Heinz57

Hi Neil, Sorry about the quiet time on the blog. I have done quite a bit of work on the layout since I last posted. Firstly all the paved areas across the layout has been completed, that's the area where the office building sits, the entrance gates and the pavement stretching all the way down the layout to the depot at the other end. Plus all of this and the road has been painted (just need to do markings around the car park). I have also ballasted the layout and finished the lathe shed building. So yeah, quite a bit of work. I hope to post a proper update soon but I'm on that much of a roll I keep forgetting to take photos. But I'll do one soon, I promise! Stay tuned! Heinz

Elveden Road is going back on the road! This November Elveden Road is going back on tour, so far we have four exhibition appearances confirmed between November 2015 and November 2016, with more dates to be added. 14th November 2015 - Weston on Trent Model Railway Show 13th - 14th February 2016 - British Festival of Railway Modeling, Doncaster 28th February 2016 - Ilkeston Woodside Model Railway Show, Trowel 6th November 2016 - Midland Railex, Burton-Upon-Trent There is still much work to be done before then, but refurbishment of the layout is progressing well. Stay tuned to this topic for more updates! Heinz Background photo courtesy of Andy York EDIT 04/09/2015 - Date for Weston on Trent corrected, I'd written the wrong one down. The show will be on 14th November NOT the 21st. Sorry all!

05-08-2015 - We're getting somewhere! Wow its been a long while since I last updated. How things have changed on the layout since my last post. I have stripped quite a bit of the old scenery back including all the ballast and I'm progressing well with the rebuild... The first bit of work I will mention is the completion of the office block. This was finished probably a week after my last post. All the walls were finished and glazed with the brickwork lightly weatherd. The roof constructed and any last bits of painting completed... Also here is the new office building with its predesessor, for comparitive purposes *** The new baseboard has been completed with the lathe pit being installed, all wiring being completed and the backscene being addembled. The structure of the backscene is much more sturdy than the previous board, which was prone to being damaged. The first major change to the layout is ALL of the ballast on the layout has been stripped. I was never happy with the ballasting, although the finish of the chippings was good, the glue never truley 'took' and it was constantly crumbling (even after saturating the entire layout in glue), I kept having to 'patch' it up and re-spray the weathering to try and blend it in. This resulted in the weathering being far too heavy and just not looking right. After stripping the ballast back I laid the new crossover that links the stabling tracks with the main section of the layout. I have also started to lay the new pavements. The first was a sort of access path to the lathe shed. The above photo is the most recent one I have of the layout, since taking this photo I have completed all pavements along the layout. I hope to update a bit sooner than I did with this one! Cheers, Heinz

The tamper looks awesome mate, nice work! You're a braver man than I for building that. I can just about manage a Knightwing kit, I wouldn't stand a chance with one of those tampers! I like the idea of having the bus stuck under the bridge, it would be something different that isn't very often done on layouts. Keep up the good work, Matt

**STOP PRESS** ELVEDEN ROAD APPEARS IN BRM! I am pleased to say that Elveden Road is in the current issue of BRM (MAY 2015) It appears along side Simon's London Road layout as sort of a East Midlands layout special feature. The article looks great and Andy York's photos look fantastic! I look forward to hearing what you guys think to it! Matt

Great layout you have there, loads of detail!

The layout is looking superb Terry! I'm looking forward to the next video coming out! Matt

Thanks Chaps, glad you like it!

Hi all, 26/03/2014 - A slow winter Its been a very long while since I have last updated - Sorry about that. It's been a very busy few months for me, we had a busy Christmas at work and then I received a promotion and transfer in Feb. A very hectic time! Anyway, enough about that, onto the layout! The last update I spoke about the visit to Etches Park (which seems an age ago now) and what I plan to do with the layout next. A few weeks after Etches the layout visited the Wirksworth Show in October, which was a very successful weekend, there was little trouble to note with the layout and it seemed to go down well with the viewing public. Between the two shows not much work was carried out, instead I spent some time investigating the issues that arose at Etches, it turns out maybe I was exaggerating the issues because during testing there weren't any. We gave the layout a good hammering and no issues to speak of. Maybe it was first show teething problems? What I did do was extend the fuel point, the track is now long enough to fit two HST power cars, I still need to link the back stabling tracks with the main layout but I'll talk about that later. Also, the stabling track beside the main depot building now has a new purpose, it is here where the toilets are emptied and the water re-filled on the coaches. I have added a concrete walkway to reflect this. The photos below show these two alterations and the depot buildings that Shaun kindly finished for me in time for Etches Park.... The fuel point. I still need to re-build the fuel tanks. Coolant and waste tanks, based upon similar ones seen at Etches Park. The sheds. The emptying tracks. More detail still to be added. After Wirksworth, any work on the layout dried up. I lost all motivation to actually do anything. I started work on adding the new lathe shed, when trying to rip up the track and ballast I quickly found that it wasn't coming up without a fight, so I did it the easy way and decided to scrap the entire board and re-build it. This meant I could start with a clean slate and lay the tracks to suit the lathe. Rather than having to bodge it together. This is where work stopped, it took me roughly two months to lay the five straight tracks and two points this board has. At the same time I was working on the lathe shed itself, which I started in October, come the end of the month I stopped and haven't touched it since. I don't have any photos of this, simply because there isn't anything to photo. I have started to get back into this board again now and I have started to build the inspection pit for the lathe shed (again no photos), when building this I made a few changes to the design so I will have to completely re-build the shed I started on back in October. The past week or so I have been working on another little project with Simon, we have been re-building the office block. It was apparent that the old building looked somewhat like a car show room with its bright lights and empty interior, and it simply didn't look right at the front of the layout. So we are re-doing it with a detailed interior. The few progress shots below show what we have been up to... The office building, looks a lot better now than it did before! And with the lights turned on... Not bad eh? Finally, big news! Elveden Road was photographed for BRM last November, a big thanks to Andy York for coming along to take the photos. It is set to appear in the next issue of BRM along with Simon's depiction of Nottingham Station. Thanks for taking the time to read this update, and I hope you like the article in BRM! Heinz

What a game it was last night! As a fan of the Patriots I'm buzzing because they won. I knew it would be a good one, Seattle's defense is somewhat like a concrete wall but the Patriots are also a strong team, as proved yesterday. They were all over Seattle. The close score sure made a difference to last year when the Seahawks flattened Denver. Apparently yesterday was the first time in Superbowl history a team has overcome (and taken victory from) a deficit of more than 7 points in the final quarter.

I'm a fan of the NFL. I became interested in it about four years ago now when I watched the SuperBowl for the first time whilst at Uni. I'm a fan of the New England Patriots. But I also like the Dallas Cowboys

Thanks chaps. In the end I decided to go for these clip on LED lamps... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lloytron-LED-Hobby-Table-Desk-Reading-Light-Lamp-Chrome-Probe-Flexible-Clip-On-/290839920601?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Lamps&hash=item43b768ffd9 I would have loved to have done a proper proscenium, like you guys have. They look awesome. But transport space for me at the moment is an absolute premium. Everything (including stock and tools) has to be kept at the bare minimum. Cheers Heinz

Hi all, I am looking for some sort of lighting solution for my layout. Ideally I want to go LED, that seems to be the way forwards. The layout is 12x2ft made from three 4ft boards with a 1ft high backscene. I have seen fancy prosceniums on many layouts which look good, however because transport space is a premium, I need to keep everything to a minimum. So really I need something that I can clip or bolt onto the layout. I have seen a few options around on the internet... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GTI-Silver-LED-Flexible-Reading-Light-Clip-on-Bed-Table-Desk-Lamp-Day-White-/121305500086?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Lamps&hash=item1c3e5f09b6 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lloytron-LED-Hobby-Table-Desk-Reading-Light-Lamp-Chrome-Probe-Flexible-Clip-On-/290839920601?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Lamps&hash=item43b768ffd9 http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/lighting/desk-lamps/led-clip-desk-lamp---black-185583 But I'm still not sure. I don't want to go and buy something and it not be bright enough. Perhaps if you was to share what you use on your layout I'll get a better idea of what I need to buy. Any help/ideas are very much appreciated. Cheers, Heinz

Cheers Tom, glad you like it!

The layout looks awesome Terry! The tamper project sounds like a good one. You're a braver man than me for attempting it! Matt

Thanks chaps, glad you like it! Terry, the EMT 08 is indeed a re-spray. Its an Olivia's Trains exclusive. It's also fitted with stay alive to improve reliability.

Thanks chaps for your kind comments on the layout. Glad you like it! 21/09/2014 - A day at Etches Park Etches Park Depot hosted its first, and hugely anticipated open day last weekend. Not only did I attend, but I was privileged to be able to exhibit my layout there. There was only six layouts there (including mine), so I was quite lucky to be able to do so. The day was fantastic, the layout got many positive reviews. Being based on an East Midlands Trains owned depot made it all the more special. Even staff from EMT who were walking past on there daily duties stopped to look at the layout. Below are a few photos of the layout in operation that day. Exhibiting an East Midlands Trains depot themed layout at an actual East Midlands Trains depot is quite an experience. What a way to debut the layout into its exhibitions! I'd like to thank Simon and Shaun for giving up many hours of there spare time to help me get the layout ready for the show, and for of course helping me operate it that day. And thank you to Simon for transporting it! Also I'd like to thank East Midlands Trains for their hospitality that day. So what now? Now the celebrations are over with, and the excitement of last weekend has worn off, its time to get back down to business. I have a list as long as both arms of things to do with the layout. Firstly there's the technical issues that the exhibition unraveled. During the day I had a few issues with board joins and some uncoupling magnets not set right, these have all been sorted. There are a few wiring related issues that I want to sort out too. I noticed that a few of the switched frogs on the points started to show dead spots. I have always had a few of these issues from the start, but I am now starting to have them on points I didn't before. So these need sorting ASAP. As you can imagine, spending the day in the depot gave a mountain of details I can add. One change in particular is the addition of a wheel lathe building. I will be adding this at the end of the run around, near the office building. I have also decided to extend the fuel point siding, I will be almost doubling it in length and adding a second fuel point, to allow me to shunt and fuel HST power cars. Additionally, I will be connecting the back two stabling tracks to the main layout with a cross over. Which will let me do the latter without using the fiddle yard or taking any stock off the layout. These are the most major changes I will be making, there are many many others, too many to list here. So stay tuned for future updates to see these. * * * * Finally, here are a few bonus night time shots of the layout... These photos were taken by Simon during one of our evening test sessions at the club room prior to exhibiting at Etches. Awesome photos! That's about all for now, I hope you like the photos of the layout in action. I'll see you in the next update, Heinz

Latest Update 14/09/2014 - Preparations for Etches Hi all, So in the short time since the last update, significant progress was made on the layout all in preparations for its visit to Etches Park open day, but of course today is Sunday, the day after the open day! The reason I am so late posting this is because I was hard at work getting the layout ready, every spare minute was spent in the club room preparing the layout for the show. I am pleased to say that it was completed to a showable condition. This update will show what I got up to on all those late evenings in the club room. Another update will follow to talk about Etches.... The first thing to show is the near completion of the fueling area, a paint job and some weathering really brings it to life. As does the greenery. Notice the additional unload tap I added, where road trucks can unload and deliver fuel. Road markings added to the car park. The fence was also started, and completed after the photo was taken (cheers Simon!) I have also painted and weathered the bridge and added road markings. Still got the street lights to do though. Speaking of weathering, the biggest leap in making the layout look nearly finished was weathering the layout itself. I did this with the airbrush using a few weathering colors from Pheonix and then some basic browns and blacks from Humbrol. In these photos you can also see the addition of the yard towers and the progression of the depot buildings. Shaun did a great job of these. The roofs were finished in time for the show, but with all the excitement of getting it ready I never took a photo. Finally, just a few shots to show off the lighting... Many more lights will be added to bring it to life. Since taking the photos, lighting has also been added to the rear depot building. That's about all for now. I'll post an update soon to talk about Etches, and what I plan to do with the layout next. Cheers, Heinz

Wow, the layout looks awesome Terry! I'm looking forward to seeing the next video, Matt

Latest Update: 30/08/2014 - We're getting there Hello all! I've made quite some significant progress on the layout this past month, and it now looks like something that resembles a model railway. The biggest leap was probably completing the ballasting. This was started shortly after my last update and took place over multiple sittings spread out over a week or so. I really hate ballasting so I made sure this was the first of the major scenic projects I did. The scenic section of the layout is about 75% ballasted track so it is obviously a major feature of the layout, plus as its a slow speed shunting layout reliability is a key issue. For these two reasons combined I slowed time and really took my time with the ballasting as I wanted it to be spot on. I also decided to add hard standing to the fuel point track, I thought it made sense to have this on concrete, and plus it was a few more inches less of ballasting to do - so every little helps! The first bit of greenery has been added too, adding bushes behind these shunting tracks breaks up the back scene. The original plan was to also add some fence infront of these bushes, but there isn't as much space as I thought there was so I didn't bother. Besides it looks good as it is. Since taking this photo I have added more, and they now reach the height of the coach. The bushes were completed by using a variety of 'underbush' and 'foliage' textures from the Woodland Scenics range. They were stuck in place using PVA glue. After everything was in place I saturated them with either Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement or watered down PVA to help seal it. Once this went off they are solid, there are no loose fibers that could accidentally break off. I did the same method on Arena Parkway (which was also my first layout with major greenery on it) and it seemed to work really well. This was the last of the work to be done at home, a couple of days later myself and Simon shifted the layout up to the club room where the layout will be prepared for its first outing. One of the first jobs that I completed up at the club was the fueling/fuel unload track. The Knightwing kits were constructed and painted direct onto the layout. The tank you see was made from two smaller tanks I found knocking around in the spares box up at the club. They were both on plinths, heavily weathered and looked like they had been through the wars a bit. I bashed them together, tidied them up and repainted them. They now have a new lease on life and look completely different to how they did. Since taking the photo I have also given it a bit of a weather and it looks pretty good now. Note the base coat on the bridge supports in the background. The bridge top has been completed, it was made for me by Simon out of plasticard following a similar construction method he used on his own. As my bridge top is removable (the bridge straddles a board join) it has been made with ridges that 'lock' the bridge into place. The bridge is a few layers thick, it has sides that also help make it rigid. It looks awesome, but I'm afraid you will have to wait until the next update to see it. With all the excitement of photographing the depot buildings and getting said photos on here to show you I went and forgot to take a picture of it! I have also made significant progress on the car park/office area. The road way has been painted, along with the pavement which is also glued into place. The security hut is from the knightwing range. The next update will show (hopefully) the completion of this area. I haven't got much left to do, just a bit of fencing and a few details. Depot Buildings The depot buildings are probably the most important scenic feature of the layout, together they will form the 'center piece' of the whole model. So it was important that they look the part, construction of these was started not long after I posted the last update, on a lazy Saturday afternoon when myself and Simon thought of some ideas what the building could look like. Using Simon's artistic skills and my creative input we came up with something loosely based on the newest building (shed three I think) at Etches Park. I wanted the buildings to look slightly different from each other so what we decided to do was a sort of 'modular' system, the shell of the buildings look almost the same, but by differing the roofs we now have two buildings that look very different from each other. Actual construction of the buildings was started the following Thursday on club night. Another member of the club, Shaun, kindly offered to help me out and make these buildings for me. The shell for both buildings have now been completed, taking about three weeks to do them both. The rear building has been completed and is now fixed in place, the main building is currently in the process of being painted and will be fixed in place after. Both of the buildings await their roofs which will finish them off nicely. * * * * There is a lot of work going off on the layout at present and progress is being made at a fast pace now. There will be more to come from me in the next couple of weeks where I will show or progress on the layout and preparations for the show. Cheers, Heinz

The layouts looking fantastic Terry! much worth all the hard work. I like the new depot you added in the middle. Keep up the good work, Matt

Thanks chaps, glad you like it. Its only going to get better, I've got quite a few good ideas kicking around that I will add to the layout.

Latest Update - 28/07/2014: We're getting there! Its been a long while since I last updated, over a month now. However, significant progress has been made now. There's still a way to go of course, but its now a huge step closer. So the first thing I did was complete all fault finding I mentioned at the end of the last update. This is bar the cross overs that still wouldn't work properly. Here are a few photos of the layout in operation. At this stage I was using the 57 to shunt the coaches around the layout, as apposed to an actual shunting loco. Notice the HSTs stored on the back tracks, this is how the tracks will be used under show conditions. The train on the back most track (so in this case the East Midlands HST) will actually be used as a scenic break so will never move. The track is still powered, but mostly to let me keep lights and sound on. Here is a pic or two of the finished control panel.... Nice and tidy wiring! The indication LEDs are for signals, which are wired in all the way to the layout boards, however the signals themselves will be added at a later date. Look, its a support coach! Testing took place over a week or so were I was able to iron out any problems. The cross overs took a little longer, but since doing the main tests you see above I was able to sort both of these out. The first cross over (on the depot board) was solved by moving the CDU into the control panel. and the other, which is on the far board (or fiddle yard board) was corrected by adding an extra common direct from the control panel to the crossover itself. I was then able to press on with the scenery... The first task was the hard standing. There are two areas on the layout, The depot on the back two tracks will be on hard standing, as will the main four track building at the front. The two will be linked via a pathway. The first section was the back two tracks, I attempted this using filler. Unfortunately, I made a complete pigs ear out of it and it looked a mess. I had to rip it all up, including the tracks and start again. This made a complete mess of the baseboard itself, taking up to 3mm of the surface off in places. The photo above shows the filler method on 'completion', I don't have any photos of the mess that followed! I did the front hard standing from plasticard and it looks awesome! I can't take all the credit for this though, without help from Simon - who practically completed the bottom layer on both sections of hard standing for me - it wouldn't have turned out half as good. The back section was re-done in the same way, along with the connecting pathway. The bridge supports are in place, along with the top. The supports are permanent but the top itself will be removable. I have also made the office building that sits at the front on the far side of the layout. This is loosely based on a building I seen near Pride Park in Derby but with a lot of changes. As you can see its not quite finished yet. I need to add a few exterior details, paint a few bits then finish the interior lighting. Finally, the hard standing has been painted. Note the front where I used filler to 'ramp' it down to the board level. The backscene has also been painted. The next job on the list is to lay cable trunking and other similar details before commencing with ballasting. After this I can press on with the yard area. Also, I will say now that Elveden Road will be appearing at the 'Etches Park Open Day' on 13th September 2013. The open day will take place at the Etches Park depot in Derby and is to commemorate 175 years of railways in the city. Clicky I hope you like the layout so far! Heinz

Hi Richard, welcome to RM Web I have been following your layout on YouTube for a while (Heinz551) and I must say it is a cracking layout! Glad to see it here on RM Web. Your 'How To' videos have helped me no end. Keep up the good work! Heinz

Just stumbled across this topic. Its looking good so far, I'm looking forward to watching it progress. Interesting construction you have for the baseboards there, I've never seen anything like it before. Nice catch with the staging, it will provide you with a great surface to sit the layout on. Heinz