HeatonLodge40

Spent all day today weathering and weighting (with lead) 43 new Dapol VEA’s. 
The Railfreight red on the vans appears to be self coloured plastic which is surprising. Even heavily weathered this plastic appearance is still apparent which is a tad disappointing. 
The roofs have all had a taste of Precision paints roof colour which gives them a nice dusty appearance. 
Tomorrow I’ll finish them, oil the axles and wire in a working Dapol brake light in the last van.

This train will then be hauled by a class 40 going forward ..
 

8 hours ago, Solderpete said:

Looking forward to your next show and seeing the changes.
I hope that the exhibition will be accessible by train.

Cheers it most definitely is!

I’m not too bothered Paul as long as it’s a common prototype. 
The part of the layout I’m working on now is fictitious. Any help much appreciated.

Simon

I’m after building a couple of Pylons around 1m high on my O gauge Heaton Lodge Junction.

If anyone knows if there is a kit available I’d be grateful.

At the moment I’m scratch building 3 x 1m high marshalling yard lighting gantries.

On another note regarding the next outing for HLJ - I’ll be posting the details on Monday. 
 

Much larger event this one with hopefully a good number of multi scale layouts, lots of trade etc 

Its not long either - Friday/Saturday/Sunday April 8/9/10th 

Well the second tower is coming along nicely. 
I still can’t get the solder to adhere to the brass even with a 100W iron. 
So I’m back to a blowtorch and a lot of flux. It’s works well if you heat up the brass first..

In other news after trawling the net for hours I’ve finally found enough working searchlights for the lighting gantry towers. 
 

These are from a company on Amazon called Evemodel who seem to do dozens of lighting related bits for model railways. 
At £15.99 for 5 they are great value. I went for the OO size as the O are overscale in my opinion.

Trouble is I need minimum 30 for each gantry! And there’s 7 gantry’s. 
 

12 hours ago, Simond said:

I think I’d go for fibreglass.  
 

It’ll mean making a mould (perhaps for a quarter of one tower) then casting as many parts as needed & bonding them together, but they can be ultra-thin, and really quite light - and importantly, they’ll stand up to the rigours of a travelling exhibition.

I think that is the best idea yet Simon. Thanks!

1 hour ago, Crepello said:

Drax chimney too please! I make that almost 6m high in O gauge!

I’ve been giving this idea a lot of thought.

It’s finding a material that can be made into the basic cooling tower shape, is light enough for two people to carry and stays in shape and doesn’t bow.
Possibly aluminium sheet? Not sure. 
6m is a tad high but 3m high is doable I think. 
 

These basic MPD sheds are big enough and I’ve a load more to build yet.!

Going to add drainpipes, change the roof structure to corrugated iron, ladders and air conditioning units for starters. 

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

That would be truly spectacular! Now you've said it I can't un-see it...

The trolley below the cooling towers could contain a theatrical fog machine for when the power station is operating?

Great idea!!

9 hours ago, Chris M said:

Have you thought of contacting the local BIDs (Business Improvement District)? There is one in Bristol and there is one for most reasonable sized towns. What you are doing is not quite what they were set up for but the people running BIDs are usually go ahead sort of people who want to bring visitors and attention to their area. These organisations tend to have a good knowledge of what is available in their area and have lots of contacts within local businesses. They might not be able to help but it could be worth an email.

 

Thanks Chris great idea. 
I was working with BID in Wakefield for the exhibition there as they helped me promote it, so I’ll ask for their contact in Bristol.

Thanks again  

2 hours ago, Ramblin Rich said:

It would be absolutely fantastic to get Heaton Lodge + guests into the old Brunel train shed at Bristol Temple Meads.  Tim Dunn just tweeted that it's had a clear out, but no idea if it will be available to hire at all.

https://twitter.com/MrTimDunn/status/1476965218739703810?t=eUtQbFMiKddWrX-ZHHuDNQ&s=19

I’ve been talking to the owners. It’s under renovation and not available until 2023 unfortunately 

I’ve looked into the Dept store idea in depth,    the issue is the landlords who are difficult to even communicate with, don’t like the idea of 1000’s of people traipsing through their property & aren’t keen on the short term ness of it all.

Also to be honest I need to make the next exhibition much larger with way more layouts & the trade. I’m pretty sure the latter are all on board which is great.
 It’s finding a venue that’s not massively expensive, good transport links and big. 
 

I always aimed to do just HLJ on its own initially so I could bank on the attendance from Wakefield being roughly replicated elsewhere. Then if I add many more layouts /trade the numbers will surely only increase.

It may end up being a more traditional exhibition with a few tweaks and HLJ as one of the main attractions who knows.

I’ll have something buttoned down next month I think 

5 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Bristol ?

, didn’t see that being next , would have made the 190 miles into 45 !

Ah sorry!

Its not confirmed yet anyway 

Thought I’d have a couple of weeks off after the expedition cough cough exhibition.

So today I’m in the basement all day trying to clear it up and this evening making the first of 10 Heljan MPD sheds.

Not had a bash at one of these before but it’s going together well. 
This is for the fiddle/marshalling yard. I’ve also ordered a big quantity of brass angle to fabricate the first of seven 1 metre tall lighting gantries. 

If I could add one other tip. I always insert a large sheet of reusable see through plastic sheet between the boards when constructing scenery.

That means you can ensure the scenery level is exactly the same on each board before pulling it out after all the polystyrene/PVA/static grass dries.

This also works very well with ballasting over board joints to avoid ugly splits in ballast when you take apart the boards 

17 hours ago, rob D2 said:

I was intrigued to see that there will be more scenic stuff on the fiddle side, I didn’t know that .

 

I noticed that no trains came down the long straight and went into the tunnel , they were coming out . Does the computer choose that or is it inconvenient to have them cross over the other running lines ?

Hi Rob well spotted! 
The answer is I had a major failure with a switched diamond which needs a full day fix. So decided to switch that down line out. Shame cos it’s got a lovely working banner repeater on it. 
It’ll be up for next time! 

2 hours ago, baglan said:

My wife and I visited HLJ on Friday last and thoroughly enjoyed a few hours admiring the scenery and trains and wondering at the fantastic detail.  Since then I discovered this thread and have really enjoyed reading the history of the making.  

I have one comment about the exhibition set up in Wakefield which I hope is constructive for future venues but was possibly not practical in WX Wakefield due to the building layout.  Everyone enters at the East end where there are a lot of interesting buildings and of course trains arriving from North and East through the tunnels.  During our visit there were a lot of people congregating in this area and staying for long periods.  Not good in Covid times and somewhat congested and jostly for those viewing.  At the middle of the model, near the junction there was more space to view the trains and appreciate the huge distance that the trains travel.  It would be better if people could perhaps enter near the middle, or at least away from a major point of interest, circulate one way and then everyone is more spread out when they reach the beginning or end.

Hi and thanks for the constructive comments.

At the venue there are only entrances at either end of the building.

I couldn’t justify opening both entrances as I haven’t the budget to staff both since they are 60 metres from each other. 
 

As with all exhibitions it’s impossible to control the flow of people, whatever you do. 

I did the best I could with what I had to play with 

Well after all this at least my mum is pleased as she’s about to appear on ARD German TV news who are doing a ‘good news story’ about the layout.!
 

I don’t know what she told them but I’m not bothered as it’s all in German obviously 

On 14/12/2021 at 20:12, Denbridge said:

I was hoping to make it to this show but events have conspired against me, sadly.

I note your comment regarding 2 week shows being exhausting and totally get it, will that affect future shows around the country as originally planned?

Nope I’ll just do 4 day events with more exhibition layouts as well as the trade etc 

The other day Neil Harvey visited the layout.
 

I used many of Neil’s photos on researching the location when I was originally researching it & on the information boards at the side of the model. 
This is one of his from the other day