Philou

Ahem - nine points of the law ............. apparently ;) .

I was browsing via Google last week and item dated 1 November 2023 (that I cannot now find) that implied that a new length of OLE had been energised - I think it was Pontypridd to Treherbert. It gave no details of what stock was going under the wires though. If I can find the article I'll repost. Cheers, Philip

It took forever today to do anything meaningful - real life kept getting in the way! Nonetheless, I managed to paper the other abutment and put the corbels in place - the one is glued in place and waiting to dry. In the end I couldn't use screws as I was working at an awkward angle and the screws were damaging the trackbed base. I shan't be doing any tomorrow unfortunately as I'm going to Dijon with Mrs Philou and I'm hoping I'll have a Xmas gift sorted for her, BUT we're with her sister and BiL and time won't be entirely ours - I might be thwarted! Here are the two abutments ready to go into the barn plus their respective wing walls: ^ This time I used a straight edge with the pizza cutter and it was fine. A cocktail stick was used for the vertical joints - but they don't show up well in the photos. The one in the photo immediately above is the one that is now fixed in position, the top one I'll do on Friday and once they're both fixed, I can then attach the wing walls - there are only wing walls on the branchline approach as on the side of the mainline facing Dymented there are vertical walls and not much else. More on Friday, Cheers, Philip

Took me all afternoon to cut and stick four pieces of card and about eight bits of coloured paper - eesh! I know Rome wasn't built in a day but ............. I have though one retaining wall with embossed paper. What I did was glue a thin sheet of card over the ply and when dried, glued the stone paper onto that. Using a pizza cutter wheel - no, not a Lima one, a real one - I pressed it along the mortar courses whilst the PrittTM (other glue sticks available) was still damp. I only did the horizontal ones and only as far as they would be seen on the edges of the piers (nothing small enough for the verticals - but hey, I'm getting there! And voila ...................... (I need to control the alignment of the pizza wheel more carefully - this edge is mostly unseen - fortunately :) and now knowing it works I'll use a straight edge - silly boy). I have a sandstone corbel that I want to add just below the engineering bricks plus the concrete pads for the steel bearings. The pads I will put in place once the bridge is constructed. If I can get the other side completed tomorrow, I'll be in that barn quicker than a rat in a drain pipe! Very pleased and definitely more tomorrow, Philip

If you use anything on the tyres of the wheels, don't forget that it will act as an electrical insulator. You need to ask @The Johnster (other RMWeb commentards are available) as he extolls its virtues often here on RMWeb. For what it's worth, I would avoid any form of tyres as they tend to spread crud and the like over the rails. Can you perhaps get the loco body off and add some weight? Pieces of lead (insulated from electrical gubbins) are good as is 'lead' shot used for fishing lines - but you need some special glue for the shot, and I can't remember what it is (but it's not PVA IIRC). Cheers, Philip

@JeffP Similar to the style of wall I'm recreating - flat-topped arches but the inner part recessed at 1:10. The arches will be 28mm wide and about 54mm high (to the top of the arch) with a pillar of 18mm between each arch. Every group of 3 arches will have a buttress 24mm wide and 5mm deep (perhaps a little deeper depending on the aesthetics). There will be 6 groups of 3 arches making a total length of about 950mm. As you might have gathered, I'm not in the barn today - recovering from yesterday's little foray - and I need to decorate the bridge retaining walls before I can continue doing the rock faces as I didn't want to do the rock face and then find I can't place the walls. In any case, I've decided for extra security I shall screw the retaining walls to the edge of the branchline trackbed rather than just glue as I can then fix the top of the retaining wall to the mainline trackbed above so that it is kept vertical whilst drying. I can then tackle the rockface and cut the mainline trackbed after ready for the bridge. Plenty of cutting and glueing today, Toodle pip, Philip

We had 'that' car in 1958 - 1953's Vauhall Velox (the one with the big open mouth at the front) in two colours, light blue body white roof and bench seats front and back. My father driving (natch) and my mother with the youngest of us up front and we the remaining four across the back. Despite the car being from the dark ages, my father did have seat belts. There was only one at the front and one in the back, but it went right across the bench seats - like a giant lap strap. It was registered as HBO 13 and gradually rusted away as did all Vauxhalls of its age - the Lancia of the UK. He then bought the later version (with the blue whale teeth across the front) in dark blue - I reckon bought in about 1960. Registered DEU 377 and that too rusted away! Cheers, Philip

They're very keen on genetic links over here - I'm on a scale 1 (low risk) but Mrs Philou is on scale 3 (high risk) due to her brother passing away with it and her sister having polyps removed. It's also suspected that her mother passed away with it as well (but they didn't talk about those things then). I've no 1st or second generations having had it, but both my maternal grandparents did - hence me having an internal. I know none of this is to do with modelling - but I think it's pretty important - especially as it seems to be on the rise. So do at least the Pooh stick if any of you reading this haven't yet so done. The time previous I had to have one - it was supposed to be only the very lower part - a rectoscopy with a simple douchebag type thing from the chemist's - but they went as far as possible and I didn't have gas and air, nothing!! I can tell you that my eyes were slightly damp. When they asked 'Are you OK?' With my tongue in my cheek (to make it bulge), I replied 'I thing yoof gon' too farh!' 'What!?' said the doctoress using the colonoscope, and saw what I was doing and said 'Oh!' and shoved up another 100mm. (That'll learn yer is what she probably muttered). The only gas I had was what was in my gut and I f@rted all the way home driving. The examination was inconclusive. This time however, it was done under general anaesthetic and with air to inflate the gut. It was so light that I awoke just as they were disconnecting me from the machines in the examination room. The bill of health is not clean as two micropolyps were removed but no cause for alarm. However, they always do a biopsy and I await the result. Hungry? Too right. I know I shouldn't complain as many people don't eat at all well - but you're right. We've decided not eat straight away but we'll have our evening meal earlier than usual today and get back to normal tomorrow. As for the railway, I'm cutting out more retaining wall at the moment and annoyingly despite having measured umpteen times and calculated the widths of recesses and the intervening spaces, I'm 30mm short on what it should have been. I'll just do a fudge and spread the panels a bit. The spaces will be covered by buttresses anyway. The only thing I can't decide is what finish - blue engineering walls and buttresses with old brick in the recesses and sandstone parapet above or blue engineering bricks walls and recesses but with sandstone buttresses and parapets or sandstone all over with old brick in the recesses. I happen to like the old brick look and I could do old brick all over with sandstone detailing but it's not a very good material engineering-wise (in the real world!). More update tomorrow. Cheers, Philip

Bit of the doldrums today - Mrs Philou and I have been on a 'special' diet over the last few days - no fat, no fried foods, no fibre (hence no fruit nor veg), just rice, pasta (permitted with a bit of butter and grated hard cheese), boiled meats (or grilled) but limited and today it's liquids only!!!! No alcohol, no fizz just clear soup, tea or weak coffee (without milk). This afternoon we've had to drink a minimum of 2L of fluids (one litre was with some pretty grim substance mixed in it and drunk within 60mins) and then the rest of the evening is confined to the bog :((. Rinse and repeat tomorrow morning starting at 5am!! You may well ask why. Well, in the view of much colonic cancer about and on Mrs Philou's side especially, we're both having a camera up our ............ yeah, well, you get the picture :)). Roll on lunchtime when we can resume our normal eating habits - yay. I think this is why I've been 'off' these last couple of days - just not in the mood for working on the layout. HOWEVER, to take my mind off the lack of food and the procedure tomorrow, I did hunt for some more bark that I found so put that to one side for Tuesday, and this afternoon, I started cutting out a retaining wall for the back of Dymented - thanks to those that posted photos earlier as they all gave me ideas of what to do. When it's more all less complete I'll post a photo, but not just yet. I doubt if there'll be an update tomorrow so it'll be speak soon, Cheers, Philip gotta rush ............................ =:0

@LNER4479 Graham, this is indeed very good, thank you. I might have just about worked out the cuts but to re-insert some of the bits to stop it springing, that I would have never thought to do. Indeed I have a single slip and a plain crossing that could do with curving but along one axis only. Because of the way the webbing is fabricated, I don't think it's possible to do one without affecting the other. They're both on a 24m curve and I think I'll live if they're left as made! I did find your combo a couple of days ago (page 93) but I knew about the shortening of the rails to create the 45mm track centres. What I did learn was how to tackle the sleepers to remove the Peco oddity - I didn't when I did mine and just hid the join under some extra ballasting. Drat! Just let the cat out of the bag! ^ You can see the fudge on the bottom right hand crossover - my excuse is that this was done 8 years ago and I was still wet behind the ears. Another not much done day today unfortunately but I must be barking mad! ;) I did manage to start sorting through the bark for suitable bits and once found, I trimmed some up. I didn't take a photo as it's a bit in a raw state, but I'm happier about it than I was yesterday. If I can do the trimming properly I shall probably start assembling the 'styrene in its permanent position. More tomorrow, Cheers, Philip

Well chums and chumesses, Today nothing was done - I think the wind and rain put the dampers on things and put me right off from going into the barn today, but Mrs Philou did say I could put a heater up there, so I did but I only stayed there an hour carving more 'styrene. I suspect my mojo took a hit as I really wanted to be laying some of the branchline track but there are so many things to be done first and in the right order before I can do any of that - ho hum. I was given a whole load of bark today so I spent a little time sorting through and I've found some nice gnarled bits which can be recycled as my rocky outcrop. I'm not all together happy with my printed scenic paper as it's lacking depth. I had a look a some embossed plasticard but the sheet sizes seem very small and I need quite a lot. I wonder if anyone could recommend a burnishing tool - I think that's the name - that I could use to indent the paper if I were to it paste onto some thin card. Alternatively, Faller years ago used to do a range of embossed card and one of them was stone - I know as I used it to cover a balsa wood shell for an engine shed - long gone now (the shed that is). I just need to find a supplier (Google shows Jura Modelisme as the top supplier - won't be them as their whole stock went up in smoke a couple of weeks ago!) Hopefully, back up to speed tomorrow with a meaningful update, Cheers, Philip

@lezz01 Ooooh ......... that looks very efficient and possibly deadly in my hands :). I shan't have to worry too much about postage as I'm almost next door to Germany (I know, little relevance), but thanks for the info. Did the smell of burning 'styrene reach the shores of Albion? I did try the hot knife and the hot wand. I was not in control for the first few minutes as I hadn't anticipated how hot the wire becomes and makes a rapid first cut and then it cools down as you go - so slowly does it as you approach the 'styrene and then off you go. I did find the wand wasn't really hot enough for the cuts I should have liked to have done, so I shall use that for marking the start and ends of cuts and use the knife between the two. I also managed to get some bark - slightly disappointed as it wasn't as gnarled as the lot I had before. I shall keep looking around. What else. I tidied up the two bridge abutments and added some glue blocks upon which to rest the formation as the abutments will not be supporting the formation but the bridge itself. The weather looks awful again for tomorrow so I may stay indoors and start dressing the abutments with stone paper and do copings as well. The bits and bobs I'll do in card - provided I still have UHU in stock - plenty of Pritt though. I'll do some browsing and get ideas for bridges - just straight forward iron plate. I could just recycle the one at Ledbury over Bromyard Road and adapt its length to suit. I was a clean boy today too. All the 'styrene beads and green underlay dust were vacuumed up :) ............. only to be replaced by 'styrene off-cuts :( . There you have it, a little more progress today and therefore less to do later - yay. Cheers and more tomorrow, Philip

@LNER4479 Thanks for heads up as I was going to use a junior hacksaw. Have you posted up or will you be posting up your mods showing the 3-ways and the slips (and simple crossings as I saw one that appeared modified) as I've a few to do that are on some gentle curves? Life is too short for me now to starting learning how to build my own points - I have avoided any complex point work anyway as there were none on the prototypes I've chosen. I do have a track cutter for the rails that I found gave a nice clean cut! Cheers, Philip

Hello chums and chumesses, A teeny tiny update today - the bridge abutment that I made a couple of days ago I took down today, and colour me surprised, it had taken up the curve of the trackbed - hoorah! Today I made the other and it's drying out on the inside curve at the moment - all going in the right direction. Having had a look at @LNER4479 's Hills of the North - it's huge! and I thought my proposal was big! Following the information provided by @5BarVT and @moore43grm regarding retaining walls, I downloaded some stone walling from Scalescenes and I shall look to doing some papering of the abutments in the next day or so. I can then fix them in place. I'm going for a reddish stone but I now need to print off one each of the sheets and decide if I want ashlar, rubble or dressed rubble. The rubble is attractive to the eye but I would have thought that ashlar would have been the norm for engineering purposes. My PVA glue, hot knife and oilstones arrived this afternoon and I shall play with the hot knife tomorrow. The smell of hot 'styrene should be filling the air soon! Off to do some printing - speak soon and more tomorrow. Cheers, Philip PS: Christmas must be on it's way as Mrs Philou asked what I should like (I had asked her first) 'More railway stuff, I suppose?' 'Oooh, whatever gave you that idea? Some point motors please.' I now need to source some and give her the necessary info.

@5BarVT and @lezz01 . I've just got back from Hills of the North and found some info on Page 93 (I was working backwards rather from Page 1). I can now see the extra cuts needed to smooth out the bend - only one extra cut right across the webbing and one bit of webbing cut elsewhere - and Robert is your mother's brother. I was on the right track - but not enough cuts and therefore no cigar for me! What I also found that was extremely useful was how to cut the sleepers away from the ends of the pointwork when reducing the gap to form 45mm centres. When I did it, I reduced the rails and just cut the sleepers at their midpoints, which was unslightly that I then 'hid' under some ballasting - and no-one but you reading this would know that ;). I can now do things a little more tidily and also ease the bend in the points - all good. Thanks for the heads up! No update this evening as we were out in the Big Town for the best part of the day. @JeffP Action had no large quantities of PVA in stock but I did come away with some large tubes of coloured acrylic. I did also see that they had some Dulux Trade Matt White in 20L quantites. I shall need some of that soon. I didn't buy it there and then as the tubs looked as if they'd been - erm - knocked about a bit, so left that for today. More tomorrow, Cheers, Philip

Not for me either, but I thought it worth saying that it looks as if you've done a nice job. Good luck with your sale. Cheers, Philip

@moore43grm Well! This could well be in keeping with my Raglan stone outcrop - make use of local stone! I do have retaining walls to do in the area. Thank you for the photos. Ok L@@K!! Co-incidentally, what did I do today? Here, have a look: ^ This is the first bridge abutment at Dymented supporting the main over the branch. As there was a sort of dry spell this afternoon, I cut some 5mm ply to size and I found that it wouldn't flex sufficiently. What to do, I wailed. I cut up some 3mm ply instead that flexes (but in one direction only) and laminated three together with PVA and they're drying out on the curve. I have some sanding to do along one edge as it's slightly over-height - better that than too low. If this works then it'll be glued to the formation permanently and I'll have the other side to do. I have pre-cut the wing walls and these will be battered back and glued to the abutment in due course. I ought, perhaps, cover this with building papers or preferably some Wills/Slaters embossed ashlar stone now. But this means ..... MODELLING! =:O . You will also note in the photo that I also cut up some 'styrene at the back of the mainline further along behind Dymented. This too, will wait the hot-knife treatment. ^ This is the card bridge to which I made reference yesterday (I should have put smoke deflectors underneath, shouldn't I have?) It was made for a module and spanned seven tracks and was supported on four piers in all. I was quite happy particularly as I was able to represent the laminated iron/steel beams and the rivets (there should be four rows). The rivets were made using a small hollow nail punch on the card surface and not from underneath - gosh, it was tedious! (Hence three and not four rows of rivets :) ). The underside is just corrugated cardboard. I did do a representation of the laminated beams as well, plus grease bearings. If I can repeat this but in a slightly different style and better, I shall be very pleased. Real life is getting in the way of modelling, so there may not be much to report tomorrow. Toodle pip, Philip

@5BarVT What a good man you are! They are very good and ideal for what I wanted as reference material. I can count bricks to get an idea of the dimensions and it need'nt be too precise. I note that the walls are plain in the sense that there are no buttresses. I should have liked buttresses just because, but it will save some time and effort. Thanks for taking the effort to post them - it's most appreciated. I see that others are interested too! Cheers, Philip Off to do some more cutting of 'styrene and to source some oak bark .................

@JeffP No, I never even gave YouTube a thought. I was thinking more of a technical type of site - perhaps a rule of thumb of the interval between buttresses when used, size of recessed arches viz. width:height ratios, that sort of thing. But thanks for the heads up - I'll have a look on YouTube. Cheers, Philip Edit: @Graham T You message arrived as I was typing. I had seen the Scalescene ones, but not Scale Models. I'll head over there too and have a look. Cheers.

Oh my gosh! It started snowing inside the railway room! .......... Eh? Rashly, I started to cut some polystyrene for the decor in the area of Dymented as I need to do that area before I can consider glueing the underlay down. As I was impatient to start without the hot knife, I used my Japanese saw which was quite efficient, but not efficient enough to stop the balls from appearing over the floor. I do have a photo though: ^ I hope the hot knife and the wand will be more efficient as it took me the best part of the afternoon to cut this lot and I've consumed a sheet and half in just creating this pile. I have twigged that I can reduce the amount of polystyrene used by just creating a facade and making it hollow inside. This is not the finished product as it is all to be shaped - I shall definitely wait for the hot knife to arrive! The landform will rise gradually for a short distance and a cutting will be formed for the first 300mm or so. Thereafter, the polystyrene will remain near-vertical as I shall make a rock cutting using oak bark stuck to the surface suitably coloured to represent Raglan stone - a reddish rock which is to be found not far from Ledbury - this is my Rule 1 zone! Nearer the top, the 'styrene will be shaped to form a more rounded landform. When I have finished faffing about, then it'll all be stuck together with PVA. I shall probably use 'no screws, no nails' type of product to then stick the bark to the polystyrene. ^ This is the sort of effect I'm aiming for (without fir trees!). Oak bark washed over with thin plaster mix followed by white vinyl and then coloured firstly with a thin pinkish wash and then hues of grey worked in over the whole surface. Raglan stone is a much deeper red-brown. Trouble is with me, I can do something that looks (IMHO) reasonably good, but do it a second time and it looks pants! I needed to get my 5mm ply outside in order to cut some bridge, wing and retaining walls but it wasn't to be due to the rain. These I intend to screw to the sides of the branchline base (not forgetting to batter the wing and retaining walls. The bridge abutments will remain vertical. Once I have these items in place I can then mark out the underside of the mainline plywood base cut it out and then construct a nice pseudo-metal one in card in its place. I found one that I made about 8 years ago in card and even though the span is 600mm long it's surprisingly sturdy despite the base being only 7mm thick in composite card layers. The span here will be no more than 230mm. I'll was quite pleased with it as it was my first ever home-made card construction. I'll post a photo of it tomorrow for a critique of it as there's always room for improvement - and I can incorporate your comments in the construction of the future bridges on Dymented. While I think of it, can anyone point me to a site or thread here, that will show various retaining walls. I did type in ' UK railway retaining walls' and variations of but the images were surprisingly very few - I'd preferably like ones that show reinforcing pillars (or abutments) and ones that have recessed arches - just to have a feel of what they should be like - rather than what I think they should be like. After taking the photo, I tackled the part in-between the branchline and the mainline. This was also cut short due to not having the 5mm ply at hand :( . Definitely more tomorrow! Cheers, Philip

Hello chums and chumesses, In the end I didn't do any chamfering as the weather was dry (but threatening to rain at any moment), I decided to do the infills at the back of Dymented station that came about when I re-aligned the main line on the upper level. You may well ask 'why bother'. It's simply that now I can construct my retaining walls and station platform on terra firma - another little job done. No picture as there's not a lot to see. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Cheers, Philip

@JeffP There is an Action, but it's not in our local town - it's about 22 miles away and it does mean grouping our journeys to save a bit on diesel. We'll be going there Tuesday anyway so I can have a look. I want to buy oodles of their cheap acrylic paints that come in 1L bottles so I can slosh it around as a base for the scenery. Today I'm a bit of a lost dog. I did have some PVA left over and I thought I'd make a start and just as I was about to stick the second piece down I remembered that if I did that, then I wouldn't be able to unscrew the ply to make a few mods and get access to the scenery further behind - so that was that. What I did achieve was to confirm that very long wheel-based stock (Class 8xx) will NOT pass each other on 45mm centred track at 1000mm radius. It will have to be 50mm - no problem. Right, off to do more chamfering. Speak later, Philip

Hi @SimonHMT, Glad you liked the photos. Covid put paid to the following Meursault show and I haven't been to another big show since. However, our club did do a small open door (no entry charge) show earlier this year. They do Junior Modules mostly made by members of the club - 135m running length! Here are a couple of photos (apologies for the poor quality, small hand-held camera) if you're interested in French layouts: ^ This is a model inspired by a viaduct near the club - its name is 'le saut du mouton' (the sheep jump). It was an avoiding line from the station at Culmont-Chalindrey towards Gray. The line to Gray was lifted years ago but the viaduct plus the track remains and is linked now to the main Dijon - Metz line, but little used. Modellers' licence has been used regarding its position over the double track. ^ A view of the main line under the saut de mouton. ^ There is a cutting very similar to this not far from where I live except the real thing is double tracked. It's literally cut the village through which it passes, in two. ^ This module belongs to someone from the south of France who drove 500 miles just to exhibit at our show! I thought the modelling was very good - pity I hadn't seen the 'object' on the rails before I took the photo. Cheers, Philip

Hello, chaps and chapesses, I was hoping to have a photo or two today but it wasn't to be. I have cut all the underlay in the area of Dymented and as Mrs Philou was going into town this afternoon I asked if she would bring me back some PVA so I could stick it down and show you. The only glue she could find was a branded one at €10.00 for 250g (not mL). Well at that price it's going back, toot de sweet! I shall wait until Thursday when my 5L of Evo-stik PVA arrives from the UK via Amazon for the princely sum of £20.00 and get cracking then. What I did do was relay all the pointwork for the whole layout in its approximate position to determine what went where and what didn't I have. By the substitution of some of the surplus stock and changing some points for large radius ones and vicky verker, I managed to boil it down to one double slip and one long crossing short, plus four catch points that I had not considered originally - so not too bad. I have a couple of single slips and a few assorted points surplus. Whilst I'm waiting for the PVA to arrive, I shall go around all the underlay checking the widths and then chamfering the edges to form the ballast shoulders. If time permits, I may well start cutting up some polystyrene to make a start on the scenery - =:O - rough cut at this stage as the hot knife should be here at the same time as the PVA. More tomorrow! Cheers, Philip

@Flying Fox 34F Thanks for the information - I'm glad I asked the question as I probably would have put one for the avoidance of doubt. I was basing this on a plan of Ledbury North Box where there were two catch points on a downhill section to catch (presumably) runaways BUT this was double track and rightly with your thinking there would have probably more than one train in steam as opposed to a single line branch. One catch point not required then. Cheers, Philip