MAP66

Hi Kevin Looking good, I Iike the weathering on the relay boxes and trunking, Jerry's and TechnicArrow's suggestion of removing a couple of lids to expose the cabling would look good. A few strands of painted fuse wire could work to represent the cabling. Regards Mark

Thanks Mike for your kind comments. I like to include as much detail as possible into a scene to try and replicate a lifelike scenario. All the best Mark

Thanks OOman, very kind of you to provide such positive comments. All the best Mark

We had 30 seconds of sunshine today, so I thought lets get some photos of the cattle dock taken in natural light. In my haste I didn't quite perch the roof of the cattle van centrally so there is a big overhang. Any way I just about had time to take a few shots before the clouds blocked out the sun. I have added some signs, the second water trough and one lamp post, one more lamp post to add, these are all included in the kit.

Evening folks Busy with other things at the moment so farmer Giles hasn't quite made it back to the paint shop. Best way to overcome that I thought would be to put up a pic in B&W, now who can tell if he's ruddy complexion is fully restored or not?

Finally finished ballasting the track tonight. Took longer than planned because I get bored pretty quickly and then start something else. Ridiculous really as its only an 8" length of track. Hats off to those modelers out there who can stick at those repetitive tasks until the jobs done. Any way here's a pic looking along the finished track bed. All the best Mark

Nice job, will it keep it clean as well?

A bit of an update tonight, I decided that the far bank next to the track was too close to the track and so I did some groundwork's and put in a wooden retaining wall and grassed the bank. My next trial was to introduce some point rodding, well the remains of some. There had been some track alterations years ago and some of the point rodding remains in place even though the turnout it served had long gone. Not too much scenery to do now, and then finally I can finish the cattle van, just realised that time is running out for this CBC as I will be away last week of March so I need to get cracking. All the best Mark

Thanks Keith Its amazing what you can get away with by using a bit of well placed filler. Thanks Al Like I said to Dickon, a visit to the paint shop and he will be soon back in the pink.

To be fair he was still in shock and the colour had drained from his cheeks. I've booked him in for an appointment with the paint shop to rectify the problem.

Farmer Giles is now back from surgery, head removed with razor saw and then re-attached with super glue at different angle and then a spot of model filler as without this he looked a bit like Bruce Forsyth with elongated chin. Thanks again Stubby for the head removing suggestion. So here's a photo of the refit and he looks none the worse for it.

Well Farmer Giles finally lost his head, but he's still up for a fight. "come back here and take what's coming to yer, I'll bite yer legs off" Always good to throw in a quote from Monty Pythons Holy Grail.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, there are a set of steps which come withe cattle dock so one idea I have is to have the SM on the bottom step looking up. Failing that I like Stubbies suggestion of decapitating him and sticking his head back on at a different angle. Sometimes the radical approach is best. Anyway while I was pondering this I made a padlock and chain for one of the gates.

Fantastic level of detail and modelling skills on display. Very nice work indeed Simon, inspirational stuff.

Well here he is, Farmer Giles AKA angry man. He is almost fully painted and I have dropped him onto scene to see how he might look. This Modelu figure is the only character I could find who looked like he had a point to make, with hands on hips he does look a bit menacing. Trouble is I didn't realize how much he is looking downwards so I will need to think of a way for him to be looking directly at the station master, I have a couple of ideas to try out. I am slightly disappointed with the quality of this figure as the hands and some other parts are very badly printed. Everything else I've ordered through Modelu has always been pretty good. I've included another image of the track as I am trying to represent washed away ballast from the constant washing down of the animal waste which overflows from the gulley and ends up on the track bed. All the best Mark

Thanks for your comments Rob, still more decay and general grubbiness to come. But also plenty of life still to come as well. All the best Mark

Thanks Al, really appreciate your comments. The standpipe is actually included in the Ratio cattle dock kit, you get 2 or 3 of them included. However, I thought it would benefit from some pipe lagging which I represented by wrapping and gluing in place tissue paper around the pipe and then carefully wrapping 5a fuse wire around it to look like wire holding the lagging in place. I'm glad on the final result but you need Eagle eyes to spot it, so a bit over the top for a normal layout but OK for a CBC with close up views. All the best Mark

Thanks OO man, glad you like it, always a good thing to get positive comments. All the best Mark

Hi Keith Its very rewarding to receive such great comments - Thank you.

Fantastic idea, Mr.Portillo done a spot on Lawrence of Arabia on yesterdays (repeat) episode of Great Railway Journeys. Didn't catch all of it but there was certainly mention of his exploits blowing things up and causing general havoc. Can't wait to see how this one turns out. All the best Mark

Its time to introduce some characters who will eventually make an appearance onto the scene. So far we have only partly seen 'Drover Dan' , he is the cowman cowering in the cattle van, out of the way of the very angry Farmer Giles. Up to now Farmer Giles has only been mentioned by name, but here he is, don't get too excited he is still in the bag and looking too aggressive to let out yet. The other fellow is the Station Master who will be at the receiving end of a lot of 'Oh Bullocks' expletives due to train being late, prize cattle being involved and an aggravated medical condition which I may have alluded to in previous posts. Later still we may have an appearance of a yardman or two doing a bit of washing down and clearing up. All the best Mark

Ouch!!, lesson learned for the unfortunate yachtsman, not so much 'shiver me timbers' more like 'chilli me blains'.

Evening folks, Well I have started to ballast the track, weeds an all, and finally manged to finish putting the fence rails in along the footpath. There's a plumbed in stand pipe with lagging and the addition of one of the two water troughs. With still no sign of the train, the waiting continues which gives me some time to get a story together as to the reason for the delay and hopefully Farmer Giles will buy it and calm down before he aggravates his medical condition. All that stomping about on the platform is going to cost him later, after all he did sit on that cold damp wall earlier which didn't help. I just hope he has remembered to bring his ointment, time will tell. Some progress photos for you. Regards Mark.

Nice work Geoff, looking excellent. I would advise having a practice with the water on an off cut of the trough if you haven't used it before. Sometimes its best to have several thin layers as opposed to filling in one go. Regards Mark

I'm glad to report that my P4 gauge track components from C & L Finescale finally arrived in the post and so I have been busy assembling all 8" worth of track. Even that short length of track takes a while with 40 chairs to fettle about with before they can be pushed onto the rail and then finally gluing to the sleepers. I did wonder why I had chosen P4 half way through, but I persevered and got through it. Thankfully my next project, although P4, is only going to be a micro layout, otherwise I may go insane if I had to lay any more than about 8ft of track in total. For those of you interested, I stuck the sleepers onto a paper template of a GWR 60ft track panel as I wasn't sure of the sleeper spacing's. Still not sure if it's correct but it looks OK. I will use some Woodland Scenics medium cinders for ballasting. Here's a couple of photos showing the track.