37114

One of the things I find most enjoyable about building a new layout is building the buildings, and even though 2 ready to place buildings will be used, both will be modified. Due to my inability to sleep more than 6 hours a night, I had a few hours this morning to work on the stores building. I like how this one is turning out and thanks to the links to the great photos posted earlier in this thread I have some good reference material. I have added door handles and lights this morning.

Re the Exeter train, in later days passengers travelled down on a normal service train so your observation is correct. Rail Express did an article on Motorail trains many years ago including sample formations and called this out.

More work last night, I have made the doors and doorsteps for the stores building while Dave came over to progress the weathering on the 2 coaches I acquired back in January. Every so often I like to visualise how the layout is coming together with some stock on it, so far so good:

Thanks for sharing this links, some great photos there.

I had similar experience, emailed on a Saturday, response on Tuesday, I paid straightaway and goods arrived Thursday. As ever in life I like to make life easy for the person to do what has been asked so put all the of name, code, scale, price, description in my email..

X31 bus goes from Bath bus station to Corsham and passes close by the venue. Alternatively a shuttle bus from Bath Spa if network Rail will let you?

Lima class 31 is a good model shape wise and in 2 hours you can fit the mechanism from one of the self destructing Mazak rot Hornby version. I am building my second one now, and thanks to the cheapness of the Lima loco and broken Hornby chassis you can make a good loco and have change from £70. Add another £30 for Laserglaze and etched grilles and respray and you have a top drawer loco.

Not yet, but I will have that pleasure when the new layout is finished in a years time... I converted to 3 link 15 years ago, as I wanted to model diesels with full sets of snowploughs and pipes and they are the only real options in this case. They are not perfect and for a carriage siding they will prove a challenge more than with my previous layouts. The hand of god is not great but having operated S&W and Kadees I find the shuffling back and forth equally disruptive. Maybe the future is a DCC controlled electro magnetic 3 Link?

Thanks Keith. It is a short wheelbase, 1977 Petrol series 3 I bought it semi on Impulse back in 2002 and have had it ever since, although it is standard there are a number of new parts on it now, including the chassis which is a galvanised replacement. I built a model of it some years ago which will appear on the layout with a suitable horse box. Thanks, I am curious what your question was?

The underframe is a work of art, amazing detail

It is, 2.25 petrol series 3, plan is to be back on the road next year all being well!!!

Following on from my last post, the control panel has been put on the layout and then joined to the previously installed track feeds. With the help of my daughter and the Hornby class 50, the layout has been tested and works as planned. Next time Alan comes over I will set the layout up and let him start to fathom out the operating sequence and panel. With the panel installed thoughts turned to the building to hide it. Post 94 from Tim V came just in time as it includes a clear shot of the stores building next to the water tower. This is ideal for the purpose as it appears to have no windows and is a straight forward rectangle, albeit with some nice details such as the outdoor light and associated wiring. As with most of my scratchbuilt buildings I start with a thick card shell, the card being artist mount card offcuts acquired some years ago, the stash will outlive me. It comes with the advantage of the edges being chamferred to 45 degrees, a bonus for making corners: To this brick work was added to 2 sides, although only 1 will be visible and the corner won't be visible either so the join is a bit more visible than I would normally accept. The roofing felt is fine wet and dry, doors and their furniture etc to follow. Viewed from the fiddle yard end, the building will sit slightly under the footbridge,

No probs, just ordered an OCL box myself for a model I am making of the first type of lorry I drove.

Looking good Shaun, good luck with the first show. I love the magazine bundle idea so will try a couple of those.

I think for 1985 - 1995 you can get away with Evergreen as well, I recall seeing EVERGREEN boxes in the Hornby catalogue in 1993. I started for a container hauliers in 1997 and we had some CGM boxes at that time and I don't recall them being a new company. That said 10 years is a long time in the world of shipping, BELL boxes used to be everywhere and when they went pop, the boxes almost disappeared overnight. Maersk are long established although they changed their branding to Maersk Sealand in the late 90's so avoid the dual branded boxes, they would have been like the one in the picture here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/49261102@N07/16361175663/in/album-72157651245995270/

More progress this weekend, even if for the time expended the progress is actually not that visible; wiring the layout control panel. One of the things I liked about Peafore Yard was having the control panel as part of the scenic board as it avoided a separate panel to carry around or lots of wiring between the fiddle yard and the layout. This has proved more complicated to achieve with Parsons Vale due to the track plan meaning that there was nowhere obvious to put the control panel at the fiddle yard end. Concealing it in a building sounded an inspired idea in principle but doing so restricted the size of panel. In turn wiring the layout for cab control has exacerbated the problem as the switches are bigger with more wiring. A monster solderathon produced this: The panel will shortly be connected to the layout and when some more wire is sourced will mean I can properly test the layout. The wiring won't be finished them as I have to wire up the points and the point motors before I can progress on to more exciting things. Also today I decided to experiment with the best way to do the Pebble dashing for the row of houses at the back of the layout. It is pretty rare I try a technique out on a bit of scrap first but as I have loads of spare house offcuts I had nothing to lose. The method attempted today was to cover the side with a thin layer of PVA then sprinkle on some Hamster sand which looked sufficiently fine. Unfortunately things didn't turns out as planned: I think I used too thin a layer of PVA and I also think the Hamster sand is to big (and too light in colour). Plan B is to see what is available in the world of textured paint, thankfully I have plenty of offcuts to practise on....

Correct, they were built around demobbed stripped down 101's, the original bulkheads etc are all there underneath. There were circa 20 built, only 3 or so were fitted out internally for the film. By all accounts they are a nightmare to drive due to the small screen/low internal headroom.

Sorry Rob, I got my eyes crossed and thought it was a comment from Neil (Downendian)! Long day and not too much sleep!

Hi Rob It is ok, you can use the existing code 75 rail insulated rail joiners but on most sidings I have left them off and just rely on the gap in the rail. In terms of soldering the dropers I have had to do it to the side of the rail. The fishplate style little rail joiners are a nightmare to fit.... As I have wired it for cab control most parts of the track are independently fed

Thanks Chris, much appreciated, hopefully more progress will be made this weekend.

Brilliant, Thanks Tim, those really help with some of the detail. The building in the first picture to the left of the water tower will be on the to-do list to hide the control panel on the layout (which is proving to be a bit of a headache). I also like the look of the upper half of the signal box which would make a nice challenge.

The skip wagon model is on hand already (since weathered), there were 2 so another is planned:

I think you are right Kevin, I think it might even be ADS 70185, looking at this photo the rust marks on the end are the same: http://www.departmentals.com/photo/70185 Should be an interesting kit bash and I have some spare MK1 bits in the box to get the profile right as well.

Thanks Tim, that is a great picture. The wagon full of gas bottles is interesting, I presume due to lack of road access they arrived on the wagon like that. Can anybody ID the carriage between the skip wagon and the Lowfit, is it some sort of steam heat generator van please?

Nice work, I will follow with interest as I am doing the same project and got my 31 running this morning: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/127271-parsons-vale-carriage-sidings-37114s-new-00-br-blue-layout/page-4&do=findComment&comment=3081472