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Ivatt46403

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  1. Ivatt46403

    Fiddle yard done

    By Ivatt46403,

    So over the weekend I finished my new fiddle yard for Buckden. There was a little bit of a gap in the foreground so I got a lineside hut - I've always been fond of these little southern concrete ones and as this isn't "on scene" I didn't mind it being a bit out of place. The absence of humbrol 95 meant resorting to a mix of Humbrol 90 and 64 for the concrete, and then revell 39 for the woodwork. After almost always using Phoenix Precision Humbrol enamels feel so thick, and Revell so thin! Just a shame Phoenix is annoying to get hold of.
     
    I've included a few short goods especially for Mark, and then an oddly lit overview of the main boards just because.
     
    Next up I'm going to do the same upgrade to the two sidings at the other end.
     
    Marcus.
     

  2. Ivatt46403

    Fiddle yard upgrade

    By Ivatt46403,

    I was on a train back from Prague all Saturday because of work, so took Monday off in lieu and decided to tackle a fiddle yard upgrade. The yard I had was cobbled together from what I had at the time, and was always supposed to be temporary (originally until I completed the loop around the room, but I decided against that - for a line which was end to end it made no sense). It ran poorly, with dead spots, wobbly bits and frequent derailments. So needed doing.
     
    After driving all the way to Gas Cupboard in Trowbridge (amazingly on a Monday all the Bristol and nearer model shops are closed) for supplies I got going. The board was reinforced and levelled and then completely new track laid.
     

     
    It's all Peco streamline in the yard, so that I could use short radius electrofrog points, which allows for four roads on a 215 mm board. I adjusted the outside road so that I can fit two peco loco lifts side by side on the outside roads - very handy for turning my locos hands free (also the 2MT is a sod to turn and keep articulated).
     

     
    The loading gauge is pretty tight but everything fits! The curves at the end are two shocking 1st radius setrack pieces which are necessary, and don't actually seem to cause any problems. Without them fitting my boards after the move would have been impossible. I used a couple of transition tracks to go between the track grades at the yard and scenic boards and they work very well. All pinned down it now runs beautifully, and I can run trains at breakneck speed! Happy days.
     

     
    As it's always visible I thought I'd do a full scenic treatment. I was never very happy with the ballasting on the main boards, so tried something new here - it's Woodland Scenics fine light grey ballast, applied with drops of PVA:Water 1:4 with a drop of washing up liquid in too. Then airbrushed with raw umber and black - my gas ran out so there's still some more black to go on. Track sides are painted with Phoenix Precision Track colour [rusty rails] (P977) and then sleepers individually painted precision Track Dirt (P991). The rear two roads are yet to be done.
     
    So there we have it. I'm going to plant a few bushes, and I've got some left over point rodding and levers in the spares box - so if there's enough that'll go on too. Here's a final look at my pilot 08 (gasp!) sitting in my nice new dirty looking yard.
     

     
    Marcus.
  3. Ivatt46403
    I've been doing some light weathering of some of my stock, photos below of some I'm pretty happy with. Generally they've just had dirty light washes with Phoenix Precision Track Dirt (P991), Dirty Black (P981), and Weathered Wood (P990) with a dry brush of Track Colour [Rusty Rails] (P977).
     
    Marcus.
     


     
    For this one I applied from the top and then wiped downwards with a cotton bud.
     




  5. Ivatt46403

    More Grass

    By Ivatt46403,

    Just a quick update today - in order to do the grass right to the back of the boards I had to demount them, a nerve wracking operation as although built to be portable, they're not exactly designed with doing it very often in mind. That and grass application successful I took a few picks from unusual angles....
     

     

     

     
    Marcus.
  7. Ivatt46403
    Back in June 2013 Wiggoforgold very kindly posted some pictures he had of Buckden in 1978 (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1362/entry-11926-buckden-station-1978/) showing the signal box and weighbridge hut/yard office. It spurred me on to do the signal box, and confirmed the colours, but, although I made a basic start on it, I never finished the yard office. SWMBO was on a train to Newcastle all day today (Lucky thing!) so I had time to get back to it. The roof was tricky (and actually I had a failed attempt at it last night) but I think it's about right. A look at the prototype picture suggests they didn't really know how to finish it off either! Fiddly chimneys seem to have been the vogue for Buckden so I got to make another one of those too!
     
    I had bought the Wills(?) weighbridge kit a while ago, so dug that out and painted both. The weighbridge is Tamiya NATO black acrylic (46444 uses it a lot - I wanted to know what the fuss was about - it IS very nice to work with), drybrushed with Humbrol MET 53 Gunmetal and then with DCC concepts weathering powders apllied. For the hut I used a similar mix of acrylics as I did when painting the station building (raw and burnt umber, yellow ocre, titanium white, ivory black and sap green). Photo below - it's not in it's final position, but it's all a bit brown over there!
     

    I also got hold of the new Wills SS91 ground frame kit so put that together and painted simlarly but with Tamiya Titanium Silver for the handles. Again probably not in it's final place, and I need to sort the point rodding but photo:
     

     
    I'm not entirely sure where it should be. I think it's controlling the entrance to the goods yard (http://www.signalbox.org/diagrams.php?id=865) and facing point lock (in which case I realise as I write this that I've painted on of the handles the wrong colour), and then the siding is on a point lever, in which case it should probably be closer to that yar entry point. Why that was done, given that the frame had to be unlocked in the box and they could have just had the box control the point I do not know....
     
    Strangely the impetus for getting the ground frame in (apart from the fact it's only just been released!) was to finish the point rodding so I can start to lay down grass with my new static grass machine from FMR which arrived this week.
     
    FMR / finescalemodelworld.co.uk gave EXCELLENT customer service incidentally, as I'd managed to make an order without including any of my details apart from my name. Not to be beaten they did some excellent googling and called my office number at work!
     
    There's a nice, consistent, muted green feel to the buildings, and it's starting to tie things together nicely...apart from the signal box, which is now looking a bit bright...might be time for a repaint.
     
    Marcus.
  8. Ivatt46403
    It's been quiet on the blog but I've been busy on the layout! A few quick pictures of progress - the photos are improving but I definitely need to get a tripod...
     
    I've been grassing up using my FMR Maxi applicator and their mixes of spring and winter/autumn 2mm grass (FMW-SG001/SG003) , which the applicator handles quite nicely, I think I'd prefer some longer fibres, but I may dust those over later. This certainly gets a nice ground cover. This was my first patch and is the flattest - I got much better at grounding the ground in the other patches. I can also confirm that if you zap yourself with it, it really hurts!
     

     
    Around the fence line (EZ-line to follow i think) I've added some long Gaugemaster field grass in light green (FG173) and Natural Straw (FG171) and Woodland Scenics Underbrush in Olive Green (FC134). I've tidied this up with the nail scissors since this shot but I quite like the effect, so will likely add some more of the field grass, laborious though it is. In the background behind the freshly painted fence (need to tone that down a bit) I've been building up some undergrowth using more Woodland Scenics material - here there is more of the Underbush, plus Olive Green Bushes (FC144) and Medium Green Clump-Foliage (FC683) with Soil colour Fine Turf (T41). This area is going to be wooded when I've invested in Gravett, and I've been photographing my local trees before they get too green for inspiration.
     

     
    Up at the station end the station building now actually stands on the platform without falling off backwards, and the embankment has had it's grass coat as above but with Straw (GFS002) and Arid (GFS004) fibres from Model Display Products added to the mix. I think this shot really demonstrates how important it is to bed the buildings in to the ground cover that gap really bugs me. It's also remarkable how more wonky the chimneys look on the photo compared to in real life!
     
     

     
    The road on top is polyfilla, (badly) smoothed on application, sanded to not-very-flat with wet-and-dry paper then stippled with acrylics (ivory black and titanium white mix) with a good dusting of (medicated!) talc for some texture. I really like how this worked out actually, although the little bits of the pollyfilla showing through need touching up. I don't know whether I need road markings - would Buckden/Brampton road have had them in the Late BR crest era?? More foliage and scrub will follow, then the Peco flexible fence will be installed at the top (which I have already painted, should really have stuck it in for the shot) and then I'm leaning towards putting more boundary fencing at the bottom too.
     
    Marcus.
  9. Ivatt46403

    J15 !

    By Ivatt46403,

    Look what arrived!
     

     
    The long anticipated and quite delayed J15 from Hornby (R3231) made it to Model Railways Direct yesterday, apparently to the surprise of everyone involved (and much to the horror of my bank account). This is the DCC Ready Early BR crest version as 65356 (and as this was a Cambridge shed number likely to stay that way http://www.railuk.info/steam/getsteam.php?row_id=18587!). Several of these saw service on the line, and as I haven't built it a Huntingdon East shed to retire to yet, I kept it busy shunting in the Buckden yard today.
     
    I also have a new camera (a Canon EOS 1200D) which obviously I need to get used to to try and increase the depth of field....
     
    Marcus.
  10. Ivatt46403

    A lick of paint

    By Ivatt46403,

    Just before I went away for Christmas (partly to Buckden itself!) I made a start painting the station building for Buckden. I've been putting it off for a while, but there was an excellent "Railway Modeller Shows You How" by Craig Tiley in the November 2014 issue (v. 65(759), pp. 908) on painting resin models with acrylics which gave me some pointers and a little confidence, So I bit the bullet. I finished the roof off today, and a couple of quick snaps are below (neither quite get the colour right - I need to grab some in daylight).
     

     

     
    The model is Wills sheets over a plasticard/struct framework, with lasercut doors from Truetexture (http://www.truetexture.co.uk/3d-products/3d-doors/). I primed it all (minus the doors) with Halfords car primer in grey, then gave a dirty brown was for the mortar, and proceeded to almost-dry brush in the rest with neat acrylic mixed from Ivory Black, Raw and Burnt Umber, TitaniumWhite and Yellow Ocre. I was surprised how good a red I could get from those alone!
     
    The woodwork need touching up, then I'll add in the gutters and stench pipe. The one chimney pot that's on is made from a plastic syringe end with wire wrapped around the rim. The four main ones I'm going to have a stab at 3D printing, as I can't find any of the prototypical ones in 4 mm, and they're so much of the character of Buckden for me to let them be wrong. It also needs a bit of a weather and some moss!
     
    Obviously I will document how that goes here!
     
    Happy New Year!
    Marcus.
  11. Ivatt46403

    46403

    By Ivatt46403,

    I only have a very small stud of locos for Buckden at the moment - cost and necessity (Buckden was one engine in steam and the line only had a few regular classes) means I've only bought an Ivatt 2MT(Bachmann 32-829A) and an 0-6-0 3F (Bachmann 31-626A) so far. I am looking forward to the Hornby J15 (although like Alex(wiggoforgold) I'm going to need to build it a working turntable so it doesn't get homesick) and have been toying with picking up an 8F for lost ironstone trains and a J94 so that I can have a Cranford (although I doubt mine will be as perfect as Mark's (46444)).
     
    In the mean time I found this shot of my 2MT after I renumbered it, to a more appropriate (and namesake!) 46403!
     

     
    I used the very good value and nicely made plates from Phoenix (http://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/nameplates.html) and a dab of superglue for the front, and Modelmaster (http://modelmasterdecals.com/) transfers for the sides. I didn't quite manage to get the kerning right, and failed peeling off the transfer film - so after a second go this will stay on and I will just give it a good weather.
     
    The loco needs detailing on the front, and front on photos like this really make me wish I was into EM! The strangest thing about this photo is that the walls of the room are blue!
     
    Marcus.
  12. Ivatt46403
    Cambridgeshire, as many who know it as well as I will not need telling, is flat. Very flat. So it is that I wasn't too concerned with using bowling green flat boards as a starting point for Buckden. The layout did however need some topography at one end, for the embankment at the Kettering end where Brampton Road crosses the line. The embankment is long gone and was well before I was born, but it slopes gently towards the north and Buckden village to meet the gently raising ground, and on the Brampton side slopes down to meet the rather flatter ground. An inspection of the 1890 and 1920 OS surveys suggest that the grade on the Buckden side was only 0.02 degrees (or 1 in 49ish) so over the short length which would be on the layout the drop would be imperceivable, so I ignored it and kept the approach level. The bridge was skewed over the line, which I modelled (although because of the way the layout was previously housed, I skewed it the opposite way).
     
    The bridge is also long gone, and I've only ever seen it at a distance in one photo in E.H. Sawford's "Cambridge Kettering Line Steam" (Becknell Books, 1981), not least as most photos of Buckden station are taken FROM the bridge. From that photo it looks to be pretty similar to the one at Kimbolton which is more clearly photographed, and I used that, plus the extant rail bridge towards Grafham to get the general idea, and used the Wills SS64 abutment kit.
     
    For the embankment I used a framework of polystyrene (both from Woodland scenics and the packaging from my Futon):
     

     
    After remembering (through trial and error) that every glue in my box dissolves expanded polystryene apart from PVA, I used that to attach the framework to the boards, along with some panel pins pushed through to hold everything together.
     
    I then progressively used plaster bandage to build up the contours.
     

     

     

     
    I'm very pleased with the results, and the general view now looks as follows, with the station building now primed grey, and 46403 standing with a short goods:
     

     
    Marcus.
  13. Ivatt46403
    I popped to Modelmania in Bristol today (my local shop, and well worth a visit!) for the first time in AGES today, and as usual picked up mostly what I went to get (loco crew, this month's Railway Modeller) but also got drawn in to an impulse purchase of a Cooper Craft Any Name Signal Box kit (No. 2008) because, well, it was ONLY £2.50 and I thought it was neat!
     
    If you haven't seen it, the kit is made up of 4 sprues of plastic letters and a blank nameplate blank apart from SIGNAL BOX at one end, allowing one to make whatever sign you please, and shortening and lengthening is possible because of the multiple sprues.
     
    The letters are 2.60mm high (my verniers tell me) and thus a little fiddly. At this point I wished, as I do from time to time, that I had a magnifying lamp, before remembering what was sitting in my living room....
     

     
    At this point I probably need to explain that SWMBO is a micropalaeontologist by profession, who sometimes likes to work from home - hence the shiny, silly expensive microscope currently in my living room, and due to some of the work I did during my PhD, I know my way around a microscope too! A quick request for permission and I had at my disposal a fantastic tool for making very fiddly things much larger! It was still fiddly, but the calm that always descends over me when a ) I'm playing trains and b ) I'm using a binocular microscope and automatically slow my breathing to avoid blowing everything off the stage certainly helped. The first lesson was that Contacta in bottles with the brush is really gloopey, so that was replaced with Contacta Professional in the needly bottle. A short time later and I had the pictured signs ready for painting tomorrow when it's all dry:
     

     
    Now to the quandary - I hadn't intended to buy signal box signage because I have scant evidence that Buckden box had a sign! Mitchell et al., 1991 "Branch lines around Huntingdon" (Middleton Press, Midhurst) does show a sign, but only in the shot taken once it had been removed from the site to a museum. There is one shot (44 in Mitchell et al., 1991) which PERHAPS shows there was a sign on the front, rather low down, in 1866, but it's hardly compelling, and in the 1950s shot (45) it doesn't look like it's there. So what to do with my nice sign? It definitely looks like there was never a sign above the door, and the evidence suggests in the period I'm vaguely modelling (late crest BR but with other stuff hanging on) it wasn't on the front. I briefly thought I could get away with putting it on the rarely seen Huntingdon end, but then remembered that one of my favourite photos of the box in Sawford 1981 "Cambridge Kettering Line Steam" (Becknell Books, Norwich and King's Lynn) shows that end in 1952 as 46400 passes and there's no sign of a sign. There ARE photos of other boxes on the line WITH a sign, so I don't think it would be too much of a leap to suggest Buckden did have one at some point?
     
    Ho hum, I suppose I shall wait to see how good a job I do of the painting before final decisions are made....
     
    Marcus.
  14. Ivatt46403
    So a little expansion a around the room has given me a neat fiddle yard, which will be a "through" yard once I drawbridge the door, and will have an extra road when I change to streamline points. 46444 and Wiggoforgold may be slightly upset at the yard contents today as I've been playing with modern image. No fear though- Buckden is still being built firmly in steam era and that stock will be back out of the boxes soon. I'm going to ballast and ground cover the fiddle yard so it will be semi-scenic. At the end you can spot a slightly naughty 1st radius curve - but most of my stock seems to get around it ok.
     

     
    On the scenic boards proper I've been putting in the slight embankment. For this I've started with polystyrene sheet, pva-d to the boards with plenty of weight (Railway Modeller is very handy as you can see!) and a few track pins where the glue was a bit wobbly. I've then skimmed the surface with polyfilla.
     



     
    At the rear I've planned out where the boundary fences and other fencing are going, and drilled 1.6 mm holes at 8ft (32 mm) spacing for the Ratio 419 concrete fence posts. I think I'll only wire up two or three of the six holes in these - originally I was going to scratch build the posts (even buying the plastic strip) but life's too short! I'm going to use either elastic which has been suggested if I can track down some thin stuff, or stainless fine guage wire which I can source from work.
     
    The loading guage is in too - another Ratio product which goes together very nicely (this is the 411 GWR/LMS joint design). It's the other side of the goods shed from in the prototype, neccersary because the compression I've used in the yard would otherwise put it over a point.
     

    A wee accident flattened one of my one of my yard lights, but I decided to make the best of a bad thing and salvaged the lamp head for the goods shed. All the lamps got a coating of phoenix dirty black to take the shine off.
     

     
    Marcus.
  15. Ivatt46403
    Things have been slowly progressing at Buckden, but I've been very bad at finishing anything! So here are a few work in progress shots. I've got the station building just about ready for painting, which I think will be done with acrylics once it gets a blast of car undecoat. I've used plasticard, faced with Wills textured plastic cladding. For the main brickwork I actually used flexible brick arch sheets, as I like that the mortar isn't so deep as their normal sheets. Windows were done in microstrip and the roofing is plain tiles, slates and battern roofing (with extra microstrip added), I'll glaze it all once painted, and I'm aiming to rig it up so all the windows can be individually lit. The chimney's were both a joy and a faff, and need chimney pots, along with some more barge boards, guttering etc which again, I'll add once the painting is done.
     
    For the station platform (and yard) I followed wiggoforgold's advice and used fine ash (after finding a friend with a wood burning stove willing to post me ash!) - a second coat of dilute pva was sprayed on after the first application, which helped to harden it all up - I'm very please with the results. Midland style fencing went in tonight too.
     

     

     

     
    At the other end, the signal box has had a coat of paint into cream and green (which I'll take a picture of in natural light - otherwise it just looks garish!) and after more rmweb advice (here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82496-buckden-station-mr/ ) I made a start on the point rodding using the new Wills kits - which was REALLY fiddly but I think looks pretty good. One pack really didn't go very far, so I need an extension pack to get to the ground frame at the other end of the loop.
     

  16. Ivatt46403

    Brake van special

    By Ivatt46403,

    Yesterday me and K went on a cycle ride down the Avon to Portishead, which gave the opportunity to visit my not-quite-closest model shop (Model Railways direct). The recent release of the Bachmann Midland 20T break van is perfect for Buckden, so I'd been planning to slowly build up a collection over a few model shop visits. However, the lovely people at Model Railways direct were out of stock, and also let me know that Bachmann have completely sold out of all of them - which is impressive as they only went on sale a few weeks ago.... Not wanting to wait until next year at the earliest for them to restock, an EMERGENCY TRAIN SHOP VISIT was called for, and we cycled back double quick back to Bristol to get to Modelmania before they closed. Fortunately they still had a couple left (And still do actually if anyone local needs one) which resulted in the little line up below:
     

     
    Going away from the camera these are catalogue numbers 38-553 in LMS Bauxite, 38-550 in BR grey (without duckets), a Parkside Dundas PC49 diag. 1657 in Phoenix Precision LMS grey (my first kit built over a year ago) and 38-551 in BR Grey (without duckets). These should grace my goods trains very nicely as I build them up. Given how fast Bachmann sold out of these, it doesn't look like Parkside is at risk of going bust anytime soon, as shortly they be the the only available option in the UK for a while as all the shops run out of stock.
     
    Last week also gave me the opportunity (and impetus as we were having our housewarming party) to afix Buckden it's more permanent position:
     

     
    Extensions down both sides of the room will soon give some fiddle space and return Buckden to through running, and once I've built a drawbridge past the door, give me a roundy-roundy so I can watch the trains go by.
     
    I'm looking forward to a different type of brake van special in a couple of weeks for the RMWeb driver experience.
  17. Ivatt46403

    Rehousing and wiring

    By Ivatt46403,

    So safely back from the high seas I moved house (and so moved Buckden). My new train room is going to be a great home for the layout, but has meant there needs to be some reconfiguring. It'll return to continuous run but for now it's set up with a fiddle yard at the one end and nothing at the other. As this means it's now a shunting layout I decided to finally wire up the points. I'd installed SEEP motors under the boards for the four points on the scenic boards ages ago but hadn't got around to wiring them up. I was thinking that I'd do route control via a diode matrix at some point, but as I wanted to get it sorted fairly quickly I thought I'd go down a simpler route (maybe just for now) and following a trip to the Weston-super-Mare train show at the weekend got the components to build a mimic panel.
     

     
    I had to do a bit of tweaking of the points but they now work very nicely from my 16V AC output from my aged Gaugemaster model D (although some of them buzz a bit!), and operation is now a lot of fun.
     
    I've also been experimenting with platform surfacing. Buckden looks from photos to have had a fairly loose gravelly surface, so I'm thinking painted sand paper might work. Experiments suggest this looks quite good, but painting it with acrylics after glueing it to the plastic (with silicon adhesive) makes it lift a bit, so I think I will paint it, dry brush it and then attach. Hopefully will get on with this soon as I'm keen to make some progress quickly.
     
    In other news I'm very excited that Hornby will be producing a J15 later in the year!
  18. Ivatt46403

    Yellow distractions

    By Ivatt46403,

    So I mentioned in a previous post that one of the reasons progress on Buckden stalled for a little while is that I got a little distracted by another project. It all started months ago when I caught a glimpse of something odd and yellow flying past outside my kitchen window late one evening. Some googling later and I had fallen down the rabbit hole of Network Rail test trains (until that point unknown to me) and I liked it!
     
    This obviously lead to a modelling project, spurred on by the gallery of images here:
     
    http://www.railalbum.co.uk/test-trains/test-train-20090617-1.htm
     
    "Well!" I thought, every new railway needed a thorough testing before use and regularly, and I was designing Buckden station to fit three coaches at the time so it all seemed to fit. (we'll forget that this would need to be a time travelling test train to fit with my mid-BR period era but hey ho..)
     
    I found Pete Harvey's excellent conversion kit and got myself an Airfix BSO on Ebay and had a very satisfying few evenings working for my first time in brass. The most difficult bits were probably getting the shell off the chassis (there are lugs at either end and you need to take the corridor off first) and then the very fiddly grill. But all went well! I've documented the conversion in the attached album.
     

     
    To complete the test train in the railalbum I needed some more Mk2 SOs, which are tricky to get on ebay (I think a lot of people like the yellow!) but a rummage in my local train shop (Modelmania, Bristol) and I came up trumps. Some Network Rail Yellow and Roof Grey from Phoenix Precision loaded into my airbrush and some transfers from Railtec (pricey but very good; http://www.railtec-models.com/catalog.php?&type=5&gauge=4mm&xfer_region=1&livery=104 ) and we're very nearly there.
     
    So I now have Network rail radio survey coach 977869;
     

     
    977868;
     


     
    And DBSO 9701;
     


     
    I think the coach data panels aren't quite right, but they look they part so long as you don't go at them with a magnifying glass. I do think these coach end transfers make a massive difference to the look.
     
    I have a few bits to finish - cantrails (Fox transfers I think), glazing for the cab, some touching up handrails and steps, and as they'll run as a fixed formation I'm going to change the coupling. But I've very happy with them and this has been a very satisfying project. The rake is seen here propelled through the emerging Buckden station by my EWS class 37. The plan was for the tractor to get a coat of yellow too to turn it into 97303 but I've grown fond of the EWS livery so I may need to find another donor vehicle! So, not quite up to the standards of Newbryford but I like it!
     

     
    I'm going to sea for a couple of months now, so don't expect any updates until closer to christmas! If you want to follow my exploits of a different nature our at sea blog is here: http://tropics.blogs.ilrt.org/
     
     
    Marcus.
  19. Ivatt46403
    So there has been steady progress at Buckden since my last post. The first thing to do was work on some further ground cover. This started with a rough paint of earth colour over most of the yard with burnt and raw umber acrylic paints, and application of some DAS white clay to fill in the sleepers at the end of the long siding (over a coat of PVA) before this too was given a coat of the same acrylics. I've then been using a mix of woodland scenics material (having found Model Railways Direct shop in Portishead which has a great stock) to build up the ground cover, on top of a dilute PVA base. So far olive green underbrush, soil coloured fine turf and fine light grey and fine ballasts have made an appearance. All of which can be seen in the first pic:
     

     
    Also in the background is a slightly-more-prototypical than last time 2MT with a short goods in the background. I've also added a shortened Ratio 502 cattle dock which is here:
     

     
    And very excitingly I now have a platform! This was built from Wills SS62 station ramps SS61 platform sections, ignoring the stone platform tops and building the platform surface from plasticard and building the rear from plain plasticard too. The top I'm thinking will be sand paper for the gravel and then edged with the edging stones from the kits. I'm mulling over whether to paint the platform brickwork (And the bridge) in engineering brick blue if I can find an appropriate paint, as I think that's more likely based on the pictures I've seen.
     

     
    Soon I'm going to bite the bullet and build the station building - which will be scratch built, and I'm currently mulling over what to colour to surface the rest of the yard with - it's a quite a big expanse and I want to get it right - so suggestions welcome!
  20. Ivatt46403
    Things have been a bit quiet at Buckden over the past month, both on the blog and in the railway room. This has been mainly been to work and travel, and as I'm heading off on Eurostar today that isn't going to improve soon! I've also been distracted by another little railway project not directly related to Buckden, but which I might share here sometime.
     
    Anyway! One thing that has happened at Buckden and not been blogged is ballasting. Buckden, like many Midland branch lines, was a lightly laid affair, which is why I laid track directly onto the baseboard. Studying photos of the station the ballasting was a fairly light affair too! I decided to go with Guagemaster granite chippings, which i may tone down a little in the future but look about right for now. Before ballasting I painted the rail sides and sleepers by hand with Phoenix Precision P991 Track dirt (labourious but very relaxing!) and then brushed a little Phoenix Precision P977 Track Colour (Rusty Rails) onto the rail sides whilst the track dirt was still a little wet. The result I like as a base, and will weather in a little more later - probably with a wash of grey onto the ballast. I do really like Phoenix Precision paints - they are the nicest to use with great cover, and buying direct from the website I've always had excellent service and very fresh seeming paint!
     
    For ballasting I brushed the ballast into place with a small brust, then used a smalll syringe filled with a mix of 4:1 Water/PVA and 2 drops of cheap washing up liquid per pint of mix to break the surface tension. I actually found that I needed to add more washing up liquid each session, as it seems to loose it's influence over a day!
     
    Anyway, photos below, as you can see the process was aided by four Bachman EWS weathered MWAs (38-013A), which were an anniversary present from K, hauled by a Lima EWS liveried Class 37 I picked up cheap at the extra Calne show a few weeks ago.
     

     

     

  21. Ivatt46403
    So I've been making some (alliterative) progress on Buckden. Starting with the Ratio 536 Midland Signal Box kit to make the Buckden box. As the box was much smaller, platform mounted and had the earlier, smaller windows it took quite a bit of bashing to get something satisfying. The windows and roof were actually the most fiddly, but after some filling and filing I'm quite pleased with the results:
     

     
    I've modelled it with the earlier step arrangement, although I realised a little late on that the signalman would have to be a) very thin and would need to B) open the door inwards as I made the veranda a little really narrow! Hey ho!
     
    After looking at the very useful photos that wiggoforgold uploaded I need to adjust is slightly by putting in the door to the locking room at the back and (I think) a second window into the locking room on the opposite side to the one currently in.
     
    When that's done I'll paint it, add the glazing and mount it on the platform - probably with an internal kit and lighting installed at some point too.
     
    I've also built the slew bridge which crossed the line at the Kettering end of the station. This had been troubling me for some time as it's not there any more and I hadn't seen any pictures of it. However a glimpse of it EH Sawford's "Cambridge-Kettering Line Steam" suggested it was similar to the one at Kimbolton, so I used the Wills SS64 bridge abutments kit for the main part and then built the girders and road deck from plasticard. I've now given it a dab of paint ready for a spot of grouting, weathering and installation. I need to figure out how i'm doing the embankment either side as one end goes off board and the whole thing needs to be light and strong enough to lift off a joint in the boards.
     

  22. Ivatt46403
    As I mentioned in my previous post, nothing of the station at Buckden now remains in place, however some of the station complex does, in fact remain intact. The small signal box originally from Buckden stood at the site long after trains stopped running, and can be seen on the site in photos here:
     
    http://www.signalbox.org/gallery/lm/buckden.php
     
    and
     
    http://www.eastanglianrailwayarchive.co.uk/Railways/Abandoned-Lines-and-Stations/19396851_7VzqsZ/1573576237_mZjbZqr#!i=1573576237&k=mZjbZqr
     
    After apparently being used as a greenhouse on site for a time whilst the station house was occupied "Branch Lines around Huntingdon" shows a picture of the box taken at Fleggburgh, near Great Yamouth after the box was presumably rescued from destruction.
     
    However the well travelled box went even further and after a clue from wikipedia I tracked it down to it's new home at Tunbridge Wells West station on the Spa Valley Railway (http://www.spavalleyrailway.co.uk/). Thanks to some very kind people at Spa Valley, and a wedding in Kent which took us down that way, we were able to visit the box to take some pics!
     
    This is a very happy me stood on the box, which is now much taller than the original platform mounted arrangement at Buckden:


     
    Further pictures are in my gallery here:
     

     
    As can be seen, it really was a wee little box, plausibly the smallest standard designed of the Midland boxes. The early build date also means that the front sash windows are not as long (2 rather than 3 panes) than was the case for later constructions.
     
     
    At present the box contains a Westinghouse "A" pattern frame in it (ex-Crabtree Crossing, near Dartford), and is currently just a ground frame controlling one set of points at Tunbridge West. However there are plans afoot to commission it as a full-on box in the future controlling the Tunbridge West yard and station.
     
    I'm currently in the process of kit bashing a Ratio 536 plastic kit down to size (http://www.peco-uk.com/product.asp?strParents=3340,3344&CAT_ID=3345&P_ID=17803), although I'm starting to think it might have been easier to start from the Churchward Models CM44 brass kit (http://modelexmodelrailways.co.uk/), more of which later...
     
    My thanks go to Ross and Paul from Spa Valley, Ross for finding the right person to confirm their box's herritage and Paul for very kindly taking time out of his Sunday to show me and K around the box!
  23. Ivatt46403

    Track plan

    By Ivatt46403,

    So one of the nice things about building buckden is the relatively simple track plan of the station. This allows prototypical workings and track layout inexpensively and easily. One of the main reasons I chose to start back in the hobby with something fairly simple is that I wanted to be able to finish something to a degree of accuracy that I could be pleased with.
     
    There is a nice 1927 map in "Branch Lines around Huntingdon" by Vic Mitchell et al. which shows the short goods loop, long siding and cattle dock siding.
     

    © Crown Copyright and Landmark Information Group Limited (2013). All rights reserved. (1926).
     
    I wanted to be able to keep the open feel of the station complex, and also have a platform long enough for the 3 carriage trains common on the branch. I therefore had to compromise to fit the space I had been allowed, and so the goods loop had to be shortened. I still think it looks about right, and should allow some working, albeit with shorter goods exchanges etc.
     
    So I worked up a track plan using peco streamline and code 75
     

     
    And after building some basic boards (after finding a very handy timber yard who very accurately cut all the timber to size) I have now laid the track. I've done a first pass painting the track and sleepers with Precision trackdirt, and then the rail sides with Precision track colour (rusty rails). In the picture you can see my scratch built odd shaped goods shape, card mock up of the station building for positioning, and weigh bridge in roughly the right places.
     

  24. Ivatt46403

    Why Buckden?

    By Ivatt46403,

    Buckden station was a small station on the Kettering & Huntingdon branch line, originally built by the Midland Railway in 1866 (as Brampton) it transferred to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway upon grouping, and survived until 1959. It was a small station, with a single line serving the handsome station building, small Midland style signal box, weighing machine, cattle dock and between the goods loop and single long curving siding stood an odd shaped goods shed with a small platform of its own.
     
    All this sets the station apart from many others not a jot, apart from it's seeming simplicity and quaintness. However I grew up in Buckden and (as I was born in 1983) was driven down the former trackbed most days from the age of 13 onwards on the way to school, and plenty of times prior to that one the way into Huntingdon on what is now Buckden road - looping round and under the A1 beneath the bridge which on many previous days would have seen an Ivatt 2MT amongst the traction steaming towards Grafham and beyond.
     
    Buckden station was therefore long part of the scenery. Although, strangely given me and my friends tendency to roam on our bikes places we weren't supposed to be, we never visited the slowly decaying station building as it sat as part of a skip hire premises. Rotting until it and all remnance of the small station complex was demolished to form part of the expansion of recycling facilities at the adjoining Brampton landfill.
     
    The line itself was also somewhat in my blood, my mother growing up in Cranford further up the branch towards Kettering meant visits to my Nan and Grandad's bungalow led us passed the lovely viaduct spanning the Nene and the obviously railway derived buildings at what was Isliip furnaces. I can remember many Saturdays waiting until I was allowed to cross the fence in Nan and Grandad's back garden to scale the embankment and run along the trackbed pretending to be a steam train.
     
    So when a combination of my Mum's copy of Middleton Press' "Branch Lines around Huntingdon" with it's evocative image of an Ivatt Mogul on the Buckden Road trackbed I knew so well, an out-of the blue visit to a model railway show somewhere in the New Forest whilst my girlfriend was at a craft fayre, and same girlfriends surprising tolerance of a railway modelling habbit occured the spark of railway modelling I had left behind in my teens was re-enlightened.
     
    This blog will chart my attempts to create a fairly-close-to-truth model of Buckden in OO in the spare ("train") room of our house in my spare time.
     
    Please be gentle.
  25. Ivatt46403
    In case anyone is following this blog and hasn't noticed, I've moved the progress updates on Buckden to a Layout topic here:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/103103-buckden-on-the-kettering-and-huntingdon/
     
    As I'm doing lots of minor updates and photos and a topic seemed more appropriate.
     
    Thanks for reading the blog though!
     
    Marcus.
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