young37215

37178 continues its southbound journey seen first departing Crianlarich and a little later passsing 1B10 at Garelochead. The picture taken from the road looking over the subway is one of my favourite angles. The final picture shows the residual space between the upper level Mallaig and lower level Garelochead where I am plotting how to create the scenery so that it blends in with both stations.

37178 arrives at Crianlarich with 1T16, 0740 Oban to Glasgow.

Hi Andy The point, facing point lock and the catch point on the run round appear mechanically controlled from a ground frame dating back well before 1983. The picture below shows the signal box diagram which notes the existence of the ground frame. I am not sure what the electrically controlled No 17 was or could have been, maybe others more knowledgeable on signalling matters may be able to answer this. The 1984 picture below shows point rodding continued to mechanically control the point following closure of the signal box. I suspect a locking mechanisim will have been added to the ground frame that I am guessing the Mallaig section token would unlock. Otherwise it looks like the ground frame was unaffected by the signal box closure.

A single unit adjacent the main fiddle yard made up of two 1220 x 170 mm pieces of 3mm plywood. It's a lot of wires, switches and LED's but a fairly simple construction which started out as a test and has grown over 3 years to what it is now. I started out with the intention of a control panel at each signal box but changed my mind when I realised that I would spend all day running around to the different panels. What I have works, it would not win prizes for its asthetic look but it does what I require of it. Should I ever win the lottery though an upgraded, glitzy control panel would be high on my list of things to buy. Thanks to guidance from another thread I finally managed to seperate the chassis from the bodyshell of my PRA wagons. I found that a fine screw driver inserted under the bodyshell at the end of the wagon enabled a larger screw driver to be inserted and turned 90 degrees which released the body. I did break off 2 buffers on the first wagon but these glued back very easily and having learn from my error, the other 3 wagons were much easier and accident free. This allowed me to add 30g of lead to existing rather pathetic out of the box 44g weight resulting in a 70% increase which brings the PRA closer to the 90g of the VDA/VAA fleet. The PRA is a fabulous wagon and I hope the weight increase will reduce derailments which were becoming too frequent for my liking. The PRA's were enough work for one day, with Mallaig back on the layout I then spent a few hours running trains.

Hi Ian When finished there will be around 75 servos controlling points and semaphores. I have 3 expansion boards for both switches and LED's making a total of 96 potential connections. Room to grow...... To avoid colliding with the under baseboard point motor brackets I needed to realign the track connecting the upper and lower sections. What this means for the scenic potential I have not yet got my head around, I will start placing polystyrene in the residual space to get a feel for what is now achievable. The sidings will also need some minor adjustment although this is easily achieved by simply tweaking the flexitrack. Original track alignment, where the track curves was directly beneath 4 point motor brackets hence the need to realign An old view with Mallaig section in place Revised track alignment avoids going under the Mallaig section View from the other end of the section, the track on the left is the approach to Garelochead

A quiet few days spent away from the layout recharging batteries as it were. Yesterday I returned the incomplete Mallaig scenic section to the layout because I wanted to test it all worked in practice and I needed to understand how the point motors located under the baseboard would affect the sidings and running line that sit beneath the Mallaig section. I am also waiting on signals and signal box which I want to install before finishing the scenery. Once connected to the various power sources Mallaig performed faultlessly. I managed to run the 1981 morning timetable on the Mallaig extension without any hitch which was very gratifying because Mallaig was the last major point motorisation project. Apart from a couple of sidings at Ardlui, all of the Megapoints controlled points network is now connected to the main control panel. 37175 and 37108 are seen waiting with their respective departures.

All very helpful, thanks chaps

Looking forward to seeing your built Rannoch kit.

I like Rannoch station building, the picture looks the business. I hope that this kit is not interfering with your building of the Queen Street roof? I am sure I am not the only one waiting to see this develop. It surprises me that it has taken so long for someone to create a laser cut kit for what is effectively a generic model for most of the WHL Swiss chalet styled buildings. It is much the same for signal boxes, hopefully Iain Ross will get around to producing one of these at some stage.

Hi Andy Have you decided on what you will use to model the new (its only 40 odd years old) single story annex? I cannot quite get clear in my head what will work best, ideally I want to use Wills plasticard where my current thinking is coarse stone (SSMP200) for the walls and slates (SSMP203) for the roof. Have you got any better suggestions? Rob

Well done, I have spent hours trying and failing to seperate the body and chassis. Please may I ask what you used to lever in between the two sections to get them apart and how you did it; I have tried various knife blades without any hint of success.

I am enjoying your thread and looking forward to seeing the layout evolve. I will disagree with you on your point about wiring having no visible effect because I think it has a very visible effect. For the first time in my modelling life on my West Highland layout I have wired each and every piece of track on the scenic sections and the improvment in running is beyond belief. I cannot recall ever having had a loco stall or the sound interrupted which I attribute to the hours of soldering droppers. It might be a ball ache but based upon my experience the dividend it pays is huge.

One of the great things about RMWeb is that it creates the opportunity to for a virtual community of like minded individuals with similar interests. In turn this provides a platform for everyone to learn and develop their skills and abilities. Kind words Andy and I hate to disappoint but I think you will find most of us have inferiority complexes and regard our peers as being more capable than they are in reality. To the extent that it motivates you I would agree, however it is also easy to become overawed which can lead to inertia and a project getting stuck. It is a fine balancing act to maintain motivation and keep quality to the level and standard we aspire.

The Sculptamould blends in with the rock casts and painted ok creating a run of rock face to the rear of the oil terminal. The Ratio oil tank arrived which fills the gap nicely although it needs painting and taller supports to get closer to the real thing. Today I intend completing the low relief outcrops that extend to the station throat. Slowly but surely this is progressing, I will be glad to finish this off and get back to running again.

Not a lot to record today as yesterday was a working day on the GWSR where it was nice to get out in the fresh, if slightly damp, air. I can report that it is a lot easier moving sleepers on WHL4 than in real life! The mould is C1244, facet rock. I have 4 of the larger moulds which, if the WS adverising is to be believed, can be used to create a variety of smaller sizes by breaking the bigger moulds into pieces or by only part filling the larger mould. I have made an initial attempt using Sculptamould which I aim to paint today. If the outcome is not to the standard I want then I shall try other suggestions such as the casting plaster. Correct, its the Knightwing tank support sections. I have ordered Ratio 530 to use as the smallest tank.

I have been using a WS Earth Colour kit which contains 8 different WS colours. Having got a better feel for what colouring the rocks entails, I will buy additional supplies of cheaper acyrlics for the high use, darker colours like the black and grey to see how these work. That said, the level of paint dilution is such that I anticipate the 1 fl oz pots from the kit to last for some time even on my sizeable rock collection. My holy grail for the last few days has been the Youtube video below which does a great job of showing how to colour rock. I have copied the techniques which are really straightforward and am slowly getting comfortable with producing the dark coloured rock that is seen in the western highlands. The best thing about the WS technique is that if I dont like the colour of a rock once the paint dries, it is very easy to add more paint to alter the colour. I have started adding the rocks as low relief scenery to the rear of the Mallaig area. What I have not worked out yet is how to effectively join the pieces of rock together so that they blend into one.

I spent more time modelling yesterday than I have for some time but have little tangible to show for it. I watched several of the Woodland Scenics Videos on YouTube in an effort to learn how to colour my expanding collection of rock moulds and then attempted to put this into practice. I also added 100mm to the fuel platform which will allow an extra tank. By the end of the day I had coloured most of the rock moulds. On checking this morning they have all dried and appear fine. Some may require further darkening but most seem ready for use.

Get some more paint on those rocks on the Atlantic side!!, the bits that have already been painted look really good. I think you will be well rewarded for the painting, there is nothing like seeing visible progress as a motivator to do more. From personal experience visible progress is self sustaining, the more you get done the more you want to achieve.

Thanks Andy, the Ratio tank is a potential solution. As you say, I need to have 1 smaller tank, what I don’t know is the dimensions of it. Please can you measure yours and advise the length and diameter? Yesterday was a low key affair, a little bit of guaging and more rock casting. The casting plaster is 50 % heavier but only costs 20 % of the hydrocal. The plaster sets much quicker and at such a price differential, I will use this in future. Not quite watching paint dry but similar, freshly poured Hydrocal in moulds and my growing stock of finished moulds which should be ok to paint later today.

There is a clip of the Bean attached to the rear of an Oban to Glasgow train in Ultimate Scenic Route, The WHL by the Friends of the WHL. It's a rather aincient video made in the mid 1980's which could do with a digital upgrade, nevertheless the material is well worth a watch. Progress yesterday was less than I had hoped largely due to the amount of gluing I deemed necessary to secure the Mallaig platform. Allowing this to dry meant I had time on my hands which I put to use in casting my first Woodland Scenics rock. My mix of the first batch of WS hydrocal must have been poor because the castings were crumbly and badly formed. Subsequent castings worked well giving me a number of rocks to use as low relief along the backscene to the rear of Mallaig. I intend casting further rock using casting plaster which is considerably cheaper than the WS hydrocal. Any surplus casts will be used on the other scenic areas that I have yet to construct so I have lots of opportunity to fine tune my casting skills.

Hi Ian Sorry I missed your post until this morning. I was blissfully ignorant of Heljans planned class 104, I am more interested in their ETHEL and a replacement for my old Hornby model at present. The Mexican Bean will be an interesting, colourful addition but its not very high up my priority list because on WHL4 it would only shuttle between the fiddle yard and Crianlarich limiting its operational potential.

After what seems like forever I managed to get the 6 platform lights installed and working at Mallaig. The lights are the best representation I could find of those at Mallaig in the 1980's and even then required minor tweaks and repainting. Today I aim to glue the remain parts of the platform and finish guaging which should see the platform complete. First light is glued in place All installed, the last 3 still need gluing hence they are a little wobbly Guaging of the platforms begins

Hi Ben Thank you for the kind words. Weathering track with an airbrush is very straightforward and, based upon my experience, a useful way to learn about an airbrush. Ordinarily I weather track before I ballast, with Mallaig I wanted a different feel to the area hence weathering after ballasting. I am still relatively inexperienced at using an airbrush, I only bought mine 3 years ago. I have weathered several sections on WHL4 using thinned Railmatch enamel paints. Mostly it is sleeper grime, occassionally frame dirt and weathered black. I thin the paint to about 60/40 paint to thinners and stir vigorously to mix it up. The 60/40 split is an imprecise measurement, all the books I have read tell you that the consistency of the paint after thinning is how you judge it ready for spraying. If the paint runs of the stirring tool easily then I find it is ready. There are plenty of tales on RMWeb from others who use different paints such as Humbrol, it is a case of personal choice as to which paint you use. The one thing in common is that to be effective with an airbrush you need to thin your paint. Your comment about thinning suggests you are not clear on this, I suggest that you make up some thinned paint and trial it on some old offcuts of track to see the results you get. Do'nt worry about tonal variations, you actually need these because the real railway is not all the same colour. Worst case if you do'nt like an outcome is to overspray the area with a different colour. Give it a try, it is very straightforward. In the time it has taken me to type this I could have sprayed a panel or two of track. Good luck

A brighter start to the day in every sense of the word. Armed with an unused resistor I connected a single light, turned on the power and it illuminated. Flushed with success I followed the same approach, one at a time and now have 5 working lights. I can can only guess that there was an issue with some of the supplied resistors. The white lights are quite bright, if I understand comments correctly, if I used a 2k resistor I should get a dimmer light? If so is it as simple as returning to Ebay where they seem plentiful and buying a supply? again thank you to those who have contributed to this thread

One of the biggest weaknesses of the modern railway is the inflexibility to respond effectively to seasonal changes in demand. The WHL is a classic example, two 6 coach loco hauled sets for summer use would likely meet with an increase in passenger numbers and get a number of vehicles off of the roads but, it seems, there is no appetite for this sort of flexibiility. It will be interesting to see if one of the charter operators builds on the apparent success of the S&C trains that ran earlier this year. Like others I would dearly love to spend a day or two being loco hauled on the WHL once again. Although I moved forward a little yesterday, I am still struggling with the platform lights where it appears I am reaping the dividend for buying cheap Chinese LED's. The problem has been narrowed down to one of the lights or, more likely, the resistors. Until I get these working as I want it will not be sensible to glue the platform to the platform walls although I did cut the plasticard to rough shape in anticipation of sorting the lights. Once glued down I will file the edges of the platform to enable rolling stock to pass without fouling and paint a line of coping stones. The airbrush got another outing and a coat of frame dirt was applied to the newly ballasted areas and oversprayed elsewhere in an effort to create some tonal differences. Personally my colour sight is so poor I cannot see any difference but my wife who acts as a colour consultant, tells me that there are subtle differences. The track was then cleaned up and vacumed clear to enable the running of trains again.