muddy water

This layout will be attending the Orpington and district model railway society show in Pratts Bottom on the 9th and 10th January 2016. See the exhibition section on RMWeb for details. Had a fellow club member finish off the ballasting. I have learnt a few lessons from him! Got another Tomy Tec lorry for Xmas. This one is a shell artic tanker. Nice overall finish. I had shown the layout to a non modeller friend. His comment was that lorries are never that clean!So I now need to weather it! Always good to get someone else to look at your work. Play 'Spot the obvious mistake!' Then get them to put it right!

A few photos to show what I have been up to on the layout.

Picked up some street lights. They are very tall. About 30', so I will cut them down to about 25'. They have grain of rice lamps and run off about 3 volts. I will fit five to the bridge and another five on the road to the goods yard.powered in two sets, the light produced is just about the right level,when run on 12 volts.might put some lights in the buildings too!

Hi!Great to see another layout being started. Is it going to be a terminal or through station? Be interesting if you are going to make the Overground EMUs or is it an earlier period?

I have seen a lot of small layouts which have a picture frame round the viewing side of the layout. What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this? Would I have to have taller legs to not allow the top bar obstructing viewing. Not everyone is the same height, I am 6' but a lot of modellers are smaller.

Had some time off last week and managed to start on the scenic work. I got some Tomy Tec buses to transfer the passengers from the station to the ferry terminal.They are Japanese right hand drive. Just need to remove the Japanese writing on the side. Or I could leave it on and base the layout in 2030. If they build HS2 they might take over other transport services. The fencing is 4mm GWR spear head platform fencing. Just right for larger security fencing. Any guesses on for the deliberate mistake? I have be playing/ testing the layout to find out if it actually works. Lucky it does! Gave the fence a coat of paint and fitted it to the rear of the layout. I also had a pack of gates, so a double one was used here for access. I need to sort out how to make the background work with the road going somewhere. Any ideas? The block of flats now has a small car park. Need to gets some bins and old washing machines now! Here is the layout in its full length. I have chopped up the buildings to give full and low relief. I will be reducing the backscene by 2" in high as whilst testing it was found to be to high! (I do not want to get injured operating a model railway!) The background needs finishing, but I do not want to fill every inch with buildings and junk. How can I do this and still make it look realistic?

The background story for this layout is based on a port town in the lowlands, up north on the west coast. The railway does not serve the passenger terminal, you have to get a bus from just outside the main entrance. It will be served by local DMUs, push, pull units and inter regional trains. Off stage is the main freight yard with facilities for coal, containers, oil and other general goods. I have got some building now to give the people somewhere to live! This is still the planning stage as you can see the bridge is not fixed. Two blocks of flats at the back of the western end. I will be giving them a better colour scheme! I split the back of the maroon building to get a low relief section. The flats will over look the yard. Maybe I should find some spotter figures!

The sky has been painted a base blue to give it a better feel now. I have been using roofing felt to represent the tarmac areas and platform surface. The track has had the sides painted. The bridge will have a small station building on it. A covered staircase will lead down to the platform. This is made from Peco brick edging.The flats need extra cladding and weathering. The old warehouse is Metcalfe. Security fencing will run along the edge of the track to keep out the public! I will be using an ID back scene.

Progress! Laid the track and put sides on the scenic and fiddle yard boards.cut holes under the track at various places for fitting uncoupling magnets. Remembered to cut a hole to access the fiddle yard! The layout is going to be old fashion analogue dc, wired on cab control for two controllers. This so the yard and station areas can be controlled independently.

Thanks. I will look into that. All my stock is pre nem pockets, so conversion kits will be needed. I have checked out your layouts. Some good positive Inspiration!

I needed to have a reliable uncoupling system, for shunting the yard and releasing the passenger locomotives. Is the peco Elise system any good? Or will I have to go for something more permanent like D&G? This could affect the resale value, so maybe not the first choice. What are your thoughts?

Thanks for the advise. I have 'borrowed'the track plan and a few other ideas from the Apa series of layouts.Saw both the layouts at the Sevenoaks show with their new owner.The photos on Rmweb do make it look a lot larger than it is! My layout is of the half station type. The cassette only needs to hold a loco and three carriages. The rest of the eight carriage train is off scene. So the cassette needs to be about 2'. These is a good space and money saving idea. As you can show express size trains with a small amount of stock. The layout is to be set in the boarder area of England and Scotland in the Eighties. By changing the liveries of the carriages between Scotrail,executive intercity and blue/grey. A great variation of trains can then be run.

I want to use cut down mini trunking for fiddle yard cassettes,with N Gauge glued in place. Power will come from contacts underneath (drawing pins) onto copper clad sections on the main board. Wooden guides on either side help locate the cassette in place. Any comments?

Hi everyone! First time for putting up a layout of Rmweb. This is a small n gauge layout to try out some ideas. This was the planning stage. It will be a single platform with a run round loop. With a goods yard on the front. It will be the 'half station' idea with the fiddle yard containing the rest of the station with access to the goods yard. Off scene will be sidings for block good trains. They will use the non platform side of the run round loop to access the yard. The layout is on two boards. The fiddle yard is at the 'Graham Farish' Bridge end.

Hi great layout! It has started me back in N gauge. When you operated it exibitions, what do you use to uncouple the trains on the lower goods lines?

Here is some more photos looking out of the standard gauge fiddle yard!

Great upgrade on your coach interior! Which manufacture's paint code number did you use for the blue seat colour?

Just found this youtube clip of Swanley in the snow! This would be good to model, but would need several camera flash guns to recreate the arcing on the conductor rails with the ice.

Looks a great project! What time period are you going to model?

Good luck with the Eirth show. Make sure the rope barriers keep the little hands off the edge of a very good layout!

Modelscene 5179 N Gauge Cows fleetline N31 Cows (standing, feeding and lying) x 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milking_Shorthorn They are all-red, red with white markings, all-white, or red roan. So ! guess get out the paint brush!