Graham T

It's a beautiful part of the world. I was racking my brains as to how to work the "disappearing branch line" trick, and then I thought of all the escarpments along the Wye Valley. Better yet, a branch line used to run along the valley in real life. So, here is the final, final, final, plan (for now). Red contour lines, blue stream running from back of scene to the front, with a smaller stream feeding into it from the right.

Time to leaf the jokes for now, methinks

Boom boom! Basil will no doubt be along shortly

Sapling, surely?

Phil, thanks very much for all those thoughtful ideas. As a result of reading them I spent most of yesterday grappling with plans! I still like the idea of keeping the bay platform, as I want to have an end loading bay feeding from the station forecourt; and I think the disappearing branch line is a lovely idea, so long as I can make the topography work so that the autocoach travels away and moves out of sight. On the subject of topography, I think I can make that work, as the Wye Valley was quite interesting in this regard, and it would fit for the GW theme. See this pic here for example. I've gone back to having the three (more or less) parallel tracks, as they make things look more interesting. But I will still have the engine shed at the end of one of the lines, as per Lambourn. I know that makes running round potentially more difficult, but there's a prototype example for you! It will be a small shed only, I picture the branch having one or two panniers stationed at Chuffnell Regis, and the turntable is there because, as you suggest, it's a long branch. Which would give me an excuse to run a Mogul later (or just invoke Rule 1!) I'm with you regarding the turntable as well. My intention was always to have a 55 footer. I looked at the ones from Greenwood Models, but unlike the budgie, they're not going cheap. So, I tried all sorts of iterations yesterday. With and without the three parallel tracks, moving the turntable up to the top right corner instead of the branch line, etc etc. I got rid of the headshunt running next to the main track, as it was quite short, and the scenic requirements would have meant having it run across a bridge; and I couldn't see the company building a two track bridge just so that they could have a short headshunt, when they could just use the yard sidings instead, and even the main running line, if necessary. That also meant I could get rid of the double slip, which seemed overly complicated for a line like this. And so after much head-scratching I got to this... Which was followed by another of my much-feared brainwaves. What if I rotated everything by a few degrees? This gave me the following (I'll post something with the scenery filled in a bit later). At the moment I'm leaning towards the second version, as I think it makes better use of the space. I'm just not sure yet if I'll be able to make the branch line autocoach "disappear"; need to do some more work on visualising the topography on the scenic section. Hopefully I will be able to get some timber soon, so that I can stop messing about with new plans!

One of the three baseboards now fitted to the wall. Unfortunately I'm now stalled until I can get some wood for the supporting legs. Itching to get on!

Looked very good, especially in the natural light. That looks suspiciously like the Ratio engine shed, still going strong!

Thanks. It was a surprising amount of work! Quite pleased with the results though. Onwards and upwards!

The baseboards are now finished The furthest section is not a mistake (although there are several others). That will be the lower level scenic section, dropped down so that I can have a stream running through it. I'll need to cut some curved sections of ply to link the other sections across it to the fiddle yard - which will be in the top right corner as you look at it now. But I won't cut those until everything is in situ and I can start laying out where exactly I actually want the tracks to run. Now I need to wait until I can get some more timber for the legs....

I'd say it looks fine - and yes, you're being overly self-critical, if you don't mind me saying!

I think "Charlie Horse" is American for cramp....

But she's good with the kids

And now we have "influencers" too...

What have you used for the final covering?

Thanks Mr W - I had a look at the Peter's Spares website and couldn't see these, didn't know he had an ebay shop as well. Cheers!

I've picked up four old Hornby corridor clerestory coaches from the ever popular online auction site, but two of them are missing bogies. These should be 10ft Dean items as far as I know. Can anybody tell me where I can pick some up?

Pah! My ex would vaporise them.

I actually bought 9mm ply for the baseboards, I can't for the life of me remember why. I'm sure it made sense at the time. So I'll just be screwing that down. If that doesn't get everything into square then maybe I'll have to ask my ex-wife to sit on it for a while - that should flatten things down!

So, the baseboards are now nearly finished, and ready for nailing to the walls in the spare room. They are in three separate sections in case I ever need to move them, but not intended to be portable as such. A closer look will reveal (a) my hamfisted carpentry in general, (b) a glaring measuring error when cutting one of the cross-braces - I was trying to be a bit too clever, and (c) that timber from the Austrian equivalent of B&Q is not the straightest in the world. I think I will probably replace that messed up cross-brace. I think it would be fine structurally, and no-one would ever see it, but it will irritate me knowing it's been bodged. As for the warped timbers, I'm hoping that fixing the ply onto the framework will cure that. We'll see tomorrow!

I always found it difficult to get good photos of my paintings. Seemed to work best to take them outside and photograph in indirect natural light; but a bit difficult to do that with a layout!

I've been having a play around with a free download from Scalescenes. Good practice but I don't think I will use this one on the layout.

Looking good, both the shape and the colour.

I imagine they would use whatever was to hand at the time. I don't think using brick would look wrong at all, in fact I think it would make the whole building look more interesting than if it was just stone (just my opinion, others are available).

Perhaps have a couple of chaps on the roof replacing the glass, or repainting the frame, something like that?

The broken tile is a nice touch.