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Totally agree. I do like the Oxford Diecast models out of the box though, I think they're tremendous value for money given the accuracy and level of detail. A bit of weathering really brings them to life though :)

Superb job on that NR transit mate. I particularly like the newspaper and crisp packet on the dashboard, great attention to detail!

Looks like a very useful trip! It's always nice to be able to capture all the lineside stuff that often gets hidden by greenery. Some nice reference pics for graffiti as well! Looking forward to more updates on the layout soon.

Absolutely stunning James as always. Makes me miss my Class 60!

Thanks Jeremy! Hoping to get a few night time clips together for the youtube channel soon :)

Hope everyone's had a good week. Not a great deal done on the layout for the past few days, but in keeping with the night time shots last week, I thought I'd try placing some platform lighting to add to the scene. These are the double head type from Gaugemaster, which I got as a gift nearly a year ago and have been patiently waiting their call to action! Wiring them up took a little bit of thinking about as they each come with a PCB with a choice of three resistors on the positive rail. Having drilled holes in the baseboard and fed them through, it was an interesting challenge getting each of them hooked up to their respective PCBs and back to the power bus while trying to work upside down with a soldering iron. Fiddly but well worth it I think - I'm really chuffed with how they look, and the cooler white offsets the warm white glow of the station. Thanks again to 73c who pointed me in the direction of a lighting control unit, which arrived yesterday. I had intended to use it for these but initially I couldn't get it to work. However, having got back to the seller it looks like the problem was me using the AC side of my Hornby power supply so I'm going to try using it for the footbridge and booking hall lights, which are definitely too bright for camera!

These look great mate, top work. Really nice depth of colour and texture. Weathering is one of many things I wish I was better at, so always admire these threads!

Yes perfect! Exactly what I needed so I've ordered one, thanks! 👍

Thanks Ray, much appreciated 👍

Thanks mate! I was pleased with the lighting - it always comes out looking much brighter on camera than it does in reality so I think I may try and turn down the brightness a bit. 😎

I think we're in good company Lez - a lot of us got better things to do than faff about with wiring 😂 I inherited a lot of things from my Dad, but wiring discipline was clearly not one of them. Scary thing is I don't even have point motors, and it still looks like an explosion in a spaghetti factory.

Cheers Lez! I'll suggest that to my Dad - I suspect his enthusiasm will waver rapidly when faced with the reality of working with that mess! 😂

Evening folks! Firstly many thanks for the lovely comments on the last couple of updates, really appreciated. After managing to wire in the up entrance yesterday, I had some renewed enthusiasm for tackling the footbridge wiring this evening, not least to see if it all works because I've not yet done that in situ. I think of all the things we do in this hobby, wiring has to be my absolute least favourite thing - it's just horrible. The chaotic scene under my baseboards is testament to that. My Dad is a retired electrical engineer and said "I would love to spend a few hours tidying up that mess" 😂 Anyway I was pleased to find the lighting in the footbridge seems to work as planned, so here's the first set of 'night shots' for Sevenoaks. There's a lot of light bleed going on which needs sorting - the bright spots on the footbridge rooves are particularly amusing! That aside, I was quite pleased with how it's looking so thought I'd share.

Thanks mate! Much appreciated as always. It's coming together and I'm glad to have broken the back of this area now - defo going to be moving back to more scenic bits for a bit now. I feel some more tree making coming on!

Ha ha! 😂 It's nice to know I'm not the only one with messy wiring. I'd love to be one of those people who has it all neatly cable tied together but that's never going to happen. Appreciate the kind comments cheers mate 👍

Many thanks! I didn't know about the ticket office, I guess that's what was behind that roller shutter originally?

Happy Sunday to everyone, and hope 2024 is treating you well so far. Quick update and a few pics this evo, as the new western block for the station is now completed. Like everything, this turned out to be a much bigger project than I planned for, but hopefully the time has been well spent! Here's a few shots of it in situ with the lights on :) This is what it looks like under the boards. Chaos.

You have an amazing set of stock! I particularly love that carpark shot at 3:03 - great stuff :)

No worries, glad if it helped! You may have a bit more luck with Greenford as it's architecturally more significant. I know there are a number of books around on LUL station buildings from that period - the London Transport Museum likely has some archive material that might be of interest? Beyond that it may help to contact LUL to see if they can assist? I remember 30 odd years ago it was much easier to get hold of drawings for things, but nowadays companies are unfortunately a bit more cagey about it for obvious reasons. Hope you manage to find some useful info though! :)

Thanks mate, appreciate the kind comments as always! Hope your 2024 is going well so far. Happy to talk more about scoping etc. I do try to get as much info as I can from aerial views and photos that are available online, and also I did manage to get some useful drawings from planning applications for nearby properties as these often include the station in the site plan. A while back Southeastern (eventually) sent me a very grainy copy of an old drawing of the booking office (pre-refurb) which gave some useful dimensions and references and helped to get it all in proportion. I got as much as I could from that, and working from photographs and site visits I made some new drawings to scale which I've been working from ever since. When I started the layout in 2015 I made the western season ticket carpark entrance block from mount card with printed textures spray-mounted on 😂 I've been surprised how long it's lasted, but the printed textures have faded a bit and it doesn't include any interior detail, so I wanted to go back and re-do this bit so it matches better with the new footbridge stuff. At the moment I'm using mostly acrylic, PETG and plasticard, and a lot of evergreen strip of various sizes. On my recent reccy, I wanted to look at what specifically was inside the block, so I took some photographs and video as I walked through, especially of the stairs and also the posters and signs that were displayed. Also couldn't remember if the top level was one open space, or if the top light windows at the rear were part of a different room, so the visit was helpful for that. I'm not too concerned about getting it 100% correct (never gonna happen) but hopefully aiming to capture the essence of the place and have some bits that people will recognise if they've been to the station. There's plenty of errors and discrepancies all over the place, and of course the whole site is compressed to fit into the smaller space! Attached below are the main drawings I made for the station and footbridge to give an idea of how it all goes together:

Cheers Grahame

Thanks mate :)

Hi all, Hope 2024 is treating you all well so far. Just a very quick update this evening - work continues on the west block and as always it's taking rather longer than I planned! Overall I'm pleased with how it's shaping up, and it's definitely an improvement on the original card model with printed facades. After a recent 'reccie' I've tried to incorporate a few more details, some of which I'll reveal in a future update! Anyway here's a few pics of how things are going. Old version in the background! There is lighting to both the lower and upper levels so when that's wired in I'll post some more shots :) Thanks for looking and as always comments and feedback most welcome!

You make it look far easier than it is James - I wish I had half your talent for weathering!

Hi all, Hope your first week of 2024 has been a peaceful one! Firstly thanks loads for all the lovely comments and feedback on the previous update. This evening I've been working away on the western block that gives access to the season ticket holder's carpark. I went on a bit of a 'reccy' yesterday to get some pics and remind myself what it looks like. Those who've been following since the early days (2015) will know this was one of the first bits of the station to appear, and it's worked well as a placeholder since then but now it needs a bit of an upgrade to fit in with the rest of the footbridge. Things are progressing well and hope to have some photos for you tomorrow! In the meantime, here's some video footage I uploaded the other day to showcase the new scenery progress. Hope you enjoy it and as always, comments, criticism and feedback all welcome!