Gook the Goblin

I remember seeing the catalogue showed two sets of 4 of the new EW1 coaches. One set is more expensive, any idea why that was? It would be interesting to know if Gerd's wagons were still in regular use for a post 2010 "Allegra" era. Sourcing wheels and couplings would still be a worry and I would hope these Shapeways prints would come out better than the last one I ordered. Thanks

A little more progress last night. The parapet to the shed was glued double thickness and only the coping now remains. A little fillet of polystyrene was added behind the shed retaining wall. The code 55, N gauge track was laid in position and the packing depth required to lift rail top to the underside of the shed doors measured. 0.5mm plasticard strips were cut and glued to form the track bed. DAS modelling clay rocks were made up. This was a bit easier than expected as the DAS had dried out a bit and was fairly crumbly forming a nice rocky texture. I made more than I needed as some may be no good once dried out.

He has just posted some renders on NGRM.

What sort of wagons is Gerd thinking of? Are these wagons in use currently or historic stock? What would be needed to get them running on a layout.

I have read about fancy methods of cutting polystyrene on this forum, and others. I would like to try them out and probably will one day. However, I am cheap, the amount of polystyrene I needed to cut was small and I did not want the to wait for an order and postie to deliver. I therefore resorted to my tried and tested method of using a razor saw. Importantly, this needs to be done outside and usually under cover of darkness (the last point is optional but seems the norm for me) as the mess is considerable. The evidence of this activity lingers for a few weeks so it is helpful to choose somewhere discrete and not heavily trafficked I find. The piece of polystyrene found in the house was almost the perfect width and short work was made of cutting it as all I needed was a constant graded slope. In my first effort the slope looked a bit sedate by Swiss standards - must be my inner civil Engineer. So I pulled the retaining wall back and steepened the slope slightly and I am happier. The retaining wall is the piece of 5mm foamboard which will have embossed stone stuck to it. The slope looked a bit bland and I always like to over complicate things which is why my model projects often get unfinished. I could see the backfill to the large external retaining wall to the side of the shed was done in rock and was not completely covered in grass. Should I replicate that or use modelers licence / rule 1 and ignore it? I decided I am going to make some 1:150 scale rock using either modelling clay or polyfiller. These can simply be stuck on top of the polystyrene bank as the snow will hopefully cover everything except a vertical face.

Very nice, looking really good. I suppose the nature of the observation cars makes it more obvious that they are empty, the people you added do help, I spotted the passengers before reading the bit below so that proves the point. Well done.

Reasonably priced too!

Thanks Paul. Good news to see a new model, I see folks have been asking for a baggage car for a while. As a newcomer I quite like the re-release of the coaches. No clue as to when/where these will be available yet?

Thank you Jeremy and Michael for your words of encouragement.

Thanks Keith. I must admit I was not looking forward to cutting out another one and put it off for a few days. I am wondering if it would have been easier to stick the double sided tape to the rear before cutting the windows out, but that may have risked a tear with the extra thickness as the window bar is only 1mm wide between windows. All done now and no problems, but it feels like I cut out four of these! Found the polystyrene. Now for the mess!

Thank you Jim. Enjoying this scale. Not missing the running qualities of 0-4-0 mechs at all.

Welcome to my first thread on this website, I do have a railway modelling thread somewhere else too so I am not a complete novice. I must admit that a few weeks ago I never expected to end up posting in the Swiss Railways section here on RM Web, but here goes! I was planning a post Covid European road trip and this got me investigating a diversion via Switzerland whose many narrow gauge railways have always confused and fascinated me - I dont think that idea ever worked anyway, its not like you can swing through for a day on the way to somewhere else. This however, did initiate some researching and discovering some wonderful lines I had never heard of with the AOMC/ASD around Aigle among others catching my eye. Initially I quite liked the idea of a modern light metre gauge railway terminus serviced by a 2 car unit shuttling back and forth as a possible compact layout. I had heard of the RhB but knew very little about it and it was about this point I stumbled across RTR Kato N gauge Swiss Rhb and also the excellent RM Web thread Bonsai RhB in Nm9 https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/138689-bonsai-rhb-in-nm9/ by PaulRhB. The seed was sown! A spontaneous purchase off ebay of a Ge 4/4iii and lockdown provided the impetus to build something! As a long term 4mm scale modeller a photo plank would allow me to get something built quickly, try out a few things and get my "eye in" for Nm9 before possibly moving onto something more ambitious or giving up and going back to the armchair or my 4mm scale narrow gauge project I am supposed to be working on! I decided that the front end of a engine shed would make a ideal subject to pose my new purchase on. Inspired by the snow scene in Bonsai RhB, I plan to make it a snow scene too. I researched suitable prototypes for inspiration. The glazed doors found on most RhB sheds was a bit off putting but I plowed on, deciding these could be cut as a overlay, painted, glazed and stuck onto the front wall. I found a suitable example of a shed - albeit a five road shed. A sketch drawing for the building was developed scaling off photos. It is not intended as a exact model of the shed located in a place beginning with a P ending in an a. Progress was made with what I had at hand including cardboard sheet that needed laminating to get the thickness I needed. A last minute change of plan with the laminating meant I ended up with twice the component parts I needed, so instead of modelling a single road of the shed I decided to make it two of the roads instead. Happy drawing and cutting out parts from cardboard continued with little thought of buildability! I had not allowed for the portion of the building between board level and the top of the track in my measurements! The board was from a off cut of plywood (200x150mm) and was 12mm thick as I did not have any 6mm kicking around! I screwed/glued a book end so that the shed walls could be suspended at the right level and ground level can be built up to match. So far the photo plank has cost nothing to build and I even traded a couple of unwanted Peco N gauge wagon chassis I had in stock for a length of code 55 track from a fellow modeller. Slow but steady progress with card and PVA glue on the shed is happening with parapets and copings left to fix. The cutting face to the side will be formed from a polystyrene off cut that I have seen somewhere around the house or in the garden shed. A low wall at the front of the cutting shall be laminated with stone embossed plasticard which will be my first purchase - well not including the locomotive which started all this in the first place! Nigel

Same here, just found and enjoyed reading this thread. Superb modelling, I had never heard about Nm9 before or realised that Kato had produced RhB stock a week ago.

This is pretty much the approach I took for the rock face on my quarry layout Cefn Ddu. Polystyrene carved and covered in DAS modelling clay and scribed while still moist. The faces were painted and broken slate glued on. I asked a friend who regularly passed through North Wales for some slate waste for my layout thinking I would get some nice broken pieces and dust for ballasting the track. I was slightly disappointed on receiving one large lump! Had to resort to breaking up by lump hammer and as Quarryscapes mentioned grading it - a poundland baking sieve worked well - to three grades.

Hello Rob, Nice to have a chat before the start of the show on Sunday morning. As I said, I do like compact layouts for which yours is a great example. I must get round to starting a thread for my compact layout on here. Nigel

Great descriptions adding lots of flavour to this wonderfully atmospheric micro layout. Look forward to reading more. Nigel

Mark, What a lovely layout so full of atmosphere. I enjoyed reading the thread and I even joined the RM Web just so I could post this. It is incredible what can be achieved in such a small space and Juniper Hill as well as Snape Maltings are contributing to the micro layout I am planning in my head as my next venture. Nigel