Will Vale

I know it's not as cool, but you can make a good approximation from a flyswat and tea strainer. It really works

The multi-track plank is a great idea, like Pete says above it makes for very realistic "spotter" shots. And it's always nice to see your locos + stock - more please! I should add that the ballast looks super-tidy compared to my efforts, I wonder if I'm having the problem Chris Nevard wrote about where the stone chip ballasts don't settle and tamp properly compared to e.g. sand or the soft material (nutshell?) that WS use.

As a change from ballasting and installing cable troughs, I went and raided some plastic kits to make this: Not that exciting in concept, but exciting for me because I 1) Saw it in a prototype photo 2) Guessed what it might be 3) Confirmed my guess (thanks helpful RMWebbers!) and got some more information 4) Figured out some rough dimensions 5) ... 6) Made it! As someone who's relatively clueless about the real railway this was obviously quite satisfying. The system works! The component parts are two plastic N gauge wheels from a Green Max kit I've had for ages, face to face, for the inner barrel. These are capped with roadwheel hubs from a 1/35 Trumpeter Flakpanzer I bought cheap since I wanted the drivetrain parts for another project. Pleasingly it has with different caps on different faces to reflect the profile of the real lubricators. None of this is exactly right (there should be ribs around the inner part of the drum 'bobbin', a conical fitting for the grease pipe, and more of a shoulder on the drum faces) but it's close enough and picks up some nice-but-a-bit-overscale features like the securing bolts. Next step is to clean it up a bit, paint it yellow and figure out how to make and fit the pump, piping, and a representation of the grease blades.

Cheers for the info Rich. So the two at the left-hand end are offscene, and you'd end up with four posts around the "exit" end of the loop and perhaps two at the other end?

Looks scary and complex! On the expense front, is there anything you can do to move some of the signals off-stage? It might also be worth thinking about from a visual clutter point of view - since the length is necessarily compressed, everything's a lot closer together than on the prototype, and I'd be worried it'll look busy. I don't know, maybe sleepy German branch lines really have forests of signals though?

I dunno, I don't think Photoshopping a sky in is really any different to taking pictures of models outside with natural backgrounds. And that's allowed, surely? Plus it's a really evocative picture, the model is beautiful and the lighting is perfectly matched Just my 2p, Will

Having posted a lot of pictures of bits and bobs as I work on them, I thought I'd share an overview, to better show the warts. Click for big: Note: Includes a loco for James, albeit an out-of-the-box RTR specimen! Blue Lightning has been helping me test the uncoupling magnets again now that they're ballasted. So far so good. I'm afraid the layout plan evolved before the adoption of Whitemoor as a prototype, hence the "inspired by" name. I'm pretty sure I've made all kinds of gaffes operationally, for example using a single slip to create an Inglenook doesn't make much sense in the scope of the entire layout (although it does mean the left-hand board is operational on its own). The original plan was to have a fenland (and Dutch) layout - the left hand end - with an extra bit to add space - the right - which would be UK-only. Since finding Whitemoor things are trending more toward the UK although I'm still not planning to put many regionally-identifiable features on the left board so I can pose my Dutch stock on it from time to time. Given that I don't have much space for the whole thing, the operational plan is to add a four or five foot traverser fiddle yard at the left for the show, and treat the front running line as leading back to the main line, with the rear one going to the yard proper - an imagined fan of sidings. At Whitemoor this would be at the opposite (right hand) of the layout from the bridge. So operation will mean bringing trains in and reversing them into the yard, plus the near-obligatory D&E fuelling point shuffle with TTAs etc. This bit isn't at Whitemoor (I think locos go to Peterborough for fuelling?) and I'm using bits of Ipswich Freightliner depot instead since I like it so much. Scenically, the front left area is intended to be a field with a beet or potato clamp, and a drain running around it and back under the track. There is some water by the real East and West curves so this isn't completely out there. The front right might well be the depot car park, I'm not sure yet. Left hand end is the Norwood Road bridge and embankment, and I may add a bit more height at the back since there's a nice cribbed retaining wall/grass bank in real life running gently down to ground level. Rear right will be a shallow grass bank supporting the NIMBY screens. I'm still not sure if I should try and squeeze a diesel tank in at the right rear somewhere, or just have it offscene or underground. One thing I'm discovering is that a long thin layout is hard to take pictures of with a pocket camera, but here's the view you might get from the Norwood Road bridge if you were very very tall: and here's more the kind of thing I'm expecting to see, although more depth of field would be nice! So... what's next? I'm still working on ballasting the last couple of feet, and a bit worried about how little is left in the jar, so I've ordered some more to be safe. That probably means I should stop until it arrives, so I can gradually mix in the new batch in case it's not exactly the right colour. The Klear does make it an easy process, but because it's non-discolouring it can be hard to see if you've added enough to get into all the corners. I've taken to going over the track after it's set firm using the hoover with brushy bit and being fairly vigorous - this opens up any voids, which I can then fill one at a time. The ones that've been filled have survived re-hoovering so hopefully the job, once completely done, will stay done. There's some remedial work required near the crossing as you can see - I usually manage better than this! I may sand ballast lightly in a few places since it looks a bit rough from ground level. It's also getting towards time to weather the track. So much to do...

Great blending of colours on the ballast - it's varied without being salt-and-peppery.

Just lovely. I imagine you'll find it hard to resist coming back to this at some point even if it does wait in the wings for a while...

Thanks for the kind comments both of you! On the modelled concrete front, have a look at this layout on another forum - it's 1/12th scale so obviously there's a bit more room to move on the detail front, but the colours are just magic - his concrete is just white and raw umber acrylic and looks amazing. I have to admit I think raw umber is one of the most useful layout colours - I ran out recently and was gutted when I discovered I'd bought a replacement tube of burnt umber by mistake It's mostly because whenever I take pictures I can't bring myself to post the ones with all the clutter and junk around the work area! I've also found the layout hard to photograph other than macros, owing to its long and thin (8'x1') shape. The following might help give some context, plus I'm going to try and do a summary post at some point to explain where things are going with all this.

Only just found this by searching - what a stunning layout! I love the southern shed buried in the undergrowth.

The drying time seems very high to me, mine is usually set firm in under an hour, and rock solid in about 3 hours, but I work under a halogen lamp which may explain the difference?

The grass colour looks very good, particularly in the second picture - nice believable range of tones, getting darker at the bottom of the bank where it would probably be wetter. Are you applying it to the bare "mud", or is there a layer underneath? On Igelfeld I had a base of Woodland scenics ground foam since I didn't really believe the grass would work on its own, but the combination of the two was never quite right. Cheers, Will

Yes... They do all come from GW's fantasy and sci-fi worlds, so they make sense within that (generally a bit rabid) community. To be honest, I think their main goal in coming up with names is making sure they can trademark them Arg - I'm trying soo hard to resist getting some green in to relieve the grey! Must be strong and finish ballasting/track weathering first

Martin prompted me to weather the concrete - good advice - hopefully this looks used but not too old: I added a wash of Devlan Mud, sponged off in places, and then stippled/drybrushed on some dark grey (Adeptus Battlegrey) and finally some white to bring the corners out again. You can see some brush-tip tidemarks from the wash on the square pad, but unless you know to mentally join them up I think they just read as scratches. The mark in the middle of the pad is a drilling pip for when I get around to fitting lights. (I must admit to feeling a bit sheepish every time I list a GW paint colour - they have such stupid names...)

Looks good to me too - it is a faff, but it's worth the effort, especially since it highlights the lovely track work. I must get some fishplates for mine!

Thanks chaps. I'm wondering about what to do with the weathering at the moment - while I'd like the layout to fit Whitemoor around 2005, I think it's going to look better as a model if I take my weathering cues from a few years later - the concrete here is pretty dark despite the sunny day, whereas this picture and this one still look interesting and have nice weeds and clutter in 2005, but with much much cleaner concrete (since it was nearly new). Looking at these, I need to lighten the path a bit more still - my fine grit is only in one shade of grey. Or not bother, and assume that inspecting man's pea grit happened to be that colour?

The Mk1 looks great so far - how strong is it, given that it's huge and has all those window cut-outs? I should add that I've really enjoyed these videos - something about blue diesels in the garden being so unexpected, perhaps

He's no pointing man, but inspecting man came out this afternoon to check out the path for size. [ This was really to test a couple of things - how does the fine grit on the path photograph, and how the concrete looks. I'm fairly happy on both counts - in the flesh I think the path is a bit too heavily drybrushed, but in the picture it's not *too* bad and the grain size looks very believable. The concrete colours are working well - this is a drybrush of Tamiya Buff and then white (very gingerly) over the base coat. Sorry about the soft-focus picture, although it does give inspecting man a romantic quality. "You've got this dead wrong John, there's supposed to be a load of blue lines all through here."

I should have commented here ages ago, but thanks for posting these - I paid close attention while building and experimenting with my first S&W couplings a couple of months ago. I'll have to give the track pins a go - that looks like a great idea. Cheers!

Sounds a bit more glamorous than "I made a path" doesn't it? Rest assured, it isn't. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I decided to stick with the 3mm high path edges, since they match the height of the fittings such as the lamp bases, and the idea is to infill with ballast leaving just 0.5mm-1mm showing at the top. I have some very fine ballast somewhere which will do for the gravel of the path itself - the colour isn't an exact match, but it's in the right sort of area. Having fiddled around building the first part of the path on the workbench, I cut some 1mm styrene sheet into 8mm strips and laid the rest straight onto the layout with PVA. This is only really to provide a square edge to fit the planks to - the base will be buried in gravel. The plank edging was than attached in-situ with solvent, and some short bits of strip added here and there for supports. They aren't on the prototype that I can see (shh!) but I think they look pretty suitable. I fitted these overlength so I could hold onto them, and then trimmed them back with side-cutters when they'd dried somewhat. Painting is rather rough and ready - a base coat of GW Adeptus Battlegrey at lunchtime to hide the plastic, then a brisk drybrush with Dheneb Stone, Tallarn Flesh, and a touch of white at tea-time. Given how little of this is going to be visible that's probably enough for now, but I'm expecting to go back and tweak the colours once the ballast and gravel are done. This should also help it blend together a bit better. Speaking of ballast, most of this board is now ballasted apart from the last 6 inches where the tracks cross the joint - I want to do the last bit on both boards in one session so there's no chance of a change in the blend mucking up the colours. I've also fitted a few bits of (finer) orange pipe - this is also insulation but from a smaller gauge wire, again with the conductors pulled out and some black monofilament (2 Dollar Shop find) threaded through for the cables. The loose cables at the bottom were intended to run into the open end of the trough, but I looked at pictures again and the Whitemoor troughs terminate at big plastic junction boxes - these are (I would guess) two-foot diameter plastic bins buried in the ballast level with the tops of the troughs. I haven't decided if I'm going to model those yet, but the option is there for the moment. As you can see from the pictures, there are a few gaps which need filling in around the sleeper ends, they were waiting for the path so I could do it all at once. One problem with the Klear not changing the ballast colour significantly is that it's really hard to see which bits you've been over when fixing it in place! You can also see the glossy spots on the sleepers - I try and dab it off if it goes in the wrong place, but these should go when the track gets washed/powdered/drybrushed at some future point. In other news, I really need to get started on ballasting board 2, and building the fiddle yard, since I've accepted an invitation to take the layout to Railex 2010 in Wellington in November. At least it'll give me a bit more focus, and it fits in so well with the 2010 challenge deadline that it's tempting to try and complete it for that. Is it bad form to work on something for a while before declaring for the challenge?

That looks very nice indeed, look forward to seeing it painted up. The method you used for the gear lever knob works well - how many dips did it take? I made one for an O9 loco by twirling brass wire in epoxy, but it isn't as nicely rounded as your picture.

Great pictures, thanks! It's always interesting to see how wide the variety of fittings (and colour and texture) there is in such a small area.

Must have required significant bravery to get started on that, but it looks promising already - coupled with all the crazy detail you added to the cabs I think you might well get your "no clue it's a model" photograph out of this one For illustrating/evaluating the effect before you paint it, have you tried taking a picture with low ambient light and something like an anglepoise lamp positioned in the plane of the side? I've been doing that to see how smooth my clay is (not very) and it shows up every little dent.

Xtrkcad used to be pay software, but is now open source. Try downloading from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xtrkcad-fork/ Be aware - there is a learning curve! I found it somewhat idiosyncratic but it does work well when you get used to it.