37114

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.

Indeed, the bank statement that landed yesterday was a bit of a shock, especially as my 2 Invicta/Bachmann CCT's have arrived.

Hi Rich, Yes I think so, I can move them by finger through the hole just visible at the top of the picture but it is awkward so I will put another rod from the switch, which will be flush with the front of the baseboard when the rod is pushed in. I intend to put a hinged cover on the front that folds up for Transport in the car and protects the front of the layout, but can be folded down out of the way for use at the shows.

Some years ago I had 80 wagons behind a Bachmann 47 on a large roundy roundy layout before it lost traction, then added another 47 on front which took us to 136 wagons before the derailments started, so would suggest the 6 class 20's would out pull a single class 20.

Visible progress on the layout has slowed over the last few weeks due to other commitments unfortunately. The track has had a liberal coating of sleeper grime and the sides of the rails painted with Humbrol acrylic no26, but the main focus has been the point control system. I decided some time ago that I would use a manual point control to save wiring and also I had concerns how the points would stand up to standard SEEP/Peco motors and the baseboard side rails aren't deep enough for tortoise motors. There was the added complication of a latching mechanism and polarity change switch for the frogs. Having inspected various layouts I decided that piano wire linked to slide switches would be a good solution, my biggest issue was trying to get a switch with a small enough throw as the point blade movement is around 2mm side to side. The switches I used came from Maplin and have a 5mm throw, significantly more than I needed but the beauty of the piano wire was the inherent flex, especially in the vertical section that passes through the board. I also included a "Z" shape in the wire for adjustment. The wire is secured through aluminium brackets and touch wood works fine so far. I have loosely wired up the points for testing purposes but will solder all the joints and secure the wires properly shortly.

Thanks Rich, it came about almost by accident as I wanted a large building to hide the control panel behind, my original plan being to model part of the Post Office sorting office and use the overhead conveyor to the station platforms as a bridge to disguise the lower level exit into the fiddle yard. When it dawned on me how small the space was and that the conveyor would be halfway up the backscene then I changed tack to the current building.

Indeed although 03121 is due to appear shortly as I renumbered my blue 03 last night, still needs weathering though!

Steady progress of late, predominantly painting and weathering of various structures and also some of the vehicles for the scrapyard. Making scrap cars look convincing is a little difficult as diecast models are not easily dissected, however looking at some photos of scrapyards in the 1977 has proved useful, seemingly most cars had their wheels removed so have chose to replicate that trend which requires scratch-built break drums. I always find it useful at various points in layout builds to set out some stock and building on hand to check all is coming together as planned, so far so good, plenty still to do in time for next April though.

Will definitely follow this, looks like it will be a cracking layout.

Before I progress too much further with scenic work and track I wanted to paint the base colour of the backscene. I initially chose Dulux "Marine Mist" which looked the right colour in the bright lights of the B&Q store but when applied to the layout was much too blue, the colour being very similar to that of the Lorry in my avatar picture, where as I wanted a slightly more pale colour. I had some "blueberry white" left in the paint stash from when we decorated our bedroom so applied that tonight which I am much happier with. I will wait till I can view it in more natural light to see if it stays or I try another colour While the paint was drying I decided to progress some of the buildings for the layout. I have built a Wills weighbridge hut for the scrap yard and a ratio platelayers hut to be used as a store room at the cement sidings. One of the things I have done differently with the brick and stone work on this layout is use a wider palette of colours for weathering and painting, with up to 7 being used on the huts alone which I think gives a more realistic appearance than on Pallet Lane where only 3 or 4 may have been used. The Redscaff building now has a roof, a few more details to add then a coat of primer to show up the blemishes. The cement silo has also been given some attention as I have managed to get hold of a good photo of the Barnstaple Silo courtesy of Simon Castens (proprietor of the Titfield Thunderbolt bookshop). While purchasing a copy of the Kevin Derrick class 24/25 book Simon gave me a postcard of a class 25 at Exeter which had a similar Silo and in conversation Simon mentioned he had a good shot of the Barnstaple Silo. The photo highlighted how the detail on the Hornby silo is either lacking or a tad crude, so I have added plate work detail (as the silos appear to be made from sections) as well as some extra pipework. Still to follow are replacement ladders although this are proving problematic as while etched ladders are easy to get hold off I am struggling to find a supplier for the safety cages.

Mousa models do an etched pack of 4, I got mine from Eileens emporium

Lovely layout, will follow with interest.

Major progress over the last 3 nights and pleased to report that Peafore Yard now has track! Not only that but the first train has run on the layout as I have put the droppers in place and managed to connect them up to the controller borrowed form Pallet Lane. Most of the track has been tested with 37009 and 03382 doing the honours. The testing revealed that to my joy/relief 2 of my hand built points worked out of the box although the 3rd required some surgery as the gauge was too narrow at the frog end for some reason, so frustratingly I decided to lift it to replace the offending sleepers/chairs to the correct gauge. I am not sure why this didn't show up on my bench testing but this has now been fixed and briefly tested back in situ. Although not one for the purists, I have used rail joiners for reliability sake, sleepers will be put in underneath them and chairs added to disguise them. While I am keen to push for realism, I am not prepared to compromise on reliability and I felt it a risk too far at this stage not to use them. I will probably try to not use them on the upper level where there are less joints and less traffic.

Colas have 116,175,219 and 421

Just to follow on from the above, 37197 is scrapped, the 37/7s they have are 37703,14,16,18. 37419 is missing from the operational list.

The class 40 is a lovely piece of work Peter, great work as ever.

My new layout Peafore Yard still under construction is set in 1977: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82744-peafore-yard-37114s-new-4mm-br-blue-layout/

I have been busy shopping recently courtesy of ebay and RailWells (fab show!) and now have a cement silo for the yard and a corgi coles crane for the scrap yard. My trip to RailWells reminded me I had promised the Cheltenham web master a photo for the webpage, a some what difficult task at the moment due to the layouts bare state. To remedy that and to help me visualise the layout now some scenery is appearing I grabbed some stock and tried some close up shots on the bits that do have some scenery (see below). I have also taken the plunge and used the woodlands scenic realist water for the culvert. It took 2 pours to get the right depth but I am pleased with the results and glad I chose it over PVA. The Redscaff building is now clad, the building actually uses material which I used to scratchbuild some buildings for Pallet Lane but I wasn't happy with the end result so the buildings were scrapped and the material set aside for a future project, 15 years later they have finally been put to use.. The building stick lacks a roof but I am happy with the results so far