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Modelling Mike

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  1. Modelling Mike
    No matter what I seem to do, or what my best intentions are, life just seems to constantly get in the way of modelling.
     
    For each minute of actual modelling I manage to get done, I must spend 100 minutes thinking about it. As I'm sure many of you will testify, this is a dangerous trait for us modellers. Thinking about modelling should probably be banned, or at least limited, because it always seems to lead you away on tangents.
     
    These excesses in brain function coupled with the inevitable prerequisites that our modelling ventures must somehow fit within (or around) what is commonly known as "the rest of our lives" seem to mean that I spend much more time dreaming about future possibilities than actually getting any modelling done. And just when I think that I'm finally getting somewhere, that I've hit the perfect equilibrium, something comes along to completely knock that for six.
     
    My main layout, Rempton Southgate, is a case in point. Over the years it has gone from a trainset-like roundy-roundy to a larger, slightly more grown up version of the roundy-roundy, to a much smaller (but even more grown up) terminus to fiddle yard arrangement. Having gone through the period of dissatisfaction at having to dismantle two thirds of the layout I'd lovingly been nurturing since childhood, I actually came round to the idea of developing a much smaller layout - one that I might actually one day get close to finishing. Besides, the old layout had resided in the loft - a particularly inaccessible one at that. Now, Rempton Southgate has pride of place in a bedroom in my flat - very accessible, very manageable, but still very big! I've managed to make some sort of progress with it over the last 6 months or so, but still it has been painfully slow.
     
    And now things have ground almost to a standstill. Work has been pretty crazy of late, but that particular project now being over, I'll find myself with a lot more time available for modelling, but followers of Rempton's thread will not be seeing much in the way of progress, at least not on the layout itself. For times are a-changin' and Rempton's future is once again unclear.
     
    Rempton was downsized last year thanks to a house move. Having moved from a house with a loft to a flat with none, I was left with no choice but to consider a smaller layout. And now, I'm facing another move - a positive one, but still one that involves significant challenges. Having lived with friends in a house-share for the last 10 years, I'm now about to embark on my greatest adventure yet - I'm moving in with my partner.
     
    Although our love of the railways is mutual, our love of the model kind isn't. Despite my best efforts and much pleading, it looks like I'll no longer be able to keep Rempton on display semi-permanently as it is now. More compromises are needed. Where we'll end up still isn't certain either. And so, with the future so up in the air, is it any wonder that I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on any modelling at all at the moment?
     
    But that's where the wonders of daydream-modelling come in. For now, after much head scratching and mulling over, I have managed to concoct some sort of a plan. Whether those plans will work or not remains to be seen, but what is becoming clear is that Rempton will almost certainly have to be rebuilt. Despite its downsizing last year, it is still far too bulky - built as it was originally for permanent loft habitation.
     
    There is a pang of sadness when I think that after all these years, I'll finally be saying goodbye to the layout that I've so desperately been trying to keep going since my teenage years. There is a lot of history in those boards, and for someone as sentimental as me, it will be difficult to let them go. But then, Rempton is not just about the wood it's built on - it's a vision I've had and developed for a long time. And after the initial shock of realisation that things can't continue as they were much longer, I've come to realise that this is a positive move.
     
    Rempton has always been about compromises. It's always been slightly too small / too heavy / too crowded / too toy-like.Starting again from scratch will allow me to learn from the mistakes I've made and build on my skills.
     
    Of course, it does mean that once again, I'll be back to the baseboard-building stage - the aspect of modelling I like the least! But it will be a chance for me to iron out all those things about the layout I've come to dislike. The heavy boards, the terrible electrics (although it will remain to be seen if I can improve on that!), the straight track and lack of space. If I'm clever, I'll be able to incorporate some pretty nifty ideas - some that I'm quite excited about. And, if I'm really clever, and if circumstances permit, Rempton may well end up growing again. But there I go again...dreams, dreams, dreams.
     
    All that will have to wait, of course. I can't make major plans without even knowing where I'm going to end up. In the mean time, I'll keep myself busy with other aspects of the hobby. I'm still trying to build the new station buildings, which will feature on the new layout. I'm keen to experiment more with weathering and detailing my rolling stock, which is a major project in itself. And of course, there's the planning and day dreaming to be done - and there will be a lot of that to do.
     
    So, once again, life dictates the direction my modelling takes. One large life decision has impacted, again, on the life of the layout.
     
    It's going to be an interesting year, and I'll be keeping Rempton's thread up to date with progress as it happens. Just don't expect any wood to be cut just yet. After all these years, I'm only now starting to realise that in this hobby, you can't expect things to happen too quickly.
     
    (edited on 11th Oct 2013 to fix formatting errors)
  2. Modelling Mike

    Nutbrook now

    By Modelling Mike,

    As promised, here are some pictures of Nutbrook, the tiny "shelf" diorama I've been building for a friend of mine, as it appears now.
     
    As you can see, extra detail and vegetation has been added. One of the key ideas behind doing this project was to practice with detailing items that I've bought but not been able to use yet on my loft layout.
     
    The scene is set in the spring, so I wanted plenty of greenery and flowering shrubs, etc. The biggest problem I had was making the trees. I used the Woodland Scenics tree starter kit to make the big copse near the bridge. Although once finished I think they look pretty decent, they were not the easiest things to make! The foam just would not stick to the trunks and branches, and instead insisted on dropping off and disintegrating, or worse just sticking to me, the furniture and the cat! I can envisage making quite a few trees on my loft layout in future and I am seriously thinking about using a different method.
     
    Other "greenery" is miniNatur white flowers (which I think have a great resemblance to cow parsley if planted quite "tall") and yellow/white tufts, some of which have been used on the abandoned track, together with some broken bits from the trees! I also used Woodland Scenics foliage, which I wish I had used for the trees instead of the clumping stuff. It's much more detailed and behaves itself!
     
    The track was weathered using black, white and brown pastels. This is my first attempt at such a weathering job, but I'm pretty chuffed with it. I do think I may have possibly overdone it on the black stuff, but you live and learn...
     
    The ticket machine was scratch built using similar methods to the passenger info screen, as described in the previous entry. It's not perfect, but I think it's pretty effective. The awning over it is simply OHP film which has had the girders printed on to it using a laser printer.
     

     

     

     

     

     

     
    I couldn't resist posting that last shot even though it shows of the quality of the Bachmann 171 more than my own work!
     
    Once again, any comments, criticism or suggestions are most welcome.
     
    Mike
  3. Modelling Mike
    Hello everyone,
     
    After a year and a bit of lurking on the old forum and the odd comment on other RMwebbers' work, I thought it was about time I should take the plunge and present some of my own modelling.
     
    My main layout is loft-bound and has been an ongoing project for the last 2 years with very slow progress. As the summer months invariably mean the loft becomes far too hot for modelling activities, I was looking for another way to satisfy my urge to glue bits of cardboard together and pretend I'm any good at woodwork. The opportunity arose earlier this year when a close friend of mine passed his exams to become a driver for Southern. I decided to create a small diorama he could put on his shelf representing a very small part of the Southern network. As the only r-t-r model available in the new Southern railway livery is the Modelzone/Bachy 171, that was duly bought and so I began putting together a small slice of miniature life.
     
    The model is very much a freelance job, the idea being that it should look like it could be somewhere on the Uckfield branch. Apart from being a present for a friend, the other motive was to practice using some of the many landscaping and detailing products I had amassed, but because of the excruciatingly slow progress on my loft layout, hadn't been able to use yet. This way I could practice and see how things go before committing to the layout proper.
     
    So, first up, a potted history of how "Nutbrook" came to be...with photos to illustrate its progress. Please forgive some of the bad photography - the photos are taken on a mobile phone, albeit a fairly good 5 megapixel one, but I'm no Chris Nevard!
     
     
    I started with a piece of hardboard - I found it in the loft - god knows where it was from, or what its intended purpose was, but for me, it was a perfect starting point. I just plonked a piece of flexitrack (Peco code 100, nothing special) on top and liked where it landed.
     

     
    The track was glued down with neat PVA painted on the board with a brush. Once the track was down I sprinkled a first layer of medium woodland scenics buff ballast over the glue and allowed it to set. I have to say that I'm a "does it look right? Yes? Then I don't really care if it's out of scale" modeller. The medium grains look about the right size for ballast. The fine grains are probably more accurate, but I like to be able to see the individual stones and I think they look good. The track (rails and sleepers) was also painted with Railmatch Sleeper Grime.
     

     
    Next, I formed the platforms. For this I used the excellent ScaleScenes platform kit. I followed the instructions, running a coach along the track with a pencil held in the centre. The brick edging was then glued in place, a couple of millimetres behind the line, then card formers were glued in place behind the edging. The platform top was cut from a piece of 3-ply card. I got this from where I work - it's cue card, what was used to show TV presenters their lines before tele-prompters were invented - otherwise known as "Idiot board" in the business. Because it's 3 ply, it is quite solid and doesn't warp very easily. It's also approx 2mm thick - ideal for the ScaleScenes structures. The card was cut to the same length as the diorama. This allowed me to form not only the platform ramp, but also the approach road which slopes down at the back. This leads on to a road and a level crossing which will act as the scenic break at the end nearest the camera. A road over bridge will be the break at the far end.
     

     
    Speaking of which...here's the view a couple of weeks later, after a fair number of evenings' work. After laying the main track and the platforms, I remembered the last time I took a trip down the Uckfield branch and seeing the large amounts of sleepers still in place where the line had been singled. I decided this was a feature I wanted to try and emulate. I had plenty of offcuts of flexitrack which could be utilised. Here, you can see where I've ballasted both tracks. Also seen is the new bridge which will form the scenic break, together with a plain block of polystyrene which will eventually become part of a disused platform.
     

     
    A look at the reverse side of the bridge shows its construction. It's actually a kit-bashed ScaleScenes tunnel mouth. I really do like using these kits - as a relative newcomer to the hobby I find them easy to use and they yield a pretty decent result. (I'm in no way affiliated to them, just a happy customer, by the way). Their flexibility is the thing I like most. At first, I was going to make a tunnel mouth, but then thought it was a little passe...and possibly a bit too heavy handed in such a small scene. So the idea struck me to create a bridge from the kit instead. All it took was to change the shape of the "mouth", widening it to the buttresses, and add a road deck to the top. It's only half a bridge, being the end of the scene, but there's nothing to stop anyone from making it into a fully fledged brick built bridge by doubling up on the other side.
     

     
    My friend and I are both keen cyclists, as well as being keen railway enthusiasts, so I couldn't help but model a representation of us on one of our rides through the countryside! (I'm the one in the grey, by the way). The bikes started life as Hornby Skaledale ones. They're not ideal, as they represent rather old fashioned "sit-up-and-beg"s, rather than our nice modern tourers, but they were all I could find at short notice. They're not cheap, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I set about chopping off the baskets from the front handle bars and painting them roughly the correct shade of blue. The figures are of unknown origin, found in a box of bits from my previous foray into modelling as a teenager. I repainted them, carefully slicing off the painted layer on the lower legs to reveal the "flesh" and turn the trousers into shorts. It must be a cold day because we've both got our long sleeve cycling tops on!
     

     
    Construction tended to go in fits and starts, and 1 month after the previous photos were taken, not a lot had happened. I had completed a few details though, which can be seen in this picture. The fencing and signs have been a source of much grievance - I just can't seem to be able to get my head around the colour of the Southern station livery. So far the fences have had four coats of paint! This colour is probably the closest I got, but unfortunately, it's not the colour the fences are today!?
     

     
    The diorama was presented to my friend on the weekend after he found out he had qualified as a train driver. It wasn't ready, but I thought I'd present it to him anyway. He was thrilled to bits, I'm glad to say, and thankfully he thought it would go on the shelf I had in mind for it too. Unfortunately, when he headed home and took some measurements (I hadn't been able to do it surreptitiously!) he found that it was too long! So, some minor surgery was in order. I was able to shorten the platform by about 7cm, but I still needed to find another 6cm, so unfortunately the level crossing had to go at the other end. All that remains is the path next to the road and the crossing keeper's hut.
     

     
    The station signs have been reproduced from photos of the signs at my local station. Although I now have Adobe Photoshop Elements, at the time I relied on GIMP - the free photo editing tool (which I can recommend actually. It's surprisingly intuitive). I stretched the photo out so that the sign was square on, then cropped the image. I scaled the images down in Word then printed them out on my inkjet printer. After mounting them on 1mm card and fixing them to suitably coloured 1mm plastic strip, I'm actually quite chuffed with how they've come out.
     

     
    One of the signs - the running in board, on which Southern put their logo - in place on the diorama. Close up photography is cruel - it looked perfectly straight when I glued it in place! A spot of super glue on the back to hold the sign up against the fence properly solved the problem.
     

     
    Many of you will recognise the station building and the shelter as the ScaleScenes kit from an early edition of Hornby Magazine. It was originally intended for my loft layout, but I thought it was the perfect size for this one. I'm going to have to find something else for the loft now! Other details I've added are posters and a Passenger Information screen (or is that Customer Information screen? I can never remember whether I'm a customer or a passenger when I take the train now!) The posters were taken from Southern's website and scaled down in Word again. The information unit was scratch built. I used a photo of the real thing - again at my local station - and manipulated it in a similar way to the signs, but this time adding tabs the same colour as the unit to the top, sides and bottom, to create a template. A card former was cut to the correct size of the screen then 2 of the templates were wrapped and glued around. The tabs formed the sides, top and bottom of the unit. Unfortunately,my printer isn't good enough for the screens to be legible, but they do say that the first train is for Uckfield and the second is for London Bridge (and it's delayed, of course!). I also made a London Connections map, which I've placed in the waiting shelter.
     

     
    At this point, work stopped on the diorama, as work and the summer weather got in the way. It wasn't until recently that I got going again and it's now nearly finished. I'll upload some pics of how it looks now very soon, but in the mean time, I'd love to know what you all think. Any comments and constructive criticism gratefully received.
     
    Mike
  4. Modelling Mike
    It has been some time since i last posted anything about my own endeavours on RMWeb, although I have still been lurking in the background occasionally (work permitting!) and getting very inspired by what I'm seeing.
     
    I was shocked and amazed at the reaction I got to my Nutbrook postings. I was rather pleased with the results of that project (by the way, it's still not completely finished, there are a few details here and there I'm still planning on finishing! - an update to follow shortly) and it's always nice to hear that you're on the right track from other modellers. I had been planning on introducing you all to my main modelling project for a while, but somehow never got round to it. So finally, here it is - the Clensmere Valley Railway.
     
    The best way to describe this loft layout (apart from "barking") would be a "super train set", I suppose, seeing as a train set was the foundation for it many moons ago. A very long time ago now - over 15 years at a guess - I got a Hornby "Blue Streak" train set for Christmas. Inside the box was the ubiquitous oval of track and a very impressive looking Gresley A4 "Sir Nigel Gresley" together with 3 teak coaches. It quickly became obvious that only so much fun could be had from setting up the track on the kitchen table and eventually I bullied my dad into laying some floorboards in the loft so that I could play trains properly - despite the fact that there was only about 4ft of head space up there, but I was only a littlun, so that didn't matter to me.
     
    Before I left to go to University, I had developed the oval into pretty much what exists today - a compact layout featuring 3 stations - Rempton, Erodin Castle (geddit?) and Clensmouth - representing a small branch line somewhere in the UK. As my rolling stock was steam based, and my only experience of steam was in preservation, so it was decided the layout would represent a preserved line somewhere. Family holidays to the Isle of Purbeck meant I spent a lot of time on the Swanage Railway, and there are no prizes for guessing where Clensmouth station is based on (or the inspiration for the intermediate station's name).
     
    Eventually Uni beckoned, then I moved to London and the layout - and my interest in the hobby - was all but forgotten, until as chance would have it, 3 years ago my parents suddenly moved abroad. As the house would be rented out, something had to be done with the abandoned layout in the roof space and I headed home with every intention of packing the whole lot up ready for storage or ebay. Or so I thought! For as soon as I climbed back up into that tiny loft and saw what I'd started back when I was only a teenager, I realised that what I had been building was actually something quite exciting and plans were put in place to move it to London.
     
    Today, the layout is precariously installed, albeit still on the floor, of my somewhat larger...well, taller - I can now stand up in the place without getting neck-ache!...loft. Apart from extending the boards slightly to allow for the use of larger radius curves (they were all 1st radius before, which I quickly found out on my return to the hobby would no longer be suitable for the majority of new purchases) and adding a few more sidings here and there, it is the same beast I was building 15 years ago - except it's a bit more grown up...well, a little bit!
     
    Thanks to my all demanding job and because the loft is not the nicest of places to be in the depths of winter and the height of summer, work on the layout tends to be slow. In fact, since its move, most of the work that's been done so far has been electrical, with very little cosmetic work being done at all. Last year's efforts concentrated on creating the new motive power depot at Rempton, which proved to be more complicated than I thought! But now that the track work is finally finished (I can't possibly fit any more in without things getting plain silly) I can now make a start on scenics and attempt to make it look more like a model railway and less like a train set.
     
    Not that I'm pretending it's anything other than what it is. The track work is all Peco code 100 with the majority of curves utilising 2nd radius setrack. Although I think it's now well hidden, the track plan still incorporates an oval - most models require a lot of running in, so I felt this was a necessity...and I still like to see the trains go round and round occasionally. I was also keen to utilise all the buildings and structures I'd built as a kid - mostly from the SuperQuick range, which I think with a little care and attention to the details can make very pleasing structures.
     
    One thing that has changed though is the stock used. Being from the South West, the Southern and the GWR are very much the companies that interest me and Sir Nige, my original pride and joy, was of course from the wrong part of the country. I've managed to overhaul the loco though, and he will be making the occasional appearance (although I'll have to explain why he's sprouted new valances and sporting his LNER Garter Blue livery again). In his place is a collection of fine looking Southern locos, all of them new Hornby and Bachmann numbers, including a BR black M7 (Swanage's influence again), an N15, a King Arthur and what heritage railway worth its salt would be without a Standard 4 tank, eh?
     
    The real push to finally post something about the layout, unfortunately, has been precipitated by its precarious future. Alas, my landlord has decided to sell up and I am facing a move. I have been very fortunate to be able to utilise the loft here but there is no telling what my next dwelling will offer. I have 2 housemates and understandably, their first consideration is not a space for the layout, although I'm pushing hard to find it a decent home. Thankfully, I built the layout with the possibility of moving in mind. It's not portable as such, but a move wouldn't mean massive amounts of damage, as it can be broken up into sections.
     
    I definitely plan on continuing this project - I've invested far too much time, effort and money to abandon it now - but whether it is in its entirety as a "super train set" or whether I simply build a section of it as a stand-alone "out-and-back", with the rest put in storage, remains to be seen.
     
    Whatever happens, the Clensmere Valley Railway has always been meant as a long term project and there are great plans afoot for the future, no matter how far ahead that may be! And I'm planning on keeping you up to date with progress on here - if only to keep myself motivated to move things forward whenever I can.
     
    So, introductions over with, here are some photos of the layout's journey so far...a potted history in pictures if you like...
     

     
    An overall view of the layout as it was found in the parents' loft 3 years ago. Work had progressed quite some way, but there was still a lot to do.
     

     
    Clensmouth station had received the most amount of attention with some crude detailing of the platforms evident.
     

     
    A few hours work later and the rolling stock was packed and the boards were stacked ready to move house.
     

     
    When the layout reached London, it quickly became obvious that changes were going to have to be made, including changing all the curves to at least 2nd radius and the addition of this new baseboard.
     

     
    I'd been a busy chap back in the day. All of these buildings had been carefully stored by my parents and a little tlc saw them coming back to life. My plan is to use them on the layout after detailing them properly.
     

     
    The move to London saw every piece of track torn up and re-laid, as well as the station platforms being re-covered using Scalescenes papers or rebuilt altogether.
     

     
    With all track now laid, all wiring done and no plans to add any more, the next job has been to paint and ballast the track around Rempton - a long overdue job, and one I was not particularly looking forward to.But at least it's a start! This shot shows the ballast laid, but not glued. I'll be weathering it in with acrylics and pastels, much as I did with Nutbrook's track.
  5. Modelling Mike
    Despite the fact that my layout, Rempton & Clensmouth has been designed to accommodate many of my eclectic tastes, and also the fact that I have tried to keep my growing fleet of locos and rolling stock within a certain sphere of operations (albeit with a large pinch of modellers' license), I have found myself recently wanting to purchase and indeed purchasing some, let's call them, "out of context" bits and pieces.
     
    Rempton & Clensmouth - as introduced in my last blog entry - has been designed to accommodate my two main interests, namely Southern region with a modern image and preserved feel. When complete (if it ever is), a few changes of buildings and platform furniture will mean that I can swap from running modern DMUs to preserved steam and vice versa, therefore satisfying whatever mood I'm in at the time. It will also provide me with an interesting design/engineering challenge!
     
    But despite all this, what's the one model that has been trying desperately to burn a large hole in my finances since it was first announced last year? None other than the venerable HST in First Great Western's latest livery.
     

     
     
    Ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted an HST set - and not just the Hornby train set version - I wanted the whole thing - all 8 coaches. I grew up travelling on them from our home near Chippenham on trips to London, to uni in Reading and now travelling back to see the parents. I've always felt a thrill seeing and hearing them, either idling under the train shed at Paddington or roaring into Chippenham's island platform. I even remember one holiday to Dawlish we took when I was a youngster, watching them pass at speed from the bridge, choking on the belching fumes as they roared beneath us. Even now, my favourite journey (and thankfully one I take quite often) is from Paddington to Dartmouth via Paignton. If we're lucky we get the HST service all the way to Paignton then hop on the Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway for the rest of the journey. It somehow brings out the kid in me. I'm glad that these fantastic machines are still going strong and in their current guise, they're still just as impressive and enigmatic as they were when I was a kid.
     
    I've stopped myself from buying the complete rake - all I have for now is 1 each of the 4 different coach types and the power cars, which is still a pretty hefty outlay. Even so, as the above image suggests, the train doesn't even fit on any tables in the house, let alone on the layout. Apart from running in and testing purposes, it won't be running on Rempton & Clensmouth - even in its reduced size, it's still far too big for the branchline setting. In fact, it almost certainly won't have a proper home for at least a decade. But that hasn't stopped me somehow. For some reason, I just had to have it.
     
    And what, I ask myself, is wrong with that, eh? I'm very happy I bought it, and I'm looking forward to eventually completing the rake (I'm wondering whether to go ahead and buy the existing ones now and re-number the coaches or wait to see if Hornby decide to release new numbers in the not too distant future). The plan is to one day have a layout large enough to do the HST justice. Wouldn't it be great to one day see it hurtling through stunning scenery in a larger than life loft layout? Yes it would, and that's my long term aim. For now, it will be run in and more than likely boxed up again and stored. Maybe I'll spend a few evenings weathering it and perhaps renumbering some coaches.
     
    But that dream's there, and whether it'll eventually happen or not, I'm glad I have it.
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