steamfinale

The current project is to configure the loco-shed area. The pics show the progression of the back-drop with the embankment and boundary fence now in place. The turntable (Peco with a few bits added from the Dapol kit and the well walls lined with brick-paper) has recently been sunk into the baseboard and motorised using the excellent "Locomotech" kit. Advice from the following link http://www.goldcoastmodelrailwayclub.com/motorising-a-peco-turntable.html has been invaluable. With the well suitably braced (my usual amateur bodge job) the table now turns smoothly. I have no connection to the manufacturer. I built the kit 25 years ago and had tried to make it work with a meccano device from, I think, Frizinghall Models but to no good effect. However, having reinforced the well, I suspect the meccano motor would now do the trick just as well. The coal stage is a Metcalfe kit with a bit of added detailing while the ramps are scratch-built. The ramps have had to be modified to fit the new location as the pics show. The loco-shed is scratch-built and again is about 25 years old and in need of a bit of tlc having been boxed up for a long time. It's basically a plywood box covered in mounting card and brick-paper. The smoke vents are strip-wood, each with 4 truncated dress-maker's pins shoved in and supporting a plasticard cowl made by moulding the card round a broom handle in boiling water - it does work. So, the next step is track-laying and wiring. The idea is that the shed area will be a separate section with its own controller and cdu to operate the points but with the shed throat being a shared section with the main layout inner circuit. This pic gives an idea of where it's heading. ... Finally, I am wondering whether to sink ash-pits here and there and whether others have managed to do this without resort to the Peco off-the shelf version....

Just came across this - very impressive. I've also used flexible (paper) corridor connections to a slightly different design to good effect for some time. I was pleased to see the same technique used by the Bath Green Park guys when I visited their base at the WSR a few years ago. The main let-down, having made the effort, can be the gap remaining between loco and tender, especially on older models. Cab doors and a fall plate are always an improvement. I make cab doors (set at an angle) from scribed plasticard and fall plates from a bit of guitar string to provide the hinge, lightly recessed into the cab-sides, and old metal toothpaste-tube or wine bottle foil to do the rest.

A couple of pics showing another corner of the layout, in this case typical terraced housing a stone's throw from the loco shed (like where i lived as a kid and caught the railway virus). The housing is a mix of Superquick, Metcalfe and some scratch-built from card some 40 years ago and still going strong (the house-backs to the right-hand side). A few chimney pots wouldn't go amiss and it's on the to-do list (has been for 40 years). The backscene is obviously from Townscene. One of the pics shows a dead siding in the foreground. This is the shed entrance (yet to be modelled but where I may need some help in due course ...). The shed outline has been designed and Peco turntable installed but .... work to do and the next major task.

The goods yard, such as it is, fills a corner at the down end of the station. The main goods depot is a continental kit (Pola? - can't remember!) essentially cut in half to supply a low-relief back-drop. The platform is simply made from mounting card. The other factory buildings have been bodged together from scratch-built plasticard structures originally designed and built for an earlier layout in the 80s. A bit of Townscene backdrop completes the scene. The purpose of the layout is to run trains, not necessarily shunt sidings, so a functioning goods yard was never a priority.... A Castle waits to take over a north-bound express from a County while a Neasden L1 has arrived with a stopper and a 28xx waits for the road with an iron ore train for the Midlands.

Much appreciate the comment re my last blog entry - sound advice and thankyou! I have a metre-long steel straight edge that has proved invaluable when track-laying and it's also handy for slicing up card to make straight platforms.The attached pics show the evolution of the station area and i think the tracks are just about straight enough.... At the early stage, I was anxious to get the platform clearances correct. My island platform buildings are obviously 'Superquick' so that dictates platform width. The passenger footbridge (in 2 sections) was made for a terminus station on a previous layout and effectively dictates a 3/2-road configuration (this is the third layout it's been used on). It's built from scratch using as a base a pair of 'plastruct' girders with a slice of plasticard as an internal, hidden spacer. The glazed portion on top is made from CD jewel cases (these respond to plastic solvent really well) with micro-strip overlay for the glazing bars. The roofs are simply plasticard painted to look a bit like felt covering.The supporting stair-cases are fabricated from mounting card and brick paper with scraps of Airfix stairs at the lower ends. Platforms are built up from mounting card with the edging stones scribed using a very hard pencil. The white line along the platform edge is achieved by scribing the surface a few mm from the edge with the back of a Stanley knife blade such that when carefully painted, the paint runs into the groove, but no further, giving a clean edge. The main building is built almost entirely from mounting card and brick paper and has undergone a few modifications over the years as it's been adapted to successive layouts, although storage during house moves has taken a bit of a toll (the camera is hyper-critical). One of the pics shows the rough form of the over-bridge that now forms the scenic break between the station and the storage loops. This is made up of plywood sides and base founded on wooden blocks bodged to achieve the optimum height. The bridge girders are scratch-built from differing thicknesses of plasticard whilst the bridge abutments are made using a suitable thickness of strip-wood, easily picked up at DIY shops. The side-walls are topped with balsa cut to look like capping stones. - more of this perhaps later. Finally, two pics showing the 'London end' of the station as it currently is with a bit of action. One shows a Crosti 9F taking the "London" branch with a loaded coal train whilst "County of Montgomery" runs in from the "Banbury" line with the Swansea-York. The other shows a Hall (Hornby Railroad, but a lovely model) on the Grimsby Fish passing another Hall (Bachmann) on a parcels working. "Hinton South" box controlling the junction is from a card kit. P.S. I started this blog having been a visitor to the site for a long time and having learned a lot from anonymously reading the contributions of others. The last time i belonged to a model railway group was when i lived in Hull in the late 70s, just starting out with my first 'proper' layout (all of 7'6" by 5'), and i learned a huge amount from the guys at HMRS. Since then, it's been a solo effort and with one exception, all DIY and trial and error (often the latter). I'll come back to the exception in time ....

Having more or less finished the baseboards, the first fun part was seeing whether the track plan would translate from paper into reality. To some extent, the plan was constrained by the wish to re-cycle buildings/structures recovered from earlier layouts and future blog instalments will expand upon this. The attached pics show some of the first attempts and the gradual evolution. All track is Peco code 100 with electrofrog medium radius points. The main station building (low relief) can be seen as well as the loco depot location and the goods yard. I'll cover these in more detail as the saga evolves! Most points will have peco motors buried underneath but some (and a few old H&M motors) in the storage loops will have to be surface mounted to avoid cutting into timber bracing unnecessarily. Not for the squeamish but I notice that one of the pics has a bloody tissue on display, the result of trying to cut left-handed with a Stanley knife. This stopped play, not least as I couldn't grip a squash racquet for a week afterwards. The presflos (with DIY weathering) that appear in some of the pics are mainly Dapol kits assembled to while away the time as the house sale/purchase proceeded at a snail's pace in 2016. Axle boxes were carefully drilled out to accomodate Romford shouldered bearings and ensure smooth running.

The basic timber framework follows the method set out by John Aherne (of Madder Valley fame) in his book "Miniature Landscape Modelling, originally published c.1950 - see photo. The surface is half-inch chipboard. I've used this method for 40 years and it's relatively easy as no carpentry skills are required The exception is a removable section at one end where in order to accomodate a Metcalfe bridge, I used thin ply for the track bed - less than ideal but it works - see picture. This section has been wired with multi-pin connectors at each end and can, if required, be removed to enable access to a radiator behind. It's located using the time-honoured method of door hinges with removable pins, one at each end. All surfaces were given a coat of neutral grey paint before track-laying commenced. The completed baseboards are free-standing and do not touch the room wall at any point.

I've taken the plunge and decided to share my modelling efforts with the wider world .... "Blackford & Hinton" has been under construction for about 12 months since a house move enforced demolition of its predecessor. The basic premise is that it's somewhere on the former GC between Brackley and Leicester giving an excuse to run ex-GW, LMS and LNE locos side by side. So, Woodford Halse but a much more urban setting ... The available space is a generous 19' by 16' providing for a continuous run of double track with a diverging junction at one end (one line to Marylebone, the other to Banbury??). There are 18 storage loops "off-stage". The main circuits are now fully operational but still being de-bugged. Current energy is being devoted to constructing the loco depot. More to follow along with pictures ....