Tuesday, 24 September 2013

The Perils of American Modelling

You come across what appears to be a perfect setting for an American themed micro layout, and then a train goes through and the question arises of just how big the fiddle yard would need to be


I'm informed by someone who had the patience to count that the grand total is 4 locos and 88 freight cars. The location, for those interested, is just outside Meyersdale, PA.


Tuesday, 10 September 2013

Gone Gricing

In a manner of speaking, anyway.

I'm packing for one of my regular cycling holidays. I am notorious for cycling near the routes of abandoned track beds and not realising it until I get back home.

This time though I have no excuse since half the trip is along an old railroad

What I will miss though is days when the Western Maryland is operating.

I'm in the middle of one of those periods where I'm travelling to North America quite a lot anyway. Whenever I'm over there my thought turn to two things. One is steak, and the other is a little HO or On30 terminus somewhere in the middle of Nowhere Minnesota. The three must have elements of the scene I imagine are a grain elevator, a dusty road and a wharf., and not a lot else except Otis the dog getting some rays

The Perils of Preservation Based Research

I'm not a dyed in the wool GWR fan, except for the narrow gauge lines they absorbed. So I've had to do a lot of catching up since I started this project in an attempt to eliminate obvious mistakes by the time things come to fruition. with Llanrhaiadr Mochnant.

So at the weekend we popped off to the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire, a line that has been on my must do list for some time. I actually don't get to visit many preserved lines these days.

I had been once before, but many many years ago. Generally I was very impressed. We traveled from Winchcombe to Laverton with a half hour stop at Toddington on the way back, which was just long enough to "do" the station, or to have a cup of tea if that was your inclination.


It all looked very atmospheric and Great Western. But here is the rub - since I don't know that much about the GWR how much can I trust the apparent authenticity? Look at the three pictures on this page. I suspect all three of them are in some way misleading if you used them to model the railway in GWR days


The trouble is you can end up trusting almost nothing. Would the crane have been that colour and in that sort of condition? Is that where one would have been situated? Would the area have been fenced off like that?

And here is a  perceptual issue to deal with:



The Aberdare Toad is painted a very dark gray. But look at the colour you can see in sunlight. It looks quite an ordinary light gray doesn't it? The gray in the shade in this photo is actually much closer to the "real" colour.

Monday, 9 September 2013

The Concept in 4mm

I described this in a reply to a comment as  the Apa box layout I should have built."

The piece of tissue paper was worried to death by one of our poodles


It would mean compromising the visual side of the model in favour of some operating potential. To make it work real care would be needed in blending in the back scene, and some trickery would be needed to convince the viewer that something actually exists off scene. I thought point rodding could be a good example of that, suggesting that there are actually turnouts at each end of the "loop"

The "ready weathered" Dapol gunpowder van is really dreadful

Is there any point in building it now? I'm not sure it. It is a chance to try out using the loco lift components to build both a traverser and a sector plate. I'm also going to need to try out EM track construction and this would seem a possible practical use of the first usable attempts. A baseboard should take minutes to knock up, and of course I do still have a spare Apa box.

So who knows, it might happen.

Friday, 6 September 2013

Lateral Thinking

A couple of thoughts have been kicking around my mind today.

The first is that I need a more lateral approach to the sector plate idea, or else it is going to take up a disproportionate amount of space when the layout is assembled.   I think the solution to this has been hiding from me in plain sight for the last few weeks. I think the way ahead lies with a combination of  Jack Trollope's "fiddlestick" idea for a micro layout  combined with the Iain Rice mini L girder sub base to produce a slide out section on which a sector plate can be mounted when the line is in use.At the moment I'm trying to avoid over complicating the design.

The other thought, having built one 4' x 2' baseboard is whether or not to build a layout that would just fit in that space as another stepping stone

My first thought was something like this.


It is based on an idea I had years ago for a OO9 layout based on Devils Bridge station on the VoR railway.. I've always like the idea of building a layout that provides a natural viewpoint that isn't square on and  I think this plan might just work, with a 16" long traverser hidden by the bridge just long enough to take a pannier and a short bogie coach.

Having my half scale baseboard to hand I mocked up a N gauge version to see how the angles actually worked out.


Along the way I ended up with that very curvaceous backscene and a suspicion that the way to make it work would be to do away with points altogether  and have two sector plates, with one short one accessed via a hole in the backscene hidden by the good shed, as it is on Apa Valley.



You know in N gauge that could fit into an Apa box.

In fact a little more experimentation this morning shows that in 4mm a Sentinel could fit on the short sector plate even on this 2ft by 1ft board


Tuesday, 3 September 2013

End of the Pier Show

I've always had a soft spot for pier railways. Perhaps it is because I grew up in Blackpool, with day trips to Southport, and then went to university within easy reach of Hythe Pier.

Today's post from Phil Parker got me thinking about the possibility of a pier railway in an APA box. Yes I know the Volks Electric Railway isn't, strictly speaking, a pier railway, although originally it was built on a pier like structure.

Actually looking at the legs of the pier in that photo they have a passing resemblance to the legs of the Dapol/Airfix water tank, one of which I happen to have lying around ready for the next project.



There are a couple of well known models around: John Goddard's model of the VER  and  Dave Carson's New Walmington Pier.

One of my original ideas for an APA layout was a Kinver style tramway, but a pier line might work rather better. In contrast to NewWalmington I would build it in OO9, since many pier railways were narrow gauge and model a mid section of the pier with scenic breaks provided by a car shed at the shore end, and a pavilion at the other. Langley Models do a whole series of kits and parts that would come in useful


And if you want a really crazy idea...

I was at Bridgnorth last week, which quite apart from the Severn Valley Railway is well worth a visit, not least because of the cliff railway.



Now Langley just happen to do a working model of a cliff railway so what if you stood an Apa box on end? The angle at which ir runs would have to be steepened, but that's been done on Cliffhanger so it is certainly feasible.

Sunday, 25 August 2013

Why I failed woodwork

I went to a grammar school that had a definite leaning towards developing practical skills, be they scientific, computing, technical drawing, woodwork, or metal work. they even insisted the boys studied home economics and sewing.

To be honest I pretty much flunked all those subjects, and an afternoon spent in the company of my rusting Black & Decker Workmate has reminded me why. Even when I know what I am supposed to be doing things go wrong, never mind when I'm trying something new.

So the end result is I have one mini baseboard to practice track construction on, and one very doubtful looking 4' x 2' baseboard to form the basis of LM. I might spend tomorrow building a the sector plate board, or at least the basic components of it. oddly I've decided to build the smaller of my two possible schemes. I'm also thinking about flipping it around so the sector plate will be in the corner of the room and the station area will be closer to window light.



If I was continuing with OO the appearance of the baseboard wouldn't worry me too much, after all it will have a cosmetic fascia attached to it - another job for tomorrow if I'm lucky. What worries me moving to EM is whether I've built it with a flat enough top for good running.

Still there is a lot of practicing to be done before I lay any track for real, and Templot to be mastered. If all else fails I'm sure I'll find some use for it,after all it will soon be November.