sjcarr

After nearly 4 years I think its safe to say that it is a very slow train and the rail replacement bus may have been quicker! While the actual modelling side of things has still not progressed much, there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. Thanks to some help and advice from some good friends in our new road the track plan has changed but the overall location has stayed the same. Even with actual modelling on hold there has been no shortage of things going on behind the scenes. The track plan has now progressed to the point that I have been able to work out the signalling for the station. It now features 3 platforms with a disconnected stabling point for the station pilot, that will now hold "The Gresley Buffet" which is in a converted Gresley buffet car. The former "UP" line now being converted to separate line connecting the Steveley brewery yard and the line to Steveley Quay. I've also been working on the signal box lever frame, even though the model is n gauge and you probably wont be able to see it I still want to get things as accurate as I can. This includes interiors for the station buildings. Where I've been working on some posters, which have included creating replica tickets from the NER, LNER, & BR APTIS eras based on some old tickets I found in my parents loft. I've also been working on the timetable for the entire layout as well as planning the entire line. Hopefully over the next few weeks actual modelling work will move forward. And fingers crossed it wont be another 4 years before the next post.

While physical work on Steveley has been quite slow, the basics of the track plan have been coming together, along with the plan for the baseboard. The setting on the north east coast in the 80s has provided a lot of material to work with, the primary basis is going to be the Whitby area. So a single branch line leading to a terminus station with 2 platforms was the starting point. Initially I was working on the idea of an island platform but I soon realised that it would limit my options in terms of the locomotive hauled rakes I could use. Due to space constraints I could only have 2 lines in the station area and so wouldn't have enough space for a runaround loop to release the loco. This would mean I would have to put a loco at each end of the rake to prevent a situation of the coaches being pushed rather than pulled. The obvious solution was to switch to using a bay platform instead and incorporate the runaround loop into the platform area. That way the same amount of space was used as the island platform design near enough. It would also mean that without increasing the platform length I could effectively add in another coach to the loco hauled relief services as I now had a way to release a single loco from the rake and save the cost of another loco. It took a little bit of trial and error with the coaching stock I've already collected to work out the ideal size but I think I've got there now. Recently I spent a few hours playing around with my pair of BR mk1 coaches and some of the Peco settrack I've got. While I know the settrack may not be great from an accuracy point of view, cost and size wise it's ideal. And with a little bit of work with my scalpel and some weathering and suitable ballasting it should be possible to make it look good. In terms of the baseboards I'm limited to what can fit under the bed when the layout isn't being run so they can't be too deep. But at the same time I wanted the amount of noise from the trains running over the board to be kept as low as possible. Thanks to a number of recent deliveries, primarily of vivariums for the pair of geckos, I've got a fair amount of polystyrene packing sheets. These should make a nice base, while allowing the wiring to be hidden beneath the track and building up the track and platform level to allow the water level in the quay area to be on the actual baseboard. I'm hoping to get away with a single baseboard for the scenic section with maybe a another smaller one for the fiddle yard. While there probably won't be much more in terms of physical work this year the track and building plans will continue over the Christmas period along with the signage. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Thanks Andyram I appreciate the vote of confidence. Hopefully it will go well.

This is my first serious foray into both the world of railway modelling and blogging, so I apologise if I ramble. I have to say I'm rather looking forward to it. When I was growing up I had the somewhat obligatory Hornby OO train set and a even had a moulded plastic layout I got while I was living in Germany. Since then, moving around, university and work have all kept me away. Now though, time and space has given me the opportunity to indulge in some proper modelling. So, the first decision was which scale to use. Even though I do have some space it is still quite limited so if I wanted anything more complex than a small diaorama OO/HO was out. Having seen the very good selection of models available from Farish and Dapol it was clear that N gauge was the one to go for. Even then, my initial hopes to build a mainline station with a couple of branches based loosely on the Watford area had to be abandoned as far to large and complex for the space available. That lead me to thinking about my childhood in the late 80s and the few years I lived near Doncaster, going for day trips to Cleethorpes and holidays further afield to places like Bridlington, Scarborough & Whitby. Even the odd trip to Alnwick and Bamburgh. It seemed to fit as a suitable area to model and it have me the idea of a layout with a small terminus at a seaside town. I didn't fancy the idea of following a prototype but an amalgam of my holiday haunts would work as a basis to start from. One of my other interests is real ale, and so it was an easy decision to include a brewery on the layout and that it could be linked to the track to add some interest and freight traffic to the regional railways class 101s, Sprinters and Pacers that inhabited such areas. Not to mention the summer relief trains running the seaside specials. No doubt there will be a few false starts down the line and the track plan has already undergone several revisions based on the available rolling stock and my desire to try and have the train movements as realistic as possible. But that's a discussion for another time. As I work on the layout I'll post some photos of my progress, more as a record for myself than anything else, but if it proves helpful to someone else, then so much the better.