Jump to content
 

C126

RMweb Gold
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2,057

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by C126

  1. C126

    10. Some photographs after ballasting all week.

    By C126,


    B.R. blue goods yard.
    Weary of paint and modelling clay, as the coal/minerals yard starts to look presentable, I thought I would try posing some stock.  Herewith my efforts.  Sorry about the backgrounds.
     

     
    A 71 pretending to be a 74 pops into the minerals siding with a special delivery of tar.
     
     
     

     
    Said tar wagon is taken off by the yard shunter, releasing the 71.  Now we return to Speedlink air-braked services...
     
     

     
    The aggregates merchant sets about filling and emptying wagons.
     
     
     

     
    The 'old school' Lima 33 waits to take away the agricultural hoppers and tanks (grain and flour).
     
     
     

     
    73 113 shunts an empty VIX, preparing to send it over the seas to exotic Eastern lands.  Please try and ignore the garden tools...
     
     
     

     
    73 111 shunts a delivery of minerals.
     
     
     

     
    The yard shunter brings the day's stock into the Departure Road, in front of the mineral yard.
     
     
     

     
    An overall view of the layout so far.  The nearest 'rust' needs toning down, which I should have done before taking the photographs, but I wanted a break from the artist's smock and palette.  Now time for dinner, and some glasses of Cotes du Rhone!
  2. C126

    9. Aggregate wagon-loads.

    By C126,


    B.R. blue goods yard.
    Killing time waiting for the modelling clay ballast to dry on the left of the yard, I made myself a few wagon-loads of various minerals for my POA wagons.  Cut an oblong of card or plasticard to fit the Open, mould a lump from floral foam and glue it to the former.  Paint, or cover with glue and chippings:
     

     
     
    The wagon on the outer left has two, incorrectly shaped, 'heaps' glued to a base, unpainted.  My first attempt, this will be re-done.  The inner left is an experiment of coating the foam heaps with modelling clay and painting with acrylic for sand (three coats plus touching-up in total), the inner right is a mix of coloured chippings to simulate shingle (higher heaps because it has just been loaded for despatch) glued on with Copydex, and the outer right is painted floral foam (four coats of acrylic) to be covered in chalk chippings when one may travel to Sussex and root around in one's parents' garden.
     
    There is also an OAA with a load of timber planks, made from drinks stirrers (not photographed).  The card bases have been 'raised' with small blocks of balsa wood, so one can 'tip' the load out to simulate an empty wagon.  An enjoyable experiment, I thought.
  3. C126

    7. Ash ballast.

    By C126,


    B.R. blue goods yard.
    Spent Wednesday covering everything with what looked like Cornish china clay, but was far less romantic: Hobbycraft air-drying modelling clay.  It gets everywhere.  However, I filled the 'four foot' almost to my satisfaction, and must now pluck up courage to attempt not to glue up a point.  Thankfully, it takes about a fort-night to dry, and it is freezing cold and snowing outside, so a good reason to find something else to do, or at least start wondering whether the cracks will show under a couple of layers of acrylic paint.
     

     
     
     

     
    Such a shame I had to dismantle everything for this task.  It all looks so offensively untidy!
  4. C126

    6. The London Broad Street homage.

    By C126,


    B.R. blue goods yard.
    Snow is falling, which is reason enough to assume air-dried modelling clay will not cure properly in a freezing cold garage as ballast, so I have put the viaduct passenger station frame in situ, and come indoors for a cup of tea and an early brandy paanee.  The station, of which one will see little of the building, is to be my homage to Mr William Baker's 1865 London Broad Street, the memory of whose derelict, un-loved, Renaissance atmosphere still haunts me.  Quite whether it will be worthy, only time will tell.
     
    The frame was a case of 'one step forward, three back', as I glued and hammered, then re-glued what had fallen off, then removed and reattached mistakes and intrusions as the structure grew more complex.  However, when I can buy some more track, I hope to get started on the scenery on this level.  Already, I am wondering about removing the plywood side on the right (under the station) to use as a stiff back for the row of eight Wills brick arches that need to be attached.  However, it looks adequate so far, so I hope this will be of interest.
     
    The passenger station site.  A carriage siding will be on the left, and a milk siding on the right, up against the retaining wall (all yet to be built):
     

     
     
    A view of the full length:
     

     
    This end, nearest the camera, will be hidden behind a warehouse and silos, to mask the trains departing from the station, where the 'Hand of God' will be used to un-couple and reverse them.
     
  5. C126

    5. Coal and mineral bins.

    By C126,


    B.R. blue goods yard.
    An A.B.S./Speedlink day to-day.  The coal bins have been painted, and thanks to Oasis bought before the latest confinement, some mounds of minerals have been put into them: three piles of 'coal' painted an undercoat of black, and various mounds of 'aggregates', one coated in Woodland Scenics medium buff ballast.  Two more 'green mounds' await painting.
     

     
    The coal merchant's top-loader is fitted with a bodged, larger, shovel from Plasticard, with a 'weights' box added to the rear after the digger was removed.  The blue 'sack hopper' (?) was improvised from more Plasticard, two wooden cocktail sticks, and a pin.
     
     

     
     
    73 113 awaits with the day's departure, the aggregate pens in the distance, now filled with khaakii and green 'mounds'.
     
    Now I need another job to avoid starting the ballasting...
     
  6. C126

    4. Coal bins.

    By C126,


    B.R. Rail blue.
    Having tried scoring 2mm. plasticard to make coal yard bins, and been disappointed with the results, I spent the weekend making up something better looking with balsa-wood OO 'sleepers' (30x3x2mm.) instead.  Slapped some paint down to delineate the areas on the mineral siding (coal, aggregates, chalk and china clay), and knocked up the start of a hopper for the coal merchant to fill his sacks.  Also managed to remove the back 'grabs' off the JCB models.  All in all, I am pleased with the progress.
     
    Alas, I still can not get the hang of the focussing, so the photos are not wonderful, but I hope you get the idea of the layout.  Looking forward to finishing the 'groynes' of the coal pens (another twelve panels needing making) and then painting and weathering them.  Then I need to work out how to fill them with 'piles' without using a solid block of modelling clay...
     

     
     

     
    The task of ballasting hangs over me for Christmas, alas...
     
     
  7. C126

    3. Christmas interruptions to service.

    By C126,


    BR Blue Goods Yard.
    Alas, preparations for Christmas have interrupted progress, but I attempted a 'photo-shoot' to-day, and have tried to add header pictures.  The main picture is a view across the mineral yard, with 73 113 departing with a train from the agricultural warehouses (one needs to use much imagination to see the cardboard boxes thus!), and I hope I have added a view in the general goods yard-to-be.
     
    This weekend I hope to start building coal- and aggregate-yard pens.  Scoring squares of 2mm. plasticard to look like horizontal sleepers did not look good (and proved my eye-sight is not as good as it was), so I bought some balsa wood to cut into individual OO sleepers, to then glue together between 30mm. of rail as posts.  The aggregate pens will be a more modern concrete design, made from cardboard.  But as we all know, 'The best laid plans...'
     
    [The photo has loaded as a 'Header' as hoped.  The milk tank is where the station viaduct will be, there being a siding for discharge to a bottling plant under the arches.  The P.M.V. is on the far passenger/etc. platform.]
  8. C126

    1. Introduction.

    By C126,


    B.R. blue goods yard.
    The model world is awash with 'shunting planks', I know, but I hope my design might be of interest to a few readers, and maintaining this diary might spur me to keep working on the layout.  The track plan (9'6" x 2'6") is thus:
     
    [PICT2209 DESTROYED]
     
    The red line denotes the boundary between the two levels.  Inspired by a diagram by Iain Rice, I can claim no credit for the ideas.  I am working on the lower layout at the moment:
     
    [PICT2204 DESTROYED]
     
     
    Below is before I started track-laying, with the upper (passenger station) board, 'Atherington Victoria', balanced on timber to give an idea of design.  The boxes are where buildings will be - a warehouse and grain silos on the left, and a small station building (part) on the right end of the viaduct.  Hope this all makes sense.  The yard on the lower board, 'East Yard', will be a B.R. blue-era general goods yard, merging into a 'Speedlink' yard depending on the stock run, somewhere on the High Weald of the South Downs (Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Guildford).  However, as I rather like boat trains, it might be 'moved' occasionally to the Sussex coast to allow an inter-regional portion to use the station.
     
     

     
    I will post more, when I get the hang of this 'blogging lark'.  Thanks for reading.
  9. C126

    2. Viaduct sides and 3-way turnouts.

    By C126,


    B.R. blue goods yard.
    Apart from problems with 0-6-0 shunters stalling on the 3-way 'king' point, all is going well with the layout so far.  Thus tempting fate, I hope to start sawing the plywood sides of the viaduct level to-day, plus re-number a Dapol '73', and try and see where the shunters are losing power on the afore-mentioned point.  I posed some rolling stock this morning for a 'vacuum-braked wagon-load' photo-shoot to send to a chum, which might be of interest, working along the layout from 'north to south':
     
     

     
     

     
     

     
     
     
    The sherry tubes are where the grain/flour/sugar silos will be, the cardboard boxes the warehouses, to help with sight-lines.  I know the Sussex Weald was hardly a 'hub' for sugar-refining, but I could not resist the wagons.  Sorry about the lurid 'flash' lighting!  The milk tank and PMV is where the passenger station will be (track yet to be found and purchased).
×
×
  • Create New...