Station takes shape

Just to prove I have been making progress with the station and goods shed. There are now doors into the station, the upstairs and roof to the station office, the goods shed has a platform and back walls. Note that the rear walls and anything that cannot be seen is plain black plasticard - no point in modelling the unseen. I have just finished the platform - 5mm foamcore faced with brick (the yellow tape was holding the brick on while the glue dried!).

I have now made a start on the roofs - I want to give the illusion of visible roof trusses over the platform, so that won't be easy!

Wood you believe it!

Nothing to do with model railways this, but here are a couple of pictures of the timber that landed on the beaches near us recently. It came from the ship the "Ice Prince" which sank off Dorset, a hundred miles or so West of here, and came up the channel on the tide. If the pictures look impressive, remember they were taken a week after the timber was washed ashore, so the clear up operation had already moved most of it up the beach.

Now you could make a lot of baseboards out of that timber, if it wasn't for the fact that it has been in the sea for a week, and also the threat of a £2000 fine for anyone taking any!

Back to the model, progress on the station has been good with me finding time on a few evenings recently, though I have yet to make the roof. I will have more pictures and another update soon!

Building in progress!

Here's a picture of the station and goods shed under construction. The brick wall runs down the centre, the posts at the front will support an overall roof, the wooden goods-shed is behind. Since this picture was taken I have cut doorways into the wall, and a gable-end of the station office for the rear left corner. Construction is from Plasticard with Wills and Slaters sheets, and Plastruct square-section for the wooden supports.

The picture also shows my portable workbench! I constructed this to allow me to do my model making in the evenings, in front of the telly or on the dining room table. It lives in the cupboard that the railway sits on, along with my toolbox, so is very convenient. The workbench consists of an A3 cutting mat on an MDF base, with a raised shelf for tracks in both 00 and 009 (unpowered but useful for coupling height setup), on the left is a mini-vice and a V-shaped piece of wood for saw cutting. There is space for oddments, materials, part-constructed models etc.

Progress over Christmas

Well some progress has been made over Christmas. Holes had been cut in the plywood board before Christmas for the point motor operating rods, and also the uncoupling magnets. The board was then covered in 1/16 inch cork sheet, and the holes then cut through. The track was then assembled with the 7 points and the tracks that join them, this assembly of track has now been glued to the board. I also sprinkled ballast over the track while the glue was wet to get the first layer of ballast down.

So all the points are now laid, and the sidings are cut to length, however I have stopped there as it struck me that some of the sidings need to run into or around buildings, so it would be best to have the buildings in place before completing the track laying. Also the entry track needs to be laid from the first point to the fiddle-yard cassette lead-in in one piece, so I will have to do that with the fiddle yard present. Anyway I have since made a start on the station building and goods shed, this is inspired by the one at Wantage and includes a roof over the platform.

The photo above shows the progress so far (the facia board has been removed), the ballasted track is laid the rest is just placed down for now. The white area of the board at the rear left is the card base for the station and goods-shed, this sits in a cut-out area of the cork so the track is the same level, but will make constructing the building easier.

Also visible in the photo is the backscene. I cut triangles of foam-core board with an internal radius and stuck them into the corners of the layout, then cut a length of lining wallpaper (1000 grade) and stuck it to the back and ends of the layout and the inside of the foam-core fillets to make a continuous, smooth backscene around the layout. A second layer of lining paper was then stuck to the first, both layers using a spray-adhesive made by Bostick. The backscene is over 5 feet (close to 1.6 meters) long and 9 inches (23cm) high, now all it needs is to be painted sky colour. I have heard this can be done quite easily using household emulsion paint, so I will give it a go, unless I find a suitable commercial sky-paper first! Any suggestions let me know.

Next time I should have made some progress with the station building ...

Imitation Is ....

Unfortunately recent family committments, and the usual mad rush towards Christmas have meant little time for working on the layout. However I have started cutting some track, I have also cut holes in the baseboard for the point motor operating rods and the uncoupling magnets, and I have stuck down a layer of cork, so I am now ready to start laying the track. With any luck I will get this done over Christmas and so should have an update with photo's in the new year!

Looking at Carl Arendt's Micro-Layout website last month I spotted a photo of Southon Yard. Then I noticed it wasn't my layout, but a near-copy built by a chap called Sven Loeffler in Germany. Even the buildings and the colour-scheme of the windows and doors was similar! Sven had changed some details but had obviously so liked the concept of Southon Yard that he built his own! You can see it here (about half-way down the page):
http://carendt.com/scrapbook/page67/index.html
Compare it with my layout:
http://michaelsrailways.blogspot.com/2007/09/southon-yard-is-motive-power-depot-of.html
Well, they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I am flattered ... !

A Happy Christmas to all, and I promise a full update in the New Year!

EXPO NG 2007

On Saturday I was at "EXPO-NG", the biggest narrow-gauge model railway exhibition in the UK. As usual there was an excellent selection of layouts in a range of scales and gauges. In addition there is good trade support from the specialist suppliers to narrow gauge modellers, so it is an ideal oppotunity to see the products of traders you rarely see at other shows.

I took my camera and have posted photo's of most of the layouts here:
http://campbell-modelrailway.fotopic.net/c1397904.html
I know there are probably one or two I missed, also there was a "Pizza Layout" competition which I did photograph but they didn't come out to well, expect to see them on http://carendt.com/ shortly!

I was helping out on the 009 society stand (well part of the day anyway), and managed to put together a few couplings and a wagon kit. One of the best things about shows like this is meeting people you only ever see at these shows!

Smallest Micro-Layout Ever?

Still not much progress on the layout, however on a recent family holiday to Devon I managed to slip in a trip to Pecorama. If you are ever in the area it is well worth a visit, great for families of all ages as well as model railway enthusiasts. Needless to say I spent some time and money browsing the shop and I now have all the track I need (I had some point salvaged from a previous layout but not enough). I also bought some card kits from Metcalf Models I intend to use for the factory, and low-relief houses for the back of the layout.

As an aside, I noticed the other day my 10-month old boy was playing with a micro-model railway layout. Indeed, it is what is often called a "Pizza" layout, featuring a circular track plan. It came with his Fisher-Price Peekaboo block train. It features a tunnel and train with 2-2-0 loco and 2 wagons, it even has digital control - that's right, you put your finger in a hole in the top of the block and spin it round! Is this the smallest micro-layout?