artizen

Yep - looks good! No wonder our families think we're mad - we build beautiful models with infinite care and attention to detail and then we throw muck and grime at them!!!!! Looking forward to dirty track.

Did your ballast turn out the way I expected? Hard as hell and you can still see individual stones? It looks good in the photos (what can be seen under/behind tools and paint tins)!!!

That's pretty serious! Hope it all works a treat when you fire it up in anger.

Bloody hell Ron! That is monster! Manchester Central and Lime Street - now two of my all-time favourites! Keep taking the photos.

Have you looked at the Lime Street Station thread on the layout topics forum? Wonderful work and a completely different approach to modelling a real location. So many excellent models on one forum! Oh well, back to making bricks - 18,960 so far.

You could sell copies of the hotel. This layout is turning out to be absolutely mega in every respect!!!! Overload us with photos please!

I "watch" every layout being discussed in the layout topics forum. I just never knew how many categories this website has been divided into. When this thread got moved I went exploring and was shocked to see so many sub-categories etc. are listed and besides, life is too short to be digging. I suppose "watching" your favourites is one way of doing it, but I get too many emails as it is so using the layout topics to see who is posting was for me a cleaner and faster way of keeping up with daily events. I am certainly not interested in the blog format - I would rather follow the entire discussion in one place. But now that I have bookmarked this link directly I will be following along and making the usual mad comments from the sidelines. This is one of the best builds currently on RMweb so i want to be there for the ride!!!! Sorry Ron - rant over now. I wrote the first rant about 45 minutes ago and still haven't got to the Flash work (you can guess I am deliberately trying to ignore it!!!).

How frustrating. This topic has been moved to the bowels of RMweb!!!! I have made a new direct link to your thread so I can continue to watch in awe instead of trawling through about 75 topic categories. I would have thought Layout Topics would cover the building of the bits that go on the layout? Rant over - back to fighting with Flash animations (don't ask).

Yes - it's The Stig. Courtesy of the BBC and Stig in a Soap. Bought three for myself at Christmas. (Well, no-one else in my family would think to do that, would they?) Because I work in 1:24 and Gn15, the track is really Peco SL100 and The Stig is actually correct scale for my layout!

Hope this photo shows you what I achieved using a very dilute PVA and water mix. It took about three days to dry out but you can still see individual stones in the ballast even though they are all glued down hard. Theoretically i can turn the diorama upside down and only the tree will fall off. Cider Sidings on The Steamy Pudding - an English Gentleman's Whimsy.

100mm to a grid is tiny! I could carry that whole board under my arm! Just kidding! Nice to be able to work in a scale that takes up less than the average bedsit just to model the essential bits.

What scale is the grid in the track plan? This is looking like another epic like Eastwood, Manchester Central and Bradfield (and that is just scratching the surface of what is currently on show on this forum). Keep us posted!

Any thoughts of making a mould to mass produce parts like this? Another 14 to go!!!!! Serious dedication especially when you are making each one individually.

If we all drop our jaws into the same trench - does it become trenchant? Wikipedia - 1. (obsolete) Fitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp. (figuratively) Keen; biting; vigorously effective and articulate; severe; as, trenchant wit. I particularly like the vigorously effective bit. Of course Ron has keenly articulated the real thing using very small pieces of plastic into a work of art.

Creativity can be a painful thing but the results are always worth it. This is looking every bit as good as Mk1 did and you have only laid some track yet! Keep up the great work. We are all watching (scary heh?).

This epic rates as one of those "How to Eat an Elephant" stories. Just Googled it and there are 78,500,000 entries!!!! My personal tastes must be different because I would build a loose plate into the track so you got that classic rumble of heavy machinery as the trains cross the bridge. Sound deadening is for whimps!!!!! It was an epic beyond my personal abilities waaaay back on page one - now you have just wound the creative screw that bit harder and raised the standard just that bit higher. Loving this thread - it will be a truly wonderful piece of madness when all the parts come together in your new railway room (or will you call it the Man Cave - get it? Man-chester Central?) I'll get my coat now.

Lovely work Ron as always. How much more can you build before you need to move into the basement? I'm really looking forward to the overall roof for some reason. Something about that screams complete madness in 1:76 and yet it is so huge! Can't wait for the next instalment.

Actually the ref turned out to be only a year or so older than my boy and the result was a forfeit because the opposition didn't have enough players turn up! They all had a bit of a thrash around the park for an hour or so and we retired to Maccas for morning tea. Looking forward to the weekend painting. How are the plans for the basement coming on?

Besides, if that was a 24 can slab you must have already enjoyed at least 6 cans during the day!!! Isn't it amazing what you can achieve with a small mountain of very small pieces of flat plastic and a couple of large bottles of glue. I have learned three things since coming back to the sport of railway modelling - respect (for those who can do what I can't), humility (when you realise that you can't do something no matter how hard you try), and patience (coz Rome wasn't built in a day). You certainly have my respect and I feel humble watching this as you continue to press on single mindedly with an extremely large and therefore ambitious project that is the envy of all of us on this forum. Off to bellow at the ref at a football match now.

I have never thought of beer as a 5kg load!!!!! Good to see the double stack weight test worked. I suppose if it had failed, we would have seen the rebuild in a couple of days!!!!! LOL Wonderful work as ever.

I thought it was huge - it's bl**dy massive! More locos than SWMBO would ever allow in the house. I'm having trouble keeping the tractor collection hidden as it is!!!

Like it when a bridge in a tiny scale like 1:76 is measured in metres not inches. Looking forward to seeing all your posts on that!!!! You had better hurry up and get the basement ready for the model. I'm thinking the lounge table you are currently using will be way too small for the finished thing anyway.

I don't know why but I assumed this bridge was complete when you posted photos of it all painted up. Now you have added an extra span it is looking truly magnificent. This is truly an epic model in the making. Good work!

I find having three jobs to do at once helps with waiting for glue and paint to dry. (Well, that's two jobs so you should always have a plan C as well.) I finished my ballast this morning and it is still dark grey (ie soaking wet) so it is just as well I have a convention to go to for the next two days. It might be dry by Sunday night! Just as well it took me all day to price stock and pack the car - I wasn't tempted to prod it. Believe me - when it finally dries and you add all the grime and weeds and bits and pieces around the edges, it will all be worthwhile.

My ballast is taking up to three days (weather determines the actual time). Whatever you do, don't poke at it or try to move bits until it returns to its original colour and is rock hard. Once it is rock hard, you can touch it up with more where there are holes and gently scrape off any extra lumps. Once you weather the ballast with oil spills and general grime then add weeds etc, it will all start to come together nicely. You can run trains on it while the ballast is drying though! BTW nice Aldi hammer there on the track. I don't think I have seen that one for sale here in Australia yet. Got all their other bits and bobs including the bricklaying trowels etc. All the tools are at least the right price and work wonders on model layouts!