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Flyingscotsmanfan

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  1. Flyingscotsmanfan

    It's Alive!

    By Flyingscotsmanfan,

    The track witing has been completed, and i works, the only thing giving me any trouble was the Doubleslip as I intially wired it up wrong.. Doh! Oh well as it is the first time I have used one I will let myself off... but just this once!
     
    I have also constructed a control panel for as can been seen here:
     

     
    as you can see it is run on good ols fashioned DC complete with isolating sections. The whole panel is hinged for easy access and is secured down with velcro. To finish all hat is needed are some Studs for the turnout control.
     
    The front panels have also been fitted to to the layout:
     

     
    As I have a deadline of June 9th for the Colne Valley Railway's Model Railway Exhibition where I will be showing Ffarquhar, I have plenty of time to decide on the colour I will paint it.
     
    Clarabel has recieved her paint and now looks more "T.V. Series accurate" .
     

     
    The Humbrol paint is the closest match I could get and once varnished should look the part from normal viewing distances.
     
    I have also scratch built the coal merchants coal stathies and the coaling stage for the Engines to top up their suppy:
     
     

     

     
    These will be weathered and real coal appied in due course...
     
    That's all for now...
  2. Flyingscotsmanfan
    As the title suggests it has been a long time since I have updated this blog and for that I can only apologise.
    A lot has happened to Ffarquhar since the last entry and one thing I have found out is that there is nothing quite like an exhibition deadline to force some modelling!
    The Braintree and Halstead Model Railway Club, of which I am a proud member, held a their first exhibition in Braintree town centre since 1984, The year that Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends was first broadcast! Ffarquhar had the honor of an invite on the strength of how well it ran on the Club's open day last year, once again I can report that it ran superbly and I was more than happy with it. The only things that went wrong were turnouts mis-set by myself or my sixteen year old brother, who I kindly volunteered to come and help me for the day.
     

     
    The above picture is the layout packed up, all 14 feet of it. The three main layout boards are stacked on top of each other thanks to the transport boxes I spent the whole saturday before the show building for them and while I was at it I built a lid for the 2 foot fiddle yard as well. The bits of wood in front of the main boards are the leg supports as the legs all fold underneath the layout, it's system that works well and will be used on my next layout.The whole layout fits very comfortably in my friends estate car which is just as well as I don't drive!
     

     

     
    Two shots showing the layout put up its so hard to get it all in one shot, as can be seen from the top one a lot of work has been done on the scenery side of things. The layout also has perspex fitted along the front which during the show turned out to be one of the best descions I made as the layout would have suffered heavy damage from little fingers.
     

     
    That is my Brother attending the fiddle yard as can be seen it is quite small but adequate for the layouts needs.not bad for a spare bit of ply I had spare!
    Now some shots of the layout:
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
    A you can see for the photos still a lot of work to be done but at least it works and I'm happy with Ffarquhar. Also had so many good things said about it and some of my fellow club members were green with envy at how well it ran.
     
    I hope it won't be so long until the next update farewell.
  3. Flyingscotsmanfan
    Dear Friends,
    It has been a while since we have heard from Thomas on the Ffarquhar branch. There have been many happenings such as Thomas went to an exhibition, Daisy arrived, and... but I shan't tell you anymore, you will have to read it for yourselves.
     
    Flyingscotsmanfan.
     
    A lot of progress, and I mean A LOT, has been made to Ffarquhar before it went to the Colne Valley Railway's Model Railway exhibition in June. A lot of scenic work was done including, ballasting, the Tunnel mouth, the retaining wall and some basic ground covering.
    A road was built using the Faller Car System as the basis so eventually Bertie the Bus can be seen trundling along the road. Bertie has been fitted with a chassis though unfortunatly too much tinkering with it means it doesn't perform well at all, but I know where I have went wrong and so the mark II chassis will hopefully make Bertie fully operational.
     
    The layout ran faultlessly at the exhibition apart from the odd bit of dirty track which made Percy stop a couple of times but a good track and wheel clean eliminated that! The 3 link couplings were an absolute joy to work all day and I only missed one coupling!
    The overall feedback for the layout was very good and even though it was Thomas and Friends my club mates were quite impressed! I even had one little lad come back about 6 or 7 times throughout the day for about twenty minutes at a time and it turns out his favourite engine is Stepney (which did run on Thomas' Branch in the original books whilst visiting Sodor, see STEPNEY THE BLUEBELL ENGINE) so its lucky that I took Stepney and I made sure he was running whenever he came over.
     
    Currently this is what the layout looks like in a series of pictures taken today:
     

     

     

     

     

     

     
    As you can see a lot has been done with a lot still to go!
     
    Now you may have noticed in one of teh pictures that Daisy is in the station:
     

     
    She isn't available commercially as yet so I took a Lima Class 101, cut the cab off the end of the Trailing Unit and stuck it onto the end of the Driving Unit in a not to dissimiar manner as The Reverend did his though his was with the old Tri-ang model. I think she happens to look rather good!
     
    Lastly for this update; I have decided that due to some ply I had laying around not doing much that I shall plan a little extension to Ffarquhar which will give an extra 3 1/2 ft scenic space and also a place for a riverbridge and river, as well as a place for the quarry line to join the line so that Mavis can bring her stone trucks down. I have got as far as drawing on the baord what I want where:
     

     
    So all in all Ffarquhar has a lot of life in her yet and hopefully the extension will be up and running by her next show in September!
     
    Until next time... hopefully it won't be so long!
  4. Flyingscotsmanfan
    So the Track laying for Ffarquhar has been completed:
     

     
    To start with the baseboard tops were covered with cork which was stuck down with Copydex. After previously using it on two layouts I am a firm copydex convert and love it's sound reduction properties!
     

     
    On the cork a copy of the trackplan was stuck down. Then on top of the plan the track was stuck down again with Copydex. Sounds simple, but is slightly more complicated than that...
     
     
    All the track is Peco Code 75, The Turnouts are all Electrofrog which does mean there is going to be more wiring which will be worth it for the superior running it will give. To each piece of track droppers were wired as not to rely on the fishplates for electrical conductivity. The Turnouts were laid with a slip of card over the holes cut for the point motors
     
    As the layout gets put up in the living room whilst I am working on it I had to do the job over two days, this is because there are five people who live in my house and three of them are woman... woman who don't have any interest in Model Railways.. which means I can only really work on it when they are out otherwise they moan at me. I like a quiet life so here is the progress at the end of day one:
     

     
    The next day was spent pretty much as the first but the end results were very different:
     

     

     
    And of course once track is laid, who could resist planting some stock to get a feel for the layout?
     

     

     

     
    Until next time...
  5. Flyingscotsmanfan
    So the layout is progressing very well the main woodwork on the boards has been completed with the asthetic woodwork to be completed later on in the build. Track has started to be laid and will hoefully be completed by the middle of next week.
    A small update on some of the rolling stock I have been working on:
     
     

     
     
    Season 1/2 Annie... she has a lowered bufferbeam and I have fitted handrails to her. This is the closest I can get the Bachmann model of Annie to look like the season 1/2 model due to the fact Bachmann didn't model her with the slight tumblehome that the T.V Models have.
    With Annie completed it was time to start working on Clarabel...
     
     

     
     
    Clarabel has, like Annie, had handrails fitted. One thing that has always irritated me about Bachmann's Clarabel was the fact she wasn't made with a Guard's Compartment as per the T.V model so I wanted to put that right... all that is left to do is find a paint that is as close to Bachmann's as possible and paint her newly added compartment. This brings us to the traction to pull our two lovely ladies...
     
     

     
     
    I have opened out Thomas's Cab and windows, eventually I will fit a Driver and Fireman. That's it for now I shall update again once track laying has been completed...
  6. Flyingscotsmanfan
    So... as the title suggests I am having a bit of a sleepless night, various things on my mind means that I need something to try and relax me... so I set up Ffarquhar and placed a rough print out of the trackplan down. There is something magical about placing the trackplan down on a fresh baseboard for the first time and this time was no different but it didn't stop there, soon I was placing Locos and Rolling stock to get a feel for the layout:
     

     

     

     

     

     
    I have also tested just how much I can get in the platform area and found I can fit two longer bogie coaches and still have room to go round the run around loop, so I can also run Edward, Donald, Douglas and Emily which means more operation potential... even though it isn't prototypical... Then again there is rule no. 1
     
    Until next time...
  7. Flyingscotsmanfan
    Well as the title says it has been a while since my last blog. I would like to say that I have done lots to the layout but alas I haven't.out
    The layout has been set up in the garage along with my workbench, which has made my sisters all very happy, as I have moved all my modelling gear off the dining room table!
     
    The biggest job that I was putting off for ages was to use hanging basket liner. This represents wild grass on the hillside on the approach to the station.
     

     
    I started to trim it down with hair clippers but realised that the glue still needed a little more time to dry so that is a job for another day.
     
     

     
    I have added a name to the signal box... the name Halstead Sidings is now official. and I must say it does add some character to the box.
     

     
    This view shows how the hillside is coming along. I have added a tree ( the first of many) which still needs a bit of work on it to make it look realistic. I have also started to add some clumping to start building up to represent bushes.
    I have also finally started to work on the area behind the platform. A wall was added as well as a fence, which will have posters and notices stuck to it in due course.
     

     
    once these jobs are completed that will be that module of the layout "complete" though I will leave the really little details until later.
     
    Well that's all for now, hopefully it won't be too long before the next update when I should have a heater in the garage and able to do a bit more work!
  8. Flyingscotsmanfan

    Genesis

    By Flyingscotsmanfan,

    Though not a picture a taken at the genesis of my layout which has the working title of Halstead Sidings, this picture has nothing to do with the actual building of my layout but is in fact one of the earliest pictures I have, as I didn't think about writing a blog Halstead Sidings had an unnamed predecessor which was a a fairly big double track loop which was roughly 8ft by 10ft, had a decent sized goods yard and a roundhouse loco shed. This was all on analougue using a Hornby HM2000 plus the two add on controllers and all the turnouts were operated by Peco point motors controlled by an electronic pencil. the track was a mixtue of Peco and Hornby settrack with the use of some Peco flexitrack.
     
    This was fairly reliable but the wiring was a mess (I have never pretended to be a tidy person) and when things did go wrong it took a while to find the source of the problem. Eventually it proved it was too big for what I could handle at the time, my youthfulness allowed me to bite off more than I could chew, so my 21 year old brain got to planning and came up with a branchline terminus with would be based somewhere on the LNER between 1930 and 1947, which would give me quite a scope with what I could run as I tend to buy a lot of LNER liveried locos as there is something I can't resist about the LNER (though I do have some locos from BR and other companies, these get run on the club layout)
     
    This is what I came up with:

     
    It would give me lot of operating potential, as there plenty of movements I can make, as there is a runaround loop in the platform from which you can access the shed, to enable a change of loco, coaling and watering etc. There is also the goods yard with three decent sized (for a small layout) sidings one of which ends in a goods shed.
     

     
    I decided at this point that I would go DCC, and in an attempt to actually make it look like a model more than a cross breed between model and trainset I elected to go for Peco code 75 track and electrofrog points which have been quite reliable in service, that was until I ballasted them, but a bit of fiddling and cleaning and they all work faultlessly again.
     
    The fiddle yard could do with being a bit longer as a simple three coach train plus loco has to be taken off if I wish to use the other two tracks. As on the plan I used a Peco 3-way turnout which proved unreliable so I ripped it out and used 2 normal Peco small radius turnouts which are much better.
     
    As mentioned before I decided to go DCC and after looking at various systems, finally decided on a Bachmann Dynamis thankfully I haven't any problems with it so far (touch wood). I thought about operating the points with analouge again mostly due to the cost of all the decoders for the points but I really like the idea of running everything form just one console so I an currently experimenting with different point motors to see what I find most suitable (which reminds me once I get the layout out of storage I must get round to trying that ZTC point motor with built in decoder they do seem a wonderful idea!).
     
    So for now that is the ramblings about my layout over with. I must say it really does look quite different now as I mention it was started four years ago, though for most of the last year it has been in storage due to housing difficulties but it should be up and running again within a couple of months!
     
    Until next time where I might talk about some of the stock!
     

  9. Flyingscotsmanfan
    I had been toying with what to call this layout for a little while and I have finally decided to name it Ffarquhar after the station at the end of Thomas' Branch Line.
    The trackplan isn't as Rev. Awdry built his or how it is depicted in the books or on TV. It is a simple trackplan that will enable me to run my Thomas stock in the space I have and I'm happy with it and that is all that matters
     
    Also:
     

     

     
    The baseboards are nearly finished... Just got to attach the legs and make up the bracing and actually make the holes for the joins.
    After that I will concentrate on the presentation side of the wood work such as the backscene and front.
     
    The Signal Box that is in the second picture was made... but I shan't tell you anymore as it will spoil the next story...
  10. Flyingscotsmanfan
    Hello, two updates in as many weeks? This blog is like waiting for a bus! Anyway I digress, this update is to show you the extension to Ffarquhar thus far...
     
    This was the state of play on Tuesday:

     
    and here is what it looks like at the end of this week:
     

     
    all that is left to do is the wiring and she is useable! in the meanwhile I couldn't resist placing Thomas and Percy on the bridge area!
     

     

     
    Next time I shall cover some of the scenery!
    Until then, farewell
  11. Flyingscotsmanfan
    As I have access to a proper computer for an hour or two I am utilising the time to bring you a quick update on Ffarquhar.
     
    First up is that have now attached the Control Panel to the layout, which is bolted on and secured with wing nuts, this is so I can take it off after a running/working session and for transportation/storage.
     

     
    I have also given the track a preliminary coat of Railmatch Sleeper Grime which does take away the "Toy Train" look of Peco track, the least enjoyable bit was painting the doubleslip. I had to make sure that I didn't get any paint anywhere where it can act as an insulator... Tests after the paint had dried showed that I wasn't entirely successful but after cleaning the affected areas, it runs once more.
     

     
    As can be seen from pictures I have started to build the platform which is made from strips of thick card that I managed to obtain from the local supermarket where I happen to work. The Platform face was then laminated with embossed brick plasticard and painted to match the station building.
     

     

     

     
    That's all for now, As I have the rest of the week off I shall hopefully be ballasting until next time here is a picture of Thomas waiting at Ffarquhar Station
     

  12. Flyingscotsmanfan

    Taking Shape

    By Flyingscotsmanfan,

    Today I had a day off, today was also the day that the timber order for the new layout and of course not having much else to do I just had to fore up the circular saw and start cutting the timber to size...
     
    Soon I had the parts laid out on the baseboard tops:
     

     
    The frames are built from 4x1 as will be the two outside sets of legs, the inside set of legs will be built from 2x1.
     
    I was going to leave it at that for the day but idle hands and all that:
     

     
    I couldn't resist glueing and screwing the frames together!
     
    So as it currently stands I have two very nice and very square baseboards... tomorrow (as long as the parts I have ordered arrive) I shall be looking at the legs which will be of the fold up under the layout variety.
  13. Flyingscotsmanfan
    After the school boy error of forgetting to plug in the battery charger I thought that I wouldn't be able to cut the baseboard tops until the morning.. I didn't realise how quick the charger wouls charge the battery! I have managed to cut the ply to shape!
     

     
    As mentioned in the first entry to this blog I decided to have a curved fascia on the left hand board, with which I'm quite pleased with the way it has turned out.
    The right hand board is behind and has no interesting shape just a simple rectangle, the little board is going to be the small fiddle yard base which shall be operated by a cassette system. All being well I shall be ordering the timber tomorrow for the frames and legs.
  14. Flyingscotsmanfan
    Why the picture of the battery charger you ask? Well this morning I put the battery on charge for the circular saw and went to work..... or so I thought I had! I came back this afternoon to find I had neglected to plug the charger in....
     
    The main reason for charging up the battery was so I cut the baseboard tops from 4ft in length to 3ft for this new layout... I had already marked it up as well:
     

     
    Ah well that is a vaulable lesson learnt.... no matter how well prepared you are there is always going to be something of your own doing to stop you!
  15. Flyingscotsmanfan
    My long term, stay at home layout, Halstead Sidings is operated on DCC which I enjoy operating and working on very much but I have no where to run my Thomas and Friends Stock on. Thomas and his Friends are all DC and I have no intention of DCCing them in the long term future. So I decided to build a small compactish layout on which to run Thomas, Percy, Toby and some of the more smaller engines on.
     
    I have set myself 4 rules:

    The Layout mustn't be expensive to build,
    The layout must be able to fit in an estate car for transport between home and the club,
    When at home the layout has to be able to be stored under Halstead Sidings, and be able to be put up in a small space,
    All trackwork must be code 75 with electrofrog turnouts

    With this in mind I played around with a trackplan on XtrkCAD
     

     
     
    I came up with the above.
     
    Two boards of 3 by 2 easily storable and transportable.
    The fiddleyard will be a separate board size to be decided, which will be operated by peco locolift cassettes.
     
    I have even planned as far as the wood work to make sure no pointwork is going to be over any any joints and such:
     

     
    The left hand board is going to have a curved facade to A) try something different and B) take a bit of weight off a board.
     
    I have costed the wood at a local Timber Yard and the track from a few online sources and can say that I can get this built within £150 with I think is a good sum. I am also considering what to do about turnout control... thinking Peco mounted to the points.
     
    With pay day just around the corner I might be able to order the timber, I already have the ply for the tops so thats one less cost!
     
    Until next time!
  16. Flyingscotsmanfan
    First things first the Garage had been rechristened:
     

     
    Secondly I took this picture last night on my phone to show someone at work... I'm rather pleased with it, shame its slightly blurred:
     

     
    Oh and I've also done a spot more work on the layout, I have made some hedges from this:
     

     
    Rubberised horse hair cut roughly into hedges shapes, sprayed with hairspray and dunked into a mix of two shades of green flock:
     

     
    it looks the business and I'm more than happy with it
     

     
    the left is the untreated horse hair on the right is the flocked stuff!
     
    until next time... who knows I might even make it three times this week!
  17. Flyingscotsmanfan
    I thought rather than talking about the stock for the moment, I would instead talk a bit more about the layout itself.
     
    As can been seen in my first blog I designed the trackplan on XtrkCAD, this went through several alterations including a complete redesign until what is seen today. Unfortunatly I didn't keep the other trackplans but I do remeber there was one based loosely on the Rev W. Awdry's Ffarquhar Mk II layout as I was intending to run my Thomas and Friends stock on it as well as my LNER stock.
    The decison to go DCC changed all that though as I didn't really want to chip all my Thomas stock as it mainly is from the Bachmann American range (they closely resemble the T.V series of which I grew up with), which as they don't have DCC provison on board mean't I would have had to hard wire all the decoders and find space for them( Anyone who has opened a Bachmann Thomas can atest to there not being much room apart from the cabs on the tank engines! don't even get me started on the tender engines!!!).
     
    Anyway back to the layout, The boards are a standard flat top with beams to support underneath and
    once I was 100% happy with it the trackplan was printed out and copydex'd straight on to the 12mm thick MDF baseboards. Now I don't even pretend to be carpenter but I could lay on those boards and not get a single creak, In fact I may have over engineered them!
    Once the neat Copydex had dried I cut and in the loco yard, goods yard and station area laid 3mm cork on top of that, shouldered cork was laid on the actual branchline leading to the fiddleyard so that a good ballast shoulder could be obtained with ease.
    Once the copydex had dried another print out form XtrkCAD was laid on top again using Copydex. I use copydex to stick everything down including track and ballast as it dries to a rubber which makes a surprising difference to sound deading (knocking on the plain MDF top and then the cork there was a very noticeable drop in sound!)
     
    Starting in the fiddleyard with Peco code 100 flexitrack and electrofrog turn outs I put dropper wires from every piece of track except the turnouts, this was so it could be ready to be attached to the Copperstrip bus underneath. Once the Copydex had dried on the freshly laiden track the fiddleyard was turned over and the easy job of soldering the droppers to the bus started. Once this was completed the board was turned over and throughly tested to ensure everything worked.
    Iit was at this point that the 3-way turnout used at the throat of the fiddleyard was found out to be causing the Bachmann Dynamis to short so requested some help on RMweb and tried out the alterations that were suggested and still found it was shorting.
    I was quite disheartened at this point so, I ripped out the 3-way and replaced it with 2 turnouts which have given trouble free running (when I say trouble free I mean non human trouble free running, I used to keep forgetting to set the turnouts!).
     

     
    At the throat of the fiddleyard the track changed to Peco Code 75, thank god for Peco trackage system for being universal! At the baseboard join between the scenery boards and fiddleyard the track sleepers were replaced with PCB sleepers and soldered to the track. As I had built the boards in a modular fashion this was a area that would get a few knocks if I ever needed to transport the layout anywhere. I am quite happy at the ridgity of the joins as this was my first attempt at doing something like this.
    As with the fiddleyard all the track had droppers added before copydexing down on the board as I could solder to the underside and not have any wires showing on the sides (which is quite the bug bear for me).
    As laying turnouts I drilled holes in the baseboard directly underneath the tiebar so I could fit motors at a later date (which still have to be done four years later!!!). Again as with the fiddleyard, once all the track was laid and dried and droppers soldered mass testing began.
     
    Next step after testing: Painting and Ballasting.The Whole of the track apart for the fiddleyard was sprayed with Railmatch Sleeper Grime and once dry the railheads were cleaned using a Gaugemaster Track Cleaning block (the old style one not the newer smaller one).
    Now I don't mind ballasting but as with any model railway job I need to be in the right mood to do it, it took a month to get in that mood also the chance to play trains was proving too much and after all I am easily distracted....
    Lucky for me there isn't mich running line for tidy ballast so it only took me a couple of short sessions to ballast the single track and loop. Once satisified I used Diluted copydex (50/50 with water and a drop of washing up liquid) to secure in place. As you can probably tell by now I'm a big advocate of Copydex, it really is wonderful stuff! Instead of using Granite ballast I used Jarvis Senics fine Brown ballast which actually looks quite good once sprayed lighty with Railmatch Sleeper Grime and Track Dirt!
     

     
    After normal ballasting I could then work on the yard areas, for this I originally used Carrs Ash ballast but I didn't find this realistic enough when in situ so when at Peterborourgh Festival of Railway Modelling one year I spotted on one of the stands real locomotive ash and purchased it for the mighty sum of £1.99. this was sprinkled on top of the Carrs ballast and rubbed in slightly which looked quite good so I put more on and this was the result (not the wagon this is the only picture I can find that shows the ash ballast up close!):
     

     
    Once all that had dried (after being copydex'd!) I painted the rails a dark brown acrylic using a rusty rails painting tool which is an extremly useful tool and I highly recommend it to everyone.
     
    That about wraps this blog up for construction and track laying, I will do a blog about some scenic work soon but I must admit I haven't done much of that at this time!
     
    Happy Modelling!!!
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