MattB

Well - where to start. I have just checked my last blog entry and so much has changed since I published that one. First off - In June last year I decided that the double track I had laid on a narrow flimsy board round the room was annoying me and I hated having to crawl underneath the board to get into the room so all of that came out. In its place I started to construct some proper baseboards with separate removable legs out of 9mm plywood, the idea being that I could then build on them in the future & use them for anything really. By the end of the summer I had constructed 5 baseboards each about 1m / 700mm and 2 bridging sections. I then re laid the track but had severe problems with the bridging section across the door, a few derailments later (and some damaged stock) lead to a complete redesign of this section. Other commitments meant that I didn't get round to finishing this until April / May this year. 'The Bridge Mk2' was successfully installed using plywood and settrack, the other difficulty with it is that it crosses the doorway on an angle as it forms part of a curve so the rails don't line up at the joins - using settrack seems to keep it all aligned though. The second project is my long running station rebuild based on (EDIT Rothley) station on the Great Central - others had mentioned to me that it is possible to buy a GC station now but I countered this by saying that it is too long and wouldn't fit my scaled down platform. I visited the GC in August 2011 and took many photos of the architecture, I then produced some detailed scaled down drawings and proceeded to build the waiting room. I finished this only 2 months ago (apart from detailing) and instantly moved on the next part - the booking office and associated canopy over the end of the stairs. The canopy will be a modified Dapol kit. Other projects are 009 in nature and include building a small kit loco a 'Montania' (1.5 inches long) for my scrapyard boxfile layout

Finished my large trackwork project that I have had going since last September. All the double track is down and all the points, point motors, microswitches and wiring is all installed. As usual I heard about other types of point motors & microswitches that I could have used but in the end settled on peco since they were cheaper. Done most of the ballasting trying a couple of different techniques, found that the mix the cascamite powder in with the ballast worked the best. Started applying static grass areas with the static grass puffer bottle, found that it worked best to have standard scatter underneath it. Currently scratchbuilding a mess room / foremans office so I can finish off the whole area round the back of the loco shed. My scratch building skills were pretty useless but I purchased a rather useful book called Creating model buildings and this has really proved its worth - awesome book! Working on disused rail bridge - nearly finished, need several more girder plates and some paint and general scatter / veg Retaining Wall back scene is in on new board Siding to Mill is in. Mill was given a facelift in January.

Currently working on the embankment. Originally this was at the right hand end of the board but is now about 3ft from the new end. The embankment was there at the beginning of the layout in 2004 forming part of the backscene. When I modified the board end to add an extra 3 tracks I had to partially dismantle it and it looked empty without it there. So therefore I have resurrected it as the embankment to a disused railway that goes at rightangles to the main trackwork and will cross the running lines by a couple of bridges. I am at the stage of applying the scatter materials having already built it up from formers, chickenwire and plastercloth and painting it green. Will do a base layer of fine dark green or brown and then apply static grass with assorted vegetation ontop.

Well im pretty well there for what is to be on the new board - (3ft by 1ft extension) Track wise there is a headshunt, double track with right hand radius points and a lengthened siding leading to a proposed cattle dock. Where the track disappears off the board to the rightI am planning a tunnel mouth. Running along the back I have a retaining wall comprising of arches. Between the old and new boards at the left end of the new extension I am planning to put a road bridge in (this will comprise of two bridges) Other scenery I am still pondering what to do. Obviously to the right I am going to have to lift the level up due to the tunnel and the right will have bridge escapments so the whole board will have higher ground to the left right and back. Probably finsh of all the other jobs before doing anything on this board.

Started painting the block paviors. Did an initial coat of light grey using matt oil paint. Then when dry used a darker watered down acrylic. Done a second coat where I picked a few blocks out here and there and now plan to do a greenish brownish colour and pick a few more blocks out. Must admit made a bit of a mess of few patches (im not a very good artist) but plan to 'hide' them with barrels and crates and general junk. 3F motor burnt out at the weekend I think it didn't like the dcc power level so will need to get a new motor but may be difficult as it is attached to a plastic bit which I don't think I can remove easily as it appears to be glued on - typical!

I had to write it all down and pin it on the wall so I wouldn't forget things. So as follows 1. Insulfrog to Electrofrog conversion - working on 3 points to go! 2. LEDs in control panel 3. DCC Conversions to finish 2 engines left to do 4. Left Bridge to finish - painting 5. Right Bridge to build 6. Sidings - Block paving sheets to paint 7. Right hand siding to lay 8. Retaining Wall to build and do scenery 9. Scenery around tunnel and landscaping 10. Lorry to finsh 11. Station to finish So getting there but very slowly hopefully by the end of the winter a few things will have been ticked off the list of model railway jobs.

So finally there I was about 2 weeks ago, a double track model railway around the room - about time! :)I changed all the pointwork from streamline insulfrog to streamline electrofrog (livefrog) to remove the shortcircuiting problem I have been having with all Hornby engines but tbh I had to change the entire trackwork anyway. All points have point motors and microswitches operating the polarity changes The station is nearly finished, I still have to do some tweaks to the brick courses at the bottom using slaters sheets and need to improve the lintels. As the whole thing is scratchbuilt I may do a slight re-bash at it and start again on the waitng room building, my scratchbuilding experience is limited and having another go can't hurt and reached engine no 10 on the dcc completed conversions - nearly there.

Currently working on four projects with a possible 5th one in the pipeline. Project 1 - Station Rebuild Stairs are complete, Ticket Office and staff only room complete. Currently working on main waiting room and ladies waiting room. Using a combination of brass & plastic windows, plastic brick sheets & plastikard for rigidity. One platform section left to do. Roof needs painting & detail needs adding. Station cat needs adding Project 2 & 3- Double track & conversion to livefrog points 2 points are in - using a combination of PL10s and PL15s for point control. Waiting for switches, resistors, diodes leds etc to show up Control panel ready for switches to be installed. Currently looking at using either largest curve for set track or the next one below I think thats 3rd and 4th but still looking at different possiblities. Project 4 - Ivatt tank dcc conversion Found why it wasn't working, one of the split chassis weight blocks was touching a contact wire so I have isolated it. Hopefully that should work and it won't short circuit anymore - TCS M1 chip used - located in Cab. Possibly another little project I have a 04 shunter in BR blue (wrong livery for me) going to convert it to early BR green with red coupling rods. Probably will use a coat of primer or two and then spray on a coat of green and take the windows out before applying

As well as the station rebuild I have decided to add a second running line using the existing trackplan as far as possible. I wanted to keep the running line working as I prefer to watch a train going round while I am working on the railway. As well as putting a second track in I am installing new electrofrog points to try resolve the shortcircuiting problem I have been having with DCC. The Peco PL15's are very useful for this task. I also wanted to bring back the point motor operation and LED route light indicators on a new control panel. So far I have made the panel, worked out the direction of wiring paths by installing trunking etc and installed my one and only DPDT switch. Altering the station has enabled me to drive another hole in the end of baseboard end wall and I put a second bridge in allowing the track in road 1 to exit the scenic baseboard at one end. The baseboards at both ends required modifying as I was not expecting to convert to double track quite so soon. While the board at the left end is effectively non-scenic, the board at the right end will be an extension of the scenic section and one of the sidings will also eventually continue onto this board. I have worked out the location of the points that are to go in and chopped out a few holes. All that is required now is a lot of wiring up & soldering of about 150 nodes - oh joyous fun luckily only half of them are under the board with limited head room.

Back in February - March it all started with a platform warping problem. I knew at the time that I wanted to replace it with a plastic one to increase working life and promptly went and bought a couple of Wills platform sections. Then the job went on hold as we had a heat wave and outdoor adventure pursuits took over. In June-July I decided that I didn't like my station buildings as well as the platform as they took up too much space on the board and looked a little tatty. Not liking any kits that were on offer because of space I decided to go for it and try my scratchbuilding skills. The station that I am building is loosely based on those on the Great Central - Quorn & Woodhouse / Rothley with the island platform and the entrance from the bridge idea. So far I have designed and built the staircase coming off the bridge using slaters sheets and plastikard & an old report cover.The ticket office / parcel room is also nearing completion - cheers to Langley for their excellent brass etchings! Currently working on the roof of building 1. Still need to do do building 2 which comprises of the ladies waiting room and main waiting room. I need to get a gents urinal from somewhere in kit form. The platform is almost complete with only one section left to build and join together Photos of progress are in the gallery http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/gallery/album/2214/1085-mattington-station-rebuild/

No the only resin kit I have is the Bachmann Chimney - I will probably add something to it though.

Im sure that I am not the only railway modeller who wonders whether their layout would look better with a plastic or a card kit. Im one of those people who would rather spend some time constructing something rather than buying a premade building as I feel that the half the fun of the model railway is about the building of it. When I first started building Mattington I was aware of many plastic kits produced by a variety of manufacturers but at that time card kits seemed to be just taking off in a big way so I tried a few out mainly for building the backscene. As time went on card kits seemed to be a cheaper way of building most of the items for a model railway, so as well as about half the backscene I have used card kits for the station as well. (which is in the foreground). I feel that the model railway looks good as there is a blend of plastic and card kits - (Key buildings that are plastic include engine shed, goods shed, coal merchants...) However recently I have noticed that some of the buildings that are made of card look a little tired whereas some of the plastic kits that I built up at least 12 years ago still look reasonably ok. The station seems to have suffered from a warping problem which means I am replacing the whole platform, and platform buildings with plastic kits. A recent article in Model Rail suggested vanishing card kits when built as a way of preserving them, something that I wish I had tried when I built them. Plastic kits also allow the model maker to paint them which looks good because often most of us use the same kits but they can look completly different if they are different colour or are changed in some other way. Sometimes it is not very easy to modify a card kit as there may be a blank wall and they are fairly difficult to paint to a high standard. So in conclusion - Card Kits - Intially they look great - varnish them to preseve them against sunlight / fading etc - Generally cheaper & quicker to build but difficult to modify? Plastic Kits - Depending on the modeller they can look very realistic and great deal of detail can be added. Usually can take a while to construct / paint. Can be altered to meet the modellers own eye of detail. Which 1 would I choose - but probably if card kits need replacing I will use a plastic kit or scratchbuild something out of a variety of materials.

16/03/10 - I was asked the other week by my collegues at work if I could produce a road construction scene of Brewery Corner in Devizes for my Team Leader who is retiring at the end of this month. The only problem is that I only have 3 evenings to produce it in as it has to be complete by this Thursday. So far I have completed the road / pavement work and half the buildings. Still have to do the roadworks, white lines and touching up. It fits into a boxfile (naturally) for easy transportation and is removeable. 17/03/10 - Nearly complete just need to add the road cones. My collegues were not impressed when I hinted if I could put a tramline through the middle of the road junction. Im not used to doing a model that is completly devoid of rails. Photos to follow

I think the worse job on a model railway is painting - I really do not like it as it can be quite tedious at times. I have been driven out of the Mattington room by the paint smell and as I have had to use a fair bit of paint thinners it absolutly reeks in there. Just finshed doing some rust on some of the shed roofs and for a first effort I think it has come out fairly well. Some photos of the layout that I took earlier attached

The list of jobs to do seems to have grown longer. Luckily it is still the winter but as daylight creeps into the evening hours work on the railway will likely be reduced to rainy days and weekends. I have to work on the scratchbuilt station platform which has a slight clearance and warping problem. It is a mix of several different kits and building sheets and tieing it all together is proving to be a bit of an issue which isn't helped by a board join. Other work includes scenery on the new engine shed sidings, point motors to put back, a roof needed for the goods shed, fields that need touching up, small dioramas, chipping engines, completing a white metal lorry kit, general scenery and lots of touch up painting. Somehow I don't think I am going to fit it all in this winter. I must not start any new extension until all that lot is complete! I am hoping to upload some photos soon to the Mattington gallery but haven't been able to since the server change.

Work halted on Mattington for a short while as I wanted to do some touching up on the Junk Yard boxfile layout mainly planting a few bits of vegetation, scattering some more grit and scenic powder and hunting in the bits box for a small door for the shed - (found one eventually! no scratch building required yay ! )Older photos of this layout are located in the gallery. Why build a boxfile layout - Simple - for a laugh! and somewhere to run 009 stock on a portable layout (possibly even at work as it is disguised as an office item) Still need to do some more painting on the brick building at the back and paint the sides a green colour and add some more vegetation or rock wall. Major problem with this layout at the moment is motive power. I have a small German 0-4-0 that has a broken drive cog and the Hunslet 0-4-0 appears to have a burnt out motor at least it got slower and slower when I was testing it last year and it smells of burnt engine. Wish I could replace it but farish are not making the power bogie anymore. Doesn't seem to be an awful lot on the market at the moment for 009 small locos - even the FR's Penrhyn engines won't fit the loading gauge. I need something small like an 0-4-0 so Roco or Backwoods are looking likely candidates. If anyone knows of an engine or an 009 repair company comments are welcome

After buying a Q1 (Hornby one) I was eager to try it out. Unfortunatly the wheel rim width is slightly wide and causes a short circuit on some points. A possible solution is to extent the 'frog' by painting (in black or rusty colour oil paint) on the corner where short circuit occurs. Tip for viewing the track on the other side of the engine I have found that a macup mirror from christmas cracker helps this way you don't need to lean over too much. On the downside painting obviously increases the length of non-contact and this may not be liked by some of the older engines which have less pickups. Also it has to be refreshed at occasions when the paint rubs off.

This is a great little engine but has the problem as with many Hornby engines that the motor is in the tender and the pickups are all underneath the boiler. Instead of a pin & spring that usually has one pickup connecting the tender to the engine there are two wires (painted black) that look like vacuum hoses a seperate plastic drawbar. At the time when I started this one I was still fairly new to DCC conversion and bought a Lenz silver mini but if I was to do the conversion now I would have bought a TCS as the amphage is fairly low. Luckily I am only using this engine to haul 4 or 5 wagons. On taking the tender apart I first encountered a metal weight block which takes up all the space between the plastic coal shell and the motor so the chip (even a small one ) would not be able to fit anywhere on the tender. I proceeded to take the boiler apart. This also has a weight block within the boiler but there is a small 2mm by 15mm deep gap in the location of the firebox. This is where I have located the chip. There is a fair amount of room under the boiler for wires. I needed to solder some extension wires on to the motor wires as the ones that came with the chip were not long enough. Putting it all back together again I am still testing it - the engine works fine but has the tendancy to create a short circuit when sometimes going over points something which I am hoping point springs may sort. (Note its working ok now since I painted the contact areas on the points)