Northport Quay

[David Holman]

Northport Quay is the name I’m giving to my new project, a 7mm scale, 5’3” gauge cameo layout. Having only just had my current layout, Belmullet, make its debut at the Uckfield show, it might seem strange to be already starting a new one. However, Belmullet is a fairly large layout and a challenge to exhibit, so I don’t envisage taking it out more than once or twice a year. Fintonagh, my 3’ narrow gauge layout is booked for a number of shows next year – mainly catching up with ones postponed in 2020 due to Covid, but has already done a fair few, so given it can take a year or two to build even a small layout, then it is not so odd to begin again. Hence am starting this new thread to chart its progress, starting at the very beginning with the planning and  thinking that is behind it.

 Northport Quay will have a foot print of 7’6 long and 1’6 wide, this being the shelf space I have available above where Belmullet sits in my workshop. These dimensions are obviously pretty small for a 7mm scale layout, so a lot of care has gone into its planning. The name is derived of course from Westport Quay and the geographical setting is presumed to be somewhere in the northwest of Ireland, enabling me to use the same locos and stock as on Belmullet. The trackplan is necessarily simple, inspired by Iain Rice’s Oldhaven Harbour design, though using four turnouts rather than his favoured single slip.

 Originally, I tried to design something based on Ricahrd Chown’s Castle Rackrent. This used a turntable as the headshunt /loco release, but try as I might, I couldn’t make the design look balanced in such a short space. The first few pictures show both Castle Rackrent & one of my early attempts at a design based on it.

 Iain’s design didn’t include a turntable, which is a bit of a must have for any Irish branchline, but Westport Quay didn’t have one & nor did Valencia Harbour, so there are precedents. For me, the really interesting features of Iain’s design are how it suggests the railway extending out on to the quayside, plus the travelling crane and the way the line enters from the fiddle yard via a short tunnel through a rocky headland. It is these features which I’ve tried to include on this project.  The latest draft of its track plan hopefully shows what I will be trying to do and how it fits into the wider landscape.

 The line arrives on scene through a short tunnel, before which is assumed to be a turntable and small locoshed – meaning I can us a cassette in the fiddle yard to substitute for a ‘table on the layout, probably just for tender engines and the railbus. The run round loop and platform are quite short, but more than enough for a loco and two six wheel coaches – often a standard consist on smaller Irish branchlines. After the loop, the headshunt disappears off scene on to the pier at the other end of the layout, where a warehouse hides the exit. Of the two on scene sidings, one serves the travelling crane, but the other is just a shunting neck. The other main feature will be a small coaster. The rationale is that Northport deals with both fish traffic and goods, passengers and mails to some sparsely populated off shore islands. Tenuous, but hey, it works for me!

 I’m going to use Belmullet’s sliding and rotating fiddle yard with Northport Quay, not least because it saves me building another one. At 3’10” it is only slightly longer than each of the new baseboards [3’9], though train lengths will be limited to 2’6 overall, in order to meet the rule of no train being more than a third of the length of the scenic part of the layout. The fiddle yard has its own integral, folding legs and will probably use a single set of folding legs on each scenic board, so these can piggy back off the former. The aim is for the layout to be front operated, with a control panel built into the fascia of the first board, as per Fintonagh. This will cut down on the amount of wiring. I’ll also be aiming for a fully integrated backscene, pelmet and lighting too. All this should make for quick and easy setting up and there will be no need to crate baseboards together for transport either.

 The other photos show the next stage in planning, namely drawing the design out full size on a roll of lining paper. This enables clearances & things like turnout angles to be checked, while I also stood a few items of stock around the layout to see if the scene looked well balanced. Anyway, so far, so good and you can also see where I've cleared the shelf space above Belmullet too. 

 There's still a fair bit more planning to do, as I need to  draw out the baseboards [along with the presentation elements like legs, pelmets, back scenes, fascias etc], plus do a wiring diagram too, so I can ensure the point motors, uncoupling magnets, switches and so on will all fit. Will keep you posted!

[Galteemore]

Brilliant stuff David. Really look forward to seeing this develop, not least because the way you record your work and thinking process helps instruct many others …..self included! Nice to see Arigna’s crossing cottage making an appearance too…

Edited October 31, 2021 by Galteemore

[jhb171achill]

Wow! Really anticipating this one! Looks like an amazing concept!

[StevieB]

Yet more 7mm standard gauge to tickle our fancies. Look forward to it.

Stephen

[Northroader]

Very nice idea, I’d be tempted to pinch a bit more on the width if possible. I think you’re right about turntables, they’re a set size for a small tender loco, and you need quite a bit of space round them, they become too dominant for the small sized layout. One thing that I found attractive about Castle Rackrent was how the design flowed with a reverse curve following the road, and another following the main railway line, most designs have the exit square across the tracks. Will be a very interesting build to follow, getting the popcorn out.

[Mayner]

It seems a co-incidence that we both end up building dock harbour layouts to fit a 7'6" space though in different scales. I went for OO and Peco small radius points as I would have struggled to fit the tracklayout in the same space in 21mm gauge because of the longer point leads!

Would you consider moving the crossover towards the tunnel to provide a longer run round loop, though it leaves you with the downside of loosing part of the quay siding, I guess you could build a GSWR Railmotor for passenger services and use St Molga or possibly a model of GSWR 100 for goods. I better be careful I seem to be talking myself into a 7mm Timoleague & Courtmacsharry layout before I even get to grips with 4mm in OO or 21 

[David Holman]

Done a few Courtmacsherry clone designs John, and even got as far as calling one Port Macsherry ergo moving it further along the coast. Very tempting in 7mm scale, with so much of the stock being in the Alphagraphix catalogue. For me, it is just about the perfect branch line trackplan and remain surprised there aren't lots of versions of it, never mind Andy's being the only proper one.

 Regarding loop length, though short, it is close to 2'/60cm, so as total train length (loco and stock) will be no more than 33" maximum, am happy with that. More important for me is have a short lead/shunting neck either end of the loop, so that all the action takes place in the open. Have seen some designs where the engine is off scene much of the time and aim to avoid that at all costs.

 While trains will be limited to two six wheel coaches or three wagons and a brake van, have found with other layouts that, being short, they fit in with the overall scene and operationally there is just as much to do as if they were twice as long. So, SLNCR Railcar B will do some of the passenger work, as will my F6 and two six wheelers, but even the D16 and two mail vans look fine as does any of the other tender engines. What I am going to need to do is get the autocouplings working efficiently for exhibitions, as front operation means not standing in front of the punters...

 Think it is great we have a number of new projects brewing on the forum and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing them progress.

[Westcorkrailway]

13 hours ago, Mayner said:

Would you consider moving the crossover towards the tunnel to provide a longer run round loop, though it leaves you with the downside of loosing part of the quay siding, I guess you could build a GSWR Railmotor for passenger services and use St Molga or possibly a model of GSWR 100 for goods. I better be careful I seem to be talking myself into a 7mm Timoleague & Courtmacsharry layout before I even get to grips with 4mm in OO or 21 

There is weirdly an pile of West cork steam stuff in 7mm with J30, argadeen, st molaga, GSWR F6, Bandon tank along with MGWR coaching stock and I think they used to do CBSCR bogey coaches. 
 

 

[Galteemore]

Yes Tim Cramer, the guru of west Cork modelling, has a good friendship with Roger of Alphagraphix. I suspect his influence looms large in the catalogue! 

[Mayner]

9 hours ago, Galteemore said:

Yes Tim Cramer, the guru of west Cork modelling, has a good friendship with Roger of Alphagraphix. I suspect his influence looms large in the catalogue! 

It looks like Tim Cramer did a lot of the original research before Cork area  locos and stock were scrapped in the 50/60s. Roger kindly provided a Tim Cramer sketch of a MGWR tender bunker detail possibly from a J18 that was overhauled and painted black in Cork during the late 1950s.

Tim popularised Irish modelling during the 1970s published drawings and articles on No 90 and the "Bandon Tanks" in the Model Railway Constructor late 60s early 70s and the "Irish Miscellany"  series of articles which included the 800 Class, Kerry & Achill Bogie 4-4-0s, MGWR 6w Coaches, MGWR small tanks, Argadeen, GSWR Brake Van, GSR Open, B141 and Waterfall Station in Model Railway magazine in the mid late 70s, together with articles on his own work in 4 and 7 mm  scales.

[J-Mo Arts]

Not sure how I missed this David, however very much looking forward to seeing how you get on!

[GNRi1959]

David, I looks really interesting and well thought out. Good luck with it.

[David Holman]

 Not much time for modelling last week, or next for that matter, but have at least been able to do a bit more planning, in hope of having a shopping list for baseboard materials to get started eventually. 

 Iain Rice's 'Cameo Layouts' is a mine of information, although some adaptation of his ideas was required, not least in having a pretty much flat baseboard surface throughout, as opposed to just having track bases as the flat surfaces. A bit more thinking has  [at the moment] resulted in the addition of an extra crane, which it is hoped will mask both the square corner at the right hand end, and the exit on to the pier. I've also been pondering on hiding the baseboard join, especially in the back scene. Currently, a patch of woodland is favourite for hiding the join in the hillside, while the small piece of sky might be home to a wireless mast, perched on the horizon. The station building, which will be a mirror image of Westport Quay, will be removable, also helping to hide the join.

 With Fintonagh, which is the same depth but slightly shorter, I made the back scene and ends integral to the baseboard framing and the same will apply here, with a piece of MDF forming the left hand hillside as a curved section. The wings at each side will support a pelmet, with an LED lighting strip to illuminate the front edge of the scene and another along the centre to light the rest. Both of these double up with Belmullet.

 The revised plan [unlikely to be the last!] now shows where the point motors will go, along with the uncoupling magnets. I've found it is important to try and think through how a layout will be operated at this early stage, so such items can be planned in from the start. Likewise the wiring diagram, especially as the control panel will be inset into the front right fascia. As far as I can tell, it will be pretty simple - just two DPT switches to control the four points [which will work in pairs as crossovers], plus three push to make switches for the uncoupling magnets. Am expecting to add an on/off switch for the crane track too, with the crane controlled by a Heathcote Electronics shuttle unit. Gaugemaster do one, but it is simply stop/start and I want something more subtle - the idea being that the crane can traverse the front of the layout while a new train is being set up in the fiddle yard, thereby ensuring a bit of movement most of the time.

 

 

[David Holman]

A sharp reminder this weekend about how much timber prices have increased since I last bought any. Couldn't source any 6mm birch ply, so decided to compromise with 9mm hardwood ply, which at least has five layers unlike the rubbish you get in 5mm, three ply. However the real shock was a 2.4m length of 25 x 15mm softwood, which cost more than a sheet of ply. Oh well...

 Anyway, much work with saw, drill and screwdriver has got the two basic baseboard shells complete, though they still need more bracing.  One thing I am happy with at the moment is the two boards join nice and snugly, both at the baseboard surface and the vertical back scene. Bought some 'bullet type' baseboard joiners from Station Road Baseboards, which are simpler to fit that proper pattern makers dowels and seem just as effective.

[Galteemore]

That’s a nice job. Always good to have a solid foundation laid down, and to get that arduous grunt work out of the way ! 

[David Holman]

Indeed, I have an electric jigsaw, but find it near impossible to cut straight lines and right angle edges with it. Hence all the ply was cut with with an ordinary rip saw on my 40+ year old Workmate.

[KMCE]

31 minutes ago, David Holman said:

cut with with an ordinary rip saw

All the expensive & rare antique furniture was cut in the same way. 

Nothing wrong with those skills!

[David Holman]

 Have spent a fair bit of time filling in various gaps in the baseboards. I've always had a bit of thing about avoiding earthquake cracks and lines in the sky - easy enough on a permanent layout, but far less so with an exhibition layout, which has to  break down into short sections for transport. Fortunately, Northport Quay [or NPQ for short], only has one baseboard join to worry about, so that leaves little in the way of excuses in terms of trying to hide, or at least minimise its impact. The main aspects are as follows:

• Entry to/from the fiddle yard is easy, it will be hidden by a short tunnel. In addition, a curved back scene will hide the corner in the frames
• The right hand corner will be hidden by a combination of a warehouse and a crane. Current thinking is to adapt the Dapol/Airfix dock crane, the jib of which should hide the corner

 That leaves the central joint. Sod's Law meant that, while I got the backboards to line up nice and tight, subsequently discovered the baseboard surface had a 1mm wide crack. However, there is a fairly simple trick to sort this, that I learned from ace modeller, Gordon Gravett. Basically, you use some clingfilm one one face of the joint and smear car body filler on the other, then tighten the bolts and leave to set. As a result, I now have a near invisible join, that will eventually be furtherdisguised with removable 'jigsaw' pieces, to break up any idea of a straight line. Mind you, now need to file back the body filler a bit, as a line in the back board has now returned...

 

 

The next stage has been to mock up the main buildings, to start to visualise the overall scene. Enter another of my pet hates - undisguised low relief buildings. Basically, I don't like to see thin slices of buildings that just end in the sky and try to hide them as best I can. On Fintonagh, careful angling of some buildings has helped disguise the fact some are only one or two cm deep. I want to do the same on NPQ, but envisage far fewer structures, so it will be a case of experimentation. The most obvious problem is the station building, which is semi-relief at one end. That will certainly need disguising somehow. Had hoped I might used the round roofed goods store on the platform of Wesport Quay to hide this, but while I may yet include it, it won't cover this problem. A tree is one possibility. Pictures from John Ahern's book on Model Railway Buildings [first published nearly 70 years ago] show both how and how not to tackle the problem!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, with Code 100FB rail and copper clad strip ordered, I've turned myself a roller gauge on the mini lathe, in the hope of starting some track making when the stuff arrives.

 

 

 

[Galteemore]

Nice work David / great to see it coming together. And lovely turning job on the gauge! 

[KMCE]

Nice to see your progress on this one.  I particularly like your sketch of how the model will look - nice idea which will help to keep the overall picture in mind.

The discussion on low relief buildings is most interesting and is something that I find a little difficult to incorporate into my layouts.  The buildings and backscenes on Fintonagh are superb example on how it should be done.  I guess I just need more practice!!

More power to your elbow, as they would say....

[David Holman]

 Still waiting for track building materials, so have done a bit more work on the baseboards, cutting out the hole where the control panel will go. Two DPDT switches for the crossovers and three push to make switches for the uncoupling magnets don't take up a lot of room, fortunately. Next, cut and trial fitted the curved 'landscape' piece for the left hand baseboard, along with the holes for the track to exit to the fiddle yard.

 

Today have been having another look at how the track work will fit in and as is so often the case, on the full sized model, things often don't work as planned on the drawing. Here, I've found that there isn't enough room for track for the mobile crane on the right hand baseboard, so have reluctantly decided that this will only run along the left hand board, parallel to the baseboard edge. This will be finished as a harbour wall anyway and leaves the option of maybe adding a second ship on a sub-board at a later date. As the coaster on the right hand board will have its own crane, this omission should be fine.

 Losing the crane track on the right hand board has at least freed up space to make the platform wider: as with everything else on a small layout, compromises have to be made pretty much everywhere! Playing around like this also helps in deciding how the track will eventually be made and laid. Suspect that much of it will be built in situ, with the platform wall/face actually going in first, as everything else revolves around it.

 Meanwhile, have also been playing around with what the back scene will look like, in particular trying to make this 7'6 x 1'6 footprint look much bigger. Hence have sketched in a small collection of houses, along with a few trees and bushes - the latter to hide both ends of the station building, along with the baseboard join in the back scene.

[Galteemore]

Nice to see this taking shape. No matter how much drawing you do, there’s nothing quite like seeing a plan in 3D to see where adjustments have to be made. Backscene sketch looks great.

[J-Mo Arts]

Also must say that the backscene looks lovely! 

[Northroader]

I think it will look better with the shorter crane track. Your benchwork is so neat looking.

[David Holman]

I think you are right. It makes the scene look more open and less cluttered, plus the loop is now a few inches longer too. Glad you like the bench work, though it is less neat underneath, I'm afraid!

[TimO]

Your layout sketching and backscene sketching are very a la Iain Rice, full of atmosphere and drawing us all in right from the start of the project. Love it. I will be watching this one develop with interest.

[David Holman]

Tunnel Vision

 Still flitting about, as the muse takes me and decided it was time to 'block in' the left hand side of the layout, where it exits into the fiddle yard, so that means a tunnel mouth. An internet search of Irish railway tunnels found me the tunnel at Downhill, which suits my situation nicely as it goes through a headland, with very steep sided cliff faces around it - ideal for my limited space.

 First job seemed to be creating the actual portal, a fairly straightforward task, using grey and mounting board, which was then covered in DAS and scribed for the stonework. I used grey DAS, which gives a decent base colour and applied it in fairly thick, uneven layers which I left as a rough finish in the hope of giving the walls a bit of texture. However, after scribing the stones, they still looked a bit flat, so added further small blobs of DAS to thicken them up a bit. The model was then given multiple light washes of acrylic - a mix of greys and browns, followed by a further wash of 'null oil', a wonderfully named Games Workshop tint, which is essentially black.

 The topography is built around a few blocks of expanded polystyrene [forgotten how messy this stuff is] which were then overlaid with a cardboard weave, make from strips of cereal packet. All those of a certain age will have done this in primary school, including a fair few unfortunate souls in my own time as a teacher. In this case, I used a hot glue gun to fix the strips in place, starting with the verticals, then weaving the horizontals in afterwards.

 This gives a reasonable structure on which to apply a shell, which is a stiff mix of powdered filler, PVA and black acrylic. Several thin layers of this are needed, but hopefully the photos will give an impression.

 

[KMCE]

Coming along very nicely. 

That will make for quite an imposing entrance from "stage left"

 

Have to confess, when I saw the first image without reading the narrative, I thought you had outdone yourself !! 

[J-Mo Arts]

I see you've found the Games Workshop shades, brilliant paints those. I would also recommend Agrax Earthshade as a nice brown, and I use Seraphim Sepia to get a nice finish on brass/copper painted parts and also to paint teak finishes. I'm not sure how well this scales up to 7mm but it may be fun to try. 

[David Holman]

55 minutes ago, KMCE said:

Coming along very nicely. 

That will make for quite an imposing entrance from "stage left"

 

Have to confess, when I saw the first image without reading the narrative, I thought you had outdone yourself !! 

Thanks Ken - if only! Considering it is a photo of a photo on a tablet screen, it works pretty well.

[David Holman]

 Carried on this weekend with the tunnel portal/cliff face/headland section. The first job was to try and get the rock face looking less like a sculpted piece of filler, so after some sanding down, began with a coat of grey acrylic, followed [when dry] by a wash of diluted browns. Looking at photos, it seemed this resulted in a lack of texture, so out came the weathering powders and while the paint had yet to dry, brushed these on liberally. 

 I've bought several weathering kits over the years and for scenic work, my go to is two large tubs - one a fairly coarse grey-brown [which may well be fire ash judging by the smell when wet] and the other a finer grey powder. This certainly improved matters, but my now much depleted Freestone Models weathering kit helped add various beige and brown tints to the rock, resulting in what seems like a nice variety now.

 Looking at pictures, it seems that even the steepest rock faces can be well covered with foliage, as plants seem to find a home in the smallest crevices, while larger ledges can have quite a variety. So out came the static grass machine, loaded with 5mm and 7mm long fibres in a range of greens. Undiluted PVA glue was carefully painted on to all the likely looking spots and foliage what gradually built up.

 At first, all seems good, but leaving it all overnight to dry, the coverage still looked rather sparse and flat compared to what I was envisaging. So, more grass fibres were added and then this was built up by adding Woodlands Scenics 'crumb' of various shades and grades. For small areas, I lightly brush PVA across the tops of the grass fibres and then sprinkle on the crumb. For larger areas, I spray on cheap hair lacquer and again add the crumb - often using the finest grade into which I mix yellow or white 'flower' grains. The latter helps spread things out, rather than have the flowers in big clumps.

 The last bit of foliage [thus far anyway] is the creation of brambles and dog roses using 'Postiche' or artist's hair. Teased out, sprayed with lacquer and heavily sprinkled with fine crumb as before, it is very effective. This is as far as I can go for now until I have bought some more materials and am wondering if the rock faces could do with even more foliage as they still look a bit bare to me in some of the pictures.

[J-Mo Arts]

The grass looks excellent, as do the colours of the rock. A really nice, realistic combination. 

[Rush and Lusk]

Tremendous colour and texture finish on the rocks/cliff face David. 

[David Holman]

Have carried on tinkering with the backscene this week, so am putting the latest pictures in the layout section. It's as much about doing a bit of 'proof reading' by taking photos, which give a different perspective to seeing the layout on its own.

 Had to get in some fresh supplies to add more detail and texture. These included a couple of new, good quality artists pens and some cheap oil pastels, which helped me improve the two trees and add details to the buildings. Far easier to do windows, doors and gutters with felt pens than paint brushes!

 I also found half a roll of 'cool white' LED strip, which is self adhesive, so after a bit of soldering to make a new plug, I now have much better [and more even] lighting over the layout. Hopefully, this makes for better pictures and you should always do painting in the same light as you want to display/exhibit your models.

At the moment, I'm still not sure if some of the colours are right - the houses for example seem a bit dull. However, it now feels like it is time to start on the scenery next to the backscene, including the walls and a couple of trees, as this will help blending everything together.

[David Holman]

Trees next and have been working on five this week. Nothing special, just the usual wire skeleton, aiming for something fairly small and anonymous, though being able to hide the ends of the low relief station building is important. Indeed, the trees are also low relief, being no more than a half circle when seen from above.

 Have departed a little from the norm in two ways. First, the wire skeleton was coated using a hot glue gun. This builds up the trunk and branches much quicker than filler, though I do add a layer of this on top to get better texture for the bark.

 The other change has been to use Woodland Scenics 'polyfibre'. This is essentially the material that forms the basis of their scenic matting and [just like using Postiche], you tease out a small piece, spray it with fixative and then sprinkle on scatter material, before fixing to the frame.

 The trees were then planted to go behind the station walls - two on one side, three on the other. After, I teased out the foliage some more, until I got the shape I wanted.

 Another addition has been a 'wiggly tin' hut at the far end of the platform. Looking at pictures of Fenit pier, it seemed that some sort of 'harbour office' might be appropriate, so Northport Quay now has one controlling the entrance to the waterfront. Knocked up the basic shell this morning and with no doors or windows visible, it was pretty simple to do.