mk1gtstu

Some more woodwork done on the layout. The back scene boards I've made detachable, they just slide in & out on runners so I have easier access to the fiddle yard for track cleaning, de-railments etc. Also made a start on cutting out & fixing thin ply formers ready for the scenery. Cheers, Stu

Cheers all! A few short vids of the first trains on a test run on the new layout. Cheers, Stu

Some more photos as requested.. Cheers, Stu

Cheers, Yeah, there was loads about, I can remember going past Maerdy colliery sidings, always full of wagons, Coedely & Abercwmboi was the same & loads of other places. I remember climbing on the old steam locos at Woodhams yard as most people did. It was just the norm, mostly gone now though. Going past Radyr yard on the train into Cardiff, I was always fascinated with the amount of stuff there. Also used to go regularly to Porthkerry park & seeing 37's with MGR's thundering over the viaduct to & from Aberthaw (which is what I'm basing my new layout build on) again in N gauge. Cheers, Stu

Again, great photos! Keep them coming! Cheers, Stu

Thank you for your kind comments Marc. I'm from South Wales originally & remember stuff like this growing up there in the 1980's, also my uncle was a fitter at Cardiff Canton in the 1970's to the early 90's I so did have a couple of visits there too at the time so I do base my layouts on the South Wales area. Regarding decoders for N gauge shunters I'm afraid I don't know if they will fit, I'm running all my locos on DC still. Cheers, Stu

Great photos! Thank you for posting them, Cheers, Stu

Thank you! Re; the ground cover, the tracks were ballasted 1st, then some plaster of paris smoothed between the tracks. Once dry it was all then sprayed matt black to represent coal dust, then static grass & grass tufts glued in place. Cheers, Stu

Some more photos to bring this thread up to date to how the layout stands now, viaduct in place, track all laid & trains up and running. Next job to do some electrics & start on the scenery & backscene. Cheers, Stu

Thank you, It's nowhere near finished yet, started building it just before Christmas 2017, so just catching up with all the photos I have so far. I will post a few more later when I've sorted them all out Cheers, Stu

On the layout.. Cheers, Stu

The viaduct, it's been a right pain to build, many of the curved brick arches I found the plastic very brittle & broke a few trying to get a curve on them, so ended up using plasticard instead & then covering them all in brick paper which has worked out ok. The prototype viaduct has refuge buttresses along its length, I decided to try & replicate them by making some out of some scrap bits of plastic stone walling & plasticard. On the prototype they are cut away, but I didn't really want to start hacking away the main structure on my viaduct so decided just to glue them along the sides instead. Not 100% accurate I know but I think it looks the part. Then a few washes of various colours & dry brushing staining etc to try & get it looking more stone like & weathered. Here are a few pics of the results...

Baseboard 1 has the Porthkerry viaduct on, baseboard 2 will be the fictitious part of the layout otherwise it would be just loads of trees! I've kit bashed/scratch built a bridge for baseboard 2 then painted & weathered it.. Cheers, Stu

Thank you, The weathering on the locos was done mostly with an airbrush using railmatch enamels, I also use small brushes to do the dirt & rust streaks etc, using photos for reference. Cheers, Stu

Cheers all! Here is another photo, building & chimney is removable to allow the lid to close, so easy to store away when not in use.

Some cover lids made to protect it from dust & damage when not in use as it lives in the shed.. cork base glued down & some track laying done.. I'll add some more photos soon & try and get everything up to date if anyone is interested. Cheers, Stu

Hi all, Just thought I'd post a new thread on my new layout build in N gauge. The new layout is going to be based on a real location in South Wales, BR Blue era, but with some compromises & rule 1 included. This is the area I'm going to try & model, having visited here many times in the 1980's as a child. I can remember class 37's on MGR trains to Aberthaw power station thundering over this viaduct, at the time it was a freight only line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porthkerry_Viaduct Compromises are; the viaduct on the layout will be a little bit shorter than the prototype due to space restrictions. Also there are large wooded areas either side of the viaduct which obscure most of the railway line either side. I will have less wooded areas on my layout so trains can be seen easily (plus it will mean less trees to buy or make!) I'm going to run both passenger & freight trains rather than just MGR'S, so it will be HST'S, DMU'S, coal, oil, steel, parcels & other freight. Track wise it will be a double mainline continuous, & large fiddle yard to the rear of the layout to hold trains. I'm going code 55 track & elecrofrog points. The baseboard space I have measures 3ft wide & just under 10ft long so hopefully I will be able to run decent length trains for a change. I started building it just over a month ago, I have some photos I'll be putting up of it's progress up to now. First up, the baseboards have been built, split into 2 sections..

A few more pics, the locos & wagons are all ones I've weathered, painted & detailed myself.. That's all for now, Cheers, Stu

Here's my Box File layout, in N gauge I built in 2013, its a Colliery Exchange Sidings layout, based on ones that could be found in the South Wales Valleys in the 1970's & 1980's. Its constructed using 2 A4 size box files joined together end on end. I've cut the end off each one, glued & taped them together, then cut a 2mm thick piece of ply the size of both boxfiles & glued it inside. Trackwork is peco streamline & insulfrog points although i wish i'd used electrofrog ones now as my shunters like stopping on them! There is one through line which i can fit track to both sides so i can run trains in & out of the yard, a run around loop & 3 sidings. Here's a few pics of it. Cheers, Stu