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Class 92 or vacuum cleaner?

In the hope that I will receive my wheelsets in the not too distant future, I have set about completing the wiring under the main board. Nothing fancy, just a straightforward DCC Bus with breakouts for the track feed droppers, point motors and signal module. Two wires branch from the bus to be attached to the base station, and there is provision to extend the bus so that it can be joined the second board containing the storage tracks in due course. I have gone for DCC Concepts’ Cobalt Alpha Digital point motors which were very easy to connect up with simple connections for the DCC supply and frog feed. One thing I didn’t get right first time was the position of the holes for fixing the motors. I thought (trying to be clever) that I would drill holes for the screws from the top of the board. Even with the jig provided, I guess I didn’t drill them square, or maybe I didn’t use the jig correctly. The upshot was I had to do them again. Fortunately they were so far out that it was just a case of drilling new holes using the jig as a guide and filling the old ones. The card board rectangles by the way are the base flanges for the Kadee decoupling magnets. Incidentally, none of ballast fell off whilst the layout was on its side - which was a bit of a bonus 🙂

The posts will be trimmed and a more substantial base fitted, once I have re-gauged my rolling stock so that I can establish the correct loading gauge (… still waiting for the wheels…).

To accompany the Grain Elevator, and again based on photographs of the facilities at Muir of Ord, I have constructed a wagon unloading shed using the remainder of the Wills Sheets and some Evergreen Strip / H-Profile. The internal access platforms were left over from a Wills Girder Bridge kit.

Ah so no need for rule 1 then - just 8 more axles to re-gauge! I have just done a quick search for George O'Hara's book, as it sounds like it could be a good resource. Is it "BR Diesel Traction in Scotland"? Richard

Thanks! Regarding a Class 40: the release crossover is big enough, just. The question is whether such a mammoth is justified for the short trains that can fit into the rest of the layout! There is always Rule 1 of course....

Thanks! According to the pictures that I have seen, the base level is concrete. Painting ( and weathering ) will definitely be fun...

The assembled building, minus doors and glazing prior to painting:

Wills Panels cut and joined together prior to assembly:

The original layout plan by Ian Futers’ suggested a cattle dock for the kick-back siding. However in order to justify the continued existence of this branch and its terminus into the BR Diesel period (as well as giving my BRT Grain Wagons a destination) I have re-purposed this as an unloading siding for a grain elevator and storage silos for some nearby distilleries. I was going to use the Scalescenes low relief kit, modified to full relief, but searching around the internet suggested that this building was more typical of southern England rather than northern Scotland! So instead I have taken the scratch building route, and using (a lot of) Wills Corrugated Asbestos sheets built a grain-elevator loosely based on the one that was at Muir of Ord. It is not a scale model by any means, in that I dimensioned it by counting the panels of the real thing from a photograph, and the Wills panels look somewhat squatter than those on the real thing. This results in the model being much less tall than the prototype, but I think that helps with regard to fitting it in with the rest of the layout.

Neat: I have an example of 92003 on order as it happens, so I will now be making a headboard for it to commemorate this… … unless Accurascale would like to oblige ;-)

Thanks! I used Scalescenes TX18a Roof Tiles, printed onto self-adhesive paper, then cut into one row strips and attached to the roof from bottom to top using the original laser markings as a guide. The pitch is just right so that each strip slightly overlaps the one below it.

Buffer stops by the way are a combination of Highland Railway and LMS types, assembled from Lanarkshire Models' Kits

The goods shed sits in a plinth, constructed from 1mm cardboard clad in brickpaper. The plinth is "planted" into the baseboard, and the shed slots into the plinth, thus eliminating any gap between the shed and the ground, whilst allowing the shed to be removed for access to the track for cleaning.

The goods shed was constructed using the Pop-Up-Scenes kit as a basis. As with the station building it was clad in Evergreen Battening Sheet (0.01" Spacing, #4543). I didn't use the doors that came with the kit, which at 3mm thick I found to be a bit chunky, instead making them from 1mm thick plasticard, with planking scribed by hand. The sliding door runners and hangers were constructed from plasticard strip. Guttering is Wills and Downpipes Ratio. Glazing was done using Deluxe “Glue and Glaze” (which was also used for the station. The battening was painted using a mix of 2 parts Revell 06 Tar Black with 1 Part Revell 84 Leather Brown, whilst the doors were painted Leather Brown, and the ironwork (guttering, hinges, runners etc) Revell 74 Gun Ship Grey. The window frames were picked out in Games Workshop Corax White.

On the roof I used Scalescenes TX18a Roof Tiles. The ridge tiles were formed over a 1mmx1mm square section strip. Flashing around the Chimneys is also Scalescenes, TX00b Roof Flashing.

You might also want to have a look at this thread, I found it very useful. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/162467-seeking-dornoch-station-photographs/

The battening was brush painted using Games Workshop Wraithbone for the Cream and Revell 84 Leather Brown for the dark brown. Guttering, Window Frame outers and the Doors were picked out in the leather brown, with Games Workshop Corax White used for the inner Window Frames. Masking the battening to separate the cream and brown areas was quite tricky. First I loosely laid Tamiya Tape along the section to be masked and then working from left to right pressed the tape into each batten groove using an ice lolly stick. The brown was then applied with a lightly loaded brush in stages.

The magnets together with their steel intensifiers are some 7mm thick. My cork base is only 2mm thick, so I had to cut slots in the baseboard. I didn't want to hang the magnets from the track itself as the magnets are quite heavy and the track quite fragile. Richard

Although the track is laid and ballasted, and the electrical connections checked with a multi-meter, the layout hasn't yet been tested with rolling stock owing to the fact that the wheel sets that I ordered are going to be a little while yet still. So rather than start building up baseboard scenery (in case it turns out that some rectification to the track is needed) I am focussing on the layout's buildings, starting with the station building. The layout is looking to represent a fictitious branch line terminus north of Inverness, so I am using the Pop-Up-Designs Dornoch Station kit as a basis. Following the methods described in the article by Chris Leigh in the July issue of Model Rail, I have enhanced the basic kit by cladding it in Evergreen Board and Battening together with Scalescenes Brick and Slate papers. I have also embellished it with Ratio Guttering and Wills Chimney Pots. The clock was made by attaching a paper clock face to a drawing pin head.

I haven't decided on a precise location yet, but I am looking to set it in northern Scotland as a fictitious branch off the Far North or Skye Lines, so architecture will be based on that found on the Highland Railway and the Dornoch Light Railway. To that end I am using the Pop-Up-Designs Dornoch Station and Highland Goodshed kits as a basis, together with the PECO Highland Signal Box. Period is rather vague, but post nationaIisation, anytime between late 50s to mid 70s - I have some BR Blue, BR Green and BR Steam rolling stock that I would like to use...

Thanks, I thought it better if the magnet's weight was supported seperately from underneath rather than by the track itself. Richard

With the track laid and point rodding installed, the area around the track bed was rattle-can-sprayed first with acrylic matt black and then acrylic matt chocolate, (having masked the moving bits of the pointwork first) to give a mucky look. A plinth for the goodshed was installed and then ballasting was applied. At the throat end of the layout to represent fairly clean ballast, a mixture of Noch HO / TT scale Red-Brown (09367) and Brown (09372) Ballast chippings was used. Towards the bufferstop end and for the release crossover, Noch HO/TT scale Dark Gray (09376) was added to the mixture to represent muckier and oily ballast, where the locomotives would have been standing. For the sidings Busch dark grey Quarzsand (7524) was used to represent ash ballasting. In due course these will be treated with some static grass...

The track was fixed to the baseboard using PVA Glue applied to every 10th sleeper or so, and held in place with drawing pins until it had set. Once set, Wills Point Rodding was fitted. Compared to the finescale bullhead rail, the rodding is a bit chunky / overscale, but on the otherhand it was not too fiddly to assemble, and with the right painting and after ballasting, I think it will do.

Wire droppers made using 1mm dia multistrand wire. Although the joints are good, soldering this type and size wire to finescale bullhead rail was bit tricky. I think next time I will use a single core wire for this. Once fitted to the board, a cut down sleeper will be inserted to fill the gap.