wiggoforgold

Nice touch Alex.  On JH as well!

The locals liked it. Made a change from that J94

I haven't studied it in detail yet. I'm thinking real coal in the tender, a crew, and some light weathering to give a "used" look. There's some nice colour pictures in Peter Swinger's "On Great Eastern Lines".

It runs well, straight out of the box. Haven't had a chance to see what it will pull yet.

 

They don't all have the Westinghouse pump.

 

Alex

A bit of test running....

 

 

Its here.......

An here it is with the Ivatt class 2. That's the Cambridge-Kettering motive power sorted then.

 

Alex

Thanks. Interesting looking site. I'll have a proper look when I get home from work.

Link doesn't work on the PC either.

Thanks Shadow.

I can't make the link work on the iPad but I think the problem is with me not the link and I'll try on the PC in the morning

Alex

Re my post 124. The gates used to have a cast "please shut the gate" type sign on the top rail. Any idea where I might get one?

Mark

Do you like the Stanier BTK in the first picture?

Back to railways after a cycling interlude!

Diddington has now returned to the railway room, the boards have been re-erected and the lights put back in place. This has given an opportunity to see how the new scenic areas fit in, and I’ve taken some pictures round the layout to show progress.

First, a couple of pictures of D5579.  D5579 operates on the Diddington branch quite a lot, because the station master at Diddington likes the colour. Here she is seen entering Diddington over the river Ouse, at the head of an excursion.

 

In the second picture she has reached the crossing at Cow Lane, slightly nearer the station. The real Cow Lane was an accommodation crossing between Godmanchester and St Ives, and I measured it up in about 1972. The gates are made up from plastic strip, the plan of the gates first being drawn on a piece of wood, which was then covered with clear double sided tape, which held the gate bars in place during assembly.

 

In the next picture class 24 D5030 is seen shunting a couple of vans into Diddington Mill. The class 24 is a Bachmann model, which apart from weathering is unmodified. The BR standard van is weathered Bachmann, and the Shocvan is a Red Panda kit.

 

Finally, a group of pictures taken in the goods yard. The goods sheds are the result of the “less is more” policy referred to above. The wooden shed is a Wills kit, and the concrete provender store is from Ratio. The pair replaced a Prototype models Little Bytham shed. The Bedford lorry is a Classix model, sprayed with matt varnish, and lightly weathered with a mixture of earth and grey Tamya acrylics, applied through an airbrush.  In one of the pictures a new Fordson tractor has been delivered on a Lowmac. The Lowmac is an old Airfix/Hornby model, with  replacement wheels and buffers. The Fordson tractor is an Oxford model, sprayed with matt varnish to tone it down, but otherwise left unweathered.

 

You are not dreaming Hal. The system's called a power meter. There's various systems, typically costing about £1K. The rider, or his coach, can analyse the figures during and after the ride. With GPS and satellite technology, TV broadcasters are looking at feeding some of this stuff into live race coverage.

Like the bike, boy have they changed since I raced in the sixties and seventies the layout is a terrific piece of work and I look forward to your updates ,when is the next exhibition?

Yes, bikes have changed a bit. I stopped racing about 30 years ago, and sold the bike I had then. It would be a "classic" now. When my son started racing about 8 years ago he asked me if I could help him build a bike. "No problem" I said. Wrong - don't think there's a component that hasn't changed substantially.

Diddington will be seen in public again. Not this year I'm afraid. At the moment I can't take on the commitment, but hopefully we will be out and about next year, possibly with added signals!

Alex

Evening

A number of people have commented on how the layout captures the atmosphere of the area. I’d like to say that this was planned, but the truth is it has happened over a period of years, and I’ve now reached a point where I can look at the layout and think that it is starting to capture the atmosphere of the area.

One of my favourite views of the layout is of the bridge over the river, with not a train or building in site.  An RM Web member (apologies, I can’t remember who it was off the top of my head), took a picture of this at last year’s RM Web members day, and it’s in the Member’s day thread on here. I was so pleased with the picture because for me it exactly captured the scene I remembered from childhood, and what I hoped my model would portray. It’s always interesting to see photos of the layout taken by others, as you are seeing your work through their eyes, which gives an idea of what they are getting out of it.

With Diddington, I’ve adopted a “less is more” approach. Although the model is quite big, it represents quite a small station.  It’s not a minimum space layout. Operationally it would fit in a much smaller space, but squeezing it like that would lose the spacious effect. Remember, a typical country branch terminus can occupy as much space as a busy urban main line, where there is much more pressure on real estate.

I’ve deliberately kept the size of buildings small. After Diddington was first shown, I went round the layout, replacing many of the buildings with smaller ones, which I felt greatly helped the impression of space I was after. David Jenkinson wrote an article in the Railway Modeller (One of the early “Little Long Drag” articles?) In which he compared pictures of two locomotive sheds, and concluded that the smaller shed was better suited to the location, even though the intensity of service he was running would have justified the larger shed.

The backscene has been kept plain. Most of it represents sky. Where the scenery meets the backscene is largely hedgerow, and there is no painted scenery above the level of this hedgerow. The result is a low horizon all round the layout. When it was first built, there were more trees and woods at the river end of the layout, but when I was working on the scenery for the station I decided that the absence of scenery on the backscene gave a better effect, so the river end of the layout was modified, by removing the woods on the backscene, and reducing the number of trees by about 80%

And Hal - glad you enjoyed the bike pic!

Alex

OK Hal here's a better pic. I left in the road sign to show where it was taken.

Its a Specialized Roubaix Expert SL3 for the technically minded, with one or two bits changed by me from the original spec. (Stem, wheels, saddle)

Right then, back to the trains....

Hal, I,m off to bed now. I'll find a pic and put it on here tomorrow, hopefully before I go to work.

Alex

Excellent! Now give us a shot of the several-thousand-pound bike at the back.

 

Hal 'o the Winded

 

(Can't ride anymore - too arthritic. )

Ah! You!ve Sussed why I have to build my own track. But which bike, the one in the stand (mine) or the one on the wall (My son's, better.)?

Alex

Hi Chris. Thanks for the kind comments. You must be a near neighbour. My son works at Mountbatten.

Alex.

I’m working towards re-erecting the Diddington boards back in the railway room. The legs are ready, and I’m getting the individual boards ready for reassembly, when I can check continuity of running and fire up the lighting installation.

I had noticed that however hard I tried to hide it, there was a visible line at the base board joints. The baseboards are made of ply, the longitudinals being of “L” girder construction with the ends being made from 8mm ply. The boards are aligned with cabinet makers’ dowels, and held together with a pair of bolts in each end. The bolts were specifically supplied as base board joiners, and consist of an M6 bolt running in a metal fixings which fit into holes drilled in the baseboard ends. One of the fixings is threaded to allow the bolt to tighten in it. The other is unthreaded.

The track was laid across the baseboard joints, and brass pins were inserted on the outside of the rail adjacent to the joint, and the rails soldered to them. The rails were then cut in line with the joint. Since I did this, I’ve learned of a technique   in which a strip of 10 thou styrene sheet is placed between the boards when they are fitted together before the track is laid.  Once the track is laid the rails are cut. The boards are then disassembled and the styrene sheet removed. When the boards are reassembled, the joint closes up to minimise the cut through the boards.

Electrical connection between the boards on Diddington  is by DIN or D-sub computer plugs. The ends of the scenery, and any imperfections in the ends themselves were filled with Polyfilla, before being rubbed down, primed and given a top coat of blackboard paint. The mill building sits across the joint, which helps disguise the joint in the boards, and also in the back scene. In addition the wagon  turntable outside the mill is removable. Again, it sits across the baseboard joint and helps to disguise it.

Here’s a couple of pictures of the station throat board to show the end.

Thanks for the heads up Jason, I'd missed that. I'll give Mike Edge a shout, as I'd be interested, and I suspect a couple of the other posters on this thread would be as well.

Alex

As I mentioned previously, refurbishment of the scenery has reached the Mill siding.  I’m trying to get the effect of overgrown track, while retaining good running.  The problem is that in order to have good running, the rail surfaces need to be kept spotlessly clean, so weathering of railheads is out of the question. Further, a flange way needs to be maintained inside the rails. If this is not present, rough running, lack of electrical conductivity, or both result. Finally, having applied static grass and having thoroughly cleaned up afterwards, I still found I had rough running on the Middle Fen section. As running was fine before the static grass was applied, I think the problem was very fine fibres of static grass lying on the railheads, causing rough running as the wheels rolled over them. More cleaning reduced the problem, but didn’t give a total cure.

Refurbishing the Mill siding has given a chance to apply what I have learned so far. The track was first thoroughly cleaned. The sleepers were painted with a thinned mixture of NATO Black, Dark Grey and Red Brown. (I’d run out of matt earth or I would have used that as well.) The rail sides were painted with Modelmates rust, which dries to give a rusty effect. When it is dry, brushing with a clean, stiff brush can further enhance the effect.  The railheads were thoroughly cleaned. When all this was clean and dry the track was ballasted with chinchilla grit, sprinkled on to pva glue, painted between the sleepers.  When dry, the excess was hoovered off, and the result looked like this:

 

 

The ballasted track was then sprayed lightly with Modelmates mud brown spray dye, which dulled down the sleepers, and blended the ballast and track in to the surrounding scenery.  The whole area was then lightly sprayed with water from a plant spray, and dilute pva was painted on areas where grass was to grow. Static grass was then applied, and the excess was hoovered off after about 20 minutes, to give the effect of grass growing through the ballast.  The effect was further enhanced by sprinkling fine ash on the pva while the grass was drying.  By the gate, the ground was painted with dilute pva. Fine ash was lightly sprinkled on this  leaving patches of glue showing through. Static grass was then immediately applied, and the excess was hoovered off after a few moments. Don’t leave it too long before hoovering off the excess otherwise more static grass will adhere than was intended, giving rather too much grass growing through. After this stage, the overgrown track looked like this:

 

That's all for now. I'm off to some more overgrown track.

 

Alex

 

 

A gate gives access to the Mill siding. This was made up from plastic strip.  A plan of the gate rails and cross members was drawn on a piece of wood, and clear double sided tape stuck over this. This allowed the bars of the gate to be stuck to the plan for assembly. The completed gate was glued in holes drilled in the scenery.  The short length of fence from the gate to the hedgerow was made from a piece of Ratio fencing. The slope was too steep for the Ratio fence to be simply bent to shape, so all the vertical members except for one end were cut off, which allowed the fence the be bent to shape, before the posts were glued back in place, making sure they were vertical , bearing in mind the slope of the land.  The signboard was soldered up from a short length of rail and a piece of etched fret, and glued in a hole bored in the layout.

 

I'd be interested. I last went to Forfar on a brake van trip in about 1977.

Hello Austrag

I used to live in Hemingford Grey, about 4 miles the other side of Huntngdon. I used to cycle through Buckden at least once a week on my way home from the St Neots cc club time trials.

The Cambridge-Kettering line is something of a hidden gem, and a number of people on here are modelling it. Marcus (Ivatt46403) who posts on this thread is making a model of Buckden station and Mark (46444) is something of an expert on the line.

The line makes a nice subject for a model. The trains are small, and much is available Rtr. With the advent of the Hornby J15, the main omission would be the BR2 78xxx, but I think this would be a fairly straightforward conversion of a Bachmann 2mt. I'm slightly surprised no one has produced an aftermarket etching for this.

I took some pictures of the signal box at Buckden back in 1978, which you will find in my blog..

Alex

Reinstatement of the turntable..........  

 ark

The shed doors will need to be unglued as well

Thanks for all the kind comments. I feel I'm on a bit of a roll with the layout at the moment. I can finally see quite clearly in my mind's eye what i am trying to achieve, and I finally feel (after about 10 years) that the scene is coming together in the way I intended. I think the biggest thing I've learned is the "less is more" approach, I'm trying to keep the feel of open countryside and not crowd it with too much incident. Allied to this has been a conscious reduction in the size of buildings, for example all the buildings in the station and goods yard are smaller buildings than those originally installed. For example, the original goods shed was a Prototype Models kit of Little Bytham goods shed (I know, wrong railway, but Diddington has been moved some 30 miles to the East) and this was replaced by a Wills wooden shed and a Ratio provender store.

One of the effects of my current level of enthusiasm is a single minded approach to Diddington. I had a number of other ideas, but they are all firmly on the back burner. I wonder what effect the Hornby J15 will have when it arrives?

Alex

I don't mind at all Alan. I have tried to do exactly the same thing with some of these photographs, to try and get the atmosphere of 1960's black and white shots. It's always interesting as well to see other people's interpretations of things you have made. Someone took a photo of the bridge at the RM web members day which I liked so much I used it as my Facebook cover photo for a while ( with their permission)

The scene in the photograph is evolving. Close observation will show how it has changed since the shot in the BRM annual was taken in April last year. I still want to add a bit more in the way of a couple of swans for the river ( a rather fierce one used to live under the bridge) and I have already made a heron to sit on one of the bridge piers. I also need to add more fencing where the track approaches the bridge, and adjust the height of the middle telegraph pole in the row approaching the bridge.

All that said, I don't want to crowd the scene, as I have found that the impression of spaciousness is enhanced by keeping incident restrained.

Thanks for you interest

Alex