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Couple more pics of the warehouse etc. Last job I did today was adding two short sidings into a spare bit of space in the hidden storage area. Just about big enough for a loco or unit, but every little helps!

Sorry chaps, I’m not good at updates with this am I!? Things really do seem to be going at a snails pace, but it’s getting there! Most of the work I’ve been doing is on the building of the four bridges and surrounding scenery on this layout. The first, being the station end scenic break. This was ‘in hand’ in the last update but is now nearing completion. Being over the station and near what will become a more urban area I’ve gone for a multi-lane high street style roadway over the tracks. Most of the supporting brickwork is now about done, the road surface finished, complete with road markings and pavements, and I’ve even added a pedestrian crossing! The main thing left to do here is the actual walling along the bridge surface, which will be the Wills brick bridge/parapet stuff. Just needs paint and gluing in place. Next, bridge number 2. This one is a little further down the layout just before the curved section. This one is just a standard road bridge, a little less urban than the other. This ones had its brick supports and retaining walls built and added, then I’ve used Wills varigirder for the road deck support mid section. This has been made to look wider, as a heavier style bridge, with an extra section under the varigirder made from plastic sheet and other off cuts. In reality, this bit just hides the thick edges of the plywood bridge/road surface. Looking at it afterwards, the span looked a bit too long and unsupported for my liking. So I dug out some odd bits from the scraps box to see if I could cobble something together that looked better. Luckily, I had a pair of matching Hornby bridge supports - I’ve had these years! I remember being given them as a complete pack as a Xmas present as a kid, which was probably about 1988/9 sort of time! Good job I don’t throw things away isn’t it! These actually look pretty good as supporting columns, so I’ve used these mounted on a brick/concrete plinth as a centre support. I think it looks much better. Again, the road has been painted and decorated with road markings and a pavement. Just needs some finishing touches and brick pillars at each end now. And now for bridges 3 and 4! These two are actually side by side, forming the scenic break for the other end of the layout. A double bridge with wing walls, and a single without. The double over the mainline is a Wills kit, needs painting yet. The single over the branch is an old Triang/Hornby bridge, which I thought looked ok still, so used it! I’ll obviously paint it and add a bit of detail but it looks good to me for such an old model! These two bridges are much more unfinished at the moment as I’m still building up the surrounding ground contours etc, but they will be for a country lane once done. The scenic break itself is 5mm ply cut to size and glued into place, then the polystyrene blocks that form the hills glued in place around them and the bridges. Hopefully tomorrow will see these given a plaster surface ready for green paint, then scatters/static grass etc etc. The two bridges are actually both different heights so this should go well with the country lane look I’m going for as it’ll mean the cardboard road surface will be a bit less ‘flat’ and level than in other places. The next new thing can be seen in the last few pics! I wanted a big warehouse type structure for the rail served industry in the corner so set about knocking something up. This is just assorted bits and bobs and loads of Wills building sheets and plastic strip & sheet. It’s not 100% finished yet, but fills the corner to my liking so far and allows the surrounding scenic groundwork to carry on. I’m going to have the siding the class 31 is sitting on as an overgrown siding and the office building as a yard area, with a few cars and vans parked up out front. I want this area to resemble a half relief decent sized industrial site, but a bit down at heel as much of the country’s heavy industry seemed at the time! So, still lots to do but it’s getting there slowly! My aim is to get as much of the dirty work (making hills, structures etc) done first, then try to do the ‘green’ bits all together so it all matches better. Also, once the bridges, cable ducting etc etc is in place I can add in any extra ballasting I need to then start weathering the ballast and track - ideally before the green stuff starts going down.

Ill try to get an update up over the next few days... I promise!

I’ve done a few bits since last update. It’s not a huge amount, I seem to be struggling to get stuff done in comparison to some of the layouts on here! The road and car park surface have been given a coat of grey. I had to do this twice actually as for some inexplicable reason the first try I mixed up some black & white paint, painted it on and the next day after it’s dried it was streaked with white lines!? It looked fine when wet but the paint must have somehow not mixed properly. Second try I warmed the paint up and mixed it much more thoroughly and it seemed fine. Never had that before! The depot area has been given a first coat of concrete yellowish grey, more to do here though, but it’s all roughly the right sort of colour for now. Then I moved on to the scenic break bridge. I’ve been using Wills brick sheets and plastic card to build up the bridges walls, the tops of which have a plastic card (white bits in the pics) sections added which will form the concrete load bearing sections for the bridges deck. I’ve also made up some similar retaining walls and pillars for the area behind the station where the two low relief tower blocks will go. It’s more or less ready for painting now then can be glued in place. One other little job I've done in the shed is to get myself a couple of display cabinets. I got these off eBay, and for the price they’re not bad. I wanted them to display my growing collection of 1/43 model cars and military vehicles! I think they look pretty good. I’d been buying the models for some time but they were all just being left in their boxes dotted around the house not really being seen so with these at least I can have them somewhere I can see them! I’ve separated them into US/Europe cars - just cars I like and ones I’ve owned 1:1 scale versions of or do own now! The other cabinet is for Soviet Union cars I like and military trucks/vehicles I’ve got an interest in. Certainly takes the plain-ness off that back wall anyway! more soon...

Got a little bit more done this weekend. Saturday was minimal as it was freezing out in the shed, I’ve had a cold recently and just didn’t fancy more than doing a few little bits and bobs! Today was better though so I’ve got a bit more of the basic ‘construction’ work done. As I said in a previous post, I want to get as much of the basic structural work done for the scenic area first before starting to put any greenery down, so I’ve moved up to the station area end of the layout. First job was to raise the very end of the station area up a tad. I wanted this area next to the platforms to be the station building and car park site and I think it looks better level (or near enough) with the platform height. Easily done using an off cut of 9mm ply cut to shape and glued and screwed down on top of the existing baseboard. This was then faced with thick mounting card to get a nice surface for the car park. Just needs painting and a bit more work for the base/foundation of the building. I've ordered some fencing for the platform/car park edge, and some suitable street lights for the car park. And a set of self adhesive vinyl road and car park markings to make those a little neater than trying to hand paint them. Similar treatment for the loco fuel & stabling point, though this is staying at the lower baseboard height without being raised. Once the glue holding the mounting card down is fully cured I’ll score it to look like the big cast concrete panels of many yards, then paint and weather it to suit. The bare ply edge where the car park is will be hidden by a little retaining wall and security fencing on top. I might reposition the fuel tanks and building yet, I’m not sure. Finally, some more woodwork! To create the scenic break at this end I’ve opted for another road bridge over the tracks and platforms but with a retaining wall across the end of the car park area. This is another off cut of 9mm ply for the bridge top/road bed and some off cuts of 2x1 softwood for supports. It’ll eventually be faced with some 5mm ply on the scenic side so there’s something to glue the brick sheets etc to, and the top road surface covered with mounting card again. On the island platform I’ll build a dummy support column from Wills brick sheets, as the span is a bit long for my liking without, plus, it’ll help obscure the scenic to non scenic divide! Heres how it looks at the moment, with a few cars and the obligatory bus dotted around for effect! And a couple of Wills brick sheets etc loosely placed. Starting to come along now!

Nothing worse than numb toes!!

I’ve been busy with work the last few months so progress has been leisurely again! Some more scenic work carried out though. First things first though. Given the weather and time of year I decided it was about time to do something to the floor in the shed. Last winter when I was in there it could get pretty chilly! All it was was the basic wooden shed flooring, not particularly warm at all but because I’ve raised the whole shed up off the ground on blocks & wood framing it also means there’s quite a draft coming up through the floor boards at times. Good for keeping everything dry and rot free but less good for keeping my poor feet warm! So I’ve cleaned everything out of the shed off the floor, hoovered it out and then laid some 7mm fibre board underlay sheeting over the entire floor. That should keep the draft down and the warmth in, plus it’s levelled out the floor. Then on top I’ve fitted some hard wearing short pile carpet tiles. I got these off eBay quite cheaply and they fitted really well and went down quick. It looks 100% better now but has also significantly improved comfort and noise levels in the shed now. With that sorted it was back to trimming the polystyrene contours for the hills etc. After I was happy with that I mixed up some polyfiller with a bit of pva added and applied it to the hills etc, then smoothed it out with a soft paint brush and water. Finally, once that had dried (which takes ages this time of year!) I splashed some old green poster paint on. It looks a bit ‘radioactive’ green but it’s only a base colour to get rid of the bright white colour of the plaster. The plan after this is to apply layers of flocks, scatters and static grass to build up the ground cover. I will probably be investing in a new static grass tool this time too if anyone has any recommendations? Ive also stuck down more polystyrene sections along the strip under the windows, then made up some shorter brick retaining walls and pillars. These are just Wills sheets cut to size, then a coat of Railmatch cement added/wiped off leaving it in the recesses. The pillars are just made up from the off cuts. These walls are slightly angled backwards too just to look a bit more realistic and match the cast plaster larger walls further along. At the far end corner, up on the raised section I’ve added a few bits of thin polystyrene, plaster and paint to get rid of the flatness of the area, and used some mounting card to create a roadway and forecourt for the petrol station. I’ll add some Metcalfe. Self adhesive paving later here to finish it off. The area where the Hornby ‘modern house’ kits will go has also been very slightly raised. This was to give a better effect than just a dead flat area with everything at the same level! It looked a bit lazy without doing it, so now the row of three houses sit slightly above the road level with driveways sloping slightly down to the road. Again, the ground has been skimmed with filler to level it off, painted green and awaits the scatter & static grass treatment. The houses themselves have had the brickwork painted, cement courses added and windows etc painted. Just need to finish these off. I’ve added a few interior walls on the sides that will be seen and will ‘decorate’ these out before final positioning! I quite like these kits, despite being pretty old now and a little basic! They go together well and look the part once painted. My plan, I think, is to continue doing as much of the ‘dirty’ work as I can around the entire scenic section just to get everything done to the same stage and standard. Then I’ll gradually work my way around the layout adding the actual scenic materials, static grass etc etc as I go. I think it’ll be easier that way and get all of the actual building of the basic ground contours etc done in one hit. Its coming on. Slowly but surely!

I’m not terribly good at updating this thread am I!?! Very slow progress again I’m afraid. This summer has been car restoration weather so almost all of my time has been spent on my Capri, however now that’s nearing the end and autumn is coming I should hopefully be spending more time on this instead! Since last time I’ve built up a few building kits I’ve had sat for years awaiting a suitable layout for them. Some of which were old Hornby ‘modern house kits’. I’ve had the unmade kits years but I think they’ll go well on this layout in a corner. I’ve added interior walls and they’re in primer now waiting to be painted. Ive also made a high level section for one corner of the layout. This is just spare ply with softwood supports underneath then polystyrene blocks glued around the edge to create a hill. This still needs finishing and the polystyrene carving to shape. The high level area has a retaining wall around it too which I’ve painted, they just need a few weeds etc adding here and there to hide a few gaps! They’re cast plaster so the fit isn’t brilliant in a few places even after filing and altering they’re shape to fit. Ive also built a road bridge across the tracks and a hill on the opposite side of the track. Again, this is mostly polystyrene carved to shape and needs a coat of plaster on top. A length of ply and softwood off cuts made the bridge. The road surface is a length of modelling card stuck into place with double sided carpet tape. You can see the walls here. A few are still in bright red brick paint and need toning down and cement adding yet! Just ordered a load more brick sheets and other bits and bobs to continue the retaining wall ‘backscene’ section. The retaining walls height will drop slightly (for the length under the shed windows) so I’ll be using Wills brick sheets for this bit. Also got some corrugated plastic sections to build the freight sidings warehouse in the corner too. I’ll probably build a quick cardboard mock up for this first and see how it looks before cutting plastic! As usual I had the best intentions of only buying the plastic sections etc I needed and that’s all, so I can get on with the scenic work... ...I was tempted by yet more rolling stock though! I couldn’t help myself despite best intentions! So I ended up buying five Bachmann TTA tanks in the unbranded grey livery. I’ve been after some of these for a while but they don’t seem to come up very often. I think they’re an old Kernow models ltd edition? They should look well behind one of my 31’s though! then because that wasn’t enough I spotted a nice Bachmann 47 Id been after for a while too! It’s the parcels LNER 47522 ‘Doncaster Enterprise’ special edition. Again, I couldn’t help myself! Anyway, hopefully the plastic sheet etc will be here soon and this afternoon I intend to get some of the hills finished off so with any luck I’ll be updating a bit more often!

Just aswell! D600 has some hydraulic friends too... The next recent arrival is much more in keeping with the time period though. 37142, the Bachmann regional retailer in engineers grey. I really liked this model when it was first announced, I had a Lima 37 in the same livery years ago and always liked that so now Bachmann have done one I couldn’t really resist!

Slow progress again (sorry!). I’ve been restoring a car at the same time as doing this and now the good weather has arrived the car has been eating up much of my spare time. However, more ballasting has been done. I’m almost finished with this task now, just got the platform straight to go. speaking of the platforms, These were loosely clipped together Peco platforms just placed to get spacing etc right for the track laying. I’ve decided to use them permanently, so they’ve been taken apart and dressed up with a file to get the sections to fit better. Then they’ve been glued together permanently and had additional bracing added and some extra plastic glued underneath all the joins in the top surfaces just to add rigidity. now they’re straighter than before it has shown the track work on the inner track to be a little bit far away from the platform edge in a few places leaving a rather large gap between the train and platform. Any passengers would need to take a bit of a leap out of their carriage to get off! So the track here has been lifted and realigned to get rid of the gaps. I also had a new loco delivered... D600 arrived from Kernow last week and is seen here on the fuel point! Lovely model it is too!

I got my D600 today! Ive been looking forward to getting my hands on it for a while and it certainly doesn’t disappoint. Lovely looking models, and they run beautifully straight out the box. Can’t fault it at all. well done Kernow!

Progress has been leisurely at best with this! However, since the last update all the point motors have been installed, followed by wiring in the switches and motors. This took some time! Ive stuck to doing this the simple way, and used standard Peco solenoid motors with Peco switches and switch consoles. There’s many more sophisticated methods and makes of stuff to use for this but I’ve stuck to doing it the easy way! The wiring took much longer than I’d wanted it to, but it’s all now tested and seems to be working well. Next job was to start the ballasting. Ive used some fine GeoScenics ballast, same as I used on my previous layout. I still had loads of it leftover so that saved me a bit buying more! So far I’m about halfway round the scenic section. It takes time to get it all neat but it looks good so far. Once it’s all down I’ll start painting and weathering it. I haven’t decided exactly what I’ll do with regards to the ballasting in the fuel point area. I think it needs finer ballast than the rest? More soon, hopefully!

I’ve acquired one of the Bachmann ‘Weltrol’ wagons and was after a bit of info about these wagons. To the best of my knowledge they were a GWR design of special use wagon and in BR use were much the same... However, I expect that by the late 70’s they’d mostly have gone out of use? Since I model both the late 70’s/early 80’s and the sectorisation era around 1990 this means I’m probably limited with these wagons to using them in late life once they were taken into the departmental or civil engineers use? Does anyone have any info about these wagons during this time period. Specifically, the loads they were used for during engineers use, livery and numbering/tops codes etc. Or, ideally any photos of them? Also, I know some similar wagons were converted to through piping later in life, presumably some of these Weltrol wagons received this treatment? Finally, I know this model is actually an old Mainline product so isn’t exactly up to the standards of modern models, but how accurate are they? I’m intending to do some modifications and detailing regardless to make the model more unique as an engineers wagon but is there anything specific that’s wrong with the base model? Thanks in advance!

Got a few more motors fitted today. Marked out the two positions of the hole through the tie bar, then drilled out a suitable sized hole for the motor pin to move through. These 3 points are the most awkward location wise so I thought I’d get them done! I’ve got a bad back which makes this task pretty unpleasant sometimes leaning over or trying to squeeze into awkward places under baseboards. Motors in place, lined up properly and move freely with the point blades moving fully in both directions. The point motors I’m using are just normal Peco solenoid motors, nothing particularly extravagant! I’ve also used the ready made mini wiring looms just for speed and ease. The third point in this location is in a place where there’s a baseboard cross member directly beneath where the motor would need to go so obviously it can’t be mounted below in this instance. This one has to go above the baseboard using an extension bar to one side of the point. Unfortunately you will see the extension bar even once the scenery and ballast is down but it’s unavoidable. I’ll just try to make it as invisible as I can with painting. The motor can be hidden inside a trackside hut or similar. The point motor pins will be trimmed down later once they’re all in place and working ok. With those ones sorted I moved on to the two on the crossing points from the loop/headshunt onto the outer main line. While I had the track up I took the time to move this crossing up towards the platforms a little further so as to extend the loops length a bit. At the same time I’ve extended the headshunt slightly too as mentioned earlier in the thread. Both point motors are now fitted here and track work relaid permanently. I’m short of two motors so these have been ordered and I’ll try to get the last four fitted over the next day or two. I don’t think I’ll have the outstanding two before New Years unfortunately but I’ll make a start on the ballasting at the completed end of the layout if they don’t turn up.

That is good being able to do that but the storage area’s still not big enough! I’ve got way way more stock than I’d ever be able to put on this layout. But I suppose that’s probably true of most people! Yesterday I dug out the salvaged point motors. I took them off the old layout and kept the best ones. Sadly I’m a few motors short for the ‘scenic’ side so I’ll still need a few more. So far I’ve fitted 4 of them... I knew there was a reason I’d been putting this off!! Royal pain they are! My method of fitting them is to use a track pin through the hole in the points tie bar, give the nail a tap to mark the baseboard then slide the point into the opposite position and repeat. Then lift the point out. That should leave two small marks on the baseboard. Then use a drill of suitable diameter to drill through the board using the centre between the two nail marks as a guide. As long as both of the nail marks are drilled away then the point motors pin will clear the baseboard and operate the point. The motors are then held in place under the board, operate the points by hand to ensure the motor will move freely and the point blades move fully and properly. Once that works screw the motor mount base onto the underside of the baseboard ready for wiring up later. Sounds simple but getting the motors lined up so they operate freely takes a while sometimes and I’m not a fan of working upside down under the boards either! I hated this task the last time I did it on the old layout! Still, it’s got to be done before I can start ballasting. Hopefully a few pics later...

I’ve not had a great deal of time for this since the last update, but I have been doing a few bits & bobs... Firstly, I was still (yes, still!) not satisfied with the track layout! The more I used it the more I felt it just didn’t really work for me. Adding the extra loop through the platform seemed like adding track for the sake of it and a few other things weren’t ‘right’. So I’ve altered things again, made it a bit simpler but retained the basic running lines. This looks better to me and it works well too, so I’ll stick with this. I think. Maybe! The next thing that was proving a bit restrictive was the storage area. There was plenty of length to each of the loops but not quite enough of them so I’ve added a bit of extra girth!! Doing this has added a few extra loops and better used the space available. Here’s a few pics of some trains running for now. 56 hauled steel train. This train sounds the part too thanks to a squeaking axle on one of the wagons! Pair 31’s on the oil tanks. Local service using old mk1’s including an ex NSE brake. A 31 with a short rake of mk1’s were common at the time for more local services around the north west until DMU’s replaced them. Trans Pennine service using a mix of RR and older blue and grey mk2’s. RFD 37 on a train of vans. Heljan 58 with an mgr train. It’s nice to be able to run decent length trains! Hopefully this weekend I’ll get the point motors fitted, assuming I can find where I’ve put them, and maybe dig out my ballast and start that too.

Agreed. I was warned off powder coating everything in sight right at the start for that reason. Most of the bits off this car have been treated more or less the way you suggest. Good prep and good paint is more than good enough for a nice finish and durable enough to stop rust. I had the wheels powder coated though just to get a good flat smooth finish that should last well. I also had the Volvo 740 wheels on the car above done at the same time. They look lovely but I soon ran into a problem! On refitting the Volvo alloys the powder coat was much thicker than the standard paint which meant the hole in the wheel centres wouldn’t fit over the hub bits on the car! I had to sand the powder coating down to make it fit properly. The other issue is when you tighten the wheel nuts, the powder coating can become loose from under the tapered wheel nut seats which allows the nuts to become loose after a while! I’ve had to remove them and clean off the old damaged powder coating then retighten the nuts again a few times since. Oddly the Capri wheels had none of those problems!?

Personally I think the mk2 is the better looker over the mk3 (I would though wouldn’t I!), it’s got a much nicer shape and looks more clean and uncluttered to me. The bootlid minus the rubber boot spoilers looks nice too on the mk2, makes the rear end a much nicer shape. They look like a product of their time to me, very 70’s. Mine being a peasant spec L model (registered on its V5 as a ‘base’) means it’s got even less fussy extras on it. Note the complete lack of waist height trims/rub strips down the sides. Mine are all flush.

Here’s a few extra pics of some of the bigger parts before and after. Engine before, After, Prop shaft befor and after, The wheels originally on this car were the ‘sports’ steels in 13x5 flavour with the early style stainless centre caps. Like an idiot I binned them years back as they were rusty and bent. Now I want them again! However the 5J type are a bit narrow for my liking so I tracked down a set of 5 of the 13x5.5 deep dish style ‘sports’ steels which are my favoured style wheel but are wider with a more manly deep dish to them! A couple were good used ones, the others were all new old stock imported from Germany. They were then blasted and powder coated in a metallic grey/silver colour and fitted with matching Firestone tyres and the stainless centre caps I’d fortunately kept. The interior was another big ticket item that I’d thought long and hard about. Aswell as the good used brown interior I’d fitted ages ago I’d kept the black original one. In the end I decided to go with a black interior again, I prefer the black but also because the black interior already needed retrimming it wasn’t any loss. The brown interior was a bit too good to chop up and retrim but not quite good enough to refit into the now pristine body! Plus, the black is what this car should have. Here’s the seats before, And after their retrim. Another benefit to using the black interior was that it’s only half vinyl. The inner sections are cloth so you don’t get a sweaty backside like you do with full vinyl! The door cards were a bit of a pain. These early cars have a unique style to them and they were not made to last! They’re not available new and even used ones in the right colour and in a condition worth having are impossible to find now so you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. Before, Well worn and the hardboard backing has suffered from damp and has disintegrated at the bottoms. Some of the lower vinyl has torn too. During, Vinyl all carefully removed and the main back boards replaced in plywood. The top edges are actually curved quite tightly where they hook over the top of the door frame so couldn’t be replicated in ply. Instead the originals were reused as they were still good and secured to the new ply bottoms. After, Old vinyl and plastic trims reattached to the new backing boards with new foam padding. Any rips in the vinyl were glued back together with a strip of identical vinyl beneath the rip to hide it. If you look hard you can find them still but they’re hard to spot if you don’t look for them. There is no other option with these though and they look superb now. A good trimmer is worth their weight in gold! The plastic trim in the middle has since been painted in a chrome/silver paint to replicate original as closely as possible. There hundreds of other parts, bits & bobs that I’ve already finished in a similar way but these are the main ones. One of the last things left to do is the wiring loom which I’ll start on soon. Just about everything else is sat on the shelf ready to back onto the car.

Yeah the mk2 Crapi was always the rarest, not made for long and the slowest seller. They’re a bit forgotten now as everyone wants a mk1 for the styling or the more ‘butch’ looking mk3. My one shouldn’t still be here really! It’s a Halewood built car (more prone to poor quality and rust) seems to have been actually built in March 74 so it’s an old one. It was in a right state when I first bought it (for £100!) but still road legal. Given it’s state it was a spares car really or one for the banger racers but the Capri was the car for me. I’d wanted one since I was a lit kid so as soon as I left school at 16 I went looking for one and ended up with this one. It’s like a part of the family now it’s been with me so long. Here it is in the condition I got it in. Despite its looks it was absolutely stuffed with filler, the vinyl roof was a non original later addition done very badly. However it ran perfectly and drove well, in that respect it’s been the best car I’ve ever had - only once it’s broken down when a heater hose split. I bodged it back together, filled the water up and still drove home where I fixed it properly! Then I restored it, on a budget. Loads of welding done and a colour change to Roman Bronze and a good used brown interior to replace the poor black original. Like many things though you get what you pay for and within a couple of years the paintjob was looking like a cheap job. It stayed like this for a good 13 years or so though. Then in spring 2016 I decided enough was enough. It was really starting to look rough again and there were a few areas of rust and rot beginning to take hold again. The original idea was to just strip it down, weld the bits I knew about and fit new wings then a repaint. First though I got a second opinion, this being the killer! It turned out once up in the air on a lift and a good prodding it was a fair bit worse than expected. The plan then changed to a bare metal strip... I was warned prior as many cars this age come back looking utterly grim! Which was exactly what it did look like on its return from the blasters. This became a big ‘oh crap!’ moment. It was far worse than I’d thought it was sadly and needed some serious surgery to save it. It was so bad in places that had the car been in an accident it would have probably just disintegrated. When it comes to things like this you can either bail and cut your losses, I couldn’t do that to this car! So instead looked at this as a way to be absolutely sure all the rust and damage were found and fixed and make this car the absolute best I possibly could. Luckily I’d been preparing for this over the previous years by buying up as many of the parts and panels as I could. Most of the panels being rare new old stock Ford parts. Expensive and hard to find but well worth it in the long run. Some really were mega rare parts like the genuine Ford front panel/valance. Here it is in various stages of the repair work. The black finish is an epoxy primer type stuff. My painter swears by it as it goes off and forms a strong waterproof film, unlike primer (which is porous) so rust should be much less likely. Despite the car being a rot box it’d actually survived well in the places an old Ford shouldn’t have! The strut tops are both untouched originals still having the VIN stamped into one as it should, rear spring hangers were pristine apart from a tiny square that was let into one side. The chassis rails are all as new still. Here’s a few pics of the freshly painted shell and a few bits going back onto it. The engine itself is an early style 1600 Pinto. It was absolutely filthy but it was a good engine, compression etc all checked out so instead of doing what everyone does and sticking a 2.0 in I kept the 1600. I stripped it a fair way down and cleaned it up which uncovered the engine number. As it turned out this 1600 engine is in fact this cars original engine! VIN and engine codes both match. A nice feature few cars like this will have by now. It’s had new gaskets, water pump, cam belt, clutch etc etc etc and a full paint job itself. As have literally all the other parts that came off the car. Everything has been checked over and either repaired or replaced then painted. The cars underside - I had a couple of choices from my painter. A: full on stonechip paint and then full undersealing/waxing. Or B: factory look. I chose option B. This is a fair weather toy from now on and lives in a garage so it’s had factory style seam sealing, then factory look stonechip paint and then over painted in body colour blue to look like a new mk2 would have done back in the 70’s. Without wishing to blow my own horn, it’s absolutely gorgeous now! Far better than I’d ever expected really. It’s cost me dearly though, the new body panels that went into it came in at a shade under £10k alone! Parts for these cars are not as cheap or plentiful as they once were! I’m seeing it as a one shot thing though, if I finish it well and look after it it should easily last another 40 odd years. Good value if you look at it that way! Besides that it is ‘the car I always promised myself’! It’ll be remaining pretty much in standard condition, there can’t be many standard low spec ones left anymore so it’s something that little bit different and shows that not all of them were 3.0Ghia’s or 2.8i cars. The vast majority of them were like this one.

Great thread this! Aside from model trains (and real ones!) my other hobby... classic cars! Always loved the old stuff and I’ve had a classic in one form or the other since passing my test. Here’s my current fleet. 1988 Volvo 740 2.3GLE auto. I love these old bricks and had a few 700’s and a 200. Numbers are starting to thin nowadays, especially on the early ‘flat front’ cars but then the newest ones are just about to turn 30 years old now. I was actually given this low mileage car for free after had sat on my sisters boyfriends grandfathers driveway for two years unused. He passed away and the car was left to rot. I trailered it home, sorted it out and did a load of unexpected welding to the rear floorpan (lesson here - never ignore water leaks!) and got it back on the road. The US market front end was a swap done by me using imported US complete light units which I’ve modified to be U.K. legal. It’s a great car and is an old car capable of daily use all year round without any trouble. Next are the toys! 1984 Ford Transit mk2 2.0 petrol, quite rare now as it’s the LWB high roof model. Ex BBC mobile radio studio and has been barely used only covering 19k Miles new! It’s now a camper van. 1974 Ford Capri mk2 1.6L. This was my first car. It was a bit of a shed then so I restored it then used it for ages. A few years back it started looking rough again so I went a bit mad with it and had it stripped to a bare metal shell (always reveals many more horrors than you thought you had!). It’s cost an eye watering amount to get it to this stage but it’s pretty much as good as new again now and just needs reassembling which I’ve been gradually doing. The colour is Miami blue, not this cars original colour but is my favourite from the 74 Ford paint chart! It’s a very very early mk2 having a few features unique to the early cars and is mostly a late mk1 under the skin. It’s been with me a long time now and I don’t think I could be without this one! Finally ‘The Beast’, 1973 Mercury Marquis Brougham. Fitted with a monster 7.0 litre big block Ford V8. I imported this from the states a few years back. When it got here it turned out the engine was worn out! It’s now been fully rebuilt to the last nut and bolt so runs beautifully. Being a 73 car it’s got non of the power sapping emissions control rubbish either, while it’s not actually that powerful for the size of it it’s still got some serious grunt and torque and goes very well (in a straight line!). It’s great to drive and turns lots of heads when it’s out.

The siding next to the shed will extend. It’s current length was simply the length of the piece of flexitrack I had to hand! The refuge siding was intended for a headshunt for shunting the two sidings into the ‘industrial site/warehouse’. However, it’s not actually needed for that as the loop serving those sidings can hold the full train I intend to use for this site. At the moment it can take two 31 sized locos... Using it for engineers use is an interesting idea!

I’ve also done a bit more track altering. This is why I never lay track then immediately start fitting point motors and ballasting! I almost always leave things a few months at least, run the layout, then find I want something different or something else works better and change it. Much easier done without relocating point motors and scraping up new ballast! Here’s the current state of the track... Station area now has the dead end bay platform looped in instead. Giving two main lines through the middle with two loops either side. I’ve removed the headshunt and now have the fuel point access from one point only, accessed from one of the loops. This loop then joins the branch around the curve into the hidden storage area. Seems to run (and look) a bit better now. The aim with the station end and the two loops is so the half relief station appears bigger than it actually is. The loops don’t really do anything in reality but since you won’t see one end of them it will look from the scenic side that they continue on for a greater distance. Only thing I might add is a crossover from the inner loop line (nearest the fuel point) back across the end of the platform onto the inner main line? Just so trains can get from the inner loop back onto the main and aren’t forced to go down the branch. Is it worth bothering though!? Maybe I’m overdoing it?

Hi, Yes, I’ve actually removed the belts from a few of them. On some it’s made all the difference, others not. The ones it has, the belts had gone hard and were just slipping making the noise. The ones that it didn’t help, turned out to be the little gear on the bogies. A clean out of the old crud and a few spots of oil into there did the trick. Some needed oiling then running, followed by another oiling but it’s doing the job. Only one 31105 now is still occasionally making the irritating squeak! Thanks.I’ve still got it all! Some 16 EM1’s and 2 EM2’s. Don’t ask what I’ll do with them now! Maybe just get them out for a run now and then? All the other stock from that layout I’ll be reusing on this one, anything from the blue or green era I’ll use should I fancy a change of running era from time to time. Here’s the stock storage... All these are Locos. Plus a few carriages at the end. And these are all wagons/freight stock. The black things under the old towels are actually mk2 Ford Capri seats!! Removed from the car years ago and I’ve just had them fully retrimmed ready to go back into my restoration project. Another staggeringly expensive hobby of mine!

The moment I put that one on eBay will be the moment Bachmann answer everyone’s prayers and release that type as a standard release!