ParkeNd

I'm continuing to add small details - like this RAC motorbike and sidecar.

Here's the other non-chipped locos.  The Pug will be no good because the wheel flanges are too deep for the low profile track - they run along the sleepers.  But the 57xx will be excellent with DFR having both 9681 and 9682. 

I have 4 locos I purchased second-hand at least two years ago that are DCC compatible but have no sockets - thus a "proper man" will need to cut wires and wield a soldering iron which is beyond me.  Plus the locos are As New which further frightens me off.  I will, however, investigate the recently announced DCC kit to see if this makes the solution easier.  But I can photograph them in place on the layout and photograph them with the power off.  So below is a Hornby Railroad 14XX with Autocar, and a Bachmann 08 Gronk.  My Pug and 57xx have yet to come out of the boxes.

I have to confess that I have made no progress with either the platform seats or the platform lights.  I have a brass kit for GWR seats but I think it's beyond my ability to either solder or epoxy glue such small parts.  Similarly a Peco lamps kit enabled me to prove that there is more to specifying small assemblies that just pressing the :reduce" button on a photocopier at the manufacturer.  Trying to hold parts the size of ant's antennas together with tweezers while glue set was beyond me ........so I gave up.  I have, however, found that the bridge which marks the entry onto the layout from the fiddle yard is a super place for photos, especially using two flashguns in synch.  So I have"grassed" the fiddle yard to cover the bare MDF whilst leaving the rails unballasted and unpainted to ensure I can cleanly assemble trains.  See below.

Getting down low for some more detailed views.

Still choosing where best to fit my 7 wild boar - in the meantime a couple of more detail pictures.

Detail work continues to add people to the layout.  Here are just some of the "new" ones.

Added some more people this morning.  Now 45 on the layout.  Next to come is some seats and some lamp standards.

During the very wet weather I have been continuing to add small details.  The latest is volunteers rebuilding a grounded van to use for a crew mess room, and a small load for one of the lorries.  Just tiny but takes ages.

If it keeps on raining for much longer the layout will get some more work done on it!!  In the Summer!!  In the meantime I have taking more photos in the dry.

Passenger shelter finally finished.  It took a long time considering it's diminutive size.

Nearly finished the platform passenger shelter although I have gone for an LMS/Wye valley shelter rather than a pagoda.  Made this choice because the pagodas look dull to me, and although I can make hipped roofs the concave corrugated roof is too much of a challenge, and the Wills kit is too small.  I've used Daler board covered in Slaters Plastikard as per my normal construction method.  Plus Evergreen plastic channel, angle, and channel.  I've used some corrugated "ping pong ball" type plastic left over from the Nissan huts for the roof, and I'd love to be able to find a sleeping OO gauge cat to go on my hot tin roof.  And used brass etched valances.  Just about to start painting tiny vending machines and scales, and preparing enamel signs for a biota colour.  Despite it having a footprint of only 60mm x 40mm it's taking as much time as far bigger buildings because of glue and paint drying times at each stage.  Photos soon.

Work continues towards adding more detail to the layout.  I've built and installed three more semaphore signals, and two ground signals.  Plus I am actively developing the areas immediately surrounding the goods yard.  Next step though is the furnishing of Platform 2 opposite the station by scratch building a GWR passenger shelter, addition of platform lights (non-functioning) and seats with sitting passengers.  More photos attached.

A bit more of the layout.

Time for the promised photos.  This is what the barren gravelled and grassed section at the front of the layout section just around the corner from the Goods Shed looks like now.

I can see I haven't posted yet this year - unforgivable!!  Haven't been idle though. I am in the process of detailing the front edge of the added L section where it approaches the goods yard.  I've nearly completed and painted four Nissen huts, plus a goods loading ramp where a host of workers and a couple of fork lift trucks are already "in stock" to Womble forest scrap and turn them into useful products that will be despatched by train in crates and drums to eager and waiting customers.  The goods loading ramp will feature very detailed handrails which I thought were going to be plastic but are, to my surprise, precision cut card.  Several feet of additional flexible fencing and gates have already been installed and foliage and bushes are ready to be weaved around them,  I have some etched brass frets to make 4 GWR benches and I will do my best to assemble and paint them as best as I can but have to admit the prospect terrifies me.  Thank heavens they aren't N Gauge like my last layout. Photos very soon.

The goods shed area from an alternative angle along the tracks - while I work on painting and installing more fences, gates, and a stile.  Photo is comprised of 9 separate shots stacked in Zyrene Stacker.  Camera suspended over the layout on a horizontal arm.  Bounced fill in flash.

I've been exploiting my tripod's ability to rotate it's extension through 90deg to position the camera above the the baseboard instead of just beside it.  The photo below shows what is capable.  The second two photos show where the next two backscene sections will be positioned.  In addition to this I am just about to start painting and installing more line side fencing, stiles, and gates.

14 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

Yes, at low level it looks pretty good.

Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,

That was the idea - for photos at running height.  It's 12" high above the baseboard and the couple of inches removed from the bottom of the purchased backscene cut out scenery that was a bit too "close" and also overscale.  Plus using just 12.5" of the Daler Rowney mounting board allows me to get two full length pieces out of one A1 board.  The baseboards are deliberately 36" above the floor rather than "dining table" height (from my N gauge modelling experience days)  which promotes a natural tendency to look along the rails rather than viewing the trains as if looking down from a road bridge or embankment. 

Corner backscene now fitted - at last.  First photos taken with it shared below.  I think it works well enough for me to get two more at the corner behind the woodshed, and from the bridge to the forest I the corner by the curtains.

Almost ready to be fitted in place.  The instructions say not to treat it like wallpaper bu applying adhesive to every square inch - seems to have worked.

Following my disastrous experiment with the grossly out of scale Just Trees backscene I'm trying another approach.  I don't actually NEED a back scene for me - it's not an exhibition layout and the only time anyone else sees it is via photographs.  I can add sky in most locations on the layout except in the corner by the station building where the bookcase intrudes.  So I am trying just a "cornerscene" using the top 12" of another backscene of a distant village that I bought for the other side of the layout.  Photos of work in progress.  In photo 3 the card assembly is just stood in place temporarily.

Update on the back scene.  Holding the one section of idBeackscene I have mounted on card in position against the wall behind the layout in the intended position, and then in every other position behind the layout, I can confirm that the scale is at least 2x too big.  It looks totally ridiculous.  They might be about right for O Gauge although I have no possibility of comparing it.  I strongly advise anyone modelling OO gauge to steer well away from the two items originally called Just Trees .

Just what I am going to do now I don't know.  Feeling angry as I do just now my intuition is to leave a back scene right out of the equation - I've put far too much work into the layout to wreck it with such an inappropriate commercial product.  If I want a background in photos I can more easily and more convincingly paste them into a second layer on Facebook.

Just started yesterday to work on establishing a back scene.  So far not encouraged with results. I'm using idBackscenes Just Trees which I've found is too prone to wrinkles and I frankly doubt the scale.  It's OO Gauge but looks far too large.  I shall limit myself to just this one first piece until I've thought about it for a while and held it in place so I can judge the effect.  I wasn't looking for it to actually ruin the layout.

For comparison. The real D9521 seen at Parkend in 2017.