Chuffer
Active Member
My belated thanks for the more recent welcome messages and apologies for not responding sooner - it's ages since I last posted, mostly because I've been so busy with my weathering business duties that I've had little spare time at all to make very much progress with the layout.
I've altered the track layout slightly by removing a couple of superfluous sidings that Julian only added because he wanted to operate the layout from the rear at shows and it made for more interesting movements. I'll be operating from the front as I want to organise a full scenic backdrop that precludes operating from the rear and I'm trying for a more run down look with fewer sidings and imminent closure anticipated.
Two replacement bridges are built and installed at the left hand end in a slightly different position and, instead of it being a terminus, the station is now modelled as a through one with a new bridge at the right hand end, under which the track passes briefly before petering out into weeds and overgrowth as the line is presumed closed from there onwards.
There's a new corrugated roofed engine shed that's built, painted and weathered ready to be plonked into place and I decided the signalbox was slightly too large for the location with its now much reduced trackwork so I've replaced it with a much modified and smaller Peco one. This is the fairly recently introduced platform mounted box that I've converted into one with a brick base - there was an excellent article in the R/Modeller some while back that inspired this idea, utilising the same kit. It's a bit shallower front to back which allows me to have a scenic shrubs and bushes area behind it so it won't now be perching right on the front edge of the layout as before.
Here's a shot of it just plonked in place - it now has the original signal box's nameplate installed since taking the photo. Nobody will see it from this side but it's a nice little kit that when modified and painted in tired GWR colours, doesn't look too bad to my eyes. Full interior detail using Springside kit parts with a nice signalman figure that again probably nobody will see either - the things we do for fun . . .
And that's not a back scene behind it but some storage boxes in the workshop - Devon stars aren't that large!
I'd re-ballasted much of the track work (original ballast in the above image) before calling a halt (no pun intended) as I decided to rewire the layout completely (should have done this first of course . . .
). A very good friend, Adrian Newson, who's an electronics whizz volunteered to organise this as I'm not very clever in the fizz-bang dept. and he's already arranged replacement point servos and other such electrickery that we'll be installing next month. We're retaining the Tortoise motors for the signals. I'm happy with the soldering iron as long as he tells me which bit to solder to what. Even DCC requires a little thought and isn't quite the 'just need two wires' idyll some have mooted in the past.
My Lionheart pannier's weathered and running nicely, the Impetus Ruston 88DS that I previously sold to a client (it sat unused on my demo stand at shows for years purely as a display piece and talking point) has now come home, been re-wheeled back to S7 standards and fortunately he'd already had an excellent Zimo sound chip installed so it sounds delightful as it putters and rattles along. Powered by an RG4 motor, it has smooth control and happily runs at a scale 9mph or thereabouts, which is about right. Always in distressed green I may ring the changes and repaint it in a similarly distressed pale blue or possibly washed out yellow.
Here's the pannier (photographed on my diorama) when I slightly revamped the weathering more recently - still a work in progress as there are one or two extra detail bits yet to be added - and those windows need cleaning. With the very fine wheels re-spaced out to S7 dimensions I've fitted cosmetic plastikard frame side overlays to reduce the resultant added gap between wheel backs and frames.
I'm awaiting delivery of a Lionheart 45xx in BR lined green next, which I'll be weathering in suitably worn condition and I'm debating a solitary WR coach for it to pull - either a single B set coach or possibly a Hawksworth one. We'll see. Still open to ideas regarding a possible single railcar of some description too - maybe the imminent Heljan one could be converted to S7 and have an authentic sound chip installed?
If I'd been able to devote more spare time to it, there would have been more progress to report. I suppose quite a few alterations have been carried out, having read the above, but I'll upload more piccies soon so you can see a little of what's been going on. Once the layout's wired up as we'd like, I can then get on with the scenics that I've been champing at the bit to get started upon. At the moment everything looks very brown and grey as there's no new greenery installed as yet, but hopefully that will all change over the next few months.
Martyn
I've altered the track layout slightly by removing a couple of superfluous sidings that Julian only added because he wanted to operate the layout from the rear at shows and it made for more interesting movements. I'll be operating from the front as I want to organise a full scenic backdrop that precludes operating from the rear and I'm trying for a more run down look with fewer sidings and imminent closure anticipated.
Two replacement bridges are built and installed at the left hand end in a slightly different position and, instead of it being a terminus, the station is now modelled as a through one with a new bridge at the right hand end, under which the track passes briefly before petering out into weeds and overgrowth as the line is presumed closed from there onwards.
There's a new corrugated roofed engine shed that's built, painted and weathered ready to be plonked into place and I decided the signalbox was slightly too large for the location with its now much reduced trackwork so I've replaced it with a much modified and smaller Peco one. This is the fairly recently introduced platform mounted box that I've converted into one with a brick base - there was an excellent article in the R/Modeller some while back that inspired this idea, utilising the same kit. It's a bit shallower front to back which allows me to have a scenic shrubs and bushes area behind it so it won't now be perching right on the front edge of the layout as before.
Here's a shot of it just plonked in place - it now has the original signal box's nameplate installed since taking the photo. Nobody will see it from this side but it's a nice little kit that when modified and painted in tired GWR colours, doesn't look too bad to my eyes. Full interior detail using Springside kit parts with a nice signalman figure that again probably nobody will see either - the things we do for fun . . .
And that's not a back scene behind it but some storage boxes in the workshop - Devon stars aren't that large!
I'd re-ballasted much of the track work (original ballast in the above image) before calling a halt (no pun intended) as I decided to rewire the layout completely (should have done this first of course . . .
). A very good friend, Adrian Newson, who's an electronics whizz volunteered to organise this as I'm not very clever in the fizz-bang dept. and he's already arranged replacement point servos and other such electrickery that we'll be installing next month. We're retaining the Tortoise motors for the signals. I'm happy with the soldering iron as long as he tells me which bit to solder to what. Even DCC requires a little thought and isn't quite the 'just need two wires' idyll some have mooted in the past.My Lionheart pannier's weathered and running nicely, the Impetus Ruston 88DS that I previously sold to a client (it sat unused on my demo stand at shows for years purely as a display piece and talking point) has now come home, been re-wheeled back to S7 standards and fortunately he'd already had an excellent Zimo sound chip installed so it sounds delightful as it putters and rattles along. Powered by an RG4 motor, it has smooth control and happily runs at a scale 9mph or thereabouts, which is about right. Always in distressed green I may ring the changes and repaint it in a similarly distressed pale blue or possibly washed out yellow.
Here's the pannier (photographed on my diorama) when I slightly revamped the weathering more recently - still a work in progress as there are one or two extra detail bits yet to be added - and those windows need cleaning. With the very fine wheels re-spaced out to S7 dimensions I've fitted cosmetic plastikard frame side overlays to reduce the resultant added gap between wheel backs and frames.
I'm awaiting delivery of a Lionheart 45xx in BR lined green next, which I'll be weathering in suitably worn condition and I'm debating a solitary WR coach for it to pull - either a single B set coach or possibly a Hawksworth one. We'll see. Still open to ideas regarding a possible single railcar of some description too - maybe the imminent Heljan one could be converted to S7 and have an authentic sound chip installed?
If I'd been able to devote more spare time to it, there would have been more progress to report. I suppose quite a few alterations have been carried out, having read the above, but I'll upload more piccies soon so you can see a little of what's been going on. Once the layout's wired up as we'd like, I can then get on with the scenics that I've been champing at the bit to get started upon. At the moment everything looks very brown and grey as there's no new greenery installed as yet, but hopefully that will all change over the next few months.
Martyn
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