Dave John

Thanks Hornbymadman. Hmm, I will take a few shots with the blinds open Mikkel. Still unsure myself.

Ever had one of those projects which just take on a life all of it's own? You know, the kind of project which you just start thinking how about a bit of a mockup might be? You then squint at it and decide to carve up some foam board and tack that in place to see how it looks. Next thing you know some new styrene sheet has arrived in the post, oh well let's just put a bit of that on to see how it feels. Weeks go by and you realise that the concrete monstrosity has taken on a life of its own. Really it's about time to put those two boards back in the layout and run a few trains. Get the room cleaned up, hoover up offcuts off the floor and the Caledonian pup. So here it is in place. A few photographs with a trains running over it. Still a lot of work to do, but thats the basic structure formed. Painting it all is a whole other story, however that can wait a bit, I fancy a bit of wagon building for a rest. I’m still unsure about a backscene, thats it just neutral against the blinds. Though I did get round to cleaning the windows. So Concrete Bob, how about a job?

An interesting picture keefer, clearly shows the interleaved sleepering.

I have had a go at this on "Kelvinbank" . There are some small speakers built into the layout. These are powered by a homebuild thing, in which there is a steam sound unit (chuffs faster when the dc to the track goes up ) and a mixer/amp . Input to the mixer is from an old iPod, on which there are some genuine CR sounds including a working westinghouse pump from an old ARGO record, EAF 74. Putting it into the mac and editing it took a while. I added a track of city noise from a sound effects cd to that. So now I get CR loco sounds over a city noise, with a distinct steam beat as trains move. All a bit simple in these days of DCC everything complete with sounds of tea being brewed on the footplate, but anyway. It impresses visitors a bit, but between ourselves gets rather annoying after a while.

Cheers Mikkel. I am not sure about a backscene as yet. I wouldn't want a high one, I think it would block out too much useful light. Later in the week I will put the boards back in place and run a few trains over it to make sure building works have not caused any track or electrical problems. At that point I will take a few pics and generally canvass opinions.

I have been pottering on with the viaduct. Most of the formwork is in place so I have begun to work on the details and cladding. The original had lines cast into the concrete to simulate stone courses, these were at just over a foot spacing. My initial thought was to scribe these but whilst digging in the bits of plasticard box I found some slaters 4mm planking slaters. This is not specifically 4mmm sclae, it is planking 4mmm wide. I stuck a bit on and squinted at it from various angles, yep it does look right. More duly ordered. The arches themselves seemed to be a single concrete casting, with just a half round concrete decoration. A few tests showed it it hard to bend 2 mm half round, but 1 mm quarter round bends into place nicely. So, only ten of those to make. The bridge section is a mix, upper half came from the old layout, the new girders are made up from signmaking styrene with varigirder bits on the outside. It will have a central pier. A couple of general warts and all pics of the whole thing. I still haven’t got round to cleaning the windows…..

Very nice, the veneered boiler really has come out well. Thanks for the link too, some impressive period modelling on there.

Hmm, none of the rtr in any scale looks as solid as those rosspop. Ok, I appreciate its your blog, but I'll say it anyway. I would rather see someone stick a few bits of card together to build a shed and make something themselves than see 100s of pics of rtr stuff. I think there always will be folk who want to make things, just for the joy of actually making things. Well, I hope so.

I'd say that was 14 months well spent, thats a very fine group of engines. Given what I read about mazak rot and plastic bits falling apart I doubt the rtr stuff would last anywhere near as long as quality kit or scratch building.

Just an idea, a bit of strip glued on at the edge before bending the louvres inwards ? Also, looking at contemporary louvres I'd bend them to the inside, rather than the outside. Thats based on some restoration work a couple of years back. Ok it was a 1862 building, but the method originally was two side runners with cuts at 45 deg. The slats were then made up as a panel and fixed behind the faceplate.

I have a similar issue, but its a viaduct structure. So rail ends well anchored at the board joints, with expansion joints in the middle of the track sections. Make sure all rails have feeds for power. For ns rail you need about .5 mm /m of rail at the expansion joint. I am using code 75 Hi NI , but I would think that would be about the same for N. So far I have seen -2 to 27 deg C in the railway room with no problems, yet ...

Heh, well in the end it just called it "Campsie" . Suitably local, and a bit unspecific.

Hi Mikkel, Its a Clyde puffer, small cargo ship, which I built from the Langley kit a long while back. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_john/9208935740/in/photostream/ They were a common sight all over the West coast of Scotland, and sometimes further afield. So I think it would look good at the quayside bit.

That really does look the part Mikkel, glad to see you enjoying the silhouette. Mind you, the house tends to fill up with boxes labelled "bits of styrene left over from cutting which might come in useful if I ever model Z gauge ".......

Very impressive.

I had a rather mad idea. I could make all the formworks for the viaduct and bridge from stuff, and then fill it with a casting plaster, effectively the same mass concrete method pioneered by Concrete Bob. Then I realised that it would weigh far too much, sanity clicked in and the decision was made to go for a foamboard structure clad in scribed plasticard. Why foamboard? It is light, strong and by a stroke of luck, free. Anyone dismantling it in the future could have many happy hours working out what it was advertising before I rescued it and put it to a more useful purpose. Anyway, a few pics of a start being made. Bits everywhere, typical Builders work in progress. Having the boards on castors and easily moved about helps a lot. Rivets on the underside of a bridge. Hmm…. While its out like that I really must clean the windows.

I hope you get a period of stability to enjoy the modelling after all that. On the bright side many years ago I had some of the best tasting fish and chips of my life from a shop in Seahouses. I hope it is still there.

Hi Guy, Yes, McAlpines were the main contractor. There are some good pictures of it under construction in an article by John Paton, "The True Line" 110.33,34. The harbour at bowling was extended at the same time. The whole area is being developed as a heritage site, so hopefully it will be to an extent preserved. I doubt they will rebuild the control tower for the swing bridge though. Cheers.

Ah, the one to watch out for up here is Scottish bond brickwork. 3 strings and then a header.

So its a model railway site, why blog about research? Well, research is half the fun of building a model and while doing it you find out about all sorts of interesting things. Even if you don’t end up building the model it is still an important part of the hobby as a whole. Anyway, I mentioned last week that I fancied building the elevated section across the window based on the L&D at Bowling Harbour. Research starts with maps, drawings, photos and descriptions. But if possible nothing beats actually going to see, measure and photograph the real thing. So myself and the Caledonian pup sallied forth to have a closer look. So, a bit of a general view. The swing bridge is under the big white cover, currently undergoing repairs and restoration. The whole section of the line is now a walkway / cycleroute, part of the route all the way along the north clyde, and well worth a day out. The viaduct was built in the early 1890s, so a first guess would be that it be built in the local red sandstone. A closer look shows that it is a mass concrete structure, with powdered sandstone used as a colouring. An excellent set of guides to historic buildings in Scotland is available at; https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/publications/?audience=7&publication_type=41&q=Short+guide Many are interesting in their own right, but the salient point is that Bowling Harbour viaduct would have been one of the earliest mass concrete railway works. So a closer look, thats 3 colours of concrete. A view of the underside of an arch, the “day joint” can be seen where water has seeped through. From the end, shows the concrete parapet. Just a selection of the 60 + pictures I took. So all I have to do now is build a model of it. Well based on it. All in all a good day out, goes to show that railway modelling is more than just sitting in the house making things.

"Maybe in the future model railway exhibitions will be held in bus shelters just to take advantage of the built in back scenes" Aye. The SECC. In terms of its architecture it really is just a bus shelter..... ( Perhaps a bit harsh, its a good show and there were many fine layouts this year. )

Just took the pup for a walk. Now, as you may have gathered I just don't do tv. But on the way back I measured the video display on the bus shelter on the Great Western Road. Sad like me have a tape measure in the pocket when waliking the pup. 5 foot by 3 foot and held on by four m8 allen head ss bolts. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Much has been written about backscenes. It seems to boil down to mood. And ambient lighting. Now, take a 10 foot layout, thats 2 displays, eight bolts. You see, I liked allen downes Idea of a layout that by swapping buildings you could run as SR or GWR. But the backscene? It might sound a bit mad, but if you "acquired" a couple of these large tv like bus shelter tvs , and then got someone who knows about CGI to program it, then you could have fully animated backscenes from any period. Probably a bit much for me to cope with, but an idea for the next generation of modelmakers to think about.

Oh, stone for the CR. I think it would be substantial piers with the ground behind the arches rising up a bit to catch the eye.

Well, I got a bit diverted again this week. A friend was in looking at the layout and asking what I was going to do with the curved bits across the window. I had thought about just doing a curved embankment, but my friend suggested that with a bit of geographic bending I could have a go at the mouth of the Kelvin. Back in the later CR days there were shipyards capable of building sizeable ships served by lines from the CR and NB, but there were quays and moorings of a more modest size before them. I also had a prototype, further down the clyde at bowling the CR lines ran very close to the river and were on a viaduct close to the harbour. Hmm, bit of a quart into a pint pot, but it might just work. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of a basic mockup. River kelvin, rails on a bridge over it, leading to a lowish viaduct along a quayside, land rising along the banks of the kelvin valley, which was fairly wide before the retaining walls were built. Just messing about with ideas really. From the other direction So opinions ? Does it look daft as an idea or do you think I might just get away with it? Oh , and I made a stand for the signals. No point in having plugin in signals unless you have a safe place to put them when they are unplugged. The 7mm blue thing next to them is a whole other story, as they say…..

"Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it." CP Scott He was right. I threw my last TV out of the window in 1995. Really.