DJTrains

Whilst in Girder Construction Mode for the main bridge above, I've made and fitted the four girders to support the track over the lower road. This just leaves another 7 to make and fit by my calculations ; I'm quite pleased how these have come out . I will of course be weathering / rusting these as required in due course, but the main aim is still to get the terrain items finished off so I can get on with some scenery !

Well said Mike. It was a tiring and fairly stressful start, to be fair most exhibition layouts try and have a fiddle yard built BEFORE the exhibition, but nope, we chose to build it DURING the show !! And if anyone needs proof - this was the fiddle yard being loaded up yesterday - note a) the back board is only now being cut to size, and b) there are only two pieces of track !! An interesting introduction to standing behind the layout at a show and not in front of it for once, but I think we survived. Roll on tomorrow so we can wow the crowds properly !!

Well done mate for getting this far. Even though Crofton is still continuing unaided !! I'll try not to crash too many trains for you, but its should be a fun weekend. - and that's the whole point of it really.

In between track painting, my next challenge is to make this ; Look something like this : If you haven't guessed already it's the road bridge at Eastleigh - which looks nice and flat looking at the underside, however it has quite a curve to the top which you only really see from above ; I'll be off to get more Styrene strips by the look of it - so watch this space .

Hi Rich, every piece of track has dropper wires soldered to the underside, all connected into a single bus wire below. So basically no piece of track relies on any other for power, and is independently stuck down (so god forbid, in the event of a point failure, or having to remove a section of track, it can be taken out without affecting its neighbours). Thanks, Dave.

Thanks Ben, I'd never spotted that on Horseley Fields so will defo take a closer look. Good suggestion on the half-way solution using the grey plastic, but then as we all know that Peco concrete plastic still needs a lot of painting too I guess there's not much point as you'd still have the wrong colour and the wrong shape and texture Thanks again, Dave.

Thanks Dave, I'll have a look ..... Cheers, Dave.

Thanks Rich, I'm open to all suggestions, so nothing is 'out' at the moment. I'm going to do some test pieces to see how they look and will let you know. Cheers, Dave.

Hi Rich, Thanks for your kind comments. Re the wooden sleepers ( & points) yes it is a shame they aren't made in concrete also, but I can see how small a market that would be for the new tooling costs at Peco. I'm starting to work on a light silver/grey blend to wash onto these parts to try and give it the effect of sun bleaching on the wood. It's still trial and error stage and unlike the concrete I can't just spray it on as I still need to keep the base grain and darker colour - anyway watch this space on that one !! RE the track laying, I've had no problems whatsoever. The track has stayed exactly where it was put, and 'touch wood' will remain to do so - hopefully even more so as I'll soon be onto ballasting. Its just over a year since we started and we've come through a winter (down to around 4 degrees) and a summer (up to 31 degrees) and no issues with expansion / contraction (FYI the layout is in a thick walled log cabin). Thanks again, Dave.

Thanks Grahame, Dave.

Thanks Simon, I'm nearly there .... well at least I keep having to tell myself that to keep me sane.

Thanks Dave. Sometimes the extra space can be a curse - especially when your mentor (Mike) keeps coming up with cunning new ways of adding more track and points to the design !!

Thanks Ben, As Mike has already taken the credit I can't really say its all my own work. .. Ok, well I did the work, but have been well mentored by Mike !!

But to break the monotony I finished the two road bridges with coping stones, so just the weathering to do now, but will leave that for after the track and ballast.

I defy anyone to come up with a more tedious job than hand painting all four rail sides on nearly 90m of track !! I'm actually looking forward to ballasting after this lot.

So after trying countless blends and mixes, the decision has been made to go with Woodland Scenics Fine Ballast, which I will be mixing 4 parts light grey to 1 part Buff for the main part, and will have variations on this in places to show newer areas etc. Although Mike will forever be shaking his head, we have struggled to come up with a viable alternative (Sand, Chinchilla Dust etc, etc.) that still gives the texture that your eye expects to see. I will be sieving the WS Ballast first as there are some bigger pieces that should be capable of being removed - which will help. The next monumental task has been prepping the track. As good as Peco concrete track is, it just doesn't look like concrete !!! So I've been going through a huge multi-step process to colour the track prior to ballasting with various enamels - with help and great advice from Mike ... First job was to spray the lot with a mix of light grey and railmatch concrete - roughly 25% grey, 25% Railmatch concrete and 50% thinners ; Next cover this with a very fine random mist of Railmatch concrete mixed with white (about 50/50) and thinned right down ; Next dry brush very lightly with dark chocolate brown (Humbrol 98) and then with black, then white. This is real trial and error, some places you can hardly see the difference, some are a little heavier, but the objective is to give it the really dirty look and the texture of concrete sleepers. Next hand paint the rail sides with Chocolate brown (Humbrol 98). This looks a lot worse at this stage than it will in the end, as the ballast will cover any tiny overpainting and make it look much more uniform. Also bear in mind the level of magnification we are at !! Next comes the ballast - and a lot of it !!! and once down I will be adding a lightly brushed wash of acrylics on brown and blacks to give it the final touch - but I will cover that in future posts, along with how I deal with the wooden parts and points. Just to show how mad I am, as I was hand painting some rail sides today, I thought I'd have a quick measure up of how much track there is to do. I wish I hadn't !! It came out at 87m, or just over 8 scale miles !! Just made me shiver again thinking about it !!

I can definitely confirm that Blood and Sweat have been spilled in the making of those boards ..... (one short trip to casualty later and all is well) .... but I'll leave it to Mike for the Tears !!

Thanks RBE That WS ballast looks really good. THe trunking looks much better at 2x1 , but the hundreds ( maybe thousands) of score lines are taking a while !!!

Thanks Ben !!

I thought it might help with a full photo tour of Crofton. (and if anyone can tell me why the pictures keep turning sideways even tho they were taken and saved 'portrait' I'd love to know - because it is bugging the hell out of me !!! ) Anyway - starting with the end of the lift out bridge. This corner starts the end of the layout which curves back towards the station. It will have a TMD as a corner filler (yet to be laid). Flowing round under the bridge into the station Start of the Station Exit station heading over the raised track area (which has a road dropping down at the front and going under) Showing the road under the raised track area Into the other end - four storage loops at this end, and the twin branch line at the back will be hidden. Back round to enter the Viaduct section (which lifts out) Viaduct section which leads back to where we started ;

Bridge Part 2 - Brick bridge coming along nicely on the approach to the station. Still have the capping, road bed, paving and weathering to do - and it's going to remain loose / removeable for the time being. Foamboard, ply and brick paper construction.

Thanks for your comment - glad you like it !

Hi, Yeah I've seen it but it didn't look an awful lot better than the sand I've tried. Part of the problem is that when you get down to that size of grain, you lose any of the texture as the surface almost goes smooth - even more if you are adding paint. Thanks for the hint tho - and I'd love to see how you get on with it !!

Bridge Building has been the current theme ..... First a road bridge by the end of the lift out to give a visual scene break .... Concrete base to match with the modern era Girders added - made from plasticard and styrene strips ; And the road walls and lintels under. Although the walls on the longer side may still be cut back to meet the trackside fencing which will come up from below. The bridges will have to stay in this semi finished state for now as everything still needs to be fully removeable at the moment so I can access for track painting, weathering and ballasting. Next up will be the longer road bridge - but this is an older style in brick so will match in with the viaduct......

Bit of a delay on updates due to an extended holiday in Canada amongst other things, but work is continuing well on Crofton. The lift out viaduct section has been contoured and infilled ready for scenic scatter, plus I've made a start at trying a version of a small stream. The contours are also continuing around the layout and the front fascia panels have all been fitted. These still need to be cut in places to match the contours, but the lift out section and one corner is now done. I've also given the backscene a couple of coats of paint (mainly because the first paint dried far too blue !! ) There are still 2 more loops to be fitted to one end (below) , and then I can start on cutting out for the large bridge section next to the station (to allow for a road to run under the tracks) and this will flow into a dual carriageway which will run along the front edge - which is still showing as cut-out for now on the right below. I've also started fitting the miles of trunking which I am making from 2mm x 1mm styrene strips - partly because I think the Ratio versions are too wide, and party as this works out to about 15p per 250mm so its Waaaay cheaper. I just need to make score marks every 6mm (around 4500 by the time I'm finished !!) And finally the tests for track weathering and ballast are continuing. I will probably have to hand paint the rail sides in enamel, weather the track lightly with the airbrush, then ballast and finally weather again. A lengthy process, but one I'm holding off until I'm certain. The choice of ballast is not going well as WS fine is too over scale for N gaige, yet I'm not happy with the lack of texture that I'm getting from sand either Grrrrr .... So a lot has been happening, but some of it doesn't really show too much yet !!