Fastdax

Station Rails and Wall I started some weathering on the tracks through the station. Rust weathering powder: ... and some black weathering powder. I will keep looking at it and adding powder as it needs it. The wall behind the rear platform has also been clad in brick paper (with columns) and capped with stone (foamboard + DAS).

Barrow Crossing and Ballast The barrow crossing: This means that I can add some ballast to the track, now that the platform walls, point rodding bases and barrow crossing are in.

Barrow Crossing Making a 5-part barrow crossing to hide the board joint. Construction is coffee stirrers and Mr Sticky glue. Weathering by IPA / Indian Ink mix.

That trackwork and rodding looks very nice Robin.

On its own it looked a bit small (scale 3' 9"), thus the extra 2 foot girder underneath. Now there's a scale 6' of steel. There's nothing intrinsically 4mm about the vari-girder though.

Hi Tim, Thanks! The upper half of the bridge is 4mm scale Wills Vari-Girder and comes with rivets already cast in. The lower half is a plain 14mm Plastruct I-beam girder with Archers Rivet Transfers applied over the primer coat. I had the 7/8ths inch size but a bit bigger would have been better.

Get the sound chip from Digitrains. You need a Zimo MX644D (https://www.digitrains.co.uk/shop-by-brand/zimo/mx644d.html) with the Dapol 08 sound file variant of your choice (Active Drive or Proto Drive). The sound file is on Zimo only (AKAIK) but absolutely fine like this as DCC is a mix'n'match system, ESU will play with Zimo just fine. I have a mix of ESU Loksound and Zimo chips, run by an NCE PowerCaB controller. Also - the Zimo decoder is a straight plug-in swap for the Dapol blanking plate. Just speaker wires to attach. IMHO the main criterion here is the quality of the sound file and I'm very happy with my Chetter Dapol 08 sounds. No connection - just a happy customer.

Looking great, Rod.

Station Rails In a happy accident, I washed over the remaining station trackwork with the dirty acrylic colour. After visiting Warley on Sunday and with a fresh supply of black weathering powder, I attacked the track and found that the powder stuck much better to the wash than to the beige concrete paint. But before I could lay some ballast, i wanted to set in some point rodding stool bases as I've heard that it's much easier to place them in advance than to chip away solidified ballast later. I did already have some MSE whitemetal point rodding stools. I also had a couple of packs of Wills 4mm scale plastic point rodding. I knew the Wills stuff was over-scale and a quick comparison shows that it's almost identical in height to the MSE stools. The Wills point rodding itself is about 0.9mm square, which is also overscale (the MSE castings use 0.7mm square nickel-silver rod) but very much closer to 7mm rods than 4mm ones. I did also have some etched point rodding cranks and base plates in 7mm scale. Basic, but the right shape and size. Here with the definitely undersized Wills 4mm plastic sprue for comparison. So I plan to use a combination of Wills point rods and the etched cranks. The thing that sets the distance apart of the rodding stools is the fixed spacing of the Wills rods. These measure out at a bit over 5 foot between stools. My research shows that rodding stools should be 6 foot apart for pre-grouping installations, reducing to 5 foot on curves. I think 5' 2" will be visually OK in 7mm scale. I glued some bits sliced off C&L plastic sleepers to the baseboard. I need one rod going left to the solitary point on the high level. (I'm assuming the Midland railway used an EFPL (Economical Facing Point Lock) here, which only needs a single rod). I will run this between the track and the platform edge. I'm also planning a couple of rods running off-stage to the right. One will be the matching point which joins the two platform tracks back into the single running line. The other - who knows? Just for variety I'll run the latter two rods in the 6 foot way.

Thanks for the kind words Rumble!

Hi Andy, I'm glad you're sticking with O Gauge right round to Dore End. Please keep us posted on how the Unifrog point works out.

Station Rails Next step: sharpen up the beige paint round the chairs. It's quicker to do it like this than to try to get it accurate first time round. Last step - dust with black weathering powder. I did a test bit, then ran out of black powder, because most of it seemed to go on my fingers, up my nose, or behind the layout So I tried a dark black/brown acrylic wash instead on the adjacent bit of track. Powder on the left, wash on the right: Perhaps another coat of wash will improve it a bit ...

(Sorry Andy - I was remembering watching the venerable Tony Wright on the Right Track DVDs musing about small engineers' set-squares).

Station Rails Time to paint and weather the tracks through the station. I have used Joey Ricard's method on previous track and I used it this time, but with the time-saving substitute of using rust-coloured acrylic paint instead of mixing up my own ragu from chalk and IPA. First step - paint the track flat black (or matt dark grey in this case, as it's what was to hand): Second step - paint the sleepers with a beige/suede colour. I used my "go to" cream colour, Woodland Scenics Concrete: Third step - paint the rail sides and chairs with the rust colour. No need to be super accurate here: Since OQ will only be viewed from the front, either at home or (possibly, maybe, perhaps) at an exhibition sometime, I didn't bother to rust the backsides of the rails. Nobody wants to see a rusty backside anyway. I'll let this lot dry overnight before continuing.

Don't tall Engineers get a siding?

Sure am Robin. I've got a couple of interior kits to try out. Stay tuned ...

Platforms Some more brick plasticard strips for the overhanging brick courses under the platform edges: The platform-mounted signal box needs a place for the operating rods and wires to come out at rail level. The opening was cut, based loosely on a photo. A bit of rail is used as a lintel: Tarmacking of the rear platform is now done. The platform walls are also painted and weathered. The platform edge stones were sanded (to knock off the sharp leading edge), painted and grouted (Wickes Fine Surface Filler): The signal rod outlet has engineering brick lintel supports. The lintel needs weathering. The white powder is excess filler. It's smoothed simply by rubbing a finger along the joints. You can see the mortared stone effect that it creates. I may do a final wash of dirt to tone down the white of the filler.

John, So if you click the second link in my post above - no notifications?

A possible fix: I noticed that the link to 7mm+ Modelling on my (Google Chrome) bookmarks bar leads to a page which shows spinning arrows: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/forum/89-7mm-modelling/ If I open a new copy of RMWeb.co.uk and navigate to 7mm+ Modelling then I do get the Notifications list. Chrome displays this URL: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/forum/89-7mm-modelling/ So it looks to me like the old, insecure server (http) is now broken as regards the Notifications, but the new (https) server is OK. As a test, i added "s" to the http in another RMWeb link that I keep on my bookmarks bar. Following this link then gave me a page with Notifications. I have updated my bookmarks to use https and now all operates properly.

I still get the spinny arrows of doom in the 7mm+ modelling area. Can someone else try this please?

Cheers Rich! These positive comments and Likes really do help maintain the mojo. Many thanks to all for the encouragement.

Even stranger: if I click Notifications when looking at this topic, I DO get the list of recent updates. If I go to my usual "7mm+ Modelling" area, I don't.

Me too.

Ah OK. It's not too clear from the photos exactly where the holes are. I think you are right to leave off the square spacers and make your own. A bit of rail or an "L" shaped bit of brass sheet of the right width would do the trick. You could make a couple but leave them loose until you know where the motor/gearbox will sit. I did something similar to my Deeley Dock Tank build, but I repurposed a motor mounting spacer as a frame stretcher to take the compensation pivot: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/109283-duncans-7mm-workbench-ian-kirk-coaches-and-ixion-fowler/page-3&do=findComment&comment=2344910

In that order That's how I work.