Dave John

They are about 85 % of true size Compound. I had a bit of a play, smaller than that they don't look right at street level. Also a bit darker to the eye, again its lighting for a photo that makes it look lighter.

Bit by bit I am getting on with with the backscene. I think I have set myself a difficult task, trying to get a feel of depth and perspective in 2d. If I was a skilled artist it might be easier just to paint it, but I am not so the only thing I can do is the collage of photos method. I have played around with the panorama tools in Affinity. They work well with stitching a set of nice countryside photos together but can’t really cope with the complexity of a row of slightly different tenements. Perspective is also an odd thing, getting a feeling of depth is a case of using shadow, but it tends to work best if you are looking at the picture from a narrow angle not a wide one. So here are a couple of snapshots of the progress to date. It is just sitting there for now, there are a few joins that need touching in. Not sure about the chimneys, they look ok front on but not at an angle. That said it is a backscene, hopefully the focus of attention should be on the foreground. Halfway, lets see how the other half works out.

A very long time ago a peco jubilee was the first serious N loco I had. The ones before it were lima and minitrix. N has come a long way since then, if I had the room I would love a big watching the trains go by type layout.

I used "Glue and glaze" Allows a bit of adjustment time and sets clear. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/2091/entry-20738-some-poster-boards/

Well, my first port of call would be the NER association. The other question would be when? Signalling and rodding changed, but if round point rodding is right for your period the MSE parts look ok.

Early Caledonian mineral wagons had offset doors Mikkel. Long ago there was a kit by Model wagon company, very rare to see one these days .

Hmm, I might well have a play with that Mikkel. On the plus side it is actually a fairly inexpensive thing to play about with. If I make a mess of part of it all I have wasted is time and a few bits of paper.

Its a moot point Compound. Judging as best I can from photos the answer is a mixture of depth of weathering, coupled with a natural variation in colour of both the blonde and red sandstones. The city grew west from the 1850s onward, but it wasn't a continuous wave. Blocks went up at various times, really all the way up to 1914. Both demand and economic slumps affected the rate. Similarly older property tended to be demolished and redeveloped as the railways and industrial sites moved roads out of the way. The earliest building in my street would be about 1880, the latest 1898 ish. Looking at the os maps it is clear that some of the buildings local to the railways of the west end would be 40 years old but some would be new build or even under construction in the early 1900s. An excellent reference work on the subject is "Along Great Western Road" by Gordon Urquhart.

I could just buy a backscene. Lots of companies offer them but the thing is none of them say “west end of Glasgow”. Or for that matter any real part of Edwardian Glasgow. Anyway where is the fun in just buying stuff? So I have an idea in my head, long rows of traditional tenements interspersed with some industrial buildings. Maybe some older houses tucked in there too. Well, quite a few buildings, I am going to need about 18 feet of backscene in total. Easy then, its what I did on Kelvinbank 1. Well, yes and no. Photography and printing have moved on since then. Just go off, take a lot of photographs of tenements, spend a few weeks in a photographic program, print it out and stick it together. In theory. I live in the west end of Glasgow, I can walk about and take pictures of tenements all day long. Thing is though its much harder than it seems, particularly if you want a straight on front view. Thousands of places I can can pics from ground level at an angle but straight on ? Or even fairly straight on? It has taken a while but I’m getting to grips with it. The basic method is simple. Get a pic , put it into Affinity or other program, square it off. Fix the stonework, slate the roof, sort the chimneys, replace the window and doors, get rid of all the modern bits, shift the lampposts. Scale it to size, print it out. Squint at it from various angles, go back to square 1, have another go. Ad Nauseam. Somewhere under all those bits of paper is a railway…..

Agreed, seems to need a lot of cleaning and TLC. Interesting pics though, sometimes I wish I was working in the bigger scales to really build engineering models.

I have used magnets with reasonable success. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/2091/entry-20647-walls-and-magnets/

Indeed, first time I have seen a colour pic too. Many thanks to both of you.

On the bright side Smiths do a GNoS Tarpaulin sheet. Might cover a multitude of sins ....

I tend to chop up old computer cables for thin flexible wires. Some odd colours, but its inside anyway.

Very impressive.

Just reading through brings back a lot of memories, not only the railway stuff but the whole wonderful range of kits from various makers available relatively cheaply back then. They got us started and we learned so much from them. I do remember building the Airfix county inn to go with my 3 rail train set. Built it, painted it, sat it on the board. But to my 8 year old eyes it lacked something, surely a rural inn would have a glow of candlelight from the windows? From which I learned that putting a real lit candle in a plastic building was not the best of ideas. I was not a popular child in our house for a while after that ........

Odd how you sometimes think you are going to tackle some part of layout building and then you end up spending a few weeks doing something totally different. I had been thinking about backscenes, but somehow I just fancied doing something a bit scenic. Generally scenery isn’t my strength but I keep seeing so may layouts on here with wonderful rural scenes which tempted me into having a play about. So I had a go at the harbour scene. Which by the nature of harbours requires some water. I have tried some of the the fancy scenic waters in the past but without good results, they seemed prone to cracking and expensive. So having read up about it I went for the standard layers of pva and paint followed by layers of varnish method. I’ll let you judge whether it does look like the muddy esturial waters at the confluence of the Kelvin and the Clyde, but I’m happy with it for now.

A very imposing tunnel Mouth. Imagine how much you could make renting them out as holiday homes for trainspotters....

I keep seeing stuff like this in laser cut ply. The boards you are making are really impressive. As I have said elsewhere I am getting a bit wobbly with hand tools such as jig saws, but CAD is not hard and the kind of complex cutting that you are doing might mean that I could justify partial ownership of a laser cutter for my job. And if the odd bit of ply got used for model making , well, er , thats just between us modellers.

Excellent modelling. The most realistic dead leaves I have seen.

Interesting. Half of me rather fancies working point rodding. Like a lot of modelling, knowing that it does is a personal satisfaction, the fact you can't see it moving from a foot away is not the real issue. I can see it being a bit of a nightmare given that the metal expands with heat and the baseboards expand with humidity. The other half of me fumbles for my specs and feels rather relieved that the Caledonian boarded it all in. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/2091/entry-19050-of-elbows-and-rodding/

I keep popping in for an inspirational look. I really fancy the idea in the long term of doing a similar exercise; running a full weeks wtt with all the correct stock. In practice it just won't happen, I just won't have the time to build it all. On the other hand seeing what you are doing is moving my thoughts towards realistic running sessions based on heavily edited wtt. Either way, I am enjoying the pics.

Hmm, sorry to have opened a bit of a can of worms Mikkel. Looking again at the postcard it might be a sheeted wagon or indeed a shed. Odd place to build a shed though. Some good comments on quicklime and limestone. I can see that if needed for local rural use then local limekilns were probably the solution. I however model urban Edwardian Glasgow and the amount used particularly in construction was considerable. Of course I may be looking at the wrong sort of transport. Perhaps the reason for the relatively low numbers of specialist lime wagons was that many limekilns were close to canal or seaports and that the major method of transport was barge or ship. Indeed there is a woodcut showing such a kiln at Dumbarton here ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_kiln I will do a bit more research.

Interesting pics. I would agree with taking the colours in tinted postcards with a lot of salt, my own observations indicate they are very hit and miss. Now the pic of Launceston triggered what is a long running thought in my head. Next to the cattle wagons is what appears to me to be a peaked roof lime wagon. GWR experts will probably identify it accurately, but all the pre grouping companies had similar wagons, essentially an open wagon with a peaked roof. The fact that it is next to the cattle wagons might indicate that the lime it contains is intended for use as a limewash disinfectant and therefore that is a sensible place to put it. Now, lime was used extensively ( still is really ) in the Victorian era for washes , in construction , soap making and a whole variety of industrial processes. The Caledonian had 40 to D25, I'm sure the numbers for the GWR are available. Which makes me wonder how much bagged lime was carried in ordinary vans rather than purpose built lime wagons. Sorry to wander off with odd thoughts Mikkel, but it is one on those historical things that I can't explain well. I have worked with quicklime on a few projects, it is vicious stuff. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but the number of purpose built lime wagons seems to be very low for the amount of the stuff that must have been transported across the railway network as a whole. Anyway any light shed on the subject ( oh limelight) would be welcome.

Very impressive 2mm modelling Ian. I intend to treat myself to some modelU ones at some point. I keep looking at magnets Mikkel. Smallest seem to be 1 mm Dia, really needs something at 0.5 mm for people. Then you would need a steel layer in the platform. Kelvinbank mk 3 perhaps.