A weekend of woodwork.

Inspired by the layout that Nigel Burkin has under construction at: http://nigelburkin.wordpress.com/ I've made a start on the baseboards for my latest layout. Unlike my last two, this one is a 'layout that doesn't leave home'; mainly as it will have extensive OHLE, and frankly to model overhead line equipment convincingly it isn't too compatible with portability IMHO. I've started with the easiest section; the narrow return along the door-side of the room; a run of around 11 feet; with a minimum board width of 15 inches; widening at both ends for the corners. I am planning to use a minimum radii of around 3', but hopefully well disguised by either scenery or completely 'off'scene'.

Excuse the Roco NS 1800; it's simply to give sense of scale. I've gone for a completely wall-mounted construction for the narrow 15" wide 'returns', but the main section; at some 13' x 2'6" will need at least some additonal support.

New HO Project: Hasselt / Kiewit (SNCB); or 'here we go again...'

Anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that I can never have just one or for that matter two major railway projects on the go at once; in fact I'm never happier than when I'm planning the layout after the one I haven't built yet.

So to that end; I introduce my latest overambitious project; a permanant layout inspired by the Hasselt / Kiewit area of Belgium. This town is home to the Pukkelpop alternative music festival: http://www.pukkelpop.be which I am very fond of and have been to the last few years.

In between bands and on the day either side of the festival I've been known to spend rather too much time in and around the railway; on the weekend of the festival many trains are strengthened and additional loco-hauled services run to both the main station; Hasselt, and the local station next to the campsite, Kiewit, making a highly modelable subject.


Add to the fact the Kiewit station is on a branch line, is a compact site, sees regular freight trains and is at roughly 90 degrees to the main line, some interesting scenic breaks afforded by river crossings, and the fact that the main station has a busy yard and its own locomotive depot and there is some excellent inspiration.

The main station would take a great deal of modelers license to compress; the real thing having 9 platform faces, which can accomodate up to 12 coach trains; the layout I have in mind will accommodate reduced length rakes of between 6 and 8 coaches, but hopefully I may be able to capture some of the essence of the station. It should be possible to model Kiewit fully, as seen below the station building is fairly compact, though it may be necessary to curve the platforms.

Exhibition Dates - Widnes Road [Updated 27/02/09]

See Widnes Road at the following 2009 Confirmed Exhibition Appearances:

Sudbury MRC - 3rd October 2009
St. Peters, Market Hill, Sudbury

Farnham & District MRC - 10th-11th October 2009;
Aldershot - Connaught Leisure Centre, Tongham Road, GU12 4AS

Provisional invites; 2009

Hampton Court MRC - Tolworth Showtrain 2009
Tolworth Recreation Centre - 14th-15th November 2009;

Royston & District MRC - 21st November 2009

Provisional invites; 2010

Romford MRC - 13th November 2010

Confirmed Appearances 2011
Warley National Model Railway Exhibition 2011 19th & 20th November 2011, NEC Birmingham

Previous Outings:

2006
- Epping Railway Circle: Theydon Bois - November 06;

2007 -
- Enfield Town 07
- Erith MRC, Bexley September 07

2008
- Perth, Scotland, June 2008
- Erith MRC, Bexley, September 2008
- Epping Railway Show, Theydon Bois Village Hall, Essex, Saturday 15th November 2008
- Letchworth, Herts. Model Railway Exhibition, Saturday 29th November 2008

2009
-Erith MRC, Dartford, Kent - 24th-25th January 2009

Visit Widnes Road at Fotopic: http://www.widnesroad.fotopic.net

SNCB Class 13

Another continental interloper has a test-run on Widnes Road; this time its the latest SNCB Class 13 from LS Models.

A burst of activity...

A couple of days of work has resulted in some good progress on the extension to Widnes Road; the new longer fiddle yard is finished, and the best bit of any new layout building is the opportunity to try out favorite rakes of rolling stock...
IMHO you just can't beat a line up of classic 80's traction in BR Blue.

I've also been adding more details to the depot area, including walkways and the inspection pit within the shed itself. This overall shot shows how the extension relates to the original board.

Widnes Road - Mark 2.5

I just can't help myself; whilst I had Widnes Road apart to build a new and improved fiddle yard, which is built and just awaiting the track laying I decided I could model the 'back' of the depot building as well as the front.

A trip to B&Q and a few hours (well two days really) and Widnes Road had grown again, by a whole extra 10 inches (plus the extra 8" on the fiddle yard). This has the added benefit that the two sidings on this board have also been lengthened.

While I had the buildings off and was making a mess anyway, I took the opportunity to get the 'jigsaw' our and cut a long hole in the baseboard to fit an inspection pit, which is the beginnings of modelling the inside of the depot building which will eventually be lit. The plan is to scratch build some small depot buildings to fill the space between the depot and the relocated bridge, and a low relief shed to form a scenic break.

Widnes Road - Fiddle Yard Progress

The new traverser 'runners' arrived from Station Road Baseboards, and once cut to length were fitted. This then allowed for the fun bit; getting out various rakes of favourite wagons and seeing what will fit in the new fiddle yard.

It was also a good excuse to buy a few more of the excellent Heljan dogfish; although they stand out a mile not having had the attention of the airbrush yet. It's a shame that they now only come with a horrible black plastic load; which is rather too well glued in. A spot of attention with the scalpel blade and a very speedily delivered order from Ten Commandments soon sorted that out.

Let it snow...

The last two days have seen some of the heaviest snowfall in the South-east of England for nearly twenty years. The photos alongside show the Central Line taken from the bridge at the end of my road...no work today.

Widnes Road - Fiddle Yard III - Fiddle Harder

It was pay-day on Friday, so Saturday morning brought a trip to B&Q (other DIY megastores are available) to buy supplies for the jobs to be done on Widnes Road.
First off is the new fiddle yard; I've struggled with the various iterations of traverser that Widnes Road has had. The first was too small and kept sticking; this was solved on the second version by making it a) longer; and b) putting the traverser on furniture drawer runners. However, the layout grew, and the wood which formed the traverser base warped. I tried to reinforce the base with ply strips along the edges, but this was a bit futile. Wandering round B&Q on Saturday I hit upon a solution; extruded aluminium L-channel.
As can be seen in the photo above this has been cut to form a pocket for the traverser bed to sit in; and once drilled and screwed to the 'bed' it forms a very rigid and flat base for the fiddle yard. I'm just waiting for the new runners from Station Road Baseboards and then I can get the track laid.

I've taken the opportunity whilst rebuilding the fiddle yard of lengthening it to 4', long enough for a loco and a reasonable rake of wagons; such as a Cl.47 and 6 LWB vans, or a Cl.25 or 33 and 8 ballast hoppers and a 'Shark'.

Widnes Road - Plans for 2009

Having exhibited Widnes Road in its current form for the last 6 months ideas for a few minor tweaks have gradually gelled in my head to improve operation and gain longer train formations.

As it was originally planned as simply a loco-based layout there were no real thoughts regarding train lengths for head-shunts etc. As the layout has grown, operating short formation freights of up to 6 or seven wagons have taken more of a role.

I have already gone through two incarnations of fiddle yard; the first a mere 2 feet long; the current a little larger at 39 inches; however the longest trains which will fit in the sidings are 36 inches without a loco, which brings the overall train length closer to 48" with a long loco such as a cl.40 or cl.45.

Other tweaks include slightly repositioning buffer stops and Kadee uncoupling ramps to better suit train lengths; and move the fuelling point slightly east to allow 2 sets of 3 fuel tanks beyond the FP.

This brings me to a list of tasks for 2009 to be undertaken between now and the Autumn exhibition season; if I set them down in type I may actually get around to doing them:

1) Move Fuel point 2" east; move buffer stop 3" west on No. 3 road, allowing three fuel tanks in unloading siding;

2) Move bufferstop on No.1 (front) road 5" west, and reposition depot building to front of siding, extend headshunt 5" to a total of 40" (this allows cl. 08 and 6x VDA's to fit.

3) Build Mk.3 Fiddle yard @ 4' (48") long, to accommodate:
Cl.37/47 + 6 x VDA's or 5 x VGA's

4) Build inspection pit, with lighting in Main Depot building; No.1 & No. 2 Roads.

Hopefully this list should take no more than a few months allowing time to complete a few AC electrics in time for the next show in the Summer / Autumn.

On the subject of wheely-bins...

...or a cautionary tale about paying more attention when cannibalizing one layout to speed up progress on another.

I've been spending an enjoyable weekend exhibiting Widnes Road at a two-day show in Dartford, Kent. There were the usual mix of interested punters stopping for a chat, but there was one yesterday a bit out the norm. She was stood examining the layout for a fair while, and we got in conversation about the various cats; all eight of which are painted to match the four we have in real life and the four which our neighbours have had at various times.

This was all very nice and she was just leaving when the parting comments was along the lines of; "I like the cats but they didn't have wheeley-bins in the 1980's". Now I don't take my modelling so seriously that this causes anything other than surprise that someone is looking that closely, but what was odd was that to be honest I don't even remember putting them on the layout!

Then I remembered cannibalizing a small part of West Wirral (which was set in the late 1990's) to fill in a gap on Widnes Road when I was in a rush; and that small tableau of a depot office had a wheely bin outside the office door.

Suffice to say; the offending bins are coming off today to be replaced by proper 1980's dented dust-bins. Thanks for the heads-up; also a friendly hello to Peter Clark of http://www.peterclarkkits.com/ a guy whose work I admire and whose kits are first rate; for spotting that when I had taken the bogie sideframes off my Heljan 47 to clean the wheels; I'd put them on the wrong way round, well spotted. I hope to build one of your 7mm MPV's for my garden layout later this year.

Right; off to the modelling room to paint some dustbins...

In works - Class 85 Update

A day of ups and downs; I managed to 'blow-up' an expensive sound-chip whilst cleaning the wheels on a loco; but managed to calm down by making solid progress on the Class 85 I'm building. C'est la vie.

DSB comes to Widnes Road

This morning the post brought a large box of Hobbytrade and Heljan goodies from Denmark; so for one day only Widnes Road has been taken over by the Danish State Railway; DSB.

During a couple of holidays to Denmark I have developed quite an affection for the DSB ME class diesels, built by Henschel in 1981.

For comparison with the model, below is a photo of the real thing taken on the approach to Kobenhavn on a recent visit.

Weathering Inspiration

Prototype for everything...

Whenever I'm weathering a wagon I often think I've overdone it; but this picture shows just how weathered the real thing can get; an internal user TTA at Norwich Crown Point depot on 8/4/04.

Also of interest is the depot building in the rear of the picture which is the one which I based the colour of the shed on my Widnes Road layout on.

In works... Class 85

Having caught up with the maintenance backlog with Widnes Road, and before I get drawn into too many other daft projects (for daft projects see: starting yet another model railway layout...) I felt I ought to get around to building the DC Kits class 85 I picked up at the Perth show back in July.

This was inspired by this photo; taken by yours truly back on the 24th February 1990 in Wolverhampton and which I recently scanned for my fotopic site (see http://www.widnesroad.fotopic.net/).

Unfortunately when I opened the box it seems that the resin body had been damaged at some point in the last eight months, the buffer beam and one buffer was broken off and in three pieces. So what was planned as a leisurely evening modelling; i.e. filing a few random bits and maybe building the chassis turned into the more involved task of reconstructing the buffer beam, reinforcing it and filling the cracks with 'Rocket Powder' and cyano (a fabulous modelling product I couldn't live without, see: http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/923_1_1220504.html)and replacing the damaged buffers with far nicer turned brass ones I 'happened' to have lying around.

Task completed, I turned to the roof area and hit a major snag. The almost complete absence of decent photos of the roof area of a late 1980's class 85. The kit instructions didn't include any pictures and the diagram to my mind seemed to contradict the text and the few poor quality images I had managed to find. After trawling through my own photos, fotopic, and my usual reference books (including the usually reliable 'Main Line Electrics') I've hit a bit of a modellers block. Shall I make a few 'assumptions' based on best guess, or put the model on hold until I get a definitive answer. Watch this space.

If anyone actually reads this nonsense, and happens to have an answer / pictures as to where the various insulators and switchgear on the roof goes, drop me a line. Ta.

New Year's Resolution No.1 - 'Make the most of the mid-week'

One of my New Year's resolutions is to try to do at least some modelling in the evenings after work (one of the others is to go running before work, but methinks the day will not stretch in both directions at once). So when I got home tonight I decided to weather the brake van I 'spruced up' last week. I'm quite pleased with the results, none of the shiny look it had before I started; a bit of 600 grade wet&dry, Carr's weathering powders and a light dusting with the airbrush; 'smoke' and 'brake dust'.

OMWB January - Seacows

Having tackled most of the easier wagons, I finally turned to my rake of Seacow's; a mixture of Bachmann, Hornby and Lima offerings, albeit either fully resprayed or detailed, heavily weathered and fitted with loads. There has been plenty said about Hornby's 'own goal' of not including an NEM pocket on their Seacows, but that wouldn't normally be a problem, many older wagons are a doddle to convert with a No.5. The issue with the Hornby wagons is simply there isn't enough room to fit anything which swings sufficiently to get round any significant corners.

The solution was to create two 'barrier' wagons; Lima Seacows with Kadee's on one end only and run the Hornby wagons between them. It's relatively easy to transform the old Lima Sealion / Seacow into something which easily stands its own in a rake with the latest Bachmann and Hornby offerings, particularly as Bachmann's Y25 bogies are easily and cheaply obtainable; the brass canopies over the wagon ends are from A1.

UMWB (Under my Widnes Board...)

Having a bit more spare time to indulge in railway modelling over the Christmas break has given me the opportunity to get round to one of those tasks that is often dreaded by in the long run very worthwhile; a rationalisation and comprehensive rewiring of the original layout boards from Widnes Road.

After a few years on the exhibition circuit, and with various ad-hoc additions and alterations the wiring had started to get slightly temperamental; culminating in an annoying (albeit brief) point failure at a show recently.

As can be seen in the photo below, I thought this through and didn't fancy a couple of days under the layout dripping hot solder on myself. Hence I knocked together a stand from a couple of old shelf brackets which holds the layout at a convenient angle for accessing the underside.

I also made a few wiring alterations; including making all sidings live at all times, to enable stabled DCC locos to show lights / make engine sounds etc. something I had been meaning to do almost from the first outing. I'm pleased with the outcome, but I'm now being driven by perfectionism to rewire the second board, which I only built last spring; that way madness lies...

OMWB (On my work-bench) December 08

I have been taking the opportunity of a break in the exhibition schedule to do some small improve-
ments to the regular rolling stock from Widnes Road. This has included finally getting around to replacing the last of the old hook-style couplings with Kadee's. The wagons that were left to do were all in the 'too-difficult' box from last time and required varying levels of surgery from the Dremel.

Whilst I had the various wagons on the workbench I added other details such as air and vacuum pipes, lamps and replacing broken buffers. This particular brake-van received the full works.
All that remains to be done is a light to medium weathering.
Amongst the trickier items to fit kadee's to were some of the kit-built ones such as this Nuclear Flask wagon; eventually an adapted No. 20 did the job.

Singen Hbf Update

Most of the work on Singen Hbf lately has been the kind you can't really see; wiring, relaying and expanding the fiddle yard, however I felt this picture of a variety of DBAG electrics grouped around the turntable came out fairly well. I've spent most of the day fixing a sound-fitted pair of 218's which was down to corroded contacts and a loose wire; and fitting a DCC decoder in an old Roco 143; which was surprisingly easy if you don't mind the lights not working. Frankly the only space for the chip is in the cab which precludes refitting the lighting parts on at least one end.