Tullygrainey

Beautiful. RIP BHM

Some windows, doors and gutters for the goods shed.

No pressure then Patrick. Better get my soldering iron serviced

I’ll take that with a pinch of salt

Thanks David. I find that scribing the walls can be quite relaxing in its way. With a bit of music in the background, I can get lost in it for hours on end. It's usually cramp in my right shoulder that stops me Railway in landscape... I've had a mental image from the beginning of how I wanted this one to look - a rural BCDR station and there are (were) plenty of examples to inspire that. The challenge is to get as close to that image as possible! As to the order of doing things, it's always a bit of a compromise in my experience. It was easier, for example to paint the bridge and the walls on the bench before adding them to the layout but it's then tricky to keep them pristine as the scenery gets built up and painted around them. Clingfilm and masking tape to the fore!

Track is now laid, wired and tested on the traverser. It seems to work pretty well though some of the track ends will need tweaking to line them up a bit better. I've parked it for now while I lay track on the curved link sections. Despite my best efforts to keep things tidy when wiring track, it never seems to work out that way. I won't lay track on the scenic section until I've done a bit more of the landscaping... ... so I've been stonewalling. Knee deep in DAS dust. I'm trying some forced perspective with the road over the bridge. It remains to be seen if it'll work the way I'd like it to. The walls get smaller as they curve towards the back scene, eventually meeting just out of sight. The bridge itself also narrows from one side to the other. The station is getting some boundary walls too. Shame about that seismic crack in the platform across the boards but it looks worse in the photo than it is in practice. This station now has a name at last. Having rejected Ballymurry, Tulllygar, Crossfield, Dungrainey and Trainy McTrainface, I conducted a survey (well I consulted @Patrick Davey) and we decided on Kilmore, a real place, close to the route of the BCDR main line but without benefit of a station. Until now. Alan

Derek, Road Transport Images make resin kits for commercial vehicles allowing you to assemble your own choice of cab, chassis and load. Might be something here you can work with. https://www.roadtransportimages.com/shop/category/livestock Alan

A real pleasure to see these pictures David and a lovely selection of locos, all up to your usual high standard. That pic of Nottingham Forest is particularly effective and hats off to you for that scratch built railbus - some very skilful panel beating there! I can understand your affection for the little well tank. A real charmer. More please.

While laying some track on the traverser, I realised that the barrel bolt I'd bought to lock the moving table in its various positions had quite a lot of slop in it. Fine for locking the bathroom door but not nearly refined enough for accurately lining up the sidings with the entry/exit lines. It took most of the afternoon to contrive a replacement from nested brass tubing. Also had to sleeve the now-too-big holes in the registration plate but all in all, worth the effort. Zero slop and a better chance of the traverser working as it's supposed to. Should've done this in the first place

That sounds like a huge job David but you’ve made a very impressive start. Looking forward to seeing more.

Well spotted Patrick. Your trained eye scores again. A rail find

Lots of good practice here. Thanks everyone

I'd endorse Paul's comment about the High Level chassis. Worth considering and probably as easy as trying to adapt the rtr chassis. I built one to OO gauge and fitted it under an old Hornby Railroad body to make No.19. It's a lovely kit which runs beautifully. The instructions are the best I've seen. It comes with a custom High Level gearbox and chassis spacers for OO, EM and P4. Alan

Perfect shot!

I usually glue track down directly onto the baseboard and solder rail ends to gapped copper-clad strips at board joins. That has worked ok for me. I've been thinking about using an underlay with the current project. I know cork sheet is regularly used for this but I've been looking at the dense foam membrane normally laid underneath wood flooring. It comes in various thicknesses from 5mm down to around 2mm. Has anybody tried it? Generally, what are the pros and cons of flexibly mounted track? Specifically, Would flexibly mounted track help or hinder locos' electrical pickup, particularly ones with rigid chassis? Would it cause problems keeping track lined up accurately at board joins? How might you secure these to avoid damage during transportation? Cheers Alan

I've obviously followed the same thought processes as you did David. Yes, I'm in the middle of building trestles for the scenic bit and the traverser. All being well the curved link sections, which will be bolted on at each end, shouldn't need more than a brush staff or similar prop halfway along, if anything. The whole thing is already looking like a challenge to fit in the car. I have 3 BCDR six-wheeler etched coach kits in a drawer waiting till I have the mental strength to tackle them!

Thanks for this. An idea worth considering. I'll know better what's possible when the thing is up and running. That might be a while yet!

My original intention was to put cassette fiddle yards on each end of this layout. However, if it's to go out to exhibitions, which I hope it will, it could be quite challenging, not to say tiring, to operate so that there’s fairly frequent movement. There’s also the risk of damage as cassettes are changed or turned around. I know from experience that my locos don’t bounce when dropped. Thoughts turned to a continuous run with off-scene curves and a traverser at the back to reduce the amount of stock handling and that’s what’s been using up my time and stock of abusive language. I think it’s going to work ok but it’s just about doubled the intended footprint of the layout. Traversers are tricky things. I’ve made mine using ball race drawer runners laid on their sides rather than upright as they would be in a drawer. It just seemed easier that way to get the levels sorted. It’s probably over-engineered - I’ve seen more elegant designs - but I wanted it to be robust and to cope with reasonably sized trains. No track or wiring yet but it will have 5 roads each of which should be able to hold a loco and 5 coaches. (I have lots of locos. Coaches, not so many. Yet.) The curved joining sections are made to take 4th radius set track. It took a fair bit of trial and error to get everything to line up. The job was a trial and I made the errors. I was going round the bend, literally and metaphorically. I don't actually have a big enough space at home to lay it out. This is the front hall. I may have to throw out furniture. Of course the whole thing now needs some form of support to get it up to a good viewing level so that’s the current job. Alan

Describes my situation perfectly! I agree with every word of this David.

!! That's patience Derek!

And who wouldn't

Sound practice. It's clearly a well thought out and designed etch that allows all the soldery mess to hide inside where it can't be seen Lovely work.

Many thanks. I hadn't thought of laser-cutting. Another technique not yet in my skill set

You're right about the level of detail resin can produce David. It amazed me the first time I tried it. I did consider resin casting for these at one stage but in 4mm scale each one is 12mm by 8mm and I wasn't convinced I could even make a reasonable master either in plastic or clay. Also, if I made only one stone, the business of casting copies would be beyond tedious but if I tried to make a master row of them, consistency would be the challenge. The originals, being concrete casts, are all exactly the same. The paper versions have worked better than I expected but they're not as robust as plastic or resin would have been. I've sprayed them with artist's fixative but a coat of matt varnish might also be a good idea. Some survivors on the remains of the platform at Ardglass station. Photos I took last year.

A bit more progress with the layout. A station platform made in two bits because it will cross the join between the two baseboards. I used mounting card for the structure and after a failed attempt to use chinchilla dust for the platform surface - it ended up looking like congealed porridge after the glue went on - I settled for 180 grit sandpaper glued to the top surface with wood glue. Many of the stations on the County Down had cast concrete coping stones, 3ft x2 ft, along the platform edge. These had distinctive diagonal cross hatching, 8 lines in each direction. Deciding how to model these held me up for a while. 3D printing might well be the solution but that's a mountain I've yet to climb. Even base camp is still over the horizon. I managed to draw one coping stone to scale on the computer then copied and pasted to get what I wanted. The result was printed onto paper which I'd pre-painted with a suitable mix. (I'd already tried printing first then painting, only for the nice printed lines to disappear under the paint, despite using water colours). The printer survived being fed painted card. Phew! After painting the sandpaper with various shades of artist's acrylic, the coping stone prints were cut into strips, scored and folded then glued down along the front of the platform and wrapped over the leading edge. Wills Coarse Stone (SSMP200) was used to cover the platform front, sanded back a bit and wiped over with filler. Paint did the rest. The station building will bed down into a shaped hole cut for it in the platform. It's still sitting a bit proud in this photo. A bit of weathering will also help to blend building and platform together.