JCL

Why do manufacturers make it so difficult to get into locos to install decoders? Seriously, I had a Hornby A4 and Bachmann 4MT on the bench this evening. And NEM couplings, a nice idea, but that really narrow section is so fragile, even when you take it slowly with a scalpel blade to ease the thing out! I tried to deal with the Bachmann class 55 as well which had an awful sounding sound chip installed by the supplier, but it all got too much. It's got to be a job for another day.

I can't do any modelling today, but I can doodle in Photoshop. Wainfleet All-Saints Church sits opposite the goods yard. It's a pretty large building to put on the layout, but fairly simple in that it's just a series of boxes built in a cream brick on a stone base. The bell tower is wooden with a lead roof. The windows will be made in the same way that I produced the crossing gates, i.e. cutting out each layer separately and laminating them together. I've done a quick test and it appears to work! So, attached are the beginnings of the front and left-hand side of the church; there's still some work to put into them. This will be a project for later on in the summer when I can't get downstairs for any period of time. Apart from starting to put the landscaping together, my next proper building is the signal box. I've been getting some great advice on that score, so I'm starting the plans for that this or next week in time to head off to SuperTrain at Calgary for the materials. This is a photo from Google StreetView of the church

My uncle who was loading and unloading in the '60's told me a couple of days ago that the goods shed wasn't in use towards the end of freight on the line, and that all the agricultural produce was loaded either lineside or on the ramp beside the Boston platform. As a result, it seems that almost nobody knows what the loading side of the goods shed looks like. As this will be away from the viewing side I'm going to leave it until I can find out a bit more about it. In the meantime I've been on Ebay again and bought this LNER shipment label that was used in the yard into BR times. Unfortunately I don't know whether the label was put on the side of the waggon or the produce itself. The potatoes to be loaded in Wainfleet were destined for Somerstown near King's Cross.

Well, I'm getting out of Fernie and heading to the big city today (pop 15,000) to buy brown paint. It's about time I started painting, and as we have no guests in the B&B until next weekend, the smell of paint will have hopefully disappeared. I'll have to get some glue appropriate for the foam as well to get that stuck down, and some polyurethane varnish for the river surface. Heady days

You and me, both! :-O

Thanks Duncan Wainfleet isn't known for it's majestic mountains and lush valleys, but at the same time, the landscape isn't entirely flat. This is good news for me because am entirely flat layout wouldn't have been quite as interesting to build. I mentioned before that there is a rise from the level crossing that ore or less gets to the height of the platforms. This is fortuitous because that rise is about 1" in 4mm scale - the thickness of my, yes you've guessed it, insulation foam. This $7 8'x2' of stiff foam is really being put through its paces! The corner board that holds the curve out of Wainfleet station is going to be built up to this thickness. I've used a kitchen knife to roughly carve out the curve, the downward slope of the road and the river to shape before taking the sheets into the garage to power-sand them down. I've got to do it this way because I'm really sensitive to dust (had the hooter re-bored a couple of years ago) and I can't leave it hanging in the air. Anyway, I'm left with some smooth shapes that I'll be able to glue into place soon. This shows the river banks that haven't been sanded yet. and in place with felt tip markings of road and building locations and a paper cut out of the main floor plan Wainfleet All Saints church. Finally, here''s the mostly done goods shed in place. The slope on the far side of the Boston platform has been ripped up. It was made of ply covered with cork, but it really didn't look right, so I'll be getting out the, yes, insulation again and redoing it.

The sun's out and Winter is starting to give way to Spring, and the time I have available down in the dungeon has increased to the point that I can stop watching trains go round and round for five minutes before going to bed and actually get some stuff done. After starting the thing a couple of months ago and leaving it sat where it was for weeks, I've finally made some headway with the corrugated iron goods shed. Using the little tool I wrote about in Corrugating with Aluminium I've created a whole load of strips of aluminum sheeting that's been chopped and shaped, and then pressed matte board using double sided sticky tape - Valerie style. Luckily the shed was in a distressed state in the years that I'm modelling Wainfleet, which means the nicks and such like that I've added to it through handling it could be seen as prototypical! Note to self, put the foil on as close to the end as possible! The chimney is made from a 1/2" square section of poplar from Canadian Tire. I cut the wood about 1/2" shorter than I needed, then cut 4 pieces of card 1/2" long. Using 2 sided tape again, I put the chimney onto the scored printed brick paper (square!), wrapped it up, then inserted the card sections into the top. Flipped the paper ends over the top and then down the inside to make it look like the chimney is hollow. I may do this again and I glued on the decorative rows of brick but they haven't really come out as the printed paper was too thin. With regards to painting, the idea is that that the top sheets of corrugated iron are thoroughly rusted, but the walls aren't at all. For the rusty roof I used Burnt Umber, Cadmium Yellow and Pyrrole Crimson. It seems to be similar to the only colour photo I have, so hopefully it'll work. Actually, it's looking a lot redder on the photos than it does in the kitchen. The sides are a light yellow which didn't seem to rust at all. I'm not sure how I'm going to weather it, so I'll do a test piece - maybe just a really thin dark brown wash or something. Anyway, vertical struts, windows (Tichy Trains), door, interior, light, and general tidying up of edges (they are looking a bit rough in those close-ups) to do and then my first building in about 15 years will be done! This last photo shows that the aluminium keeps the grooves even after painting, which is good news.

I'm neither n scale nor modern image, but I recognise a work of art when I see one. The amount of work you put in is fantastic. I hope your yellow problems are a thing of the past now.

Hi Jason I haven't looked here for a little while, and your wall with the bricked up archways really took me back to when I lived up there. It reminded me of the Todmorden Road where there's a stretch of low-ish wall made by infilling windows and doors before chopping the top off. http://goo.gl/maps/GupR5

Ah, I didn't see that.

Looking at those Tri-ang clerestories, they seem to be going for 4 to 7 pounds each, so I must be missing something here http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIANG-Hornby-R332-GWR-CLERESTORY-COMPOSITE-COACH-al-/330603033372?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item4cf979f31c

You'll have to let us know how you get on, I bought one a couple of months ago and it worries the willies out of me in case I break it or gum it up!

That's so true. I've learnt so much more about my home town, and in fact my family since I started my project. I didn't realise that the research stage could be so interesting.

Ok, I'd better focus and finish something. The first item off the production line is going to be the goods shed. Which pretty much just needs assembling now. The walls have all been covered with the corrugated aluminium, and I've been down to the hardware store for a can of white primer 1/2 price this week , so it's a case of priming and gluing or vice versa. As one of the walls is an unknown entity (no photos and none of my family can remember what it looked like), so I'll make sure that this wall is tacked on rather than a solid join. I'm really excited about getting this done as it'll be the first completed building on the layout apart from the nissen hut that I built as a proof of concept. I'm learning that, apart for the obvious (boards, then track then electrics etc) there are lots of things that must be done in a certain order. The platform can't go down until I know the width of the steps of the footbridge, which can't be built until I've made the signal box as it almost brushes up to it (in fact theroof at the back of he signal box isn't square because it wouldn't have cleared the footbridge if it was. This photo shows what I mean http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingythewingy/6412319293/ ).

Haha, it's worse than that, I'm of the age that I find myself interchanging with the two styles (I'm ambidextrous like that). Canada is as messed up as the UK - km on the roads, but building work in ft and inches, and beer glasses in all sorts of sizes depending on whether you're buying a glass or a pitcher of booze. I do tend to use inches more though.

I've just found your work on here. Your layout is beautiful, and you are so fast as well!

Received a parcel in the post this morning containing the 1948 Olympic set that was discussed in the bargains thread (57quid!), some buffers and a couple of Hornby footbridges. I saw the Scaledale ones but they looked awful. I've bought thte standard ones in green and grey. My aim is to reproduce the footbridge in Wainfleet. This was unusual in that it had four sets of steps - two were in-line with the bridge and were used to allow people to cross the tracks when the trains were passing through. The other two sets of steps went to the platforms. It seems that hardly anyone used the footbridge, as it was much quicker to use the pedestrian gates next to the grossing gates. To recreate the bridge I'm going to use both footbridges, The bridge needs to be an inch longer than the kit provides for, and because it's on the platforms, I'll need to take some height out of it. My current thoughts are: Keep the four legs on either side the same length. Replace the middle "floor" section with plasticard that is an inch longer than the current model. This section will be flat as per the prototype and remove the unneeded height. Cut off the curved sections of the footbridge sides. Chop the diamond pattern sides up so that they extend the right width. This is going to be a pain because they seem to be made of polythene. I might be able to use some thin H section to insert the cut ends into (the prototype has vertical bars so it wouldn't be too out of place.) Put it all together Try and find some sort of undercoat that will work for the various different types of plastic that are involved. I think that the last problem will be the worst one. I've been reading up on polythene and it seems like it's almost impossible to glue and paint. Oh well, in for a penny... I've had next to no time in the basement over the last few weeks, but I got an hour in today, and the carpark has been tarmacked and the ballast has started going down. I think I've got a process going, but it's going to take a while... cheers Jason

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SUPERB-RARE-BRASS-KIT-PRO-BUILT-LNER-4-4-2-IVATT-ATLANTIC-CLASS-C1-No-2817-/121062411342?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item1c2fe1cc4e Looks nice, but I didn't realise that there are different degrees of unique. “PROFESSIONALLY BUILT AND PAINTED BRASS KIT LOCO - A VERY UNIQUE ENGINE.” Down the road and over the border is the "most unique" souvenir shop in Montana. Now that's very unique!

Hi Michael Thanks very much. They were embossed using a tool which was basically two pieces of acrylic with scored lines on them. I cut each embossed piece of aluminium out and then used double-sided tape to fix them to the side of the building. A longer description can be found here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67597-corrugating-with-aluminium/?view=getlastpost I'll be updating it in a couple of days with information that shows how to make the "sheets" more quickly. Hi Simon You can rest assured I know a lot more now about class 114 than I did before your post! When I have got a bit further with the layout I think I'm going to tackle one of these. Did you take any photos during your conversion? cheers Jason

This seems a tad high for the Olympics 1948 set. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hornby-R2981-LONDON-OLYMPICS-1948-Set-MINT-BOXED-/221182324503?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item337f7e6f17 Edited - looks like a typo, they have another much more reasonably priced...