That Model Railway Guy

Thanks, that's good to know! Haven't used any lichen from Woodland Scenics yet but did use some from WWS for the bushes. I used spray glue on those and so far it all looks fine but I'll keep an eye on it. I definitely need to find some good foliage techniques though to break it up a bit more. I've got some of the turf left over that I used on the trees and bushes so might try mixing that with some clump foliage in a different colour.

I've spent the last few days finishing off a few details and I'd say this module is now around 95% complete. The biggest job was adding a fence on either side of the line... I had a big bag of craft matchsticks in a drawer so decided to use those to have a go at making my own fence. Two days later I can safely say I've had enough of drilling tiny holes in matchsticks for now. It looks ok (the wire will get dulled down in the future) but I think I might just bite the bullet and get some ready made posts for any future fences! Here's a wider overall shot of the module as I realised I hadn't't posted one in a while. In addition to the fence you can see I've also added a few bushes and some wild flowers here and there which I think gives it a bit of life and stops it looking so bare. I imagine I'll add some more foliage in the future to break it up a bit more but for now I think I'm ready to move onto the second curve module. To say this is my first go at serious modelling I'm over the moon with how it's turned out. It may not be winning awards anytime soon but it's leaps and bounds ahead of anything I've ever achieved in the past and if I can carry on at this standard I should have a wonderful little layout on my hands! Onwards

Thanks @Alister_G, quite pleased with the results with it being my first time using static grass. Definitely makes the whole thing come to life a bit more!

Not a particularly interesting photo but I've added some more layers of static grass so it's a bit more patchy and varied now. As soon as I finished some woolly friends decided to move in... I guess this means I'll have to build a fence now or else I'll end up with sheep on the line!

Have been running my diesel locomotives a lot more on Pickwick Yard lately so I thought I'd take a quick look at the Hornby Sentinel and see how well it stacks up to the Ruston 48DS considering it's a few years old now. There's a bit of a running session on Pickwick Yard later on in the video too for those who just want to see some trains running

Made a start on the static grass today so it's starting to look more like a model railway! It's very uniform at the moment as it's all one colour but I'll be adding more layers over the weekend. Couldn't resist posing a loco for a quick photo too!

Good to know. I'll "plant" them far away from the line and then say they're in the distance!

This might seem like I'm jumping the gun but I'm thinking about trees! Yes, I know it’s sounds a bit premature but because (when not in use) the individual modules will most likely be stored on top of each other in some way. Having trees sticking up would greatly increase the amount of space needed between each module. I realised I need to make the trees removable in some way so that I can fit more modules into a vertical space. I’m using the Woodland Scenics armatures which come with a base that the main trunk clips into. From what I’ve seen most people discard the bases but I’ve embedded mine into the landscape (using a bit of left over modelling compound). Once painted brown to match the rest of the board, it leaves a nice hole that the finished tree can slot into when the module is in use and then be removed for safer storage when the module is put away. As you can imagine I wanted to get this done now before I start putting down the static grass. The eagle eyed among you may also be able to see in the background of the first picture I’ve started work on the ballasting too! Finally I decided to make some trees. I didn’t have to do this now but I’d already opened the Woodland Scenics armature pack to get the bases out so I figured I’d give it a go for a bit of fun. It made deciding the location of the trees a bit easier too. These were my first attempts and I’m pleased with how they’ve come out considering I’ve never made one before.

Good to hear! I've got the measurements of the room the railway will most likely be set up in and have already done some experiments setting it up in different configurations on the computer to see whats possible in the space. Also, my plan going forward is that any future layouts I build will have the ability to link into this too - for example the fiddle yard could be replaced with another station for end to end running.

Speaking of scenery, yesterday I finished covering the first module in plaster bandage. As you can see in the second picture I also finished off the sides that were previously open so you can't see the chicken wire underneath anymore. Then earlier today I gave it all a quick coat of brown paint so that, if my static grass ends up being a bit thin or patchy in some areas, at least it'll look like mud/dirt underneath!

For a while now I've had some older wagons which I've not been able to use much because the couplings aren't compatible with tension locks. To overcome this I've made my own converter wagon (since they don't make them anymore) using the Dapol wagon kit.

Genius!! Thanks for sharing that, I'll definitely be giving this a go on future modules!

Ah fantastic! I do see what you mean about the loco headshunt - I think that's the way it is at Embsay but obviously it's much more spread out in reality. I’m not usually a fan of three way points but I actually quite like what you’ve done with them there. I am using code 100 so it would be the symmetrical points but I’ll definitely take your ideas into consideration. Thanks for this, very much appreciated.

I’ve been thinking a bit more about the track plan for the two station modules as this main area of the layout is still largely undecided. In my head this station is the preservation society’s main base on the railway so there’s a lot going on. Ideally I’d like to have: -A double platform, with length for 3 coach trains (4 at a push). -An engine shed/maintenance area. -A few spare sidings for shunting and (like all good heritage railways) storing rusty locos/wagons. So with all that in mind I set about designing something and have come up with this… It’s got the double platform, an engine shed area in the top left and a couple of sidings coming off platform 2 just below it. Looking at it now I’ve realised it’s a bit of a simplified hybrid of both Oakworth and Embsay stations, albeit flipped the other way round. I’d always imagined it with the platforms on the right and the engine shed on the left but maybe it would be more realistic if it was flipped to be the same way as the prototypes. Anyway what does everyone think about this design (either original or flipped)? I’m happy to hear suggestions - although no guarantees I’ll take them! Personally I like this plan as it has everything I wanted and looks like it has some nice operating potential without feeling too crowded… although I do worry that the sidings might block the view of the main line too much. But to be honest this is the best I’ve come up with so far so I’m inclined to stick with it unless I come up with something better soon. With the station area being the main focal point of the layout I want to make sure I'm happy with it before I start building. (Still need to come up with a name for it too!)

Good news, I’ve made a start on the scenery! There’s not much to see yet and progress has been slow but it’s definitely a start. I’m tackling the simpler module first as this won’t have much on it other than a few rolling hills. I started off trying to build up the landform with polystyrene blocks and bunched up newspaper but I didn’t really have much success with that as the surface was far to crinkled. I put down a layer of plaster bandage but ended up having to use a lot of modelling compound to smooth out some of the worst parts. I was already planning on using it to build up the areas around the endplates but ideally I’d like to keep it to a minimum as it does add extra weight and these modules are already the biggest and most cumbersome. I was trying to come up with a more effective technique for the larger areas when I discovered that we had some offcuts of chicken wire going spare. I have no idea why we have it but it wasn’t needed anymore so I cut a few strips to use for the other side of the board which was then covered in a layer of paper mache. This was a much quicker solution and I’m letting it dry today before I add plaster bandage over the top.

In addition to posting about my modelling adventures on RMWeb I'll also be documenting the build over on YouTube - I'm much better at video editing than I am at writing these posts! If anyone's interested here's the first "episode". It mostly covers everything I've talked about so far on here but also includes a few shots of my Peckett running over the 4 modules I've built so far!

Lots more progress has been made throughout the week. The endplates have now been attached to the end of the baseboards along with some bullet dowels and I was ecstatic to find that everything lines up perfectly! It’ll certainly make the job of connecting up baseboards easier in the future. As I mentioned previously I’ve built the baseboards for two of the corner modules and you can see the first of them here attached to the far end of the fiddle yard... I was on a bit of a roll and so I've also managed to lay the cork and track for the curves on both boards as well as getting everything wired up. Once again I was rather excited when everything worked and a loco was able to travel from one board to the other without any trouble at all. My plan is to start work on the scenery for these two corner modules in the near future. As happy as I am that everything works I’ve had enough of building baseboards and wiring for the moment so I’m looking forward to attempting some hills. The first board I do will be kept as simple as possible. No real features, just some hilly terrain covered in static grass as I don’t want every module to feel like it has something crammed onto it - less is more. It’s also a chance to get the basics down of forming hills, using static grass, ballasting, etc. The second board will be similar but as it links up to the fiddle yard I’m planning on having a bridge to hide the scenic break. Maybe a road over the top and I’d like to have a small barn or workshop area if there’s space too. That said, life is about to get very busy for me so I can’t imagine I’ll be making progress on this at the same rate as I have recently. Ideally I’d like to get “Phase One” finished by the end of the year, but that may be a bit ambitious.

Hi everyone! My YouTube channel has been doing rather well lately, so to celebrate hitting 500 subscribers I’m doing a LIVE running session on Pickwick Yard tonight at 8pm! You’re welcome to tune in and enjoy the fun regardless of whether you’re a subscriber or not and you can watch right from the comfort of RMWeb using the embedded stream below. Right, I'm off to clean the track!

Fair enough, I can see why you’d not want to have to worry about baseboard alignment - it can be a bit of a faff. For me I knew I wanted to scenery to match up at the joins no matter which order the boards were setup in, so from there it wasn’t much extra work to make sure the tracks aligned too. As this is my first proper layout I’m treating the whole thing as a learning curve for the future. The nice thing with the modular design is that, as I get better modules can be reworked or replaced entirely as long as they’re all built to the same standards, which is why I’ve spent the time trying to get that bit right from the start.

Hi Moon Monkey! Thanks, it’s always nice to hear from others who are working on something similar. Do you have a thread of you own? I’m not using the pasting tables from Homebase, I agree they probably would be quite flimsy. I’m using their wooden trestles which support my previous layout and have so far been quite sturdy. I posted a link to them a few posts ago so if you click that you can see pictures of them but they’re basically A-frames that fold up flat when not in use. Very simple design but cheaper, stronger and more accurate than anything I could build myself. I won’t actually be joining the track between modules at all. The baseboards will have alignment dowels built into them along with my endplates so that the track (and scenery) all line up perfectly when bolted together regardless of which combination of modules are setup. But the actual rails themselves won’t have any fishplates so there will just be a tiny gap between each section of track. If my work on the fiddle yard over the weekend is anything to judge by this gap is only a millimetre or two wide, if that, and doesn’t seem to affect locos or rolling stock at all (apart from creating that nice clickety-clack sound!) The main issue as far as I can see will be making sure the rails are always at a standard height across every board so that they don’t “jump” when travelling from one to the other. For packing away - it’ll be a while before I reach a full circle but my initial thought was to unbolt two of the corner modules as one section and slide that out since the railway won’t completely fill the room it’ll be setup in. Once they’re out of the way they can be separated from each other and the rest of the modules can easily be packed up one by one. Sounds more complicated than it is when written down like that but it makes sense in my head. Thanks for the advice and for taking an interest, it’s all very much appreciated. For the most part I decided to just jump in and start building something otherwise I’d never make any progress, so I’m always interested to hear the solutions that others have come up with so that I can implement (steal) them myself along the way!

I made quite a lot of progress over the weekend with the track having now been laid for the fiddle yard. It was pretty straight forward although it was my first time using flexible track so I had a bit of an adventure cutting that until I got more confident. Where the baseboards fold I laid the track over the join with each rail soldered to a brass screw underneath. Then once everything was secure I took the plunge and cut all the rails. I’ve done some temporary wiring for the moment to allow locos to cross the gap on each line just for testing but I’ll do something more permanent once I know exactly how I want to wire it up (especially as there’s a possibility I might convert to DCC soon). So far everything’s working great and the Hornby Peckett and Terrier aren’t having any trouble at all. The great thing about starting in the fiddle yard is I can make mistakes here and if in the future I decide it’s not working well, I can easily rip it up or relay it without having to worry about any scenery. I forgot to take any pictures but I’ve also made the square baseboards for the first two corner modules too, so I’ll be laying track on those soon and trying out my endplates for the first time as well. Finally, as if that wasn’t enough for one weekend I also managed to make it down to Spa Valley Railway for a quick ride behind their new resident!

And as promised here is said video! Enjoy

Here's a few shots I took while filming a new video recently. The final one is a bit of a "behind the scenes" look!

The first batch of laser cut endplates have arrived! I’ll be using these on the end of each module to align the track and bolts when the boards are connected together. It’ll also give the scenery a consistent level at the end of each module too without it looking too uniform (hopefully) as I didn’t want the land to be completely flat at every baseboard join. The bottom one is the standard endplate which will be used on almost every board. It’s also symmetrical so a module can be setup either way round depending on my preference. The middle one is for the fiddle yard. The holes for the bolts and dowels are exactly the same but there was no need for the scenery profile here especially as, when the fiddle yard folds, the peaks would have hit each other, so I kept them flat for simplicity. Finally the top one is an extension for the corner boards so that the scenery still lines up on these wider modules when two are connected together. Obviously I had more than these made, these are just the three different types.

Just realised I'd never posted my latest video from a few weeks ago! If anyone's interested, this is how I operate the fiddle yard on Pickwick Yard. The Peco Loco Lift has certainly come in handy as a cassette for micro layouts as I've found I can just about fit 3-4 wagons in each one. Like with the invisible uncoupling video I'm sure I'm not the first person to try this and I'm not claiming to have come up with using the Peco Loco Lift as a cassette. I'm just demonstrating how I operate my layout in case it provides inspiration for anyone else out there. Anyway, they fit very nicely behind the back line in the fiddle yard so that I can change stock nice and quickly between a selection of "mini-rakes" in case I get bored looking at the same old wagons!