David C

A very convincing model of a completely fictitious prototype! Can one go on holiday there? Seriously, though, there is some very good scenic work there. It would be nice to see some more shots of the railcars ..... and any other stock as well. David C

No problem as I've spent the last few days stewarding and building/demolishing barriers at Ally Pally, so no modelling time! Thanks for letting me know what you use - I'll have to check out The Range. David C

The little cameos and details, all beautifully executed, really make Broadwindsor fascinating to view. I find your work quite inspiring, particularly as I'm toying with the idea of building another layout to take out to exhibitions. My current one (Woodstowe) is really too heavy for me to handle on my own (or I'm too old and feeble to lift the baseboards easily!) to take out to exhibitions, so I'm thinking of building a smaller lightweight version to hawk around the circuit. Something with all the small scenes similar to Broadwindsor would be ideal. Thanks for giving me lots of ideas! David C

Can I ask what you used to spray the base carmine colour of your autocoaches? Did you use Halfords? The reason I ask is I've sprayed my coaches and ended up with differing shades! Both look right, but different! Nice modelling! David C

Thanks for letting me know about the SR van. Fascinating van - alas, I guess it was probably scrapped before my period, the 1950s, so even if I could locate a surviving 3D one, it would be too anachronistic even for my interpretation of Rule No 1! David C

Brilliant phots of a brilliant layout - as ever! One query: what's the first van (or third wagon) behind 4574? I'm sure it's correct for your period, but it looks rather like one of those featured on mid Victorian prints of the Liverpool & Manchester and London & Birmingham! David C

I've never felt the need to add texture to DAS, but you could try any or all of the following: 1) How about using cloth of some kind (with a loose weave) and either laying over wet DAS or wrapping your finger round the cloth and then dabbing the DAS. 2) Alternately, sprinkle very fine flock powder onto wet Das and then pressing it in. You might have to seal it after it is dry. Have a look at Eine Sekundärbahn in Layout topics, particularly Page 2. You may not appreciate German railways and the buildings are all plastered, but Tim Hale's scenic work is pretty good. 3) Yet another alternative has just occurred to me: sprinkle with different sizes of flock! If you want individual stones to project out differently, the only thing I can think of is to cut out some random bits of styrene of varying thicknesses and sizes and then stick them to the base before applying the DAS. Hope this helps. David C

What scale are you working in - and what kind of stone are you trying to reproduce? If 4mm, I'm not sure you need much in the way of texture, particularly if its dressed stone. When it's dry, you will probably need to sand it down a little. As Siberian Snooper points out, you may well throw up furrows if you impress the DAS when wet. I've only ever sanded with fine grade sandpaper, but you could try with a medium or even coarse grade instead. Incidentally, I've also sanded down the Wills coarse stone sheets. Although its a reasonably good product (it's the only Wills stuff where the courses actually match up to each other!), it is very recognisable. It's so common these days that you only need to look at a layout and you know what the builder has used! Sanding the sheets down a little changes their appearance considerably, depending on how heavily you do it. If you want a fairly flat finish, you may lose some of the courses between the stones, but these can be scribed in again - but that rather defeats the object of using the Wills sheets in the first place. A light sanding can still make the sheets different enough from the unsanded ones. David C

There was one of those wonderfully detailed articles that were a speciality of the late and much lamented GWRJ on the Aberayron branch some years ago. During the inter war years, a couple of 4 wheel coaches were parked at the terminus for many years. However, no one could ever remember them turning a wheel. Again, the Wild Swan book on the Looe branch records that there were two B sets in use, but also another 2 "singletons", both non corridor brake 3rds. They were there to be added to service trains should any random (Japanese or other) tourists suddenly appear out of the blue. Passengers to Looe were fairly thin on the ground outside of the tourist season (particularly Japanese!), so whether these coaches were stationed there permanently or only during the summer is moot. Going off topic slightly, odd singletons were not uncommon on other branch lines. A brake compo was allocated to the Bodmin branch and used on only one service each day (presumably for school children), between Bodmin Road and the terminus, a distance of what is (I think) less than 3 miles! Source is again GWRJ, this time the Special Cornish Issue! David C

Looks like a really good layout which captures the run down and overgrown nature of the prototype. Any more pictures and details of the locos and stock? I'd love to see it in the flesh, too. David C

One of the reasons which I think make your layouts so realistic is your use of texture. Roads, paths, platforms, yards etc do have texture, but it is much finer and subtler than ballast (even that intended for N gauge) which a lot of modellers use. This is what I have been trying to achieve in recent years, with what I hope is some measure of success. As I am toying with extending both my layouts, I am curious about AcrylMasse - is this a Heki product? David C

Nice to watch progress on your layout. The standard of modelling on Pottendorf/Grafenwalde is admirable. Am I right in assuming you are still keeping the Bavarian buildings and stock and simply swopping them over with the East German equivalents from time to time? I had thought of doing something similar with my layout (Weidenstein) as I have an as yet unbuilt kit of the same building, but have no use for it at the moment. Auhagen (who produce the kit) state that the prototype was at the terminus of a metre gauge line in Prussia, but it was a standard design in other states which were under the influence of Berlin. Attached is a photo of an example from Kalenborn, the end of the Kasbachtalbahn which runs from Linz on the east bank of the Rhine. The photo dates from 1984 when the branch was still run by the DB, albeit goods only, though these days it survives as a heritage line. The design is almost exactly the same at the kit except that the bricked areas are built with coursed stone and the Goods shed is on the other end of the building. I look forward to seeing Grafenwalde as it develops. David C

Wasn't Gwinear Road the terminus of all the mainline pick up goods to and from Penzance? Can't remember where I read that, but it would explain the number of sidings there. David C

If you are interested in prototypical operation, then another consideration is what kind of trains you run. Push pull trains are pretty boring: all you can do is run them in and out. The same is true of railcars and DMUs. A conventional train is marginally more interesting as the loco has to run round, but even then, it can get boring! The most fascinating part of model railway operation - for me, at any rate - is shunting. NCPS vehicles carrying parcels, milk churns etc can be added to and detached from passenger services and shunted to and from a loading dock, private siding etc. More heavily patronised trains can have additional coaches added or detached in a similar fashion. But the really interesting part of operation is running goods trains. Passenger trains tend to run at set times with the same stock almost every day, as do freight trains, but the amount and kind of traffic conveyed varies considerably, particularly agricultural. In the days of steam, most food was grown or reared in the UK and this was seasonal. The same was true of coal which in pre North Sea oil days was the primary source of energy for both homes and industry. The secret to adding interest to shunting is to have a lot of "destinations" at your station e.g. goods shed, crane, coal merchants area, feed merchants store, end loading dock etc etc. Specialised traffic wagons, such as cattle wagons would not appear very often and when they did, they would have to be shunted to the dock. Wagons carrying heavy loads and containers would need to be placed next to the crane and so on. Then of course on those lines which did not necessarily have a lot of goods traffic, these were often handled on mixed goods and passenger trains. These lasted well into BR days, too. Finding information on prototype timetables and the way trains were handled is pretty difficult. One of my layouts is an ex GWR BLT (see Woodstowe in Layout Topics - sorry, digitally challenged and can't post a link) which I play with using the timetables of two real life branches, Cardigan and Helston. The timetable for the former is reproduced on page 2 of my Woodstowe thread if you're interested. I found the information in the Oakwood histories of the lines plus a great deal more detail in the late lamented Great Western Journal. The latter has included a great deal of info on other GWR branches over the years as well, much of which has been gained from the reminiscences of railwaymen who actually worked the lines. For other prototypes, I don't know what other similar sources other than the histories of specific lines and possibly prototype societies . Is there a S & DJR one? Alternatively, there are members of RM Web who were professional railwaymen who might be able to help. Have fun with playing trains prototypically! David C

I've used DAS on many of my stone buildings over the years using many of the techniques outlined in Dave Rowe's classic book "Architectural Modelling in 4mm Scale". I don't know if its still in print, but it is well worth acquiring if you can get hold of a copy. DAS is simply smeared onto the styrene sheet and left to dry. You can sand the styrene beforehand if you wish - I do in any case, but only so I can see pencil marks - but I don't think it absolutely necessary. Whilst still wet, the DAS is impressed with the outline of the individual stones using the wrong end of a scalpel blade (careful!) or, as Mr Rowe suggests, bits of brass sections. As you proceed, you may (will!) find yourself thinking certain sections aren't up to scratch, but if the DAS is still damp, you can wet it and redo what you don't like. There is a tendency for the courses being embossed to either head upwards or downwards. Of course, some prototypes do wander up and down - that is part of their appeal - but if they all head in one direction, it wont look very realistic. It is worth keeping an eye out for this - I usually look at photos of real buildings to see how they vary. How does DAS adhere to the styrene? This is the clever bit (and it works with Polyfilla and other similar fillers). When dry, DAS is porous, so it simply needs flooding with Mek Pak to make it adhere. Make sure the sides and ends and the window and door apertures are soaked as well. It evaporates pretty quickly and can be further worked on almost immediately. Dave Rowe recommends DAS is spread over the building or whatever in a thinnish layer of about 1mm for stonework with mortar which is in good condition and a thicker one of about 2mm for walls with mortar which has decayed or fallen out. I prefer layers of about 2mm partly because if the building you are creating was built of dressed stone, you will need to sand the DAS down to represent it (after it has dried and been flooded with solvent). You can also add mortar by applying a watery mix of plaster to the courses and then wiping it off the surfaces of the stones before it dries. As the plaster mix dries, it shrinks enough to leave a 3D impression of stones which are proud of the mortar. One other thing I would advise is to make the stones at the corners of the building individually out of styrene and those around door and window apertures. The reason is that it is virtually impossible to do this with DAS and you usually end up with a rounded corner, which looks unrealistic to my eyes at least. I've never used DAS to represent brickwork, but I'm not sure if it would work. DAS is fibrous and you may find it difficult to get the straight, hard outlines of bricks. You could try ordinary Polyfilla or similar instead. I'll attach a couple of shots of some of the buildings built with DAS on my layout. Ignore the goods shed as that was built using Wills sheets, but the low relief maltings at the rear of the layout and the barn in the other photo were made of styrene and DAS. Have fun. David C

The most realistic in my view is Slaters: the shape of the bricks looks right as does the scale, BUT (and its a big BUT), the vertical courses are usually not at right angles to the horizontal. This makes cutting out doors and windows difficult and at the corners of buildings, you get some very odd shaped bricks if you try to keep everything square. I haven't used Slaters 4mm brickwork since I discovered this. Indeed, I've only built stone buildings since. However, I discussed this with someone who was demonstrating at an exhibition building buildings (!) using Slaters stuff. This chap reckoned the out of skew angles between the courses was so slight as to be unnoticeable and he didn't bother to try to keep things square. I can't remember his name or which exhibition I saw him at, but I do recall his models looked pretty good. Wills sheets are overscale (S scale modellers use them!), very hard to cut and come in very small sheets. Some of them also suffer from the same problem as the Slaters products. I have a sheet of as yet unused SE Finecast brickwork and the vertical and horizontal courses are at 90 degrees to each other. They also have a useful set of arches and the like. I'm not that impressed with them however as the edges of the bricks appear to be rounded. Most of my modelling over the past few years has been of German railways in H0, which is much easier as most buildings are covered in plaster. My use of the products of European manufacturers has been limited to roofing sheets, which are a bit larger than, say Wills. The only problem I encountered was when trying to cut Vollmer tiles with a scalpel. The sheet shattered. I don't know whether this was just a faulty sheet or not, but I eventually solved the problem by gently sawing rather than cutting. I also wrapped masking tape on either side of where I wanted to saw. The only other German product I have used quite extensively on my layout was by Noch and is now no longer available alas! If you are interested in investigating textured brickwork from overseas, Gaugemaster have a good selection on their website. They are rather more expensive, however. David C

Fascinating stuff - but then I am just a bit prejudiced having been interested in narrow gauge for many years! David C

Thank you for your contributions, chaps - particularly Penrhos1920. Fascinating that such an obscure and remote branch should see an early LMS BG trundling up and down on it's metals! On the other hand, I have seen photos of ex LMS vehicles on other ex GWR branches, such as Kingsbridge and Launceston (I think!). Whether they were working on regular diagrams or were merely visiting on special through services, I don't know. Woodstowe (my British layout) is operated using Cardigan's real life timetable as it was in early to mid 50s and although it (the layout, I mean!) is entirely fictional, I'm now wondering about acquiring the odd ex LMS coach or two. David C

Thanks for responding. Yes, 4 wheelers were used on the Cardigan line and I suppose it could be one. However, I believe they had all been withdrawn by nationalisation apart from a few colliers' trains. The photo could have been taken in the 1930s, but the 16 ton steel mineral belies that. I know steel wagons pre-dated WW2, but they must have been pretty rare. As regards the 4575, the angle the photo was taken from is very acute, so much so that neither the safety valve not the livery can be made out. 5539 was at Whitland between 1935-57 according to brdatabase, but there are photos of others on the branch: 5549, 5550 and 5520, for example, but they were there in later years so far as I can make out. Somehow, I think, but can't prove, the photo was taken post 1947 which makes it very unlikely the coach is a 4 wheeler. Of course, it could be a passenger brake van (one of the K diagrams K15 or 16) but the positioning of the doors are different. David C

If any coach expert has a copy of M R C Price's "The Whitland & Cardigan Railway", would they mind turning to page 78 and having a look at the top photo? This shows a view of Llanfyrnach station with a 4575 plus part of a coach at the platform. This is panelled and all one colour, which is clear from the print (from Lens of Sutton) even though it is b & w. There's a 16T mineral plus a van in the yard, which would suggest the date as being post nationalisation, although obviously this is not conclusive. Has anyone any idea what the prototype might be? Passenger trains on the Cardigan branch post 1948 tended to consist mostly of a single brake coach, initially non corridor apart from the odd through coach, with corridors only appearing at the very end. I have long been fascinated by this very remote line, particularly it's operation. The timetable of my own BLT is based on that of Cardigan, even though it is completely freelance. Hence, my curiosity about this panelled vehicle. The photo only shows a bit of the coach, so identifying it will be quite a challenge. Thanks in advance David C

I agree that the packaging used these days is often fraught with danger, but I was thinking more of damage in everyday use. Most end to end layouts involve picking up locos and coupling them up to the other end of trains, but even simply maintaining them leads to damage. My British layout uses mostly Bachmann stock: 45XX and 57/87xx locos which are now "middle aged" in model terms, but they are still reasonably well detailed models. True, the handrails project too far out and the smokebox door handles would look better if they had not been moulded on, but it is hard to think what else needs doing to them. Most importantly, they are robust and I haven't had to repair any of them. I only have to look at my German stock on the other hand ..... David C

I felt like cheering when I read Pteremy's post of 6th September about the useability of the latest generation of models. (I only saw it today). I also wonder at how often and how much handling of them all those who post adulatory comments about them have actually done. I suspect many models are destined for display shelves or they are used on large permanent layouts where there is little or no need to touch them. I have two layouts, both of which are terminus to fiddle yard set ups and both are portable as I haven't got room to have them up and working at the same time. Besides, I also like to exhibit and when they do appear in public, get operated intensively, sometimes by friends who don't quite appreciate how fragile the later models are. For home use, the fiddle yards have cassettes, but the turnround of trains was not speedy enough to keep the public entertained so I built sector plates for exhibitions. One of my layouts is H0 German prototype and many of the European manufacturers have been ahead of the "high end" game than those operating in the British market. Fragile, "bendy" plastic handrails, pipework and the like are now almost standard on the other side of Channel. (I assume the use of "bendy" and unpaintable plastic is to reduce breakages, but it doesn't!) My heart sinks when I spot yet another tiny bit of broken detail as I pack up at the end of an exhibition or when swopping over my layouts at home. Of course, it may be that I, and those who help out at shows are particularly ham fisted, but I don't think I and my mates are any more than the rest of the population. I just wish manufacturers would design their products to be a little more robust so that modellers can actually handle them without damage! Nothing looks more unrealistic than missing or broken detail - and if the manufacturers say that building in robustness would increase costs, then perhaps they might like to think about not including some of the details that can't be seen, like the luggage racks that Rapido are including in their B set models! (Yes, I know this is a different thread). I have a Siphon G, but have yet to swop the couplings for my favoured DGs, replace the corridor connections and weather it yet, It looks very nice, too, but the corridor hangers and a couple of other bits are of bendy plastic ...... I'll report later on how long they survive on Woodstowe! David C

Swop the bodies over? That's what I did with a couple of Brawa 98.1xxxx class locos on my German H0 layout. (Its a Bavarian 0-8-2T if anyone's interested) David C

There was also Kenline, but they may have only produced parts. I remember having some whitemetal brake levers made by them, although what I used them for (if at all) I can't remember. David C

Johnster's post on 4 August about his experiences shunting in 1:1 scale was fabulous. So much of this kind of first hand information has been lost as railwaymen who actually did the work pass on to that great marshalling yard in the sky! How are we going to know how to operate our steam and early diesel layouts realistically? You can no longer linger around your local station to watch the real thing as the way the prototype is run bears no resemblance to the way trains (goods and passenger) used to be handled. Spend any time at exhibitions and it is immediately clear most operators haven't a clue how it was done! Johnster's, the Stationmaster's and other's posts dealing with the real thing pure gold. For the historical record, I do think their posts should be gathered (or at least indexed) in one place so we and future generations of modellers can find the info! Back to the subject, I find my solitary Rapido 16xx is as good as the Bachmann 57xx, 87xx, 45xx and 3MT BR praires I have - not specifically shunters, but they could be found on branchlines. It (the 16xx) is a bit low slung however and I can't get it to go over the concrete apron by my Ratio cattle dock! David C