4mm Kender Street - a working diorama for my den

[Ressaldar]

My wife has been on at me for some time now to 'do something in 00' and after a lot of trial and tribulation I have come down on Kender Street - a parcels depot, set in a largish town to the West of London , surrounded on three sides by buildings, retaining walls and the 'esential' scenic break bridge - all in 4' x 15" + a 2'6" traverser - just big enough to fit along one wall of my den.

I have constructed two 'table' units for the layout to sit on - it was a better option than drilling the walls for bearers etc. and meant that the whole thing is portable. I drew the baseboard elements out on Autosketch to work out the fit on an 8' x 4' sheet of 9mm ply - this done, I then obtained a quote from a local specialist board cutting firm, accepted their quote and collected the pieces three days later - delivered to the back of our Ka, nylon strapped to a pallet, covered in thick polythene via the forks of a very oversized forklift truck - the driver did then undo it all and place the individual pieces into the back of the car. Excellent service though.

Now a week later, the two layout boards are done and a full size track plan laid on the board and structure mock-ups have started to appear:









There will be an urban style backscene above the brick wall with low relief buildings in front, behind a parapet wall which is not shown in the photos. The two straight tracks at the right front are part of a CCE yard and there will be a loading platform in the 'rebate'. A brick wall will go across the front with a pair of gates for access to the yard.


The trackwork will be Peco 75 and operation will be via DCC. I have no intention of building any stock but I shall be weathering whatever stock runs on the layout. Period will be 80s/90s

- the whole thing is a total 'old boys toys' bit of fun which will also hopefully, amuse the grandson when he visits - as he is only 18 months old at present, there is no immediate rush to get things finished

cheers

Mike

 

[Ressaldar]

Progress to report at last.

A slightly revised track plan - the back road has become a siding and the platform is now a 'central' island


overall view, showing the Bachmann distribution depot in place, it comes with two of the doors loose so that you can set them at your chosen height, I have set them all in the down position - the chevrons are 7mm Fox transfers, the stripes are conveniently 4mm wide. The loading dock bumpers will be hidden once the platform is laid.


the backscene will be further 'enhanced' with the ends of a series of low relief warehouses placed strategically in front of the overscale vehicles. The retaining wall sections are standard Bachmann castings I will get a close-up shot in a later report. The Heljan 128 is a birthday present and will receive it's couplings a sound chip and weathering in due course. I'm not concerned about the upper blue panel colour - the model itself is great and I shall be getting some of the other liveried versions as and when funds allow.


the tunnel ends are matching Bachmann castings. They are set further back than the original plan, hence the cutting off of the backscene - still thinking of how to overcome that one. The 03 is DCC controlled, no sound.

The layout is to be located 'somewhere near' the WR/SR borders therfore the addition of the 'Third' rail is in order - to allow the running of 419s - another favourite of mine along with the 128 and 121.


the business end of the sector plate, with simple wiring off of the 'bus bar' and using 'jackplug' type chocolate blocks to make life easier if the sector plate needs removing.


alignment will by eye until I come up with a simple peg in hole' arrangement - the electrics on the 'stub end' are connected to the 'bus bar' therefore avoiding the bolt and keeper arrangement.


the extent of travel - left 1B and to the right, 4C (as seen above) means that there is not a great space required behind the layout - the table units that the layout will sit on are 3" wider than the baseboards.


It is all for a bit of fun when the grandchildren come over so as I said in the original post, I will only be weathering any stock, I'll restrict any building of stock to 7mm.

cheers

Mike

 

[Alan]

It's looking good.

When I look in my stock boxes and see how many parcel vans (both 4 wheel and bogie) I have I've been tempted by a small parcels depot.
My period would be early to late 60's though.

 

[Rob Pulham]

You have certainly cracked on with that Mike.

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Alan,

A good way to go yet, the variety of stock and liveries carried that was used for parcels traffic is one of the reasons for going down this route - especially as most of it was very dirty

cheers

Mike

 

[Ressaldar]

The Bachy Distribution Centre looks good in that position - although I'd hate to have to back onto the nearest dock, by the office....
sorry.... professional hat /OFF

totally agree with you, I don't think any of our Clients would have accepted that on any of our Design & Build projects, mind you, some of the architectural gems that we built would have come very close

cheers

Mike

 

[40126]

....The Bachy Distribution Centre looks good in that position - although I'd hate to have to back onto the nearest dock, by the office....
sorry.... professional hat /OFF

I'd get mine in

Steve

 

[Ressaldar]

ok, before a fight breaks out among the truckers, here's photo to show that there is plenty of room to get to the first loading dock (had the depot been used for its original purpose)



and for good measure, one from behind the depot looking towards the sector plate



and one from the side


I've now moved the layout into my den in readiness for this weekends family get-together - so that the grandchildren can have a play.

A side on view of it with the controls located underneath (very neatly according to SWMBO) the Heljan box lid was used to bring the stock in from the workshop and will be going back out later - when I've finished having a play proving session.



and lastly, one showing the general arrangement in the room - the window is opposite the layout and the door is immediately to the left, corner of the desk just showing in the bottom right hand corner.




The track diagram is yet to be applied to the point control box.

cheers

Mike

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Jordan,

many thanks for the kind comments. Sorry for the delay in responding but we had the family up from all corners of the Kingdom at the end of last week for my 70th birthday festivities.

Among the more interesting pressies was this interesting loco



all scratchbuilt (including the 'showcase') by No.1 Daughter in Law - who also made the superb cake in the background.

Things now returning to normal, so modelling will recommence shortly.

cheers

Mike

 

[JimG]

all scratchbuilt (including the 'showcase') by No.1 Daughter in Law - who also made the superb cake in the background.

I like the way she gets round the problem of quartering.



Jim.

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Jim,

if only things were that straightforward for us.

cheers

Mike

 

[Rob Pulham]

A slightly belated Happy Birthday Mike

 

[Ressaldar]

The loco can be forgiven if you look closer at the cake behind it.... yumyum!! I trust there's none left!!

Quite right Jordan, the lads at the Club helped me finish it off


A few developments over the last few weeks - firstly, the 128 has been returned - I could have lived with the wrong upper panel colour ( I had used NSE blue on my Westdale 128) but when there was suddenly no response to the controller, I decided to cut my losses. With the refund I purchased a Bachamnn 419 in Blue/Grey and ordered a Zimo control decoder to fit. Also purchased a rolling road as I needed to run the 419 in for 30 minutes each way - somewhat difficult on a 4' plank and a new Proxxon mini drill and flexible drive shaft to replace my old Proxxon which gave up the ghost a few months back

Having got the 419, I thought that the '3rd rail' might be handy, so another order for Peco rail and conductor chairs went in


3rd rail laid and painted, 419 lurking in the siding

the lorry barrier was soldered up using the 'left over' 3rd rail - revised layout in the Engineer's siding to allow for the loading dock and lorry access.

the white warehouse ends are foamboard mock-ups and will be covered in 'wriggly tin' - when I can get someno local stockist, but Leigh O Gauge is only a week away - anybody going?

the ex SR bogie vans are from Hornby and need some weight adding, the Brute trolleys in the background are awaiting a delivery of post bags
all in all, I'm quite happy with the progress and it's doing it's intended job of getting me thinking about getting into the workshop and cracking on with the 0 Gauge shelf queens

more soon

cheers

Mike

 

[Captain Kernow]

Superb Mike, looks a lot of fun, too!

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Captain,

many thanks for your comment, yes it is fun and all the more so as it was the wife's idea in the first place, just hope she still agrees when a 128 and another 419 or two appear, plus the D2046 Inspection Saloon with a suitable 'means of propulsion' hooked on. I think that an extension to the sector plate might be called for

cheers

Mike

 

[40126]

Hi Mike

Nice job mate.

Can you post some closer pics of the intercity moto rail please ?.

Steve

PS, My 7.5t lorry hasn't got a tail-lift !

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Steve,

Photos shortly.

The engineer's loading platform should be the right height for a flatbed to load straight onto, the idea with the main building is that the lorry incoming/outgoing areas with loading bays/dock levellers etc are at the opposite end/sides of the building, with sorting machinery within there somewhere, all I'm portraying is the railway version end - hence no roadway to be seen here. Steps upto the engineer's loading are still to be installed as are lots of other details.

I'm trying to concentrate on the 7mm stuff (Inspection Saloons) in the workshop at present, but I'm being sidelined by requests to do other things - like the garden

cheers

Mike

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Steve,

gardening duties finished for the day, so while the sun was still about...................



as I said at the outset, all of the stock will be 'out of the box' plus a bit of weathering, this vehicle was already 'weathered' and remains untouched by me. I hope that the pictures are of help to you, it certainly seems to tick most of the right boxes.

cheers

Mike

 

[40126]

Thanks Mike

The motorail looks very nice.

Steve

 

[Ressaldar]

An overdue update, but blame Bachmann's delivery schedules, to continue my Inspection Saloon bug..............


more or less straight out of the box, just the ETH and buffer beam pipework painted and applied.

all very much to Bachmann's current OO detailing

big red face on my part as I was totally unaware that the solebars and buffer beams were painted BLUE all the pictures that I had seen in this livery convinced me that they were black but it seems that it was good old railway dirt all of the time. Some were in fact painted black, but this was later on and apparently 'unofficial'. Ah well this one will be weathered in due course. Next problem is what motive power to get to go on the end of it - LL37 seems favourite.

cheers

Mike