klambert

Correct! Likely to have a part low relief retaining wall and a low relief bridge going over the siding closest to the baseboard edge, with a closed gate to make it look like the entrance to a long disused industrial siding. Which is why it lacks a buffer stop.

Interesting, any thing about the history of this I'm assuming unit? Good suggestion, will keep an eye especially if I see one in a parts bin, car boot etc. Regarding the diesel shunter, I had a chat with the shunter contigent of the DEPG, of which I'm a member, they said it's not out of the bounds of reality as long as I fabricate the chassis, to quote 'all kinds of strange things happen in scrap yards, it could have required a wheelset change and then the owner gave up halfway through when he found something better'.

Office block that forms the fiddle yard backscene is taking shape. Still many loose ends to tie, still requires weathering, leak marks and the mandatory graffiti. A lot of the concrete panels and doorways came from textures.com although the grey brick is ScaleScenes, stuck onto grey board, windows are Peco packaging. Better view of office block rear entrance, (aka the smokers haven) fire door and record shop. Setup by a now aging hippy with the idea of being Southeast Londons premier purveyor of psych records and ahem other associated 'wares' but has since expanded to cover all good riffy rock. How about a game of guess the album? (Just realised the camera's picked up things I didn't consider to be a big issue such as white paper edges etc, hope to tidy that up with weathering eventually). So far it's made without a back so I can add lighting at a later date. Getting there, but it gives an idea of what I'm after.

Bought myself a Christmas present of some Bachmann POAs, nice to have the correct wagons at last. couldn't resist a running session.

Had a rummage around in a bits box and managed to find this, the assembled bodyshell of a Dapol class 04 kit. Perfect I thought, ideal for the scrapyard corner. Until I had second thoughts. I was thinking of fabricating a chassis out of plasticard, sans wheels and a load of rust and weathering. Until I realised I don't think you'd have dumped shunter minus its wheels, there removal just seems like a load of unnecessary hassle for the scrapman. Especially this being the previous shunter until it was dumped out of the way. I've been unable to find pictures of scrapped shunters sans wheels so I don't think they'd be scrapped like this, although if anyone knows otherwise, I'd appreciate it. My other option which I think's more realistic is to break the shunter up and have its remains scattered around in a pile, maybe keep the cab intact for use as a workman's bothy.

At the moment I have an NSE EPB, and the old Hornby NSE VEP although I need to make a cassette for that as the fiddleyard can only accommodate two car lengths. In the future I would like a 466 and the Bratchell models 456, maybe even the Hornby model of the National Collection BIL as I believe it ran on the mainline at the time. The passenger stock for a layout of this size is surprisingly flexible. There's many other 3rd rail units I'm considering as well, the selection is excellent these days.

A fair bit's happened with the layout recently, I keep forgetting to update here, I've finished construction of the backscene, the board immediately to the front will have a view of the Cutty Sark and Greenwich Foot Tunnel entrance applied to it but partially obscured by a low relief scratchbuilt block of flats on the slope similar to the type in the area. I've had a look round, due to South London being very hilly I wasn't short of examples. I wanted a slope rather than a straight retaining wall to show the land dropping off to the Thames. The board on the left will have a view of a construction site/remains of the old station as the station's been truncated Broad Street style as well as a view of the Thames and the boards on the right as mentioned previously is a an office Building. Other work, most noticeably the fence has gone in, I found this to be an extremely fiddly job, unfortunately the wires through the crank tops is far from straight and some of the posts are crooked, it doesn't look too bad in person but the camera really picks this up, although I'm tempted to break a few wires and weather the fence more, this is meant to be a scrapyard after all especially an area where scrap is loaded so I'd expect the fence to look battered. Other peoples thoughts on this would be much appreciated, either in terms of how to straighten the fence up more or how to make what I have look more natural. Firstly by building the ground up with cork and then using DAS modelling clay and plaster I made an inlaid siding, very pleased with how this looks, I then added some puddles made out of Peco packaging with the underside painted dark grey, and embedded in using more clay, with hindsight I realise these probably should have gone in when I was initially embedding the track. The ground cover for this part of the layout is still not done though, I bought some Vallejo thick mud which I'll be using to add tire marks, hide imperfections as well as scrap metal scatter from Goodwood scenics. Some suggestions requested: admittedly the fence in this corner of the layout doesn't look great, I did try bending the wire on the crank tops around the corner but I had this 90 degree bend jutting out from the post so I decided to cut it off, looking at reference I probably should have positioned the post on the corner at 45 degrees. I think I'll try the tried and tested technique of hiding this with foliage, although I'm open to other suggestions. The idea for this corner of the layout, inspired by Silvertown pictures is plonk down a class 03 Bodyshell (originally intended for airbrush practice) half buried in scrap and foliage. This being the previous shunter before being cast aside. I'm avoiding scrap cars purely because ruining some perfectly good Oxford Diecast or buying some Goodwood scenics scrap cars is pretty pricey. I want this area of the scrapyard to feel like a forgotten about corner with something quite interesting surviving the cutters torch, I'm open to other suggestions as well. Ballasting has commenced, I'm using a combination of fine grade woodland scenics grey and brown ballast as well as some dark ballast bought from Jimmys Hobby shop in Castleford market made by himself, it's quality stuff. This is all stuck down using the usual 50/50 PVA Water mix although I dumped in a load of acrylic paint to weather the ballast and track as recomended on the Chandwell Youtube series. I think he calls the mix 'glunge' which I rather like. I realise at this stage the layout's looking quite rough, although I accept this is my first layout beyond a trainset, I imagine most peoples layouts go through a rough stage. I've never been a fan of working in small sections, I'd much prefer to deal with things as a whole really.

Given this a follow, London Bridge an area I knew well up until very recently, I did take pictures of some bits of the station area before it was demolished, which I'm happy to DM, in case you want to use them as part of sheets for scratch building? I've had an idea burning away for a model of post 1990 refurb of Charing Cross, including Hungerford Bridge, whether that happens or not is a different matter.

Taking a 'break' from the breakers yard at the moment, moving onto scratchbuilding the 60s brutalist monolith that makes up the backscene hiding the fiddle yard, I've been thinking about windows. This is to be my first completely scratchbuilt building and I haven't made things easy for myself 😁. I have about 90 windows to make, my first plan was to cut them out of 1mm greyboard, however since I found out how tedious cutting out the concrete frame was I've had 2nd thoughts. Instead I was thinking about making the windows in Photoshop, (using the image shown below) printing onto A4 sticky label sheets and sticking onto the transparent packaging from various Peco bits. However my reservations about this technique are that it may make the windows look very flat particuarly for 00. An idea I have though is maybe to stick the printed sticky label sheet onto 160 gsm card which I have in excess and then apply glazing. I'm not going for Ancorton windows or anything like that as they're the wrong dimensions and also being mindful of cost, although I'm open to other suggestions and also keen to see how other people have scratchbuilt office buildings.

Thank you for the recomends, looks like plenty of Flickr albums, I've also bought D Brennands Londons East End Railways Part 2, for more on the Silvertown Tramway, I also discovered some pictures of what was the 600 group, now EMR metal recycling facility at Willesden in one of Vic Mitchells Middleton Press books 'West London Line' when it still had a rail connection.

Quick question, regarding the scrap sidings by my time period (late 80s - early 90s). By my time period would smaller scrapyards that mostly bought straight from the consumer, things like cars and old washing machines have rail served sidings? or would it only be the larger type that breaks metals into much smaller chunks and sells onto steelworks? From what I understand you get two types of scrap merchant, your smaller type, where the average person will send their car or washing machine and then the larger type which buys from the first type of scrapyard (possibly known as a metals reprocesser?), further breaks the scrap down and sells onto steel works, this type is most likely to have rail sidings from what I understand. Although I don't know a huge amount about the scrap trade so happy to be enlightened. I would much prefer to recreate the smaller type of scrapyard, having been inspired by Everard Junctions videos, there being something very attractive about the organised chaos and dereliction of it also the compact size of the layout meaning a smaller scrapyard being the most feasible, although for the sake of accuracy happy to make the 2nd type as well.

This is my first model railway so will see how things go. At 2ft by 4ft, (including fiddle yard) not sure if it entirely counts as a microlayout, apoligies in advance if it's in the wrong place. Greenwich Bridge, is firmly in the small but growing niche of London based Network Southeast branch terminals. It's worth noting this is being done on a budget, due to being a young(ish) couple, attempting to save for a mortgage, (despite the best efforts of the electricity company). Most of the board is made from reclaimed scraps of wood, the points are currently wire in tube controlled, (although I would like to install point motors at a later date), DC (naturally) and I'll be making extensive use of scale scenes kits, as well as brick paper made myself in Photoshop. Watching the Chandwell series on Youtube is evidence some good things can still be done with brick paper. Also I do like to invent a good back story so here we go ... By 1898 The London Chatham and Dover railway was disatisfied with the lack of passengers and freight receipts on its Greenwich Park branch. With the proposal of the Greenwich foot tunnel, the LCDR planned to extend the branch to the proposed Greenwich end of the foot tunnel, at a station known as 'Greenwich Bridge' due to its proximity to Bridge Street, an intermediate station near the SERs Greenwich station, known as Greenwich Low Level, as well some freight spurs serving the industry alongside the Deptford Creek and various byproducts from Deptford power station. After amalgamation as the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1899, with construction well underway, the planned extension continued, with the opening occurring in 1901. Following this the line had an unremarkable existance. Unlike the real branch which closed in 1917, traffic was enough to see 3rd rail electrification in the 1930s and ensured it's survival into the 1980s and beyond where my model railway is set, this sees an hourly shuttle to Peckham Rye as well as a peak hour service to Victoria. Freight traffic declined alongside the general decline in industry and river traffic, with remaining freight traffic being scrap. I suspect in the present day it'll either have survived as part of the London Overground network, or closed around the late 90s when the DLR extension to Lewisham was opened. Ah the difference a few months makes, the sidings in the foreground are the scrap sidings and the big gap in the middle being room for an island platform. My idea was that the station platform used to continue on a distance to a rather grandiose main building. However this suffered bomb damage in the war, and remained in an increasingly decrepid state until the council/property developers, in the 80s turned it into a heritage centre/demolished it for luxury flats, so the station exists Broad Street in its last days style, in a much shortened state, being accessed by dingy alley and a bridge from the retaining wall onto the platform. I'll try to update semi periodically when I can although I've been meaning to post this for some time, the final image dating from the 1st of May, so I wouldn't get your hopes up!

I'm rather new to all of this, I have purchased some Gaugemaster 7x0.2 wires however I'm wondering if they'll be enough, particularly for getting power from the controller to the track as well as isolating sections. I took a look at them and they look rather thin. Do other folks use these for power? The layout is a small 4ft x 2ft 00 gauge DC layout, points are controlled by rod in tube so power for point motors isn't an issue. Thanks in advance for your help.

That's seriously good looking, I think I'll reconsider the brick embossed plasticard for everything, at £3 a sheet I can see that getting expensive very quick, seeing as the scale scenes paper achieves such impressive results as above. (I presume the stonework paper is scale scenes) Regarding timber just had a thought, would approaching warehouses for broken pallets be worth it and reusing the wood from those? The suggestions to use greyboard or foam core are very useful. I've very recently moved out from a long stint at the inlaws so I don't have much in the way of tools, beyond your bog standard tool kit and some craft stuff. As much as I'd like a £60+ multitool, at the moment I don't think that's espicially feasible. Hack and Jack saws for now! I've done a bit more research regarding rod and tube and this Youtube video seems to have some very good suggestions of using the ink tubes from Biro's and 1mm wire. Been some very useful suggestions on this thread. The £100 layout is a novel idea.

Long time lurker, but I didn't think it worth me posting until I had something to ask. After many years of waiting, I finally have the space ... and then all the electricity prices skyrocket, meaning I have to significantly scale back the budget on my planned layout. It's an analog 00 Gauge shunting Layout consisting of two 4ft x 1.5ft boards, one scenic the other the fiddle yard. I have a number of ideas on how to cut costs, and I'm open to suggestions. - Planning on using rough sawn rather than planed timber for the supports and frame. (Make sure I handle with gloves!) The Surface will be 9mm ply. - Is cork underlay all that important for a shunting layout? - Unfortunately I don't have much in the way of controllers, at the moment Gaugemaster is a bit out of my price range so thinking cheapy Hornby controllers for now. - Platforms to be constructed using wood offcuts from the board, with the edges made from embossed brick plasticard. Platform surface made from tiling grout and Juweela ceramic tiles for the edging slabs (As per Everard Junctions recent video) or DAS modelling clay and Metcalfe paving slabs. The original plan was to use Peco concrete platform edging but at £5-£6 for 5 sections, I had to think again. Incidentally how many sheets do you get when you buy Slaters Brick embossed plasticard? In case anyone's wondering, the platform is an island platform with two faces that can accomodate a 4 coach train. - Rod and tube for the points.