rovex

Just a few shots of one of the stairways up to the footbridge. Construction is plasticard and slaters embossed brickwork. Doors and windows will be added from Scale link etchings once the stairs have been painted. The stairs themselves come from an old Hornby concrete footbridge glued together to get the necessary width and cut down to the right height. Still some fillering to do and a bit of fettling to tidy this one up - and oh yes the one for the other platform to build too.

Smart Many moons ago I used plasticard to make the "free benches" but being somewhat of an innocent used too much glue and over time the ends of the planks warped. Card is probably much safer - and of course minimal handling no doubt helps. Coming along nicely

With quite a lot of the track down, I've been knocking up the platforms (well roughly at least). Nothing spectacular in the methods used. Paper template and a pencil held against the biggest coach. The photo shows the platforms 1 to 6 (I think - it doesn't help that at some point the platforms were all swapped round). Platform bases are 12 mm ply and topped with 2mm plasticard scored to represent paving slabs. Later I'll build up brick walls to cover the edges of the ply, with suitable wiring strung along it as seems to abound on a lot of platform sides. In the distance can be seen the basis for the footbridge steps. These are some plastic steps taken from old Triang/Hornby concrete foortbridges, The height will be reduced and the sides covered over with plastic sheet and embossed brickwork. The bay platforms are very narrow, to my mind, although I think they comply with the regs - but this can't be helped if I am to get the station into a sensible width. It also matches the width of the ratio GWR style canopies which will cover most of these. And this shot just shows the Great Western Hotel and concourse (which hasn't progressed much since the last photos of it, mocked up across the station throat

Yes it makes it much easier to work/sand or file. Usual warning about gluing you fingers to the model and only using small quantities of the glue.

I don't know Gerry, your track layout outside the station seems complex enough to me. Mine just runs striaght into a fiddle yard - or will do. yes I am not looking forward to ballasting which in the past I have found not only mindnumbing and frustrating in equal measures - but also my normal method of flooding the ballast in diluted pva leaves me no sound deadening qualities at all but a deafening din whenever a train moves. The gasholders are two Walthers kits, one was built as supplied except for an etched brass rail round the top of the tank. The other was modified mainly by beefing up the frame with some plastruct girders and adding some whitemetal finials to the tops of the columns to give it a more Victorian flavour. They are the ones supplied by Scale link and intended for 7mm GWR signals. There isn't a gas works near the real Snow Hill, but as these and the others gas works fittings came off my old layout I am going to find room for them on this one.

Great looking platforms and well worth the effort on your part. I use 2mm plastic sheet which is perhaps a bit more hardwork to scribe, I know the ends of my fingers ache after an hour or two.

Work has commenced on laying the pointwork at the North end of Brackhampton. I've been waiting until Hayfield of this parish (who has been very patient with me and long suiffering) had built enough of the various pointwork to allow me to lay the mainline almost all at once. I didn't want to lay each piece as it was built only to find I had miscalculated and it didn't fit. These first two photos shopw the point work for the mainlines with the trackwork leading to the eastern bay platforms. This next photo shows the crossover between the main and relief lines. These haven't yet been laid but will be the next to go down. the pointwork for the rest of the eastern bays and the relief lines as they feed into the western bays has yet to be built. For the technically minded the track is laid on 1/8 inch cork sheet and is stuck down with Evostic spray glue, care being taken to protect the moving parts of any pointwork. Soon I will start building the platforms starting at the South end and working North. As the platforms will be scribed to show the paving, I've been puting this job off.

You might want to run some strip along the bottom of each side (or just above the bottom) on the inside to add extra strength, would also give a lip to glue the coach floor to and shouldn't be noticeable from outside. What are you using as glue? I tend to use superglue as it gave a stronger bond and if dusted in sodium bicarbonate set almost immediately allowing you to sand any glue that protuded. You just need to be careful not to put too much on though.

Interesting work, which "suburbans" are these. Old Airfix i'm assuming but not the B set coaches? You've got a lot of work ahead of you but should prove an interesting model.

Stunning modelling - and brave work on the peco pointwork will be following this with interest

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/190679584146?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 £43 for a Hornby horse box, Am I missing something

As I was in the shed this evening tidying round I thought I would take a few shots of the fiddleyard baseboards. These are made of 12mm ply with 3inch wide strips of 12 mm ply for the edges and strapping. I've used this method before (although in that case it was 9mm ply) and found it generally quite sturdy as long as the boards are adequately braced underneath. I'm particularly pleased with the hatch (I know sad isn't it). I added the diagonal brace as it was flexing too much when opened and this seemed to have solved that problem. The last shot just shows the final gap to be filled, might be a bit more obvious if everything wasn't ply coloured. As cash is a little short at the moment (when isn't it) I'm trying to concentrate on what I can do with whats around, so any tracklaying on this ection will have to wait. However as power is now down to the shed I might start wiring that part of the station that is laid and start working out what what wires need placing where etc.

I thought ratio did a kit very similar to this?

Not much to report on the modelling front, but over the weekend I finally got power supplied to the shed. A heavily armoured cable has been laid down the garden from the mains fuse box to a separate fuse box in the shed, this has then been wired into the wiring I had already put in the shed for the security lightin, the ordinary lighting and a small ring mains with more sockets then I am ever going to need. Both the main fuse box and the shed box are protected with RCD breakers. I have also taken the opportunity to update all the wiring to the two garden ponds. The wiring in this house is a nightmare and over the past couple of months I have been slowly getting it all replaced. Is was interesting to see what fuses controled what circuits. Upstairs only had three sockets each on different fuses!!! Its amazing the place hasn't burnt down before now. Only a little bit of the old wiring still remains and this will have to wait until the kitchen is replaced. I have also been building the baseboards for the fiddle yards. I have dropped the idea of having a traverser, mainly because I have never built one before, and will be going for the traditional ladder of sidings. I think I have worked out who to allow the mainlines to access almost all the tracks of the sidings but its going to be a bit heavy in double slips. I plan to use peco code 75 for the sidings as opposed to the finescale SMP tflexitrack and handbuilt points used on the scenic boards. Have also built a flap section - another first for me, which seems to line up alright but will only really be tested once some track is laid over it. Now I have power I must start wiring the layout and get some trains moving. Rovex

Hows this for honesty http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/oo-GAUGE-TRIANG-REPAINTED-SUBURBAN-COACH-R121-223-GWR-CHOCOLATE-CREAM-/200726142540?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item2ebc35de4c "IT LOOKS BETTER IN THE PHOTO THAN IT REALLY IS!"

I was going to suggest that we British didn't go in for "lynching" and the most you would get would be some very heavy tutting and rolling eyes, then I remembered we were talking about railway modellers.

Further to my earlier post these are some shots of my old layout showing how I've used some kits to make larger city centre buildings. This first one shows the Kibri factory. The sides from one kit were used to make two buildings as the back and one side of each building was either against the backscene or facing away from the viewer and so could be modelled in plain plasticcard. Otherwise the kit was built as is. I've seen this same model stretched out on some layouts to great effect, It makes a much larger factory about two foot long and about an inch and a half wide. Behind is the faller brewery kit spliced and made into a longer building. Foreground right is the Walthers gas plant, and background left is another Walthers backscene warehouse. The two corner buildings on this one started out as two faller corner hotel/chemist shops. There were anglicised by throwing away the shop fronts and building more English facades. The whole model was lifted about a 10 mm or so to give a bit more height. Tha panels in the walls were replaced with slaters embossed brick to give the effect of a brick and terracotta building so beloved of the Victorians. I also replaced the corner turrets and the roof of each kit, but these could be kept and more robust chimneys added. The centre of the building was scratchbuilt as was theatre building behind. I've got some more of these kits and intend eventually to do the same thing with them to produce a Parade of victorian shops in the same vein, possible with a central arcade. This shot shows two kits I was trying out. The shorter turreted shop is a Kibri kit, which can be built more or less as is, but with perhaps more English chimneys. The larger square building is a faller kit which is being built more or less as is, but I intent to replace the plaster effect panels between the windows with more embossed brickwork.

Kibri do a number of good industrial buildings which anglicise without much difficulty, I'll try and post some photos when I'm at home of ones I've done. I also did Fallers brewery building by splicing it down the middle and using it as a long low releif building. Some of the Kibri town centre shop buildings can anglicise quite well although you need to be careful with the ones you choose. The Faller town buildings are more difficult to anglicise and hide their European origins. I did this with one building but by the time I had finished not much of the original kit was left. Again I'll try and post some photos. The walthers buildings, particular the Cornerstone and DPM buildings will work for two and three storey shops and "Red Devil" on his Grime Street blog has done this quite well by adding pitched rooves, chimneys and plenty of soot.

Again - please carry on. I've found this thread very interesting and easy to follow unlike a lot of signalling explanations. Could Andy perhaps be persuaded to edit it together as an article in the RM Web online mag??

I recently purchased an old MTK kit of Ebay of a Sunshine stock slip coach to diagram F24. I'm not a great fan of MTK kits, for those who don't know they come with the sides and roof and solebars all folded up from one sheet of aluminium and they usually have badly fitting ends. It was described as an unknown kit but resarch before I bid allowed me to discover the coach type and for £12 I didn't think I could go far wrong. The Ebay photo suggested brass sides and so I thought perhaps the previous owner had bought replacement sides from Comet. They hadn't . But the usual aluminium had been given a brass or copper plating and the dorrs had been etched/gouged out which is unusal - well unusual to my limited knowledge of these kits. Anyway after a bit of fettling which has included a lot of filling to hide the joins between the ends and the sides, cutting away the moulded on lamp irons, fitting seperate handrails new shell vents from Comet and door hinges from plastic card, it has now received a coat of undercoat. This should help highlight those areas that still need a bit of work such as where the ends meet the roof. Not looking so bad for £12 especially when you consider the same kit from Comet is over £40. I'll let you judge for yourselves.

Not a great deal of progress since my last entry, mainly due to the fact that until I can get a trench dug gown to the garden shed to lay the electric cable, my modelling is limited to the weekends and eventhe only whilst the sun is up. However "Hayfield" of this Parish has continued to do me proud with his trackbuilding and I thought you might like to see his latest builds. The first two shots show the South end of the station and once the pointwork to the left has been laid and connected in, this end of the station is complete. I can then mark out for the platrforms and get these built, allowing me to build the steps to the main station concourse, thus setting the height at which the main station building will be fixed. This next photo gives a wider shot of progress so far and this one a close up on the two scissor crossovers which were in the middle of the station. Unprototypically these will sit on the bridge over Great Charles Street, rather than to one side and yes I know points shouldn't be on bridges but I can't help it given the space constraints. As you can see Platform 9/10 can easily accomodate an eight coach train, indeed there should be room for a nine coach train with engine, ten with the engine just sitting beyond the platform - memo to self make sure that the fiddle yard is big enough. Progress can now start on the North end

I gave up using slaters embossed sheets quite a while ago, I wasn't very happy with the embossing and felt that not only were the edges between slates not sharp enough but thickness was a problem. Over the years I've tried several methods from individual cut card slates (made from my old collection of train postcards), to sheets of slates made from card with the gaps between the slates cut by hand (both very labour intensive and likely to result in me losing the will to live before finishing the roof. I tend to use the wills slates now but of course it is almost impossible to succesfull hide the joion in the slates and so on a bigger roof were a join was unavoidable I tried to line it up with a chimney breast so at least the area of the join was minimised. Another method I've tried with I think some success is using the Greenscene sheets that are intended for planking. Theses come in a variety of plank widths and are very sharply incised. I cut them into 5mm strips and overlay them on the roof. There are still over thick - but I don't think as overthick as slaters embossed plasticard. I also take the view that often if you go for a near scale thickness it becomes very difficult to see the individual slates and I do like to see that. I think its a case of the model looking right rather than being right. Great models by the way

Nice atmospheric shot of the station frok underneath the bridge

Baseboard building continues a pace and these are few shots of progress. Holes have been cut for the streets and canal to pass under the station, although having checked google I'm going to have a cut a few more. Track laying on the Southern end of the station has also started. Cork underlay is used and this is glued down with contact adhesive, Which has also been used to secure the trackwork. I lay no claim to having built any of this. It was all made for me by "Hayfield" of this site, and a good job he's doing too. This is the first time I've used handbuilt trackwork and Code 75. My last layout was all Peco Code 100, but the complexity of the trackwork for this layout left me with no alternative. I've been very lucky to find someone who will build it for me. I can recommend his work very highly.