Jason T

Here’s one I made earlier…

Great to see you posting Jeff and I totally get you losing interest through burnout as I go through it too; so much to do and a lot of it is so repetitive that it becomes a chore.

I have been working on a model of Sandside station for eight months now and as there’s no proprietary stone anything like that used for the building (and me wanting to ensure that all quoins, lintels, sills, etc. line up), I have been hand scribing Plastikard; it’s also an incredibly complex building.

I deviated into rolling stock (far more 5 plank wagons than I will ever need, and a rake of departmental wagons for instance) but then mountain biking takes over again and nothing gets done. Also, the cat has taken to sitting exactly where I want to work….

I started on one of the chimney stacks today, then the cat decided to sleep on my chair when I got up for five minutes. Just can’t win!

Probably a bit off topic for RMWeb but I'm going to chat about mountain biking as it's my other real passion.

There's actually some ok trails in the woods around the quarry but they're not easy to spot. Have you found the cheeky stuff on Arnside Knott yet? Doesn't really give it away per se but if you know your way around the Knott, you might be able to find it from this (yep, I'm an idiot MTB YouTuber...)

Disclaimer: It's a bit sweary 😀

It's been a while since I last posted but I haven't been quiet with regard to modelling, it's just that I have been plodding away with tasks that take a lot of time and updates would be a bit dull and repetitive.

I finally bit the bullet and started on the station building, the structure that is by far the most complex I have ever attempted. 

As with all other buildings for Sandside, there's no suitable embossed stone available so again, I have had little choice but to scribe the stone into Plastikard (yes, I guess I could have compromised and used an unsuitable embossed sheet, which hardly anyone would ever have noticed as being incorrect, but I would know...).

As posted above somewhere, the station building was designed by Paley & Austin of Lancaster and was nothing like any other station building on the Furness Railway. 

The real station

There's a long way to go and I think I will need to invest in or borrow a 3d printer for certain components. What you see below is 4 months worth (on and off) of measuring and scribing; at a guess it will take at least another 6 months before it is anything like finished.

The model so far

Now as I am sure you can imagine, all that scribing becomes somewhat tedious so from time to time I have deviated, converting locos and stock to EM Gauge and of course, building wagons from kits. Quite a few wagons.

I am trying to keep the rolling stock in line with that which would have been used on the branch (there was no through freight other than the coke trains from County Durham) but you have to include something that's a bit different, right? Well, for me, that's an engineering train which will consist of some ballast spoil wagons and a Loriot W.

I bought the Loriot W kit some time ago; it's a Cambrian kit and when I opened it and looked at the instructions, I kind of put it to one side. Cambrian kits build up into lovely wagons but you do need to take a bit of care building/fettling them in my experience. Anyway, with the Loriot, it went together really well. It's currently very shiny black in preparation for the decals going on, before being weathered.

Loriot

Also in progress is this Cambrian Starfish, which will make a change from the Grampus wagons that make up most of the rest of the consist (all Parkside)

Starfish

Whilst building the Loriot, I pondered what to put on it as a load; it'd be pointless modelling it without one as why would it be there? I didn't want to go for the usual JCB So, off to Google I went and found a number of images of them with front loader crawlers on them; another search and I found the Langley Models Drott crawler. 

Again, a work in progress and quite possibly one of the most fiddly kits I have ever constructed, but it's getting there and will hopefully look the part when finished and be a bit different to the usual JCB.

Drott

I do have a JCB too of course, one of the Dapol models. I started this over a year ago and it then sat in a box until the weekend, when I moved forward with it to this point, wearing primer. The cab is still removeable at this point to allow me to paint it and then fit the glazing, which I luckily measured and cut out all that time ago.

There's also a Langley cement mixer, which has been sat in a box since Bacup times, unfinished. It looks a bit battered but doesn't show up in real life as the real thing is WAY smaller than the photo.

JCB and friend

Blimey mate, you don’t hang around do you? At EXPO EM, the photos you showed us was of a couple of baseboards under construction and that was about it, and now you’re further on than a lot of people’s layouts ever get!

Looks lovely already 

Another video, this one about wagons.

And before anyone points it out, I didn’t spot the incorrect door spring on the 5 plank (pictured on The Mill) until I came to editing the video. Another for remedial work….

Let's talk wagons - fettling kits and ancient RTR stuff
https://youtu.be/NK8i6JpNkKo

I got a bit carried away, carried away in a 5 plank open wagon one might say.

The layout needs a few of these for stone traffic; upon checking what I already had and the stock from The Mill, I probably had enough. However, there’s a photo of a rare through freight (excluding the coke traffic) of a Stanier Mogul hauling a lengthy train of empty open wagons.

Chances are that this was such a rare occurrence, it’s probably not worth modelling but I do like building wagons.

As we all know, open wagons were used extensively but have all but been ignored by manufacturers, with not much variation; kits are the same. However, with the kits, there’s the possibility to add variation, which I have tried to do through using different underframes, etc. The rake currently numbers 16 fitted opens (unfitted will come later) made up of LMS, LNER and BR built wooden and steel wagons; one Bachmann in there (regauged but nothing else), many Parkside and a hybrid. I was looking in my stock boxes and found a heavily weathered Airfix LMS 5 plank (I think it came from Dave Shakespeare of Tetley Mills fame). Nice body but the Airfix underframe was junk so went in the bin.

So, I fired up Paul Bartlett’s site and found a clasp braked variant and with the help of Mainly Trains etches, some judicious bending and filing, some Plastikard, Lanarkshire buffers and some spare Parkside solebars, I botched this up. Original paint has been stripped off, ready to receive it’s undercoat of Halfords Primer.

Here’s the full ‘collection’; the aforementioned Airfix hybrid in raw plastic/metal, six in primer and nine finished. I have a feeling that the rake will grow (I am on the hunt for more Airfix 5 planks as Morton vac converted ones are  noticeably absent)

Sorry for the awful photos; there’s a window behind the layout that provides unkind light.

As covered in my thread in Scenery, Structures and Transport, I have made progress with a number of the buildings, mainly the goods shed (finished apart from weathering) and Berry’s Warehouse (painting being a long ongoing task). Below is where I currently am with both.

Aside from buildings, another passion is wagons and whilst I openly admit to not being very knowledgeable about them, I am trying to ensure that I have the relatively correct types for the traffic that Sandside saw, mainly open wagons with the occasional tar wagon, van, etc.

Of these opens, there were four main types, each with their own traffic flows.

There was substantial coal traffic, handled by 16 ton mineral wagons and their earlier wooden bodied equivalents. I have more of both of these than I would ever need.

5 plank and steel bodied equivalents were used for stone traffic, the last traffic on the branch actually being stones used in sugar production in East Scotland!!

 I have a fair amount of opens but not enough (and not enough variety) so am working through a pile of kits. Luckily, I needed quite a few opens for The Mill so when I retrieve that and the stock boxes, a half decent number will be available.

Ballast traffic appears to have used Catfish and Dogfish wagons. I did build up a few of these from the Cambrian kits years ago (pre Bacup) and complimented them with a few Heljan Dogfish (which I left in either Engineers Green or stupidly resprayed in Gulf Red, thinking that was a more common livery than it was). They never really saw use on Bacup so languished in boxes for years.

As they were from early in my modelling rebirth, the quality is not great and remedial work has and will be required to bring them up to standard.

With the Cambrian ones, this has so far involved converting them to EM (and removing a load of PVA from the inside of one Catfish (where I had added a load and then changed my mind).

The Heljan ones have been more involved; converting them to EM has taken some fettling, as has stripping off the Gulf Red ready for re-spraying.

One has obviously met with the floor at some point so will need new handrail uprights fashioning (handrail replacements already formed from wire)

Box of projects 

The coke traffic from County Durham to Furness was handled using an eclectic mix of steel and wooden bodied hopper wagons, surprisingly not in specific coke wagons (I checked this with my friend and project mentor, Karl Crowther - he doesn’t know he’s my mentor!!).

 I have already built a decent number of Parkside 21 ton hoppers over the years and have a few Slaters wooden bodied ones; these have been converted to EM but are in various stages of painting and weathering (only one is completed, used on The Mill). However, many more are needed so I am building additional ones, adding planking to the interiors.

Additionally, I have ordered a pack of the Accurascale ones.

 I will need two rakes; one full heading south and the empty returns. At least I won’t have to worry about the internal planking on the full ones (thank God).

The latest build 

Other hoppers in various states of completion 

And that’s it, for now.

Oops, forgot the shot of the doors and downpipes 

6 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

 

 

Hi Kelvin,

 

I've not found a thread for the layout yet. If ever a layout needed it's own topic opening up, this is it. 

 

Wonderful as these images and supporting answers to the inevitable queries, they are mingling with other modellers content which means the info you're providing will become submerged in a short time. 

 

There is already a great deal of interest.

 

Please set up a layout thread where we can all follow you and your brother's lovely work.............and bombard you with the "how on earth did you do that" stuff. 

 

Rob. 

 

 

 

 

To be fair Rob, we could just rename this thread “How realistic is Kelvin and Robin’s modelling” 😀

Anyone who follows my thread in the Scenery Structures and Transport sub-forum will have seen that I have made quite a bit of progress with the buildings for the layout with the latest, Berry's Warehouse, coming together now following weeks and weeks of scribing.

Rather than post a ton of updates in here (when there's ones in the separate thread - pretty much only working on buildings at the moment so it's more relevant there), I have made a video of my progress.

Some will know that I have a mountain biking YouTube channel (Stopadoodledoo); through that I have come to really enjoy filming and editing videos that are probably not like your average MTB channel. In the same way, my railway modelling channel is probably not like any other you will have seen either - probably a bad thing really but... meh; it's the kind of videos I would like to see.

I have no intention of moving all my modelling content over to YouTube as I really enjoy using forums and the discussion that threads generate but the occasional daft video, well that's different.

Anyway, after that 'marketing', here it is:

A milestone has been reached with Berry’s Warehouse, with the main scribing of the stonework completed (just some tidying up to do) and the window and door apertures cut out.

You will notice that the rear doors have Plastikard attached over the apertures; this is partly because the scribing and cutting left the structure weak but also because I need to add depth to the walls. An old building, it had thick walls!

Once the thickness has been added and scribed in, the next step will be to add window and door frames and where applicable, doors. The top front door had some very interesting wooden fencing and framing added, which adds to the character of the building somewhat 

When all windows (thankfully unglazed) and doors have been added, the following step will be to add rigidity to the walls and then determine the best way to glue it all together. I am some way off that though.

Not much progress to report on this week, mainly as I was away over the weekend. Scribing has, however, continued on Berry’s Warehouse with the front and south side almost completed now; it’s taking approximately an hour per square inch and at times, seems like an endless task but will hopefully be worth it. Luckily, the rear of the building (which will be totally out of sight but will be detailed anyway) sits into the hill so only 60% of it needs scribing.

Front elevation 

Side elevation 

I have so far built two ‘serious’ layouts with a third just beginning. Of these, the first was very much a home layout, the second is an exhibition layout that could easily be operated at home due to it’s sit and the proposed one will be exhibition only.

At one point, I would have argued that for me, having a home layout or one that could be operated at home was where my interest sat but have realised as time has passed that I am far more interested in making rather than playing. I love operating layouts at exhibitions and have been privileged enough to do so on some well known and very well respected layouts, as well as the one a friend and I built but at home, I would much rather be tinkering or constructing.

 I noticed this with my home layout. I would start operating/playing but would invariably find myself at the workbench in under 30 minutes. As such, for me, an exhibition layout makes more sense as I get to create, share my creations with others and have set times when I have to operate (and thoroughly enjoy those times).

Another photo appeared on Facebook today and it’s of the goods yard with almost exclusively coal traffic. What’s of interest here is the infrastructure associated with and the storage of the coal, especially the coal bagging hopper in the background with the digger dumping coal into the top.

Another thing to add to the ‘what did that look like close up?’ list.

21 minutes ago, Dragonboy said:

Exquisite models as always Jason and great to see you’re back. Such a shame that Bacup is no more. That was a great model. 
 

Brian

Thanks Brian. The spirit of Bacup lives on with The Mill (the mill chimney from Bacup is used on it for starters…) and hopefully Sandside, whilst very different, will also appeal. I hope so anyway, as it will be built with exhibitions in mind…

43 minutes ago, marc smith said:

I've not visited the area, nor have any connection to it. However, I found those old photos really interesting. And what a great location. Set up for some interesting modelling, I'm sure.

Good progress so far - there's nothing wrong with making the buildings first. In fact, It's my usual method too. What tends to happen when you do this, is that the layout suddenly seems to "grow" when you first loosely place the structures in-situ. The buildings are looking good too btw. Good luck with this layout - I'll follow with interest :) 

Thanks Marc. I am totally biased but I think it will make for a layout that will interest people and not just me.

 I think one of the other reasons I want to work on the buildings first is that I want to be sure I can do them justice. I would hate to get track down and then fail miserably with the structures that to all intents and purposes, are the reason for the layout.

It would have been very easy to have gone down a non-real location route and I was tempted, thinking of using the buildings off Bacup, and depicting exchange sidings, which would then connect to my current layout (The Mill),

It would always have been a compromise though, and all but removed one of my favourite elements of modelling, constructing buildings.

1 hour ago, MR Chuffer said:

Or perhaps coke? The Roberts Davy coke wagon below is common across the internet but looking at the NLS maps of your location, I couldn't identify where they might have sidings unless they delivered direct to the lime kiln. Or is the company/wagon fictitious?

 

You could be right there. A lot of coke traffic passed through Sandside en route from Co. Durham to Furness but surprisingly, the ancient Hornby wagon is based on a prototype, with the coke coming from Wakefield. Not sure whether it was used to fire the kiln or not though.

Below is an excerpt from a discussion about the wagon on the village Facebook page; fascinating to get some background from a relative. This is a perfect example of (1) why I want to model and actual location and (2) why it had to be Sandside.

Planning ahead today and it's to do with the Spencer Lime Kiln that towered over it's surroundings on the Quarry Lane and according to the older generation in the village, was considered an eyesore; no tears were shed when it was removed.

The problem I face is that although it appears in many a photo, mainly because it is so imposing, nobody ever thought to take a close-up shot of it's workings. I understand the principles; limestone was fed into the top by a conveyor belt and below where it sat was a heating unit (coal?). A ton of limestone in, half a ton of lime used for agriculture, etc., out. It was out of use by the late 50's and towards the end of it's life, the conveyor belt had been removed.

The questions I have though are: What was used to fuel it? I presume coal but don't know - makes sense that the disused drops were for coal but then how was it fed into the kiln, and where? How and where was the lime extracted for loading into wagons (defunct in my period but still...)? I am guessing at the base below the covered area, where a platform was sited. But was there a hopper? 

Without at least an understanding of this, how can I model it?

So, in a pre-emptive strike, I have ordered, of all things, a copy of the patent submitted for the type of kiln in the hope that it will at least give some clues as to how it worked, etc. I am guessing that to an extent, I could come up with a convoluted method of loading fuel and extracting lime but I would rather get as close as I can.

Where else is there in Bracknell? 🤔

Wetherspoons or…. 😃