Toftwood

Hi Brian, You may remember a while back when you completed the conveyor at the your mine. I needed to do something for our Club Layout Fen Lane as I had scratch built a couple of grain silos out of a pringles tin and some Scalescenes corrugated downloads. I needed to produce something similar so following on from yours, I produce this to fit on Fen lane. A lash up of plasticard, slices of old marker tube and more corrugated paper covering. Regards, keep up the good work! Pete

I thought it time to give an update on progress on Cullerbay. I am working my way round to start on Marden Road board nipping out to the shed for half an hour here or half an hour there. As I have said before I have other calls on my time not least that of being Secretary of Thetford MRS and maintaining our Exhibition layout 'Fen Lane' which is due out again at Norwich Show on 4th April 2020. This a view looking from the upper level, the ramp up starts at bottom left of the photo with the double tracks. The tracks either side are the continuous runs, with on the right the exit from a loop. The square of cork is my track gauge was I am using tighter curves the normal Peco ones are too close allowing no clearance for the longest coaches (Mk4s) This follows from the previous photo with the run in to Marden Road. Today I started to lay track across the lifting bridge, the first time i have done anything like this! A nice 'train' of weights whilst the glue dries. I was quite pleased with the transition curves which happened without thought!!. This is where trains will 'burst' out of a tunnel from under Cullerbay. I hope you like the progress slow as it may be. Its a steep learning curve from here on as I will be starting to look at motorising points along with wiring in auto frog changers etc. Regards Pete

You will be pleased with the latest news from Hornby I should imagine??? Pete

I did say 'complicate ' things lol. You could offload in your goods hard and then (swear words warning ) truck them by road???? Pete

Hi Brian, happy New Year to you and yours. Another freight stream you can introduce and complicate matters is something all collieries were in need of....Pit Props. Old minerals loaded with the same and stacked props waiting to go down would provide added realism??? watcha think? Pete

Welcome to the New Year, 2020! I was lucky to have some free time over the festive period so pleased with my presents to my self, a new J72 and Class24/1 from Bachmann via Great Eastern Models in Norwich, I cracked on and soldered droppers to all the currently laid track. All was tested and it worked. This is the track work that will be under the high level station. All this track has droppers fitted although there are no bus wires yet. Electric continuity was tested by a trusty old H&M Clipper controller. I have also started to sort out 'Marden Road' station opposite this. I have to loosely lay track so that i can work out the shape and size of the platforms. This will be a four platform through station sweeping round to the right at the bottom of the picture. There will be an overhead bridge/station building hopefully based on Heaton. You can see my home-made track gauge near the pen. Because the radii are quite sharp (min Hornby Rad 4) to keep clearances this gives a little extra to the outside (left) than the standard Peco gauge. The other end! The bridge across the entrance door. This is on an incline from right to left. This follows on from the first picture where you can see the return lower loop on the right, the continuous run tracks on either side and the ramp up to the high station in the middle(with the pot on) Thats's the state of play at the moment, it seems to be gathering pace which is good, a little bit here, a little bit there and low and behold progress! Pete

That really looks the business, Brian! Great.

Hi Brian, thanks, yes I have seen this one also, at The Bury St Edmunds show a couple of years ago. Very good and well run. Our Fen Lane is in a similar vein i.e. 'somewhere in East Anglian fens' very freelance, although terminus to fiddle yard. Regards Pete

If I may Brian, I am going to not copy exactly but adapt your method for the conveyor onto our current club (Thetford MRS) layout Fen Lane. I have built a pair of grain silos from a Pringles tin (other crisps available) but have been struggling to Finnish off the tops. your conveyor suitably adapted would do the job. These are older photos, This is how it looks at the moment. As you can see it needs something to connect the silos to the warehouse. Pete

I chuckle too myself sometimes as I reckon some on here think this is so passé but we have to all start somewhere, and my start is very slow. The paint is dry so have been trying out track formations for the station throat of the secondary station which will be called Marden Road. The track here is layed out as per the track plan... The problem very quickly became apparent that this plan left a smaller station area which was not good. So I moved the points further around towards the lifting bridge and hopefully in the next few photos you can see some pencil marks where tracks connect up with the points which will give an extended platform length to take the projected 4 coach trains. So we are getting somewhere, moving along slowly as time allows. Sorry its very intermittent, but with just 22months before I can hang up my work boots which will mean more time to work on this. Its taken 4.5 years to get this far, hopefully it will go quicker now. Regards Pete

Yes I agree, filthy places collieries are! Pete

That looks so good, well done! Pete

You get to a point where there are things to be done, but to do them you have to shift everything around. As you may have seen in the previous posts, the boards that have track on them have been painted (as usual) This is about half of the current layout. the other half has been used as workbench and just general depository for dross, cutting mat, tools etc. Well if I am to get anywhere I spent an hour or so today clearing all that away to the opposite side and got down and painted the remainder of the boards. So once thats dry I can draw out in full the remaining track plan and fingers crossed, everything will squeeze in. Pete

I'll second that!! Continuing to follow avidly...... Pete

As Secretary of Thetford, Suffolk, Club I would invite you to our Exhibition next year but thats not up to me unfortunately, bit far to come for a day as well! Have been following this thread since you started. Great work.

Just as I remember them, on the Tynemouth loop but a lot cleaner than in service! Is this a kit or conversion? Pete

So it is nearly 2 months since I last attempted to post a further update to the layout. I sussed the problem with the size of the photos (Ihope), instead of transferring the pics via cable from the phone, I have emailed each pic to myself because you can choose the size of file being sent. So instead of transferring a 1.2mb file we now get lots of smaller kb files.....(I think !) Anyway I managed to scrounge a couple of hours in the shed over the weekend and have now figured out a way to 'Bridge the Gap' This gap has three levels crossing it which each must allow clearance for a train. SO you can see the gap between the small pot on the right and the upright pen has to clear where the coaches are whilst butting up to the join at the pen, and giving enough clearance for trains on the central raised ramp to the upper level. Something like this... So we will have a single track running either side, going away to the left, coming towards on the right. Double track to the upper level in the middle. I also managed to lay a bit more track. Here yo can see the return loop on the left which leads down slope round along the rear and then swings back round and up the curve to the right. The two middle roads are the continuous run. An impression of how the tracks will split to either side of the climb to the upper level. Well thats it for the moment, as I said before it may be a while before another update but I delve into my favourite on here, namely Deneside, Haymarket Cross, Finsbury Park and several others. Keep up the great work people, its wonderful inspiration. Pete.

I have not been on RMweb for a while, and it seems Brian that I have a lot of catching up to do. This Colliery build is excellent and with some decent weathering will really set the scene. Great. Pete

So, after much ummmming and aaaahing I managed to fit a bridging piece in. I tidied up the ends so that the other two bridging boards can be fitted. It seems that the 3.2mb of the previous post is too big for the 10mb limit??? so I can't post anymore photos at the moment. Bring back the old RMweb.

A brief update on the very slow progress on Cullerbay. 'Bridging the Gap' occupied most of my morning in the shed. I have laid a bit more track but I wanted to solve the problem of producing a bridging piece which is also on a curve and a downgrade.

I have been spending an evening or two experimenting with weathering some Bachmann 16T mineral wagons. They are a darker grey than they should be but i did not want to spoil the lettering and numbering so just roughly followed several weathering guides and had a go. I did the insides first mixing small amounts of Humbrol matt 113, 133 and 82 and with rough broad strokes ended up with this. I then gave all a wash of MIG Dk Wash swiped off with cotton buds to get this effect and let the whole lot dry over night. To go further with the rusting I again mixed various parts of Matt 113 and 133 with a touch of 53 (gunmetal) and attacked the outsides in various ways using cotton buds and brush strokes to effect. They are not finished yet, I have to do the chassis and running gear plus maybe some further detailing but not bad for a first attempt.

Hi, after a mis-direction (internet search!) phone call to Mikes Models, Birmingham; I was redirected to as you rightly said Holt Model railways who are in Wales. I gave them a call and yes they still do the 'Mikes Models' range of whitemetal kits so I have placed an order for several NER ground mounted and platform mounted water cranes. So thank you for you're info and help.

I like many on here hail from the surrounds of Tyneside/Teesside, being grudgingly dragged as a 6 or 7 yr old by an older brother, up to Newcastle Central to trainspot, cabbing black fire breathing monsters expecting them any minute to propel me away wherever, being frightened Sh!tless seeing my first Deltic, the noise! Wonderful! Happy memories. I only saw the very end of steam though so grew up with diesels. Saw all the Deltics though missed their final days as was serving abroad in the RAF when they went. But then grew an affection for the HSTs and 91s which are now in their final years. So after many different postings around mainly Europe and the UK I ended up in Suffolk but I still get my fix for the moment as I work on RAF Lakenheath with the GIs. So to answer you're question, I wished to model somewhere I could combine Gresley's finest with as you say Q6s (I have a pair) and J27s (I have a pair on order) with rakes of 21T Hoppers, based loosely between Tynemouth and Blyth, ish if you close you're eyes etc etc All within the constraints of 9' X 9'. Pete

Hi, thank you, its probably because I don't post on here very often as progress is quite slow. I have lots of other things to do that occupy my time so when something happens I try and post a little. Its taking time also as I want to 'do it right' and not rush. I have started to weather the seven 16T minerals that I have as an experiment before tackling the 30 21T hoppers that are waiting in the wings. I will post some photos when they are finished.

I now have some track actually fixed to the boards, as I said to Brian D its surprising how quick one can progress just by laying the odd yard of track now and then.