TechnicArrow

More fantastic modelling! You're definitely making good use of these semi-kits, it shows just how much quicker they make things whilst still allowing a lot of flexibility. Any chance of an seeing overall photo of the layout in it's current state? I think we've only seen one end or the other recently

First, a little update on the warehouse: with appalling weather and all my plans cancelled from underneath me, I finally added the windowsills and arches. These are the laser-cut card components supplied with the windowframes by ScaleModelScenery. I simply glued them on and painted them a bricky colour - this has turned out much darker than the actual brickwork so it's far from perfect, but it works and as I've been saying repeatedly it's only a backdrop. I also mounted the old pipe bridge structure a little more securely, it really helps to hide the sector plate area in quite a "soft" way. And another photo for good luck! But onto the elephant in the room. It's now late Feb and there's still no video. This is mostly because I just can't get the layout to actually run - it seems no loco can travel more than a cm withouth needing a prod. As I've explained I tried bringing in a known good runner, the Pannier, and that doesn't help. I've also proven the Barclay can crawl happily around the older pointwork on my home layout, so I'm ruling out any loco issues as the cause of poor running. (How I've ended up with a fleet of 4 for such a small layout is a separate problem!) The second potential cause is the trackwork, which I've been attempting to adress recently. I purchased a better track rubber, then when that made little change I purchased some Isopropyl Alcohol and liberally rubbed that onto the rails. But to no avail; there's a slight improvement, but it's still far short of smooth running. Besides, the track was all bought new for this layout, and has been wired to be live at all times so the point blades aren't relied upon. The only thing is it could have degraded when I painted the sides brown, but the alcohol should have cleared anything that was interfering there. This leaves the contoller as the only potential cause. A standard compact Gaugemaster Combi, it isn't exactly a top-of-the-range unit, but it was bought new only 2 years ago and it ran Arrow Paints without too much issue. Ironically and annoyingly, this layout was meant to improve on running quality from Arrow Paints - but I'd say (without being able to directly compare) that it's much worse, I could actually use that layout wheras this one is effectively a static diorama at this point. Part of me is considering rebuilding the boards for this layout and transferring the buildings across; I still enjoy the overall scene and composition, and would enjoy shunting it if it was actually possible so I don't want to start on a completely new project just yet. Any thoughts on what else could be a problem, or the most cost-effective way to remedy this short of replacing everthing at and below ground level?

Looking good, as always! I agree that the later composition of two warehouses with some road/yard between them draws the eye in from the end of the track. A signal sounds like it would help, maybe apply a little modellers' licence to fit a small gantry or at least a bracket type so it's hanging over the track as well as in front of it? Or if you really want to you could extend the embankment forwards a bit and put a small signal box in?

That looks fantastic, if the rest of your modelling is up to this standard your layour will be impeccable! The variety of materials are brought together perfectly by your weathering. Where did you get the spare tyres from? I'll be needing to add some details to my wharf area soon, and they could work well for disguising my point operating rods as fenders.

Excellent composition as always, and that loading dock scene looks fantastic. Your brickwork also looks quite neat so far. Definitely one to learn from, this!

Cheers! And don't worry, the video hasn't completely slipped my mind. I recently purchased some isopropyl alcohol to attempt to really scrub up the trackwork to get the locos running satisfactorily again. After my first attempt at scrubbing it down there's definitely been an improvement, but it's far from "fault free" - the Great Sky Prodder is still required more often than I'd like. The Pannier tank, with it's longer 0-6-0 wheelbase, does seem happier than my other locos so when a video does surface it will most likely feature that one, unless I can get the Barclay to a similar standard. All in all I've resolved that when I build my next layout (which knowing me probably isn't that far off), it'll most likely feature proper wooden boards, and I'll be a little more thorough in my track checking - I know that was the goal with this layout and why I chose to use electrofrog points, but it doesn't seem to have made the difference I hoped it would!

Cheers! And don't worry, the video hasn't completely slipped my mind. I recently purchased some isopropyl alcohol to attempt to really scrub up the trackwork to get the locos running satisfactorily again. After my first attempt at scrubbing it down there's definitely been an improvement, but it's far from "fault free" - the Great Sky Prodder is still required more often than I'd like. The Pannier tank, with it's longer 0-6-0 wheelbase, does seem happier than my other locos so when a video does surface it will most likely feature that one, unless I can get the Barclay to a similar standard. All in all I've resolved that when I build my next layout (which knowing me probably isn't that far off), it'll most likely feature proper wooden boards, and I'll be a little more thorough in my track checking - I know that was the goal with this layout and why I chose to use electrofrog points, but it doesn't seem to have made the difference I hoped it would!

Thank you very much @Kevin Johnson, @SteveyDee68 and @RailroadRich - the main reason I post my modelling progress on here is to get myself to do it in the first place! It's also entertaining to look back at my older projects and reminisce a little... Over the past few evenings the rear warehouse has finally taken shape. I even remembered to take pictures as I went along this time, so this will be a WIP post! First, what we started with - the lower half already formed, and the shape of the upper half. I started by cutting and laminating more card for the butresses, each layer is in fact two thicknesses of cereal box card to increase the depth slightly. Then brickpaper was slowly added, starting with the main panels and then adding each layer of butress on top. Although you can't tell I also cut the window openings out from the card base, but not from the brickpaper yet since I didn't have a sharp enough blade at the time to do it cleanly. I find that even a slightly blunt blade makes a mess of home-printed brick paper. I also continued the butresses around the top of the window panels; the brick paper isn't perfectly joined up but it's close enough. Then the top layer of butresses and gable ends were assembled and test-fitted, I kept them seperate just to be efficient with card/brick paper and not waste too much. A few evenings later and I have a sharp blade again, so the brick paper could be cut and folded through the window openings. The outer butresses have also recieved their brick paper, just the gable ends to go now. And there we have it, all bricked up. Again not the best of jointing between the gables and butresses, but I'll go back and add various lintels, sills and of course weathering to make them dissappear. Lastly I added the windows. These were purchased from Scale Model Scenery many months ago now, and have been painted mostly white. They are push-fits into the window openings which were cut just smaller than them and opened out to let them fit, although they've been secured by the addition of glaing to the rear. Ideally they'd be recessed a little but they provide very little frame thickness to allow this, so flush it was. And finally in-situ! From this angle you can see why I didn't bother with half the windows on the lower section - you can barely ever see them anyway! I'd forgotten until just now about the additional foot/pipe bridge to the loading tower, yes the same one that I originally built for Arrow Paints about 2 years ago - I think this is it's third layour now. The window it takes the place of needs a little more adjustment to let it fit but it certainly ties everything together more. The overall scene is looking better for it already - no more blank placeholder buildings (unless you count the wharf wall). This final building is still quite a way from finished though; the windows need their sills and arches (included in the kit) painting and adding, the brickwork needs additional lintels etc, and the gables need decorative brickwork or just bargeboards. Oh, and I need to devise a way to hold the two halfs together and fix the bottom one to the board - it's held in place mostly by hope right now!

The door and window just took some careful work with a sharp blade, the frames for both aren't particularly big so you have to be careful not to break what's left over, but it's not too difficult and adds a bit more life to the building. The hinges are the tiny strips (hence why there's a few more than you actually need), it's just a shame I didn't do that good a job of painting them... I thought I'd do a quick update with an overall photo of the whole layout, I don't think I've posted one for a while. You can see how the building fits in the scene - it certainly makes the big ol' grain silo look a bit plain, but I've got a few ideas to remedy that. I'm still really happy with the scene composition - the conveyor, loading tower, wall and new warehouse work really well together to conceal the sector plate whithout completely burying it, tricking you into thinking the tracks carry on somewhere. The wharf itself does still feel like an afterthought though, but nevermind. A higher view, I don't think I've posted one of these for a while either. You still can't see that sector plate, although clearly I need to work on the various roofs. The layout's certainly not in tip-top condition - there's lots of little jobs I need to work on like the gates at the left-hand end, the aforementioned roofs, and fixing one or two of the uncouplers. Although the latter doesn't see much use at the moment because the running quality is awful, but I've bought some track cleaning fluid so we'll see if I can get it into shape!

It's amazing what you can get done when you find youself with a few spare days between exams and the next term starting... I finally obtained some white acrylic paint, to make some progress on this warehouse. I used it to paint the windowframes before assembling them (one of them is open, just for interest) and attaching the clear plastic; I also painted the doors and hinges (one of which is also posed open), and the winch housing. Then it was assembly time! I started by attaching brick paper to the front wall panels, wrapping it through the window and door openings before attaching said windows and doors to the rear of the wall. Finally the wall panel was fixed to the rest of the structure's shell. You can still see the horizontal split, but it's already much less obvious. A quick close-up on that open door and window - I'm not sure this is exactly the right way it would open, but it's what I went for! I then added brick to the side walls, and simple quoins over the corner joints. Next the windowsills and lintels, painted with reddish-brown and white acrylic to try to match the brick paper - it's not perfect, but it seems to blend in. Finally I used the white and black paints to "weather" the building slightly, I might need to revisit this at some point but it will be fine for now. Sat on the layout, it cetainly looks the part - and what you can't tell from pictures is how solid it feels with the laser-cut wood shell, even with the horizontal split down the middle. And now some gratuitous ground-level photos. Who left these crates on the rails here? With them moved out the way we can couple 1140 up to the wagon... ...and shunt it back into the main yard. Just the rear warehouse to go now and then the wharf itself, but I think those can wait until the weekend at least. This building is very different to what I first planned for this corner of the layout, but finally having detailed buildings along the entire layout's length feels fantastic!

This is simply superb, I've never seen the scalescenes kit look so good! The best bits are definitely your embelishments - the wharf front (especially the steps down), and the additional building to the right. The sector plate looks nicely concealed-in-plain-sight too. Excellent work overall!

That's looking excellent! Did you use the cutter on the brick plasticard too or was that done by hand? Either way that looks like some speedy progress on a unique building, I'm somewhat envious

It looks like my posts are like busses - you wait ages and then I post two on the same day! Cheers! It's about as simple as you can get for a sector plate, but it works well so why complicate things? As for literally behind-the-scenes, there's a few more coming up... I think I recall you mentioning a stanley knife before. Unfortunately I don't own one, so the following modifications were made with a combination of junior hacksaw and blunt penknife - a little bit brute-force, but it worked well enough! Firstly I cut out the back-left corner, just deep and tall enough to clear trains on the sector plate. I filled the gap with an offcut of card, and then glued the back, sides and floors together, remembering not to affix the front so I can still get the windows and doors on from behind. To see how it fits in aroudn the sector plate, have some terribly-angled photos - the layout has been returned to it's position on the windowsill so I used my phone's front-facing camera to vaguely see what I was taking pictures of. Finally I attacked the entire structure with the junior hacksaw to create the horizontal split - an extra lip of card glued inside the upper half keeps the two together neatly in the right place. And that'll do for this evening! The next stage is to apply brick paper to the outside, and then paint and fix the windows and doors to the inside. Since the kit's floors have holes in them already I did consider adding interior lighting, by buying another cheap set of battery LEDs, but I feel with the separating floors that'll be quite tricky; on the other hand the other half of the layout has exterior lighting so I think I need to add something to continue the after-dark effect.

My Fair Price Models warehouse kit came today, so as soon as I got home any hope of further revision went out the window... I'm not in any way connected to the manufacturer, but my first impression is that it's a very good kit, with well-cut parts - definitely lives up to the brand name! Of course, I immediately had to try putting it together - it holds remarkably well without glue, although I added some tape just to keep it in place. And then I plonked it on the layout... If fits! Almost. In order to fit in the box, I'm planning to cut it horizontally, just like every other building on the layout - and just above the 1st floor windows seems an excellent place to do this, hiding most of the joint with the window lintels. To drop the building down to the correct height I removed the "concrete" insetting. It's now exactly the right height as atested by the pencil marks and the ruler balanced across the box to the right, and it also brings the internal floor and doorframe level with the gound - perfect! Looking neat already! However, from behind, there's a bit of an issue - it's about a cm too deep, when the sector plate is swung to the forward position it'll be far too close - ideally it should be inline with the back of the boundary wall. I made a template of the available floor space - it's too deep at the back-left, but could be deeper elsewhere. I considered placing the back at an angle to get it as deep as possible inside, but to keep structural integrity I'll likely just lop of the corner required to clear trains, and create a roof that's deeper than the building to imply it goes further back. One final note on the kit - there's a slight chicken-and-egg situation... I was playing with the doors, and decided to model at least one open by carfully cutting around it. Whilst doing this, it occurred to me that the windows and doors should be added *after* the brick paper is applied, so the paper can be wrapped around the openings - but also *before* the front is connected to the main building because the floors get in the way. But if the front isn't connected to the main building, you can't wrap the brickpaper around the sides of the building to get a nice continuous edge... I think my solution here is to add brick quoins to the outside corners from spare card - that will cover up any misalignment in the paper, and give a little more texture to the face too. We'll see - but maybe I should get back to revision first...

I'm very much enjoying watching your composition come together! Especially that single-storey section of building, the depth and visual interest it adds is excellent. And I still absolutely love the idea to have the track raised above street level. Also I'm glad you brought my attention to the Fair Price Models range, I've just received my kit and I'm very impressed with it (post in my thread coming soon!)

Neat little building! The "plain" face works very well, especially with your weathering. I love how it's nestling back into the trees, it looks like it's shying away from the railway - excellent!

Cheers! I always find lighting always adds another dimension to a layout - and being pre-wired, I really enjoyed fitting these! Now, what brings me to resurrect my old topic? No, not a video, not just yet... the 8750 has made it back with me, but the track still needs a good cleaning before I'm confident to point a camera at it. Oh, and as usual for this time of year, exams are a thing again... But. I've recently had a read through @hayfield's excellent thread, and thought I'd have a look at the kits since they're being used to such good effect. The size of the generic "Warehouse" one caught my eye, so I had a look at the dimensions, and found in width and depth it's a *perfect* fit for my front-right warehouse, it's only a bit shorter than I was planning... so I had to create a quick cardboard mock-up, didn't I! The main difference is that it's shorter than what I was planning to build - by one storey, or about 50mm. It's also a more generic, square-windowed structure, than the Swansea-inspired buildings I was planning, which might somewhat diminish the character of the layout. On the other hand, more variance in height creates more visual interest, and the big bonus of this is that being made of wood it'll be far more sturdy than anything I could scratchbuild with cereal box card - in fact it might be sturdier than the layout baseboard itself... I was on the fence earlier, but as I wrote this out, and looked at the pictures, the more I decided this is a good idea - so I've ordered a kit! It should be a reasonably quick build and enable me to finally get this end of the layout finished, since I've already got the brick paper on hand. That said I might try to find some better stuff, since the scalescenes one I printed a while ago came out quite unsaturated - any good dark brown brick out there?

I'm loving this topic! The idea to elevate the majority of the trackwork is excellent and it's already looking promising, as is your arrangement of building shells. It's shaping up to be a great layout! You've definitely added some more ideas to my list - a list that really didn't need expanding...

Depending how adventourous you're feeling with mechanisms, it should be possible to devise an uncoupler that can be raised and lowered. It needn't be as complex (and thus as temperental) as the ones I built for Alexandra Wharf - a standard sprung ramp with a piece of thread or wire to pull it down out of the way when coupling up might work; a ramp can always be disguised as a section of inset track, or a simple foot crossing. Alternatively, look into coupling systems that use magnets e.g. the one where you glue little bits of wire to the droppers on the tension-lock arms, only install electromagnets underneath to again be able to control whether or not to uncouple. There are certainly ways, you just have to be a little imaginitive! Although I don't really have a solution for the issue of the collision with the point blade...

A rolling road would have been an excellent idea about a month ago, a bit late now though There's always my birthday in summer... For now I've had 1140 running up and down the main layout - as soon as she could properly stretch her legs she improved no end. With barely any additional running-in I could easily use her to shunt the yard at fantastically slow speeds - and that's built with some quite old points with large gaps. The GIF above is running at the speed it was filmed at, no trickery here! I'm still going to set the loop up at some point and give her a proper service, as well as the rest of my fleet, but if she runs this well here maybe the problem is Alexandra Wharf's track after all... Still, my other "solution" to getting good running out of that layout was the 8750 Pannier - it seems the new bodyshell is the correct type, and fits my existing chassis perfectly (as one would hope!) My collection of BR-era locos is growing... and this one, being an 0-6-0, should be better at coping with whatever is causing faults on Alexandra Wharf, so that's something to look forward to trying when I get back to it in the new year.

As per usual, not a lot's been happening, turns out this Uni lark can get quite demanding on your time... there's only 8 more months of it though, then I have to enter the real world instead... Despite ordering and receiving them over 2 months ago, I seem to have failed to mention I bought some figures and a "loco detailing set" from modelu; although that could be because I've only just got around to painting them and adding them. I've never painted figures before so it was a bit of guesswork, but seems to have come out quite well; I used my usual set of acrylics, blending them and trying to keep them fairly dull but not too consistent. Although when two of them are on the footplate you can hardly see them anyway! The loco's running boards also now feature a rusty bucket of spanners, a plastic can, a spare headlamp and a small coal-shovel from the modelu "loco detailing" set, in addition to the custom-etched plates and dock headcode boards intended to represent the loco employed as one of the Swansea Docks shunters; everything was fixed in place using the smallest amount of superglue possible, with touching-ups of black acrylic here and there to hide the glue marks and weather it a little bit. Photos incoming! And because I can't resist it, here's a couple of black-and-white ones... It's not the most incredibly detailed loco in the world, but it's certainly a step up for me. Now all I need to do is get the loco actually running as well as she looks - there's a reason that no video exists of it yet, and that's that it can't make it 1cm without stalling on this layout! Although that might also be a fault of the track... Still, there'll be nothing from me for a while now since I'm going home for the christmas holidays; however, this little Barclay is going with me for some serious running-in on the main layout to hopefully get her up to scratch; and when I come back I'll be bringing the chassis for the 8750 pannier tank too. So Merry Christmas to all, and here's to a video in the new year!

Looking good! One of the mistakes I made with my wharf layout is there's not really enough space to moor a boat on the water at the front of the layout, but even the simple barge on yours does make it look proper. If you're worried about a Thames barge taking up too much space, maybe make a simple card-shape mock-up with the size of the mast/sails to get an idea? An intricate model like that would certainly add more visual interest at the front. Finally RE cranes; I'd say it depends on your desired era. If it's 50s/60s you could definitely get a mobile pick-and-carry type crane and then it's easier to pose it around the scene for photographs, but at a guess much earlier would have been more likely to be a fixed hand-crane? Not an expert here, this is just what I vaguely remember from looking up dates for my various working cranes. Alternatively you could go for a rail-mounted crane, or even a crane-tank engine...

That end of the layout is looking excellent now! Between the warehouse viewblocker and continued scenery the fiddle yard is really well disguised, something frequently overlooked I find. The fencing still looks a little orderly and clean but given your work on the rest of the scene I'm sure that won't last for long!

For such a big loco, I think she looks remarkably at home on your layout - there's just enough free track either side of her when she's in the siding for it to fit without dominating the scene too much. I'd never get away with that on my layout! Also, I never mentioned, but your ground frame and point rodding looks superb and really adds to the scene, as does the crane - I might have to get one of those, I seem to have a thing for working cranes...

Thanks! But it's not a boxfile... It fits a Really Useful Box, so about 2.5 boxfiles really. Still, I'm glad you enjoy it! @luke the train spotter and @Andrew D I hear you about videos! It's definitely going to be the New Year unfortunately, I haven't the time to get the layout into good running order, and film, and edit a video before I go home for Christmas. Remind me in January! And as for layouts in student houses - first off I'll suggest is that you build a solid layout, or in something like the RUB that provides protection during transport. Whilst my shoebox layouts worked, they were far from stable for transport! Secondly, something about this size (70-80cm long by 30cm deep) will usually fit on most chests of drawers or windowsills, which means you can take it nearly anywhere without worrying if there's somewhere for it to go. That said AWv2 is currently living on my desk, because it's a big ol' desk, and a windowsill layout in winter doesn't get played with much. Last night's mini-project was to add something to the tall empty hole of the loading tower. I stared by scouring @SteveyDee68's reference pictures for details, since the structure was inspired by the one at Ipswich. The loading mechanism seems to consist of a tall tube of circular or square profile, with various link arms to extend it forwards of the tower and down into the hull of a ship. So that's what I aimed to build! It's kind of difficult to get photos of, since I painted it black and it's only half protruding, but it's there! (I know the layout's a bit crowded, three locos is definitely too many, but I don't have anywhere else to put them on display ) Here's a challenge: can you guess what it's made from? If you look carefully you can see a hexagonal profile... because it's the casing from a pen! Along with some bits of plastic strut I've had kicking around for ages, the inner pen tube for a completely-invisible tube leading into the tower itself, and a little card "hat" to top it off. It's built so as to be fixed to the upper, removable half of the structure; it'd be too tall otherwise. It's not exactly the most detailed or accurate modelling in the world, but given the little reference material I don't think anyone will notice! Anyway, that's enough procrastination for now, back to my Uni reports - there's deadlines looming...