pirouets

Wandered round today and enjoyed the show. Favorites that stood out were

- Johnstown Rd I thought was exceptional and I hadn't seen it in this version with the terminus

- Oldshaw now it has a fiddle yard at both ends.

- Burntisland 1883

- Hornby 3rail, all 80 ft of it.

I also stopped off and had a chat with Clive @ Pig Lane which included a small world moment as it turns out he used to work with my Uncle in the 90's. I then got challenged to get up to DEMU19 in Swaldicote as one of the Oldshaw operators also makes the journey from Reading each year, apparently by train with his layout. We shall see.

As for the old dude dragging a bag large enough for me to go on holiday for a couple of weeks, I did wonder if he filled it would he even be able to move it and just what was he planning to buy? I can only think he must have been modelling in the same scale as St Petroc.

Rather than wreck the surface I made a small board to try and weather the ground surface. I had a play with various poster paints to come up with something Iiked and then tried 2 ways 

- On the right of the picture I painted it on and then dabbed the surface with some kitchen towel. This leaves it fairly lumpy and gravelly which is not quite what I am after

- On the left I simply painted on and let it dry in to the surface which seems to give a more cracked asphalt look. I think a 2nd layer could then be applied to reducing the cracking in some area's

The only other question is do I try and tweak the colour further so its not quite so close to the ballast.

So i've been slowly pottering along and am currently very confused as the whole top fiddle yard has stopped working bar 1 section so I need to pull the control panel down and have a look. Quite why this has happen when I have touched nothing and apart from it being windy outside, its not extremes of heat and cold in the shed - Its a mystery.

In the mean time the 1st layer of ground cover is down by the houses. I'm currently leaning towards the idea proposed by Nick as I have the tree's and static grass.

Another slight change is the fact I was thinking the factory building would be a pottery, but I am wondering if will be simpler to take the clay traffic off the layout and it becomes furniture and despite it being the later 70's they still ship by train to London. I've made some wood pallets and piles of wood from match sticks so now need to work out how to weather them to the right colour. Along with that I have some boxes I bought. I did try and make the boxes but quite frankly it was to tedious so happy to go with these for now. Again they will need painting up.

You can also see that there is a fence now between the factory tracks and the station shunt siding.

Last but by no means least I have finally figured out what goes at the end of the station yard area and this will be Dinfied Drinks - the local wine and beer wholesaler. The idea for the building got stolen from a picture I saw on one of the sites where you can buy downloadable buildings (not scalescenes). Lots still to do round the windows, add doors, etc and I am thinking of fitting out the insides with shelving for storage. With this I will need to find a forklift as well as the right vehicles.

I'm off to hobby craft now as I have been watching some video's about creating the right surfaces so I need some paints and talc initially to try out various colours. What I want to avoid is a sea of grey and have a subtle enough difference between the ballast and surrounding areas.

For a particularly 

Nick, I think you may be right about the wall. Its a scale 5ft and originally the backscene curved alongside the line but I decided to change it to the houses. In fact it may be that the whole brick wall along the back length of the layout gets changed for a higher wall or fence.

In other news my final Christmas present turned up. I ordered it to be click and collect of ebay but for some reason the store rejected it so it was sent back and had to be posted. The seller was really helpful and kept me in the loop with what was happening. This means I now have the classic oil train headed by a 33. It does need re-numbering and I will look for some old wagons to work on as I need to learn how to weather them down as the whole train looks as though it just came out of the factory.

The control panel is coming on and everything that can be wired for now is working with the exception of 1 switch. Luckily I can bypass the switch for now as putting and it feeds the lower fiddle yard line on to the layout so not a huge problem, but a bit of a pain. I have checked the feed wire sends power and its not that as when I apply voltage directly to the pin of the switch, it still does not connect.

As I said, everything is wired which means for the 1st time on 1 of my layouts there is light in the signals, so time to save a few pounds and order the rest from Kytes Lites.

I've also put a place for the timetable to go so I can follow it. I need to add some extra info so each line also has what switches to set for the movement. Even more importantly under the timetable is a mount so I can take my tablet in an watch something whilst I model if I choose.

All in all, not a bad amount achieved over the last 3 weeks so back to work tomorrow - happy days.

So what's been happening over the last few weeks apart from Christmas and all that entailed.

The houses in the corner are now fixed in place and the basic surfaces for the back gardens / back paths have been added. I need to tidy up the join between the 2 sets of buildings but next I think will then be the scrub area between the houses and the railway wall. Not sure whether this will be wasteland or something with a touch of green an maybe a tree or 2. I was a numpty though and forgot to paint the grey tint onto the backscene 1st so I need to work out how I will get that done.

A 1st for me is trying to signal the layout. I go these for Christmas so they are positioned and needing to be wired in. Once done I will then look at getting the other ground signals needed for the lower part of the layout. The upper part will not have any signals as there is no way I can run the wiring as I probably should have installed it before the railway arches.

The first signs of life at the station have appeared as I picked up a some packs of people along with the Metcalfe newstand and benches packs. I still need to get rid of the white edge on the stand.

Finally, because of getting the signals, how was I going to add this to the control panel to which the simple answer was decided to be - Start again from scratch which so far has led to

- Removal of all the old wiring except for the droppers.

- Created a new schematic which is better labelled than before which was then covered with a transparent layer to better protect it.

- Added the labelling for the signals.

- Added point switches and labels so I can move from manual points to electric given I have a bunch of gaugemaster motors, though this will be the last thing to do as I have yet to install the motors.

- Ensured I have the wiring tidy so I can easily add/fix any connections.

- Decided to go back to my Gaugemaster unit rather than the panel mounted one for now. This may be long term though it could just be for simplicity whilst the wiring goes in. I have got the upper loops running though as a result.

I will start the main rewire over the next few days so hopefully by Monday the lower layout will be back in action.

I'm toying with the idea of making the trek to this but will probably decide last minute depending on the weather. (May play golf if its nice - shocking, i know)

So i've decided to take a 1 year digital subscription as there was quite a good discount but will have to go and get the back issue with the Carlisle piece as that is stunning.

I also liked the article about what has happened to Striven as that is a back issue I have kept hold of.

My congratulation on ending the year in style. I too was lucky enough to have the golfing gods smile as was part of the team that won a texas scramble and I don't have to organise next year, nor were we expected to buy the drinks. :-)

Looks like he poped on the site this morning before heading out to chase golf balls and why not. I played this morning and its like spring at the moment so why not make the most of it.

I've used Ron Lines in Southampton a couple of times and in both cases he accepted my asking price. Once was a n gauge collection and the other was my dads old OO stock.

All depends on what you want to get, how much work you want to put in to get the most value or do you want convenience.

You can't avoid it . . .So . . . . Get p!ssed and ride the storm.

 

 

Mary Crumble.

So it looks as though the Browns will go 7-7-1. (Is it risky to type this with 4:52 to go?

Out of interest, how do you ensure any curves are cut smoothly. Do you do by hand/eye or have a set of edges you can use?

Thanks

i think in this weather a cup of tea is needed but I did have a nice pint of Rockin Rudolph beer at the quiz night on Thursday. Shame I ruined it with the amount of choclate that got eaten later which was our prize.

Enjoy- Just inspired me to have a listen to their previous album. I really should try more of their back catalogue as mainly listed to Dressed in Voices so far, and it was this band that led me top Big Big Train after all.

Browns at 4-6-1 - a break even season still possible though a bit challenging and I would give them the lomardi trophy just for that. I wonder if i'm about to become a secret browns fan.

Well braved another visit.

 

Watching Sidmouth but nothing moving yet again.

 

Always the same with this lot.

I sense the copthorne conspiracy must be in full swing as been by sidmouth twice and a train leaves as i type

Slow progress as ever. I have finally managed to get a ground covering over the failed attempt to use scalescenes cobblestones. Its way to dark at the moment so I have a small piece on an offcut of wood (see pic3) and the plan is to have a play using that to find the right colour wash before applying to the rest of the area.

I've been slowing cutting away at making a low relief warehouse based on the modular scalescenes warehouse. I have 2 of these coming to gether and this will fill a large portion of the backscene but I need to have a think about the spacing and would I try and create any simple scenes between the buildings such as some crates or people shifting stuff.

Away from this I have restarted in a new version of an operating model that will combine lower and upper level time tables though it does rely on getting another loco or 2 (dare I mention christmas pressies in November) so I will have a look at Warley next week and I might also try and get to Peterborough.

Like a few others on this forum, as summer progressed the shed got ignored as I was playing a reasonable amount of golf, some good and some terrible but over the last couple of weeks i've started going back out, run a few trains none of which seem to be complaining about their lack of activity and got on with a few jobs

I've been maning for ages to add the drain pipes to the low relief factory buildings. Simply had some plastic struts painted black and glued in place but its a detail that does make a huge difference.

After much mulling i've got the picture of houw the house backs will look. I've put them on a base so I can lift them out and work on them and the walls are added to the 1st set. I also had some water damage due to a leak this time last year, but that was easily covered with some foliage to represent ivy up the walls. I've various plans to add dirt to the back yards, bins, bikes, flower pots, etc so I think these will take some time to complete.

I've also put the base layer down for the yard, but in truth its to dark so the plan is to complete the coverage and then tone it down. I didn't want solid grey that matched the ballast so I will probably make a small piece on an offcut to test colours. In my head a greyish brown would work.

Cleveland Browns to have a winning season !!!!!!

Recently been a couple of times as my wife and youngest run it quite regularly. Worryingly despite the pain in the legs i quite enjoyed it.

Not a huge amount to show other than the flats have progressed and the basics of both blocks are now built. My thinking is that I need to add walls to create a small yard area for each and then between the houses and the railway wall will be either wasteland with kids playing or something slightly more looked after, maybe a patch of grass.

The other area that had been bugging me was the gap by the factory and leading up to the sidings at the station. I had mocked up a possible building but it did not really work however I found that there is a bus garage from Scalescenes which may just be the thing. It can fit in the space with the doors either facing the edge of the baseboard or the doors facing longways down the board. It will be a case of build it and then have a play. I guess this also means I will need to get a bus when I start thinking about vehicles for the layout.

And somewhere in that mix should be a model reflecting your picture, maybe even holding a DCC handset. You could also move him around to keep RMweb guessing as to where's Clive given the humour in the thread.

Again, back to the serious note, I like the thinking you stated about where are the groups of people on a station at anyone time and got me thinking the concourse is where most people are and the platform is only occupied for a short period. I have a think about how that would apply on my layout though I am still a way from letting the little people loose yet.

Your people skills are impressive. Just how large do you think the population will be for the size of station - a few hundred?