NittenDormer

Well, I now have 4 baseboards instead of 2, building the framework has been really useful in getting all the relevant edges aligned and of matching height. The 2x4 boards are reasonably manageable, the 2.5 x 4 are a bit heavy and unwieldy. This week's job is to cut holes in some of the plywood for lightening and wire access purposes. A summary of this weeks progress shows what I am up against... Monday evening = swimming. No time for garage. Tuesday evening =wife's swimming, obliged to stay in house. Wednesday evening = Scouts (never too old!) Thursday evening = model railway club. Friday evening = possible garage time. Yippee! But I can't use the jigsaw in the evenings because of the noise. The sum total of this week: unscrew 20 screws. Remove 2 (identical) parts, clamp together and mark for cutting a hole out of. Drill 4 holes with 3 getting-larger bits until there is a slot for the jigsaw blade. And that's it. The great thing is that now the baseboards are built (well 4 of them anyway) I can remove 1 part at a time to alter, with the remaining joints holding everything in the correct place.

Finally progress is happening. Apart from time, school holidays and various sporting events (Tour de France, World Athletics etc), the big blocker has been the garage, the destined home for the layout, occupied 50% by bicycles and 50% by random junk. The bicycles have been organised and the junk disposed of or put up in the rafters, leaving the garage looking more like this. The table tennis table is Incidentally why the layout is being built in separate boards that can be put to one side to hit pigskin with willow, or whatever. Anyway, it also makes a great work table. What I needed before I could build baseboards that aligned perfectly was a perfectly flat under frame, and what I also needed to build a perfectly flat underframe was something perfectly flat to build this on, and so it would have continued but for the TT table, once levelled in the middle and at the door end. Result? This, a frame appox 8 feet by 4 that allows me to build 2 or more boards in situ. Let the baseboards commence!

I'm particularly enjoying the background noises of scaffolding getting dismantled etc as Chris Boardman and Gary Imlach discuss the finer points of the race each evening. I remember the days when Paul Sherwin would religiously explain how much milk went into each local cheese. One more week to Paris and the Arc de Triomphe. Or as Phil Liggett once wonderfully described it 'the tomb of the unknown shoulder'.

It is really time for another update, but in truth there is nothing to report. The garage is still full of pieces of plywood, but what would these days probably be dubbed a 'perfect storm' of holidays, school holidays and a dastardly 3-week long French conspiracy to fill my afternoons and evening with armchair cycling means very little has happened. The motivation is still there, just not the time. Or energy. The dastardly Italians had a similar plot a couple of months ago, the Spanish will be at it too in due course.

A couple of tantalising glimpses of an impressive viaduct on the way into Rolez on Saturday. What was it?

Late to the party after a week without internet (but with ITV4). Shame to put it mildly that Valverde and Porte are out (esp after their performances in the Dauphine). Also a real shame for Dan Martin (the Kenny Dalglish of cycling), but I am amazed he was able to get up from the Porte crash. A lot of challengers went out of the picture today.

I have a spiral that crosses over itself after approx 360°. The upward track is basically 2nd radius. Even with a 2% gradient, the track-to-track difference is barely 60mm. It looks like I am going to have to make the climb even steeper, I may even need to break out the magnets and steel undersheets but in the meantime: 1) what is the thinnest material that can be used for a model bridge span? 2) what is the real-life under track depth for different bridge types? I deffo don't have room for an arch, or anything with under girders. thanks

Oven glove? Beanbag? Sleeping bag? What scale is it?

I am familiar with the two 'dynamic loops' on the Borders railway - one from Gorebridge up Borthwick Bank, and the other around Stow (including a station, although not every service stops there). They allow north/south services to pass at full speed, although there has been criticism. I know the Edinburgh bound services sometimes have to stop outside Gorebridge to wait for the Tweedbank train to enter the double track section. Also, I regularly hear trains passing non-stop (when they should be stopping), presumably because they need to make up time. The single track sections seem to cause problems getting the timetable back on track after a delay.

Although I should point out that the holes are varying sizes, due to first the 2.5mm bit snapping, then the 3mm one going as well. I am down to the 2mm one now. They are all ancient anyway, time I bought a new set.

Well, if you must know, tonight I have been drilling 80 locating holes. Sorry, no pictures taken, I know you will be disappointed. The stereo in the garage is an old one with only the tape part still working so I have been revisiting some old music. Tonight was Bat Out Of Hell II. Thanks Mr Loaf.

You can see quite a lot of earthworks, bridges etc from what I presume is the Talla railway, which ran, according to that same article, from Broughton to said reservoir (just past the Crook Inn). Is that it? I know the place you mean but can't recall which side of Broughton it is.

Had an interesting day today exploring 600m long Neidpath Tunnel and the 8-arch viaduct at the end of it. You can walk through the tunnel (not lit, nor is it straight), there are also paths back along the river. Both were built around 1864 by the Symington, Biggar and Broughton Railway, and are extremely accessible. This is the east tunnel entrance, on the edge of Peebles on the south side of the river opposite Hay Lodge Park. My son baulked at the darkness, so we walked around the river to the west portal: Which has some interesting holes at around head height - anyone know what these are for? About a carriage-length from the tunnel is the viaduct, 8 skew arches with some lovely stonework: which gets smaller as we headed back under Neidpath Castle into the park.

I was hoping to buy just 1 sheet of ply, but it wouldn't quite build 2 baseboards. By the time I had used up the rest of the sheet plus some existing offcuts, 4 boards were oh-so-nearly covered. End result - 3 sheets of ply bought and cut. These 23 pieces (24 after realising hthe biggest was not going to fit in the car) need to be drawn, drilled, sawn to shape and turned into 32 parts, then put together. I am having to adapt my plans slightly as the depot saw seems to be measuring 2mm short for all the cuts, but hopefully a 598mm wide board will work as much as a 600mm one. Fingers crossed.

I've liked the Arlberg ever since I had to get a train from Feldkirch and couldn't work out whether I wanted to head towards Bregenz or Bludenz. The I cycled up the gorgeous Montafon valley, over the Bielerhohe and down the Paznaultal under the Trisanna Brucke. Gorgeous.

Utterly unable to help, but great subject for a discussion. Also impresed that orig poster used h0 instead of ho. Also, I can't help wondering whether h0 and 00 cats are distinguishable from each other. Then we need to compare 00 and EM cats...

Do what I did and spend some time 'lurking'and reading. Check out a few layouts and track plans at random, some will give you an idea of what lookks right, what works etc. But always remember - the final decision is yours. Of course I can't think of any by name now that I need to.

. A rough calculation suggests a visible track run of 18m, or a scale 1.3k. The 4-layer helix and fiddle yard add another 15m. Luciky I don't need to buy all the track at once.

Looks lovely! Where are the sugar lumps please?

Well its already been a couple of weeks since my last update, not much progress to show but there has been lots of THINKING. I've built a second baseboard that checks out ok on its own as all right angled correctly etc, yet does not seem to align perfectly with board 1. This is why I use screws and not glue. Also, I can't start adding scenery, or track, to these two boards until I have the neighbouring boards built, because these will dictate the track alignment, and track height. I have it all mapped out on Scarm, but won't trust the numbers until I see it in real life, and test the gradients and bridge clearances. So the only way forward is more baseboards. Two at 4 feet x 2.5 feet will go along the front of the existing boards (the higher level in the pictures) and will be filled by a station (because I am not yet at that stage of my modelling evolution where I think 'a layout doesn't need a station'), and two more (4.5 feet x 2 feet and 2.5 feet) for the right hand layout end, 2hich will contain a spiral. Lots of doodling and number crunching ensued. The two station boards can pretty much come from one 8x4 sheet of plywood. The contours of the spiral end will consume a lot more plywood. And to control the joins (including a junction where 4 boards meet), I reckon I need to build a solid, reliable underframe to control the alignment. All this translates into a need for lots of timber and plywood, but I need to get the numbers and cutting plan double -checked first. No point in ending up with the wrong-shaped parts! Happily there is a bank holiday coming up, but if the weather is good, I will be out on the bike. To be continued....

(Off topic but...) ...and the Liverpool Overhead terminated in a tunnel.

I can safely say that this pair have never graced the internet before. Corrour on the Fort William line in January 1996 looking north, plus a fuzzy freight working heading south 3 days later.

As long as its not a race! I'm not going to get anything done quickly. Happy building.

Crikey and other now-rarely used words. Already almost a month since my last update! It is now baseboard season in the Knadger household. There are 9 of the blighters to build, and I am starting with the two running across the centre-back. I thought these would be easiest and safest, being least-visible, but having two separate heights has made them tricky. On the plus side, they both have solid tops, which makes it easier to achieve (and hold) the required right-angled shape. Various what management would call 'blockers' and 'learning opportunities' (and I call 'problems') arose: how to cut plywood accurately, how to get the softwood joint blocks to be right angled etc. The lower level is the fiddle yard, 8 feet x 1 foot, should be enough for 3 tracks each way. It is supported by 50mm of plywood, which I realise is a bit marginal, but is the only part of the layout that low. The upper level will also be surfaced and is just under a foot wide. There will be a 6mm ply backscene rising up between the two. The upper level is rising, 24mm across 8 feet, or to put it another way, almost an inch in 2.44 metres. Either way, a gradient of 1%/1 in 100. The 5 2-foot length supports are each 3mm different in height. I have used a combination of 9mm ply and 6mm ply (or is it 5,5mm?). I've read that the 'sandwich' technique of two sheets with softwood spacers is very strong, but I'm not convinced - the 6mm ply at the ends feels far too bendy. These were self-cut (as opposed to a shop doing it), which resulted in not very straight cuts and literally months planing down the edges. The results are still not that great. Another thing I wasn't expecting for some reason was the sheer number of screws involved. Each 2 foot side/support has 5 softwood blocks attached, so that is 5 screws for the 9mm parts, 10 screws for the 6mm sandwiches. Each support will have a total of 9 screws attaching the long sides/tops. That is 85 screws for a 4 x 2 baseboard. Is this normal? I may replace with glue later, but for now I want everything to be reversible in case of mistakes.