turtlebah

Richard, what a wealth of useful information - thank you so much. I will certainly be adding the semi-fast to Chester on to the timetable going forwards (maybe even a service to Woodside too). I've also just order several new books thanks to your post Looking forward to the Dapol large prairies, which will hopefully be released soon, to recreate the Snow Hill services and hoping to devise a suitable timetable at some point to help with running sessions.

Thanks, RIchard. I do hope i get some more time soon too - juggling a 6 month old and a job doesn’t always lend itself to modelling free time. As a resident of the area, if you have any insight on historical railway workings please do share!

Thanks Lacathedrale. Hoping to get some more permanent fixtures in place soon and then it’ll be easier to picture the final details and how it all comes together. Enjoyed catching up on your Holborn Viaduct today - a man after my own heart modelling an urban terminus! Secretly i wished that i had the foresight to build West Park atop of railway arches. Looking forward seeing that one progress...

Work's pretty busy this week so there's no real time for modelling, but hopefully the laser cut shells for the station, road bridges, retaining walls and warehouses should be arriving next week so there will be plenty to crack on with (providing work is a little less busy). After nearly completing all remedial works and getting the track working the next major project will be mocking up the signal box. The example in the background of this picture (Truro Bachmann special edition for Kernow) is far too mainline west country for a tight terminus set in Birmingham. Hopefully I'll post some pictures later this week. Llanfair Grange takes on water before heading off for turning after bringing in a local stopper from Shrewsburys. A class 101 arrives in the background on a local service from Stafford. I've also started building more cassettes and hope to get the rest of the fiddle yard wired up this weekend. It'll be nice to show trains leaving platforms other than P1 & P2!

That's good to know because I've got another on the workbench awaiting overhaul

A new arrival on shed today. 6439 needs a bit of extra weathering and some details fitting. I probably need to have a little play with the chuff rates and random sounds as well (they're a bit too random and loud at the moment). Unfortunately this is a rare outing on a passenger service, as primarily she'll be station pilot going forwards. Been desperate to get one of the panniers up and running to fulfil this duty. Apologies for the solder in the foreground

The order for the laser cut building and infrastructure shells has been placed with York Modelmaking! Very excited to see the end results in a few weeks time. I had a spare hour this afternoon and so managed to get stuck into some of the remedial work on the crossover. I replaced the guide rails giving tighter clearance, which seems to have helped send almost all engines across the points without riding the crossover. I also resoldered the switch blades on the point at the station throat end to give a bit of extra clearance as a few locos were riding up here too. All fine now apart from my Hornby Black 5 that still can’t navigate the crossover. However, I can’t see an operational need that would ever result in the Black 5 needing to crossover and even if I made perfect point work I’m sure it would still find a way to jump the points. Pretty convinced the gauging is a little loose on my model. Hope everyone managed to get some modelling in this weekend

Thanks Saxokid. Itching to get on with the next phase, but putting off the remedial work Enjoyed catching up on your flask depot this morning - it's come on a lot since i last check in

Love the vegetation and track weathering

Hi @Gopher, how did you get the building shells laser cut? Was it something you did yourself? I've just completed a whole series of drawings and need to get some shells cut myself. Any advice would be greatly appreciated Layout looks great by the way - you now have another avid follower.

Unfortunately before I can progress with buildings there is a bit of remedial work to do... The cross over at the end of Platform 3 really needs ripping up and replacing, but i don't have the heart to do that at this stage of the West Park's development. The two points that comprise the crossover were the first i ever hand built and my point making skills certainly improved as the layout progressed. I figure that tightening the guide rails (see below that one has already been removed) should help some of the locomotives stop riding the crossover fork, which is happening a fair bit now (more so with Hornby than Bachmann or Heljan locomotives). I suspect the real problem is a bit of wonky gauging between the two points so when i do eventually replace the whole crossover i would do two things differently to help combat this...Firstly, build the points in situ and not directly on to the C&L paper template, and secondly, build the whole crossover as one section of track rather than two separate points. It actually worked fine when originally laid, but a combination of a hot train room and slight changes to the track positioning whilst ballasting and the replacement of one of the crossings has meant that the derailments are starting to increase in frequency. Time to nip it in the bud (sort of). In addition, one of my other points has a dead spot where a bit of solder connecting the outer rail and point blade has clearly come loose. Fixing this one is going to be a little fiddly. As only my second ever layout attempt and my first with hand build finescale track it's all a learning experience (1 step forward 3 steps back)!

Hi Adam, In hindsight, the drawings were the easy bit. I've now got to build the bloomin things (and to match the drawings - eeek)! I just love the Class 7 locomotives! Not very pretty, but they definitely look the business. Unfortunately my Class 7 has by now been relegated to secondary passenger workings.

Drawings for the West Park infrastructure are now complete, which took way longer than anticipated A BR Standard Class 7 waits for a clear road to proceed to Crewe via Stafford with the West Park portion of a service bound for the North West. The 56xx is on station pilot duty today and waits patiently in the centre road for an incoming Shrewsbury service and the subsequent stock moves.

Great pic, John. So atmospheric. On a slightly different topic, and after watching some of your vids, your loco’s always sounds great (Bradfield loco’s included). What sounds decoders do you use?

Whilst I would dearly love to just play trains the time has come to crack on with the next phase - the rather mundane task of producing detailed measurement drawings for the scenery shells before laser cutting can commence. A lonely evening spent at the kitchen table with obligatory beer and documentary on North West steam for company The retaining wall and Waterloo Road bridge sketch West Park station building basic shell

Thanks Ade. I wish I could take credit for the Black 5, but that was the handy work of the guys at TMC who did a great job as always. It does still need detailing though and I've got a parts pack to fit, but there's more pressing scenic work to get done for now.

Hi Colm, A great layout and really atmospheric. Really pleased to have found this thread Cheers, Nick

Thanks, Dan. Still a long way to go. When you have an hour spare in the evening it is just too tempting to play trains

Lovely shots.

Back to work today after an extended Easter break and so little time for modelling. A good excuse this evening to play trains for an hour. It really would be much easier (operationally) to make these videos if i bothered to wire up the fiddle yard cassettes for trains running out of platforms 1 and 2 (that’s why you only ever see departing trains running from platform 3 unless a DMU. Perhaps a job for the weekend... In the meantime, here’s the latest trainspotters chronicles at West Park.

let’s hope so

@Rhysb looking good so far. Nice weathering on the class 37. I'm looking forward to seeing how this project evolves.

Hi Alex. It's all coming along nice. You've got yourself another avid follower. I look forward to seeing future updates. Nick

Hi Mark - I really liked the original layout design so excited to see what revisions you come up with.

I've only just come across this. Wonderful video of one of my favourite layouts.