Little jobs

With a couple of exhibitions last month, progress with the Rail200 challenge has been interrupted, but I have continued with the buildings when time allowed. There were some final additions to make.

I've had a Ratio boiler house kit in the stash for a long time, from a long forgotten project, so I thought I'd use the nice metal chimney on my boiler house. The base in the kit is stone, so I cut one from Wills brick but cut out the ash doors and fitted them into the brickwork. 

The base is sized to maximise chimney height within the limit. Really, a much taller (and more grand) chimney would be more appropriate, but won't fit, and I figured a chimney makes it look less like a goods shed. Perhaps it's for an auxiliary boiler? 

The Ratio boiler house also provided a sprue with "sleepers", which I used to make a small coaling stage just outside the engine shed. There were just enough sleepers! More Wills brick forms a low retaining wall around it. 

The inside of the rear wall of the engine shed will be visible, so I cut an inner wall from thinner Slater's brick to fit after installing the windows.

The engine shed and boiler house will use doors from the Wills engine shed, I thought for a while about how to fit them. The instructions suggested making wire loops as hinges, which sounds fiddly. I decided to drill 0.7mm holes in the top and bottom edge of the door, with a vertical wire to fit a hole in a lip behind the lintel and an L-shape wire at the bottom to fit in a hole in the side of the doorway. In theory, this will allow then to open and close - but if they can be fixed open I'll be happy. 

Floors for the buildings were cut from grey card, which I find an easy way to represent concrete. Paper templates were used, cut to the building shape then pressed onto the rails to mark their position.

Here's the boiler house floor in place with a 14mm wide strip between the rails. The underside of the edge of the outer pieces is chamfered slightly to sit low on the chairs, the surface needs to be below the rail top.

Finally, at Chatham I was looking for pre-nationalisation general purpose wagons for the layout. I thought the one in the Mainline box was a good deal, until I found another stand with 4 loose wagons for £10. They might need some touching-up, three are without coupling but I'd be changing them anyway, one even has compensation. The wagons will have to wait for attention though, painting of the buildings is now well underway and there is a lot to do to get the layout looking finished.

Chatham 2025 and a nice surprise

This weekend I was at the Chatham show with Hexworthy. I can't do shows without help, so a big thanks to John Crane helping on Saturday and Mike Fox on Sunday. Here's Mike operating the layout. 

I've never been to the Chatham show before, it's held in the historic dockyard which I'd visited with the family some years ago. With about 30 layouts and lots of trade it's a big show, and seemed well organised.

The venue is one of the old shipbuilding sheds, normally used as a car park, so it was large, a little draughty and dusty, rather dark (despite the phone photo), but fortunately given the heavy rain on Saturday, mostly free of leaks. The aisles were wide so exhibitors could drive in and unload (handy in the rain) and meant plenty of space for the crowds. 

Outside this lovely little loco was doing "driver for a tenner" duties. Inside between the many traders (lots selling very similar stuff) there were around 30 layouts, so something for everyone. Here's just a few that caught my eye.

Across the hall was Bill Flude with his delightful O9 layout Bunkers Lane.

I am jealous of the open uncluttered feel of Leysdown of the Sheppey Light Railway by Adrian Colenutt in P4, but then it is a big layout for a simple terminus. Many might have been tempted to squeeze more in. 

This WW1 train ferry is part of a model of Richborough Port in 1918 in N gauge by River MRC. The detail was fantastic, lighting and a backscene would have really helped though!

This was an impressive model of the Royal Albert Bridge in N gauge by the Basingstoke and North Hants MRS. Apparently it was part of a Great Model Railway Challenge TV show layout.

James Street is a huge N gauge layout, viewable on all 4 sides and with no fiddle yard. There's a lot of track and so always something running, you might think this would make for an unrealistic layout, but no. The modelling is really impressive, especially given the size of the layout, look at the detail of those boats and the dockyards and the rows of houses. The subtle colouring and high standard of modelling means it's hard to believe it is N, and it seemed to run as well as it looked too. 

This is a model of the Bowaters Paper Mill Railway, which was a 2' 6" gauge railway linking paper mills at Sittingborne and Kemsley and Ridham dock in Kent, and is now partly preserved. The model is in O16.5 by St Neots MRC. The setting is one of the paper mills, the buildings are highly detailed including interiors - look at the mess building on the left. 

The locos have really captured the presence and atmosphere of the prototypes, as do the wagons loaded with paper rolls. Just the right amount of weathering too.

The lighting varied from day to night, although I thought the tone a bit odd and sadly it threw the front of the models into shadow, it did give an overcast feel that was quite effective. 

Probably the biggest "wow" factor was the Lego "Brick Coast Main Line" by the Lego UK Railway group - this model of the Forth railway bridge must have stood over 4' tall and was hugely impressive. The trains were impressively detailed too - remember, this is all made from Lego. 

I was surprised to be presented with a trophy for (third) best layout! How good is that? There was a judging panel so this is the choice of railway modellers. Hexworthy got lots of nice comments so people seemed to like it - especially the playground of course - and a few enquiries about exhibitions too. 

Rail200 - platform and canopy

Operation will be more interesting with passenger trains to bring staff and visitors to the hospital, so a suitable "station" was needed. Now, Whittingham hospital had a somewhat grand station with a substantial train shed, and Calderstones hospital had a temporary wooden station with canopy for the mainline ambulance trains during WW1. I thought my layout might be more interesting if the platform had a canopy, but something rather more humble. After a bit of browsing what was available, I thought the best starting point was the venerable Kitmaster/Dapol/Airfix platform canopy kit. The mouldings are dated 1959 so it has been around a while, but other than a little flash it's still a perfectly good kit.

Rather than build as intended with two girders under the middle part of the frame, I used one under the far edge (which required removing and moving the downward brackets), the near edge simply has a strip of plastic as it will sit on a brick wall.

The roof itself is as per the instructions, except I filled in the end half-panels with plain plastic sheet as this looks better, and can hide the end of the glazing better.

The four pillars in the kit are intended for platform mounting, but I need to support the far edge of the canopy from the ground beyond the track, and one pillar for each of the five roof trusses seemed logical. For strength I decided to use brass, and happened to have tube in stock in two sizes that fit one inside the other, plus a slightly larger plastic tube. I made them up with the larger section forming a wider base, topped with a slice of the wider plastic tube and with another short section of plastic tube below, leaving about 12mm of the thinner brass tube to fit into holes in the baseboard. Short lengths of the plastic tube were also cut and glued under the girder under the canopy, forming sockets for the pillars to fit into.

1.5mm holes were drilled into the baseboard after careful measuring. I realised I needed to make the pillars removable - I'll need to remove the canopy to relay the track and insert a point later - yet all would have to be firmly fixed in place. I found paperclip wire was a tight fit into the tube, so inserted a length in each (they get progressively longer thinking this might make them easier to fit into place one at a time). The idea is the soft iron wire can be bent over under the baseboard holding the pillars in place. 3mm lengths of the plastic tube were cut and inserted into the foamboard making a solid spacer to the ply, and fixed in place surrounded by PVA glue.

For the near side I made up a brick wall with more of the Wills arched windows in the style of the other buildings, I decided three looked better than two. Although the wall was simple enough to build it proved complicated since every dimension seemed to depend on another - the width of the canopy, height of the wall, width of the platform, clearances to the train and gap to the pillars... 

The canopy would also need to be fixed to the wall and yet removable when needed. The plastic strip sits on top of the wall, I added another strip at 90 degrees which protrudes down the inside of the wall locating it side to side. A couple of holes were then drilled through the inner strip and the brick wall and paperclip wire "pins" pushed in to secure the roof down. I'm hoping these can be held in place with a blob of glue or some tape, allowing them to be pulled out when needed. 

Once I'd got all the dimensions sorted the rest of the platform was made up from more Wills sheets. The Ratio fencing (including sloped section) was found in the bits box and fitted, this leaves the view a bit more open than a brick wall would have (and there's plenty of brick!). The platform is deliberately narrow, but at a scale 10' wide (or about 9' inside the fence) it's plenty wide enough for the expected traffic, and as you can see it can hold a couple of 4 or 6 wheel coaches and a loco. The canopy seems to fit in well, it's not too large, looks more interesting than an open platform, and is effective at hiding the hole in the sky at the left end.

A view from the yard side that won't normally be seen, which is a shame as it looks rather good from this side! This has taken somewhat longer than I'd thought, interrupted by a family holiday and the Pevensey show, but I think the result was worth it. 

Pevensey Bay MRC exhibition

Yesterday I took Hexworthy to the Pevensey Bay Model Railway Club exhibition, held in Eastbourne. 

The layout mostly performed well, the odd coupling glitch aside. Thanks to Tim Sanderson for helping out, and providing a Tal-y-llyn train. Here are a few of the other layouts.

Somewhere in France (Peter Capon) was the only other 009 layout, based on the trench railways of WW1 it portrayed the different areas behind the front. 

Mertonford Summer 1983 (HO) by Andrew Knights. 

Swingate Crossing (OO) by Jonathon Austin is a model of  a place on the Hellingly Hospital Railway, of particular interest given my current hospital-railway project.

Frittenden Road (O) by Andy Chant depicts a Colonel Stephens style light railway.

Not sure which OO layout this is but may have been St Mellion by Southwark & District MRC, a nicely modelled Clyde Puffer style boat, although it could do with being tied up!

Rhiw (OO) by Chris Ford and Nigel Hill. 

Hexworthy will be out again in a couple of weeks at the Chatham show, maybe see you there!

Rail200 - hospital buildings

More progress with the buildings. Having completed the engine shed, at the other end of the layout I wanted to represent the hospital utility buildings, a stores/goods inwards and a boiler house/bunker. The cereal-packet mock-ups have helped check the overall size and placement, and decide the key dimensions. 

As with the engine shed, Wills building sheets are the main material including more from the Craftsman engine shed kit, although brickwork and arched windows are from extra packs. I hadn't realised the Craftsman kit had stretcher bond brickwork, but the additional pack of arched windows and extra brickwork I'd bought were English bond. No, I don't suppose anyone will notice, but I'll try and stick to the same bond for any building!

The usual techniques are used - score and snap straight cuts, drill and fretsaw out windows and curves, and use a big file to square or chamfer ends. Not forgetting to nick the courses into the exposed edges at windows and raised brickwork.

Thanks to the mock-up, it wasn't too hard to mark and cut out the pieces like a jigsaw.

With the parts assembled, including raised brick trim and arches, the façade starts to take on the character of a Victorian municipal building. I've also added a goods platform to the front. The upstairs windows used those in the arched windows set, the ground floor has doors made from planked plastic and a window from a Dornplas set.

The height restriction left little choice for the roof. No space for any kind of pitched slate roof, but a flat roof didn't seem right. I had just enough space for a very shallow pitch metal covered roof, lead perhaps, which was simply made from plastic sheet, microstrip seams, and rod ridge. Brick capping comes from the Wills building details set. Note the off-cuts bracing the corners and the black plastic floor to hold the shape. 

In place on the layout, showing how the door is just large enough for a railway wagon, with the goods platform outside. Next up, the boiler house, which thanks to the location against the backscene, only has two walls...

There's another arched window, a big door to use the Craftsman engine shed doors, and to add a bit of interest, a circular vent in the gable. You'd think just 2 walls makes it easy, but there's so little holding it together at the corner it was quite tricky to assemble, and there's not much holding it square!

The roof would have been really difficult without the mock-up, which I could take measurements from. The result is a reasonably neat fit against the backscene. Balancing it on the two walls is a bit tricky...

Together on the layout the buildings have different shapes and sizes to make them more interesting, but share a common style. I'm pleased with how the buildings have progressed so far, they can absorb a lot of time and will be a key aspect of the layout, using the Wills sheets and arched windows has enabled reasonably rapid progress. A few details remain (downpipes, fitting of doors) and of course they have all yet to be painted. 

Track painting

Painting track is a bit of a tedious job but makes the world of difference to the realism of the layout. Fortunately, this is a very small layout - albeit rather packed with track.

Although I often use acrylics these days, I used enamels for the rail sides, I think they're likely to stick better and be harder wearing. The colour of rails can vary but they tend to be a dirty brown with an orangey-red tint, but rarely orange, as they are coated with a mix of deep rust, brake dust, and dirt thrown up from the ground and ballast. Here I mixed Humbrol colours in a small jar, with just a drop of thinners to help the mix flow. The brush is run along the rail sides coating both the rail and the rail fixings on the sleepers, including points but not where blades meet stock rails.

The 3-way point had the rails diverging to the disconnected route painted on their tops too, to reflect them being out-of-use. Excess paint is wiped of the rail top with kitchen towel, and when dry, a fibreglass stick is used to properly clean the rail head. 

The shiny sleepers need toning down too. Sleepers seem to be a grey-brown colour, so I mixed cheap artists acrylics - white with a drop of black and brown for a pale grey-brown. I used a cheap stiff flat brush - meant for kids, but even a 4-year old would find this one poor quality - filled with paint but with the excess wiped off on the palette. It's not dry brushing, which takes ages, but using a stippling motion angled towards the rails I applied the paint lightly. This leaves some of darker brown plastic showing through and the grain effect is highlighted, and allows the paint to be pushed around the rail fixing leaving that rusty brown. You can see from the paint left on the board surface the light stippled application. This proved to be relatively quick and quite effective.

While working on the track I cut away some sleepers from within the engine shed, and cut out the 3mm foamboard within it, to give the impression of an inspection pit. This was painted dark grey-black to make it look deeper than it is, along with the gaps between the sleepers where they will be under a floor so white doesn't show in the flangeways. 

Wessex NG Modellers Open Day 2025

Yesterday the Wessex Narrow Gauge Modellers held an open day, a rather smaller affair than the Narrow Gauge South exhibition held by the same group on "even" years. However, the community hall venue had two rooms allowing a good number of 009 (and HOe/HOn30) layouts as well as the 009 Society sales stand and a trader. It was also an appropriate location for a community of like-minded modellers to meet, with lots of chatting going on.

The first layout I saw was Nic Arthur's Bowcombe. I've liked all of Nic's layouts and this one is no exception. The subtle scenery and detailing create an atmospheric scene.

Back to the 70's by Tim Ticknell takes an old Cyril Freezer "rabbit warren" track plan and makes it work while looking natural and plausible, and unmistakably Welsh. I love it. 

David Marshall helped his grandson Daniel to build Harringford, he said the Inglenook track plan was partly influenced by Loctern Quay. It reminds me of my son's layout Slugworth, built when he was 11, which also used adapted Metcalf kits. Viewers were invited to have a go at the shunting puzzle.

Saith Ar Hugain by Christopher Payne is built in a plastic storage box, and shows a delightful layout can be built in a very small space and easily stored.

Wissey Creek by Stuart Reeve captures the Fens with a lovely composition. 

Julian Evison's Selborne, which was built as part of a group modular scheme, but is cleverly designed to work just as well as a standalone layout.

Richard William's Gemto: Ikkehavn is a quirky layout set on an island between Denmark and Norway. Richard demonstrated that like my layout Hexworthy, despite having just four points, the layout can hold four trains...

East Quay by John Niblett

A couple of modules of the "Freem009" modular layout by the Wessex NG modellers.

Devil's Bridge by Andy Cundick, the well-known prototype modelled in the early 1900s.

Kaninchenbau is a computer-controlled slice of the Alps by Iain Morrison. Since the trains move apparently at random, I was quite lucky to capture 5 in one shot!

A great day out and I do hope it is repeated in future.