bootneckbob

Deleted duplicate post

I've only just found your layout after reading a favourable comment from yourself on mine. I was a little pressed for time so I've really only read the first few pages then skimmed through the rest looking at the pictures but I will come back to read in detail. All I can say is WOW. You are clearly a very clever and technically able guy. The layout is amazing and I love the running length/time it takes your locos to complete a circuit. Mine by comparison is very quick and boring but it is what it is.

More work on the shed today; some hours gone into this build and I've not got the airbrush out yet! I said yesterday the view from behind the transfer shed is not often seen in photos from the 80s but that I had a couple of photos I found online. Well here's one of them, and a quick mock up I did of the same (ish) shot before calling it a night. Just a bit of fun, think it will look ok when its done/finished.

Well I would have thought with all my time off over Xmas I'd have done more than I have done. That said, these buildings are some of the most significant on the layout at least until I get to the station itself. Today was just construction on the extension shed. The sides are done but I want to get some paint on them before I glue them on. This photo shows how I worked with the other shed to get the details right. On the layout; this view was hardly ever captured for real back in the 80s although I have found one or two pictures showing the odd class 50 back there. Finally one long shot from the station area. The buildings are closer than I'd like obviously, but I think it's still looking ok.

So yesterday I started work on the newer extension to the shed. I say newer but it's now long gone but was very much there for my era of the late 80s. Work continued today on it. Unlike the transfer shed which is built from ply and wrapped in scalescene paper, this one is card and foamboard base for the platform which is wrapped and the rest will be plastic construction. I also added a little more detail on the stonework for the transfer shed and a bit of prep for the ballasting of the new scenic section on the incline (up to Exeter Central.

Oh and the PVA fix to the roof worked albeit a bit shiny. Another dusting with matt varnish and the weathering it should be fine.

Here's a little overview with some of the other buildings back in. I did a little bit this afternoon on the garage roof and I've done a little bit of detail work on the 'brewery' before I can varnish it and start work on the windows. Tomorrow I'm planning to get in the shed early and get on with the extension to the transfer shed. Plus some views from a lower perspective.

The next stage will be some weathering, more detail on the stonework, drain pipes, gutters and potentially a new roof; or at least a new covering with plasticard. I had trouble with the paper tiles and it took about 6 hours in all as the paper curled a little where there wasn't enough glue on the overlap. This got worse when I varnished it to seal it. I then had to go over it all again with loads of PVA last night to try and get it to stick down. I'm off to the shed soon to take a look and see how its set overnight. I say next stage but that will be on this building. I'm probably going to switch fire now as I've been on it for so long. If I push on to get it to a finished standard it will sit there amongst other buildings not nearly completed or started. I wanted to have the whole layout build slowly so I learn as I go and the level of finish is spread around the layout rather than one end being a bit rubbish where I did everything for the first time. I've got a lot of electrical wiring to do under the baseboard as I'm going to install separate wiring buses now for track and accessories with circuit breakers on both. I've also got another 6 Cobalts point motors to install. Better get a move on.

The next stage was a combination of seeing what I could do with scalescenes papers and painting. I settled on aged red brick and brown brick in the end. It was difficult but the building opposite is red brick and despite them both being old I wanted some variety in the overall finish. I used the painted white brick for the inside. I have two pictures of the inside which helped me with the internal detail. Although it will be really difficult to see I did quite a bit on the roof. This also served to add strength to the card. The next stage was adding the brown brick elements and the stone work. I also did the unloading platform which was added when the old broad gauge line was removed. The roof tiles were also done and the windows fitted. Again all scalescenes. The boarded up end is 1mm balsa wrapped in scalescenes clapboard. I will probably swap this out with some Wills or plasticard clapboard as it will look a bit better. It's difficult to see but the platform front is wills stone and the raised section made with strips of balsa then the platform is card which is painted and scored.

So here's how this one was constructed. As usual I made a rough version in foam board. This allowed me to gauge the size based on google earth dimensions and old photographs online. As always some compression was required as I don't have the space for a replica, but I've got 3/4 of the length. The model stayed this way for a long time as I pondered how to build it. Plasticard being expensive and quite difficult to paint (for me) plus there would be an awful lot of arches to cut. In the end I decided to use 1,2 and 3mm balsawood sheet. This was easier to drill, file imperfections and ultimately be more rigid than card or foamboard as a free standing structure. Just getting to this stage took quite some time. I decided to use the roof from the original mock up.

Happy New year and all that. Been a while since I posted anything but this little project has taken a long time and rather than post a little bit here and there here's the almost finished article. More to follow but it's New Years eve and I just jumped on here while the Mrs gets pudding; wow what happened to those crazy nights out?? Here's my reference picture albeit this is a fairly recent one and not from the 80's. Given the shed is about 150 years old I guess it's close enough.

The way I've got around this is to remove the ballast around the point enough to slide a very thin piece of metal under the point mechanism; I used a piece of DCC power base. When you drill up from below the metal will protect the mechanism. Marking the area to drill, pilot from above etc is all as standard. Oh, and be really gentle.

New addition to the fleet. I wanted 50 044 Exeter when it came out but I already had Glorious and Indomitable still unpacked brand new in their boxes. Needless to say they are still packed away! I probably should get them on the layout or sold. I doubt it can be good for them to be stored for years on end? I've lost count of the 50s now but this one has DCC coastal sound which is a first as the others comprise SWD, Howes and TTS. Got to say the 21 pin on the 50, what's that for?? The light plugs to remove the body are a right PITA too. Anyway, here's a little glimpse of the newest 50 crossing Red Cow with the return coaching stock for the Exeter Waterloo service.

Yes John, it will sit behind the loco sheds as you said. That will be the very last part of the layout to be detailed.

I did mention I'd changed the fiddle yard. Here is the before and after picture. This is a cropped section of the layout, the top is before, bottom after. Now every road (10 of them) is long enough for my HSTs. The green and yellow lines (far left) are the main up and down that enter the fiddle just after Cowley Bridge. The two orange sidings above are just that, and the are in the hidden area behind the backscene. The grey line at the bottom is the incline which is mainly used by the DMUs for the Barnstaple Exeter illusion. They disappear just after Cowley Bridge and can reappear as either the Exmouth to Exeter, Paignton to Exeter or Barnstaple to Exeter. The train looks like its off to Barnstaple but has the option to go up the incline and reappear coming out of the tunnel as the Exmouth to Exeter train. If it doesnt go up the incline it can go through the fiddle and re appear as the Paington to Exeter just before the iron bridge over the river Exe. Or it can reverse on the crossover and come back as the returning Barnstaple to Exeter train. Those lines on the right end up as the main up and down again with a cross over. The little bit of orange track visible in the bottom pic is a dead end siding which again is long enough for a HST. The little change in that area helped with manual switching of the points and again just made the siding a bit bigger. The upper orange siding on the left hand side holds 3 Mk3 sleeper coaches which can now easily be attached to a day train to make a sleeper service. The lower orange siding houses the track cleaning vehicles. The upper fiddle yard (which is half the width) and has 5 full length HST sidings, and is accessible by trains going up the scenic incline (Exmouth and London Waterloo trains).

Not much to report, lots of recce work under the board before I do the rewire and add an accessory bus and have the track power bus on a separate bus. I'm also planning to add a 3V bus in to for LED lighting later on. The new scenic section has had its base layer done. I'm waiting on a West Hill Wagon Works super elevation kit to turn up so I can add that to the curve on the incline. If its as good as I expect I'll redo the massive curves at the other end of the layout. They were done by me adding bits of plasti card to get the banking right. It's not bad, but I've thought about relaying the tracks there to tidy things up.

Cheers Mike, that's what I thought as I'd fairly recently been watching the last HST Plymouth to Paddington (again) for the bit in Exeter as it helps me with details, and I noticed the signal was green for minutes before the train departed. I liked that as a little detail as it means I won't be switching a signal in quick succession (from red to green and back) whilst driving the train out of the platform.

RA sounds right Paul; I'm sure I've seen that in some photos along the way. Thanks. Still not sure what it does :-) Is that instead of a whistle??

I've just realised as I'm writing this that the signal isn't finished yet as there's another display box to add. Not sure what it does if I'm honest and all I will be doing is putting a static black box in, not illuminated. So, here's a quick photo of the almost finished article! Plus what additional bits I used attached to the Train Tech signal. Credit card, very thin plastic sheet, left over right angle styrene from the iron bridge build, Rusty rails GPS ground signal, a huge oversize point heater (supposed to be OO), scalpel, ruler, and file. Glued together with super glue, and painted weathered black. Finally, a photo showing the type of signal I'm emulating at St Davids. All 3 in the photo are slightly different. I can have a pretty good stab at them I think, but as I'm using the Train Tech as the base the post will always be under the 3 aspect lights. I can live with that.

Wiki has this down as pre 1996 shunt signal on stop: This ties in with what I was thinking for the layout. GPS will be like this that (above), and limit of shunt like this (below): Thanks for the replies.

That's great but the housing for the GPS / limit of shunt has 3 cowls even today although they only can show double red. I'm just going to have a read through the links.

Apologies for not searching in here but I'm going straight for someone seeing this who was probably working on the railway at the time and give me a straight answer. I'm modelling Exeter St Davids 1988 and wanting to confirm if the limit of shunt signals were fixed double red in a GPS type enclosure, or red white (fixed again). I thought the GPS would be red white and double white (for proceed) or were they also dual lights by then so double red then double white to proceed? Any help for the local answers for the time period much appreciated.

So I got a few hours on the railway today. I should have been prioritising running the accessory bus but it was to nice to be under the baseboard today, I also had an itch to scratch after getting some new GPS signals from rusty rails. These are true to scale; the last ones I bought off the Bay are pretty big. Anyway, in due course I will be making the signals for the station and a couple of the outlying ones. The reason being I haven't seen anything remotely similar off the shelf so a scratch build is order for some, modification of some off the shelf for others. Part way through a first draft of one for Platform 3 going West. I also got some paint down on the new landscape.

I've done the base layer landscaping with plaster bandage now. Got to let that set then I can get the Sculptamold down. Had a tidy up in the shed after making so much mess and whilst rummaging through all my wood I thought I'd use the glass sheet that's been sitting on top of the workbench I've just shortened as the worktop for the bench above the fiddle yard. Makes it really nice to see the trains more clearly. Not sure I can splash out on glass to go all the way, plus its an odd shape but it would be nice. I did some running of the trains using the live train departure/arrivals for Exeter St Davids. It's something I'd always thought about doing and tried it yesterday; forgetting there was industrial action! Today however was busy and I probably did an hour of trying to keep up with the live moves. I have the ECoS and the wireless handset for it so three controllers although they can control multiple trains on each controller. I could have done with an extra pair of hands for sure! Still, no mistakes or crashes so a good day all in all. Back to work tomorrow :-(

Amazing how long a little job takes. Had most of the day in there today but doesn't look like much has changed. Lots of time taken up with woodwork, painting, soldering, cutting, more cutting and lots of hoovering trying to keep the dust down. When I started toying with this idea the other day I knew I'd have to just do it now or the mess would be worse later. Fortunately I had one extra pack of backscene which has now come in very handy. I'm pretty short on foam but will try and use what I have left tomorrow to shape the contour of the land. Also have plaster bandage and sculptamold all ready to go. I decided to cut the baseboard as I think it will make the terrain more interesting with the embankment extended beyond the viaduct and then the curve going into the hillside where it will go into a cutting then the tunnel. I think it will be very subtle when the plasters down, but better than it would be. I also need to weather and paint the extra brickwork for the tunnel portals. The cutting should be more shallow now than it was previously which was very steep and why it never looked right. The extra line length means I can potentially get a right hand feather signal in now too, although I've just watch a cabride video and the signal is actually further down the line just before the crossover. On a slightly different point I recently learnt that I'm going to have to have a separate bus now for accessories (points mainly). I've had a couple of issues with the Cobalt point motors and it seems I'd be best getting them on their own bus and isolated from track shorts. I've had another 6 motors turn up so I need to fit them but also run another new bus under the board then rewire all 30 servos into it.