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I just started ballasting the third board - give me a week and there should be some pictures. I have to give some thought as to how I am going to do the platform faces now as I will need to ballast up to them. I have used brick paper before which is not too bad but I reckon foamboard covered by DAZ clay and scribed should be a better bet - however it will take much longer soi I may go for the brick paper for now Paul R

Pete Its only about 23 feet. Paul R

L49 This is a good kit that goes together very well. I have another stashed away that I plan to convert to an F6. All of Connoisseur's kits build extremely well in 7mm. Jim is a great kit designer regards Paul R

Bob Thanks for your comments - there was an article about the Road-Railer in the 2009 British Railway Modelling Annual or was it 2008. Nonetheless there is a picture of the B1 on this train at Braintree. There was also an article in an earlier version of Model Railway Journal. Both had plans but I am afraid that if you want one then its scratchbuilding I'm afraid. Because the background to my layout is partially fictional, I am distorting history a little by postponing the closure of the Dunmow section by a few years. Black Notley in effect takes the place of Cressing since that station had only one siding! That way I can use earlier timetables to make opeartion more interesting. What I would really like to get more information on is the type of traffic that came out and into Critalls and the Lake and Elliott works at Braintree. regards Paul

Paul No beleive it or not I use a Stanley knife and scrape the paint off. Then I use a track rubber to get the rails shiny! regards Paul

Derek I use a 2 part process. First I spray the rails side on with Railmatch dark rust. Then when that is dry I use Railmatch Sleeper grime to spray the sleepers. However you have to be careful and do this directly above the track from about 6 to 7 inches and move along on a perpendicular basis. Don't spray side on or at an angle. In this way you will avoid covering the rail sides with the grime and they will remain rust. There will be some overspray but as long as this is relatively minimal it adds to the overall effect. Use a spare yard of track pinned to a plank to test it. I don't clean the paint from the tops of the rails until the ballast is completed. Hope this helps Paul R

Jonte Peco used to produce paper templates for their track at full size for the scale in which you are working so you could ask them for some that you could photocopy and use to plan the layout. I think you do have to have different handed points to make a crossover. I don't think you should experience buffer locking, the radius is too large, you are more likley to get it on straight points although this is something I never experienced on a previous layout. Thanks for the comment on Ditchling Green - this layout has been a real inspiration to me and if I can get half as good as Gordon and Maggie Gravett I will be really pleased. Have you seen Pempoul from the same stable - absolutely stunning! regards Paul R

Jonte The box just unplugs and you are left with a tie bar and an overcentre spring so I don't think any surgery would be needed. There is a ring in the middle that supports the spring so you could trim this up, remove the spring and rely on the spring in the point motor (if you use SEEP motors). On another thought, if the PECO curved points had been available I would have used one of these in place of that at the level crossing end of the layout as the track has to be un prototypically wide spaced there to get the curve in which extends the crossover, I have to say that as I get older I become more fussy about the track and if starting over would use C and L. Hopefully though once complete and point rodding installed, it shouldn't look too bad Paul R

I am quite pleased with the way it has turned out although sometimes to photos can show things better than the orignal! I don't think I am going to get much done in the next couple of weeks but when I do I will put another photo up regards Paul R

Are these C and L points? By the look of the interlaced sleepers I would say not! Paul R

I'll put the Claude on the next board finished Paul R

I have just finished ballasting the second board. The photo shows my Connoissuer F5 67217. More progress as we go Paul R

Jonte I have to say that some of this ballast I have had in stock for a number of years and the source now eludes me. However the coarse stuff came from Trinders in Banbury whilst the latest finer ballast was supplied by The Hobby Box in Uckfield. The problem with this stuff is the weight and model shops seem to sell in small quantities only. Trinders sold much bigger bags and at the time I had to visit Banbury regulalry on business which I am sad to say is no longer the case. I think they do advertise in Railway Modeller or at least used to. Paul

The ballasting is certainly rock solid! An alternative I have used in the past is to sieve some cascamite dry over the ballast mix before wetting it. It doesn't need the PVA then but Cascamite is very expensive stuff these days! Paul R

Paul I have a lovely photo of a WD 2-8-0 at Braintree on sugar beet so that should make an appearance and I am contemplating the RoadRailer trials - have to scratch build that lot though. No old kits in O gauge like there is in OO Paul R

This is how we do the ballasting and these are the raw materials. I like to mix in a tub and the basic mix is coarse granite, finer granite with a large sccop of Excamite (cascamite), and two scoops of black powder paint with one burnt umber. The scoops are those that are found in a baby milk tin so relatively small. The cascamite scoop is more akin to a table spoon. Anyhow this is all mixed into the tub and then placed roughly on the section of track to be done. Brushed away from the sleepers, once all is ready the whole lot is sprayed with Mr Muscle Shower Shine (other brands are available!). The reason I use this is that it contains some form of agent that breaks down the surface tension. You could use a sprayer with some fairy liquid in as an alternative. The track is liberally wetted and this will cause the glue to mix with the ballast and paint. Then I drop diluted PVA from a syringe - this needs to be the consistency of milk until the whole lot is covered.Then I spray a drop more shower shine. Don't worry about getting ballast dust on the sleepers, it will disappear once wet. Once dry the whole lot should be a reasonably dirty ballast. The photos also show the treatment at the end of the board using card. Finally a shot of the finished board which has had the rails cleaned and shows a Heljan 47! Now the job of doing the other boards. I'll hopefully make progress at a much faster rate now Paul Rowlinson

Here are the original photos. These show various items of stock on the layout that had just had the wiring completed.

It's a long time since news of this layout whcih has been in the making over 10 years, has appeared here! Progress is slow due to lack of time and other household jobs that always need doing. So I thought I would reload the original plan and images before posting the latest details. The layout is set on the Braintree branch which has gained a fictitional station at Black Notley which in reality never had one being served from White Notley or Cressing. Because the intermediate stations on the line never had much in the way of an interesting track plans (Cressing had one siding) we need to imagine that Black Notley was a somewhat more important location than it is. I could have planned in a light railway to the Black Notley Hospital - shades of Hellingly in Sussex - and my yet build that as a separate mini layout. The layout should allow a mix of traffic including freight for Crittalls and we are also assumng that the link to Bishops Stortford did not close so we can run bananna trains and diversions whcih will explain away the somewhat questionable variety of motive power! Anyway here is the plan - Photos follow

You could almost be there Paul R

I'd like to do this in O gauge - I have the tram and the 04 diesel and some unmade coaches somewhere the only thing missing is the time! Need to get my Black Notley layout finished first. Great work this well done Paul R