37023

Im looking forward to this years show

Evening Devonbelle, I'm interested in your European locos and stock do you have a layout? 

I'm looking at building a rake of JNAs sorry to hijack the thread but where's best for transfers?

Cheers

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, since the festive period everything has been on the go slow! Tonight we managed to get a little more track down leaving just the track work that connects road 6, 7, and the fuel loading road to stick down so we arnt far off now having the whole depot are laid!

A bit of a big update this week! Finally you can see in the second picture the total length of the scenic section of the layout. There are the mainline boards to add down the side of the shed And Fouldubs is balanced for this picture but you can get a feel for the impressive size we are aiming for!

The first picture shows the depot point control which will be totally hidden under a dummy hand point throw to conceal the hole in the board.

Pictures 4 and 5 show the back of the depot building and show the brilliant work on the scrub land that has been started by one of our members.

Picture 6 shows a few of the new vehicles that have been picked up over the last week including a Vauxhall Carlton, Its a Citroen Platform Pilote camper and Lada Samara.

Another little pre Wednesday update! The first Leyland Sharpa is ready for varnish now and will be handed over to the team at GM I'm no time. I'm sure they will be delighted with their new van!

Not much in the way of progress again until Wednesday. But the Samara is now right hand drive and just needs reg plates and a driver! The first of the Sherpas has received it's yellow too. On top of this the maintenance team over at Low Moor have been pressed into action and have installed two refurbed power units (sound chips) into 37178 and 37191 and will now see 37191 transferred into the ED/GM Petrolium pool.

Only a small update today. There will be a more interesting one tomorrow hopefully!

The lada has had the dash I'm bits and rebuilt.... now do I nick the radio or not?

3 (one to arrive) Sherpa vans which will all go into BR yellow and one Lada Samara that is for general use on the road ways on GM. These should keep me busy for a little while!

It's been quiet over the festive period on GM but tonight whilst enjoying a couple of whiskeys we installed the 4 point motors that will join up to the 4 points already installed. Following that we got the next board tops into position to measure up for the depot exit and Fouldubs Junction. So far the whole layout is measuring no more than 11ft wide!

While we are wading through the festive period one of our members has been hard at work on the computer to reproduce the Signal Box diagram that is in Fouldubs Box. This is done on CAD so we can make it any size we want. There will be a 7mm scale size in the box on the layout and one to go on the operators control panel to help aid running the layout.

There isn't going to be much happening on the layout over Christmas. So one of the team had a fiddle with one of the pics to include sky.

Any hints and tips are welcome Steve. I appreciate it. I'll certainly be giving the methods a try!

Yes it is looking really good. Get some ballast oily gunk between the sleepers and it will really come together

 

These are my attempts/experiments

 

This is how polifiller over ballast and weathering powder turned out

 

IMG_20181129_113233.jpgIMG_20180719_105142.jpg

 

And this is how fine sand mixed with PVA turned out

 

IMG_20180731_182459 (2).jpgIMG_20180926_103846.jpg

 

Cheers

Steve

They look brilliant steve. I have a few bags of different ballast, sand and grit so I'll use them to a similar end result to you. The polyfillers a great little tip! I hadn't thought about that but I'll give it a try!

Some ballast and a backdrop and those two are straight into the realistic models thread.

 

lovely stuff, I know its Grangemouth but it does bring back memories of skulking about Millerhill as a lad. Same sort of loco's found on shed.

Cheers Millerhillboy it seems every week now it steps a little closer! Once road 6 and 7 are in we will be putting grids and other details down then laying ballast. But it's all coming together now

Tonight was a quiet session finishing a few bits of wiring up. We can now move locos up and down shed road one and also move them between roads 2, 3, 4 and 5. Next is to get the next board complete so we can join road 1 up and also join roads 6 and 7 in too. After that it's time to start fitting the point servos and do some serious testing while the boards for fouldubs and the main line are built. Hopefully all of the scenic track will be down by around February.

Nothing major.......

 

You certainly been busy with the stock and they do look good..... The PCA's are great kits and they do go together very well, I've got another 3 of them to build.

 

The ETHEL paint scheme is starting to take shape and of course looking good, looking forward to seeing the others painted up and taking their place on the layout.

 

Jim

Cheers Jim, the pcas are brilliant for a quick build. I have another 5 to do but will get to them after I've got the take of ttas out the way! I'm hoping the white and red will be on the Ethel by weekend.

Nothing major to report until tonight when we are back down at the club house. So for now some work on stock has been under taken. 7 out of 12 pcas which will be seen on GM have had their data panels and numbers added and Ethel 2 has got it's main colours on

Cheers for the comments, we are pushing our selves on this layout to get it as real as possible!

An additional post to last night's to include some pictures taken by Andy who is doing the wiring for us to show the work he did last night! Andy stepped forward to do the wiring as I loath doing it and he enjoys it.

A massive step forward tonight. The first loco to officially fire up on shed is 37183. There's still a few bits of wiring left to tidy up and then there may be some power taken next week!

Hi Bruce if you have any story's of the place you'd like to share I'd be grateful to read them! I'm in touch with a driver up there at present (what's left of the place with drs) and he's helping loads for pictures of Fouldubs. But any info is appreciated! The layout will be exhibitable so it will hopefully get a good airing in the next few years.

Jim your correct. Only 3 25s were converted I'm doing 3 as they were in 1988 and I'm doing two Ethel 2s one in intercity and one in blue and grey. They take all their returned/damaged stock to both Telford O gauge show and Warley so it's just pot luck when you get there what's for sale. The prices are a little cheaper than normal too!

Latest for Grangemouth.

Tonight saw all the roads from 1 (on the right) to 5 installed as far as they can go until the next board is built. Whilst we wait on the wood to be cut wiring will be done so we can keep ahead on works. We couldn't resist taking a few locos down to help measure up (honest)

Another little update. Seems to be getting a fairly regular thing now! The points are completed now and ready to be laid tomorrow evening the pictures show 2/5 completed

Another little post regarding stock this time. Like most I made the yearly trip to the Warley Show, the main reason is for the Heljan returns stand! This year we picked up a bumper crop of class 25s! 4 will become Ethels, one 25/0 is complete and will become 25035 in the horrid maroon it carried in pres and the other is a pure spares donor

It seemed to be rarely visited by most millerhillboy. The amount of photos compared to most other depots is minimal!

Only a small update this week so far and that is in the shape of the next batch of points being altered to look a little more realistic. The overly chunky and unrealistic tiebar set up peco insist on is all cut away and then the remaining sleepers filled. The blades are also removed for ease at this point and the OO fishplates taken off to make way for a solid solder joint and dummy realistic fishplates in their place! After this they will get dosed in sleeper grime and weather'd.

Cheers Mal and Caradoc glad you both like what you see. Hopefully we will be picking up pace again over the next few weeks!

Heres a little update on GM. Jim has been ploughing on and completed board 3 which is now up on legs and joined to board 2. Tonight with the aid of andy the track was repositioned and a temporary board 4 was clamped on to aid alignment. Chopping up the peco points will be done this week with a view of laying up to board 4 in the next few weeks.