Back to Modelling

After quite a long break - some of it because of moving, some of it because of sorting out my train shed - I finally managed to spend some time last night and this evening doing some modelling.  The project at hand was the "shiny train" aka The Grove or Royal Train.

For the project I had obtained from the excellent service of Electra Railway Graphics the full set of Royal Train coaches and from the equally excellent service of those purveyors of parcels wrapped in brown paper (and sometimes tied with string) Hatton's for Liverpool 7 of their cheapest Mk 3s (which happened to be GNER TGSs) and a brace of their cheapest Mk 2s (which were something in Blue and Grey - can't remember).

Adam recommends Brasso - I found this a) tedious and b) time consuming and c) not working as well as I had hoped.  Perhaps the Australian formulation of Brasso is different to the UK one - although the tin says they are appointed to HM for stuff.  In any case I made up a solution of Caustic Acid (caustic soda mixed into some water) which I poured into a handily spare Dapol box and, at two at a time, the rest of the coaches were done quite quickly - soak for about an hour and rinse off with the aid of a toothbrush (old) and make sure you wear a pair of those latex disposable gloves, just in case.

During this afternoon I then painted the roofs, under gear and bogies with a tin of grey primer - this is slightly darker than my usual choice and looked pretty good compared with the photos of the train so that was that. 

This evenings work consisted of painting the springs on the Mk3 coaches bogies yellow and some leaver things on the Mk 2 coaches bogies blue - matching the pictures I have of these coaches in BR Coaching Stock in Colour since 1960. 

I have put the sides on the Mk2s and the Prince of Wales' saloon and very nice they look with my dummy Class 67.  I still have to paint the corridor connectors black and find some door boards.  I also plan on fitting Scale Scenes curtains on the insides of the coaches for the more authentic look - particularly as I can't be fussed making interiors and in any case, all of the pictures I have found both in books and on line have the curtains drawn.

Photos tomorrow when a) the camera battery is charged and b) I can do it out doors with natural light!

It is good to have something OMWB again!

"St Alban's Priory" - some more pictures

A couple more:

The view along the street over the tunnel at the Stage Right end.  This is a row of Kestral terrace houses to the right of the photo and a single shop unit to the left with Langley post box and telephone box.  This area needs a bit more - I am thinking of a a sign on the shop and maybe a for sale/for lease sign on one of the houses.  A car or maybe two parked along the street but as the layout is nominally set in the late 1950s the amount of cars around would be small.

Stage Left exit - the branch line at St Alban's Abbey goes left, towards the ECML (since it was an ex-GNR branch) but mine climbs and goes right, over the main line.  The main line (ex-LNWR line to Watford Junction and thence Euston) should be single track but part of the modifications to make life a bit easier for exhibitions had it doubled.  The Autotrain, being Western Region is on test!

"St Alban's Priory" - some pictures

As promised some photos of StAP now that it is installed.  I am very pleased to report that having connected all the bits which needed connecting (it comes in 3 parts so needs to be bolted together and then the connection plugs coupled up along with some track put in place over one of the joins) and the track was cleaned (and it was not too bad considering 2008 was the last time a wheel turned) everything I have tried to do so far has worked.  I haven't plugged in the 16vAC power pack for the points yet so....

Anyway, the photos:

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I had posted previously a picture of the outside of my shed.  This is an average sized shed by Australian standards (or at least it is amongst those I know who have backyard sheds) at 6m wide by 7.5m long.  Basically you can put two cars in, with room for a trailer and a bit of a work shop.  I don't.  I put a layout in!  StAP fits across the back with room at the RH end (as you look at the photo) to walk around the back.  Layout is over 5.5m long so I better not put on too much more weight!

First of the detail shots. This is a row of Kestral Semi-detached houses (KD32) which overlooks the head shunt and the London end of the layout.  The triple bracket signal in view is the Down Home with the left bracket taking trains into the yard and the right bracket into the bay platform on the up side of the station.  These houses have been individualised to a point, but having read the article in N'spirations 3 on detailing these, more will be done in due course.  I believe N'spirations 3 is out of print so I will take some photos of mine as I do it and up load them in due course.

The current goods shed - a painted Peco kit.  I do have a card model of the actual goods shed at St Alban's Abbey (on which StAP is based) and in the fullness of time I will replace this with that.  As I am hoping to build a model of StAA in 2mmFS, this model will be built with the dual purpose in mind - hopefully I won't have to fudge it too much to fit on both layouts.  The yard crane is a white metal one - Langley I think but maybe PD Marsh.  It needs some TLC as the hook is missing.

Wildly out of place Ratio Cattle dock.  It is important to remember the bulk of this was done in 1999/2000, well before my modelling skills were at the level of thinking about scratch building, let alone giving it a go.  This model was a bit of a leap for me at the time as it had the etch brass fence.  The middle lamp is a casualty of a gecko or something as the lamp is off the post in the four foot.  I am thinking about replacing the lamps with working examples but the dock will stay - far too firmly glued down with liquid nails to attempt to remove it I fear.  The signs along the platform fence are my own - I took photos of metal signs at preserved railways on one of my infrequent trips to the UK and these are the results.  Unfortunately, they too are casualties as the ink jet printer I used has resulted in colour loss - possibly from washing the platform!   Easy to fix.

Last one for today - this is the more serious casualty ward.  The loading gauge (white metal) is an easy fix as are the 6 telegraph poles.  The Up Starter bracket (left for the bay, tall middle for the main line and right to take trains over the Down and into the head shunt - the crossing is just in front of the Farish LNWR signalbox - handy since StAP is based on an LNWR location and better than the assortment of 'boxes which have stood in this position over the years) is almost certainly destined for replacement - not sure if it will be colour light with some feathers or what yet.

More tomorrow possibly - as it is, I am enjoying the sound of trains running rather than worrying about taking photos or faffing about but I shall have to get stuck in, as there is a group coming on Saturday!

"St Alban's Priory" comes home

8 weeks ago my family and I did the long drive from Longreach for the last time and moved back to our family home in SE Queensland.  Since then, Christmas and New Year have come and gone, our fourth daughter has had her first birthday and we have been to Melbourne and celebrated Amity's birthday.  While this has been going on, I have found time to work in my train shed, building book cases to house my collection of reference books and magazine and prepare it for the home coming of my layout, which has been in storage suspended from my parents garage roof since 2008.

Well today was the day.  Weather not the greatest (although wetter I think than 2011 it has been slower and more widespread and there hasn't been the flooding that there was this time last year) but we managed to jag it for the space, both at my parents house and here at home.

The layout has survived rather well.  There are no signs of damage due to insect infestation and while a few telegraph poles need straightening and some signals need a bit of TLC, on the whole it is in pretty good shape.  Mind you, I look and parts and shudder to think I thought they were pretty good!  They probably were at the time (the layout celebrated it 12 birthday over the New Year period!) given my skill and abilities when I did it.  Now I am not sure I would have done what I did had I known what I do.

Pictures tomorrow - even the ugly bits - once I finish bolting it together this evening.

To do in 2012

I haven't done any modelling this year - been too busy sorting out the modelling space to actually do any real modelling. But since I am going back to work this week following the Summer Holiday I thought it would be a good idea to put a list of what I hope to complete this year out there as a means to keeping me on track.

To work it out I decided I would only look at the UFO box rather than the gloat box (which recently had some etches from Masterclass Models added to it - LNER Quad Art and BR 4-TC).  There is plenty to do in the UFO pile but these are the top 10:

Finish the:

NSWGR C38

VR K class

ERG Royal Train

LNWR signal box

Farish Class 33 repaint

the gardens on St Alban's Priory

rewiring job (started in 2007!) on StAP

points on Swallow's End (after fixing up the trackwork!)

Mk3 fodder store to go with the 2mm cattle dock.

Cartic4

So there is 10 things on the list - some should be fairly straight forward (the repaint for example) while others will take a bit (the rewiring job wins this one!).  There will certainly be other projects which crop up along the way but hopefully at the end of the year I can look back and tick these 10 off the list.

New Year - New Goals

2011 done and dusted and 2012 shaping up to a very busy one train wise. 

I have been thinking about what I should set my sights on for 2012 now that I am back in civilisation with a couple of hobby shops for bits and pieces (like fishplates, track pins, brass etc) and DIY shops for things like baseboard supplies and so forth.  The major improvement in my lot since starting this blog (and the previous threads on RM Web) is I now have access to my train shed - work on which is progressing to get it to the state I envisaged when it was erected in 2007!

So goals - the first one is to take a 2mm Finescale layout to the Darling Downs Model Railroad Club exhibition in June.  This is assuming they still hold it!  Must email them and ask.  Now before anyone says this is overly ambitious (particularly since Swallow's End hasn't progressed since I decided the track needed attention and I hadn't managed to get a working point on it!) it won't be as Amity reckons I should get around to building the rest of my W&U stock and building Elm Road to run it on.  So the challenge will in fact be to get a working J70 or Y6 tram (or two) done and dusted.  Of course, if worse comes to worse, there is the pair of Class 04s which can sub.  As this layout is merely an oval with no points (and either a cassette or traverser system for a fiddle yard) there is nothing complicated track wise to cause issues.

Second, get at least 12 UFOs done - one a month.  The list, in no particular order, is the Cartic4, my Royal Train (vinyl overlays from ERG), a Class 33 which needs repainting, DCC chipping my Blue Diesel fleet, my NSW C38 and VR K steam locos (so that gets me to May or June!   Must look at the box but will publish the list and then tick them off - lists help get things done I find).

Third - Swallow Street.  Long time readers will know this was the BR(S) third rail layout I build and chronicled on RM Web 3 in 2009.  They will also know I wasn't particularly happy with some aspects of it and it is now 2/3rds of the way to being scrapped.  I have plans to redo it - same track plan and scenic aspects but 1 1800mm board instead of 3x600mm boards thereby making it run much smoother.  I am tweaking the track plan in as much as I am putting in a single slip which will move some points closer to the station and hopefully mean one of the signals is easier to see by viewers rather than just the driver!

Fourth - well this is a surprise which will be revealed in the fullness of time!  A third layout (what I hear you say!) is a distinct possibility (well the Australian stuff will need somewhere to run won't it?) but I don't want to over reach (or fill up the shed too fast!)

Fifth - go over my layout which has been in storage for the last 4 years (last run in May 2008) and hopefully have some trains running by February.

Sixth - form a NGS/2mm/BRMA Area Group.

There - that, along with family and work should keep me busy!  Stay tuned and see how I go.

Christmas Loot

You know you have done well with training (pun intended!) your family when this is what you get from your wonderful wife and 4 daughters for Christmas.  Amity gave me the books (having sorted the ordering herself.  I guess it helped having the shelf of all the other Books Of next to the computer!) and the girls gave me a wagon each - increasing my train of colourful and cheerful wagons to 32.

In other news - not much modelling - but progress is being made on the area where it is hoped that a meeting of 2mm SA members, NGS members and BRMA members (some who wear multiple badges but I think I am the only one needing three heads!) with a view to forming a joint Area Group will be held in February next year - if you are interested in joining, please email me for details.  Hopefully enough work will get done tomorrow to justify a photo and with even more luck, my layout maybe back soon.

Taking Stock - the coaches

With the weather and time conspiring against me in getting progress made on my shed (there is still too many things in it which should be in another place but it has been raining which makes moving things around outdoors a little tricky) I have not been able to do too much train wise since moving back home from Longreach. 

One thing I have done is collect most of my rolling stock and locomotives from storage at my parents place and one evening this week I took over the dining room table to sort out the coaches.  I am trying to work out how best to store them - rakes obviously, but by Era or Region or a combination of both.  They may yet be stored in a yet to be determined system based on layout requirements.  The first step I felt, after 4 years of buying but not seeing, was to see.  As it happens, the photo above isn't all.  One of the new Mk 1s (a CK for those keeping score!) is missing from the Blue/Grey set as are the 7 Mk 3s I have waiting to become the Royal Train.  Also missing are 20 odd Minitrix Mk 1s (which are most likely to be turned into Thomas the Tank Engine coaches and used by the kids as they have no boxes, some need some attention to reattaching bogies and all have been painted by moi when I was much younger!)  So Farish suburbans (LMS type) are also missing as are a few odds and ends around the place not to mention most of my parcels stock.  To say Amity was surprised would be an understatement!

Next up will be to sort out my wagons...  I may need a bigger table (this one is 8ft x 4 ft and seats 10).

Close Coupling

Owing to the big move (successfully completed but now unpacking!) not much has been happening on the modelling front.  Last night was one of the first forays back into it, but with my train shed out of action (still packed boxes are in it along with other "stuff") it was limited to what I could do on the dinning room table.

This consisted of working though my collection of 101s (RR, SYWP Green and BR Blue 3 car), my collection of Blue Ribband Mk 1s and my Class 411 and sorting out close couplings.  I set up a reverse curve using some Kato 315mm radius curves and set to work. 

The results are quite pleasing.  One short and one long Farish NEM Rapido in each Mk 1 and these go round happily both pushing and pulling coupled long to short.  For the MUs of all persuasions, I have used the Dapol knuckles.  For all 4 sets a pair of shorts worked fine.

For those wondering what my train shed looks like - picture below.  7.5m by 6m and no, I don't have t share with the car!  I do have to share with my own workshop but that is ok as it is MINE, ALL MINE  (Bahahahahahhaha!)  (Tinks (in best Bluebottle voice) "maybe I have been in the outback too long" Untinks)

The Last Post

This is probably the last post from Longreach as we are leaving on Saturday for home - and the train shed!  4 years in the bush minus my main layout has been at times quite depressing particularly as I would (like I did today) get some nice models and not have anywhere nice to run them (the RR and SYWP 101s arrived today).  I won't have my layout probably until the New Year but it will be much closer (at 30 mins instead of 12 hours drive!) than it has been in a while, and with my full set of tools and my shed, I can make a proper start on some of the plans I have, together with faster progress on some of the things which I have started whilst out here.

The last bit of modelling was done today - I got some black on the K class.  Tonight I have spent some time sorting out and packing away my work bench.

Photo of the K below - looks pretty good.  Once I get the steps on, I will do some detail painting before looking at the transfers - then there is the tender bogies and I will be done.