PaternosterRow

Beautiful collection of machines in a brilliantly executed layout.

I'm sure whatever backscene you come up with Mikkel it'll be a master class in how to do it right. I'm more a rush and push modeller but I admire people who take the time to research and experiment like yourself. I think most of us on here really appreciate the pains you take to explain your methods and then supply us this insight and knowledge for free. I know I've certainly benefited from this.

Hi Pete, Thanks for the kind comments. You definately know when you are on the right track when you get response from the masters of the art. You are ahead of me there with the lighting. I'm experimenting at the moment and want to add the lighting effects slowly - you can have too much sometimes and can easily ruin the atmosphere you're after. Mike

Cheers Bernard. It's great that other members answer questions on here - it certainly firms up my confidence with accuracy. Dapol wagons are beautifully made, cheap too given the amount of detail.

Thanks very much for confirming that Chris. Achieving accuracy is a real nightmare - so many different conflicting bits of information on Wikipedia and the like. RMweb is brilliant in getting the right info from members. Doing a Southern scheme is an odd choice for a Brummie lad like myself but I remember when the Bachmann 4 CEP first came out and I knew I had to have one. Besides, I had many, many happy holidays in the Southern Region when a small lad - Margate was a favorite seaside place for the family.

As always, many thanks for the compliments. Getting the right feel for the time and place of a particular era is crucial - something that you are an expert in yourself.

Again, thanks for the flattering comments Alex. You know you've pulled off something good when the master's of the art pay compliments.

Ah, the master of the micro himself. Your work has always inspired me Marc - Brackty Bridge is a masterpiece of detail in a limited space. Along with your smashing MPD cameo of course. Better to have a room filled with well detailed micros than a huge layout with a half hearted backscene. Thanks for the compliment.

Thanks for the compliment Dave. Better to work hard on something small than a half hearted attempt at something large.

Cheers Mikkel, The warehouse is a freelance structure made from Scalescenes textures and Brass Master windows. It was simple enough to put together and loosely based on a couple of prototypes. The wider arches (Scalescenes Bridge kit) were inspired from photos in Dave Larkin's superb series of books on BR Civil Engineers Wagons. I think the trick of having many different layers to a scene enormously helps enhance a sense of reality. I've seen great layouts that have been spoilt by an over reliance on half relief structures - it's far better to have a plain wall behind your track (or nothing but white space behind a complete building) rather than do this.

Some update pics for the new Southern layout as promised. I've set this around the early 70's period - still want to use the Hornby 2 HAL and realise this was retired in 1971. I'm also a bit confused about using the Blue/Grey 411 CEP for this period as I've always laboured under the assumption that no DMU or EMU received this livery until the mid 80's and ran in complete Blue up until this time. However, I've seen a couple of pics (one on Mike Morant's site) dated around 1969 and 1971 that clearly show it running in the Blue/Grey livery - wonder if any Southern fans could enlighten me on this. There's bound to be a load of mistakes with accuracy but I'm really into atmosphere more than in getting it right. Besides, the layout is more a train set and it can be used for any city in any region - it's primary function is to play trains really. Detail shot of the scrap yard under the first two arches. It was a common site to see tower blocks going up in old run down industrial areas back in the 70's. Being from Birmingham, I remember a large scrap yard across the road from Tower Blocks in the Aston area - this was probably also the same state of affairs for parts of London at that time. Shot of the whole layout - doesn't look much from this angle but it's suprising what you can squeeze into a micro. The first batch of Class 20's delivered did work across London on freight duties so it's not beyond the realm of possibility to see them on Southern metals from time to time. The Crane is a Hornby offer - I've detailed it up slightly although it stills looks rather toy like. The jib runner is scratchbuilt from an old Lima car flat wagon - Jib runners were made from old coaching stock at that time. The Hornby Steam crane carries transfers showing it to belong to the Eastleigh depot - true enough as it's my understanding that the Southern ran the only Cowans Sheldon Steam crane at that time. The fleet waiting on the service loops behind the layout. The right hand scenic section - the flats behind the warehouse are photos sourced from the web and sized accordingly. 'Mind the Gap' - even using the short connecter bars on the 411 the gap is still about 5mm wide. I've made some corridor connections - not the neatest effort but it all works fine and gets rid of that awful gap between corridor connections. This Bachmann model is superb and the interior detail is brilliant. A superb Bachmann Sealion - this is a Western Region machine. Civil equipment ended up all over the place so it wouldn't be out of place on a Southern layout (well I hope not anyway). A Midland Region sand tippler wagon - would love to know what region the van came from but can't ID it. An ex Southern Brake Van painted in Civil's Olive Green - note the air brake pipe at the side. The Southern Region was the first (I think) to have all its civils stock to go to air braking. There should be hoses fitted to the sole bars but I haven't got round to this yet. A couple of Eastern Region Grampus wagons - these are still in Engineer's Black and it took a long time for them to go over to Olive Green. Some never even made it and jumped Olive to the later Yellow and Grey livery of the 80's. Engineer wagons were a mish mash of different livieries and Codes. Note the S&W couplings - whilst not ideal they are a much better look than tension lock and they work brilliantly with the hand held magnet that is worked from under the base board. That's the lot for now - still having loads of fun running trains around. Might get the Green stuff out in a few weeks and have a go at the early 60's.

Just found this great blog - could you add my new layout to the list please: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/810/entry-18956-up-the-junction/ Thanks

Cheers Job - the viaduct scheme you made a while back stuck in my mind and provided a lot of inspiration for the scheme.

Mike, agree with the first comment - the research and knowledge is incredible. Are those coaches actual models?! I've nearly finished Simon Bradley's 'The Railways; Nation, Network and People and found his historical account on the development of coaches fascinating. He describes the passenger experience through the ages. Not anywhere as detailed as your research though. Brilliant stuff.

Cheers Mikkel. Again, very flattering to receive praise from one of the masters of this hobby. The sodium night scene is one I remember so well as a child growing up in Birmingham. When it was a cloudy night you'd get this pink glow in the whole sky above the city. It was very reassuring to me as a child - guess that's part of the reason we model - to recapture that feeling and the happiness of our childhoods (maybe getting a bit too deep here!). That's about it with the magnet as far as the coupling goes. It wouldn't work through 12mm ply so I had to cut access holes under where the track went and relay it on a 6mm ply placed over the holes. I took your advice about the S&W couplings and only use 1 hook per wagon - as long as they are all run in the same orientation it works fine. However, my patience runs out when it comes to fitting them and have opted for the lazy, slung underneath fashion. They look fine to me and look much better than propriety stuff - brilliant system and so very cheap compared to Kadee stuff.

Thanks a lot Black5. With the price of modern stuff now and the cost of converting to EM or P4 I've found myself on a mission to prove that you can make realistic 00 gauge scenes on the cheap - it really doesn't have to be a very expensive hobby. The Hornby 2 HAL was only 62 quid from Hattons and it's an absolutely brilliant model. Great little runner to boot. But the old second hand Lima/Hornby market is a great source in the battle to keep costs low. A bit of detailing really improves them - however, the motors are terrible and lack power - there's a lot of scope for double heading though (and that's given me an idea!).

That's how it was back then - a lot of crumbling Victorian stuff with brand new concrete monoliths rising up from the rubble. I remember that world so well as a kid. The new replacing the old - it was an exciting time to grow up in (late 60's/early 70's) - the future was full of so much promise. We were all supposed to be living on the Moon by now!

Thanks Mike. The Cortina Mk1 was my Dad's first car. He had it second hand in 1967 and we went on some brilliant holidays in it - Margate, Weymouth, Isle of Wight etc. - very happy memories so it's appropriate it is in the setting. I've since given the cars a coat of Matt Varnish which helps tone them down and removes that shiney toy finish.

As always, very flattered to get praise from a master finescale modeller such as yourself.

Thanks Killybegs - it's one of my favorites. I love the Lima HST - it's cheap, easy to update and is a much better offering than the old Hornby type. However, it's woeful on performance and can't pull the 6 Lima Mk3 coach and additional dummy car. I've put Keen couplings on these and think that's where the trouble is - it's no wonder other users motor up the dummy car when they improve on the couplings. It looks great though.

It's an age since I posted anything, but that don't mean that I haven't done anything. So here goes with the latest model. It's a four by three foot micro that has been connected up to three continuous loops so that I ran run trains to my heart's content - a real train set at long last. There's also a small shunting yard at the front for various departmental wagons and freight - depending what mood I'm in. The shunting yard is all operated by Spratt & Winkle - I just use a hand held magnet under the board to avoid the old 'hands in the sky' method. Whilst it is a Southern type scheme I can run any train depending on what I fancy - I've added some third rails (lengths of code 75 glued down beside the running rail) but you can't see these from the yard level etc. I wanted to create real depth to the cameo hence the yard, the double viaduct behind and single viaduct to the very rear. The viaducts are glued together Scalescenes Bridge kits. A Lima HST going over the front viaduct - a test shot and demonstrating that I can use just about any train from the corporate era. Setting up the scheme and playing about with positions of the viaducts. A test shot to ensure the holes in the backscene can't easily be seen from the front. Scenic breaks are the bug bear of all micro layouts. I took this picture of Bordesley Viaduct way back in 1995 from the third floor of a warehouse in Digbeth (long expose using 35mm film - the bad old days of photography - modern cameras are brilliant aren't they?) and wanted to emulate a part of this sodium lit night scene. My take with a block of flats (the right hand side scenic break) lit with a single light bulb inside. The flats are a super detailed Kingsway model seen here in the set up picture. Preparing the flats - each have windows with Scalescene's curtain textures etc. The front of one of the sections - I used sand that was glued to the front with a watery mix of PVA. The flats in daylight - Hornby 2 HAL with a Bachmann Class 416 on the front viaduct. Note the detailed Lima Class 73 on the rear viaduct travelling from behind the flats. You can get a feel for the depth of the cameo in this shot. I'm finishing off the departmental wagons, cranes etc for the yard at the moment and will post update pics at a later date.

Hi, thanks for the comment. The acetate sheet textures were sourced from CG Textures on the Internet. They are free, even for commercial use, and were simply downloaded. Some of these were small panels that had to be stitched together in excel. I then took these template sheets to a printer and had them run off on acetate (domestic laser printers don't seem to like acetate) for a small fee - this was actually the most expensive part of the build. I have used some panels of Wills clear corrugated sheet here and there for the top Windows and weathered them accordingly. Hope this helps? Regards Mike

Hi Mikkel, Know what you mean about surviving school!! I was brought up in Birmingham during the 60's/70's - tough time. Been here in Ireland for ten years now and love it - the pace of life is so much more relaxed with no traffic jams! I remember visiting Ireland during the 70's - it has changed so much since then - the small mindedness has long gone. I don't think I could have convinced my wife (who is English) to come and live here had the culture not changed. The people here are not over politically correct as yet but, I find, that is a bit of a breath of fresh air. You are more judged on merit and with a bit of common sense rather than on what you say. Gosh, it's a small world sometimes - had no idea of your Irish connection especially given that you are so into the GWR. Mike

Cheers Mikkel, nice to see you posting again too. That's interesting about you living in Galway and Wexford - what part of Galway? My mother's folks were from Glenamaddy - beautiful part of the world. You must come back and visit one day. Mike

Ever since completing my GWR branch terminus layout (Cheslyn) it has languished under dust sheets in the loft. My trouble is that I'm a bit of serial layout builder and get quickly bored once a project has been finished. Space is also at a premium and Cheslyn was taking it up so I therefore approached the Lartigue Museum in Listowel, Co Kerry and asked if they'd like to have it for display. They were delighted and mounted the layout on the wall in the old engine shed shortly after it was delivered to site. In addition to the layout I've also donated some stock. Cheslyn sits atop a scratchbuilt model of the Lartigue - this was made by a retired driver many years ago and it's a fantastic model that can be pushed along the small section of track made for it. I was delighted to have been made a lifetime member as a reward and can go visit for free whenever the fancy takes me. I live about 35 miles away (which is only a minor distance here in Ireland) and intend to visit often. Take a look at their website for some original photographs of the Listowel to Ballybunion railway in its heyday. This unique elevated steam train system ran for 36 years from 1888 to 1924 and the descendants of the British drivers sent over to operate the train still live in Listowel to this day. It seems to be an overlooked chapter in the history of steam traction and any enthusiast going on holiday to this part of the world ought to put it on the 'to visit' list. The lastest boon for the museum was to find an old Pathe newsreel from the early twenties - it's the only known film to ever have been taken of the Lartigue system. The short film also provides a fascinating glimpse of life in Ireland at that time. http://www.lartiguemonorail.com There were two driver/stokers on the footplate to balance out this weird contraption - the above is the modern diesel version that pulls a couple of carriages down a short length of restored track. Whilst on a visit about a month ago I met Graham Morfoot of http://www.grahamsrailways.com/ We had a great chat about our love for the hobby - it's a small world sometimes!