Ian Holmes

(please excuse the shadows on the drawings my scanner is playing silly beggars and it's too much fuss to set up my copy camera arrangement at the moment as the lights are in use on Wingetts recycling ready for it's forthcoming exhibition) As I started to sketch out my "visions" I began to realise what was drawing me to the plan. It's that arrangement of buildings. Perfect for a small layout, obstructing your view and forcing your eyes to move around as you follow the train in the scene thus making the layout seem large than it is. Then for some reason I started thinking about the Cromford and High Peak railway. It started to "speak" to me though the drawings (Oh this making me sound really wierd isn't it? Ian Holmes the Model Railway clairvoyant...) All those atmospheric photographs of the stone buildings. Then I started thinking snow and Ian Everetts "Royston Vasey" layout... Then I needed to go and lay down in a dark room for a while. So what we have in my mind for a layout right now is a small, snowbound goods yard somewhere on a fictitious line somewhere in the peak district. That's a long way from the West Somerset Mineral Railway....

Once in a while I'll drop in on the Hattons website,to see what is what in the UK R-T-R scene. Boy I got a shock this time! That Heljan class 17 looks great, the 14 looks brilliant, I have to have one of each and then there's the Railbus. I so have to have one of them. It really fires a person up to come back to 4mm scale UK outline in a hurry...

After a period of inactivity caused by various other things like an entire summer and some marathon running. My mind is going model railway haywire. Perhaps you'd think that's unsurprising now that my company has located to an office overlooking a small switching yard. That's not the reason. A while ago, I came across a page on the West Somerset Mineral railway website and it sat in my mind, like these things do waiting for the most inopportune time to strike before the visions start flooding out. Which is right now. This page is to blame nothing too innocuous there you'd think. Probably not to most people. I mean, there is that attractive Nielson "box" loco but that shouldn't get things going. I'm an atheist but I have an interest in chapels and churches but that shouldn't spark the creative process, certainly not over a model railway layout. Perhaps it's that section of the trackplan there then with the standard gauge/narrow gauge interchange. Who knows? All I know is the visions come thick and fast. So, what form do these visions take? I "see" the layout. Like it is already built. I can navigate around all sides of it. It might as well already BE built. I have to draw what I see. Luckily I went to art college for 4 years... So I now have a series of sketches relating to this new layout but showing them off will have to wait until later. So where do I go from here? Is it practical to translate these visions in reality? I mean I've got a great idea here but will that great idea translate into a small compact layout that I could take to shows? We'll see. I will report back...

Confirmation arrived in the mail this morning for the World greatest Hobby on Tour Show. November 20-21st 2010 River Centre, St Paul, MN See you there. OK probably not for most of you... Ian

So, to expand on the idea outlined earlier here's a couple of sketchbook pages to illustrate what I'm talking about. The above sketch shows the wide open backscene typical of forest country in new England perhaps This is exactly the same layout sketch with the backscene changed to something more like the Midwest . The scribble below each layout concept illustrates how the sloping backscene would look in profile. I'd bolt the backscene onto the back with a few coach bolts and wing nuts. There shouldn't be too much of an issue with the tree backscene. Perhaps the extra depth of the prairie might be an issue but this only needs to be made from the lightest thinnest ply so it wouldn't weigh too much and throw things off balance. As another note I checked my stock of baseboards and I have a frame ready made that is 54" x 14" Almost the perfect size.

It appears that I am driving myself into a corner that I might not be able to get out of without some kind of layout construction. It all starts here somewhere in Cornwall thread. Northpoint had discussed the problems with the overhang of the trees on his rather super looking layout. I passed comment on an idea that I once had but hadn't acted on for a sloping backscene that could be covered with a depth of tree tops without taking up any layout space. I'd also mooted this idea for the wilds of the Lincolnshire coast for a model. Here the depth of the sloping backscene would be greater and be taken up with a "forced perspective" scene in muted tones to make the layout look much deeper than it really is. Now this opens up a whole new and exciting can of worms. If your layout itself is non-commital in design and scenic treatment by the changing of the sloping backscene from say a forest to a flat coast or even urban development you could in effect change the whole layout. How many folks could change the backscene on their layouts to create a new one? This idea needs some thought and exploration. Perhaps being explored on a Proto87 model?

Awesome work Ian

Looks great.

Not posted to this blog in the longest time so here's a quick update of the salient points of the past year. The Layout continues to be well received at shows in fact I was interviewed on Saint Cloud, MN local radio with it at Easter as the layout is based on an industry there. I've also been approached by folks who actually work at the prototype and have shared inside information with me that helps me to understand the models operation. The layout received an invitation to the Worlds Greatest Hobby on tour show in Saint Paul, MN in November. So I'm sprucing the layout up. I've relaid the front siding as the uncoupler magnet was giving me some grief. I finished fixing the ballast yesterday. Today I treated myself to the ExactRail 50' waffle sided boxcar in Southern colour scheme. ExactRail are fantastic models. That's it really plenty of other bits and bobs to keep you updated with between now and November. I may even (gasp) start some serious weathering....

Looks like a layout to me Geoff, and very nicely done too. Ian

Thanks James. Perhaps I can transfer the Nuclear flask terminal to the wilds of the Lincolnshire coast and make the concept workable

Looks very impressive now I see the big picture It's a diorama no question. BUT If you popped a platform on there and ran a DMU in and out of it to and from a fiddle yard. it would be layout. No question. Put a simple platfrom kit up there on top of the embankment. You know it makes sense Ian

I've been reviewing this section of my 4mm scale agonies blog http://4mmscaleagonies.blogspot.com/search/label/plans I can't believe that in the space of less than 2 years I came up with 20 schemes for layouts. Looking at them all again after not having seen them together in a year makes me realize that I'd still like to model them. All the concepts, Nuclear flask terminal, scrapyard and of course the Haven. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so creative

I don't need templot... I've got more than enough ideas here... http://4mmscaleagonies.blogspot.com/search/label/plans

These two baseboards were built with the P87 project in mind but I'm not averse to using them on the P4 layout. Makes for a total layout length of 5' x 19" at the deepest, with the shorter dimension being 13". Built from 3/16" ply strips 3" deep on the sides and 1/4" ply on the tops. They are rather light and strong.

What indeed. Protocrastinations are the ramblings of a frustrated finescale railway modeller. It will be an amalgam of my external blogs "4mm scale agonies" and the "Protocrastinator" which cover my so far unsuccessful attempts to build a finescale layout in 3.5 and 4mm scales. It's tough being a finescaler in the USA. You guys in the UK have it so easy with your P4, EM, S7 and even 2mm area groups. You can all meet once a month and share ideas and get personal contact with like minded modellers. Not so I. I think there's a P4 society member in Chicago 10 hours away and there's rumours of a P87 modeller in the south of Minnesota. So contact is not easy. That is where all my grand projects fall down flat. No personal contact. Should I join the Minnesota Garden Railway Society there's more chance of my garden Railroad getting finished before my P4 or P87 models. Anyway enough of me feeling sorry for myself. Where am I in either project? I've got a very nice pair of baseboards, suitable for either project. Plus P4 track and turnouts to build a layout. There's a re-wheeled 08 and quite a bit of freight stock in kit form, as well as a tin chapel kit built. As for the P87 project, there's lots and lots of stock ready to be re-wheeled and turnouts waiting to be converted. Getting hold of the wheels and turnout conversion units is turning out to be an issue though. I could go either way at the moment. I'm just immensely frustrated at the lack of any progress anywhere

This is the latest blog entry from 7day model railroad. Everyone needs to read it. ...Todays post was going to be about the same steady performance of the layout at day two of the Princeton show and what tweaks I need to do to the layout before the next time I show it. Sure enough the layout performed as well as yesterday. But that's not important. Today was one of the most rewarding days I have ever had exhibiting a model railway and it was all down to two small children. Jeremiah and Brandon. First was Jeremiah. He stood at the layout for around 45 minutes studying the layout and its operation. He read the blurb attached to the model and knew what it was all about. He studied the details of the models and even noticed some details that I hadn't completed on some of the freight cars. He knew exactly what he was talking about. It was a pleasure to have someone like that to watch the layout at work. Jeremiah models in N gauge. I'm going to watch out for you because I'm sure that one day you will produce a truly excellent model railroad. All through the two days of the show another small child had been making periodic visits to watch my layout from helping with his older brothers S scale trains. So at 2:30 half an hour before the show closed I said to him. "Do you want a go?" He looked at me rather disbelievingly and said. "Are you sure?" "Absolutely" I replied and gestured for him to step behind the layout. We found him a chair to stand on so he could see over the top and I familiarised him with the controls. Though as he'd spent two days watching the layout I don't think he needed much in the way of familiarisation. With that I guided him through the operating sequence and in no time at all he was aware of all the quirks and oddities of the layout and apart from me placing stock on the track he was operating the layout all by himself. Mom got a picture I'm happy to say. I was amazed at how quickly he had picked everything up and he declared that he was going to go home and start on a similar sort of layout based on a mining scene. Well Brandon, if you build that layout then you can show it at the Princeton train show next Thanksgiving. I bet it will be great. In these days when the computerised "Playbox-X-three-sixt-wii" is the big thing It was great to see such young children taking an active interest in the hobby. These kids are the future of the hobby and if there are more Jeremaihs and Brandons about then the future of the hobby is pretty secure. Thank you very much guys.

Time to report some more progress to the 7 day layout as it approaches its first exhibition appearance http://7daymodelrailroad.blogspot.com/2009/11/almost-there.html I'd post a picture here but I'm at work and the firewall won't let me do that... IAn

Well time to report something happening on the T scale layout - Gonou, this time. The layout has 3 weeks or so to its exhbition debut so I'd better crack on and get things done. You can read about it here http://more-t-please.blogspot.com/ and to give you a taster to take a look at the other pictures here's a shot of the layout