ParkeNd

I’ve delayed turning the layout board over because now the points motors and associated electronics are not available - but they are on pre-order. So reluctantly I’ve started the scratch built goods shed. This is based on Cinderford goods shed but 20% shorter - just 4 windows on the track facing side instead of 5 because that’s all the space I have. At the moment it’s drawn out on Daler Board but I won’t cut it out until Scalescenes windows arrive. I used these for the back of the station building and, based on laser print on clear plastic, they actually look better than brass etchings.

Finally the signal box is completed and I can move on to the electronics which will involve cutting two broad pieces from the left over MDF to span the frame, cover with towels, and turn the whole board upside down. Then to terrify myself by reading up how to instal the power bus, and connect the wires I spent ages soldering to the track. In the meantime this is what the signal box looks like. I modified the window frames to be more like most prototypes in this area, and fitted a full interior complete with two Dapol grey plastic figures that I hand painted under a magnifier. The catwalk boarding was easy to fit neatly but I proved incapable of fitting the handrail tidily even after threading the tiny plastic "pins" onto the wire first - it looked terrible so I removed it all. I've also relocated the box to a more realistic location - couldn't see how the signalmen were going to walk all the way across the tracks to my planned middle of the layout position.

The signal box is taking a lot longer to build than I thought, given that I want to start the electrics. The build instructions say that most of the time will be taken up with painting, and so it is. I’ll post a photo soon, but painting and weathering components by dry brushing before assembling each stage is succeeding in roughing up the appearance to make it look more natural. I’m fitting out the interior before adding the big rake of side windows and find the instruction leaflets way of glazing windows before fitting doesn’t work, so I’m fitting windows first by carefully sanding them to fit the apertures, then cutting glazing material from paper patterns, then fitting it inside the frame using Glue N Glaze which doesn’t fog the glazing material like kit glue would.

I’ve been building an LMS signal box kit in the evenings in front of the TV because I can do it on my lap on a Humbrol Work Station. The continuous adjacent windows uninterrupted on three sides don’t fit with my established scratch building methods so again (used one on N gauge Parkend) I’ve opted for a kit. The Ratio kit is very well thought out and needs a lot of pre-painting of sub assemblies and components at regular intervals. It’s looking incredibly neat - too neat in fact - perfect straight lines and edges, perfect corners, in fact perfect everything. So it’s going to need some roughing up at some stage so it looks more organic like the station building.

Started 5th October 2019 and finally finished yesterday 1st January 2020. Coleford GWR station building resurrected as the station building for Speech End. Now on to the wiring at last.

Final stage of station building construction today with painting of fire buckets, dustbins, and station luggage trolleys - I have fitted floor and narrow protruding “apron” under the building as with my later more detailed N gauge buildings on Parkend. Even in OO gauge (I’m older now!) fitting handles formed from thin wire to 4 white metal fire buckets was a challenge - I didn’t swear even once, it was two or three times. Photo soon Next job is temporary storage of platforms and station building (made to tread water whilst DCC controller on order) and turning layout board upside down to install and connect wiring. If I think about the whole wiring job it feels daunting (“no more complication, just two simple wires to connect” my eye!!). I figure if I install the DCC bus first and connect my red and black wires from my already soldered 10 points on the rails, whilst saving the complication of 13 points decoders and motors for later, I might survive. I just hope I’ve put insulated rail joiners in the right places. My plan is to use Brian Lambert’s online tuition. I’m guessing that the few pairs of points that need to switch together every time will reduce the number of Cobalt decoders required? At the moment I’m thinking of Peco points motors including a couple of surface mounted ones in places.

Gaugemaster Prodigy Advance 2 arrived and roof of station building reached primer stage. I've left the masking tape on the chimney stacks because it took a long time to put on and I have the slates to dry brush now.

Gaugemaster Prodigy Advance 2 starter pack arriving today - at last. Just time to finish station building before I have to learn about the DCC area which is the greatest mystery to me - points control and how to connect the green wire I’ve soldered to the modified points, and to which type of points motors/ polarity reversing kit. Also now must start the addition of DCC chips to the pre-owned (mostly) locos I bought little by little in the summer when no-one wanted them.

Station roofing nearly completed. Considered which slate roof brand to fit. Dismissed Wills sheets which might have been easiest because they are not long enough and are far too hard and thick to cut. So I’ve used Slaters 4mm scale slates which have to be cut in strips from A4 sheets comprising of two regions - a plain row and a slate embossed row - which are overlapped working from the gutter upwards to the ridge around all four faces of the hipped roof - alternate rows staggered to mimic the real thing. This is not quick! Purists have already commented that the slate thickness is over scale but it’s easier to see the effect with old eyes. I fitted all three brick chimneys first. Now waiting for Evergreen 0.156 angle strip to make the hips and ridge sections. Will photograph it next when roof is in grey primer prior to final painting, fitting of gutters, drainpipes, steps, and air grills.

Just back from a 16 day holiday in Northern and Southern India. Jet lagged and still processing photos. Will resume work on station roof in the next few days. Have received info that Prodigy Advance 2’s arrive Jan 2020 so will have to start signal box build before more track work like ballasting and rail painting can start.

At my last job’s salary expressed as an hourly rate x the number of hours it has taken to build + the cost of the kit this equates to £300.

Progress on adding detail so far but still a long way to go on the fiddly bits. But it’s progressed a long way from the first cuts into the Daler Board. I have strips of Slaters Plastikard roofing slates which overlap each other to add, have made the brick bits for the chimneys but awaiting the oversize “kings and queens” pots in whitemetal, before moving on to drainpipes and guttering etc. PS. 1. Kings and Queens whitemetal chimney pots have arrived from Langley Models. They are a perfect choice - when seen in a line drawing or not from below as in the picture above (see 5 Oct post) they are 14mm tall and really dominate the roofline. PS. 2. No-one has queried why I have chosen Coleford GWR station building for this heritage layout. DFR plans put this station in a remote and unpopulated area with no security - I figure a typical SVR wooden hut building would be prone to vandalism or arson - as in the case recently of the East Kent Railway station.

Station building continues. Additional brickwork added around the top and the base. Hipped roof built - but just placed loosely on top in the picture. Now for the fiddly bits - vent on roof end built and ready to glue on, window sills, lintels, a small assembly to hold canopy brass etchings, roof slates, chimneys,doorsteps etc etc etc.

Still no Prodigy Advance 2’s in the country so station building being further progressed. The two basic L shapes of the walls are at this moment glueing together. Doors are in, windows are in and glazed. The back is my guess based on other GWR branchline stations because, although it faces away from viewers, I don’t like bare backs to buildings. Next work is to combine the two Ls and fit internal braces in case it bows inwards. Then there is three rows of bricks to go all the way around like a plinth, window sills, and more bricks and concrete lintels at the roof line. But while all the glue is setting I shall develop the hipped roof with its downward extension to form the canopy - I love doing that with compasses and paper patterns. I shall include cutouts in the roof for chimneys to go through properly vertical. And because it’s OO I suppose I shall have to tackle properly overlapping slates - scary! PS. The fins sticking out at the end of the walls get cut off later and dry brushed - they prevent the edges of the Daler card showing at the corners.

I spent a couple of days hunting out colour pictures of Coleford GWR station building and it’s caused me to have to swerve again. The building was constructed from fairly large bricks - not dressed stone. Also the doors and windows were set back so deep into the building for reasons I don’t understand that the walls of my building need to be 3mm thick. I have had to send for 7mm scale brick Plastikard, meanwhile sanding down the the stone Plastikard, and then glueing the brick material over the stone, recutting the door and window apertures as I go. Furthermore the Peedie brass etched doors are excellent, but the very skinny framed etched windows (thinner than N gauge even) would hardly be noticed - so I’ve had to cut windows from thin white Plasticard. Assembly of the four dry brushed walls is only a couple of days away. Photos soon. PS. I’ve found a way around the skinny window frames issue - so I can continue to use the brass etchings as planned. Photos soon.

When setting up the photo above with the Bubblecar I discovered that my widest coach was not my widest coach. So I’ve had to modify the width of the platform bay and move slightly and straighten the track into the bay. Lucky it wasn’t ballasted yet! The work continues on the station building because Gaugemaster have no idea when Prodigy Advance 2 will arrive. Hope the photo below midway in lining the window recesses with stone shows the deceptive amount of work required for an apparently simple building.

Detail shot showing platform surfaces including chipped edging stones and a worn white line - DFR platforms don’t usually have laser sharp brilliant white painted lines at all locations - I’ve tried to replicate that.

Platforms are now as finished as is wise before the station building is added. The Prodigy Advance 2 is still not available to buy so powering up is still not possible. Thus work will now still be treading water and be directed solely to the station building. Pictures below show progress - and I have included a shot of the main Parkend platform around which I have based colours.

A brief update before I visit the Bluebell Railway’s Giants of Steam Gala tomorrow. Platform paving slabs and edging stones now dry brushed with 3 shades of Humbrol acrylic and four different brushes. Only a worn white line to dry brush around the chipped edges - I plan to mask off 1.5mm for a line representing just under 5” wide in real life. Will post “proper” photos taken with a camera on tripod rather than iPad when finished. Have started adding Slaters Plasticard stone sets to cardboard cutouts - going OK. The photos of the Coleford GWR station building show that windows and doors were inset behind the depth of stonework so I’ve had to line the door recesses with 2mm strips of the stone sets Plasticard which is a tweezers and squinting job. Should have the four walls ready for assembling together by end of next week in primer and with window/door etchings in place. 4 toilet windows have wooden slats over them and I’m considering cutting these from Ratio N Gauge industrial cladding sheets.

Painting of platforms continues - finally got the chipping surfaced tops (except for slabs etc at edges which are still covered with masking tape) mimicking DFR’s current taste for pink tinged chippings done, and washed in the blackened gaps between main stonework - much more to do beginning with dry brushing details into stones. In in the meantime it’s taken a surprising amount of time with pencil, ruler, line drawing, purchased brass etchings (just one type shown in photo), and a scalpel to get this far with recreating Coleford original GWR station building in OO scale. It never looks very impressive at this stage considering how many hours it takes.

Now 1st October and still no stock anywhere of my chosen DCC controller starter kit. Between coats of acrylic washes and dry brushing on the two platforms there is too much time spare not to do something else as well. The station building will sit in a shallow locator slot on the rearmost platform so will be removable and I have started that. My chosen station building is Coleford Severn and Wye stone building before it was replaced by a simpler structure. DFR might find it as a pile of stones in a field somewhere! There is a superb scale line drawing on Page 95 of "Forest of Dean Railways Layouts and Illustrations" by Peter Smith (the bright yellowy orange book) and several useful photos - but neither the line drawing nor the photos show the back - which must have had more than a plain stone wall since that was what you must have seen when you arrived at the station. I'm using Peedie brass etched windows, doors, and canopy valance that have now arrived from Orkney . Other than the back, I have drawn out the four walls on Rowney Daler Board and transferred the LH edge positions and heights of each window and door - my technique is to only cut the apertures to the size of the actual etchings I have sourced, which in turn are the nearest to the real thing though not obviously identical. Question - who knows what the back of the building looked like?

I'm still treading water because there are still no Prodigy Advance 2 starter kits available to purchase so I can power and prove the electrical connections before I ballast and paint the sides of the rails - but one is on pre-order. So what am I doing? I shall have to pick my words carefully, but I have seen platforms surrounded by beautifully scratch built buildings which show up the far simpler nature of the platforms themselves. Since my platforms constitute about 25% of the length of the layout (not counting the L shaped fiddle yard) I have to try that bit harder. At the moment I have added textured Slaters Plastikard to both card/balsa basic structures to replicate stone courses, paving slabs and edge stones, stones and gravel walking surfaces, and concrete slopes at the "pointy end". I shall now dry brush paint them but wait until later in the layout build to super-detail them as was my way with the N Gauge layout. Photos soon - too early right now.

Still can't power up the layout because of absence of new spec DCC startup kit so I've carried on with the CCT wagon kit. Finished it now - it's a heritage railway so this is supposed to be a subject awaiting preservation. Next - decorate the platforms.

Now that all the fitting and fettling is done (there is no way the word assembled can be used for this kit) and the first two of three very dilute coats of Humbrol acrylic undercoat are on, I feel a little kinder towards this Python CCT. The Anita tension lock couplings are on too. Now for one more undercoat then top coats, transfers, and light weathering. Then it’s on to finishing the platforms while I still can’t power up.

Hi Dan. If it's the Bachmann Branchline Mk1 CCT it's too big and not a GWR item. The Bachmann item is 165mm long compared with the Peco Park Dundas item at only 110mm. The bigger item is perhaps unlikely to have appeared at a GWR Branchline Terminus and in the case of my small layout it would look more like a Mk1 suburban passenger carriage than a goods vehicle - I'm being as realistic as possible and running only small items. Although I have had to make it the Park Dundas Python CCT is a GWR wagon introduced in 1914 and surviving into BR days - much more likely to be found delivering parcels to a country area IMHO and maybe of more interest to a heritage railway. Thanks anyway for the interest and the suggestion.