martink

Progress on Penzance is continuing in fits and starts. The backscene is now done, as well as the basic ground cover. The next steps are adding the beach sand and installing the buildings. Then it will finally be time to get it all running properly and make a new batch of trains. The layout will share a lot with Dauntsey Lock, but there needs to be a lot of extra pre-grouping stock and the Edwardian road vehicles. The basic hills were generated by an AI tool called Canvas, the overall town is a combination of snapshots from several drone videos, small scenes with roads are from a combination of Google Earth, Paint and a little program of my own that places rows of houses with scaling and perspective. All of that was followed with a lot of editing in Paint and GIMP to tidy everything up.

I believe the owner retired it and put it into storage about 5 years ago, as after twenty-something shows it was starting to have a few issues.

Maybe when it, or a derivative, develops into a finished product. It is certainly much more of an option for small layouts like mine.

That is one of the limitations of the beta software - the image is a fixed 4096 x 2048 pixels in size. I like to use 150 DPI for mine, which works out to 27 inches. With a bit of fiddling around, you can draw the backscene in sections, one 2-foot panel at a time. You can get the edge of each new section to be fairly similar to the last, but not quite identical. They can then be merged by hand with a bit of editing. Penzance, for example, is 6 feet long and uses 3 of those sections.

My current project is a T Gauge model of Penzance, set in 1913. For obvious reasons, making the backscene for this layout will be a challenge. I am trying out a piece of free software called NVidia Canvas. This lets the user paint a very rough outline of a landscape, which it then turns into a full photographic scene based on one of several template photos. The software is still a Beta test version and has a huge number of limitations, but it is marginally useful already and has the potential to be very handy indeed. While free to download and use, it does require a recent NVidia graphics card. I have used it to shape the basic terrain, the hills behind the town, as generic English farmland and light forest. The plan is to cut and paste individual buildings and rows of terraces from other sources, mainly drone videos taken from suitable viewpoints, and build up a complete town scene. The pics here are of the first rough draft, in black and white and still not quite the right shape. We will see how this works out.

Thanks. T Gauge really does make for some interesting opportunities, most of which are simply not practicable in the more popular scales. Acres of empty grassland could be another metric! Penzance is certainly my most ambitious project to date, building on experience and lessons learned from the earlier ones. I have, alas, had to distort more aspects of the model than I would like in order to make everything come together. Limitations of the track geometry and especially the track-to-track spacing means that the whole station area is significantly wider than the prototype, to the point of having to widen the station building and overall roof. Even then I can still only fit one siding between the platform roads instead of two. Most models of Penzance choose a later period with 4 platform faces, but I went for the earlier option so as to include the wooden approach viaduct and MPD. It also pushes the operational aspect further than before, with enough flexibility and complexity that it does not have to be solely an automatic layout. I may end up adding a semi-manual control option as a future project, with the automation mainly limited to handling the next signal box up the line (i.e. the storage loop). Reactions to the scale and drive system vary enormously, with the lack of proper wheels and track being the big obstacle for many. I also get a lot of "too small for me" comments, although since I use much simpler models it actually works out to about the same amount of fiddliness per square inch. The tiny size doesn't really come across in photos and videos, so it tends to just look like a very rough and ready piece of modelling. At exhibitions, where people see it for real and at the proper distance, the reactions tend to be very different. Some viewers are completely blown away, and there are always a few that keep coming back around to see again and again. I enjoy watching the expressions on peoples' faces at shows when they see one for the first time. Priceless!

Your comment isn't actually all that far off, but more Kingscene than Bilteezi. I couldn't find any usable pictures of Edwardian-era shops (well, one hardware store when I needed a mixed couple of dozen), and didn't want to tackle the street furniture part, but there are plenty of card models of shops of a generation later, so the shopfronts are taken from pictures of models. Since the largest is about 9mm x 5mm, all you really see at a distance is a riot of colours. That row of shops is almost freelance anyway, since I had to significantly distort that part of the street geometry. Albert Street should be angled right out of the layout at about 30 degrees, but I couldn't easily adapt that to the space and the balloon loop around the granary needed for the working roadway. The row of shops at the very back is correct, although still with arbitrary shopfronts borrowed from models. A few, such as the hotel and motor garage, are pretty much correct.

The buildings are all done, except for some minor cleanups and detail work that will come later (fences, gardens, etc). As usual with this tiny scale, the closeup photos are extremely cruel, but at a normal viewing distance they look good enough to do the job. So, onward to the backscene!

After a long break and the half-year detour to Malmsbury, I am finally back on to this one. That means starting up again by taking stock of where I had got to before, which was a preliminary rough coat of paint on some of the buildings. So, the next steps will be to complete them and tackle the backscene. Those two were the main causes of the pause, and one of the goals of Malmsbury was to try out some new techniques to break the logjam.

I hadn't planned to do any more posts on Malmsbury, but when cleaning everything up I found I had taken a lot of pictures during construction. So, I've cobbled together yet another video, a photomontage documenting how the layout was designed and built. I'd really appreciate some feedback on whether or not this is worthwhile., so thanks in advance to those who speak up.

And Malmsbury is now complete. I let the layout do its own thing while I played trainspotter with the camera.

I didn't have any proper OO figures to hand, so had to improvise! And they are to the correct scale. Well, maybe not the heads. Anyway, all boxed up and ready to go out with Monday's post.

The Malmsbury layout is nearly finished, with the last couple of trains being built and tested. Then just some final detailing work and the exhibition-mode software, then back onto long-delayed Penzance.

After temporarily running out of steam on Penzance, with the sheer number of buildings needing painting and detailing, and complex backscene of the urban setting forming a fearsome gradient to tackle, I decided to do a quick little side project. So, with the fireman shovelling away and both injectors on, the boiler pressure is rising again and I'll soon tackle that bank again. The little side project is a model of Malmsbury (Australia), using my customary 1:480 linear motor version of T Gauge, on my customary 6 foot by 2 foot baseboard, set loosely in the 1960s at the end of steam. This will give me somewhere to run my Victorian trains, and an excuse to make more of them. Test trains have been running, the scenery is mostly complete, with the trees, bushes and fences nearly ready for planting. Then it is just a matter of making half a dozen more trains and writing the full operating software. Malmsbury is a minor station about 100km north of Melbourne, Australia on the old Victorian Railways line to Bendigo. This was opened in 1862, and was the only Australian country line built to UK mainline standards, with Brunel as the consulting engineer. When the local politicians received the final bill, they had collective heart failure, and every Australian line since then has been built to very different standards. Malmsbury has some local fame due to the nearby viaduct, which while modest by UK standards is the largest stone viaduct in Australia. The nice thing about modelling in T Gauge is that both station and viaduct fit comfortably on a 6 foot board without compression. The layout is just a basic double oval with dummy pointwork in the station, with everything kept as simple as possible to minimise the total work required. The hidden half of each oval can store nearly 6 feet of trains nose-to-tail, so 8-10 in total.

The actual track gauge is just a minor detail for me now, and that scene is so typically VR, broad gauge or narrow, I just couldn't resist using it.

I considered taking Monbulk Creek and Dauntsey Lock to Sydney this year, but was unable to get in touch with the Epping crew (gmail and hotmail addresses both get bounced). I ended up booking Monbulk into the Australian Narrow Gauge Convention down here in Melbourne instead, but I expect to show both Penzance and Dauntsey at Caulfield. Whether that is worth the trip is another matter! :-) Whenever suits you for the miniature railway, but as of 2022 more options have opened up. While I am not in a position to do anything commercially, I am now free to make the odd private sale.

I did a purge of older pics on my PC a while ago, so many of the lost ones from earlier in this thread no longer exist. The scenery has progressed, and the next batch of pics should begin to resemble the final intent, so I think I will wait till then. That should only be a week or two from now, and I'll make sure that the whole layout is covered.

One of the many little projects I have been doing over the last few months is building some typical VR broad gauge stock from the 1950s. These are all in 1:480 scale and linear motor powered. These were first test builds and a little rough around the edges, but the next versions will have a number of improvements and fixes. So, here is a Walker railcar, plus J and K class steamers with some typical trains, running on my 1:350 scale Monbulk Creek layout. The video is higher resolution than I normally use, but a bit glitchy. Sigh.

I've been doing a host of other minor projects over the last few months, things that I have wanted to do for a few years but have put off for various reasons. These include: 1:300 scale slot cars (with both manual and fully automated display racing), some new Aussie VR 1:480 trains (J & K class steamers, a Walker railcar and some typical goods and passenger stock), a working T Gauge level crossing kit for someone else, updates to some of the linear motor electronics, selling off most of my conventional N and T models on EBay, etc, etc. Today, just out of idle curiosity, I started experimenting with building a 3D printed mechanically interlocked lever frame (which is looking good so far, at least for very simple designs). Getting seriously back to work on Penzance is the next task, since it is tentatively booked for an exhibition in August. I usually tend to procrastinate when doing the scenery, but time pressure is starting to increase, so... All the buildings have been built, and the roads, pavements, etc. are done. I have started painting the buildings and have been doing some preliminary experimental work for the backscene (which is going to be a major challenge). Some minor electronics changes to give more flexibility (basically a full 2-controller cab control system) are also pending, and then the full set of rolling stock and road vehicles need to be built and tested. Then the beachfront and lots and lots of detailing. And, of course, the full-blown software to drive it all. As for seeing this at an exhibition, unless you plan to visit Melbourne at just the right time, that might be a bit difficult. On the other hand, there are usually a few good videos of that particular show each year.

One idea that has been lurking in the back of my mind for a few years was to see how well a linear motor track system would work for a tiny scale slot car set...

This is always a difficult bit, with no generally applicable solutions. In the end, it depends on how much compromise you are willing to accept and how much work you are willing to put into it. I find the street view mode in Google Earth to be incredibly useful as a starting point. Look for stretches of road with unobstructed views of the terrain you want to use, finding slightly elevated sections or gaps in the hedgerows. Take multiple images and stitch them together in your favourite paint program. Adjust the colours and edit out modern anachronisms as required. For urban scenes, you can often modify the current versions of buildings to make them more authentic for the chosen period. If you plan to use low-relief card buildings, then using photos of these models instead of the real thing can result in a much cleaner blend. I have even used colourised black and white photos of the real locations. About 10 years ago I built a layout of a fictitious terminal station in Plymouth, assuming Millbay had been rebuilt and extended toward the citadel. The backscene included heavily edited versions of several of the surrounding streets and carriage sidings.

The layout has finally reached the pieces-coming-together stage, with the plastering, puttying and preliminary painting now done. The next steps are the pavements and platforms. I still have to decide whether to add more detail to the large area of beach: hopefully just having the tide out should be enough, with a sandbar, wet and dry sand areas, and a little bit of tidal water in Chyandour Brook under the bridge. If necessary, I can always borrow an idea from St. Ruth (a very nice 2mm scale layout set in a slightly later period) and add a couple of erosion-control fences.

All the buildings have been constructed, both railway and other. The platforms and foundation work for the ground, roads and dummy tracks are coming along too. It is almost starting to look like a model railway. Designing the goods shed, loco shed and coal stage was challenging, since all of these buildings are long-gone. I could only find a handful of photos taken from very limited angles, so there is a lot of educated guesswork here.

All of the non-railway buildings along Chyandour Cliff behind the station have now been 3D printed. That works out to about 625m of street frontage, with every building present and to the correct scale. There are some distortions, with the road and retaining wall curving differently to fit the available track pieces, and a few guesses to undo a century of changes, but close enough.

It has been awhile since I have posted, but once again work on the layout has resumed. The buildings along the Chyandour Cliff road are taking shape, one block at a time. Most of the raw data comes from Google Earth, with additions from old maps and whatever hundred year old photos I can find in obscure corners of the web. Plus a lot of pure guesswork.