Ardmore

Les, This is a great layout, and the photographs are superb. Although I think the 14XXs and 45/55XXs look good in lined green, like you I like my BR era pannier tanks unlined black. All the best. David

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been adding some buildings to Station Road in Teignbridge. Using the Wills Craftsman's Kits CK20 and CK21 ( post office and semi-detached stone cottages), I have created a row of cottages and shop to go next to the Royal Oak pub. The Wills kits come with coarse stone sheets for the walls, but in my opinion these are much more suitable for major civil engineering works such as bridges. I therefore substituted lime washed stone sheets for the walls as these (to my eye) give a better representation of typical south Devon buildings. This is still a work in progress as I plan to add some paving in front of the pub and shop, and walls and gardens in front of the cottages. The Whitbread lorry (like my other road vehicles has been sprayed with matt varnish (the windows need to be masked first!). Thanks for viewing. David

The sun always seemed to shine on those ex-GWR branch lines in south Devon back in days of steam.

Here are a few more pictures of some ex-GWR prairie tanks in action on the Upcombe branch. First off, we have 4575 class no. 5573 coasting downhill past the Upcombe advanced starter. This was a Newton Abbot engine in the late 1950s, and it features in a good few of Peter Gray's photographs of the Kingsbridge branch. One of the dilemmas that I have had to resolve with my branch line engines was what to do about lamps. Attach them to the front or back of the engines, or both? In the end, I decided to attach them to both ends, hoping that most of the time the lamps at the rear of the engine would not be visible in photographs. This is one of the cases where it didn't work out. So, apologies to the purists. And here are a couple more pictures taken as it crosses the viaduct on the approach to the branch terminus. Later the same afternoon, 45XX class no. 4561 has just departed Upcombe. This was another Newton Abbot engine, and a regular on the Kingsbridge branch. And here is a final shot as it crosses the viaduct on its way up the branch to Teignbridge. Thanks for viewing. David

Today's task has been to complete the back scene behind the viaduct on the branch. With the existing back scene aligned along the full length of the layout (39 feet), I was left with a 6 inch gap below the back scene behind the viaduct. To fill this in, I acquired another id Backscenes set: series 203 village pack B which consists of 2 sections each 5 feet long and 15 inches high. Using a sharp knife I removed the sky from the top of each sheet, reduced the length of each sheet to fit, made some additional adjustments to blend with the existing back scene, and then pasted the two sheets in position. Here are a few photographs showing pannier tank no. 9633 arriving and then leaving Upcombe with a short train of minerals. As with my other stock, the weathering was done by GC Weathering. I think the results are superb (usual disclaimer). Thanks for viewing. David

Until now, one of the major items missing from Teignbridge has been a goods shed. Although there are a number of plastic kits and RTP resin models on the market, none are ideal in my opinion. As the goods shed will be at the front of the layout and subject to close inspection, the thickness of much of the detail on resin models is a major disadvantage. As far as the plastic kits are concerned, the Wills model is too small and not based on a GWR prototype. On the other hand, the Ratio model is about the right size for the location, and appears to be loosely based on a GWR prototype (Buckfastleigh, I believe). However, it suffers from some significant limitations. The stonework and roof tiles are far too large, too uniform in size, and lack any 3D relief. Also, the windows are far too small. Nonetheless, I thought it would make a good starting point for a bit of kit bashing. I decided to clad the walls internally and externally with Wills dressed stonework sheets, and the roof with Wills slate sheets. As these are smaller than any of the four walls, it was necessary to weld several sheets together, and try to disguise the joins. As supplied, the internal platform is quite small, so I enlarged this and covered it with Wills paving sheets. The first two photographs show the construction in progress. After adding doors, guttering and down pipes, and painting, the finished result looks quite good on the layout. Thanks for viewing. David

Jeff: If you haven't had a tetanus shot in the last 10 years, I'd recommend you get a booster in the near future. David (retired microbiologist)

Hi Andy, The two figures standing by the plate layers' hut are white metal castings from the Monty's Models / Dart Castings range (refs. MCV 21 and 22). David

Although I haven't had much time to work on the layout this week, I have started to add some detail around the plate layers' hut at Teignbridge, and have installed a barrow crossing at the end of the platforms. Having moved the 'Royal Oak' to the other side of the road bridge at the east end of the station, I decided to add a bus shelter and some fencing. Here we can see the Bristol 'L' half cab single decker slowing down to pick up a passenger. Meanwhile. the landlord of the 'Royal Oak' is receiving the week's delivery from the brewery. I expect the gentleman under the tree will be popping in for a pint when he finishes watching the trains go by. I hope he doesn't have too many as his MG T is parked by the gate opposite the pub. I think he's been waiting to see Castle Class no. 5053 'Earl Cairns' call at Teignbridge with an eastbound train from Plymouth to Goodrington Sands. As usual, thanks for viewing. David

Hi Jeff, I'm trying to recreate a small slice of the (G) Western Region in South Devon in OO gauge (see Teignbridge in layout topics)! That has a lot to do with working in Bristol for 26 years before moving to the States. David

I live near Atlanta, Georgia so my location is a rare chance (at least on this side of the Atlantic) to be ironic. For instance, a former colleague was showing a group of senior officials from Washington DC, round a new government building. "How many people work here?" asked one of the officials. "Oh, about half of them" he replied. Now if that had been in the UK, everyone would have laughed and moved on. Over here, there was a stunned silence, followed later by a formal warning from top management never to do anything like that again. The Settle and Carlisle line has long been one of my favorites. Back in 1961 my parents considered renovating a cottage that overlooked the line at Helwith Bridge. However, they decided it would be boring to keep going back to the same place! Tragic or what? (At least I did get to 'cop' 60082 Neil Gow heading north on the Thames-Clyde Express.) BTW I'm from Leeds. David

Many thanks, Andy and Tim, for your positive comments which I really appreciate coming from expert modelers like yourselves. All the best. David

Hi Jeff, High baseboards have several advantages as you get older! I'm in my mid-60s, 5 foot 9 inches, and my baseboards are 48 inches above the floor (about 120 cm). I have to duck under them to get to my storage sidings, and I want still to be able to that well into my 70s! Also, I found it was a good height for track laying, ballasting and scenic work, and meant I had a lot less lower back pain than on previous layouts where the baseboards were lower. Finally, I found it easier to work under the baseboard installing point motors and wiring. David

The branch goods passes by on a hot summer afternoon in South Devon.

Continuing with the theme of typical traffic on South Devon branch lines, here are some shots of the daily goods arriving at Teignbridge from Newton Abbot, shunting the yard, and then heading down the branch to Upcombe. First up, we see pannier tank 9633 appearing from under the road bridge at the east end of the station. The Royal Oak pub has migrated from the other side of the bridge: this solves the problem of its shadow falling across the back scene, and I think it looks better in this position behind the tree. Having run round its train, 9633 shunts a couple of fruit vans into the back siding for loading. Because the train is reversing direction at Teignbridge, I have organized it with brake vans at both ends. I this this is consistent with prototypical practice, but I stand to be corrected. This is fast becoming one of my favorite spots for photographs: the embankment leading to the viaduct outside Upcombe. For me, the haze in the background and the lush green vegetation in the foreground captures the feel of a hot summer afternoon. Add to that a pannier tank drifting downhill... 9633 comes to a rest on the run-round line at Upcombe. The crew have uncoupled 9633 from its train and it has run back to the end of the line. Having run round its train, 9633 is now shunting some of the vans into the goods shed. In the future, I am planning to build a cattle dock on the near side of the back siding. Shunting completed, 9633 and its crew await the right away to return up the branch to Teignbridge. Thanks for looking. David

This Western National Bristol "L" half-cab bus is a particular favorite of mine. It was built (not by me, I hasten to add) from an a-b-s models kit. I bought it about 25 years ago, at a swap-meet in Bristol. Here's a close-up picture I took a few years ago on a previous layout. David

Time for some more photographs of trains in action on the layout. Although Teignbridge is a fictional location, I wanted to simulate typical traffic on the South Devon main line west of Newton Abbot around 1959-61. I'm sure the experts will be able to correct me if I have got this wrong (and I would value their comments), but I would have thought that there would have been a regular (if not daily) west-bound pick-up goods calling at the intermediate stations. Today's photographs show such a train calling at Teignbridge. Here comes pannier tank 9633, arriving from Newton Abbot on the down main line. It will run through the station, past the down starter signal, and stop beyond the west road bridge. It will then set back into the good yard. The first few vans having been detached from the train, 9633 runs forward into the head shunt, before setting its vans back into the goods shed. In fact this is the building from Upcombe which I moved up the line for these photographs. Constructing a suitable building for Teignbridge is high on my list of priorities. Having completed its shunting movements, 9633 will be reattached to its train and set off westwards once again. Thanks for viewing. David

The id Backscene range is produced by a company called Art Printers (www.art-printers.com). Their website states that some of the scenes are suitable for O gauge, but I think it's going to depend on what's in the foreground. There are a good number of stockists in the UK, but I got mine from AJM Railways (www.ajmrailways.com) who specialize in supplying the international market (VAT free). I have no connection with them other than as a satisfied customer. David

This week I have been installing the backscene around the layout. From one end to the other it measures almost 40 feet, and the depth ranges from 8 inches behind the junction station, to 18 inches behind the viaduct, and 11 inches behind the branch terminus. I decided to use the id Backscenes series 207 "Hills and Dales" as this is a set of 4 packs of 10 feet each. In fact, packs A and B are a mirror image of packs C and D, and the lowest point on the horizon is at the right hand end of pack D and the left hand end of pack A. I used the join between these two packs as my starting point and placed this behind the viaduct to give the impression of a valley in the distance. If you look between the arches, you can see that I still need to add some foreground trees to fill the gap between the bottom of the back scene and ground level, but there are several other scenes in the id Backscenes range that should suit. Here a a few other photographs. For a generic back scene, I think it fits quite well with my South Devon location. Thanks for viewing. Let me know what you think. David

Time for some photographs of steam in action on the main line. First up is 7022 Hereford Castle heading west on a down express. No sooner has the down express disappeared than 6815 Frilford Grange come into sight with an up Class C fitted goods. Thanks for viewing. David

It's a shame the demolition men have moved in, but the turntable looks good, and I'm looking forward to seeing more photographs as the terminus take shape. David

Those pictures brought back some childhood memories from the 1950s of Sunday afternoon car trips from Leeds to upper Wharfedale, and walks through the villages and along the river. I have to admit to being biased, but the Yorkshire dales scenery is hard to beat. There were numerous abortive schemes for railways through the upper dale between 1880 and 1913, and these are described in Peter Baughan's book "The Railways of Wharfedale". I would highly recommend it, if you haven't already got a copy. It was published by David and Charles back in 1969, but second hand copies are still around. David

Thanks for your interest. Here are a couple of photographs taken during construction showing the location of the storage sidings in relation to the junction station (Teignbridge). In the first photograph, the storage sidings are on the right, next to the wall. At this stage, I hadn't started to lay the branch line track (which runs outside the main lines). In the second picture, looking in the opposite direction, the station is on the right. The branch line and goods yard is to the right of the main lines. This baseboard is 3 foot 9 inches across. However, the back scene is split into sections (max. length 4 foot), and can be unbolted to allow access. The third picture shows the 11 storage sidings: 3 for the branch (on the left), 4 for the down main line (in the middle), and 4 for the up main line (on the right). The longest sidings can hold a locomotive and 9 coaches, and the shortest can hold an engine and 5 coaches (and variations thereof). I mentioned in my original post that I used Peco code 75 track and points, but modified the sleeper spacings on the track, and removed and replaced some of the plastic from the points. This picture shows what I was able to achieve. PH Designs supply a very useful template for spacing the sleepers evenly, and DCC Components supply self-adhesive 'tie bar ballast labels' which fit under the turnout and hide most of the hole drilled in the baseboard. Thanks for viewing. David

Thanks to members who have offered comments on my layout-building efforts. As a new poster, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the feedback so far has been very encouraging. Over the last several years, I have learnt a huge amount from this web site, not least from following such excellent GWR and BR(WR) topics as ‘A Nod to Brent’, ‘Hintock’, ‘Much Murkle’ and ‘Wencombe’. Turning to the first of the queries that have been posted, the viaduct is based on the Wills kit. As designed, this is intended to be constructed on the straight. However, because I wanted it to form the central feature on one corner of the layout, I had to make some adaptations. The first photograph shows the intended location. The layout trackbed is 48 inches above floor level, but the benchwork under the viaduct is 8 inches lower. The viaduct is built on a 90 degree curve, with transition radii at both ends, and a limiting radius of 36 inches. I had designed the layout using Anyrail, so I printed out the relevant part of the plan full size, and glued it to the half-inch plywood sheet that would form the road bed. I then cut the plywood parallel to, and 1 inch distant from the edges of the rail. The second photograph is of one end of the viaduct under construction, showing how it matches up to the track approaching it. The viaduct is attached to the baseboard beneath it by plywood formers at both ends. Because the baseboard is wedge-shaped (narrowest at the front), it didn’t need to be screwed to the framing underneath it. It can be slid in or out from the back, and with the backscene installed, it is secured in position. This allowed me to do a lot of the work sitting at my workbench rather than leaning over the layout. I assembled the viaduct itself from the top down, starting on the inner side of the curve (nearest to the viewer). Using a strong epoxy adhesive and clamps, I attached each arch section in turn to the plywood roadbed. The plastic is quite thick, but flexible. I learnt through experience that the arches are liable to become detached if insufficient adhesive was applied and the clamps were removed too soon. Once I had attached all the upper arches, I then added the near-side end of each of the columns. Because the viaduct is curved, and the sides of the arches need to be parallel to each other (in real life the structure would otherwise collapse), the columns are ‘vee’-shaped. The third photograph shows the far (outer side) of the structure. Here you can see the plastic filets that were inserted between each of the outer arch sections, and the columns beneath. The last, and most challenging part of the whole project was inserting the plastic brick sheeting beneath the arches, but I somehow managed to get this done. Thanks for viewing. David

Our down branch train has almost reached its destination. Emerging from under the road bridge, 45XX class no. 4561 is just about to pass the up advanced starter. Our train now crosses a short viaduct over the river. And we have a chance to get a close-up view of the engine. The journey is almost over as 4561 passes the engine shed and signal box. 4561 comes to rest at the platform. The station building is based on that at Abbotsbury, as is the goods shed. I built these and the signal box (which is a modified Hornby-Pola kit) about 25 years ago. The crew have uncoupled no. 4561 and it has run forward almost to the end of the line. A final photo as no. 4561 has run round its train and is awaiting its next trip up the branch to Teignbridge. Thanks for viewing, and for the encouraging comments. David