Gloucester Road

Hate to see this happen.

That is very nice.

Lee, The crane was through Osborns, just looked on there website and its not listed anymore. They do however have masses of good looking "N" vehicles, they are of varying scales 1/144, 1/160, 1/148, 1/150 however, so just dont put them close to each other.

We have returned from a family holiday on Cape Cod and after packing it rained for the next two days so some time was spent in the train room with my two boys. The concrete works, industrial unit and petrol station arrived and were dully ploncked into place. concrete works industrial unit petrol station These will all be blended and bedded in as scenicing continues. I then turned my attention plastering some of the hills, the boys liked this as it was messy. We used woodland scenic plaster cloth and covered it over the rolled up paper balls. Here are the hills and cutting. and the roughed in scalescenes tunnel portal So it was looking like a blizzard had gone through in August. To continue with the winter look i added two small raised areas, and roughed in where the retaining wall would go Here we are with an old piece of retaining wall, to help visualise Then took some left over card and messed around with curving a backscene. So there we are, lots of bare card and exposed plaster; but progress. I can start to see it coming together and am pleased with how its going. Thanks for reading Stephen

Ballasting has continued on the lower freight line as has some some grass growing as seen here Now for my little story: 37419 was in charge of the ballast operation until being declared a "failure" at which point it was taken off the front and moved slowly into a sidding, 67027 was then brought into cover the rest of the days work with 67027 in charge the failed class 37 was slowly taken to the shed where the driver stepped off for tea. the rest of the ballasting was completed and at the end of the day the line was given back and the ballast train shunted into the yard Road crews were also out puting down the first layer of pavement. Thanks for stopping by Stephen

37419 was seen recently at the head of a ballast train during an engineers possesion. This possesion is scheduled for the next week as ballasting will continue. (what fun )

Phil, Thank you. You have hit it on the head, this setting was buried in our printers settings and the default was "scale to pg". Have just done a test print and sure enough the "no scaling" settting makes the containers the same sise as the Bachman ones. So that solves that problem and the containers will need to be redone. That did however lead to another crisis; the diseel shed, signal box, and pub are all off by .2 of an inch. All of the scalescenes stuff on New Street have also been on the small size. Who said size doesnt matter . Im guessing that this difference in size was not visible as they are all together and not mixed with other buildings, so i think they will stay that way. At least my mistake was consistant! From now on will have to watch this setting when printing. lesson learned, Stephen

Weather has been brilliant here for the past week, so lots of outside activities; 65 miles on the bike and completing and tending a raised veg garden for the mrs. Its interesting where modeling skills come in handy, building the veg garden was similar to assembling the trains baseboards, next is a shed for the firewood to stay dry induring the winter. That should be better than the blue tarps we currently use to cover the stacks of wood. On the train front some card stock was purchased and i set about laying down where roads, buildings, and hills would go. Road crossings are being tested and clearance checked before any glue is added. Finished the inset of the track for the container terminal: In this shot is the main road crossing. After crossing the rails you pass a Hobby shop then on the left will be a road leading to shops under the upper mainline. Turning right will bring you past shops, a petrol station and the entrance to the upper level station the road will then pass under the mainline, just before doing so on the right will be the entrance to a rail served industry (they still exist in my world) A bit further down the line is a private rail crossing that will lead to a quarry on the right and a ballast spoils area on the left. The upper level at the far end is going to be more country than the rest of the layout and is going to be dominated by a country station on the curve. The card is representaive of where the roads and platforms will be, whilst in the back is a gentle rise that will lead to the curved backscene, on the left is the southbound side and on the right is north with the branch to power station on the far right. another view a Virgin X country service in the northbound side Thats it for now.

Time for bit of an update. First have been messing around with some potential hills and lanscaping; crumpled paper still to see if i like what it could look like. So we have the making of the hills behind the shed area: Then we have the contouring for the country end of the layout. The trains will arrive "on scene" from under a bridge and through the cutting to arrive in the freight area. On the structure front the Pub and Shop and have been finished. There are no interiors yet and the street stills needs to be finished off, but pleased with how its turned out. The Pub, The corner shops, Both together, Ok, after that decided to tackle the container terminal area. Using card I raised theground surface to level with rails and then using some concrete paper from Scalescene.com started to cover the area. Think it is coming together here. The section between the rails still needs to be finished, Overall shot, Close up of the concrete area Time to play, er test, and make sure all works still. Stephen

You still need to wet and glue the ballast in the usual way.

Right time for an update. First comes some scenery side: The roofers have visited the pub and done some work. Saw the containers from Scalescenes and decided to give them a go. This is a much cheaper option than buying the Dapol or Farish ones, and with a very simple construction and a few hours work finished seven. Here is the first one There seems to be a bit of a scale issue, not sure if its a factor of printing or a true difference of scale. Starting to stack some of my containers, the size difference goes away if you dont see the containers together. Ok onto the track. All the track on the lower level has been set down, wired and painted and trains are running on the lower level. Freightliner was the first service to arrive for what will be the cement terminal. It then reversed its train into the sideing. The locos was then uncoupled and moved out of the way. The track was then painted, sidings a rusty colour and the freight line a black. Yesterday was devoted to carpentry. Construction was completed on the upper level track, the section were the station and the raised scenic country section. Today we wired it all up and "hurrah" it works first go! So track laying and wiring is completed. He says hopefully. Raised country section, country station and branch to the "off scene" power plant. Here is where the main upper level station will be, on the right is the freight avoiding line. Two overall shots. So thats where we stand. Time to go and plane trains for a bit. Stephen.

So not an update to the layout as I am out flying on the west coast of the US. So here are some pictures of the US prototype. Landing in San Jose CA you fly over the CA Trains serviceing centre, how many locos can you count? Up in Seatlle, right next to the runway the tracks lead into a BNSF facility and container unloading area. Looking forward to get home and do some modeling.

So, now that all of the baseboards are built i have ordered the track to finish off the track laying phase. It should arrive in the next week or so. I have also been thinking about shunting options and some industries on the lower level; there will be the container terminal served by GBRF and freightliner, an area for off loading used ballast/virtual quarry served by EWS, and a cement off loading facilty served by EWS and Freightliner. This might not be completly accurate but it will give chances for shunting and playing trains. This will be the cement terminal: Looking now at the last board i needed to figure out a track plan. So most off this is going to be the upper level and will include a small country station, a branch line that heads to the power plant that is off scene and generally be more country than urban, a viaduct will conect it to the rest of the upper level just outside the station. FGW is seen entering the station as is the class 170, the class 66 is returning from the power station. There is a pencil line behind the EWS train, that is were the lower level line comes to and end. The town scene saw a roof added to what will be the corner shops. stephen

Sitting in front of the tele watching Top Gear reruns on BBC America and figured an update was inorder. Board two has been all wired up and ready to go. There are several sections that can be isoloated; however i have had the for thought to wire this up in case DCC enters my future. nudge. nudge. The legs for boards three and four have also been completed so they are all done. Next step will be to finish off the upper level bit and work on the backscene. Here are some pics. Right now thats finished we need to order some more track....... Stephen

Been awhile since there has been an update but slow progress has been made. Work and homelife seems to have a way of working into modelling time. However, here is what has been accomplished: ballasted and wired the upper level of board 1, track has been laid on lower level board 2 (needs wiring) started laying track on upper level of board 2. Worked up the road and pavement area in the town aswell. Card was used to raise the pavement and then scalescenes.com pavement and road surface was test fitted. Here is the ballasted upper section, im going to leave the area closest to the retaaining wall empty untill the final wall is installed. A Voyager was the first train under power on the upper level Here is where board 2 is at, lower track down awaiting wireing and track laying on the upper level. Pavement and road surface. Right thats it for now, off to go find a drink. Stephen

Decided it was fine time to build the legs for the second board. So out came the pen, paper, rulers and calculator; some mental gymnastics and doodles on paper came up with this. Sat down with scraps of wood from the last set of legs and realised that some of those could be cut to meet my requirments. With that hurdle past we (my youngest) jumped in the car and headed off to the lumber store. Some 1x3x6 and 1x4x6 boards were purchased and then cut to meet the lengths needed. Back home, out came the saw and we cut the scraps to size and assembled the tools and pieces. In the "train room" we started assembly, the legs and end braces then standing with the side braces added top added and then slotted into place. My one concern was that when measured there was a difference in height between the two boards, however when next to each they were the same height. Success. Maybe that can be attributed to the legs settling into the carpet any way ill take it. When some track was placed it was at the same height too. Figured things were going so well that i should stop and bask in success. Right thats it for today. Stephen

It was very timely as Feb. Model rail came in the post today. So worked on my signal box and did the weathering and some more grass planting. Used a download from CG textures and found some plywood which was used to close off the window, some graffiti from Blair lines was added and then it was all weathered and workers placed. Then used some card and plaster and built up a small hill area. Grass, static grass and flock was then added Here is the aerial view of the area. Then 67027 showed up with a rake of TTAs To answer some questions: Simon, the fencing is from Gold Medal Lines and the "dirt" is just brown ballast Kris, the houses are going to be that way as they are a left over from "gloucester road" Thats it for now Stephen

Thanks for the info, have now started planning the roads. Was allowed to have a modelling day today and got quite a lot done. Planned out were the hill would go and roughed in the raised section for the road. Then used scalscenes tarmac again, started planting grass and added some details. I decided to try out the static grass, I used a balloon and generated a statc charge while the grass was still wet and presto. Not bad. A curious on looker showed up, This attracted the boss to come over and investigate. "Do you have a any ID sir?" So here are some close ups of the static grass. Then decided to make a dirt road out to what will be the abandoned signal box. This is where we stand tonight. Tommorrow hope to work on the signal box and make it look abandoned and being readied for demolition. Stephen

Will have a look there too, thank you. On a different note, how wide would folks recommened makeing roads in n, specificlly a two lane road? Stephen

The signal box will indeed be weathered and either boards or "Aged Corrugated Iron Texture Sheet" from Scalescenes to block out the windows with a demo team there too. Some weathering was done on the ballast today. the overall shot the wagon road. the headshunt. the local shunter was caught fueling. Next we need to ballast the upper main line. Stephen

Spent the last ten days down in West Palm Beach FL, sounds nice till you realise I was there for my annual recurrent training. Now that i am current in the Piaggio for another year it was back to doing some modelling (of the train variety). After having left the books on the hardstanding whilst I was away it was good and glued down and ballasting could continue. So Real Rocks ballast was put down, glued in the usual way, and then weathered a black and grey to show where locos would stand and grass was added to some places. Here is an overall shot with some areas weathered and grass added, towards the top you can see where weathering still needs to take place. A close up of the hardstanding Area to be weathered Locos show up Now to do some more weathering. Stephen

Had quite a day of modelling today. The boys got what they wanted; after several hours playing in the snow they played on the WII and DS while Dad headed into the train room. After seeing Kris' coment went back and worked on weathering the ballast. Got it to a colour that was better, so worked up a plan for my time in the train room. Step one was to paint the track. So off came the buildings stock and anything else that would get in the way. Out came the rust applicator and off we went, track both in the shed and upper main line were painted. This was allowed to dry and then another coat was added to touch up areas that were missed. Next was to attack the buffers and in particular the buffer boards and their colour. Per a prevous post i did a google search and came up with different images; decided to do some all red ,some off white and some a combination of both colours. So here are two pics looking each way. Two closest are the fuel point and headshunt followed by the two shed lines and another headshunt. Then we have the wagon storage line, headshunt and loco storage line. So next step was to mess around with ballast/weathering around the first fuel point. So down went some ballast. This was then glued down with the usual mix of PVA glue, water and liquid soap. Followed by various washes off black paint and some straight black paint, then some green, tan and brown ground cover. Once this was all dry and track cleaned a class 66 took a test run to check that rails were all clean and clear. All was good, so started to glue down the hardstanding and put the shed and TMD back together. It is now being weighted down by books and various other heavy objects, so we'll se how it looks in the morning. Stephen