Ian Holmes

Nick, Not too late at all. Excellent. Thanks for sharing Ian

Get with the 21st century Ian. You've got photoshop why don't you use it to add some colour to your layout sketches? I like to see other peoples visualisations of their layouts even more so when they pop them in photoshop an give them that added zing with a bit of colour and texture. You know who you are... People who work with Photoshop all day find this task easy I expect and finish the task in a few minutes. Whereas I, with my laptop on my lap learning as I go along find it takes ages. By the time I get good at rendering this layout visualization I will have probably finished the layout anyway. So here's an attempt to add a bit of colour to a sketch in attempt to give it that added zing. Apologies for the crudity of the technique but we all have to start somewhere...

As is my wont I have been messing around with a pad and paper trying to visualise how the layout would look.

It's the 4th July. American Independence day and as a result my email inbox has been full to overflowing with emails proclaiming all kinds of wonderful holiday deals. The one from Caboose Hobbies bit me. So I bought some PECO code 75 track for the forthcoming project. (Is my typing of PECO in all caps indicative of some kind of brain-washing from the Pritchard Patent Product Co.? That's the way I've always seen the word courtesy of Railway Modeller. It just looks wrong written any other way. Peco, peco... ) So anyway, 6 yards of code 75 and a turnout are on the way. I was looking at the first picture on his page the other day http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/moss_halt/index.shtml Moss Platform, Moss Halt or whatever name it goes by. I just love the way the buildings stack up on the hillside behind the station there. It's something worth featuring on the layout. Don't know if I could pull it off in the triangular baseboard I have allotted to this project. But not to worry I have other ready built baseboards that it would likely work on...But thats a scheme for another day.

You've really studied up on this preservation modelling business. You've definitely got my interest in this concept. My image of "preservation type" layouts is "I'll run this, this, this and this and call it a preserved railway" You're developing the whole rationale to make it believable. I hope the whole project comes together for you.

Then there's this first picture of Moss Platform http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/moss_halt/index.shtml I just love the way those buildings stack up on the hillside behind the station

The title of this entry does not allude to any forthcoming trip back to blighty, (oh that it did) but the desire to build an English outline layout. I've been umm-ing an ah-ing about it for a long time. I even joined the Scalefour society in the hopes of being able to start a finescale 4mm English layout. But with no 4mm finescalers in easy reach to talk to the enthusiasm faded. So I periodically find myself being blitzed with the urge to model in English 4mm scale and not being able to do anything about it. People like Chris Nevard and others have shown time and again that finescale fidelity is not needed to build a realistic layout. So perhaps the key is to forget the finescale idea and just get out there and build. My latest research led me to discover Berwig Halt and Vicarage Crossing on the Minera Branch near Wrexham. http://www.disused-s...wig/index.shtml http://www.disused-s...alt/index.shtml I spent a couple of years in the Wrexham area at college there so I had a familiarity with the area. The first picture on the Berwig page was dripping in atmosphere for me. I felt it was the kind of image that would have graced the cover of Great Western Railway Journal. The pictures of Vicarage crossing had a grimy run down feel that I love, so typical of that rundown early 60's era. So I'm thinking of some kind of cross between the two. I have plenty of unused baseboards in storage so today I took a look and doodled on the face keeping the photographs in mind. Why the baseboard is triangular is a long old story that I shan't bore you with. The idea looks interesting and has me in mind to investigate it further. The ground level will rise from below track level at the front, to above track level at the rear. How much, I don't know. That's one of the things that needs investigating. I've got a Ratio Tin Tabernacle" that would fit on the layout nicely. The rest of the structures would have to be scratchbuilt. I have procured plenty of rolling stock over the years that could suit a mid 60's period layout. So at the moment expenditure would be minimal. Most of this is stuff that I bought because I liked it and has no regional consistency to it. So the layout would just be something to show off British trains to punters at US train shows. I'll let the idea brew a bit and see what transpires.

I have mentioned many times the industry of Deltak, now Hamon Deltak, across the road from work. Here's some film of the UP delivering a flat car to the premises. Notice how delighfully scenic the location is for being in the middle of a major industrial park.

OK only two... I thought I'd take time to share a few pictures of some outsize loads I've made as traffic for the APA box layout. This first one is based on a picture I found on the internet somewhere, I've lost the link now but it was built to fit the car it's on the proportions look about OK. So I'm happy with it. It looks a bit over simplified but that's pretty much how the inspiration looked. Besides its only a load on a freight car it will be moving all the time folks are looking at it... The other one was based on some oversized loads I saw in the yard at Deltak (Now Hamon Deltak) across the road from where I work Its a rather large heat exchanger. Like with the other load I just modelled it to look right and fit through the doors and exits on the layout I don't know if I have time before the next show on Saturday to work out how to model the strapping down of the loads so that a load can be placed and removed in seconds but we'll see. Ian

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=146128&nseq=1 The Brainerd Local running towards the Paper Mill in Brainerd, MN. I've tried several times to catch this working so far with no luck Ian

It's been a very busy few weeks. Not all model railroad related. Things were coming along very nicely with the APA box layout then we had a flooding in our basement. Luckily the layout was not damaged but quite some time was spent sorting the mess out. Which, of course left me precious little time to get the layout ready for the Granite City Train Show. I kinda sorta had it ready to exhibit. There was a bit of a bodge job in the fiddle yards but everything worked OK on the day and the layout impressed many people. In fact you can read a bit about it here at a friends blog - http://look4trains.com/2012/04/granite-city-in-rain.html It impressed one person enough to invite me to another show in Alexandria , MN next weekend. So, I'm working pretty hard to sort out my previous bodge job and get everything ready to show again. Perhaps when things have calmed down after next week I can write more at a more relaxed pace.