Booking Hall

Thank for those kind words Andrew.

Thanks Steve, sorry you missed seeing it but if it gets any further invitations to show it I'll post here.

Thanks Fishplate, and yes, I will!

Thanks Steve. The bufferstop is the PECO code 75 bullhead one.

I'm pleased to say that Broadhaven Docks performed very well on exhibition yesterday, with the Barclay saddle tank being a star performer, closely followed by the BP liveried Janus 0-6-0. Several interesting conversations were had with visitors and more than one expressed surprise that so much railway operation could be got into a very small space. At least one went away planning to do something similar and another even got his wife's blessing to build a small layout! I think that there will be perhaps just one more update to this thread when I have re-finished the sea, after which I'm calling this layout 'done' and can move on to building the 0 gauge micro I've been hankering after for several years!

More pics.

A few days of frantic work have got Broadhaven Docks to a state where I feel it is worthy of showing, and I've even managed to sort out most of the running problems. A bit of tweaking here and there of the 'concrete' track inlays was necessary to prevent loco wheels lifting above the rail head, and noting which locos ran better through the pointwork forwards or backwards is now written into the Special Working Instructions for the dock railway! The obligatory 'bus on a bridge' gives added scale to the scene I think! Could do with some more figures, especially in the street scene as it looks a bit bare, but I'll get round to that and the other remaining bits and bobs eventually . . . . .

Cheers Steve.

Thanks Steve. I'm glad you think the boats fit OK. I wasn't sure when I decided to build the large fishing boat, but I do think it balances up the scene nicely now.

Well, followers of this thread will not be surprised that the lack of postings during the last nine months has coincided with nil activity on the layout. However, all that has changed in the past two days. Owing to our club (Pendle Forest Model Railway Society) having to put back our annual exhibition by a week due to the venue having double booked, one of the layouts which was booked to attend can now only come on the Saturday, so our Exhibition Manager casually asked me to bring one of my layouts to fill in. Now all of my other layouts have been seen there so I volunteered Broadhaven, as this may be the only invitation to show it that I receive, so there is some frantic activity going on to bring it to a state in which I consider it to be worthy of showing. However, I also had to complete a major rebuilding project on the club layout that is also going to take centre stage, meaning that it's not until today that I've been able to do some work on mine! Luckily most of the bits and bobs to detail the scene have already been made, and it's more a case of finishing touches. I did want to re-do the sea, so the boats look like they are floating in it rather than on it, but I have doubts that the varnish will dry in time, so I've decided that will have to wait. But I did add some dark and light green flock powder to the seaweed area printed at the bottom of the dock wall on the Scalescenes sheets, and that has vastly improved the look of it.

The Brake second version is now complete. This one didn't require the lighting control bar on the brake compartment end, presumably the controls are inside, nor handrails on that end either, but it did need some by the Guards door. I finished this one in unlined maroon (I found I had a pot of Railmatch EWS maroon) but gave it slightly heavier weathering. Definitely pleased with how these have turned out for not much money and a few hours of enjoyable work.

Thank you GeraldH. Adding figures always improves the look. I don't have any suitable figures to hand, but adding some when I revisit this project is definitely on the cards.

Well, I'm calling this one done (for now!), and I've numbered her in the LMR allocation of Second Only vehicles to Dia 326. The underframe could do with a dynamo, and possibly some vacuum and steam heating pipes, so I may revisit this one again in the future. Meanwhile, on to the other three vehicles to make up the rake. Thank you to everyone who has followed this thread, and for all the coments, likes etc.

As it was raining today I put in quite a bit of work on the first coach. Wheels have been added, fixing the bearings in with a drop of superglue and a tiny piece of plasticard as the axlebox cover. New glazing has been cut and fitted, as the old glazing had yellowed and curled. A few droplights were modelled in the open position, with a tiny touch of silver paint to represent the catch, and before fitting, the edges of the windows were painted matt dark grey to try and reduce the thickness of the plastic visually, as several others have suggested doing. Then the partitions were glued in. These were cut from card and an area coloured reddish brown with a crayon to break up the area of 'whiteness' and to give the impression of seating. If I had more time I might have actually folded up some card seats. A couple of pieces of lead have been added to give some weight, and I'm now waiting for the glue to dry before I can fit the roof, add some running numbers and do a bit of weathering.

Presently in 'works grey' awaiting final livery. Halfords grey primer used.

Certainly looks good John. I too have had bogie breakage problems!

Slow progress has seen the incorrect and superfluous end and side detail removed, and replacement detail added. Tri-ang put the same detail on both ends of both types of suburban stock whereas according to the 'bible' Parkin's 'BR Mk 1 coaching stock', one end had the emergency cord telltale apparatus and the other end had a lighting control bar. Tri-ang also put some small handrails at 45 degrees low down on the ends whereas the real thing had long vertical ones at each side. The small handrails on the model carriage side at each end also had to be removed as they were fiction, as were the ones on the roof. The lighting control bar was made up from styrene microstrip and the handrails from 0.45mm brass wire. My Bill Bedford bending jig came in very useful here! Thoughts also turned to paint for repainting. A bit of research on RMweb suggested that Ford Cardinal Red was a good match for BR maroon, and luckily, my local car accessory shop had a couple of very dusty aerosol tins of it. To my eyes it looks a bit bright for maroon, but possibly is a better match for carmine? Anyway, as you can see from the last photo, Tri-ang's plastic varied in colour too!

Ratio coach seats seem to be considerably cheaper, if an interior is desired. Hello Flying Pig, thanks for that suggestion, and, given more time, I might have gone down that route fitting them to the card partitions I'm going to make, but I'm up against it as I not only have to sort out these coaches, but also some DMU's and a couple of lengthy platform canopies! So it'll just be card partitions and imagination!

Hi Halvarras, thanks for the helpful comments and info about the resin printed seating units. I wasn't aware of them and will salt away the website link for future reference. But, you're right, card is free and so that's what I'm going to use.

I think you're right, although the coach body seems to be styrene. The plastic is certainly quite brittle, as I've found to my cost! Yes, that little grabrail is going to have to go!

Hi Mike, thank you for reminding me about these, I had completely forgotten about the extensive range of useful stuff that Replica Railways make.

A little more progress. Having temporarily fitted a set of wheels to check the ride height, I was able to determine that the Dapol couplings I intend to use can be fixed directly onto the underside of the bogie frame, which simplifies matters somewhat. I intended to solvent weld them together, but the plastic Tri-ang used for the bogie moulding isn't softened by the solvent I have, so I used two-part epoxy instead. I turned the bogie through 180 degrees so that the former coupling end (with it's attendant hole) is now next to the trussing, meaning I had a good, flat area on which to fix the new coupling.

The club 00 gauge layout is having a bit of a makeover. It's a 20ft long U shaped layout with a fiddle yard at one side and a medium sized terminus station with goods yard and MPD at the other. In agreeing what improvements to make, we also decided to shift the time period depicted from the very early 1950's to 1958, to allow a greater variety of stock to be run, nearly all of which is provided by club members. However, the majority of members stock is in pre-nationalisation liveries, hence the need to provide additional stock in BR livery. Now, as this layout only gets exhibited a handful of times a year none of us wants to spend pots of money buying expensive new models just to use on the layout, so I'm aiming to see if 'acceptable' looking models can be created from relatively cheap RTR items. Now, the layout could certainly use some BR Mk 1 suburban coaches and while the Bachmann ones are superb, the price is not, so this is an attempt to do a 'cheap and cheerful' improvement of some of the old Triang suburban coaches so that they at least look the part. I don't intend to address the fundamental issue in that the number of compartments modelled is incorrect in both the composite and brake versions, the composite being two short and the brake one short. We will have to live with that. Instead I intend to address the following matters - 1) replace the wheelsets, 2) replace the couplings and make them close(r) coupled, 3) add compartment partitions, 4) replace certain moulded on detail (grabrails etc.) with separately fixed items, 5) on the brake compartment end infill the two windows, 6) repaint, renumber etc. A further improvement would be the replacement of the round buffers by oval ones. Did I mention that the layout is unexpectedly required at an exhibition in just three weeks time!!!??? Time to get on with it then! I had some coaches 'in stock' so to speak, as this was something I had been planning to do at some time!, and the news delivered by our Club Secretary gave impetus to the project, so a start was made. Getting the roofs off two of the coaches was the first challenge, having been glued on by a previous owner, but a bath in very hot water and a bit of judicious force eventually persuaded them to part company. Next was the removal of the old, sleeved, wheels. In most cases rust had taken hold and an attempt to drift out the steel axle caused damage to the axlebox, so after that I just used sidecutters to snip away the plastic wheels so the axle then slid out. I plan to use Bachmann 14.1mm coach wheels which will need pinpoint bearings to be fitted to the Triang bogies. I did consider using replacement Bachmann Mk 1 bogies but these are not that cheap either, especially when I need at least eight of them, so the existing bogies will be retained. PECO plastic bearings are 0.100" in diameter and so the axleboxes were drilled out 0.105" (nr. 37 drill, or about 2.6mm) and the Mk 1 couplings were removed. That's a lot of words, and is the stage I have reached with just one coach at the moment, to prove the concept, so I'll finish for the time being with some pictures.