D869

Good idea, but I guess that something designed for an SLR camera might be a bit big for 2mm stock. Still I guess I could make some tray inserts and go for a double or triple decker arrangement. I don't have quite that many coaches though. Regards, Andy

There has been quite a lot of activity chez mois in preparation for St Ruth's forthcoming appearance at Nottingham, mainly on the buildings front as those watching the St Ruth blog will have seen. This has meant something of a hiatus in areas like locos and rolling stock because once I get started on these the buildings won't get a look in. Those who saw St Ruth at the Oxford Expo in 2010 may have noticed a lack of many things including (but not limited to) coaches. This show came at an awkward time because it was a few months before Farish released their excellent Blue Riband Mark 1 coaches, so we needed more coaches but we didn't want to spend money on things that would be eclipsed by the shiny new offerings. Anyway, that isn't such an issue now and the credit cards have been in action on several occasions since then to acquire some of the nice new things. The only snag being that until recently, they were all sat in a carrier bag inside their original boxes - hardly a convenient way to take them to and from shows, so something had to be done. Some years ago when I needed a stock box I did a 'proper' job and made one from wood and ply with modules inside that would plug into my then layout. Nice, but rather time consuming. This time I decided to opt for a solution that could be done in the bare minimum of time. The trick was to find some sturdy boxes that were just a little larger inside than the height of a coach. The first thing I found was a gift box which once contained some socks. This was then lined with 5mm foam board and some partitions made from the same material. One partition was made from mounting board in order to squeeze 5 rows in. This is a handy box for parcels vehicles but is too short to fit two 64ft coaches end to end. The second box looks almost like a quality product (provided that you don't look to closely). In fact it is a box which once contained a children's painting set (the paints had already been used by said children I hasten to add). After ripping out the vacuum formed plastic inserts and getting rid of the strange adhesive that held them in place (something that looks rather like it might have come out of your nose), the box was lined and partitioned with 5mm foamboard. I didn't keep track of the time for the first one, but the second one took less than 90 minutes to make and cost me pretty close to nothing. Both boxes are already full of coaches, so I'm on the lookout for other suitable items to recycle.

At the risk of nit-picking (but in my defence, I have actually modelled one of these beasties, so I needed to know)... ... watch out for the 'eyebrows' - the vents over the cab window which were found on locos up to D6312 I think, plus (for some strange reason) D6333. Locos from D6326 onwards have a different boiler which may affect the roof vents at that end. Locos up to D6333 did not have headcodes from new (which is probably why they ended up with a different front end layout from the later ones), so check photos for dates when they were retro-fitted. For a relatively small, short lived class of locos, the detail variations are a real minefield. At the end of the day though I find these locos full of character and perfect for so many jobs on the kind of layouts that most of us build. Regards, Andy

The photo isn't very detailed but the bogies you used don't seem a million miles away from being correct. The Association ones involve more folding and soldering than the ones you used. They are pretty good representations of the bogies used on the passenger carrying vehicles but many of the NPCS vehicles had bogies of the same basic design but with shorter springs and smaller footsteps. I decided it was impractical to change the springs on the Association kits, so my model has bogies that are not quite typical of those used on the full brakes in the photos I've seen. They should be perfect for your brake third etc though.

wot no Lister flying bedstead yet?

Glad to see that you've found an approach that is working for you.

Hmm... so how did you manage to paint all those chairs (and neatly too) without any mojo? I think that job drives most people up the wall. I'm in two minds on the card vs plastic question for buildings... I think I'm happier working in card and I definitely get more convincing (to me anyway) painted finishes with less angst, but with plastic I can do more fiddly shapes and take advantage of moulded planking, bricks and so on. There's always Modelstrip if the paint job is really that bad... I have several models where a complete painting disaster has been removed and somehow I usually do much better second time around.

Hi Pete - just found this post belatedly... usual reason. I think the building is looking good. Personally I wouldn't stress too much about perfection in the paint job or this or that fine detail. I like the analogy (I think it was from Keith Armes) that 2mm is the modelling equivalent of watercolour impressionism as compared to 7mm which might be oil painting. So put away the optical aids. Step back and look at the overall effect. Is it pleasing? It certainly seems so to me.

Thank you all for the complements. There will be plenty of work still to be done after Nottingham, but the intention is to get the layout into a state by March where it doesn't look obviously incomplete - which means most of the buildings, ground cover and the other aspects of presentation like a decent lighting rig. For those who have never been to the Nottingham show, I can definitely recommend it. It is one of the few shows that I attend every year as a punter and I always enjoy it. This year promises the additional bonus of being rather a 2FS-fest with four finescale layouts in attendance including Bob Jones' north eastern empire.

There is a bit of a theme to our lives at the moment... getting the buildings built. We have accepted an invite to the Nottingham show in March next year so it's now all hands to the pumps to get a reasonable set of buildings into place on the layout. Most of us have little or no prior experience of doing this, but I think that everyone has produced good results. The photos below were taken at our most recent meeting where we had most of the current crop of buildings in place on the layout... although unfortunately the backscenes were not fitted and I'm not such a dab hand with Photoshop as Mr Nevard of this parish... still, best to save some things for the show maybe. There are still some unfinished buildings and several that have not yet been started but I think that (as a project manager I once worked with would always say) 'progress is good'. The low relief warehouses are coming along behind Dick's station but the goods shed is conspicuous by its absence. Glyn's signal box, Chris's terrace and John's shops. Chris has now accepted the commission for the Cliff Hotel which will fill in the big gap in this photo. The Royale Hotel (mine) and its neighbours (John and Chris's). They will hopefully be at rather less jaunty angles before show time. Work on the houses to the east of the hotel is underway. I think that Chris is winning the stakes for the most buildings made. This is his latest residence.

Hi David, Nice job - I particularly like the colour. For tumblehomes I use a suitable sized piece of metal rod (smaller than the diameter I'm aiming for) and put the coach side on what I grandiosely call a 'tumblehome jig'. You could use wooden dowel, but I think metal is probably better for the smaller diameters. The jig in question is easily made in 5 minutes from a few strips of cereal packet - one base piece comfortably bigger than the coach side, a strip at the top to locate the top edge of the coach side and then two (or more) strips glued on top of each other so that they don't quite clear near to the bottom edge of the coach side and prop it up away from the base. I then carefully push the metal rod down onto the lower part of the coach side and the lower strips of card force the bottom edge to bend around the metal rod. I often use more than one metal rod of different (progressively smaller) diameters to gradually form the curve. Take your time and keep removing and checking because it's easier to add more curve than to reduce the curve... although reducing the curve isn't impossible if you do go wrong - just smooth the curve against a slightly larger diameter rod. I don't think this was my idea originally but I have no idea where it came from. Of course it pays to have plenty of choice of metal rod diameters to choose from, but be creative and scour your toolbox, kitchen drawers etc. Regards, Andy

Thanks for posting the unmodified picture Chris - I've been having a look at this plus a few other pics of Kimble. I think your modified picture is a good demonstration of what can be done with a camera and either a backdrop or Photoshop to make a layout look really good. Apart from the obvious benefit of removing the NEC roof and the punters in the background, I find it remarkable how much of a sense of 'space' is conveyed by your photo. I just don't get the same sense from any other pictures of the layout. In fact I struggled initially to relate the two together - your picture makes my brain think that the signal box is further from the bridge than it really is and the station is not noticeable, giving the impression of a wide-open stretch of main line. Put another way... I'm sure now that I did see Kimble at the show, but I didn't recognise your picture as being the same layout. Don't get me wrong - this is not a criticism of clever camera work or of the layout, nor is it (hopefully) simpering fan mail. I'd just like to be able to improve my own efforts with the camera. I think there is a lot in the unmodified shot (choice of angle, focus etc) that is critical to the success of the modified picture - i.e. Photoshop is not the whole story. Keep up the good work and feel free to tell us more about how it's done. Regards, Andy

Nice photo Chris. Which layout is it? I don't remember seeing it. It may be the camera angle or it could be that I managed to miss an aisle at the show, which wouldn't be surprising.

Good to see you're still progressing... even though RMWeb still doesn't want to tell me so <grrr>.

Blimey - you finished another layout already? I must stop surfing RMWeb and get on with some modelling... Regards, Andy

Excellent - reminiscent of the photos in 'Sabotaged and Defeated' and Colin Maggs' 'Last Years of...' book. I wonder if it would be bending geography/history too much to have a blue class 22 and some milk tanks trundling through? Regards, Andy

Is this how you will look at Wycrail? It's just as sad whether or not it's a wind up.

Good to see you turning out some motive power Pete... and glad that Dapol's offering hasn't put you off building your own. For some reason RMWeb has decided not to tell me when you post stuff on your blogs... annoying because it tells me when other people post.

Hi Chris, Did you check the translation of your chosen place name? As far as I can see it could be 'badger pool', which seems quite nice... although to be more sure would require consultation of one of the large tomes which trace the provenance of individual Cornish place names... which is probably going a bit far. Any plans for a model of said badger? Regards, Andy

Could be... but if I must build 2mm layouts to fill all of the Ikea shelving in my house then that will take a very long time... and I'll have nowhere to keep my railway books.

Thanks David, and thanks for the original inspiration. No, but I do have a camera I did end up writing a bunch more stuff when writing this post but it was getting a bit long winded so I thought I would save the detail for another day. I must also get round to taking some photos with a proper means of keeping the camera steady because hand held close-ups are pretty hit and miss (mainly miss) with the layout residing on its usual (ahem) Ikea Ivar shelf.

Just because you can doesn't mean that you should... (images of news headlines about flights being diverted due to passengers being scared by unusual shunting behaviour). Don't blame me for putting you up to it! You would definitely need brakes on your stock - some of mine will roll away with the slightest gradient.

Well, once I've started a blazing inferno in the log burner and the rest of the party have settled down to watch one of the carefully chosen set of chick flick DVDs that they brought along, what is a chap to do? Actually to be fair they did bring one movie that I would have sat down and watched but they managed to bring the bonus features disc instead of the actual film . Thanks Pete - I'll bear it in mind, but I don't think that I'm quite as brave as you in terms of what I'll take through airport security. I doubt whether they have a specific rule in their book for ultra-portable model railways, so it's probably down to the initiative of the individual security person... which doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

I thought I would introduce South Yard by concentrating on what it is for so here is a picture of South Yard set up in the holiday cottage that we rented last week for our half-term holiday on the North York Moors. I don't claim any originality in any of South Yard's ideas (or the title of this posting) - the main inspiration came from David Mallott's 'Chapel Wharf', particularly his idea of having a layout that could easily be taken on holiday to provide entertainment in case of inclement weather. Fortunately we didn't have very much inclement weather, but the nights are drawing in so there was plenty of opportunity to run some freight traffic. There might have been passenger traffic too if I had remembered to take the bubble car. South Yard was conceived a long time ago - probably about 2001 as a 'quick' ultra-portable micro layout. I'd partially built a bigger 2mm layout some time prior to this but a house move left it with no suitable place to live. If the 2012 RMWeb challenge is for the longest time to build the least amount of layout then I reckon I'll be in the running. South Yard is set in the back streets of Plymouth. The fictional story is that the LSWR wanted to gain their own access to the Royal Naval Dockyard at Devonport and so built a line off their Stonehouse Pool branch to reach the southern portion of the dockyard (which really is called South Yard) and gain access to the yard's internal rail network via a gate in the yard wall near to the rope walk. A small station was also provided to cater for the yard workforce and local populace. This fiction probably has quite a few holes including some questionable gradients and the elimination of several streets near the yard, but is perhaps no less plausible than the real thing which involved the burrowing of a restricted height tunnel on the internal railway between the various parts of the dockyard. The setting and built environment draws much from David Mallott's inspiration - the Turnchapel Branch, although I've lifted bits of Turnchapel station rather than the wharf and grafted them onto a track layout mostly inspired by John Spencer's Ruyton Road. The dockyard gate was originally inspired by the entrance to Coypool depot from the Marsh Mills branch, although you'd be hard pressed to spot any similarity now. The road bridge and scenic break is from further afield - Exeter Central, the story being that a road widening scheme required replacement of an older bridge. The provender store was recycled from my older layout and was based on the photos of Barnstaple cement depot in the first MRJ Compendium. Finally, the coal merchant's office is based on a photo of the back of a building at Welshpool and pure speculation regarding how the front might have looked. My original definition of 'ultra portable' was that it should fit into a single compartment of a flight bag (not that I ever intended to take it on a flight). This dictated the 10 by 16 inch area available for the layout and also that it should pack down into something not more than a couple of inches in height. There is no fiddle yard, just an adapter that allows modules to be plugged in. The other ends of the modules are supported by a book of suitable thickness. Here's the layout just back from holiday and still without any of its removeable scenic bits. South Yard has never actually travelled in the flight bag as originally intended because I was given a rectangular brief case for which I had no real use other than as South Yard's new carry case. This also allowed me to postpone the construction of the originally planned protective case for South Yard. It would be nice to say that South Yard packs down into a nicely designed box complete with integral storage for stock and buildings. It would be nice but it wouldn't be true. The layout itself including buildings, scenery and fiddle yard modules all pack rather untidily into the brief case. The briefcase then travels in company with a Morrison's shopping bag containing the somewhat bulky power supply (also recycled from my old layout), controller, locos and stock plus a small toolkit and a box with whatever projects I'm optimistically planning to work on while I'm away. Speaking of which, here are the products from three separate weeks' holidays during the summer and Autumn. Happily, South Yard has completely fulfilled its original purpose and has been taken on holiday on several occasions as well as playing its regular role as the permanent test track in my study/workshop. There is still plenty more to do - the bare bones of the scenery is done (which is a major achievement compared to my previous layouts) but there is plenty more work to do in terms of detailing the coal yard and adding more vegetation. The dockyard could use some actual gates plus an extra module adapter to allow trains to be shunted through them.

> Im back! Has anyone missed me? Yay! Of course we missed you... although it was good to see you in real life at the AGM. I shared your dilemma over pickups/sideframes for pinpoint pickup based bogies. My solution was to hack the original plastic sideframes around and then glue stuff to them until they bore some resemblence to the real thing, but it's rather a pain to go down that route. One thing that puzzles me about this form of off-the-shelf chassis is how it works so well. Clearly it does work (and I'm very glad of it), but when you take it apart it seems to have really sloppy clearances everywhere so I really don't understand how it manages to achieve such good results. I suspect that the pinpoint pickup bars are providing pickup, accurate (enough) axle alignment and some degree of suspension travel and that they are therefore the secret to the success of this chassis design. This is probably why I've chickened out (twice) of messing with the pickup bars or the plastic sideframes that hold them in place. I'll be very interested in how you get on. Regards, Andy