Plastered and dyed

Well now, despite having been busy at work I've also grabbed quite a few half an hour periods and made lots of progress on the next bit of layout. It is simple trackwise so it's all about the scenery. For once I've known what I was aiming at so it's been quite straight forward.

this is where the road will come up to be the roadside tramway.

This is the bridge over the road to the beach. I've been enjoying a couple of bridge on the ex LNWR Bethesda branch which have a similar style of grid. This is made from two footbridges and some Wills chequer board etc.

Plaster bandage is the next phase.

I'd got a fair way on with the scenery so I decided that the next thing to do was to install the old fiddle yard. Eventually I'll replace this with a terminus and loco/carriage shed but for now this will do. Because I'm crap at measuring things it didn't fit in its original size so I chopped a few inches off and relaid the track to fit.

Because I'm crap at measuring it still didn't fit. I forgot that none of the walls are parallel as the room was designed to be my recording studio. Parallel walls cause standing waves and resonant frequencies so I built the room with unsquare walls... No bloody help when building a model railway.

Fortunately I could saw an inch off the other end to make it fit.

With a little bit of work I connected up the remaining track and nailed it down. Hurrah a fully working railway.

After that it was lots more filler and plaster bandage.

The scenery is nearing its final shape including the Bachmann resin version of the footbridge over the Padarn Railway at Bethel. The deck of the bridge isn't a very fine bit of casting and also is too low for a couple of my larger trams so I've made a replacement deck which is higher. I think it actually looks better and now hopefully everything will fit.

A dull but important bit of work was to add more lights to the lighting gantry. Big improvement.

Enough filler was set to allow me to start basic painting. All the filler is done now except for 'ballasting' the track.

 

Salad and woodwork

I've spent the week adding to the scenery with a variety of green stuff and paint.

Gradually it's coming together, I've also spent quite a lot of time cleaning ballast and stray scenic gunk from the track so that basically I can now run trains in and out of the station. What japes.

The coal drops have gained some coal sacks and a couple of Bachmann coal bunkers, just needs some crushed coal now.

I decided that I had to do something with the sky, so a trip to B&Q and a tester pot of what looked like a sensible blue.

I'm pretty happy with the colour so I've bough a couple more little pots and a couple of slightly lighter shades to try a bit of variety. So far I'm pretty happy with the colour, better than white anyhow.

The next section of railway starts with an over bridge which I've built using some parts from two kits like the one at the other end of Upper Bay. I've made a wider track bed for this one using Wills chequer plate plastic sheet. 

This evening I've started on the woodwork for the next bit of layout. The road that leads to the station curves round under the railway and also rises up to become the road of the roadside tramway section.

Actual scenery

I've been silly busy at work the last couple of weeks but thankfully over the bank holiday weekend I've had a chance to really crack on with the scenery on the new bit of layout.

Before the scenery work I finished Dave Malton's little Baldwin which has come out really well. I lined out the tanks and it has now had a coat of varnish and I look forward to it entering proper service on the railway.

Also finished off is 'Roger' the 3D print of  'Upnor Castle'. I decided that there would be too many FR livery versions so I plumped for the same maroon as all the other big IoSR diesels. It's an excellent print and I shall remember Roger every time I run a train with it, so hopefully a fitting tribute. I believe that there are well over a hundred of them in the wild now.

The most recent addition to the fleet is an original condition Jouef Decauville. It came from the estate of Roy Link so again I'm proud to give this a home in my small heritage collection. It runs like I expected it too, ie bloody awful but that isn't what it's for.

After turning it brown I set about turning it green.

One of the things I've been waiting to create is my little pond. I may have been a bit previous in pouring the resin as I didn't really let the PVA set and the water has gone a bit cloudy in places but it could be frog spawn?  If it looks crap when it sets I can always splosh some filler over it and forget it's there.

Progress can be see here on the coal drop which I'm really pleased with. The whole goods shed area is based loosely on pre preservation Tan y Bwlch, about 1965 before all the atmosphere was lost in the name of progress.

A major change has been to move the lighting support to the rear rather than the front, much better for access and also for viewing. It caused a great deal of swearing and sweating and it was what I knew I should have done in the first place. It has made me add a piece of wood which will allow me to add the next section of railway more easily. I think that what I will do next is to create the roadside tramway section of railway but then to connect it to the old fiddle yard temporarily as I won't have the time or money to immediately build Chickentown Works or Port Lucy. 

I've been struggling with skies for a while so I decided to give painting a plain blue colour a go, we'll see...

 

Three locomotives

 You know what it's like; you wait ages for  a loco to build and then three come along together.  In this case four but I made myself leave one in the boxes for later.

A Dave Malton special 'Lyn' type loco but smaller and an 0-4-0 on the new Bachmann Percy chassis. I've made a few changes such as a non stove pipe chimney and added handrails on the cab. As you can see on this side I drilled the holes in the wrong place, grrr.

The joker in the pack was this Hunslet style tram loco which Dave sent as a present, very nice it is too. As ever I've removed the moulded on handrails and changed the printed couplers for RT models brass PQR ones which are very at home on a Hunslet. It had a very nice printed smokebox door dart which I snapped so that got replaced too.

The third of the trio is 'Upnor Castle' from Stan and the Merseyside gang. A very good CAD and very well printed, probably the best 3D print I've ever had. A fitting tribute to the late Roger Christian whose favourite engine this was. 

Work on the layout has stalled a bit as I've been busy with other things, not least loco building. However, I bought some plaster dry stone walling from eBay which I've used before. It is ripped off Hornby but costs about a quarter of the price and seeing as I chop it up, stick it back together with hot glue and plaster it really is just the job.

A bit more paint and it will be time to start on the greenery which is a bit of construction which I really enjoy.

Another thing that arrived in the post were the plates for the ex GWR, Paul Windle loco. It is now called 'Lord Stoner' and proudly carries the name. I'm looking forward to running some trains with this in charge.

As an 0-4-0 the Baldwin was looking as though it needed a rear pony truck but I couldn't be bothered to construct one and go through all the faff of trying to get it to work properly, so I cheated. It is a trick I've used before, namely to file the tyre flat on one edge and just glue the pony wheels onto the frame giving the illusion of a trailing axle. This one is a solid PECO wagon wheel so even if it rotated propely the odds of anyone ever seeing it do so are minimal. It took a few minutes and completely looks the part.

Final detailing and painting were the next tasks and all three locos came together at the same time, in some ways it is easier to batch paint things even when they are in different liveries.

The Baldwin acquired the nameplates and headlamps from the Heljan MW of which I sold the chassis. This means the loco is named 'Song' after one of the rivers on the island. I like the look of this loco and am glad I didn't go for Southern green as I had originally intended. I may add lining to the tanks in the fullness of time if I can summon up the courage. 

'Uproar' has been finished in IoSR passenger diesel livery and named 'Roger'. I hope he wouldn't have minded the livery too much.

This wasn't the livery I intended for the Hunslet but actually I rather like it. It has been named 'Smallerfield' which is the name of the station on my stalled n gauge layout. The nameplates are signal box plates but look the part on this loco. In Hunslet terms it is bigger than a quarry class but not as big as 'the ladies' so I guess probably around the size of 'Lilla', it certainly looks feasible and will be very happy with tramway carriages back and forth to Underhill.