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Nice shot Alex of the Brush Type 2. 

 

Those Monty's clergyman look the part with the Traveller as well. Nicely posed scene.

 

As for JC-well he does flit around! ;)

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

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Hi Alex. Mark mentioned your layout so I had to come over and have a look!

Its Ansum! Lovely use of static grass and great scenics.

As others have said, very impressive.

 

Perticulary the bridge photo and the DMU crossing over it.

 

All the best

Jack

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Alex, we do as Cornwall is so small especially in the world of model railways.

Sounds good, mark told me about Diddington so I had to have a look. Glad I did now as its lovely.

 

What size terminal were you thinking?

J15? sounds like something over the Tamar...! Haha

Glad you had a look at St.Agnes.

 

All the best

Jack

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Jack

I was thinking of about 2m x 1.5m self contained for the Cornish BLT. The trackplan would be based on "Elan" in Iain RIce's "Model Railway Layout Design - Finescale in Small Spaces" (Which I'd recommend if you haven't already come across it.) Setting was inspired by elements from Looe, Fowey and Cotehele Quay (not all railways). I've put it on the backburner for now, though I've brought a loco.  I've used the plan before  - the farm on Diddington was on a previous layout which used the Elan plan. It sat on a jigsaw section of board,with a hole cut in it to allow it to fit over one of the hinges for folding the layout. With the building in place on the layout, the hinge was inside the barn. For this reason the model has a false wall about 1cm behind the front windows, so the hinge could not be seen through them.

You're right about the J15. It's for somewhere west of the Tamar. This time it will be a prototypical location not a million miles from Diddington, but set about 10 years earlier.

Alex

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I've been doing a bit of test running, and this revealed that the coal depot which I'd installed was slightly too close to the track to allow some items of stock to get past it. I did check the clearances before I installed it, but not with the items that caused the problems.

So, I bit the bullet, and removed the back from the coal cells, using a combination of cutting disc in the mini drill, a scrawker and a scalpel. Once off (it broke into 3 pieces) I reduced the height of the back by removing 6mm from the bottom as I felt it was too high to allow wagons to be unloaded into the coal cells.  I  then removed about 2mm from the end and internal walls, after which the back was refitted. The resultant gap between the coal and the back was filled with plaster, painted black, and sprinkled with coal, after first retouching the sides and back of the cells with Tamiya NATO black. Some items of junk including an old car body were painted up and fixed in place by the coal cells, before adding some static grass and a couple of coal men. I still want to add a lamp by the coal cells, and an old pair of coal scales among the long grass.

Here's a couple of pictures of the results.

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The effect I'm trying to achieve might best be described as "rural decay". Diddington is modelled at a time when the line was under threat of closure. The turntable has already been removed, and the loco shed closed.  The rest of the line will follow suit in a couple of years or so. Not everyone's favourite period I know. Steam has gone, and the decline in the railways fortunes is a time of depression and disillusion for many.  It makes for interesting modelling though and it's the time I remember from childhood, and the model is an attempt to recreate that.

 

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Alex, essentially my ECML layout is similar. 1955 to 62, all the infrastructure is filthy and looks ready to fall apart. Even the new diesels were very quickly as dirty, with the possible exception of the Deltics. But it's a period that "does it for me."

 

I particularly like the image of the vehicle left to rot where it stopped, and no one in charge giving a damn. I saw stuff like that everywhere.

 

Tony.

Edited by Brass0four
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  • 1 month later...

I can now reveal that Diddington is to make an appearance at the RM Web members day in Taunton at the end of April. I'm very excited about this. Some months ago Mark Branson (46444) and I discussed the idea of using his layout "Juniper Hill" as the terminus of the agricultural tramway that leaves Diddington, and the purpose of the joining section "Middle Fen" which I have been working on over the last few months is to link the two layouts.

Trains now run between the two stations, Juniper Hill has acquired a set of legs to make it the same height as Diddington and new LED lights, and I'm currently putting the final touches to the presentation.

I've built a fixed back scene for Middle Fen, as my original idea for a roll up cloth back scene meant that fixed scenic items such as the fencing and telegraph poles would be vulnerable to damage during transportation. The new back scene is cut from a sheet of 3.5mm ply, screwed to the back of the layout, and the wings and proscenium which were removable are now screwed to the layout and back scene as well, to make a secure unit for transportation. Ive taken some pictures to show what it looks like now:

 

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Back in Diddington station, heres a picture of D8233  moving in to the private siding.

post-6772-0-89460900-1395611729.jpg

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"Marriage" of Diddington and Juniper Hill is going well. Mark and I have shared ideas over the years, so there was already a bit of Juniper Hill in Diddington, and a bit of Diddington in Juniper Hill. Some of Juniper Hill's stock has visited Diddington in the past, so it knows where it is. The main differences in the layouts is the point work, which on Diddington is PCB and on Juniper Hill is Peco code 75. Both layouts make use of Bachmann/Hornby mechs so no running problems. The other difference is couplings. Diddington uses DG couplings, and Juniper Hill uses the Hornby/Bachmann tension locks, so no coupling compatibility. Trains between the two will make use of stock from their parent layouts, except for services originating beyond Diddington, which will use Diddington stock.

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  • 1 month later...

Having travelled to the RM Web day and seeing Diddington for the first time I was very impressed and drawn into the layout as a whole.

Very pleased to have seen it and spoken to you about the lighting......looks like Maplins is going to get a visit tomorrow for the LED' strip !

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Having travelled to the RM Web day and seeing Diddington for the first time I was very impressed and drawn into the layout as a whole.

Quite agree, lovely to see Diddington today at last, having admired it on the forum for quite a while.  It has a wonderful "sense of place"
And it looked very effective attached to Middle Fen and Juniper Hill
All the best,
Dave.
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  • 1 month later...

I enjoyed that trip to the RM Web members day, and came away with a few ideas.

 

Diddington was never conceived as a layout for exhibiting, but rather as a home layout that could be dismantled to move it. Added to this, the technology used in the construction of the legs is a good twenty years old, and things have moved on a bit since I made them.

The new idea for transportation and display is to replace the legs for two of the boards with asort of giant "tea trolley" arrangement.. Two sections of the laypout will fit in each trolly for transportation. When the layout is erected, a board will sit on the top of each trolley. The wole thing is on casters for ease of movement. The boards aren't very heavy, but I'm currently looking at ways to take more weight out of them without losing any strenght. The idea is that two people will be easily able to lift a trolley containing two boards into a van fro transportation.

 

I've started work on the larger of the two trollies. Heres some pictures of the work done so far.

 

Work has  been a bit slow of late as I've been riding a bicycle up msome mountains, but that little avenue of pleasure is over for the time being, so it will be full steam ahead with consrtuction now.

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post-6772-0-32173600-1403038878.jpg

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Hi Alex,

 

Was really great to meet you at the members day, and a delight to see Diddington, hopefully this means it will be out and about more often so I can stare at it wistfully? I had to shoot off far to early from Taunton because, oddly (given the reason for 46444's absence) I had to get a train to Leeds.

 

Marcus.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Work on Disddington's new legs is proceding apace. The idea is to construct two "tea trolley" atrrangements. The larger one, which is now nearly complete, will carry the station platform and station throat boards (the largest and most irregularly shaped respectively), the power supplies and the control panel. The smaller one will carry the station approach/loco yard, and scenic boards. When erected, the station platform and station approach boards will sit on top of their respective trollies. The station throat board will fit between the two and the scenic board will piggy back off the station approach board, with its own set of legs at one end.

 

Here's some pictures of the current state of play. The next jobs are to reinforce the fixing points where the legs bolt to the bottom "shelf", and install the casters.

 

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Mean while work is going on to lighten the boasrds, and tidy up the electrical installation.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The first trolley is more or less finished, save for painting, which can wait for the present.. I also need to decide on how the boards are going to be secured to the trolley for traveling.  I'm not 100% happy with the casters, I might try some larger ones, or ones that turn more easily (The ones I'm currently using are 30mm ones from B&Q)

I'll shortly start work on the second trolley, which will be a bit smaller, and the boards it has to carry are a more regular shape, which will make construction easier.

Here's a pic of the finished one

post-6772-0-15511600-1405540246.jpg

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Look at the larger casters used by music amplifier companies - they can also lock and pop out (when you want them too). I’m talking about Stage amplification. Dagworth may be able to help source in the UK......

 

Best, Pete.

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