I was at Scaleforum last weekend, helping Rod Cameron and John Farmer with the massive Ouse Valley Viaduct and Balcombe station layout, representing a chunk of the Brighton main line in P4. It is truly a project on an epic scale, both in size and the understandable gestation period of the layout.
Brian Hingston, Nick Rogers and Mike Ainsworth were also on the team. Although the layout itself is essentially the work of the first two gentlemen (John and Rod) only, both Brian and Nick have made very significant contributions in terms of rolling stock for the layout, with construction having taken place over the last 12 months or so.
Others have also made important contributions, either in terms of building stuff or (eg. Mike Ainsworth) bringing superb locos and stock for the show and attending same.
Although I have been involved (rather casually, by my own admission) with the project since the early site visits to Sussex in 2009 (10 years ago, for goodness sake, where does the time go?), for a variety of reasons, my own contributions have unfortunately not been on the above scale.
That said, for the last few weeks at least, I suspended work on 'Bethesda Sidings', to allow me to complete one or two items for the layout, in time for the show last weekend.
The first item was a small building for Balcombe station. Rod made all the other buildings and structures for the station and did a splendid job, as evidenced by photos posted on this forum and also on the Scalefour Society forum. My contribution was to build the Gents toilet!
This is the prototype, the photos taken way back in 2009:
Although I took detailed photos and measurements during a subsequent site visit in 2010, it took me until 2018 to actually produce the scale drawing, necessary for me to build the thing (from plasticard).
This is the Gents part-way through construction:
The roof slates are the old Exactoscale self-adhesive ones, which were designed to be painted over with a dirty enamel wash.
This is the finished building, prior to having signage and advert hoardings added (which it had in the 1950s & 1960s):
After taking these photos, I added the 'Gents' sign and also two period adverts. Here is the building in place on the layout (please note that the station area scenery is not yet completed, including the station garden adjacent to the Gents):
I also built most of the buffer stops for the layout. Nick built a couple of Southern examples from Dave Franks kits, which I then put on copper clad sleepers, added cosmetic chairs and then painted and weathered.
I also built a lost wax SR buffer stop and another Dave Franks whitemetal example.
Finally I built a sleeper-built buffer stop from balsa wood and also painted and weathered a Bachmann sleeper-built example. All buffer stops were sprayed with red oxide (Halfords) primer, then 'Rail Dirt' by Railmatch and then weathered with Mig and Abteilung 502 powders.
Now that Scaleforum is over, I have restarted work on 'Bethesda Sidings', as stated in my Cameo Competition thread. Further works will be taking place on Balcombe and the OVV layout in the future, however, and I will be offering my services once more, in due course.
