Nutbrook

The mountain skeleton is made up from off cuts of 5mm mdf board that I left over from building the track bed. I used thin cardboard to make a template as its quite easy to cut or sellotape bits onto until it looks right. Then I placed the template on top of the mdf and drew around it, finally cut the mdf out with a jigsaw.

I cannot believe is been March since I last posted. During the summer months little has changed although extensive testing has been ongoing on a weekly / daily basis and a few items of rolling stock has arrived. Now that the nights are drawing in and the weather in getting wetter and cooler I have made a start on one of the mountains. I must admit that I have read most if not all the topics on the Swiss group and there is some excellent advice that I have used to make a start on the test piece of mountain scenery. These next few pictures were taken over about a month. Making a start

Great pictures and nice smooth running on the vids Would that be SRS AGM at Derby in April next year your looking at.

There is 2 hours free parking on the roof top car park of Wilkos (if you can find it), that should just about give you time for a quick browse around the shop.

Its also interesting that the top of the piers last measurements are 1.20m on one side and 1.34 on the other possibley for the cant of the rails on the bend or for drainage on the deck, or both

Great thread this, I knew the piers were wedge shaped from front to back but didnt realise that the arches were straight, although I have written that down in my notes. Sorry if Ive missed this but any idea how wide the arches are (not the span but the width) I once drew the bridge on a piece of card in NM scale and worked out that it was 433mm high and 906mm long with a radius of 666mm (although I think track radius tightnes across the bridge) The arch span is 133mm.

Great work on the bridge Ian, where did you get your laser cut railings from ??

opps

Thanks for that Ian, been spending a couple of hours studying photos on this website, some great pictures

Cheers Keith. Must admit the grey looks good with just a light brushing of white as seen here. Been experimenting with bridges today and knocked this up, its not quite right as one of the towers in thinner that the other at the top (the jig must have moved a bit). its 25mm wide which is the same width as Kato track bed, however im thinking of sticking some overhanging strip of plastercard on the deck as a lot of RhB bridges seem to have this flat overhang on the tops

After about 20 mins of scribing, then a bit of drybrushing with white, dark grey and a dark yellow colour and a touch of dark green flock it looks like this,

Having cut the outer edges to what design you want it to be (using a hot wire cutter) I started to scribe in the stonework

Then I used this template to cut the arch and sides out (all the pictures Ive seen of RhB tunnels have straight sides) unlike some tunnels Ive seen that curve inwards towards the bottom.

Been experimenting with making tunnel mouths with modelling foam (advise taken from Pauls Bonsai thread). Firstly I made a jig using 6mm mdf, for the arch I used a 35mm hole saw, then cut down to this from the edges.

Looks good to me with plenty of operating potential.

Superb detailing, great photos, really like how this is coming along

Great pictures, remind me of when I travelled over the Lotschberg line from Brig to spiez

Cheers Keith Glad its not just me then, thought I was doing something wrong. I am currently operating on just DC atm. I have used digital in G scale and HOm scale but the thought of fitting a digital board in a loco I can only just see frightens me to death. I've see Paul's excellent thread on how to do it, but its too risky for someone with clumsy sausage fingers. Steve...........

Testing on going

Testing, testing testing. This is an important part to me. I soon found out that the trains slow down considerably when further away from the track power feeds, even more so on the gradients of the mountain line. So I've added more power feeds, theirs 3 on the outer loop and 5 on the mountain line. I had this spare Gaugemaster controller from an old layout and built a small panel for it, I can have both lines running simultaneously now.

Here is the center of the layout, the idea is the two loops left and right will mainly be inside mountains and this bit will be a valley with the mountain line crossing it three times. A river will run from back to front and turn right under the curve. Looking at this picture from the rear is the fiddle yard (still yet to be completed with track) directly underneath this I have added boards for another smaller fiddle yard to run off the mountain line, a back scene will be put in after this. Then there is the lowest point of the line (25mm from the base) which will cross the river on a girder bridge. The highest part is next (at 210mm) and im planning a bit more of a elaborate center piece bridge, bit like the Wiesener Viaduct. Then there will be a curved stone arched viaduct and at the front the station (at 100mm) Thats the plan we will have to see what actually happens

Bit more work over the last week, the mountain line has a complete circuit now and testing has commenced

These two pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, progress is moving on with the lower portion of the mountain line in and some testing of the outer circuit line. One advantage of having a skeleton frame like this you can put upright pieces just about anywhere you need them, one disadvantage is just about everything falls through onto the floor as soon as you put it down

Thanks for the comments Ian and Jim, yes Ive seen that youtube clip before and to be quite honest I like it very much, might do some experimenting with snow on a test piece

Ahh, I see you've sussed out how I got the name then.