grahame

I've got some colour on the recently extended low relief cathedral and both parts are now joined together. But I probably need to add some details.

I got some grey emulsion yesterday and have painted a first coat this morning. It's going to need another coat and looks a little dark but seems to be drying lighter (maybe it's a stormy day - and will help with the urban grot look). I'd like to fade it downwards to a lighter finish - maybe some Halfords aerosol grey and white primer will help with blending by gentle spraying. Meanwhile I'll watch the current women's world cup footie game while it dries. Fingers crossed.

For the second issue I've made a start on the cathedral this afternoon. I've kept the Lady Chapel/Retrochoir as I'd originally made but extended the choir and high altar area by two inches necessitating adding in two new flying buttresses. The transept/crossing and tower remain as the flat facsimile with minimal relief detail. The model is effectively partially hidden behind the railway bridge/viaduct and is lower than the road with a herb garden in front of the Lady Chapel meaning it can't be any deeper. The new additions have been primer coated and now need painting to blend in with the other parts. And that'll have to wait. The 3D part is not properly lined up in place with the 2D section in the pic below. Currently they are not joined.

I trimmed away a suitable section with a sharp scalpel blade having marked it up with a pencil. It does need a little tidying up in the photo below. A piece of card was taped in position to test sufficient had been cut away. Then the card was trimmed to fit and glued in place. That's the first issue dealt with although the row does still need finishing.

I was always aware that the reality of building an operational model railway and fitting pre-built structures on it would cause some opportunities and necessary amendments. The first two have now already arisen. Firstly, the 'lowish relief' row of shops on the west side of Borough High Street will need some modification. This is due the extra curveage required to get the tracks off scene at the left end of the layout with an acceptable radius. The back corner of the building will need slimming down - not an excessively onerous or difficult task. And besides it needed to be re-visited as it had never been fully completed. Secondly there is an opportunity to widen and improve my Southwark cathedral model which is very much a progressively compressed low relief effort. This means I can increase the depth and make it overall more prominent. I'll need to check out the real building and ascertain what I can do without too much destruction. When I get around to these two card building amendments/developments I'll report it on this thread - should it be of interest.

This morning a little more work on the 'off scene' west end return loop baseboard. But now I need to go out for some more supplies. I've used a complete box of 200 screws and I need more and some panel pins. I'd also like to get some grey emulsion to paint the wall behind the scenic section - the London skies are often grey. Snag is I need to wait until the window cleaner has been.

Looks like that new fangled container is out of gauge.

A little bit more wood hacking this morning. And a start made on the baseboard framework for the west end return loops. It's a little higher than the scenic baseboard so that the trains run can straight on to (and off) the viaduct height with no slopes. You can see that it lines up with the bridge across Borough High Street abutments (Just under the right hand side of the window). The wider area allows for a double return loop from Peco No3 and No4 radius setrack curves (currently on order). The entry, along the wall under the window, will be angled roughly in line with the wood moulding strip lying on top. But that requires more wood mangling and I'm now going to have a shower to get ready to stroll down to the local for a few sherbets.

Cute tho.

The thumper is coming along impressively. You've made quite an effort on it. Did they actually run through Olympia?

The postman delivered something to put up in the new shed this morning: It's printed on thin ali-sheet and gloss finished with sticky pads to save drilling in to the shed walls and potentially damaging the weather barrier.

Just a little woodwork today. It's been too hot and humid today for undertaking much physical work like that, but I did manage to complete the main baseboard to the road level with all the surface ply cut, glued, screwed and pinned in place. Next will be the viaduct level and the ends/side baseboard extensions for the return loops. The modelled road section is the left hand end end with Borough High Street rising up towards the back and becoming the start of London Bridge itself. The railway, from Charing Cross and Cannon Street, crosses the road between the two columns and swings around in to London Bridge station.

And a little more progress. I've now completed the main scenic baseboard framework support. The top surface is yet to be glued and pinned down. The structure is free standing (not attached to the walls) and is quite firm and rigid although some planned cross bracing and low level longitudinal struts are yet to be added. But I'm calling it a day as it's far too hot and sunny to be working outside (cutting and assembly has mostly been done in the garden). The baseboard height is 43" and then the viaduct on which the trains will run will be a further 2-3 inches above that. The end/side boards, which will have the return curves are non-scenic and will be at the viaduct height and hopefully include stock storage. The two structures on the floor under the baseboard left end are the cores for the two large skyscraper buildings - fortunately they do fit in under the ceiling/lights.

I've made a start on the baseboard sawing, gluing and screwing. But it's slowly, slowly, school-boy wood-work. Not exactly cracking pace carpentry.

The gas holder is a spiral type (invented 1890) with four lifts (telescopic sections) and an above ground water tank (the pale blue section). The lifts (the top three are fully up and the bottom one is about half full of gas) are guided by the angled rails on the sides as they raise and turn and do away with the need for a supporting framework that older gas holders had. The triangular frames are stairs to the top of each lift.

Nice. Very nice.

Sounds like the pressure is on - to get cracking and not to disappoint. Unfortunately it will take a little while as the next stage is the baseboard carpentry - sawing, gluing and screwing. And the women's football world cup games are currently on TV with the men's rugby world cup to shortly follow. In the meantime here's an old pic of the buildings that will be in the back left corner of the layout temporarily posed.

Yep, the Shard would scale out at 7ft tall in N/2mm scale. No1 will be at the back of the layout so I've built a low relief version. It's not completed, details to be added including glazing, but here's how it currently looks: The two large buildings for the layout are New London Bridge House and Southwark Towers, both now demolished, but essential for the layout period. Here's my core for New London Bridge House. I also have a similar foamboard core for Southwark Towers which is bulkier.

It'll be permanently installed in the shed. I've got too old for taking layouts to exhibitions these days.

Nope. Swish, as in impressively smart and fashionable. I liked it. It was bright, refreshing and new.

Interesting. And that's an ambitious timescale to be operational and also ready for display. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

A little bit of background planning info: The planned period that the model will represent is the late 70s to early 90s. Although this is probably a little excessively optimistic time frame for a historic model railway, it conveniently falls between the two major rebuilds that the real station has undergone in the last century. Firstly, the infamous 1972 to 1978 rebuild under British Rail, and then the 21st century redevelopment in 2012 to 2018 under Railtrack. And the period conveniently covers the end of the interesting British Rail blue and blue/grey scene, the London and South East 'jaffa cake' sector period, as well as the introduction of the swish red, white and blue 'toothpaste' livery of the Network SouthEast period.

Now that my new layout shed is in place I've started a thread in the layouts section to describe the building of the layout: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/180443-london-bridge/#comment-5232007 Hopefully that will allow this thread to continue with covering the construction of model buildings and structures (for the layout), with the new thread covering things like the baseboard construction, track laying and the infrastructure - basically the layout.

After a long time working on planning an N gauge layout based on London Bridge (see my thread : https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/115057-scratch-built-card-and-styrene-structures-based-on-real-buildings-around-london-bridge/ about making the buildings) I've been able to start to realise my dream. A garden shed/room has been procured and erected in my small garden and now that a patio has been laid and the garden tidied up (although not completely) I can move on to the next phase: The internal dimension is a fraction under 11ft 6" (3.5m) by a bit over 8ft (2.5m) which is probably not to bad for N/2mm scale - double that to 23ft by 16ft for an OO/4mm equivalent layout space comparison. But it's 'obsons as I couldn't have had it any larger anyway. I've ordered and had delivered timber for the construction of the baseboard frame and support. And I've started on planning how that will be assembled. With many of the buildings already constructed, the layout will hopefully become a reality.

A quick update: Following sales at DEMU ShowCase there are just two sets of issues #2 and #3 left (available on eBay). When they are gone issue #2 will be sold out like issue #1. However, there are still plenty of issue #3 available. I've made a tentative start on the final issue (#4). But I'd really like to see more sales of issue #3 before ramping up and committing to production.