Various things, don't panic

In the aftermath of the show I've started various jobs on and off the layout. Exciting news is that the long awaited PECO L&B bogie wagons have arrived and one of the SR variants has landed on the Island to go with the SR livery coaches, very nice it is too. 

 



 

It needs some weathering and a load but will look fab

 

 

Another new product to arrive at Ffesty Towers and thence on my layout is some rather nice 6.5mm plastic track complete with skip wagons and a little loco. My plan is to enhance the quarry area to give it a slightly more industrial feel by adding some of this on various levels, in time an incline might be nice too.

 

The track on it's spru



 

Roughly laid out over the bridge/tipper

 

The V tippers and the track

 

The other coach turned up from Shapeways after some remarkable customer service. Both are now mounted on butchered PECO wagon chassis.

 

On the layout front I've started tidying up the scenery with some weathering powders and paint and have also added some more village to the backscene by sticking some cut out photos of Staithes in Yorkshire. You may also notice that I've removed the sky paper from the quarry section so that I can make it continuous with the one on the Town module, it is a bit less virulent.



 

 

Church Lane has some more colour and some Busch sunflowers.

A new coach

Back to work today... Boo. However I did find a little box had arrived from New York. In the box was one of the coaches that I had ordered from Shapeways. In place of the other variety I ordered was a random 3D printed thing. No idea what it is but it definitely isn't what I ordered, still I now have a sort of cocktail stick with a DooDah on the end. Shapeways are on the case.

However, the one that did arrive is lovely.

Here it is

Here is the other coach...

Modelled by Mr Tom Bell as is the other one. Now I need to find a chassis and paint it nicely.

Post show... beer o'clock

The last time I had a chance to post on here was last Sunday and there was everything to play for. Rough wet plaster and not much more. This last week I have done more railway building than I thought possible in such a short time and I'm pleased to say that I'm pretty happy with most of the results. I've just got in from the show and unpacked the van so I thought I'd have a recap on the last week and some post show analysis.

Starting to come together

Setts in place and some filler sploshed about

Platform road and run round ballasted

More polyfiller

Buildings and walls in place

Fancy pavement and water feature

 

 

Looks like winter has come early

Fear not, Aslan soon breathed over Underhill

The thaw begins as colour starts to spread and the sky is blue

Green is springing up everywhere

A test train in the platform

Station Bridge has a road surface and a sign

St George and the dragons church

The last and fiddliest thing - station steps 1

Station steps 2

Station steps 3

The layout needed one more trestle which I finished on Thursday evening

 

Parrot Cutting gets its name from the Parrot Inn to the left

- Please drink responsibly- not everyone does...

 

The luxury fiddle yard in action, how have I managed without one?

Eigiau and pre-preservation train passing Town Quarry

A busy time at Underhill Town

Over the gate

 



All in all I had a most enjoyable time at the show playing trains and virtually everything worked as it should. On the new bit half a point motor failed which I am hoping is just some sloppy soldering on the motor itself as I can get at that easily. If it is on the control panel I will have to rip up the station and road, fingers crossed. The other point motor which seems to be going soft is the one at the entrance to the Cheese Factory sidings but this is now not a great issue.

 

So quite a bit of finishing things off and finessing to do but on the whole it is ready for Great & Small III 9-11 September and Wigan in early October.

Plastered again

I spent another evening last night soldering and glue gunning and ended up with all the basic land masses in place and all the lighting wired and working. I also built the lighting gantry for this bit which makes doing all the rest considerably easier.

This morning I started plastering in the scenery and things have started to fall into shape, I think it's going to be OK.

 

Filler of various types starting to fill in the gaps. Wife and daughter going camping this week so should get the rest done in time. Fingers crossed.

One week to go... arg...

I've had a couple of extremely long evenings working on the layout this week and have grabbed every other moment to tick off little jobs. The result of which is that the whole thing now works and all the track wiring is complete including the control panel. This needs a diagram printing out but otherwise it works nicely.

Red are points and silver are sections

All done and quite tidy too

Testing in action

 

The other big work was last night and was the start of the scenery. Mostly using foam board and a glue gun I've begun the construction of the higher town areas. All went pretty well.

 

Top surfaces and buildings are just perched on top of their supports at the moment as I have to add all the wiring for the building lights and street lights before gluing anything down but I've made a start on that too.

The station building illuminated



In other news, I have had an article published in Narrow Gauge World which I am rather chuffed about. It is about the refurbishment of Lancey Brook. The esteemed editor has asked me to write some more so the Isle of Stoner Railway will be going public soon.

 



Would work

Today I managed to get some woodwork done and so end up with the back and end-back scene woodwork installed. I would have done more but spent the morning buggering about with plumbing. In the afternoon we went for a nice walk on Anglesey but it didn't get any more railway done.

 

Starting to get a feel for how it will look

More wires and some holes

I spent a long evening last night with the soldering iron in action. I turned the board over and added the wiring to all the point motors, this was a little tricky as the holes in the baseboard were only just big enough to allow the tip of the iron to get at the contacts on the motors.

Upside down

 

I also added the sockets for the power supply and the controller to the rear edge of the board. I finished virtually all the under board wiring and flipped it back up the right way to give it a try. To my delight it all worked as it should, it was gone 1am by then so I didn't get any further. Next is the control panel, hopefully I have enough switches to complete it but I haven't checked yet...

Pretty much finished underneath

Back up the right way with all the wires for the control panel flowing out of their holes