Grimly Feendish

I've just watched Andy's video and enjoyed it very much, particularly the information from Jason and Kit. I shall be trying to find time to watch Kits lecture. I've just put a deposit on one, and I can rationalize that in many ways, but it boils down to "I want one". I may have to build a layout to accommodate it I do hope this is successful and encourages Rapido to introduce an N gauge version APT-E and a Prototype HST. John

Thanks for the opportunity to put in my vote Dave. For me it would be decently shaped 4mm classes 24 and 25. All versions of the 25. In BR Blue. That is all. John.

Bill, This looks like a great idea. Just curious, is the jig manufactured with 3D printing technology? Best, John.

Dazzler Fan, the catalog I found is at http://www.cgskies.com/browse.php?type=overcast Thanks for all the kind comments everyone. John

Well, it's been a while but I eventually found some more railway time. On a previous post I bemoaned my lack of artistic skill when it came to painting clouds. I also tried a plain grey backscene to try to create a feeling of a dull overcast day. Unfortunately I felt that it just looked like a grey bit of wood and didn't contribute to the effect I wanted. Given all this I started to think about photo backscene. A lot of searching on the internet didn't turn up anything close to what I wanted, so I started to think about taking my own photos. Unfortunately, living in Chicagoland, which is 1) very built up and 2) very flat, isn't conducive to sweeping skyscapes. So I went back to the internet and started looking at photo sites. I wanted a long, thin photo. Final size about 132" x 18", or 11' x 1.5'. Looking for something that would print up to these dimensions with a reasonable dpi limited choices a lot. Eventually I found a few possibilities, I think they were aimed at people producing 3D computer models and animations. The trouble was I really wanted one I didn't have to pay for. After much searching without finding anything for free I decided to bite the bullet and pay the $30 or so for one. Once I had the image I had to get it printed. Because of the dimensions I needed, finding a vendor who could print it wasn't that easy, but it wasn't too hard either. It's just a case of reading the vendors websites very carefully and doing some research on the terms used in the industry and on the equipment they use. I eventually decided on a small outfit in New Mexico and within a week or so I had a very nice but very long print. The next problem was how to fix it to the backscene. The backscene it's self is hardboard, by now covered with a few coats of grey latex paint of course. In my innocence I had just imagined I could just glue it on to the the hardboard. Once I had the print it was pretty obvious, even to me, that this wouldn't be very acceptable. Imagine trying to stick an 11' photo down in one go, to an uneven vertical surface and ending up with no bumps ripples or tears and you'll start to see the problem. Originally I had hoped to have curved corners. I realised though that the problem of mounting the print coupled with the small space I had available, which would make the corners pretty tight, would make it very difficult. Therefore I opted for the "sky with corners" solution. After a long conversation with a chap at my local arts supply shop I decided on mounting the image on foam board using adhesive sheets rather than spray on adhesive. Commandeering our table-tennis table and taking my courage in both hands I managed to mount the whole image in one go. I used 5/16" foam core board. Of course I couldn't get a foam core sheet long enough, so I had to use 3 pieces held together by the image on the front and duct tape on the back. I then cut the mounted image into 3, these being the 2 end pieces and one long back piece. I'm fairly pleased with the result, especially considering I had never even mounted a 6"x4" photo before. I'm not too sure the scaling/sizing is right, but I think it does capture the atmosphere I wanted much better than grey hardboard. See for yourself in the pictures below. It was difficult to do it justice with the lighting and space I had available but hopefully you get the idea. John.

In an attempt to tidy the appearance a bit I added a fascia, colored grey of course. The picture also shows that I added a control panel. The controller is a Digitrax Zephyr unit. I added a switch panel to control the turnouts, even though they are under DCC control. The switch panel is an aluminium panel with a paper trackplan on it, all covered by that material known to people my age as "sticky back plastic". The switches are momentary SPDT minature toggles. The exception is the DPDT switch on the top left of the panel, which lets me use that siding for operations or as a DCC programming track. The switches are connected to the NCE "Switch-It" units I use for control of the Tortoise motors. The "Switch-Its" allow control either from the panel switches or the Digitrax controller. I know this is overkill, but hey, it's my train set!

That photo does it for me! As you say, look at the variety of types on display! It seemed like whenever you visited somewhere away from your "patch" there was something different to see. There seemed to be a lot more variety of things happening on the railway then. I'm sure the pre-BR modlers say the same thing about the blue era... Perhaps I'm just getting old and nostalgic Happy days. John

This looks like it will be a wonderful model. I really appreciate the effort that is going in to it to get it right. Just for the record, I would buy a sound equiped one (if it was in BR Blue ). If it came without sound the first thing I would do would be to buy a sound decoder for it. Cheers, John.

Shortliner, thanks for the links. He makes it look so easy, it's facinating. Way beyond my ability at present I'm affraid, but I'd like to dabble some time in the future. Jon020, thanks for the ideas. I've decided to go with a photo backscene after seeing an example on this site. I'll post details when I get to that stage. Cheers, John

I wanted the overall effect of the layout to be a somewhat dreary urban scene. Somehow the idea of the bright blue skies that one so often sees on backdrops didn't seem appropriate. I settled on grey, but do you know how many shades of grey there are! The backdrop its self was made from hardboard. It's held up with simple batons screwed into the back of the baseboard framework. I thought it would be very easy to get the shade of grey too dark, but my first attempt was way too light. You can see this in the photos. My attempts at painting clouds also ended in disaster. So I ended up with graduated shades of grey, which hopefully will portray an overcast, dull day. I have to say I'm not very happy with the result. The real sky doesn't have right angles for a start. Not being able to paint clouds was a drawback, and the featureless backscene doesn't look too good IMHO. Since one of the purposes of the layout is for me to learn and improve I decided to go with it for the time being and either come back to it later if I was struck by inspiration or to just do it differently on my next layout.

The green baseboard didn't fit in with my plans for a dirty, grimy urban scene. Keeping with the low cost theme, a scan of our paint tins revealed this lovely brown which was more in keeping with the grot I had in mind. The track is code 83, reused form the last layout. The pointwork is mostly re-used Walthers. I was short of a couple of No 5 Lefthand turnouts, but I couldn't find any one with Walthers versions in stock, even on the interweb. So I tried out a couple of Peco code 83 jobs. They work very well and should look fine after some suitable weathering. I had intended to use Kadee Delayed "Between the Rails" uncouplers, but even though this isn't intended to be a finescale layout I thought they didn't look too good. So I finally went for their "Under the track" version.

I wanted to re-use as much material from the old layout as possible. This included the baseboard. The previous benchwork was much more extensive and had been built following the methods recommended by the Westcott book Model RailRoad Benchwork, hence it was strong enough to support the weight of your average family car. I was able to reuse enough parts that I didn't have to buy any new timber and the amount of carpentry required was minimal. One of the reasons for flipping the track plan was that it used more of the turnouts I already had.

For me there is definitely a strong aspect of nostalgia and trying to recapture my yoof. For example the excitement of seeing a Wezzie at New Street, or my first glimpse of a Peak. Those excursions to London when you would try to do as many of the termini as you could, perhaps see some deltics at Kings Cross, copping all those exotic ER locos. A midland railrover, getting some peak haulage on the NE-SW route between Derby and Gloucester, an EMU out to Bescot. etc etc. Happy and formative years, from when I was about 11 to 18. Looking back it was a great way to build confidence, navigating around the country with my mates and without parents. Many carefree hours spent on platform ends around the country. Unfortunately I then discovered beer, girls and motorbikes.Looking back, just when I got some cash, a camera and wheels and could have spent some time taking photos that would be facinating now, I decided that trainspotting wasn't cool. Not my smartest decision - doh! I think also because I have the best understanding of that era as opposed to others it draws my interest more than others. The variety of the railways then makes it more interesting to model than, say, the present day IMHO. Of course earlier eras had even more variety, shorter trains etc. that would make them better subjects to model, but I guess you go back to what you know. I wonder if as the modllers in the market age, we will see manufacturers shift their emphasis as they respond to it. At the moment we seem to have a lot of British Railways era products on the market. I wonder as we age and more people of my generation get to the stage of life where they have some spare cash as empty nesters or retirees we will see more emphasis on the BR Blue era. Thanks for allowing me to reminise, I just came over all nostalgic

Thanks Mikkel, I like the expression "slow modeller"!

After a period of research, studying Model Railroader back-numbers and some excellent small layout sites, I came across The Highland Terminal by Scot Osterweil in Model Railroad Planning 2005. You can see it described here. The original plan is for a 6' x 1' layout that is sized for 40' cars. Since I had a little more space I resized it to 8' x 1.5' and to accommodate 50' cars. I felt that for the era I had in mind, 40' cars would be a little old fashioned. I also flipped the plan so that the incoming track could be connected to an extension if I ever felt like building one. Without the flip the incoming track would go straight into a wall!

How many layouts will I have to start before I finish one? I'm doing this blog to document my fifth attempt at a model railway. Needless to say that the other four never got finished. My previous attempt probably came along the furthest before I lost interest. This was attempt number four, which took a few years to get this far. I lost interest in it after a couple of years due to the lack of operational possibilities. So, at the end of 2008 I tore it down, vowing to build something smaller that might actually get finished. I'm hoping that documenting its construction here might help to motivate me to work on the thing regularly. You never know, other modelers may actually read this and I might get some peer pressure The story of the layout starts in 2009 and It's not finished yet. If you'll bear with me, I thought I'd document progress in a linear fashion and bring you up to date as time allows, One of the big motivations for tearing down the old layout was that the family wanted that part of the basement back. Unreasonable, yes, but being the dutiful father and husband that I am I gave in. This left me with the prospect of a much smaller area to work with. You know those delusional people who tell you there's no such thing as a problem, only opportunities? Well, this left me with the "opportunity" to build a smaller layout, one that could conceivably be finished in a normal human life time. So, what to build? My real railway love is for the "Banger" Blue era of British Railways in the late 70's and early 80's, the days of my yoof. My aspirations for a BR Blue layout are greater than my current modeling skills will allow. I wanted a simple project that I could use to reduce the level of hamfistedness in my modeling. The idea of a US outline layout was also appealing, after all I live here and am trying to learn what I can about US railroads. I remember reading a series of articles on building a small layout by one of my favorite model railroading authors, Iain Rice. One of his suggestions was to build layouts that are real shelf layouts. That is, you use a space for an operating layout, but when you are ready you simply exchange this for another one of similar size, that is stored in a separate area, e.g. a shelf higher up. This seems like a good concept for me. Build a simple layout that would be fun to operate and that I could hone some modelling skills on. If I ever finished that then I could build a British outline layout of a similar size and store the first one on a shelf. So, it would be a smallish, US outline shelf layout. The era would be diesel, as that's what I like. And it needed to be fun to operate!