2mmMark

As Jerry has mentioned, I brought British Oak to the 2017 Warminster Show and thereby hangs another chapter in the saga. Shortly before the show, I decided that the layout needed some smartening up, something I'd long planned to do. Unfortunately, I have a habit of putting all my roundtuits in a very safe place and then forgetting where I'd left them. By the time I'd remembered where the British Oak roundtuit was stored, it was pretty close to the show date, like the Wednesday before the show! The first job was to cover over the point and uncoupler controls. I had originally left them open just in case of any problems but as they'd survived ten or so years without problem, it seemed reasonably safe to cover them in. The first step was to sheet over the area with some shaped cardboard, in this case the back of an MRJ subscription envelope. The card was glued in place with PVA and held in place by pins, then given a through coating of PVA. When this dried, it made a nice hard shell, thin and with a bit of resiliency. Once the PVA had set reasonably hard but was still wet, I cut some strips from the front of the MRJ envelope and laid them over the cardboard again with PVA glue. Please note, other finescale envelopes may be available... After the strips were in place but while the PVA was still drying, I painted on a thickish layer of tinted Sandtex paint. The reason for working with the PVA wet is that the whoe thing bonds together and forms a very robust shell for the scenery. In fact it took a couple of coats to hide the paper strips but when it was done, it blended in quite well. In fact I had used the same technique of paper strips and Sandtex to cover the polystyrene landforms. The Sandtex was tinted with artists acrylics. I have found subsequently that Indian Ink works just as well and possibly better as it seems to mix more throughly. Final colouring was done with washes of artists acrylics blended directly on the layout. This took care of the top surface and covering in the ugly open areas massively improved the overall look of the scene. Encouraged by this, the next move was to tidy up the front and back sides of the layout. I needed to keep the width within the confines of the storage box so a thin but strong sheet material was required. The solution was 1.5mm aeromodellers plywood. Some extra polystyrene blocks were inserted to provide some support and the front and back were skinned with the plywood. Cutting out was done using a Stanley knife. The following photo sequence shows the process. The plywood skins were blended in with a thickened mix of tinted Sandtex and filler. There's a bit of theme here, still if it's good for ten or more years on the outside of your house, it ought to stand up well in this situation. The final result was a much smarter looking layout and fortunately, everything dried out in time for the Warminster show, as can be seen from Jerry's earlier photo. The next phase is to work up some more scenic detail and that is what is currently happening, ready for the layout's forthcoming appearance on the 2mm Scale Association's stand at Scaleforum.

30" by 8" overall and the visible section is 22" by 8". There is another British Oak model which also includes the loading screens as well as the canal staithe. It was at the 2016 Supermeet in Tutbury. The builder is Richard Caunt, I think. It rather upstages my model! Thanks for the photos, I've not seen some of those and the Youtube video is especially interesting. Mark

I reckon for your needs Steve, it's better to have the coaches as free running as possible. Weight is secondary to that. The main consideration is to get all the stock in the train to a consistent weight per item.

Thanks. I thought it would make an unusual model and so it has proved. I don't know about a standard design of sector plate, it's something I came up with to complete the other end of the run-round loop. Its not removable so it's not a cassette as such. It pivots between the two roads and is kept in place at each end of travel by magnets, holding the sector plate against end stops. Mark

For the fourth edition of The Beginners Guide to 2mm Finescale Modelling, published in 2006, I built a small layout "British Oak" as a worked example of the techniques described in the book. Here's the description of the layout from the book: British Oak is located in West Yorkshire, alongside the Calder & Hebble Navigation canal at the Eastern end of the Denby Grange colliery line. Coal was transported from the pits to the canal, from where it was loaded into barges for onward transportation to Thornhill Power Station. It was a surprisingly long lived enterprise, lasting in service until the mid 1980s. The scene is a highly compressed version of the scene in reality, but it contains the main elements from the overbridge to the canal drop. It makes a conveniently self-contained little diorama which can be operated by a single loco and a few wagons, either hoppers or bottom door mineral wagons. All the necessary items are available in N, ready to run or in kit form. The line was home to an ex-LMS “Jinty” sold by BR into industrial service which sported an unusual black, orange, blue & red livery. Other plausible locomotives would be an Austerity (J94) saddle tank and for later years, a variety of small diesel shunters. The inspiration for this layout came from “Model Railway Planning and Design Handbook” published by Santona Publications in 2004 (ISBN 0 9538448 5 4) where it is featured in some detail, including scale drawings of the canal staithe. The design was by Paul Lunn and I've been in correspondence with Paul, who's provided some useful additional information, including an NCB subsidence plan! At the close of the book, the layout reached the stage below: and was fully functional from an operating perspective. One of the problems I had with progressing the layout beyond this was a lack of photos. I had a handful of pictures from various sources but a few more would have been welcome. As is the nature of things with the Internet, pictures have a habit of turning up and most recently these series of images turned up on the Flickr photostream of "ee20213", so whoever you are, sir or madam, you have my thanks! These images are dated 18th July 1973 and are very useful scenic references. Elsewhere in the photostream are views of the canal and surrounding landscape. https://www.flickr.com/photos/58585785@N08/with/36173168172/ The loading staithe was rebuilt in the 1960s, replacing an earlier wooden structure. The new staithe was designed to accept bottom door wagons whereas the earlier one relied on tipping end-door wagons. Anyway, back to the layout in question. A start was made on some scenery. The staithe itself had already in constructed in a basic format as it was a necessary part of the layout. Plastic sheet and Evergreen I-beam sections were employed and the handrails came from a Peco turntable kit. The next piece to be made was the overbridge forming the scenic break. Girders were made from some I found in my bits box, I think they may be Peco but the packaging was long gone so I cannot be sure of this. The line running across the bridge will be modelled as the disused Barnsley branch. The foundations of the trackbed are a length of brass bar. An attempt was made to represent timber baulks going across the bridge using the old style cast chairpins but as will be seen later, this wasn't terribly successful so the track was subsequently relaid. Nowadays, the Easitrac moulded chairs would be the automatic choice but British Oak predates this by some years. The next step was to "block in" the scenic landforms using Dow Corning Floormate 25mm thick extruded polystyrene insulation. This was my first attempt at using this material. I had expected the 25mm material to be easy to work. Unfortunately that proved not to be the case. The major difficulty was persuading the blocks to adhere to each other. Previous experience with expanded polystyrene led me to believe that PVA glue would be OK. It was not, as the impervious structure of extruded polystyrene prevented the PVA from drying. I changed over to a solvent free contruction adhesive and pinned each block together with cocktail sticks. The end result was not as neat as I'd hoped it to be. The following series of photos shows the process. The end result wasn't too bad and is certainly strong. Hindsight shows that it would be better to shape the forms from larger blocks of the material. I also tried to work too cleanly, using knifes and a hot wire cutter. Sawing and shaping with a Surform would have been a better, if messier, technique. The polystyrene was covered with strips of heavy duty paper towel then painted with tinted Sandtex textured paint. This helped unify the whole landscape. I like using Sandtex, it provides a good base for subsequent scenery, it's strong and flexible so less susceptible to damage than filler based substrates. Unfortunately the lack of neatness in the shaping left the whole thing looking rather unsatisfactory and to be perfectly frank, was rather demotivating. Something would have to be done. For some considerable time, British Oak languished inside its storage box while other projects occupied my attention.

Are any other scenic techniques permitted?

I'm intrigued by the tender wheels. They look like an outside bearing split frame type.

I make quite a lot of stuff by filing it out of brass, steel, nickel, aluminium, tufnol etc. but in my defence, I am doing it digitally. Sometimes I cut or burn one of my digits or even accidentally glue it to something , which is quite annoying.

From my earlier years at BA, I well remember the Battery Shop in one of the old BOAC hangers (Technical Block A). It seemed like a particularly unhealthy place to be, full of wizened-looking technicians with huge rubber gloves. Mind you, they'd sort out any vehicle battery problems you'd have! As for repairing lead/acid batteries, I would be tempted to have a look at some of the electronic battery desulphaters now available. It is possible to desulphate using a chemical called EDTA but I understand that removes some of the active coating from the plates, losing a bit of battery capacity. From https://www.mgownersclub.co.uk/news/uk-restrictions-sales-acid "The new legislation doesn’t stop there as from 1st November 2018 it will become an offence for any unlicensed individual to hold any quantity of battery acid, so those who have small remaining quantities of battery acid from their last dry battery purchase will be committing an offence to keep or use it after 1st November. Clearly the advice has to be to dispose of any existing quantities of separately stored battery acid before that date so there is no possibility of you ever being caught out by circumstances that you may never believe could occur. Note that acid that remains in a battery is not restricted, but empty it out for any reason and as soon as it becomes separated from the battery is immediately restricted and an offence for any unlicensed individual to hold." It's unfortunate that use of acids for nefarious purposes has caused problems for legitimate users. Mark

Remember the difference in terminology, you need to search for "railroad tie" not sleeper. According to here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_tie it's about 19 inches for wooden ties. That would give you the typical close spacing. US standard rail length used to be 33ft so as to fit on a 40ft flatcar. That may have changed now but it's right for the 1950-55 period I'm modelling. However this lovely little layout https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/25371 does spread the ties out on the sidings and when I contacted the builder Mike Holly, he said it was common practice on lightly used track. The photos do give you an idea of what Atlas track looks like when painted and ballasted. The 2mm Association does indeed supply PCB sleepers/ties and code 40 flat bottom. If I were going this route, I'd use all PCB for turnouts and then PCB every 3 or 4 sleepers. Otherwise you'll get through a lot of PCB sleepers! The track will still be amply strong enough. You'll need to source 9mm gauges as the Association ones are for 9.42mm. Joseph is right, Micro Engineering supply very good looking code 55 and also code 40 flexitrack. They don't have much choice of turnouts though. A point to watch is that some deep older flanges will bump on the rail fixings on Atlas code 55. Counter-intuitively, this won't happen on Code 40 rail that's been soldered to PCB if the inside of the rail is clear of all solder. The neat way to make US style PCB track is using solder paint or small solder balls. Another link to "Downtown Spur" https://www.nscaleworks.com/micro-layout/

Sadly, Peco N is as wrong for US railroads as it is for UK railways. Finetrax would also be wrong for US track as it's firmly based on traditional UK chaired bullhead track. If you want a good looking track system for a US layout that replicates the characteristic style of sleepering, Atlas code 55 is well worth considering. I've used it on my US N scale layout.

Do they have a webzeit?

The light wasn't quite so good today but I managed to get a few OK shots. Decided to use my Sony RX100 compact rather than lug the DSLR about. It would be a real shame if this really were the last time for steam on LT, it's certainly popular, judging by the numbers who turned out to see it.

On BBC iplayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0005xjp/the-one-show-13062019 05:17 minutes in.

I believe John's used 12" radius on Wadebridge Quay. David Mallott definitely used 12" as a minimum on Chapel Wharf. It's not just the how the stock will traverse the curves, it's also how reliable are the couplings on the tight radii. DGs are happy enough on 12" radius. On one of my narrow gauge projects, I have some Rokhan 95mm radius curves and found that the loop of the modified DGs I use had to be widened to allow for the additional sideways swing. Mark

OK, that's what I thought.

You'll need to scroll through to about 30 minutes in. I don't know how easily available the BBC sounds player is to non-UK users. The TV version is very restricted.

I thought it wasn't too bad considering the piece was put together very quickly on the fly. Tim asked me if I could take my 2mm narrow gauge "Pizza" because it's a self-contained layout that's easily portable but I was otherwise engaged. What we were hearing described was the Copenhagen Fields test track. I've captured it as an MP3 file but probably shouldn't post it here for copyright reasons - Andy?

That could be difficult for the larger layouts and scales. I've operated a couple of layouts where it can take an hour or more to get the trains properly set up. There's going to be much to learn from this dreadful incident, not least of which is ensuring we have accurate values listed for our stock should the worst happen. We take it for granted that accidental damage and theft is covered on exhibition insurance. In this case it's something which I can't recall happening before - large scale deliberate damage. It takes something like this to vividly remind us how much trust we put into our fellow exhibitors and hosting clubs. I don't mean to imply that Market Deeping MRC were neglectful, far from it. I expect they are mortified but how could anyone predict this? Mark

Those of us who've been involved in any exhibitions well know the feeling of being tired but happy on the journey home. Even if it's been one of those days when the layout could have operated better, we'd have the anticipation of making improvements, adding details and so on, looking forward to the next outing. So sad to be returning home with virtually nothing constructive.

My heart goes out to those who've had their layouts and stands trashed. Possibly the biggest loss is the time taken to build the models, you can never get that back. Every one of us must now thinking "how would I feel if this were me".

Looking forward to a branch opening in Tenterden. Kernow Stephens.

Hi Pete , hope you don't mind, here's a few scribbled suggestions. Hopefully self-explanatory. I like the idea of the project very much. With the careful positioning you can lose the baseboard join in solid scenery and avoid a join "in the water". It's the water's edge where the interesting bit is any way. Big expanses of water get dusty and can show up inconvenient reflections of the lights.

I'm not that familiar with the area but in 1965 & 1966 we had familiy holidays in Bournemouth and the inevitable rainy days were brightened by visits to what I now realise was the ERG model railway.

I can't help thinking that if the ERG had concentrated on cardboard rolling stock and buildings, we'd be in much less of a pickle right now.