painted on the wall behind....especially if I painted it. Photo panorama is not an option unless someone can lend me a time travel machine to go back to 1960, so it's going to be pretty plain, with a few half-relief trees and a low relief factory end. I may faintly suggest the rooves and chimneys of a few distant industrial buildings lurking in the misty distance; that'll depend on whether I feel brave tomorrow. So here's the finished bit: Next I'm moving on to the other corner board which takes the Berwick branch round behind Tweed Dock and into the fiddleyard, via a 25' hidden run (accessible, don't panic) behind the buildings on the dockside. The board is made, so I just need to get on with the trackbuilding; my first go at 4mm EM gauge and I'm really enjoying the track construction, with C and L chairs and rail, walnut sleepers and stippled polyfilla ash ballast laid before the rails go down, which I find a lot easier than ballasting afterwards. The track climbs towards Berwick, so I suppose you could say it's a case of "Onwards and Upwards", though perhaps better not to........ Regards Ian

Hi Don and thanks. I'm enjoying the change up to 4mm so far. Ian

Hi Ian Thankyou. This section is now nearly finished, which is good as I'm moving on to the next baseboard in the Spittal direction next, which means station throat trackwork building, which I'm looking forward to. May be a little easier than the 2mm stuff; I'll reserve judgement till I've had a go!! Ian

Hi Tim Great to see you finally able to make some progress with time and space to get on. No excuses......... My Spittal and Tweed Dock EM layout is developing just a couple of miles along the road from Coldstream in a 40ft workshop in Wark. Any time you're up here doing research pop in for a chat. Regards Ian

Hi In an earlier entry in this blog I raised the dilemma caused by having boards of a width that makes the back unreachable when they are in place in the layout’s permanent location, particularly in corners. Make them narrower? All well and good, but when you’re modelling a real location, and two tracks diverge from each other as they progress round the end of a U-shaped layout, it’s just not possible, particularly when the tracks are on raised embankments with a road in between and at a lower level. So of necessity, the end boards are 900mm wide, and much deeper into the corners. And my arms aren’t long enough. As explained in the earlier entry, my answer is to create all the landscape outside the line of the Berwick – Spittal branch before moving the boards back into their rightful place in the end of the workshop. As this is my first attempt at 4mm modelling, an additional advantage is that I get to develop all the necessary techniques to complete the project. My previous attempt was 2mm FS, where, if you keep VERY quiet about it, you can get away with a lack of detail in certain things because it’s so small. But don’t tell anyone…………. So an early worry for me on becoming a 4mm modeller was to get my head round the level of detail needed to make acceptable landscape and building models, and to establish whether I would be able to achieve it using methods used earlier or whether I’d need to learn some new tricks. I have to say it’s been an interesting experience so far, and I’m really enjoying it. Please excuse the temporary backscene in the following photos; I needed an edge to work to, but if I put the proper full height one on I couldn't reach to do anything! Spittal Forge is now finished, including the adjacent rather ramshackle stableyard and paddock (both still awaiting some further detailing), and as you can see, Mrs Sparrow is rather keen on her gardening, even if she does make the flower heads from grated oil pastel. The area between the lane and the railway has its ground cover and some of the detail, though there is a lot more gorse, bramble, hawthorn, cranesbill, meadowsweet, poppy, nettle etc to add, along with a large quantity of native biological gibberish of the I-don’t-know-what-it-is-but-it’s-green variety. You know, the stuff that the dog gets tangled up in. Two further pics show the forge’s location relative to the direction of the line, and allow it to be visualised. The first, taken over the top of the Forge yard from the top of an adjacent tree by a child who obviously had no regard for the danger of heights, shows the branch descending towards Spittal. In the distance can be seen the Brandywell Bridge (no, it’s not ‘The Hobbit’); just beyond here is the entrance to Spittal station and the start of the dock branch which returns along the river bank almost parallel to the Berwick line but diverging gradually away and falling to dock level. The second shows the view towards Berwick. The track continues to climb and curve fairly gently before entering a fiddle yard conveniently screened by some very large industrial buildings, including this one: There are some detailed parts of this first attempt at scenery I’m particularly pleased with. Gorse: The footpath down to the wooden footbridge over the track; for obvious reasons the bridge isn’t in place yet, so the buttress is currently a favourite spot for local trainspotters and those feeling suicidal (not many of those in such a beautiful part of the world): The wall for the low-relief factory end that will be behind it on the backscene. It’s not sloping, honest; it’s just that the retaining wall in front diveges on a curve. I particularly like the brambles: And finally, my first ever rock face (sorry about the colour; for some reason the flash fired on the camera): Conveniently, there are strata of blue craft foam which reach the surface here, formed millions of years ago by some confusingly complicated geological process and thrown up to the surface of the world to be mined and sold very expensively on Ebay. Or you can buy it from the manufacturer, as I did, and save a lot of money. So, some more detailing on the embankment, and then this bit can be sent to stand in the corner while I get on with some proper stuff: track building, signals, trains etc. Only about another 70 feet or so of baseboard to go………………………………… Regards Ian

Spittal Forge in place on the layout, with stables, garden and the beginnings of scenery: Excuse the temporary backscene; if I put the full one on I can't reach to work and if I leave it off most of the stuff ends up on the floor.............. Ian

Hi. The stonework is scribed Advanced Lightweight Polyfilla on plasticard. Same stuff used for stone setts (with a homemade stamp), gungy looking ash and cinders and the pile of sand. I also mould it into flat sheets about 3mm thick and make steps, coping stones, flagstones etc out of it. Ian

I'm sure they have. The workshop doors are made of walnut strip; nice grain and colours very easily.I'm also using it for sleepers for trackbuilding. Ian

Thanks for the kind comments. Yes Captain K, it's 4mm. EM gauge to be precise; my first foray after a brief attempt at 2mm FS. Ian

Hi Spittal Upper Forge...first building on my new 4mm layout: Ian

It’s lunchtime, June 21st, 1960. Eric Sparrow and Alan Cole, proprietors of Sparrow and Cole, Iron Founders, Blacksmiths, Toolmakers and Boilermakers Ltd, have gone for lunch to the Harrow, a local pub on Dock Road in Tweedmouth. Their yard, at the Upper Forge overlooking the Berwick – Spittal ex NER branchline, is quiet for the first time in a few hours. Let's have a look round while they're out: Inside, they have been repairing a fairly small boiler which has been in use for 60 years or so operating pumps at Scremerston Colliery; it’s on its last legs but the colliery, a small family run business, is not doing too well and cannot afford a new one. Most of the businesses around here are locally owned and run; it’s a delightful backwater of cottage industry and local enterprise even in 1960, and in many ways unique in the rapidly changing modern world of industrial Britain. How long it will survive who knows, but the local railway will do its best to support these hardworking Northern folk. Out in the yard, Eric and Alan have been sorting through some of their stock odds and ends. They’ve just received a new order to make 400 assorted picks, shovels etc for the contractors developing Kielder Forest and Dam, and there’ll be some serious reorganising of stuff to do; they’re not the tidiest as you can see. There’s also a job to be done on the old hoist Alan’s dad built many years ago; it’s lifted many a boiler onto farmcarts, trailers and flatbed trucks over the years. Rural North Northumberland was at the forefront of small-scale steam power on farms, limeworks, quarries and coalmines for a long time, and a lot of Sparrow and Cole’s stationary steam power is still working, though with many a wheeze, splutter and hiss by now. The hoist has been creaking a bit of late, a bit like Alan and Eric, but they’ll get it sorted, just like everything else. Eric’s finishing early this afternoon; his wife has been staying up the river with friends in Hawick for a few days with the kids, and he’s meeting them at Spittal Station just down the hill. they’re due on the 4.45pm arrival from St Boswells, 3 Gresley 51ft suburbans and Eric’s favourite local loco, the V1. He likes his trains, does Eric. He might even leave a little early, and watch the J72 shunting Spittal Yard and the fish quay. If Alan doesn't mind that is........maybe Eric'll buy him another pint. That should do the trick. What the two of them don’t realise is that they’re being spied on by Seagullcam: Excuse my ramblings; I'm starting to believe all this stuff Ian

Thanks Don. I'm finding out which of the 2mm techniques work in 4mm.......interesting times and so far I'm pleased with it.

Thanks Dave. I use Polyfill Advanced Lightweight filler; it's flexible enough not to be brittle, but not rubbery so you get nice sharp scribe lines. The toothbrush is the real key to success, however........ Ian

Hi. In order to develop and try out construction techniques to be used for the large number of stone buildings which will populate Tweed South Bank, I’ve concentrated over the last couple of weeks on making progress with the small industrial complex overlooking the Berwick line; this will be set back in one corner of the layout and needs to be in place before the corner board, currently in the middle of the floor, takes up its rightful position and stops cluttering the place up. I’m using mainly the same building methods I used on my 2mm FS layout, in order to see which transfer to 4mm and what needs to change in my approach to the scarily larger scale. So…….welcome to the almost finished world of Messrs Sparrow and Cole, Blacksmiths, Iron Founders and Boilermakers……… North Northumberland and the Lower Tweed Valley were in the forefront of technological advances in agriculture in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the associated developments in quarrying, mining and so on drew people to the area, which accelerated development of transport links. The industrial revolution came gently to the area, bringing benefits but without quite the same levels of squalor, slums and poor hygiene of most northern cities of the time. The coming of the Newcastle and Berwick Railway to the Tweed, meeting up with the North British Railway by the building of the Royal Border Bridge, drew local village craftsmen to the coast in search of fame, fortune and, in the case of the local blacksmith at the village of Ford (a certain Mr Thomas Black) the contract to supply spades, shovels and pickaxes for the construction of the bridge. A fair-sized contract, I would think, given the size of the finished bridge. In his haste to get started on this mammoth undertaking he sold Ford Forge and moved to the Upper Forge in Tweedmouth, high on the south bank of the Tweed Estuary and close to the new railway. Business boomed, and after twenty years or so he built the new Seaview Foundry in Spittal, which remained a successful manufacturer until closure in 1953. The Seaview Works is now a printing business. Matthew Sparrow and Samuel Cole were two young iron workers from Dudley in the Black Country. As you can imagine, during the nineteenth century the Black Country got blacker and blacker…..unhealthily so. Matthew and Samuel, like many of their contemporaries, decided to seek pastures new. Unlike the vast majority of their mates, however, they didn’t seek the supposedly greener and pleasanter lands of the coal, iron and shipbuilding on the banks of the Tyne and the Tees; they headed further north and settled on the far more desirable banks of the Tweed (which must be hugely desirable, given the number of times people have fought and died to own them). Sparrow and Cole bought the Upper Forge from Thomas Black, and a dynasty was born which, by 1960 (the year in which my model is set) was a successful small foundry and boilermaking business catering to local small industries in Spittal and Tweedmouth and the local farming community. The model has a plasticard and foamboard shell with stonework scribed in lightweight filler which is also used for the ground texturing: a combination of stone setts, paving flagstones and trodden cinders. One new technique I’ve employed is the use of 110gsm adhesive-backed matt photo paper for window frames and roof slates. It cuts accurately, takes paint wonderfully well and sticks to perspex windows without fogging or other issues I’ve had before. The stock racks in the yard are constructed from walnut strip (very satisfying to work with and easy to paint/weather) and have a corrugated aluminium foil roof. They’ll be a good place to use up all the odd offcuts of card, plastic and brass I end up with...... The yard walls need their final pastel weathering and pointing, the cinder areas of the yard need painting, and the main roof needs finishing; then I’m going to try and get my head round how to do guttering and downpipes. I’m happy with how this is coming along, which is a relief given the scale of architecture I’ll need to model to get the layout finished. Regards Ian

An interesting idea Don. What I plan is to build the track to the storage yard once I've done the bit I'm working on, as it will get a fair bit of track down quickly and allow me to run things while I develop the rest.

Thanks Pete. Think of it as a layout in a boxfile...........just a boxfile the size of a house....... Ian

Hi Ian and thanks. My thinking is exactly as you've described your approach to building Modbury. If the result is half as good as yours I'll be pleased with it; it's certainly very different to the 2mm FS layout I built. Ian