Horsehay Railway Modeller

I've gotten the buildings installed and lit in the yard. I also received some more vallejo paints today so I've given the yard a little weathering. It should all be a bit less shiny when the paint dries. I've also been upto some general maintenence, I've stapled a thick blanket across the garage door to try and stop any drafts and I've ordered some foil insulation to insulate the tiled section of the garage roof. Ideally I'd insulate the whole room with celotex and finish it with plaster etc. However I am a student after all, so I don't have the budget.

Not to much to show. I've worked on adding basic ground cover in the yard using tile grout. Ive also been working on cobble stones for the engine shed and surrounding area. Alot of work to be done. I should probably finish writing my lab report for fluid dynamics so I can be free to play with all of the scenic items that are in the post.

i've started the groundcover around the goods area and engine shed to allow me to get the buildings installed. more to follow on that. ive been intending to upgrade the platform lamps for a while. I initially installed some cheap lamps i found in a draw but they run very hot and arent very realistic. i once left them on for about half an hour and came back to melted plastic. I have been looking around for some nice led lamps that look like the oil/gas lamps in the photos of coalbrookdale. These are a little ornate but i quite like them. what do you guys think. would i also be able to put one or two in the small goods yard?

it had crossed my mind, however i am hoping to experiment with automation , so cassettes wouldnt really work for fiddling ( with out an automated robot arm ). i could however leave one lane as a cassette to allow me to add and remove complete trains at once. food for thought.

Mk 2 came out better with some tweaks to the slicer settings. It needs more painting and weathering, but I think it Looks good.

First attempt at a similar sign to the photo was a very close fail. When tidying up the lettering I slipped and cracked the sign. Mk2 in the morning. David

Evening all, plenty of work planned for the next fortnight. I hope to start installing the buildings tomorrow. I'm slowly turning my attention back to the station. I've found this postcard which has a good photo to go by. Im going to continue scratch building the station building itself when im back at uni, ive just ordered a laser cut fence from ebay and im currently working on a sign/ name board. My only issue at the moment is the small shelter on the opposite platform. any ideas where i can find plans or images of other similar shelters. I wouldnt mind drawing it up and printing it, or even scratch building , however i think i'll need some more refernce material. David

I need to change the emblems to late crest. But finally there is a pannier rumbling along the line at coalorsdale.

Back home and I've opened up the 57xx from ebay. It was sold as seen unboxed in an estate sale I think. And it has etched plates so I couldn't match the running number to anything online. Opened it up to put my lenz chip in and its one of the newer chasis with a 5 pole motor, and it is already chipped! Turns out I got it for a bargain price. Just about to add kadee then I shall go give it a run. Pictures to follow.

Thanks for the tip Dave. I'll be able to measure my stock up next week and check siding lengths etc. And I'll see what fits where and whether I can fit a third siding. I hadn't realised how similar it was. I've had a look before but I shall read through your thread again for inspiration. Excellent layout.

I'm pretty happy with the track plan now as it leaves enough room on the RH board for some decent scenery. And now I k ow it fits I quite like 2nd radius as most locos are manafacture to run on 2nd rad curves. Any advice as for signal box and signal positions please?

The interior walls are painted and in, and I've also fitted the lighting. You can see here the walls are painted white and grey and you can also see where I've added the internal lights. They're glued to two roof beams made from left over sprue. And all of the wires are painted brown to blend in. I'm very impressed with the quality of the gaugemaster lamp. However the leds it came with are a greeny yellow, so I may eventually swap them for a more orannge led. There's a dimmer board that can lower the brightness so I'll have a play when it's on the layout. There will also be better photos once in the layout room next week. David

The first coat of paint is drying on the interior wall sections. I was just thinking about lamps. I have two wall mounted gwr lamps as shown above. I was thinking of one over the door like Warren branch. I was just wandering if I could make use of the second one at the back by the planned water crane.

Bits have arrived to do the shed interior walls and lighting. Odd to think the shed was once this colour.

All done. Just need to do the outbuildings at some point.

Next kit under way. Working on a craftsman cottage for the station master. David

Hi guys, there is indeed a baseboard join as shown by the vertical line. I also don't want to push the shed too far to the right so I can leave room for some scenery. I'm thinking of a stream or road under a bridge. I don't think so, I think I tried that at some point in my efforts.

I've edited the 2nd idea a little. Forst of all I've managed to squeeze in a second radius curve instead of a first and still have enough room in the runarround for two coaches. I've also moved the top point lower and swapped it for a left hand point so there is room for a loco to come out of the shed with a few wagons in the cattle dock. Finally I've added another point in at the bottom, giving me two goods sidings

Good idea, I shall get the laptop out soon and have a look

Thanks for the help, I shall have a look at playing around with option 2. Unfortunately I don't think the shed can be moved, but I was thinking that there would only be one or two panniers that could sneak out in between the cattle trains. As for extra siding space I think I could add another siding down at the bottom in the goods yard

I've just thrown together a third option

Managed to borrow the girlfreinds laptop and have a play on scarm. Looks like I can indeed fit a cramped blt in. I'm Going to see if I can space it out a bit by starting on the curve. Here are some Initial sketches (00 with peco small streamline points) At the moment I like the second option, with a small goods yard at the bottom, a cattle dock at the top and an engine shed at the top right. All suggestions welcome and indeed wanted. David

I forgot to mention above, one of my ideas is that it can be reconfigurable when I'm not at uni. I. E. It could easily change from a horseshoe to an L, based on room size etc. And I could easily expand both the storage tracks and scenic boards from the ends. David

Evening all, I'm really enjoying working on and running my main layout (coalorsdale/ a Shropshire branchline) but whilst I've enjoyed designing and constructing my uni layout (West canal sidings) I've not got much operational enjoyment out of it. Im still very happy with west canal sidings however I've been Inspired by several threads on here, as well as a few books, to start considering a completely different mini layout to take to uni for my final year and then probably take with me to my first house to have as a table top layout. I've been thinking of a modular BLT that would allow me to run a few passenger and goods trains about, but also let me have a play with full computer automation and signaling etc. Probably something imaginary on the shropshire/ Welsh border with lots of gwr features but still set in the early sixties ish so I can use my current rolling stock. For now I'd be limited to the size of a single bed when I set it up in my uni house, but I could easily add other modules later on and grow the layout, or even have certain modules that i only set up when I have space. That gives me roughly an 18"x6ft scenic section to begin with and then probably a 1ft by 4ft off scene board in a horse shoe. Unfortunately the bed is my size limit and It can only comfortably fit a first radius curve so there will be restriction on locos and speed. Here is an incredibly rough sketch as I am away from my pc until the 3rd. If I can dig out a compass I might be able to do some more accurate drawings but this shows roughly how a first radius curve fits and the baseboard idea. (ignore the track plan I just scribbled it down to fill space, however the first radius loop is roughly to scale) I'm not even sure if I will ever develop this idea but I thought I'd start a thread to snowball ideas and get advice as to whether to continue. I will be "finishing" West canal sidings as i am enjoying the modelling process however when I bring it back from uni in the summer it shall probably stay on a shelf in the garage as I haven't really run it too much whilst at uni. Thanks for looking, David

Thanks for the advice. I'll look into both options, there is a goods siding along side the shed. I've bought some more stone sheeting to Line the interior of the shed as well as some gwr gas lamps. I've also snuck in a 57xx from an ebay auction. Once I get it chipped I shall finally have a tank loco on my branchline. I think I'll steal the chip from my lima deltic as it has a nice lenz chip in thay is far better than the locos lima mechanism.