Kallaroonian

I'm still planning to build that Hatfield layout. Fascinating viewing

There are some climate related dilemmas that folks might be able to provide some advice on. One of the last things I did before the project got mostly parked was to stick some basic blue backscenes in place. Just something for a background that wasn't the loft or rafters. They all went on fine - flat, rollered into place and glued on using spray art glue. Basis of latter I can't recall but quite certain it was not water -based. But some time has gone by and now we have peelage, rippling, bubbling etc. Basically totally useless. And removing what is there that hasn't let go by itself will be very difficult as well. The loft space is subject to heat, air-flow (tiled roof, partly lined) and a degree of sea breeze - we are about 500m from the coast. I'm thinking it has to all come off and be replace by some type of durable paint. Thoughts?

Of course literally cannot believe I last updated this in 2013. After getting laid off had another job with a lot of uncertainty followed by a period with not much at all followed by a year and a half in Adelaide which I just quit for the new role I finally got in Perth again. Yay. But you can imagine I have either been avoiding spending any money at all or I haven't been here co-located with the layout in order to do anything with it anyway! Whilst in Adelaide I have spent numerous evening building rolling stock kits so the time wasn't a total waste. Overall though progress very limited; something I hope to gradually resolve from now on.

Thanks for stating the seemingly obvious John. I am going to try to contact them via their web form although their specific stated contact method is a UK phone number. That's pretty awkward when your in Australia though hence I thought I would see if anyone had any experience of this approach first.

Thanks for the info all. Does anyone know of any other stockists? Didn’t Gaugemaster also stock this line (I know I can check and I will but really just provoking further discussion....) And does anyone know – or have tried – to order in bulk from Peco per the implication that this is possible on their web page? Are the decals likely to be supplied the same way or is it now a case of ordering separately? Again being overseas I had hoped to bundle everything together to reduce postage costs.

Aargh supreme woe. I have been meaning to place a large Parkside order for a while now and just got to the point where I could commit to it - comprising multiple kits and decals to match - only to find that essentially its no longer possible to order all of this from one place. I'm in Australia also and as with someone's previous comment one of the goals was to get everything in one go and minimise the shipping. Were the decals produced by Parkside before or sourced in? Are the decals available from Peco now? Any suggestions where I could place a bulk order for 4mm kits and decals?? :-( thanks

Well the mystery deepens. So folks are saying the shed was shortened or changed perhaps in 1898 ("what was left from around 1898") I agree the plan in G&H shows a shed about 130ft long if you scale off the 46ft turntable. And that is consistent with the appearance of the photo on pg56 in the same book. The only thing is that image I pasted above is from a 1959 photo. The shed would have to be aligned with just three quad carriages to come out at around 130ft. I suppose it could be. It's hard to tell with the perspective but it certainly looks longer than that. Thanks for the help. I'll go with 130ft. rgds

Thanks. Here's the picture I referenced. To avoid upsetting any copyright etc I've just taken a screen scrape of the corner showing the shed. Taking due account of the warping effects of perspective and noting the near end of the shed must surely be in the vicinity of the left edge of the photo you tend towards thinking the shed must be 4 to 4.5 quad art carriages long. Which is getting on for 215ft and aligns with the text. However, that photo on pg56 really doesn't give the impression of the shed being that long. I guess it's the effects of perspective once again rgds

However. There is something odd about this. First of all in photos it doesn't really look that long. Secondly if you look at the track diagram in that book and ratio the engine shed length off the turntable diameter (which we know to be 26ft from the text) you end up with a shed that is about 130 - 140ft long. Look also at the photo of the empty shed on page 56. Does that look 215ft long? It doesn't to me. I have another photo with a set of quad arts stored adjacent and the shed looks to be 3.5 - 4 carriages long which implies approx 155ft. It's hard t tell from the effects of distance in the photos though. It could be nearer to 4.5 quad art carriages long - at that length it pretty much is 215ft. But that photo on page 56...... it really doesn't look that long at all.

Ha. Thanks very much. I feel like a prize chump now; I have that book and have just seen the text you referenced.Somehow just hadn't noticed that already......../sigh

This would be the shed that was there and in use up to the early 60's. Anyone care to offer a guess as to its length? thks

Again thanks for that; very useful and solves the problem I think. I have to wonder whether they are serious with the timber tracks building kit prices. An 00 4 road engine shed KIT for GBP341.00. Wait... what..?

Thanks for all that. Some useful links there by the look of it rgds

Can anyone suggest methods and or off the shelf parts to create station and goods shed canopies. I’m interested in the whole breadth of that question but specifically sources or methods for the valances around the edges. I'm working in OO scale. thanks

There has been further progress. Just one photo : Unfortunately I got laid off several months ago and finding a new role has been a problem. On the plus side this has given me more time to progress the layout but on the negative side it means I am reluctant to spend much money on it and since I am now running out of parts this means progress will slow considerably any time now. You can see in the photo that the mainline through the station has been laid and the platforms mostly constructed. The sense of the station shape with it's unusual staggered platforms is now clear. The lines curve away to the right and return parallel to the station - this was the earlier work and is already ballasted. Other work achieved : - there is a custom backscene painted by me good ol' mum when she was here visiting - baseboard fixings and facings are complete - wiring is progressing - some ballasting is complete, more is in progress - another bridge is in the process of being constructed - a small amount of scenery is complete behind the bay platform - one side of the approaching mainline has scenery formers and chicken wire in place ready for a plaster cloth coating process at some point - a design for a combined decoder the frog polarity control PCB has been developed by another RMWeb member following our discussions of same. My intent is to get some prototype boards made There are some more things I can do but very soon I will need more track and a lot more control electronics and that will all have to wait until I have another job. Anyway you can see how it's progressing. More details next time hopefully.

A little update. Progress has been slightly accelerated by me having more time due to getting laid off : - ( .... ..... but slowed down 1) by delaying buying necessary items for the same reason 2) by a family visit to us here downunder 3) primarily, numerous unexpected difficulties I have now completed all of the station baseboards and mapped out the main line route across those boards. I viewed this as critical to getting the "right look" and once complete will enable me to use track spacing gadgets to more quickly lay the parallel lines. A major delay here was realising the styrofoam boards are not adequately self-supporting and I have therefore had to reinforce everything. I also found that one batch was not the same thickness as another and had to rout a groove in some boards ....!! a really excellent day that one ..... You can also see the laser level in one of the photos. I strongly recommend this if you have a large layout and are addressing any alignment issues be they board or track. I've realised there is one part of the station that needs to be largely completed before progressing because elements of it will otherwise be out of my reach. This has been a significant delaying issue but the scenery, platform and backscene are now progressing (latter due to artistic abilities of my mum) Part of the main lines are now ballasted (not the best photo) I have hooked up one switchpilot to the ECoS. One of the problems was my using a prototype circuit for switching frog polarities. It uses DIL latching relays but of course being a prototype built on a veroboard meant that the scope for mis-wiring was huge and in the end very real. I am thinking of getting the circults translated onto a small run of PCBs to improve matters for the future. Also wondering whether others would be interested if I obtained a larger batch run ??? I'm expecting it will be cheaper and arguably more flexible than a switchpilot extension. Regards

Greetings once again. I have a few more progress photos to share. Not a tremendous amount of progress although this has a lot to do with "matters arising" as described below. A view of the south station throat with the track laid and in position. One of the two matters arising that have slowed down progress is the fact I realised I can't reach the scenic area and backscene to the left side of this photo. I have been experimenting with making one of the boards removable but it's not really a realistic proposition. The only solution is to complete the platform, backscene and basic scenics in this area first which is not a job I had envisaged at this stage The second and far more significant delay stems from the nature of the styrofoam baseboards. In the 4 track areas shown in previous posts the foam is encased in ply to form a rigid composite structure. However in the main station area this was not possible in the same way and I found that the boards were not quite rigid enough to bridge the support spans. Worse still three of the boards were slightly thicker than the rest. This picture is a worst case example of one of those boards showing the alu strut reinforcements (fitted to all of the station boards) and the 2mm routed areas required to ensure the thicker board tops all aligned Future fiddle yard exit showing the curve leading to the 4 track running area and the reverse loop route Pending wiring. What was that? DCC is easier to wire. Hmmmmmm And I've been experimenting with track colouring and ballasting. The tracks are sprayed with Tamiya Nato brown to improve and provide some variance in the sleeper colour and the track sides are Rusty Rails dark brown. The ballast is a 1:1:1 blend of Woodlands Scenics grey blend medium, grey blend fine and dark brown fine. This will be further treated with a rusty oily brown wash to recreate that brown tinged look rgds

I have been experimenting with this subject using some WS grey blend, brown and dark brown ballasts in sizes fine and medium. It seems that the ECML actually has ballast that is closer to brown than grey in colour and that the ballast size appears larger in the current day than it does in photos from the 60's. I tried experimenting with some brown only ballast but I only have pictures of this in a 21st century resolution so I can't post them here. Suffice to say it just didn't look right. I've been advised that the original ballast was more or less grey but went a rust brown colour as a result of the wear and tear from high speed running. This is a mix of grey blend in the ratio 1:1 medium and fine : This is a mix of grey blend medium, grey blend fine and brown fine in the ratio 1:1:1 : This is a mix of grey blend medium, grey blend fine and dark brown fine in the ratio 1:1:1 : I think the overall size ratio of 2 :1 fine:medium ie 66% fine and 33% medium works OK. In terms of colour I think the mix containing dark brown works the best to take the edge off the "brightness" of the grey and I intend to use this mix suitably weathered with a rusty / oily / muddy brown paint. I was going to use model mates but apparently they are flammable and it causes some shipping problems rgds

I thought I would post an update. I ordered some woodland scenics gray blend in fine and medium sizes with the idea of blending the two as required. Stupidly, after the event, two unplesaant realisation have revelaed themselves. The first is that if I look at old HMRS photos I have of Hatfield then I see that the ballast size is definitely smaller on these pictures taken in the 60's than is currently in use on the ECML. Therefore while a blend may still be valid the ratio needs to err very much towards the finer size. Secondly, to add insult to injury, I have realised that the ballast in use both in the past and currently is essentially a brown colour. Woodland scenics brown ballast is probably close to ideal in terms of colour. It now looks like one of each gray blend fine and med actually needs to be replaced with 4off brown fine and 1off brown med. At least I have established this before starting any ballasting I suppose. Rgds

Just a tiny bit of visible progress. I thought I would post a couple of pics The first entrance track to the station fixed in place, along with the bay platform track. I'm using those track spacer tools which are really invaluable. I'm putting a lot of effort into getting the first track through an area as perfect as possible and then the spacers will align the others Another photo to show how convenient it is using the closed cell foam an styrofoam as the track base. Need a hole through the board - a screwdriver will do it with a hand-push. Need to run some cables along - easy to cut a trench in the closed cell foam with a knife I've sprayed part of the four track section ahead of rusty-railing the side and then ballasting. This look is quite motivating; for the first time I feel like I'm building a model railway The other thing I have done is hook up the DCC controller and test a couple of locos.... which means that at least "some" wiring is done. Generally a poor year so far primarily due to a family bereavement back in the UK. I should be able to get back to the project a bit more now. The next steps comprise multiple work fronts - more wiring, more track-laying in the station throat, more baseboard work and ballasting of the main line approaches rgds

I started to look into this topic. If you google the subject you find the RL UK ballast is supposed to have a peak size of 63mm but with a general range from 10mm to 50mm with I think the bulk of the size distribution occurring more towards the larger end of this range. I bought some Woodland Scenics Medium and Fine and experimented. Unfortunately I couldn't get the same colour for my quick test which doesn't help but here are a couple of photos : Fine size in brown Medium size in grey The camera got a bit tetchy about these photos so they are not the best but definitely enough to get the idea. To me the Fine grade looks much too small. On the other hand the Medium grade looks slightly too large. A crude estimate of particle sizes came up at 0.6-1.0mm for Medium and around 0.3-0.5mm for the Fine grade. This equates to roughly 2-3 inches and 1-1.5 inches scale size. This link is also interesting : http://www.mrol.com.au/Articles/Scenics/BallastSizes.aspx I know it's a matter of opinion but again to me the Fine grade just looks wrong. It seems that what you really need is the medium grade sieved to remove the 1mm particles. This is not really a process I want to spend time going through !! Perhaps, as others have a tried, a blend of Medium and Fine would be best. I fear that too much Fine would return it to the beachside look so I'm inclined to think that I will either stick with Medium or go with a 50:50 blend. rgds

Greetings and Happy Easter to all. Some progress has been made recently. I've laid the four tracks up from the tunnel area and got quite a long way through the process of completing the Southern station throat and bridge area : I've also got myself an ESU DCC controller and am busy learning how to set all of that up. Arguably a bit premature but it's always good to be able to keep multiple work fronts open. I can now keep progressing either baseboard work, track laying, wiring or DCC set-up depending on my mood (or more likely an inconvenient reality preventing something else) Rgds

Here's that view of the trackplan all laid out on the temporary basedboards

Well it keeps saying : Error No file was selected for upload It uploaded the other one above so ....??

Work continues rather slowly because I've been ill - a peculiar double vision episode thet they still can't diagnose followed by severe food poisoning last week, 2012 can only get better, I'm hitting a few snags as well primarily with regard to my ability to reach all parts of the layout. I though I had this figured out but off the plan and in Real Life I find this is not the case.It looks like I may need to create a removable section or two and in any event it is going to change the order in which I complete work. I realised that to be confident about the approach angle of the bridge I would have to lay out all of the planning sheets for the entire length of the station. It does give a very good sense of what the finished model will look and if the site would let me post the photo I'd put it up here. Unfortunately it won't....I'll try again separately in a moment I have also hit a snag with an angled joist. Take a look at this photo : There is a single track in the yard that will barely clear the joist as planned but a judicious move of the turntable (represented here in cardboard) would enable the track to squeeze by as shown. An alternative would be to have that line run the other side of the joist, however this is an area where I may need to make the boards more narrow and so there is a reasonable chance this option is a non starter. I'd like to ask for some creative thinking. If the track did run around the back of the joist I would need to disguise the joist as a building - what plausible tallish building might sit within the tracks in the loco yard? An ash plant or huge colaer is out of keeping with the model so we can't go there. Alternatively if the track squeezes by between joist and turntable what sort of building might be located hard up against the edge of the yard but with the option to be potentially outside the yard itself. thanks