Mikkel

Hello Prodigy. A couple of suggestions: As a reader, I would prefer a more detailed description of your plans for the layout, and a track plan or similar. These are easier for the rest of us to relate to and comment on than shopping-list or "brainstorm" types of entries. Also some good quality photos of your own would be good, to illustrate progress on the layout - once you get to a stage where you feel there is something to show / discuss. Personally I don't think blog entries have to be works of art, but it might be good to wait until there is some actual work of your own to show. In this way, I find, blogs can also be used as a way of keeping your modelling going. Eg you can set yourself a point that you want to get to before you make the next blog entry (eg a finished kit, or a piece of research, or experiments with different approaches/materials etc). I hope you don't take this the wrong way, it's meant only as constructive criticism :-)

Hello John. Like Will, I am very sorry to hear about your loss. It sounds as if you and your father have found a common project, and what a great project. Those are superb boats that your father has built, he is clearly a master modeller. Your own usual style shows very clearly in the stock, I think. Please keep it coming!

Great to see Basilica Fields being introduced like this on here. It's a project that deserves all the attention in the world. Your emphasis on bringing to light more (correct) data on the suburban services is a worthwhile effort in itself, I think. I like your term "feather-edged" timeframes :-) But one thing I struggle with myself is how to apply it in practice. I suppose there are two approaches: One is to simply accept that one or two items of stock are slightly out of period on the layout. Another is to maintain a principle that all stock visible on the layout at any one time is of the same period - even if that period is a little outside the normal timeframe. The latter approach is the most rigorous I suppose, but the first one can be veeery tempting :-)

Bob, that is a fantastic photo! I hope you'll post it in the "Realistic images" album. Many thanks for sharing, there is much inspiration in there.

Great stuff Will. Especially - I think - the latter shots where you are down to more eye-level height. I think the last view is very good. I like that you can't see much of the train at any one time. The sense of depth in that shot is also superb. Much of it comes from the "staggered" rock surfaces, of course, but IMO the shadows and the curving road also really contribute to this. Really inspirational!

Very interesting to hear these experiences. Rovex, I assume this building uses the Wills sheets? Very impressive! http://www.rmweb.co....himneys-galore/ Glad to hear I hadn't misunderstood the Slaters concept. I have some of those Greenscenes sheets somewhere. Will try out that and the individual shingles on the next building (a stable block I think). On the depot, I'll try paring down the edges of the Wills sheets with a file and see how that works out - but thanks for the tip on the lathe tool and the individual shingles, Jan. I suppose an additional benefit is that you can colour them individually beforehand. Pete: Thanks, but we can't allow you to linger here - you have 5 layouts to finish

Lots of good advice, many thanks gents! I haven’t tried the paper based options from York Modelmaking, but it seems a real bonus that they allow for different styles and even provide ridge tiles [download catalogue]. The grey Scalescenes tiles look very slate-like (problem is I don’t have access to a good colour printer at the moment). Jan, I can definetely see the point about individual paper tiles. I guess they also solve the problem of lifting as individual tiles wouldn’t do that? On balance I’ll see how the Wills sheets turn out. One advantage of the current project is that the skylights will take up much of the roof surface. This means there will not be a large uniform expanse, and I hope this can help hide/divert attention from the joined up Wills sheets. Splicing the sheets and bevelling the edges is a challenge though – there’s something about the Wills sheets that does not take well to filing and cutting. But I suppose their strength is also their advantage in other respects.

I've been looking at options for modelling the slate roof on the goods depot at Farthing. For what it's worth, here's a quick overview of the options considered. Above is one way of doing it: Lengths of thin card strips scribed vertically, and overlaid. I think this can give good results - in 4mm at least. But thin card also has its drawbacks! I recently noticed that the roof on the parcels office at Farthing has buckled. Either the glue has simply let go, or it was caused by a repaint I did a while back. Using the same method but with plasticard might have been better, as convincingly demonstrated in this blog entry by 45584 (albeit in Gauge 1!). An alternative to scribing things yourself are these "ready-scribed" slate sheets from Slaters (ref no. 0427). The idea (I think!) is that you cut out each length and overlay them. I may have failed to grasp the concept here, but my experiments with the Slater's sheets suggest a significant overscale thickness of the slates (according to the Slaters catalogue, the plasticard thickness is 0.015'). Or have I misunderstood something? Until someone tells me differently, I've decided not to continue down this road. A third main option is of course the ready-to-fit embossed sheets, available in various guises. There seems to be two main types here: Those that are printed "flat", and those where the slates actually appear to "overlap". The flat-printed ones can sometimes work well: This roof on a (rather careworn) Coopercraft platelayer's hut gives a reasonable representation, I think. However, the Wills slate sheets seem to me the best of the ready-embossed solutions I've seen yet. The shingles actually give the impression of overlapping.... ...and they have an ever so slight irregularity that can be further accentuated during painting and weathering, as on the right. But of course, nothing is perfect. One well-known issue with the Wills sheets is their limited size, which means several have to be joined for larger rooves... ....and another issue is their thickness. I don't think the individual shingles look overly thick, but at the edges it becomes more of a problem, as seen on this canopy on the goods depot. Nevertheless, so far I think I'll go ahead with the Wills sheets as the preferred choice. Update Feb. 2019: Since this post was written I have experimented with: Pre-cut slate sheets from York Modelmaking (more on that here) Slate strips cut from vinyl (more on that here).

Looks great without a train on it. Which just goes to show prove your skills, Will !

Thanks Steve. My Ratio 4-wheelers are in fact a bit of a quick-and-dirty job. Eg I never got around to adding the gas piping. Problem is, I've stopped noticing! There is better work by Steve Farrow here: http://www.gwr.org.uk/prot36.html

Thanks Ian. Looking at these trains here and on the layout it strikes me that it's all a trifle too neat, though. I know Edwardian trains were very clean compared to later times, but I still think they ought to be more weathered than they are (other than what little I have done on the underframes etc). I've been saying this for ages - just can't pluck up the courage to do it! Do others have that same dilemma?

Thanks Andy and Don. Sadly I don't know what engines pulled those sets. I was going to ask if anyone did....

Thanks everyone :-) The loco in the last shot is No. 34, one of an unusual Dean duo built for the Cornish branches. It can be seen in action on Farthing here. The loco was made by Dave Perkins who had a similar interest in the Edwardian period. I've always thought the design looks a bit NER'ish, somehow, but can be seen as minor relations to Dean's larger ill-fated 0-4-4Ts. The coaches were brush-painted with the excellent Vallejo acrylics. The panels were done by flooding them with paint, a surprisingly effective method, I find, that does not require masking off. I've decided to repaint the rooves though, they're just too white! I had forgotten about the reference in Russell, thanks Nick. Those worn down miner's trains make a tempting project - sometimes all that pregrouping splendor becomes almost too much of a good thing!

Brake Third, Third, Composite, Brake. Above: Small layouts require short trains. Recently I've been looking at prototype examples of short GWR formations in pre-grouping days, and options for employing them on Farthing. Here are some of the more obvious/common ones to start off with. Above are the classic Ratio 4-wheelers, with an RTR-bashed PBV at the end. The Ratio kits constitute a T47 Bke Third, an S9 All Third, and a U4 Composite respectively. I am not sure why these particular coaches were chosen for the kits, but if joined to a V5 PBV as seen at the back of this train, they form one of the sets built for the Ruabon & Dolgellau line in 1900 (although it is unclear to me whether these sets ever ran individually, or only in multiples?). Add another Composite, and you would have a formation similar to the Cardigan branch train around 1911 - albeit with different diagram numbers. The V5 was built from the ends of two Triang coaches, as described here. Brake Third, Composite, Brake Third. Above: The Brake Third / Compo / Brake Third formation was very common on GWR pre-grouping branchlines. There's a prototype example here. In this case the leading Brake Third is a Holden "Metro" coach, of which some were devolved to branch services and mixed with non-Holden 4-wheelers (eg the Faringdon branch set). The "Metro" is a modified Ratio kit using Shirescenes sides - a quick way to add a bit of variety, although it involves a number of compromises (details here). Brake Third, Composite, Third, Brake Third, Siphon. Above: This is about the maximum length of train I can reasonably fit in the bay platform at Farthing while still preserving full operational scope. The Brake Third / Compo / Third / Brake Third arrangement was another fairly widespread 4-wheeler formation. It was apparently known as an "A" set in Edwardian times and a "WW" set in the 1920s. In this case I have added a 6-wheeled low-roof Siphon at the end, built from an old K's plastic kit. Of course, it wasn't all so streamlined! Far from it, in fact, as discussed in this entry. Personally I actually prefer the ungodly mix of different coach styles seen on many GWR trains, not to mention the really short trains that ran on some branches. But more on that later. Sources: See GWR Branchline Modelling vol 2 by Stephen Williams for a discussion and list of formations on selected branches. Note: The GWR would have called a Brake Third a "Van Third". I use the former term here as it seems more intuitive.

Hello Ray, yes I know what you mean about having lots of code 100 lying about! But I do think it can work well, with careful attention to the painting and blending in with the surroundings. And the finescale track offerings can create problems of their own. As others have observed, the sleepers on the Timbertracks panels are very "thin" indeed, and my initial experiments suggest that extra care is needed in a situation like on Farthing where the ground surface has to be more or less level with the sleeper height.

Good stuff as always, Pete. The colour markings for the wiring are particularly neat. I'm itching to recolour one of them while your back is turned :-)

Very nice. I especially like the top photo. The Hornby buildings work well here, I think. Interesting to see how the elements go well together, although nothing has been weathered/painted yet. Sometimes things just fit together, but it takes a good eye like yours to make them do it!

Hi Dave, many thanks for that info. A quick look through Atkins et al does suggest that wagons constructed after this date all have the reversible type. I wonder if the non-reversible shoes were replaced on older wagons within a short period of time, or if they continued carrying them?

Hi Will. Great texture, certainly seems worth the effort. I also really like the darkish colour you've achieved in the last photo. Been scratching my head over the pink tool in the 4th picture - is it a tooth brush of some sort?!

Yard lights and mist sounds really good - I can see that is must be hard to photograph though! The camera I use is an Olympus "mju". Allround, it is definetely nothing special and I would not really recommend it anymore (!) as there are now much better offerings out there. But it happens to have a macro function for close-ups that works well, and it is very small so can be plonked anywhere on the layout. As for sharpness, I tend to simply take multiple shots until one is actually in focus :-) But the depth of field is not good, as you'll notice. Chris Nevard's photography is fantastic, talk about sharpness! Sounds like you're a serial layout builder rather than an operator :-) Wemyss Bay station would be quie something as a model. If you like challenges and problem-solving why not go for it? (easier said than done, I think!). Don't know if anyone has done a layout of it before?

Mr Rossi happily brought home his new widescreen TV. Then it hit him....

Hi Bob, what a great slide show, the scenes are so full of atmosphere. I especially like the look into the goods shed with the open van, and the company vehicle having its wheel changed :-) The colours blend together very nicely, that's often one of the hardest bits, I find. The Replica/Bachmann panniers are my favourite RTR locos, you make them look really good. Often fancied building a whole layout around a couple of these, eg the Brentford branch, which had several of them working the docks there. Many thanks for sharing - brightened up the evening of a dreary day!