Chris64B

Hi all, Friday afternoon update for you… I’ve now pretty much finished the improvements to the HST coaches, mainly focused on painting and populating the interiors but also some external enhancements too. They’ve had: Fully painted and detailed seats and tables. Fitted seated passengers. Simple luggage area/vestibule walls constructed. Painted the insides of the coach to stop light bleed/transparency including yellow vestibule ends etc. Re-painted some bits of the coach exteriors such as the first class yellow stripe, door handles, steps etc. Removed the redundant jumper cables and buffer fixings, replacing them with a new buffer beam piece of plasticard and re-shaping the bottom of the corridor doors to suit (I’ve left the incorrect corridor doors and the big couplings for now as I might try and improve these another time). New transfers including no smoking and first class stickers, warning flashes, data panels, new Intercity branding and re-numbering. They still need weathering but here are some pics... First class: Standard class: Bit better than the original white plastic! And the buffet car painted and detailed with reference to this great photo: http://locomotive.wikia.com/wiki/File:Original_buffet_on_hst.jpg You can only just see the illuminated menu through the windows but I thought it was a nice touch! Next time I’ll share some updates on the improved layout lighting. Cheers, Chris

I love the interiors of the buildings and offices in the yard Dave, well done they are a great touch! Where are your figures from, they are very realistic? And are they all fixed in position or just balanced so you can move them around? Cheers, Chris

It's massive! Good work!

Thanks Kev! Crumbs that was a nasty accident - sort of wish I hadn't read about it while sitting on the train home today!!

Do you mean in courses? One red, one blue? I was trying to avoid having to do that!

P.S. Any thoughts on what colour I should paint all the brickwork on the viaduct and retaining wall? I just can't decide between red or engineering brick.

Thanks Meanach - I've been checking out your thread and I'm very impressed with your lovely layout so that's very generous coming from you! That would be fun one day, trouble is I think I'd need my kids to be grown up and retired from my job! One day.... Cheers, Chris

Thanks Coryton - Yeah, it's well worth it, especially if you are adding lights as that just highlights the basic interior. I went for the battery ones as I'm on DC so didn't want them turning off everytime the train stopped. Cheers, Chris

Thanks for the kind comments all!

Hi everyone and a belated Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s been so long since the last update, but it’s the same old story, life getting in the way! I’ll bring you up to speed… It’s taken an age but construction of the viaduct is finally complete, bar painting! I’m pleased with how it’s turned out: It now runs nicely into the girder bridge at one end: And the retaining wall alongside the station at the other: The retaining wall has been taking up a lot of time too, but it’s nearly done, including the curved end where I used the kettle to steam and bend the wood underneath in shape! I’ve been using non-solvent based UHU glue to stick the SE Finecast brick sheet to the wood and it seems to work well. I just can’t decide what colour to paint it all – red brick or blue engineering brick – any thoughts? I think I’m favouring red brick at the moment. To give myself a break from all this tedious wall construction I’ve been spending some time recently improving the Hornby HST coaches. We got some coach lighting kits for Christmas from http://www.layouts4u.net/coachlighting.html - they are the battery powered ones with a little magnetic reed switch and they are really effective: (The soldering iron jumped and attacked me while doing this – my fingers are still recovering!) Having put them in, I decided to paint the backs of the side windows to stop light bleed in the wrong places. A bit fiddly but worth it in the end. Of course adding lights only serves to highlight the fact that the interior is all one colour and pretty basic, so I’ve spend some time painting and detailing it. I started with the first class and buffet coach and found a good original interior shot of first class here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/54701885@N03/11842511814/in/photostream/ - and a useful RMWeb thread here - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/27726-br-mk3-interiors/ So here’s my attempt – started painting the seats orange: To replicate the little white headrests, I used some off-cuts from the SE finecast brick sheet, and cut out individual bricks for them! I've carefully painted the edges of the tables to make them stand out and I’ve also tried printing the striped carpet onto paper, but need to play around with this a bit more. I need to give it all a spray of matt varnish and add some people, but here’s how it looks in the dark so far: I’m also taking the opportunity to improve the outside of the coaches too – I can live with the fact they’ve only got 7 windows instead of 8 (the shorter length is better on our tight curves and relatively short platforms) but I thought I could improve the detailing (and weather them in due course) so I’ve started trimming off the redundant cable details and bought some new transfers from Fox and Railtec (great service from both) and some new wheelsets: So that’s about it for now – I’ve treated myself to some new Bachmann Mk2 coaches and we got a lovely Mk1 miniature buffet coach for Christmas so that’s partially inspired the improvements to the old Hornby coaches. Cheers, Chris

Crumbs - Bit of a close call! Get well soon Andy, hopefully you'll be back moddelling in no time!

Brilliant thanks for the swift response Flood - just what I was hoping for! I was a bit puzzled by them being 'unclassified' as you say. Hope your cold improves soon!

Holy thread resurrection Batman! Hi all, Having fitted lighting to some of my BR blue/grey HST coaches, I'm painting the interiors to add a bit more detail. I've found some useful threads and a couple of photos on the normal first class and standard class interior colours (orange and blue respectively) but I'm stuggling with the interior colours for the TRUB restaurant-buffet car. I found a great photo of the buffet area - see here (you might need your sun glasses ): http://locomotive.wikia.com/wiki/File:Original_buffet_on_hst.jpg but can anyone confirm what colour the seating would be in the rest of the carriage? I can't find a picture anywhere! Many thanks, Chris

Sounds good - for what it's worth I used the Black Cat inspection pit lighting kits mentioned in that thread. I was pleased with them, they are a bit more money than DIY but have that neat variable resistor built in and fitted the Scalescenes inspection pit perfectly. How are you thinking of doing the concrete hardstanding? In my yard I used the Wills Cement Rendering sheets - they've got a nice subtle texture and are the right-ish colour to start with so didn't need painting, and took the weathering easily. They were easy to cut too, and a lot simpler/tidier than trying to do it with filler or something. Having them in separate sections also looked quite realistic, representing the different poured slabs/expansion joints: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_06_2017/post-27854-0-28518600-1497003787.jpg http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_06_2017/post-27854-0-58381900-1497003790.jpg Cheers, Chris

Looks like a great idea! Might that new crossover in the tunnel (light purple bit on the right) be difficult to get to if there's a derailment or anything? Will you be able to reach in and access it from the side? I'd love to add a big fiddle yard like that to mine but just haven't got the space in the garage - well not without turfing out the Mini which isn't going to happen! Cheers, Chris

Thanks for the info Gary, that's interesting I hadn't heard that before and most photos of supports I did find are concrete as you say. This was the bridge that inspired them (tracks ran beneath, road above)... Clyde Cycle Path going under Dyke Road by Roderic Page, on Flickr ...not sure they do look concrete on this one interestingly - maybe it's an age thing? Trouble is I'm so limited with the space inbetween the curved main lines beneath - I can't make the supports any thicker without them getting way too close to the trains! Cheers, Chris EDITED TO ADD - reading your post again, do you mean the bases of the supports I've made, rather than the upright supports? As you can see I clad them in brick but was planning to paint the middle concrete colour, but could re-clad them in concrete sheet instead?

Thanks Paul - I was quite limited how I could do it as everything is so cramped and close to the main line. The girder bridge is slightly wider than the brick viaduct but I couldn't allow the full width in the end pillar to go all the way to the ground otherwise trains would have hit it so I had to do that step effect like you sometime see on a chimney breast! Of all the photos I looked at, pretty much every bridge was unique so I figured it would look ok! It was also quite hard to find a decent picture that showed the way the plate girder meets the brick pillar - I found a few and they made me realise they don't just meet, there is an overlap (which meant the pillar had to stick out even more, compounding the problem above). The brick pillar is usually an odd shape on the inner side and the outer is often just a brick or two deep to disguise the join, with the coping stone covering both if that makes any sense. I'll try and get a picture to show you how I did it but here are a couple of links with some photos I found useful for this aspect of the bridge: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/21881-plate-girder-bridges/?p=216469 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/103126-scratch-built-bridges/?p=2025119 Cheers, Chris

Well done Mike for putting your whatsits on the line and getting it out there for people to see - it looks fantastic! Those videos were great and the HST rushing through demonstrates how well the flowing trackwork works - great stuff! I'm sure it'll all feel easier at the next show Cheers, Chris

Thanks Robin, that's very kind!

Yeah that's right, seeing John/Old Gringo's post reminded me I pinched the idea from him in the same 'Black Country Blues' thread he linked to above! He's got a good picture of cutting out the header courses from the sheet - I'm pleased with how it's turned out on mine.

Hiya Garry, I'm in the middle of constructing a curved brick built viaduct - I'm cheating a bit by using the Tri-ang/Hornby brick arched bridge as a base and cladding it in brick sheet - see my thread here as I just updated it today with some pictures which might help you (although I'm no expert, this is my first major construction in plasticard!): http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/106980-model-railway-restoration-viaduct-and-bridge-building/?p=2878028 I've been using the SE Finecast sheets - they are really easy to work with, very thin and flexible and easy to cut with a knife or scissors and you can get them in a wide range of brick bonds (I'm using English bond for the viaduct) - give them a try if you haven't already. Cheers, Chris

Hi all, An update for you about my bridge and viaduct building antics! First up, I've build some of the support legs for the plate girder bridge - just modelled on various prototype picutres I found on the web using off cuts from sprues and some plastruct I beams and channels: I also decided to add an impression of the support beams on the underside of the bridge deck - I used the remaining riveted plate strips that come with the Wills girder kits and think it turned out alright - better than looking at a smooth underside anyway, not that you'll see it that often! Next up, I wanted to improve the other remaining curved part of the upper branch - originally, it was supported by a few foam arches covered in brick paper and some foam covered in green sawdust as a bank (oh the innocence of youth!) - see this shot from ages ago: ...but I thought it would be nice to replace this with a brick viaduct. Obviously there's nothing off the shelf to suit this situation so I though it would be a good chance to build my first structure in plastic, but I've cheated slightly by using the old fashined Hornby brick viaduct pieces as a base - so several ebay purchases later: I had toyed with just gluing and these together some how and painting them, but I wanted to have a more realistic brick pattern and thought it would be a nice project to do something a bit different so after plenty of research into building techniques and brick pattern plasticard I bought a whole load of SE Finecast brick sheets in various bonds and got cracking! First up I glued several of the Hornby arches together and clad the main structure with the sheet: I used the off cut semi-circles from the arches as a backing wall for those that aren't going to be full depth: I wanted to do something to improve the arched courses (sorry I'm not familiar with the proper term!) so with nothing being the right size on the SEF pre-formed arch sheets I decided to cut out a whole load of the lines of header course bricks and stick them on - time consuming but effective, I also added a strip of the longer stretch course as a decorative boundary between the arch and the faced bricks: Here's the progress so far placed on the layout temporarily: Just another nine arches to do.....why did I start this again!? Cheers, Chris

Cracking photo!

Just spent some time repairing all the lost photos on the first page of the thread - Bloomin' Photobucket! - but good old RMweb for having the photo hosting facility! It's been quite nice looking back at them to see the progress I've made - it often doesn't feel like much but looking back it has come quite a way. Cheers, Chris

Haha thanks Kevan! I've just checked out your thread and can say the same to you, great stuff going on!