pirouets

By the way, looking at the plan am I correct that this is a permanent layout, and if so does it spell the end for Grantham and Shap or do you plan to continue to exhibit those when time permits?

I looked at the covered picture and guessed you had come up with Grantham on one side and Shap on the other. How wrong I was. All I have now is serious room envy at over 1000sq ft. :-)

Look forward to seeing this come together. 

"as she was leaving so she took it with her" - reminds me of the joke about the lady who drops the TV remote when paying at the shop. When asked why she had it replies, Its the worst thing I can think of that's legal :-) I'm sure your never naughty enough to have to be punished like this.

Happy new year.

So started on both the garage and allotment scene. For the garage scene I need to work out where everything will go as I have purchased a car lift along with various garage tools. Key challenge is how to get everything in the building. It may mean I look at remaking the buildings again including a base or my other thought is mark up the space of the garage, then fit everything on the ground and place the building over the top. We shall see

As for the allotment I have started mocking this up as can be seen below. With the veg I need to look at what other colours  I need to try so with the mock up I will dab a small amount of glue on to these and then sprinkle some purple for cabbages. The poles for pea's or beans are from toothpicks and I think they are to thick even after a bit of whittling. I will see how they turn out when I add some green to represent the plant.

Is that one of the largest sections you have to man handle about the place? it looks it with the single coach in the corner.

Ahh, the S word - You must mean subtle as in a subtle down hill left to right on a lightning fast green :-) Can't possibly be anything else

http://4-sf.uk/history.htm - read it. 

I'm not going to comment on the whole debate going on (That would the equivalent lying face up in a pool filled with 1 inch of water and still being out of my depth) but reading thread and the 4-SF history site, I now get the whole back to back measurement and why it matters plus every now and then you get a a rogue wheel set. That might explain 1 wagon I have an issue with as it derails in 2 place on the layout where none of its compatriots in the rake do so. Time to have a look and see what I can do.

So a fair amount of running but no real progress on the modelling side. In truth I am starting to think about what's next as the niggles do get to me. In a nutshell because the layout grew organically rather than off a proper plan I have the following issues

- Have not thought the backscene through when doing the initial plan

- I put to much track in to the lower part of the layout

- There are problems with the boards themselves so in truth the need replacing

- I have a better idea

How ever, before I rip this up I am setting myself 2 challenges. To finish the scene round the house I built including putting a small allotment in is the first where I have created the earth area. In the second picture below the challenge is to create yard scene I like.

And as for the new idea, I have seen Underhill Road and have the idea of how would that work in a roundy roundy scenario. Roomey who is responsible for that also built Ting Tong yard which was also something I was wondering could be adapted in to a larger layout. I know the centre of the layout will be based on that but at either end I get the chance to create a scene and I have that quite clearly in my head for now.

I've been reading up on trip workings as dropping off and picking up would need to be scheduled, but the principle remains that at one end of the layout it will disappear under the edge of town. At the other edge of, my wife has challenged me to have water, so my thinking is to use a canal at the edge of the factory. I can then move in to that rough country that borders somewhere like this including adding a lock keepers cottage and try allotments again. I've seen this on a couple of points on the Kennet & Avon canal in my travels and there is somewhere I can take pictures of town butting up to the canal to get an idea.  

The line itself what ever era is a secondary main, so fastest I see would be a 37 with some Mk2's, whilst freight would be 24, 25 & 31 mainly. The other risk with this layout is that I could got back to steam as I have always had a thing for the Standard 5MT and can just picture that with a dirty freight through this.

The other thing about this that will keep me out of mischief is the number of buildings to create.

Reminds me I must do this now I am out of contract given there are a couple of things we don't use on the package, mainly linked to the TV rather than the BB.

Are you thinking of this - https://www.newcastlemodelrailway.org.uk/monkchester

So a first for me today. I have now got some cars and lorries for the layout but fresh out of the box they are somewhat shiny. So popped in to Hobby craft and picked up a pot of dark wash. I have some old wagons from my dad so got one of them out and have applied a 1st coat which dulled it down and once that had set added a few dabs to create splodges on the side. So far so good and since taking this pick I have added a 2nd thin layer lower down so it starts to have a more graded effect.

I'll have a go at couple of other old wagons and then take a stab at the box vans I have. I also need to get hold of a couple of cheap tanker wagons to play with as well to learn how to do oil streaks.

Must go though as strictly is on so i'm off to the shed.

There not the steam exhaust pipes from the front of the loco on either side by any chance? Just look as though the fit against the boiler.

Your not the 1st to do this by any means, but in golfing terms would this be the equivalent of a shank? (Sorry, couldn't resist)

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Golf is a strange game for a competitive being. When you are playing well it's wonderful, but a period of playing badly can make you suicidal. Not literally, but thoughts of packing the whole thing in

So true. I haven't picked my clubs up now since August and lost all desire even to the point I have let my membership lapse for now. Listening to LBC as you mention later in the post may drive you to that point as well by the sound of it :-)

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Give it a few more wet days and I may do some more.....

Had you actually checked the weather forecast before writing that post given what has fallen from the skies in the last few days?

Look forward to seeing how this evolves over the winter.

Spent a few very enjoyable hours there today and thought the standard of layouts was excellent and now have this strange itch to model 1911 steam after watching Ferring being operated so smoothly.

Well, summer has been and gone and until recently very little had changed but since holiday a few weeks ago things have started clicking. Firstly I have tried out some free downloaded houses along the back to complete the scene. I'll need to work out how to blend in against the houses I made for the corner but its a start and if the worst comes to the worst I can just put a new piece of back scene in. 

Next comes repainting the tarmac area by the station as it was to light and blending in to the ballast. I will have a play on google to see about any markings I need to add.

Finally, I downloaded the boiler house and workshop kits from Scalescenes. You can see the water town behind but not 100% sure if that will make it on the layout and certainly not in that position as it blocks the signal box. I'm seeing these 2 as a local garage these days with cars out front and back and have made a list of possible models to try and get hold of.

That's all for now except wondering whether to go to the Woking exhibition this weekend.

Looks good and I totally get that sometimes we do things that are a compromise that then just annoy us even when we are the only one who knows its there. Looks good.

Just a thought - How would HO figures work in that scene as the other option given its a scene you have to look for with the camera or will it bug you because you know its like that which I also get?

They will have to figure out which green pasture he is wandering around wondering where his golf ball is hiding i suspect. From past posts i suspect in summer this takes over when time permits fun to be had.

The station yard has been bugging me but I wonder if the Dinfield Drinks company would fit well at the end of the yard. In truth I made a mistake though with the building so I may start again. In fact there are 2 which are bigging me

- The fact that I forgot to put window sills in and wrap the brick work round the card in the windows.

- I could have made the base so the floor and ramp is all one piece rather than adding the loading area/ramp to the main building.

I'd rather have something I can look at without regret in truth but it forms a good placeholder on the layout for now to work out the overall scene. 

I've vastly simplified the timetable since the Ali Paly show which reduce the number of moves by about half and it still takes a good 90 mins to run through. The upper line seems to fit well with the playing card approach but as there are only 6 trains in the fiddle yard I simply use a dice.

Anyway, back to the working week tomorrow - oh joy.

Simon, a couple of questions

1. Why does the left hand side turn forwards rather than back? obviously it will fit the corner or a hall quite well but you may not always get that space but you have in your head the scene as it turns the corner.

2. This makes it complex but could there be a dummy panel reflecting all operations that could be seen by the viewer whilst the signaler is then behind the fiddle yard looking over as its that corner of the layout that will get squashed where as you say the shunter will only put in an appearance when needed?

Oh Huba Huba. Something between a 9 iron and 3 wood depending in the wind i suspect. I think a conversation with SWMBO about going to play in part of their open week in August is on the cards. I was lucky enough to play Royal North Devon 25 years ago and I suspect this is even better.

Anyway back to the trains, I guess there is a small amount of woodwork 1st, but you could always contract it out to Mr S - He is retired after all so needs to be kept busy now Eastwood town is progressing so quickly.

Iain, when you say you might build a temporary scenic section could you not do that in a way that the turnouts are there so you can then add to the layout over time? I think it was David Jenkinson who wrote about his little long drag that it came down because he spent so long building that in 2 years he never ran anything, plus given you suffer from hitting and then chasing a small round ball syndrome like myself and Gordon time gets eaten away very quickly.

Saunton - one of the courses in my bucket list so hopefully one day so hope you had a good day, maybe i'll have to go and play in something in their open week one year. which did you play by the way, east or west?

Thanks and i'll give it a try at the weekend as I'm back to work tomorrow and this evening will be roof tiling on one of the buildings.

Clive. Do you have a copy of the playing card system you could post? As we spoke about on Saturday I would like to try that to operate my layout and the one bit I cannot remember is how the playing cards decide moves to a specific place, whilst I do remember you said that if I have 7 trains, then I need to use ace to 7. Thanks

14 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

Nah, it is a panic buying container strategy for you know what.

P

Oohhhh, containers gives me an idea. Could up i upgrade from a drag bag to a container? How about one of these? as I would have to push surely much safer and I could add a horn :-)

( I bought enough to fill a small 20cm plastic bag at the weekend if your wondering )

After much playing around with shades of grey (should have played the Billy Joel song whilst doing this) I've got the ground sorted. I went to Ali Pally yesterday and bought some Skytrex barrels so wondering actually whether this becomes a brewery building which doesn't change the operating to much.

I've also fitted the remain ground signals which need to be powered up.

The other idea I may try having had a chat with Clive Mortimer yesterday is to operate the lower part of the layout using playing cards rather than a timetable so its a bit more random on the freight & parcels. My thinking is have the passenger trains left at 1 DMU per hr along with the suburban train every 2 hrs, and then in between use the cards to decide how many moves in between and what comes in. I'm not working at next week currently so should have time to try this out along with working on the drinks company building and road surfaces round it.