Horsehay Railway Modeller

This evenings work on the interior for an upstairs bedroom. Card walls with 3d printed furniture. The bed is an in joke. If you know you know. Tried to make it look like she's tucking the sheets in by using some glue to add rippled texture up to her hand. On the exterior I've added a few more windows and doors. Plus an illuminated billboard with a James bond " you only live twice" poster from 1967 and a 1965 poster about the br change from green to blue. The posters are easy enough to print out and change so I might alter the in the future. Roof still needs fitting properly once I've finished the upstairs interiors.

Some more progress on the shops. Still need to think up a punny name for them. Slowly been painting and weathering the bricks. Roof loosley glued together. And a few lights being installed. Got a light in the bathroom at the rear. I Cheated by frosting the window meaning I don't need an interior, but I am hoping to add full interiors to the shops and atleast one of the front bedrooms. The chimneys are 3d prints I drew up in fusion and they still need weathering. The windows and doors are stock from the shop kit.

Over the past few days I've assembled the outer walls of the wills craftsman shop kit. Customised to fit the angle of the road. I also made things more complicated by adding a slight incline to the road meaning the entire shop kit needed to be ever so slightly taller to allow the doors to be above street level. I did this by adding Cork to the base as well as leaving the walls an extra 4 brick courses taller. The diorama board is some 4mm mdf I cut to a shape that would fit the area in my full size track plan. It will eventually be glued into place on the full module baseboard (Whenever I visit my parents long enough to build it) but I wanted to be able to model the road and pavement, and position the two buildings in a small scene I can work on whilst living away at work. The road is made from 1.5mm poster board / card hot glued on mdf strips to give it a slight upward slope towards the front of the layout. The whole base and road are sealed wih some watered down wood glue to stop warping. A bird's-eye view showing the angle of the building, the road and the Cork for the gardens. Here you can see the front edge of the road is about 10mm higher than the rear. Hopefully next week I'll get the bricks painted before adding a removable roof, all the windows and doors and starting on shop interiors etc. David

The plans for the works area are simmering away in the background , however i've now started prepping for the next scenic module that I aim to complete in some form before the new year. Here are my latest plans: when I first planned this module I had drawn it simply with a random road bridge and building and left it at that. I have now fleshed out my plans to make what I hope can be a very detailed scene. After initially beleiving this was an original idea I soon realised it is probably based on memories of jiggers bank down in coalbrookdale, where the viaduct leads into a raised embankment before crossing a plate girder bridge. image below for reference. Having looked around on google maps for inspiration I decided to model a few houses around the base of the bridge and create a small village. To the rear of the layout I will install the wills farm cottage from the old layout ( waste not want not) its slightly underscale and will help force perspective. (photo from old layout) The bridge itself will be 3d printed to my own design and the embankment will have various retaining walls supporting it. As for the houses at the front, I came up with the hair-brained idea of modelling my childhood home; an idea I've had for a while, however, as neither me nor my parents live there anymore I feel more comfortable with adding a modelled rendition to the internet. Finally after printing a full scale track plan and roughing out dimensions, I decided to add a further final building to give the impression of a small village. after looking at various kits I settled on the wills craftsman shops. I've never modelled anything like this before but inspired by luke towens impressive diner scene on youtube im looking forward to modelling a small village shop or post office with a full interior plenty of 3d printing in store to add shop interiors, and I'm sure there is some puntential with shop names and the advertisment billboard.

In order to get my head around how the layout will operate and look, I ordered some 1:1 track plans printed on A0 paper. They arrived today and I've set them up in my bedroom at work and done lots of measuring and rolling around of coaches and wagons. The track plan is 99% set but some of the scenery is likely to change. It's hard to show with the camera but I am very impressed with just how much space there is. Most of it will be filled with scenery like the viaduct board a few posts ago, however the tmd end of the layout will be more Industrial and compact although it is bloody huge compared to my old layout At 12ft * 2.5ft for the TMD boards alone. Below is cherryBrook station at roughly 11ft * 18 inches which sits above the storage yard and will be removable as a layout in its own right, as well as giving access to derailed trains below. Here I'm testing 3 wagons and a hymek in the head shunt with a mk1 coach testing for clearence. Very happy with my new goods yard arrangement as it allows shunting and forming of local goods trains. The storage yard at 12ft by 2ft along one end (plus around 5 feet around the corner). Mk1 coach for scale. It's designed to store roughly 15 set trains / dmus that I have slowly been purchasing based on magazine formations and my own research ( trains are generic western region and not specific to any specific location. Finally the TMD which has been subject of this evenings musings as I try to work out what to put in the corner. Seen here with my 350*650mm diorama where it will slot in to the finished layout. ( the board should continue 8 or 10 inches further towards the wall giving a relatively large area for some Coalbrookdale esque warehouses as a scenic block from the viaduct scene Again most of my musings are most likely irrelevant and subject to change as the layout won't be constructed as a whole for several years. I will however be building another 4ft scenic section (hopefully by the end of 2023) to join the viaduct before moving on to cherrybrook as a shunting layout in the new year.

when designing the new layout I had initially decided to go more freelance and not base it on location. however I have been looking at my plans and think I can fit in some of coalbrookdale works (coalorsdale works ) behind the TMD. I began looking at adding low relief industrial buildings to the plans along the retainig wall behind the the TMD. uppon further thought i decided i could use some of the buidlings at coalbrookdale for inspiration as i had already started research and 3d cad for the works on the origional coalorsdale layout. I've now decided to replace the raised area that provides a scenic break between the TMD and Viaduct with a representation of the works buildings. I thought I could include a few recognisable buildings such as what is now the meuseum of iron with its clock tower, however i will arrange them to suit my own layout. I am also thinking of adding a 009 shuttle that will shunt some narrow gauge ore tipplers in and out accross a cobbled courtyard. Im not sure from my current research how modern the tramways and plateways at coalbrookdale became. However as this is very much a vague representation of location i was thinking of flexing rule one and adding an 0-4-0 narrow gauge diesel shunter on some 009 track which would randomly shuttle between some of the warehouses. as it is currently sketched in my plans a very rough sketch with various warehouses and some random narrow gauge tracks. Is this a good idea ? or will it overclutter the area? The actual bulding of the TMD boards cant happen for a few years until i have space however i was planning to build most of the Structures for the layout over the coming few years as well as starting some of the smaller modules such as the viaduct. David

Hi there @St Enodoc love your layout. All of my interlocking will be done with servos and all of the main tracks will have block detection for pc automation anyway so I thought this would be an easy fix to a limitation I believe I'll have with my method for running the layout automatically and manually at the same time. I might end up just adding a virtual signal or something along those lines to prevent the pc crashing trains if I set the home to off with a train in the platform. That way the actual lever and signal can be operated, but the computer wizardry will hold back any spurious branchline trains from the platform of I set the. All of this is very much in the planning and theory stage as I've yet to run a single automated train and have only physically built one of 12 modules that will form the layout. Once again excuse my ignorance but I am a mere sprog in my early twenties. I will remove the circuit interlocking from the platform track plans and come up with a behind the scenes method to hold off automated trains.

That's why I I itially wanted a shunt signal to be able to call a loco on, but I will use the excuse that the signal man is using hand signals. It's going to be interesting incorporating with the pc and rocrail but locking that signal at red when there's a train in the platform should make it simple to stop the pc ramming one dmu into the back of another by accidently leaving the signal off. Really wasn't sure how to label leads, whilst I've found various text on diagrams and interlocking now, still struggling with elad labelling

Thanks once again for your advice. The track plan remains the same but ive altered the interlocking rules as per your advice. Except for : Ive left track circuit controls on lever 1 due to the way I picture it interacting with the PC control. The PC wont let a train enter the platform (unless manually controlled ) if any of the route is occupied so my signal and thus the lever might as well be locked by the occupied platform block. Ive added a track circuit to lever 3 to prevent a train being released from the platform if there is a train in the block just off scene. I am planning on using some sort of arduino and 3d printed block instrument to show when the hidden incline is occupied - I hope to have the starter locked if it is not possible to send the train down the branch to the main layout. - more on this in my layout thread in the future. unsure on exact lever naming convention so probably labelled incorrectly.

Attempt at adding some detection on points and in platform road. Also renumbered to have goods points hand operated. will try to get around reverse numbering by moving signal box to match operators view of the layout so levers can be labelled left to right as the operator will see. Interlocking is roughly hashed out after reading various articles and advice on here. will all be via a servo mechanism im currently designing to lock a scale four frame.

Thank you very much for your help. Appologies if my signal diagram is misleading, but the double slip remains in place. This is very much a quirk of the fact that the layour is operated from the front side whereas, the box itself faces outwards. Does the diagram make sense if the box were to be facing the other way as the operator will be.

I will also have block detection available on all of the main branch track into the platform (not the loop or goods sidings) Could this aid interlocking

okay current attempt is as follows. unsure if lever 12 is needed or if the disk would also be on lever 11. Also not sure on interlocking rules. am going to attempt servo interlocking the frame so levers can be locked on and off by either other levers or computer control signals.

Printed some things this weekend. Looks like it makes more sense to use an mse kit for the ground signals as the printed parts seem too brittle at scale on my shunt signal test. I did however print some modelu figures from their patreon releases as well as some other designs I have purchased online and have thus far painted two figures up. They need to dry and then get a coat of matt varnish but Im happy this far.

Thank you very much

again im not sure if this is actually 3d printable but here is the model so far. Harlequins drawings and some photos were layed on to allow profiles to be sketched and extruded. ive altered some areas to allow for the tolerances of the printer. ill get a reasonable attempt modelled and then see what actually comes out of the printer and what else i have to alter.

Not too much to show for the past few weeks. I bought a Lokprogrammer and reprogrammed the lights on the new hymek and my class 33 as well as adding the kadee uncouple shuffle. I've also bought a rolling Road and gaugemaster controller and plan on building a test track. As of the past few days I have been designing all sorts in 3d cad. Including the rest of the baseboards for the layout (still a work in progress). My latest endeavour is to see if it is possible to 3d print working semaphore signals. I've just bought a resin 3d printer and will be sure to print lots of tests soon. Over the past few hours I have been starting to draw up a GWR tall 16inch ground signal based on images found online as well as some drawings @Harlequinposted a few years ago in anither thread. More on this soon - I'm not sure what my printer is capable of but I think my 3d model looks okay so far.

I think I can see the yard operating with a starter and the yellow shunt. Is there a reason the other signals don't require call ons? Can they still be passed at danger?

another stab. Junction braket home at A allowing a move into platform or goods/ loop. disk below to allow calling on of a loco Starter on platform at B . Disk below allowing shunting moves (unsure if disk needed) starter for goods or loop at C (applies to either / selected by double slip?). Disk at base to allow shunt moves ( yellow to allow headshunt moves without signalling ?) Disk at D to allow a loco to run around. signalling is definately a week spot for me so i appologise for my ignorance. will move on to which points are hand operated and how the box is interlocked once we're set on which signals go where. i am thinking of building an interlocking frame just for interest and to be different from the main pc controlled layout.

option one is definately looking like no signals at all and just ground frames, however im still toying with the idea of full signalling, even if that means i restrict what i run on the branch to a slightly earlier era compared to the rest of the layout. ( The branch will be in effect a stand alone scene anyway that happens to be accessed from the main layout). if i were to leave the box open and implement full wr signalling how close would this be ? actual signal design is just rough and will be corrected before building

Could i get away with semaphore signals along with GPL or would standard GWR disks be needed. If so does anyone know of a good kit thats easy to operate by servo.

Thank you very much for the help, alot to take on board. starting to think I might end up going for full signalling with the box remaining open. would this be at all feasable for 1965-70? This is only beacuse I like the idea of using a few semaphore signals on the branch and having colour light signals on the rest of the layout. Also I was thinking that DMUS and parcel services could come and go run by the computer whilst an operator shunts goods in the yard / headshunt with a shunter. heres a terrible stab at some full signalling. looking at using dapols offerings. would it make sense to have a junction signal netween the tracks leaving the station, with the left board signalling the exit from the loop/ sidings and the right being the platform starter. also how would i arrange shunt signals to allow shunting in and out of the headshunt and running round of loco hauled services

Just noticed I need to swap up and down labels

Current thinking is that any actual industry is off scene and products are brought by cart or lorry to the old goods shed, where they are stored in the yard, before being loaded in the three goods sidings. Therefore i can imply different industries by swapping rolling stock and road vehicles. some more work on the signal box diagram. can anyone help with interlocking rules ? @5BarVT@The Stationmaster

looking at the branchline here is the current track plan. I'm thinking the goods yard and shed will be very grassy and overgrown but will be used for stabling engineering / breakdown trains as well as some left over local goods that I have seen mentioned on other threads on here. My Idea being there are some industries left that use the old goods shed to load up short workings maybe once a week. As for the station it too will be run down but will see some longer parcels traffic accompanied by short dmu passenger services. the last year of the layout will probably be around 1968-70 so im thinking this branch is just about surviving due to the cider farm and steelworks, but will probably be closed in a year or two. The signal box will be boarded up and im thinking of providing a ground frame on the platform as well as hand throws in the goods yard. As for actual control of the layout im thinking of building my own interlocking lever frame ( just for the BLT as it is relatively simple and compact... the rest of the layout will have a mix of pc control and modern led and switch control panels) To that end I've started drawing a lever diagram. any glaring errors so far ? I'm imagining the home and distant are the other side of the tunnel, also im not sure but would i need to draw on and add a lever for a facing point lock on no.1. I may end up adding levers for the missing home and distant and just having them feedback into my pc control system. Any help with diagram sketches appreciated.