Modelling Martin

Adding a little water to it should soften it quite nicely. For my layout I prefer to apply it by hand so it is not perfectly flat (I used it for general ash/oil build up in a shed). Once I'm happy with the general surface I find stippling using an old paintbrush works well to smooth everything together and obviously afterwards remove the clay around the inner track face for the flanges, I used an old set of wheels.

Thanks! Apologies for the late reply, I do miss the layout from time to time, it always had a bit more of a gritty feel than the WSR, looking forward to seeing your layout though, preservation layouts do seem to be gathering traction recently, Gary

Hello all, Slow but steady progress being made on Minehead shed. The concrete and general ash base layer have been added and painted with a couple of locos shown to add a bit of interest to what is a mix of DAS clay, plaster, filler, Plasticard and MDF in different areas. I've tried do define a different area for concrete and ash build up which I'm quite happy with. Next thing to do is sort out the fiddleyard and give the whole thing a 'test'. Anyway the base layer can be seen below, loads more muck and general shed spillages to be added yet: Thanks, Gary

Hello all, Despite the lack of updates work has continued on the layout spurred on by the release of the PECO bullhead track range which has allowed for the laying of track and the first run of my locos. Before this though legs and a fiddleyard extension were added to the baseboard seen prevoiusly: These legs are collapsable folding beneath the baseboard to allow it to fit in the back of the family Polo should it need to be moved, they are also hinged two thirds of the way down for either sitting or standing operation. After this was finished I set about laying the track over cork tiles as well as installing the inspection pits. Overall with the testing with Braunton the PECO points seem to be a lot better than the kit built SMP ones I used previously although at nearly three times the cost I would have hoped so! Here is the old shed on to give it a more 'Minehead' look, I want to rebuild this in the future as I'm not too happy with it, Thanks, Gary

Hello James, As you are aware by having an angle to your station you will lose some width from the station which, as you stated later, is something you would not like to do as naturally having them parallel allows you to 'fit more in'. I think the problem is how people interpret 'making full use of the space', for me this is allowing for things such as sweeping curves and town scenes for example where for you it is an opportunity for track. Of course this is not a bad thing just different opinions on what to do with available space which I believe others on the this forum with views more similar to your own will be more useful in helping you, Good luck with the project, Gary

Hello James, I see you have your key operational features such as the station and engine shed but have you thought about any scenic features? With the track so close to the backscene near the station you may find it difficult to create a convincing backscene as the illusion of depth usually works better when there is some space between the two. Also even plain scenery can add a lot to a layout allowing it 'to breathe' and not looked so cramped as in my personal opinion your station looks rather more like a scenic fiddleyard than a realistic model. As you may have heard before having the station simpler and at an angle to the wall of your shed would help a lot with this but of course you will lose some operation. Of course if you are after something focused on having the most complex signalling possible then I am sure your plan fits the bill but if you are after advice on constructing a realistic model of a railway then perhaps think about some of the above. I have also found that, with some thought, a simpler plan can actually be more complex as you restrict the operations you can do which I have found more enjoyable in the past, Gary

Hello all, A (not so) quick update on Minehead as i haven't updated the thread in quite some time. I spent a few months after the exhibition last year thinking about what I wanted to do with the layout but track problems with the SMP point kits and some of my rolling stock was the final nail for the layout. A few weeks ago I stripped the baseboards saving what I could for my next layout which will be much smaller and more manageable. I arrived at the conclusion that Minehead was just too big for my space but I already had all the rolling stock for it so the logical solution was to model a section of the station, in this case the shed. A few days ago i started cutting the wood and this is the progress so far: A short snippet of the terminus station which I hope I will be able to capture the atmosphere of the much larger seaside town. I am now awaiting plans from the WSR as well as PECO to release their points so I can crack on with the new layout, Thanks, Gary

Building the second traverser: After thinking about the direction of the layout over the past few weeks I've decided I want to extend it from running three coach trains to six coach trains- more prototypical for Minehead which I think will give a good enhancement. For this the first thing I needed to do was make a bigger fiddle yard however extending the old one which was already 5ft would make moving it an impossibility so I made a second traverser board which should bolt to the old one to give a 7ft long sliding piece of wood over four runners- should be an interesting wood working challenge! First of all replicating my standard design I made essentially two baseboards using the materials below: The two baseboards are made out of 9mm birch ply with braces, the traverser was packed up with MDF to get it to the right height (it's a bit short but you won't see the back of it hopefully): After the basic wood construction I installed the runners- it's imperative that they are parallel: Maybe I should have attached them to the traverser first as they now need to come off to align holes in the metal to allow me to put more screws into the traverser but this is what it looks like screwed together: I intentionally overlapped some of the wood to keep it as flat as possible, all I need to do now is get the sander out to finish up the edges and fettle with the screws between the runners, and baseboards to get the best fit which is by far the most time consuming element of the construction, I am focusing on the fiddle yard at the moment keeping a keen eye on the PECO bullhead track which I may replace my SMP with for improved running, Gary

Hello all, Well after the reasonably successful exhibition in September I've been taking a rather long break from the layout trying to decide what the next step for it is. During the exhibition I encountered more than a few problems with the SMP points which, along with an extension may contribute to just replacing them with the new PECO bullhead points when they come out. Anyway on a more positive note today I dusted off the stock boxes to give the locos a maintenance run on the only board I have up at the moment- the traverser, where i took some pictures of 6009 as you can see below: Kind regards, Gary

Apologies for the late reply, you are right they are modified Bachmann coaches, Gary

Thanks Joseph, I use OS X but when I use photos to export pictures at even slightly lower qualities it seems to really affect them, Gary

Hello all, As promised here are some shots of my newly renumbered and weathered locos, obviously as they are for a preserved railway I tried to keep weathering to a minimum. First up is D1010 Western Campaigner, a Dapol loco renumbered with Fox transfers: Secondly is D6575, not a home fleet loco but owned by a member of the diesel group at the WSR so was a good enough excuse for my layout: I'm still attempting to adjust my camera settings to bring the image size under 1MB without compression, Gary

Thanks Andy looking forward to getting it into the garden tomorrow to sand the platforms down and get some good light for better photographs.

Hello all, Lack of updates recently have been due to working on the layout working towards the mid September deadline: The backscenes have now been done and and attached to the layout too I've also finished the fencing and scenics on the other side of the board Finally the Morrisons car park has been started but still needs a lot of work, Currently looking at the diesels at the moment so I'll upload some pictures when they're finished, Gary

Hello all, I've been pretty busy over the past few days turning this: Into this: Should get some proper photos of them soon once I've finished the roofs, they're all 'de-ribbed' but when I got my airbrush out all it did was spatter the paint so I will have to look into that, Pretty hot in my bedroom at the moment with the recent heat wave but at least it means the paint dries quickly, Gary

Hi Rodney Mine work by switches on a panel: If you look underneath at a switch (number 1 for example) the first column has two black wires, one wire is the common from the Megapoints board (centre row) and the other is the wire that goes into the switch connector on the Megapoints board. The middle column I've left empty so I could attach LEDs to them at a later date for route indication. The final column has the orange and grey wires in the top and bottom row which is the track feed (+ and -) with the centre (white / green wire) being the frog for the point. The number of wires is just because there is a lot of points as the process is repeated for every point. The frogs connect to the control panel via VGA cables, Hope it makes some sense, Gary

Ahh yes thanks for that I'm getting them confused, in that case it's on the list, there isn't many layouts where a 7F alongside a 66 is completely prototypical! Kind regards Gary

Hi Alfie, welcome to the forum, I'm certainly jealous of you, I live 300 miles north of Minehead (adds to the holiday resort feeling!). Regarding the track it is all SMP which, if I'm honest, looks really nice but for me is very high maintenance (I've nearly always got my soldering iron out adjusting points although they're nearly there now). Personally if I was going to do Minehead again I'd use peco 75 points with C&L thicker based track or wait for the Peco or DCC Concepts bullhead track system to come out as I chose SMP before any of it was announced (typical!). SMP can give you good results though just be prepared to put the time in, Gary

Thanks Marcus I do have a western which will be D1010 when time and funds allow for the layout. The class 59 named after the railway would look perfect on it too, all i need is for the Dapol one to hurry up and produce one in GBRF whenever that might happen, Gary

Hello all, well since the last update I've started scenic work on the layout, a new concept for me having never done any scenic work before. Luckily Minehead has a simple embankment with mowed grass on which seemed easy enough to replicate as can be seen below. I first cut insulation board to the rough shape (horrible stuff!) and then covered it in plaster, brown paint and static grass as can be seen in the different stages. I also managed to get around to the rolling stock another first time after never weathering anything before. Looking at the Bachmann mk1s that i have I decided to change the bogies, paint them, weather the underside and spray the roofs deribbing them in the process, I am quite happy with how it has turned out although paint still needs touching up in places. Here are some comparison shots with an unmodified mk1: Hope everyone's having a nice summer even if the weather is not, Gary

Hello all, Recently it has been a very busy time for me due to the exam season being in full swing which has caused a delay in RMweb posts- something I aim to put right now that i finished my last exam today. I have however managed to do little pieces here and there which I thought I would share with you accompanied by the Hymek D7017. First of all one of the scenic boards has been fully ballasted as well as the platforms built and weathered for the whole layout which pretty much goes from one end of the scenic section to the other which isn't finished yet as there is still the tops to do. For the platforms I chose MDF with plasticard sides sprayed with Railmatch concrete and various Lifecolour weathering paints. The 'new' part of the station is identifiable by the GWR blue brick platform end which was made with slaters brick and Humbrol grey: The main area of progress however was the shed area. After spending a day precisely cutting plasticard sheets to represent the infilled concrete a couple of days later the whole lot had warped and raised making the shed look as though it had speed bumps in it. Anyway after ripping it all up I just reverted to using poly filler which seems to have come out equally as well although it needed sanding afterwards to make it smooth finishing by spraying it Railmatch concrete again. The DAS clay, which was applied with a brush and a lot of water was then painted with Lifecolour dirty black and so was the ballast to some extent to blend it all together: Now this has been completed the next thing to do I think is touch up the ballast in places which seem a bit bare, a problem with SMP as the sleepers are so thin it can be difficult to get a decent covering on without swamping the track. I also need to weather the concrete considerably and maybe even start ballasting on the second baseboard. Now that I've officially been confirmed for the exhibition in September I'm anxious to keep the layout progressing and as always advice and input is appreciated, Kind regards, Gary

Hello all, Just a little update, recently I've sprayed the track and painted the rail sides to get rid of the metal finish, I'm pretty happy with it, it only took a few days to do as the layout is seen from both sides . Today I got out the DAS clay and had a go at trying to replicate the ash and dirt filled ballast synonymous with preserved railway engine sheds. This is my second go with the stuff and this time round I used a stiff brush soaked in water to get it as flat as possible. Anyway the above can be seen in the sequence of pictures below: D1661 comes into the station with the first train of the day It then pulls forward and exits via the loop back into the fiddle yard Meanwhile 53808 fresh from overhaul waits in the Engine shed 53808 then backs onto the train and waits for the signal in order to leave the station The crew looking nervous on the loco's first run (both on the layout and in real life) Hopefully I should get the ballasting done in the next week or so and start covering that cork. Also I've been using a 17-40mm lens this time which is different to the 18-55mm I used last time. Hope everyone has a nice Easter, Gary

Hi Mark, Thanks for the interest I was going to build the kit until I found the Hornby version and cheated, still work to weather it and detail the interior though (makes me feel less guilty about buying ready to plonk!), Gary

Hello all, Despite it being two months since my last update there has been progress on the layout, most notably in the electrics department which are now finished (at last!) Here the Megapoints controller can be seen in the control panel with the inputs from the switches and the outputs going out the side to the baseboards via D connectors. Another problem I encountered was with the SMP plastic point kits, my first one (which I honestly didn't do a good job on) was playing up with some of the locos so I decided to replace it with a coper clad type- a steep learning curve considering a couple of years ago i was laying Hornby express points. On a more interesting note with the recent batch of Heljan class 33s I managed to get a GSYP example which will represent D6575. Being a DCC Ready locomotive I expected a quick installation however 4 hours later I was only just about finished. This recent edition means I have every diesel locomotive on the WSR (excluding duplicates and shunters) Anyway here it is alongside the newly installed point rodding that controls the points on the main run-around loop. I increased the aperture on this picture compared to previous ones on the thread which seems to have created a better depth of field: Next on my list of things to do is painting the track and ballasting now that all of the track has been played with operationally tested with every loco as well as finish off the point rodding closest to the signal box, Hopefully 2016 will be a productive year for the layout as the deadline for September comes closer and closer! Gary

I've used one in my latest layout due to their value and ease of use. They work really well although the servos do 'twitch' occasionally which some may find annoying but apart from that they work perfectly. For changing the frog polarity i've wired the frog and servo to both be controlled by a DPDT switch which seems to be doing the job fine, Gary