FraserClarke

Some more double headed action, including a sneaky view of the footplate...

A bit of work on the platform, which I need to size and site before I can finish off the landscaping on the road behind.

It's a simple mounting card structure, with a recess cut in for the small station building to sit in.  The yard is based on Rannoch, but the station there is too big, so this one is based on Arsaig/Morar instead...

Mock-up of the station building for sizing

Tried to be fancy with edging slabs and the sloped concrete 'cornice' underneath. Not sure it worked!  We'll see how it all looks once painted up as concrete...  The rest of the platform top will have a gravel covering in due course.

Finally an overview of the station area,  framed with some randomly-place-for-picture sea foam trees the kids made a Pendon last summer. 

A set of mainline blood-and-custards has just left!  Don't worry, they'll be back round in about 5 seconds...

On 30/03/2019 at 08:04, ModellerChris said:

 

Looks a really good start I must say. Slight concern over how close that yard point is to the edge of the board though? Is there a safety net just in case? 

 

Many thanks Chris.  Yes, the point is - or rather was - close to the edge.  Might not be obvious in the last set of pictures, but I've done a 'cut-and-shut' on this part of the boards, taking a triangle from one side and fitting into the other.  This makes it look much more reasonable, and gives a much nicer line to the baseboards.

Thanks for the Rannoch link, not sure I've seen that one...

Well I've been very slowly trundling along with this layout.  The kids don't seem that fussed about trains at the minute, so I'm not going to push them.   I'm just using it as a bit of a test bed for various things. 

Roughly half of the major scenery structure is done now.  The layout has a central 'spine' road to divide it.  The hills are made up of extruded polystyrene insulation boards 'grip filled' together and carved to shape.  The road is made of mount card, and will be painted and 'tarmac'd' at some point.  The overbridge is a scalescenes kit I built years ago for another layout and never used.  Once all the major forms were in, I covered it in sculptamold (which is relatively expensive, but seems to work very well), and then painted it in generic matt brown paint from the clearance shelf in B&Q!    The far board is awaiting me sorting something out with the tunnel mouths... 

I scattered some chinchilla 'dust' into the wet paint, let it dry, hoovered off the excess/unstuck bits, and painted over with more brown paint to give a bit more surface texture.  The 'dust' was quite a bit larger than I was expecting (would make quite good ballast I think!), but perhaps the bag had settled and all the fine is at the bottom.

The white areas here will be painted grey to represent rocky outcrops/cliffs.

The picture below shows the station area. No platform yet, just a mock-up of a west highland-ish station.  The brick bridge is not very west highland, but I already had it...

On 11/03/2019 at 21:11, nickwood said:

Terry, very good of you to act as Abingdon MRC's publicity Officer. I hope they appreciate it

Very much so!    It's such a good exhibition that we ended up with two threads and a calendar entry! 

Thanks for all the extra photos in here.  Hope to see some of you at the show on Saturday.  I shall be variously operating "Didcot A"  and/or the Club Stand in the afternoon according to the schedule...  come and say "hi" if you are attending.  :-)

A ping that the Abingdon show is happening on Saturday. A slightly revised list of layouts due to some last minute pull outs unfortunately. For more details see: http://admrc.org.uk/exhibitions/abingdon-exhibition-2019

Layouts: 

Three Points               7mm / O       ADMRC

Porlock                        4mm / OO     Kevin Grace

Inselbahn Langeoog  N+Nm            Piers Milne

Kidmore South Yard  N                      David Mitchell

Dock Green                 7mm / O         Chaz Harrison

Trewithick                    4mm / EM      Graeme Vickery

Llanfair Caereinion    4mm / OO9    Andy Cundick

Canute Road Quay    4mm / OO       Graham Muspratt

Ryders Green Wharf 4mm / OO9     Peter Cullen

Nippon Tetsudo         Z                        Peter McConnell 

Oil Drum Lane            4mm / OO       Terry Robinson

Didcot A                       N                       ADMRC

Manningthorpe           N                      Matthew Oszczyk

A bridge too far          2mm                 Peter Thorpe

Foxfield Wharf            N                        Peter Hughes

Ilfracombe East          4mm / OO9      Brian Key

Bridgebury Gate         N                        Russ Hobbs

Kamiak Falls                HO                     Antony Quinlan

Sodor                            4mm / OO       ADMRC

Traders:

JB’S Model World

Squire’s Tools

Sunningwell Command Control

Freestone Models

Ceynix Artistree

Double-O Scenics

Neil Cresswell Model Railways

Kytes Lights

Brunswick Railways Ltd

Kevin’s Trains

Cheltenham Model Centre

Societies:

European Model Railways

Pendon Museum 

Medway Queen Preservation Society 

Didcot Railway Centre / Great Western Society

Abingdon MRC's annual exhibition is on Saturday 16th March this year. We have a great set of 20 layouts to enjoy, and the usual selection of traders to part you from your money. 

We're in the Abingdon and Witney college again this year. For more details see: http://admrc.org.uk/exhibitions/abingdon-exhibition-2019

Layouts:

Three Points               7mm / O       ADMRC

Porlock                        4mm / OO     Kevin Grace

Inselbahn Langeoog  N+Nm            Piers Milne

Kidmore South Yard  N                      David Mitchell

Dock Green                 7mm / O         Chaz Harrison

Trewithick                    4mm / EM      Graeme Vickery

Llanfair Caereinion    4mm / OO9    Andy Cundick

Canute Road Quay    4mm / OO       Graham Muspratt

Ryders Green Wharf 4mm / OO9     Peter Cullen

Brymbo                        7mm / O         Oxford and District MRC

Oil Drum Lane            4mm / OO       Terry Robinson

Didcot A                       N                       ADMRC

Keats Sidings               4mm / OO       Jon Potter

Manningthorpe           N                      Matthew Oszczyk

A bridge too far          2mm                 Peter Thorpe

Foxfield Wharf            N                        Peter Hughes

Ilfracombe East          4mm / OO9      Brian Key

Bridgebury Gate         N                        Russ Hobbs

Kamiak Falls                HO                     Antony Quinlan

Sodor                            4mm / OO       ADMRC

Hope to see some of you there!

If you like paper mills can I suggest Penicuik:

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=55.8250&lon=-3.2186&layers=168&b=1

 

There is actually a passenger terminus with goods shed, coal yard, turntable and engine shed wedged in between those three paper mills!

 

The Disused Stations web site shows the evolution of the site quite well: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/p/penicuik/index.shtml

Yeah, Penicuik is a great little prototype. I have boards ready for a model based on Penicuik - but have done so for the past two years and made no other progress so far 

Another one, slightly further down the Esk, is Polton;

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=55.8718&lon=-3.1379&layers=170&b=1

It's even smaller than Penicuik, with a through goods line to the paper mill behind the platform, and an interesting reversal through the small goods yard to a works. Looks like Iain Rice did the planning for it, though there is not quite a three-way...  All in a heavily wooded valley, with a nice river in front of it...   I've wanted to build this one for at least 15 years now. I think it would work brilliantly in 'S' -- but that would be a very major commitment, and I need to figure out how to model faster than a lethargic snail first :-\

Both Polton and Penicuik would have been served by the V1/3's in later years, or the C15/16s (aka NBR M/L) in earlier days...  goods presumably on the ubiquitous J33/J34/J36.  In 4mm, RTR now covers the LNER/BR needs fairly well, but NBR times would need a fair bit of kits/scratch building I think. 

I found the roof an interesting challenge as it has a hipped gable-end and is cut off at an angle to fit as low-relief into the corner.

 

The ridge had to be complete - it would have looked odd, partially cut off (I tried this on a mock up and it looked weird!)

 

My basic schoolboy geometry came in handy - well, OK an online angle calculator came in handy!!

Cracking stuff all round 

I also had to pull out the maths for the hipped roofs, and I put it into an excel sheet. I hope you don't mind the liberty of me attaching it here if others might find it useful??  If you put in the length, width, and angle you want, it calculates the cut dimensions for a flat piece to fold up to the right size...  (edit seems to work now : HippedRoofCalculator.xlsx).

I'm very much enjoying your build. I'm trying to do something similar at the other end of the canal, but at much slower pace and with considerably less skill I fear...

Fraser

Shame it's not available in N gauge

G

His email (though not website) does say he's planning an N gauge version...

How about running the main line round the back, having the exchange sidings/loop inside, and then running a tighter 'industrial' line round to some industry. You could have the shunting/inglenook aspect on the industry side..   Attached image is a rather inelegant version which would benefit from considerable refinement!

I hid some storage roads behind the industry site, but access might be too tough there... depends on the height of the layout probably...

Deepest board is 2ft..

Apologies Sam! Trouble of matching forum names to real world names

You did a good job -- I was back in on the Sunday, and things were again only looking green in the right places

I'm glad to hear that because I was at Didcot a week ago and I spent a lot of time getting "up close and personal" with No. 5900! It was looking very dusty and a bit sad so I gave the loco a thorough clean. It's nice to know that my efforts were worth it, given that it will be outside with everybody getting a good look at it...

You'd perhaps be surprised quite how quickly things get dirty in there - one of the authentic steam shed aspects I guess :-\

There is a group, which I'm a member of, who do look after the engines in there. We clean and lubricate them on a monthly basis, do assorted 'conservation' jobs, and try to keep things looking nice for the public and as accessible as possible.  Still, they always look a bit grubby the next month.   You'd be very welcome to join and help out if you'd like -- we even have proper cleaning equipment... PM me if you're interested.

The engines probably looked particularly dusty a week or so ago -- we'd been rubbing down and repainting 5572. It turned everything else in the shed green!! Unfortunately there was no option but to do it in the shed...

edit - smiley killed most of the message first time!

I think the answer is quite simple, lay the track in  prototypical lengths, and in winter do not lay the rails tight against each other. If anything this method may well be the best route to take. Even using a feeler gauge to maintain a gap to avoid this happening. Perhaps someone who knows the science of expansion could advise of the gap distance required in summer and winter. Perhaps a thread in Templot may be the best place

Looks like a nice concept. I like David's suggested changes to the headshunt -- gives that slightly 'drifty' feel to the end of a BLT...

I wonder if you've thought about the height of the layout? I haven't seen it mentioned?  Could you consider mounting the layout relatively high (say 1.4m+  4'6"+)?  That would offer the potential of usable storage space under the layout (or maybe a workbench?), and enable you to have a fold down (rather than up) fiddle yard (or a flat table to slide cassettes on) -- which might be less intrusive to the domestic view when not in operation?

People have personal preferences on layout height of course, but I think high layouts look good -- as long as you can reach them!

Bumping this up, as the show is tomorrow.

Hope some of you might be able to make it along. Make yourself known if so

A quick bit on the wiring, which is mostly done...

Wiring diagram was done in a rather manual fashion -- drawing on an overlay of the track plan! I found it a surprisingly effective way of sorting out the wiring actually, but it does need converted to a proper diagram at some point...   The number of tracks cross the baseboard joint is a bit of a pain, and leads to quite a large connector for the size of layout (I think 20 wires, if I wire the isolating sections back to the control panel; TBC)

Layout is split into three sections; 1) Main loop + yard, 2) Station 3) Shed. It's designed for DC operation, but compatible with a change to DCC if/when I go that way (have no DCC stuff, or budget to buy any, just now). I've gone with dead sidings when the power controlled by the point direction, but because the sidings basically all sit across the baseboard joint, it will be fairly easy to swap it to live sidings if needed in the future (i.e. for DCC).   Wiring underneath is colour coded by section / common-return / function.  There will be control panel in the corner, and probably I'll try to keep the option open of having a second handheld controller too... (two kids, two controllers... what could possibly go wrong!?!).  The wiring underneath is 16/0.2 for the main bus wires (overkill for this size I think!), and 7/0.2 for the droppers and point feeds.

Cable between boards is short and sweet, using DSUB-25 I had in hand. I've now twisted the cables up to make them a bit neater, but didn't take a photo of that. There is space in the connector if I decide to run the isolating sections through; current thought though is just to leave the on local switches near the sections.

The points are all insulfrog, and operated by hand. I have however taken the precaution of pre-wiring the frogs so I can convert them to pseudo-electrofrog points if the blade connections start to get dodgy...

Hi all,

I thought I'd put a topic up here about the little layout I've been building for/with (mainly for at the minute!) my kids (definitely not for daddy, definitely not... hmmhph).  It's evolved from a very simple loop a on a pair of old doors to something slightly more permanent. We don't currently have a space to leave the layout up permanently, so I've kept the pair of 2.5' x 4' door panels, which can be brought into the kitchen for quick running sessions. The panels are aligned with wooden dowels, and clamped with toggle catches. Seems to be holding alignment well so far...

In the 5'x4' (max) space, there is only really room for a single track (using 2nd radius curves), and no passing loops or storage sidings. The design also constrained to only use whatever code-100 bits I'd recovered from a previous layout! It's roughly split into two sides, a small station + yard (kind of inspired by Rannoch), and a engine shed (kind of inspired by Kyle of Lochalsh). Always had a fondness for the West Highland, so that's as good an excuse as any!  There will be an over-bridge, tunnel, and hill up the middle, so hopefully there will be some element of coming-and-going to the trains running round and round!  

Mocked up with some track, before I started chopping holes in the boards (at which point my wife reminded me that we were meant to be keeping them to use as doors again in the future -- oops). The tunnel will be at the far end, as per the track plan above. I've used transition curves into the 2nd radius corners to try and smooth things out a bit. Even though it's for the kids, I still want to enjoy building a model The lima deltic hauling two blood and custard coaches is highly prototypical for the WHL of course...

I started this around Christmas, but ended up lifting, spraying, and relaying the track to include some foam underlay (2mm 'fab foam') -- this gives a bit of a ballast shoulder, but unfortunately little/no noise deadening properties...  Each sectoin of track has it's own droppers, which hopefully improve conductivity... It was then sprayed in Humbrol earth (#29) to tone things down. The track was laid into a bed of PVA (also tried copydex, with little difference), covered with ballast (mix of N-gauge granite and some fine red scatter), and the excess hoovered off after 15-20 minutes. That technique is quick and neat, but struggles to get enough depth for the thick peco sleepers.   At the baseboard joins, the tracks are soldered to brass screws driven into the boards. So it's taken me until now to get the layout to a basic operation state. The main line is laid and ballasted. The yard is laid, but not ballasted yet. The engine shed roads still to be done. That's enough to have some fun running trains around for a while. Next steps will be to finish the basic control panel, and the start doing the major landscaping.

Finally, what will be the driver's view emerging from the tunnel into the small station and yard...

Abingdon and District MRC's annual exhibition is on Saturday 17th March, at Abingdon and Witney College, Abingdon. (note - a new venue; we have moved from the sports centre this year).  Doors open at 10:00. Entry is £8.00 for adults, with accompanied children free. 

More details on the website here; http://admrc.org.uk/exhibitions/abingdon-exhibition-2018/ 

Or facebook here; https://www.facebook.com/AbingdonMRC/ 

17 layouts this year (plus 15 traders+exhibitors), and a good mix of scales and sizes;

• Sodor  OO
• Questa  On30 16′ x 2′
• Solent Summit N 35′ x 18′
• Trowland S 8′ x 2′
• Westcliffe EM 18′ x 3′
• Willbrook Marsh O 16′ x 3′
• Göttingen Süd N+N6.5 9′ x 3′
• Kydmoor Quarry End OO9 4′ x 1.5′
• Margate Road OO 11′ x 7′
• Mohawk Valley N 12′ x 3′
• Leicester Belgrave Road OO
• Nippon Tetsudo Z 10′ x 3′
• Oakworth to Maidbridge OO 10′ x 4′
• Edgeholme Quarry O-16.5
• Sams Creek O-16.5 17′ x 2′
• Dead End yard N 2’6 x 1′
• Dentdale N 20′ x 2.5′

Been making slow progress with this amongst work, home and other commitments. I've got two of the three roofs for the first of my buildings done now. I’ve pushed on with the painted paper, made into strips of slates with partial cuts between each slate.  It doesn’t quite get the rough edged effect I was looking for – but overall I’m happy with the look. There is the odd wavy line around, but I think I can live with it!   I’ve spent a lot of time looking at old slate roofs in Edinburgh over the past few months, and there are certainly enough prototypical examples to justify pretty much anything you want!   

I used acrylics to paint the paper, rather than the enamels Mark recommended – simply because I don’t have any enamel/cellulose sprays and wasn’t prepared to buy a range of colours just for this.

The leadwork is from scalescenes, but seems to match quite nicely. I made the strips a bit too wide I think, but acceptable from distance at least!

Next step is to add some weathering and washes. The weathering on the real thing always looks surprisingly strong to me, so this is probably a case of not scaling down what you see 1:1 (or 1:76) for fear of it overpowering the scence…

Work has been 'hectic' to say the least for the past few months, so very little progress. I've tried out a few options in odd free hours here and there when I really can't face going through my 6th 100+ page document of the day...

Best I've got so far is based on Mark's suggestion of painting the paper then cutting. This is similar to what I did on my first attempt, but I just scored the "inter-slate" lines rather than cutting each one out. I thought the score would be wider, and hence more noticeable -- but it seems not. The paper was first painted with a mix of acrylics and grey emulsion as a base, and then marked and cut (all 4mm here, for ease of testing) once dry.

Fairly happy with how this piece has come out. Edges of some slates are poked and roughed up with a knife after installing.  The shine is from a slight excess of PVA, but it is meant to be Scotland so they are probably wet anyway. I still need to put an overall wash on to tie things together and add a bit of weathering, but pleased with this so far... Probably needs a bit more attention to reducing slate size as I go up the roof.

Work should calm down in a few weeks time, so will perhaps get the rest of this roof slated, 'flashed', and weathered to see what the final effect looks like...

PS -- I did try putting on individual slates; not as tedious as I'd thought, but my model slating would do a gross dis-service to the roofers of old!! Hard enough getting the strips to look vaguely straight :-\

Thanks very much for the replies. Certainly lots to consider.

do it the way the prototype does it: in this case, that would mean cutting and shaping the tiles individually. 

Indeed, I have considered that ; but ROM esimtate is >10,000 slates... so I think I need to compromise somewhere in order to get it done at all!

Important difference from many English buildings was [and is] that Scottish slate roofs are laid on a solid planked wood surface, partly as the weight is heavier, so the roof is unlikely to distort with age.

That's a good point which I hadn't considered. Perhaps I need to rethink my base structure of cereal packet card -- I'd been thinking a bit of natural distortion would look OK, but maybe not!

Hi, Are you sure that the slates actually get smaller towards the ridge line, or is it a matter of perspective making it appear as such?

 

 As an alternative to Stubbies needle file to 'distress' the edge of the card, this little tool is something that the ladies that come to my wifes card making sessions all appear to have to distress the edge of the card. I will have to get back to you on it's effectiveness on roof slates. ( I have several sections of roofing to do but hadn't actually thought of distressing the bottom edge.)

Thanks, that looks like an intriguing device! I'll have a look in craft shops.

Yeah, the slates really do get smaller; 'diminishing courses' it's called I believe. As Stu said, pretty easy to do by cutting thinner strips.

I did a Scottish style slate roof in 7mm on a goods shed.  It was the subject of a thread in another forum

 

http://www.westernthunder.co.uk/index.php?threads/slating.1979/

Well now, that's just devastingly good... It really does show the benefit of treating each slate as a slate.  I note you mention you have 60 scale ft of roof and it took 'a while'. I think I have some 500 scale feet in effect (multiple pitched sheds), so I just don't think it's feasible for me unfortunately

Should have mentioned I'm working in 4mm here.

Seems like I need to press on my roughly my current approach, and try some different techniques for distressing the edges. Also thought last night of using my kid's playdoh pizza cutter, which has a fairly sharp plastic edge to it. That might do the trick of compressing the edge rather than ripping the card... I've also bought some dark grey card, which I hope means I'll need to use less paint to colour/weather it, which might help it from 'blowing'...  I did consider using textured prints (rest of the building is scalescenes brick), but I think this is one area where a bit of exaggeration of the real thing works and the texture would look a bit too flat.

Will experiment and report back!

I'm scratch building a goods shed/warehouse for my Scottish dockside layout, but struggling a bit with the slates. The building is based on fuzzy photos of the prototype, filled in with imagined detail borrowed from other similar style buildings. The roof is of Scottish slate, which is quite a bit 'rougher' than the usual stuff found further south. The slates themselves are smaller (typically 4-10"), thicker (guess 0.5"+), and with much rougher edges than "normal" slate. The slates tend of get smaller towards the ridge line. It's quite a distinctive look, which I'd like to try and recreate.

Below is a image of the style of building I'm going for. This is a 'modern build' (I remember it being built at Bo'ness in the early 1990s), but of a traditional style. 

My attempts so far have been based on scoring the tiles into thin strips of card, sticking the strips on in the usual way, and then painting with acrylics (colour not quite right yet, bit too Welsh!). Was fairly happy with the first attempt (back of the knife), but looks too much like neat 'normal' slates. Second attempt (scoring with a blunt scribing tool) looked great before it was painted -- but as soon as the paint went on the damaged fibres on the score lines all stood up and looked rubbish...

Any suggestions on how I might achieve the rough - but not too rough - edge to the tiles would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

My 'experience' of map-surfing small scottish termini like this is that they generally don't have a headshunt, using instead the running line for any shunting... That's mainly NB on the eastern side -- maybe the west was different.  Equally, I'm sure there is a prototype to justify a headshunt if you want one!

I'd be tempted to keep it more open and have fewer sidings though.

What is the upper siding used for? Is it a bay platform?

I've had my eye on one of these kits for a while, as the main motive power for my in-progress CR dock layout. Haven't got round to buying one yet though!

I'll follow this thread with great interest. Thanks for your already highly detailed descriptions!