Chamby

Hi Jamie, I just discovered your thread. You've done really well to fit your mainline layout into such a small space, and its starting to look like a proper layout too! Keep up the good work, Phil

BASEBOARDS This layout is not intended to be exhibited, but given that it is likely to evolve and hopefully grow in time, I needed it to be transportable. Plywood box construction was chosen, and sufficient boards of the right size were ordered from White Rose Modelworks. Given the space constraints of half-a-room, a width of 400 and 600 mm was ordered, and 1200mm in length. The flat-packed boards duly arrived and I was impressed with the quality of timber used, and they went together very well, albeit with a lot of PVA glue and the help of a mallet in places! One board along each length was cut down a little, to allow about three inches of 'wiggle room' within the available room dimensions, to ease erection and dismantling of the layout. The White Rose boards came with a few small holes along their length, ideal to use as pilot holes for the alignment dowels. Brass pattern makers dowels were used, sourced from the interweb, two being used for each baseboard join, and No.6 bolts being used to hold the boards together. Brass pattern makers dowels: A view of a baseboard end. Pattern makers dowels ensure perfect alignment every time. Two 8mm holes on the outside of the dowels are for the retaining bolts. 6mm bolts with wing-nuts fit through these holes to hold adjacent boards together. Some of the pre-laser-drilled pilot holes are visible along the centre line of the baseboard end, these make aligning the dowels and bolt-holes a simple task. Wiring connections are made using computer D plugs recessed into the end plate: A view underneath the boards, showing the joints secured by the bolts. The additional discs of plywood are glued to the main boards to provide extra thickness where the alignment dowels and bolts are used: I spent some time deliberating about baseboard height. I would need to be able to 'duck under' the boards to access the operating well. In the end I settled on a baseboard height of about 50 inches (1250mm) which has worked really well. This gives me an eye-level view of the layout when I sit in my office chair. I also have a couple of bar stools which are the ideal height for operating the layout. There is plenty of room under the layout for storing all my stuff. The extra height makes it much easier to work underneath the baseboards. As the layout was to be transportable, I decided to keep the main circuit and MPD free-standing, so not affixed to the walls. IKEA's IVAR shelving units were used to support the layout, being robust enough and with timber framing they could be easily cut to the right height. A batten fixed to the top of each upright provides a good seat for the baseboards, and the shelves themselves provide rigidity and useful storage space: Using the sectional boards gives me the flexibility I need. It should be relatively easy to 'drop in' an extra board or two if I, as hoped, am able to relocate to a larger space. Boards can be easily removed for working on, for either doing messy work such as static grass application or working on the underside. Happy days!

LAYOUT DESIGN AND EVOLUTION Initially, I had half a room to work with, fortunately I was able to negotiate a split along the length of the room, allowing me to take advantage of the maximum possible length of 15'9" (4.8 metres). It was tempting to build the classic format with a station along one side, and a fiddle yard down the other to park up the trains. But I like running trains, which is why a full circuit was a given, and I like seeing trains run through the countryside. Leicester Central station was long and relatively thin, raised above the surrounding city on a brick arched viaduct. With two long outer platforms and four bays (two inset at each end of the station), it was an elongated H shape with several passing loops running down either side. Almost like a fiddle-yard in fact. Copyright prevents me from posting original images here, but you can access a range of images on google. By extending the four central bay platforms to meet up with each other in the middle of the station, four full-length platforms would become available, increasing capacity. And by building the layout using sectional baseboards, if a longer model railway room becomes available in the future, it would be possible to insert an additional section in the middle to re-instate the bays, build the central station buildings and achieve a closer to scale length. Station sorted then, for now. The return run down the middle of the room would be an open run, but of necessity on relatively narrow boards 400mm wide. Leicester Central saw a fascinating variety of trains, including a number of inter-regional cross-country services, more of which later. But locomotive exchanges at Leicester were an operational feature that I wanted to replicate. An MPD was also possible along one end wall, giving rise to this first iteration of the layout, and construction started in the winter of 2016: In 2019 we converted the garage in our home and I was hoping to move the model railway there, giving me an extra four feet of length. However the back room in our home is dark, whereas the garage was bright and sunny, with views over the local cove out to a headland and the open sea. My wife is an artist, so she won the discussion and I got the back room. However, there was room for me to have a dedicated modelling bench in the former garage, allowing me to have the whole back room for the railway. Fiddling around with options, I settled on a plan to insert a small additional section of baseboard that would open up the operating well, and ease the curves at each end of the layout. This work was undertaken as the winter project in 2019, as follows: Finally, during 2020's lockdown, I also installed 'kickback' sidings to represent off-scene carriage sidings for additional train storage. So the current state of the layout is as follows: A double-track mainline circuit, 15'9" x 7'6", with a station able to take 8-coach trains, an MPD at one end, carriage sidings at the other, and the circuit completed by a decent open run through countryside: Next: Musings on baseboard construction.

Re: cobbling together signal boxes, have you taken a look at the stuff produced by LCUT? They sell laser-cut signal box elements, as well as a lot of other really useful bits for stations, industrial buildings, bridges and retaining walls etc. You can either buy the complete kit, or individual components. I have found the proprietor to be very helpful and efficient. www.lcut.co.uk

INDEX Page 1: Layout design and evolution; Baseboards; Trackwork; Control System; The Station; Embankments and cuttings Page 2: Working Timetable; A 'steel' train; Bachmann's new V2; Weathering; The Station Build; Roads and pavement Page 3: Station detailing; Hydraulic buffer stops; Signal boxes; Warehouses; Turntable installation. Page 4:

Encouraged by others within this forum, I have decided to start a blog about my own retirement project. . . Initial posts will mostly be retrospective, so that the story can be told properly, but I will try not to dwell too much in the past, and post a few images here 'up front' to give you a flavour of what's to come. The railway room size is currently 15'9" by 11'0 in old money, it's a room on the ground floor of my home that initially I shared with my wife, who also has a space-demanding hobby, but following a garage conversion that has become her art studio, I now have it all to myself. The objective of the layout and my associated modelling is to try and portray a reasonable representation of the ex-GC; ex-LNER London Extension as it passes through the East Midlands. A model of Nottingham Victoria and Weekday Cross would be the dream, but I have to be a little more realistic. Leicester Central is another location of interest, especially regarding the operational variety it presents, but also because I was a student at Leicester Poly in the mid 1970's and the laboratories where I was based were near to the landmark 'Bowstring Bridge' across Braunstone Gate. I also wanted to model some open countryside for trains to run through, so that the station does not become the whole layout. A decision was made to build a representation of Leicester Central station, acknowledging that my model version would be heavily constrained by both space and my own abilities. Plans were drawn up, boards purchased from 'White Rose' model works, and work commenced in the winter of 2016-17. So to be clear from the outset: this layout will be a best effort by one person to build a believable layout loosely based on a real location, to a decent standard of modelling... but it will not be an exact replica owing to constraints in space, time and my abilities, in that order. The period modelled is 1948-53ish, a time when LNER livery initially gave way to BRITISH RAILWAYS lettering for about 18 months before cycling lion's and custard and cream arrived, so lots of variety. DCC would be exclusively used for control and operation. But the layout would also, at times, give two fingers to Dr Beeching and be used run my Western Region and Clay Country steam, blue diesel and sectorisation-era stock, these other interests allowing me to be a fully contributing participant on the exhibition circuit with my local model railway club. So my apologies in advance to the purists here, if some photographs include out-of-era stock! I shall keep the second post of this thread as an index, to be continually updated, but herewith a few pictures to help you decide if my ramblings will be of interest: An overview of the station area, loosely based on Leicester Central but currently with the end bay platforms extended to join each other, making a through run down the middle of the station: This shows the direction I intend to take my modelling, though much still to do even here: The tender needs modifying, lamps added and the ashpan lever turned the right way round... A rather scrappy view of the layout and railway room, showing a part of the countryside section leading to the station and the MPD. I hope to widen the baseboards now that I'm not sharing the room! A photo showing the current state of play, January 2021. So much still to do, but more bits are steadily taking shape now. Phil.

I think have disproved the ‘30 foot rule’ for the optimum length of a model railway! Nice one.

May I ask, what are you viewing the photo’s on this forum on? I find it makes a huge difference. I use either my smartphone, tablet or a Mac with a 28” screen to access RMweb and have to say that where posters use hi-res images they normally look absolutely stunning on the Mac. I agree that you can’t beat seeing layouts in the flesh, but often posters take photos from angles and positions that are simply inaccessible at exhibitions or physical viewings. 4479’s post above is an example, what an excellent picture! And in lockdown especially, I do get a ‘wow’ when people share such motivating images. Photo’s bring these threads to life, and as they say... “a picture paints a thousand words”. (Note to self).

I had the pleasure of knowing Joe Rowe, we attended the same Model Railway club in the 1980’s. A very humble and talented man, such a nice guy, he was a toolmaker at DeHavilland’s if I recall correctly. He invited me to drive ‘Hush Hush’ round his loft layout on one occasion, and showed me the working reversing gear (in 4mm), his work was absolutely stunning for its day. And his wife was as good at making cake for the lads, as he was at modelling! Happy days...

In the UK of course. Although Kitson’s of Leeds we’re building Pacifics for export as early as 1903... The first Pacific’s to run in Europe were French, around 1907. British railway companies were very late to that party!

And the thread is less rich because of it, I feel. It has been noticeable recently, the content seems to be more dialogue and less sharing of modelling. But maybe that’s more to do with lockdown? We are a mixed community, to which I am a relative latecomer, but feel privileged to have been accepted as a participant. There is clearly a core of people who know each other well and have friendships going back decades in some cases. Harsh banter is acceptable in such friendships, but perhaps it invites a similar level of criticism from others where the depth of friendship hasn’t developed to the same extent, and the mutual respect hasn’t reached such a mature level. Mutual respect is earned over time, and the deep respect developed by some members of WW towards each other is very evident on here. I thank everyone on WW for making me so welcome here, despite me being an ‘outsider’ to the inner circle, having never seen Little Bytham or Retford in the flesh, and only becoming personally acquainted with Tony through his stand at Warley each year. In lockdown, this thread is a wonderful source of modelling interest, knowledge and banter and it has improved my own modelling subject awareness and understanding substantially. To all those who post their stuff up on here, knowing that social media can be harsh and cold at times, I am very grateful. Please, don’t be put off by the meanie trolls, the vast majority of us are most appreciative.

Tony, I think the question perhaps should be... why does it matter? Anything other than absolute accuracy down to the point of counting individual rivets, takes you into the slippery subject of what level of accuracy is acceptable. That, as we have discussed before, is different for different people, and can vary considerably across different aspects of modelling, from lamps to crests to shades of green, subtleties in the profile of tumblehomes or roof profiles... the list is endless! The reality is is that joe public and the majority of railway modellers for that matter, have no idea whether a tender should have an extra strip across the bottom of it, or not. They probably haven’t even noticed that some tenders have them, and others don’t. The fact that different styles of tenders were swapped between locomotives at different times in their lifespan makes it a very specialised and minority subject such that few would be able to criticise from retained knowledge, whilst observing a model in the exhibition hall. Even on this forum, we have to constantly refer to photographic sources to check up on such details. So, playing devils advocate here... what are people’s thoughts on why it does matter? I don’t think I will ever get a model 100% correct... so why do we beat ourselves up so much about these historical minutiae?

I favour keeping the signal box in front of where the modratec panel is going. It will allow the panel operator to easily imagine being sat in the box right in front of them. A more realistic operator experience.

Sounds like the lack of a check rail is part of the problem, but the geometry means you can’t fit one immediately opposite the problem area. In which case, is there enough space to fit an additionalcheck rail ahead of the problem area to improve the bogie’s angle of approach?

Taking this concept a logical step further, I wonder what Thompson’s rebuild of such a locomotive might have become... a 6-6-2 perhaps? Or a W2 maybe?

I've steadily been populating my fleet with crew, of late. I started using a mix of Bachmann and ModelU, but have more recently discovered a new range from YouChoos. Like ModelU, they are naturally posed 3D printed figures, but retail for a third of the price. They don't do people with shovels, but then firemen aren't always shovelling are they... Also the crispness of the printing is not as sharp as ModelU, but for loco crew they are fine. I had a load of them for Christmas and have been painting them up:

Rob, a question if I may. How much of the weathering in these images is done digitally, and how much is modelled physically? It looks as is these models have been rather more than just ‘unboxed’!

Tony... like Polybear says, if you enjoy painting your loco's, then you should do it, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the quality of what you've shown above. Re: whether to weather, I suggest that no weathering is better than bad weathering, but when done well, following observation of the prototype, it can really enhance a model. The ubiquitous muddy brown favoured by RTR manufacturers doesn't cut it with me, but some of the specialist suppliers do a nice job, and it is a skill that I am determined to acquire for myself. One thing that I don't like though, is when weathering on a layout is too uniform and just makes everything look the same. Just wafting a matt brown/grey over everything is not observed weathering. This photo shows a pair of the same model (Hornby's J92) - one has been renumbered and fitted with Kadee's but is otherwise out-of-the-box, the other is weathered by TMC, I picked it up from one of their clearance sales. I still want to add more subtlety to the weathered version but as they say, a picture speaks a thousand words:

Maybe Sir might decree a diesel day on WW, as a lockdown special event? I’m sure that most of us have got one or two claggy little secrets hidden away somewhere. I’ll show you mine, if you’ll show me yours...

You read it wrong, St Enodoc.... It’s not The world’s greatest model railway, built by Bertram Otto. It’s The world’s greatest model railway built by Bertram Otto. The missing comma makes all the difference! I don’t profess to know which model railway is the worlds greatest. I haven’t seen them all!

That’s a pretty good description of Graham Muspratt’s Fisheron Sarum layout. It works very well as an exhibition layout, so long as you’re not offended by Malachite green!

A good club exhibition will have a variety of layouts - examples of top quality modelling, layouts with trains rattling by in quick succession to entertain, layouts with more engrossing operational stuff going on, and of course something for the kids. And trade stalls that sell more than just grotty old Triang Hornby stuff. What makes the biggest difference for me at exhibitions though, is that (whatever the layout), the operators are focused on putting on a show for the paying public. Far too often, I see layouts with not a lot going on, apart from ‘operators’ chatting amongst themselves and regarding the event as primarily a social opportunity. As is so often the case, it’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it....

With a roof that high, you could have modelled an alpine layout. Then the temperature would be prototypical as well...

Priceless. I do the same, more frequently that I care to admit.... It’s a good tonic during lockdown.

Tony, those photo’s of LB in its context are definitely worth showing, they are very informative. Re: LB’s overall design, is there anything that you would change, with the benefit of hindsight?