grahame

I've been detailing the shops on Station Approach (later renamed Guildable Manor Street) so that I can get the triangular section completed and in place to fit the bridges and viaduct. Just one (Willian Hills bookies - the dark blue one) to fit out.

Unfortunately not. Too busy tied up with other things.

I've been away for a long weekend - Weston Super Mare (rain and wind) - so nothing done on the layout recently apart from today starting on cutting some of the track bed. First is the west end and the bridges over Boro High Street and Station Approach. But now I need to pop out to do some shopping - the house is devoid of food.

Do you mean just printing the artwork and pasting on the backscene board? Low relief buildings, at least those I've made, have some substance and 3D relief details.

Nice artwork images. I might be showing ignorance here, but how do they get translated in to 3D models?

More buildings are required for the layout. As I start to lay out those already made (see the London Bridge layout thread) it helps locate the viaduct and where new buildings are required. One such is a corner location where the viaducts and lines will curve around to reach the off-scene return loops baseboard. Here is the location with a footprint plan from paper: Being at the less London Bridge end of the layout and where I've squeezed in the Old Kent Road gas holder station diorama plus being behind the viaduct it will really need a tall building, I thought I'd have a bash at a tower block from further down the OKR towards New Cross Gate. It's a block I lived in, in the very early 70s on the 7th floor, so a little nostalgia. The pic below is from how I remember it and will attempt to make it, but since then it was clad in all grey (which has subsequently been removed due to the fire regs) and is now in terracotta brown/red tiles. It looks worse now than it did in this pic:

It's even worse in N gauge!

I had hoped to incorporate my gas holder station diorama in the layout and with a little more jiggling around this morning I think I'll be able to squeeze it in. However, I'll need to undertake a little butchery including loosing the old warehouses and the Old Kent Road row of dilapidated shops will have to be relocated. But there is hope. This end of the layout is more fanciful and not strictly true to the London Bridge prototype, but then neither will be the curvature in the viaduct. The Old Kent Road will be running up to meet Tooley Street in a T junction on the layout. Fortunately it will utilise models of real buildings from the area (South East London).

That'd be an interesting challenge. And one that I'd be interested to see and follow.

I've spent a little time in the layout shed today shuffling the buildings around, measuring and planning. Although there will be four lines crossing the bridges at the west end (there were four at the period being modelled but there are now more due to the new bridge) I'm planning on seven lines for the approaches from the east compared to the eleven in real life. That'll make the viaduct about eight inches wide compared to a foot wide necessary to accommodate eleven lines. And it has to curve through nearly 90° at the end of the scenic baseboard to access the return loop baseboard. At a foot wide the inner bend will have an unacceptable tight radius so seven tracks it is, besides that is what I'd planned for with the necessary compression and simplification. Here's the east end with a few more building in place to ascertain the viaduct north wall position: And here's the other end which I fiddled a little with to make things fit better. There is so much to do that I can't see the layout being finished anytime soon:

Thanks. I've no specific data for the topography. It's mostly modelled by eye with local knowledge, observation and common sense. There is one issue I've needed to be aware of and that is with horizontal compression, due to space/area constraints and more accurate scale heights/verticals (to allow for clearances, etc), any connecting slopes between them will have a greater gradient than in real life. Consequently there is some cheating. The area that the layout is intended to cover is shown in the pic below. It also roughly covers the period I'm trying to model. Basically Tooley Street is the back (north) edge of the layout and St Thomas Street is the front (south) edge. The left (west) is Borough High Street while the right (east) will be rather messy and less defined as the viaduct has to incorrectly curve round to fit in the space and access the return loop baseboard. Guys hospital tower (bottom central in the pic above) is not included as that is the other side (south) of St Thomas Street.

That's the road it was in but I think is was probably closed by the time the layout is set in (late 70s on). Does anyone know when it closed? I think its location was one of the two half shops in this pic below, possibly next to the cycle shop. The B reg car would indicate the photo is no earlier than 1984 and I think by then it had closed. Certainly later the two half shops were combined in to one, initially selling Lithuanian/specialist foods, I think, but that had closed by the time of this colour pic: This pic shows the food shop when it was presumably open. The NSE Networker EMU would date the photo: Now of course, all those shops have been swept away in the 21stC development of the station and the road re-named as Guildable Manor Street with the new lines running over it:

Thanks. And yes, I have been thinking about blinds for the windows. I need to check out what's available that can be fixed without damaging the weather membrane in the walls. And fortunately the two sides with windows don't get direct sunlight and currently we're having a mare of a summer.

And now for something completely different, and N/2mm. For many years I've been planning a layout and making buildings for it. Now I've finally got a home for it - a garden room/shed and I'm able to start putting it together. So far I've built the baseboard supports and surface, and have started to temporarily place the buildings in their locations to be able to plan the viaduct build that will carry the railway: If anyone is interest you can see further details and progress on my thread: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/180443-london-bridge/

A couple more pics of it coming together with more buildings, albeit only temporarily. They help check location, verticals and enable the roads and pavement to be drawn with the aim of establishing the viaduct position.

This is my model of the old tube station entrance building as it was in the late 70s:

St Thomas Street will be the front edge of the layout so I'll be including the buildings on the north side from the junction with Borough High Street along to the terminus station where the viaduct arches and train shed wall begin and extend to the right (east) end of the layout. The triangular building you are possibly thinking of is the old tube station entrance that was out of use in the 1970s. It was in London Bridge Street which runs parallel to St Thomas Street just a few yards to the north. I've already made most of these buildings included St Thomas' Church (now a museum) and the old tube station.

A few more buildings out, including Colechurch House, and in position. And a pic taken this morning before the football.

Here's the buildings roughly in place along the back of the layout (north side of Tooley Street) except the SER offices 'flat iron' building which is located across the road on the south side against the north side of the viaduct. They should help me pencil in Tooley Street and one side of the viaduct.

I'd forgotten that Wickes is open on Sunday so I popped down there this morning and picked up some ply. That has enabled me to finish the east end return loops baseboard and provide, hopefully sufficient, for the viaduct track bed.

Just a little work on the baseboards today. We've had rain this morning and a thunderstorm this afternoon which has prevented sawing and cutting in the garden. But there is only a little wood bashing left to do - some trim and finishing the east return loop baseboard surface for which I need to go to Wickes on Monday for a small sheet of ply. Then it's laying out the buildings and establishing the viaduct position and trackwork plan. And then building the viaduct and cutting the sections to fit on top.

A little bit more wood bashing including the start of a small workbench for maintenance and repair of any errant rolling stock. But that's it for today. I've packed up and retired in to the house to have a shower and get ready to stroll down to the local for the regular Friday 4 o'clock meet and a few sherbets.

With some more basic schoolboy wood mangling I've made a start on the right hand (east) return loops. Everything is free standing and not attached to the shed walls and oddly enough it's very stable and solid. And I'd also dusted some white on the bottom of the grey to give the impression of the typical lighter sky nearer the horizon. It's quite faint so I might need to go over it again.

The NGS does resin 1:148 scale Saxon APCs (1976 to present) kits. They were quite commonly carried by rail. The kit is straightforward - just clean, glue the wheels on and paint. Here a couple I finished:

And, as you can see from Phil's photos, the cathedral is architecturally ornate and detailed. My model is very much simplified and impressionistic of the real thing, otherwise I'd be building it for the rest of the year. It's also compressed and effectively low relief with the tower frontage and transept represented as 2D with a little added relief. The larger section, the nave, behind the transept is not represented at all. Fortunately with it being located behind the viaduct and bridge, lower than the road and at the extreme left hand (west) edge of the layout, I'm hoping it won't be particularly noticeable and that I can get away with the basic representation.