wiggoforgold

Work on the joining sections been continuing over the Christmas period. I've been helped by 46444, who made the fences and telegraph poles. I'm going to add a few more bushes and a couple of figures, but I want to keep the scene fairly uncluttered. There's some work to do on the bridge, and I'll post some pictures of that when it's done. Oh, and its acquired a name "Middle Fen" (because it's a fen, and in the middle between two stations.) Back at Diddington, D6723 is shunting a horsebox into the horsebox siding for unloading.

Brilliant idea. I'm off to scan a sheet of embossed card.

8 Years before unpacking is not a long time at all. A couple of years ago I unpacked some china that had been packed by my wife's late stepfather when he was moving house. The items had been wrapped in a newspaper reporting the Hungarian uprising. Oh and we had the storm - stuck in a traffic jam while Plymouth was gridlocked this evening.

I've done some more work installing the bridge on the joining section. The bridge is a concrete girder bridge, based on the one over the New Fen drain on the Wissington railway.. The abutments are blocks of 60X30 PSE, covered with styrene sheet. The abutments were painted, and surrounded with a lattice built up from strips of card. This was stuck together using a hot glue gun (the one I lost earlier in this thread). The lattice was then covered with squares of dress stiffening fabric, soaked in plaster, once dry, this was painted with an earth colour mixed from artists oil paints (Which I had to hand, having recently come into posession of a load of old oil paints. This has now been covered with static grass, which is now drying. Apologies for any typos in today's entries. I went to the Eye infirmary this afternoon for a routine checkup, and as part of the process they put dilating drops in my eyes which means the screen is currently very difficult to read! Alex

I'm conscious it's nearly a month since I added anything to this. I have been making models though. Internet has been a bit intermittent lately so I haven't done any entries, and when it has been up I've done a bit of modelling rather than sit at the computer. I'm envious of my friends who not only manage a prodigious modelling output, but then have time to take pictures and post about it as well. I've been working on the joining section. I wired everything up (not a long job). When I laid the track I installed droppers to the rails to carry the power, only to realize when I cam to solder up the feeds that I hadn't left enough space between the baseboard frames to get my hand in with a soldering iron to fix everything up. Lesson learned for future reference. Work has progressed on the layout lighting. I've just discovered LED lights, thanks to another poster on here who wrote about them in his layout thread. The lights are on a flexible strip, which is brought in rolls. Mine was 5m long and is easily cut to length. The strip is sticky backed, so installation is easy. Before installing the lights I rebuilt the proscenium, as in the original construction the bottom edge of the proscenium was too high above the layout. The idea of the display is that the proscenium acts as a view blocker, and hides the top edge of the back scene. The bottom edge of the proscenium therefore needs to be low enough so that a person looking at the layout cannot see the top edge of the back scene. This arrangement does mean that the layout must be operated from the front or side, as an operator behind the layout would not be able to see it. Another advantage of the LED lights is their weight. In the past, I've used florescent tubes, but these are heavy and fragile.. The LED set up is much lighter and much less vulnerable. As a result I plan to replace the existing lighting on Diddington with LED's, hopefully in the New Year. (Before I start saving for a Hornby J15). The lights run off a small power unit, which is installed behind the proscenium. I'm totally sold on the system. Its lighter and easier to install than my previous system. It gives a consistent overall light which isn't too harsh, and doesn't have any unwanted shadows.

Great stuff Mikkel. Where did you source the figures?

Another fascinating project I'm losing count of how many there are. How about something from the Reseau Breton next?

I'm sure you'll produce something well worth seeing. I look forward to your blog instalments with eager anticipation. I've just had a look at the tracks to the trenches site - this looks like inspiration for an outing! Alex

I thin Tamiya acrylic with car windscreen washer fluid. It's much cheaper than Tamiya thinners, easier tog get hold of, and the one I use seems to have a mild detergent in which helps clean the airbrush afterwards. Alex

There's a funny story about that glue gun. I got all the tools ready before I started work so I could take the photo. I went out and bought a supply of glue sticks. I came home and couldn't find the glue gun. I looked for it for about 48 hours but no sign of it. (I still haven't found it). I convinced myself that either my son had borrowed it without telling me, or I'd simply lost it. I used your glue gun to do the scenery. It was fine, but I've used all the glue sticks I only realized that the glue gun was still in the house when I saw the photograph this evening.

The extension's progressed a bit. Having finished the wood work I've started work on the land form. The trackbed is 3mm ply, as is the adjacent road, and the river bed. The road drops down below track level, and turns away from the railway line before crossing the fen drain. The actual bridge is offstage. Only the rail bridge will be modelled. The land form was constructed by first making a lattice of card strips (I used the stiffener from a shirt box), but something like a cereal packet would do. This was glued in place at each end of the strip using a hot glue gu.n. The lattice was then covered with squares of fabric stiffening material, soaked in plaster. I took some pictures of the work in progress, but unfortunately they were a bit out of focus.so heres a picturew of the tools I used instead. Once the basic structure was nearly dry, I made up an earth mix of plaster, pva glue and burnt umber acrylic paint, and painted this over the scenery, with the exception of the road and river beds which received a similar mix, but without the burnt umber. Once dry, the road was airbrushed with a mixture of Tamiya buff, matt earth, and medium sea grey. This was them painted with pva, and fine ash sprinkled on it to make the road surface. The grass areas were painted with an earth colour mixed from Humbrol Acrylics (I used sand, brick red and matt black), and covered with various grades of static grass.After it had dried I put a train on it to see how it looked. Next stages are to finish the electrics, and the bridge over the fen drain.

I'm building an extension to the agricultural tramway out of Diddington at the moment. The idea is that there is a small agricultural tramway/light railway across the Fens from Diddington station to a yard out in the Fens. I haven't finally decided on the principal source of traffic, it could be fruit, sugar beet, or perhaps grain, which would give an excuse to have some of the Bachmann grain wagons when they arrive. It's inspired by lines such as the Wisbech and Upwell, or the Wissington light railway. I've started with the joining section, which is a 1.4metre length of straight track with a bridge crossing a fen drain at one end, which gives me the opportunity to model a length of roadside line. It occurs to me that in the future this board my serve as a photographic "plank" as well. I described the initial construction of the board in my blog. I've now laid the track, which is SMP, painted before it was laid in a bed of PVA glue, and ballasted with a mixture of ash and chinchilla grit, sprinkled in the wet PVA. When dry, the excess was shaken off, and the track given a light coat of Modelmates mud brown and sooty black sprays, and a final spray of Tamiya matt earth from the airbrush. I've attached some pictures of the track laying, and finally a picture of the state of construction when I finished last night (apologies for the quality)

Very nice. Looking at pictures of B17's in service they would appear to have been kept quite clean and yours captures the workaday effect very well. Tcut is an ideal medium for imparting an initial shine to the paintwork. I'd go for "Welbeck Abbey"

It is and it isn't the St Ives mill. I always call it a combination of the mills at St Ives and Godmanchester. It was done from photographs, which were mainly of the St Ives mill, but the rail access and loading areas owe much to Godmanchester. I remember the St Ives mill being used by Sinclair's. When I was there last year it appeared to have become luxury flats. I wanted to create some scenes of places where I used to play as a child, so here are a few: The bridge at Godmanchester: The boathouse at Hemingford Grey The old turntable pit at Huntingdon East Also on the layout are The chapel at Brigstock, Northants (my brother used to live down the road) The goods yard office at St Ives, which became the vets surgery. My model is substantially shorter than the original, which was attached to the goods shed itself.

Sorry - clicked on "post" before I added the pic. Here it is.

Hi Anthony Thanks for the steer. I used to live in Hemingford, but apart from a visit to St Ives last year to do a cycling event, haven't been in the area for nearly 30 years, so I'm working from memory. I can remember Grafham Water being built by damming Diddington Brook and the farms being submerged under the water. At that time the project was still being called "Diddington Reservoir" I think. Here's an overall shot of the layout, which may be of interest. I'm currently working on an extension to the agricultural tramway which leaves Diddington station at the right hand side of the picture. There's some pictures of the board in my blog. More will follow as construction proceeds. In the meantime I've edited my signature to give a link to some earlier pictures of the layout I posted in my gallery. Alex

There was a village near Huntingdon called Diddington. Its gone now, flooded to make way for the construction of Grafham Water. This does mean that no one can go to the area looking for traces of the railway, only to find nothing there. In reality there wasn't - Diddington station is imaginary. The original idea for Diddington was for a terminus station on the edge of the East Midlands, just west of the ECML at Huntingdon. Over the years the imaginary location has moved slightly eastwards, and Diddington is now situated in the Fens, probably a bit north of Cambridge, in the direction of Peterborough. In my imagination the locomotives working to Diddington would have been stabled at March, so that's the sort of area we are in. The track plan is based on a plan by Iain Rice called "Downingham", published in "Modelling Railways Illustrated" (now defunct) about 15 years ago. The resultant layout measures 3.6 x 4m, including a cassette Fiddle yard on the 4m side. The layout wasn't conceived as an exhibition layout, though it has been exhibited, and will be again. It was made in sections to facilitate movement from the garage where it was constructed, to the room where it lives. As a result it is easily dismantled for transport. I don't have a drawing of the track plan to hand (I must make one), so here is an aerial view of the station area which shows the track layout. Track is SMP for the plain track, while the points are homemade using copper clad sleepers. This picture shows some of the track, and also some of the line's motive power. More will follow soon, but I've got to go out now, so here's a suitable ending for the time being.

Looking at the photo of the chalk marks I realize that I've inadvertantly shown some of the planning process. The line at the front left is the original front edge of the layout. When I drew it out I decided it was too wide and gave an unbalanced look to the board, so I narrowed it before cutting the cross bearers.

Some of the traffic at Diddington is generated by an agricultural light railway, which leaves Diddington and proceeds to a terminus out on the fen. On the model to date there has been provision for the arriving light railway train, and I made a hole in the backscene for the line to leave Diddington station. I've now started work on the extension proper, with the construction of a joining section which will link Diddington to the terminus. I gave some thought to the construction of the board. I wanted to keep the weight down as much as possible, and I wanted the finished article to be easily transportable, which limited the size. To make things interesting, I had a minimum size constraint as well, as the board needs to take into account existing furniture in the room, so it had to be long enough to clear that. I wanted to use an "L" girder construction, as I think that gives the best strength/weight combination. My initial thought was to use ply, but this would mean accurately cutting the pieces from a single sheet,, and transporting the sheet by car, which was too small to take a sheet of ply. (I also wanted to get it done quite quickly, which didn't leave time to arrange the loan of a van, or to find someone willing and able to cut up the ply with the accuracy I required. So, I went to B&Q (no connection) and purchased some suitable lengths of strip wood to make up the "L" girders. Work commenced by drawing a plan of the board full size in chalk on the garage floor. The strip wood was then cut to length for the "L" girders. The side pieces were 70 x 10mm section, and the tops were 20 x 10mm. The two were glued and pinned together to form an "L". Ends and cross braces were from more 70 x 10 section, with gluing blocks in the corners from some 12mm square section I had to hand (size is not crucial). During assembly the pieces were held in me workmate, and repeated reference was made to the chalked plan on the floor, and a set square to make sure everything was in the right place and square. Once the basic assembly was completed, holes were drilled in the side frames to reduce the weight of the structure, and give somewhere for the wiring (which will be very basic) to run. It looked like this. At one end of the river the line will cross a fen drain by means of a concrete girder bridge, based on one on the Wissington railway. Provision has been made in the baseboard construction for the river and bridge. The base of the river is a piece of ply, glued to the layout frames. The bridge abutments are from some 40 x 20 mm softwood, cut to the width of the tack base (50mm at this point). The rest of the track base is from more ply, on risers which lift the track 40mm above the main frame. I used the ply to keep the weight down. As it will only carry a single track with light trains on it I have not used any additional support., If there were more tracks, or the trains were heavier, I would consider adding some additional longitudinal support to the ply, or using a slightly thicker section. Next, laying the track...............

I can't believe everyone has been able to resist the temptation to post this, so here it is: (BTW H Goering isn't in this clip because he does a runner earlier in the story)

I was thinking they looked awfully similar'

Ooo.... On a practical note, I've got the Brown Prideaux Ratcliffe book.

I particularly like the rusty effect on that firebox. Was that artists acrylic too?