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Chawn Park Buildings - N gauge


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Dear All

 

During COVID I have been following the progress of all your interesting model building projects.

Like Grahame H I have been working on some buildings in N gauge.

 

This is my first post on the RM web site thus not sure if this will work as expected.

Welcome to Chawn Park

 

Below are a few images of my station buildings. 

First photo with a coin to confirm this is N gauge

   

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The buildings are scratch built mainly from card with some laser cut parts

 

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More details and information about methods of construction will be posted on further pages in this section.

Hope these may be of interest to others building model railways in N Scale.

Vic

 

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A few more photos of buildings around Chawn Park model railway

 

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Final photo in this set, showing parts of the layout still under construction.

 

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Chawn Park is freelance but based upon typical GWR / BR Western region type platform buildings  

 

The base of the platform buildings are simple card shapes based upon methods and examples I found from other projects posted on this site.  Thanks everyone for some excellent ideas.

 

Below is an example of the base card layer with windows marked and cut out  

 

 

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Since the buildings have internal lights, some internal detail was added,

Below basic shape of island platform waiting room

 

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Further layers added building up detail.

Quick base coat of grey primer  

Trial fit of windows and doors 

 

 

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Chawn Park is freelance but based upon typical GWR / BR Western region type platform buildings  

 

The base of the platform buildings are simple card shapes based upon methods and examples I found from other projects posted on this site.  Thanks everyone for some excellent ideas.

 

Below is an example of the base card layer with windows marked and cut out  

 

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Since the buildings have internal lights, some internal detail was added,

Below basic shape of island platform waiting room

 

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Further layers added building up detail.

Quick base coat of grey primer  

Trial fit of windows and doors 

 

 

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Steve / All

 

I was planning to share details about construction of the my scratch built buildings in this section since it seems to be the key topic for this excellent section. 

 

Yes I will post a thread about my layout when I find out best place to locate it on this site.

Fitting with this scratch built building tread and your gernal interest below  photo showing a class 50 passing my steelworks buildings 

 

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For more details about the layout please visit the Chawn Park layout section on this website.

 

Vic 

 

 

 

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Simple internal detail is important when buildings have internal lights 

Below an example of interior 

Just a few simple prints quickly  bring the waiting room interior to life. 

PS Sorry about photo quality, N gauge close up shots with my phone are not always totally in focus

 

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Below at a much later stage after external details are added  

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First trials with internal lights

 

I used " bottle lights "  these being a string of small LEDs sold in many craft shops. I was able to purchase 10 packs of the bottle light sets direct from a web site for less than than 10 pounds, that gave me around 200 LEDs.  

 

The bottle lights come with a battery holder, but I removed these, added suitable resistors for my layouts power system voltage, then experimented with brightness by adjusting resistors until I found the brightness that gave the building a suitable light brightness.    

 

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When adding internal lights it is very important that light does not leak from any joints, for example between the bottom of the walls and platform, hence this lighting test.

 

The copper wires between the LEDs are simply cut to length and re-soldered together.

Each copper wire is insulated by a varnish type coating, thus I stagger any joints since after rejoining by soldering the varnish insulation is lost.  The wires will solder better if you first scratch away some of the varnish. 

I recommend holding the wire with pillars between the joint to be soldered and the LED to act as a simple heat sink to prevent damage to the LED 

 

Correct polarity must be kept when rejoining the wires.       

 

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Above photo shows LED lights mounted in platform building roof being tested prior to next stage of building construction.

 

After adding the window frames and glazing another lighting test.

N gauge station wall clocks are by Kestral  ( Kestal number part KD62 )

 

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Final photo in this set shows the wall clocks in place together with more external details such as drainpipes, notice boards and other signage

 

Note during this stage of construction building was mounted on a temporary plywood platform base. 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Dear All

The RMWeb administrator helped by moving my content into two groups, in this location I will continue to share information about construction of the buildings used on my N gauge model railway Chawn Park.  If you are interested in the layout and its operation then that can be found at Home / Modelling Zone / Layout & Workbench Content / Layout topics / Chawn Park. N gauge model railway

 

So back to the subject of construction of buildings

 

Photo1 shows Chawn Park station model before construction of the island platform buildings.

The main station buildings and town scene in the foreground being at a higher level hide the Sharpe track curves at this end of the layout.  My vision for this freelance layout was to add two sets of island platform buildings based around some typical GWR constructions in the West Midlands. Many features of these buildings are based upon my observations of platform buildings at Birmingham Moor Street station (Photo 5) and mainly Stourbridge Junction (Photo 4 )

 

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Photo 2 shows Chawn Park, which is the hill behind Stourbridge Junction station, from which this model takes its name.

Today the hill is covered by a large housing estate arranged around Chawn Park Drive. Hence on my model I have formed a hill behind the platforms with some modern houses on the hillside.

 

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Photo 3.  This shows a general view over my two island platform buildings. 

The roof structure formed using off the shelf laser cut parts, more about that later , can been seen through the roof windows is very similar to the construction used by the GWR on many West Midland stations and it was quite interesting to try and make a reasonably detailed representation to fit this N gauge model.

 

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Photo 4.  Stourbridge Junction station. West Midlands.  Many ideas for the design came from this site. The island platform waiting rooms and general steelwork structure. However the original GWR roof as been replaced with more modern type cladding.

 

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Photo 5.  Birmingham Moor Street.  Selection of images showing lots of roof details copied into my model steelwork structure.

 

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Photo 6.   

The first challenge was that since the station platforms already existed on my model, with the platforms firmly glued into place and not possible to be removed without major damage, how to construct and add the platform buildings and canopy structure.

First step was to make a tracing of the platforms since they are not straight, well not straight seemed like a good idea when I built them but it made this later construction of the platform building system more complex. From the tracing I made a copy of the platforms shape in plywood to act as a temporary base during construction.

 

I found some laser cut girders on scalemodelscenery website and thought these could form basis of the main roof structure. 

 

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Photo 6 shows first experiments with the girders.  I cut a cardboard template of the platform shape, then removed most of the material leaving a mainly open area. 

Photo 6 also shows the stairs down from the main station buildings and some of the surrounding buildings which had already been constructed.  The platform at this stage is just faced with Metcalfe models paving as supplied, this was later painted which resulted in a more realistic surface.   

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Photo 7

Roof starts to take shape.

Laser cut roof beams now trial mounted above and below the card template.

Design look acceptable, so next need to find other parts to build the structure. 

 

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Based upon the experiments shown in the above photo I now had a vision about how to build the island platform roof ...................more details in next post

 

Vic  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The next key step was to find a solution for roof trusses.

 

Photo 8

Roof truss sections are formed using "canopy brackets" produced by York Modelmaking for O gauge buildings but they seem to work OK for my needs in this N Gauge building project ! 

 

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Photo 9

View from underside with first roof trusses mounted.  The structure was starting to become ridged, quite surprising when only such small parts cut from cardboard and plastic are used.

 

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Photo 10

End view showing the York Modelmaking brackets forming the main roof trusses.  

 

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Photo 11

Another view from the underside.

The blue arrows show where I plan to support the roof by pillars from the platform

A copy of the hole locations was transferred into the plywood template of the platform shape. 

The plywood template will act as both a temporary platform / model base during next stages of construction and will finally be used to ensure the pillar holes can be drilled into the existing platforms at the exact same position as the corresponding holes to accept the pillars in the roof structure.   

 

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30.JPG.4d5ad254a1ef77128999d4fc3c6b8a96.JPG30.JPG.4d5ad254a1ef77128999d4fc3c6b8a96.JPG30.JPG.4d5ad254a1ef77128999d4fc3c6b8a96.JPGNext steps in construction of the island platform buildings

 

Photo 12  and Photo 13.

First trial of roof base structure resting on top of platform buildings.

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Photo 14.

Platform roof structure at a more advanced stage with roof trusses in place on rear platform.

Island platform buildings on other platform have now becoming more finished. Windows and doors are mounted, interior painted and some detail added.     

 

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Photo 15

This photo shows the LED lights mounted on the lower roof steel beams.

I used 26 LEDs in each platform roof to ensure even light distribution.  Experimentation showed that use of more LEDs with lower light output gave better effect than a few bright LEDs 

 

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Photo 16

This shows the interior of the platform buildings and how the roof structure is supported on the platform building.

Supports pillars between the platform and the roof will support the structure in areas away from the buildings

 

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Photo 17

A close up which shows all the small construction errors, but most cannot be seen in the finished building.

Note the very fine wires used to connected all LED lights.

The building interiors, platform canopy lights, station wall clocks  are all on different circuits  to allow switching to form different lighting effects.

 

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Hope these explain a little more about how these buildings have been created from simple materials.

 

Vic       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dear All

 

Next steps in building construction

 

Photo 21.    During a trail fitting of the roof onto platform buildings I placed this 50 pence coin to help illustrate the dimensions of these buildings.

 

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Small details like just leaving the waiting room door part open just help make the model more interesting 

 

Fine wire bent and fitting via some drilled holes suggests some of the buildings pipework. I also just drilled some holes pressed in short lengths of wire to represent toilet overflows   

 

Posters are just prints from photos, maybe many are overscale, however I just try to catch the atmosphere of the station and accept that all details may not be totally correct,

 

Final comment, the more small details you add, the more lifelike the building  becomes.    

 

All my small construction errors are clear to see in these close up photos but in the finished model most do not notice.  I have learnt that taking photos helps me see errors and try to improve with each new building project.

 

Anyway hope you enjoy looking at the development of this station

 

Vic

 

 

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Dear All

 

Photo 18 

Main parts of one of the island planform buildings laid out before assembly, with the other building in a more advanced stage of construction in the background. 

 

Note the rear building is standing on its temporary plywood platform which will also become the template for marking out and drilling the mounting holes into the actual platforms which are already installed on the model.

 

The glazed sections in the station roof allow all the details of the roof steelwork beams to be seen, this is why I invested quite some time adding so much detail in the platform canopy / roof inside.  When lit the model looks fantastic, but photos in this small scale with my phone camera are not always best quality.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

To construct the station roof lights I found a novel solution. I used some laser cut parts which are intended for OO gauge models.

Scalemodelscenery produce a kit ( part number kit LX395-OO Engine Shed / Factory Roof-light & Weathered Glazing )

Photo 19 shows a close up of the finished roof windows, the weathered wired glass seems to be acceptable when incorporated into an N scale model. 

 

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When the station lights are in use all the detail of the roof structure can be clearly seen making all the construction effort worthwhile 

 

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I also noted that during the period being modelled, many of the West Midlands area stations had large information displays, these seemed to be a large steel box holding a large TV screen.  I mean the type used before the current flat screen LED type displays.

Next photo shows my attempts to scratch building something to represent these display screens

     

 

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These are quite small parts that are simply formed from cardboard with the support tube being a match stick painted black.

I printed an image of a station display screen, the prints have been mounted inside the cardboard display screen, it is just possible to read the information on the screens !

 

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Photo shows a display screen resting on a two pence coin.   

I also used some very fine wire to represent the power cables and added some live electricity warning panels on the rear of these displays.  A total of 16 of these displays are mounted around the island platform roof structure,  

 

 

The next photo was taken when the building was standing on its temporary plywood platform template.  Two sets of the information displays can be seen hanging from the roof structure. 

 

 

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Finally another night time photo with the displays hanging from the roof.

At one moment I did think about adding backlighting using SMD LEDs to these information displays, maybe at some future time I will make new ones with backlighting !  

 

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With N scale modelling many of the small errors which are clear in these photos are not so noticeable  ...................

Anyway most important, I am pleased with results to-date and hope to improve a little with each project.

 

Vic

 

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Today some information about the telephone boxes and ticket machines used on my N scale model station complex. 

 

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The above photo shows the final effect obtained by this simple grouping of several commercially available N scale models.   The same arrangement of telephone boxes and ticket machines is on each platform, the second platform can be seen in background of the above photo.  

 

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The telephone boxes are part number GMKD77 by Kestrel models and available from many model retailers.  

The ticket machine is based upon a 3D print produced by Peedie models part number PM3D86068.

I have also used some permit to travel machines also produced by Peedie models, their part number PM3D86069

 

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In the above photo I have listed some of the key elements used to build the overall detail.

 

1.  The scratch built arrival / departure information displays as discussed in my last post.

 

2.  Litter bins. One can just been seen next to the blue arrow numbered 2.  These are based upon 3D prints, also by  Peedie models, part number  PM3D86024

 

3.  News Posters.  These are just images (photos) reduced in size and printed on my home printer

 

4.  W.H. Smith newsagents.  Details inside window are all just simple colour prints cutout folded and glued in place.

 

5.  Railways posters. Again just simple colour prints cut out and glued in place. 

 

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Above a close up photo of a telephone box.

After painting glazing was added by gluing strips of clear plastic to the inside of each side.  Static electricity which must have formed during handling and cutting of the thin plastic made handling these very small parts a test of skill !

Next I added the internal lights using small SMD LEDs, after a few experiments I obtained the best result by fixing the LED with glue inside the roof then fixing the wires with glue to the back wall ( on inside of box )

To hide the wires on the back wall, I reduced an image of a telephone box to scale, colour printed it, cut it out and fixed it over the wires. Finally I added a person inside the box.  

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In the above photo all is held in place with Blu Tack since without this the small electrical wires lifted the box away from my cutting mat.

 

In the photo the telephone box internal detail cannot be seen very well, this is just due to the limits of my camera ( phone camera ) however especially when illuminated on the layout the details can be seen and all help to build the overall effect.   

 

Below, telephone boxes and ticket machine.

 

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The ticket machine was supplied by Peedie models as an unpainted 3D print.  After a small amount of cleaning and filing to get the base square, the 3D prints are washed to degrease them, after drying primed with grey primer, painted and finally the buttons on the front panel picked out in paint by hand with a very fine paint brush   

 

To add lighting to the ticket machines, I wished to represent the strip light across the top of these machines.  I drilled a hole very close to the top of the machine, fixed an SMD LED to the front center, passed the fine wires through the hole and ran the wires down the back face of the machine.  I cut a thin strip of card and fixed it over the LED leaving a narrow slot for the light to just illuminate the machines front face.  To hide the fine wires on the back of the machine I just mounted a railway poster which covered most of the back face. The card strip hiding the LED can be seen in the photo below.

 

For fun just before taking the above photos I pushed a figure into the Blu Tack to obtain a first impression about how the finished scene would look.

 

Mounting on the platforms ............

 

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 This scene is located under the station building canopy and due to the wires feeding the lights in each model it was necessary to mount each of these first on the platforms whilst access was still possible. During a trail fitting  of the surrounding station buildings the locations for the telephone boxes and ticket machines were lightly marked on the platform surface, with the buildings removed again holes could be drilled in each location for the lighting wires.  The lights were connected and testing before theses models were glued to the platform surface.  Finally I positioned a few figures around the scene.       

 

       

 Finally a few photos of the scene around the telephone boxes.

 

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More details about this layout can be found in my post " Chawn Park " 

Enjoy

Vic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

Fantastic buildings there, plenty of skill making them out of card. Another layout Chandwell in n gauge, he has done something similar to you made out of card, wish I had the skill.  I am a n gauge modeller myself, but it’s know your limits. I just limit myself to scratch build bridges, which are so so but I am getting better. I found a site which does n gauge rivets but unfortunately he has decided to retire, I managed to buy two packets. I  have at least three bridges to build for my new layout, one is a viaduct which will be the most difficult. I built a bridge called the Monkey bridge (the real one is still being used by the Manchester metro)for my last layout where I found bits off other kits and used them to scratch build the bridge, it came out quite well, it was made of styrene though not card. 😀Chris.

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  • 2 months later...
On 02/01/2022 at 20:42, Chawn Park said:

Hope these may be of interest to others building model railways in N Scale.

Your buildings are lovely. I agree with the comments regarding Chandwell - also an excellent example of the skills used. I’ll need to do something like this with my model in the coming months, once I’ve laid the track. 
 

I’ll follow your thread with interest. Thanks for posting.

 

Kind regards,

 

Andy

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  • 1 year later...

RETAINING WALLS.  New constructions on Chawn Park N Scale model railway.

 

 Development of Chawn Park model railway continues, the right hand end of layout is not often shown in photographs posted on this site due to need to finish construction.  After long delay I am able to report some further progress.

 

To hide the exit of the tracks at the right hand end of the layout and place the very tight 180 deg curves out of normal viewing, both pairs of main lines enter tunnels.  Along the approach to these tunnels surrounding ground level rises thus a tapered retaining wall is needed.

 

Below photo shows the area being developed.      00.JPG.8b6063e66c24fe1bfc44a90f047f93cc.JPG

 

To speed up the construction I selected items from the Metcalfe Models card kit range.

Tunnel entrance and retaining walls are constructed from standard Metcalfe parts, these have been simply adapted to fit the space.  

 

Below the start of the process, assembly of the Metcalfe wall away from the layout.

A template with the profile of the retaining wall was marked out on thin cardboard, this template will also act as a backing plate to join the various Metcalfe sections into a single structure. 

 

I needed more height than the standard parts in the kit, thus the wall will be extended according to the design sketched in pencil using scraps from unused kit parts.   

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Below after adding the extra height and some weathering.

All edges of the cardboard parts have been painted to hind the white edges.  

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Next step before installing the wall was to construct a drainage culvert for the tunnel and cutting.

It is not easy to even see the bottom of the cutting, but I still thought it would add to the model since I make every effort to avoid the flat baseboard effect.

 

Below photo shows the culvert which runs alongside the tracks, the tall retaining wall shown above will be fitted later on the right hand side.  

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The low wall is being held in place by the two temporary card spacers allowing glue to dry.

 

 

 

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 Water was added later after these photos using two part epoxy resin.  

 

Below a photo after installing the wall. 

Sorry I did not get the lighting correct when I took this photo but it shows the arrangement of all the walls, the different ground levels and the location of the culvert in base of cutting. 

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Still more details need to be added but this part of the layout now looks much more acceptable than the open wooden baseboards.

 

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To finish this post, a view from front of layout ( Sorry just noticed foreground is out of focus ).

This view through the trees with the top of the retaining wall forming the boundary of the railway shows how many different levels exist in this area. In the background my model of the steelworks buildings.

 

A am sure more photos will follow as layout development continues.

Enjoy

Vic 

 

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N Scale Ballasting. 

 

Thanks for the comment about ballasting, according to my records the track was ballasted over 25 years ago!

I found I still have some spare bags, see photo below.

 

Ballast is by Green Scene,  2mm ballast, code GS1 408  Light grey. 

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According to a quick internet search this product is still available. 

 

Ballast was laid dry, spread with care between sleepers, light misted with water a few times until it became quite wet.  If you do not take care at this stage, building up the misting in steps the ballast will move resulting in more work to clean it up later.  When quite wet then a PVA water mix was added and allowed to dry.  After this I added another PVA water mix to ensure ballast is really solid.

 

Even after extreme care with pre-misting and light application of PVA / Water mix, some of the ballast always seems to move, thus a lot of time was spent scraping and cleaning. 

 

Largest error I made was not to spray the Peco track sleepers before ballasting, but being my first ever model railway I made many errors, thus I have long list of things I would do differently "next time".   The sleepers look very plastic so weathering the track is on the to do list.

 

I found a couple of photos showing the track just after ballasting and before I cleaned and smoothed it.

Quality of my camera was not so good all those years ago, but the old photos do show some details of the baseboard construction which is mainly using birch plywood.  

 

I remember construction was delayed since the Peco code 55 track which I have used was available quite some time before the points, so I waited a long time before trackwork could be finished.    

 

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New retaining walls and cutting.

 

Another photo of the layout section with the recently fitted retaining walls. This part of the layout is still work in progress.

 

It is not often I take photos from the back of the layout, maybe I need to obtain a background print to use when taking such photos.

 

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Finally in this quick post, photo of pair of 08`s passing through the area shown in first photo.    

 

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