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Looking forward to it, Mike always puts on a good show, the Cheltenham area does seem to have a good few D and E modellers /enthusiasts

Thanks Richard, the pile was worth the effort in the end. Re shows, the only one booked is Cheltenham in April 15, it has been offered to a couple of others but nothing definite in the diary. The timescales mean it is touch and go for finishing the upper level in readiness for Cheltenham so will focus on finishing the lower level first and fit a temporary back scene behind the arches if necessary.

Thanks Peter, still lots to do but it is getting there!

Hi Jo, I hadn't realised Hemmings had gone until I researched the logo, bought by SITA in 2006. Re your steel lorry, Owens of Newport do/did lots of steel work and I think they run a few Scanias worth a search on flickr

Love it!

Hi Dave, Some great photos, I love the 108 at night shot, especially the way the light reflects across the track. Just a little area which I hope you don't mind me pointing out, the last photo needs some car drivers!

I decided the other night to make a start on creating the scrap mountain on the layout having accumulated what I thought was a lot of scrap - how wrong I was. To boost the size of the mountain I created a structure which could be best described as a pyramid cut in half vertically. This turned out to be a double edged sword, as while I saved some scrap, it was essential to build a sufficiently thick layer of scrap to hide the pyramid core which I barely managed. Thus it was back to the scrap box and the stash of corrugated Iron stash to make more scrap, the amount of scrap in the pile being double that originally envisaged and shown in my last post - see photo 1 and 2. The 3rd photo shows the Ford transit recovery truck in place, like all of the vehicles it is permanently attached to the layout to speed up setting up at shows. Behind the Transit is a repainted Hornby skip, the poor weathering of the original requiring a full repaint. The chosen colour scheme is of Hemmings waste a now departed Bristol industrial waste contractor who seemed to have skips every where in Bristol when I was growing up. An unusual job they had was the provision of skips for the carriage cleaning sidings at Malago Vale which had no road access. The skips were mounted on a converted lowmac "muck wagon" and tripped to Kingsland Road sidings for emptying. While looking for pictures of the Hemmings logo, the only ones I could find were a couple taken by "Rivercider" of this working, one of which features a class 45 hauling the single wagon. I couldn't find a good broadside picture so the logo was drawn from memory via MS paint and kept on file should I model the "muck wagon". Also obvious in the pictures is the layout now has ballast, weathering awaits when the glue is dry....

Have a Guess?

Great thread Kevin, thanks for sharing this.

Great pictures Mike, I love the puddles.

Tonight's progress has been on the scrap mountain. Creating each piece and weathering on an individual basis has been somewhat laborious for what is a small pile of scrap, albeit I am happy with the result. I am going to build a false centre to the pile to make the scrap go further. Another cheat to help fill the yard is a lorry delivering a scrap car. An Oxford Diecast Ford Transit recovery truck and an Austin A40 was dug out of the cupboard for some work. The Transit looked rather garish with its Silver wheels and Eddie Stobart style chevron bumper, so both were repainted black and white respectively. A winch was essential for loading dead cars and came from an Airfix Bedford army truck I converted to a gritter. The A40 was weather with rust patches added based on photos from an old copy of "Practical Classics". Both had new number plates, the A40 because the ones supplied were for a very late car which would have been too new to scrap, while the transits disappeared when the bumper was repainted.

Indeed although she is very supportive so no complaints there!

I have made progress on a number of fronts of late: The fiddle yard is complete except the cassettes, I designed the fiddle yard with an integral fold down cover which serves a number of purposes: - Hold the controller in position when the layout is packed up, it is located on the corner of the lower fiddle yard corner and I was keen not to have to remove it after shows which I had to do with Pallet Lane - Enable the fiddle yard to form a carry case for the cassettes and cables for the lighting When closed the "case" is only 14 cm high, meaning it should sit on top of the layout in the boot of my Mondeo estate. I have also been focussing on finishing the bridge for the upper level over the culvert, I still need to weather the corners of the abutments but I am happy with how they have come out so far. The image underneath the bridge is more visible in the picture than in reality which is handy as the river in the picture is a bit wider than my culvert. I have also sprayed the girders and started the weathering process, more to do. Also I have started to build the mountain of scrap, no small task as every piece is being made and weathered individually, will post some pics of that tomorrow.

I have to admit that my interest in acquiring numerous 1300's is to populate the scrap yard on my new layout set in 1977, sorry to all the Austin fans!

The Austin 1300 is a winner for me, I wonder if they will do an estate version in red with a Basil Fawlty miniature figure!

Thanks Richard some handy tips, always good to try something new as the puddles are a new skill for me.

Thanks Jo, will be a while yet! I have loads of scenic water spare, I can always drop you some round if you fancy giving it a go.

Thanks Rich, I had a quick look in the garage this morning with a fresh pair of eyes and I am very pleased how it has turned out, definitely better than I expeceted.

Coming along nicely Mark, not sure how I missed this thread before now.

An impromptu visit by a friend to see progress earlier on meant I took the opportunity to do some more testing of the layout now that I have wired up the switches on the control panel. Recently I have been working on the scrap yard ground. Having visited many scrap yards over the years they all seem to have a yard surface best described as churned up mud. To replicate this I spread a thin layer of polyfilla over the board. This is actual quite tricky as I wanted undulations and puddles to form without the surface resembling choppy seas. Once complete It was given a coat of track dirt from an Aerosol which when dry was dry brushed with various browns, matt black and gun metal to give a metallic sheen. Near the workshop and where the cars are stored patches of gloss black were applied to represent spilt oil. Having been very impressed with Marc Smiths "Cashmores" layout with the puddles in the scrap yard, I set out to replicate this effect. Where puddles had formed these were painted a dark brown colour and some of the scenic water added to represent puddles. Hopefully these will dry with a sheen and reflect the scenery around them. I tried some new angles for the photos tonight for a change, I quite like the effect of the train above the scrapyard which has come out as I envisaged. Still lots more work to do on the scrapyard not least populating it with scrap, also I need to detail inside the arches

Great to see some more photos Dave, awesome layout.

Nice little layout, I saw it at Larkrail last year, my kids loved it too.

I have now finished the Cement Silo for the layout, the signage is taken from a photo of the Barnstaple Silo, photo below. There were major storms in Corsham last night, thankfully we live at the top of a hill but some friends at the bottom of the estate who live near the railway line had gardens flooded and sadly their pet chickens were drowned. Ironically I was due to be going to London on the train today but got as far as driving to Chippenham station at 5.45 when I found out that all train services were cancelled. On driving back home I saw the reason why as this HST had been stranded since 01:00 in water as deep as 1m high.

I have had the relative luxury of the whole garage for layout work of late but the justification for building the garage was to house my Series 3 Land Rover and with winter approaching and it's starting to suffer from lack of use/outdoor storage so I need to clear the garage over the next few weeks. As such I have been progressing with some carpentry today and have made the legs for the layout. The woodwork for Pallet Lane could best have been described as functional, made from poor materials and my poor wood working skills earning me the nickname of "the wood butcher" from those who can saw wood! However having practiced a bit, purchased a Makita mitre saw and decent materials I have done a passable job on the legs. The legs have been designed to stack inside each other horizontally with the layout on top and one set will be fitted with castors to form a trolley for moving the packed up layout, the idea being to save handling in and out of shows. When finished I will take some photos to explain what I mean, the photo below showing the legs fully erected as I am hoping to build the fiddle yard later this week. Underneath the layout can be seen the new ladders for the cement silo which have been sprayed with primer I have also been progressing the testing programme for the layout, having sorted the feeds to the point crossings. After a few teething problems and a dry joint, the track all now works and I had good play with the class 03 and some presflos. The testing has been carried out with all the feeds direct into the controller, but I have now started work on the panel, although none of the wires are connected up yet. This sits behind the large building in the corner of the layout and is recessed to protect the switches when packed up.

Thanks Jo, Embankment road is looking great now. I will catch up with you about taking some proper photos when its finished if you are up for it as I started penning a write up for one of the magazines while in the departure lounge of Dublin airport last night.