Project 16 - Project Finished

I end this series where I started - with a track plan. Not a speculative sketch as in Part 1 but a satellite image of the completed layout.

The build has taken about 10 months work comprising a few hours hobby time per week. Baseboards, most buildings and trees are reused from the previous layout. If they had to be made from scratch it would have added another couple of months to the project.

(click image to enlarge it)

Now I need to run trains in earnest to get used to the new track layout, especially shunting operations.

Some loose ends to tidy up. I want to remake a couple of videos to replace those filmed on the previous layout and my main website will be overhauled to reflect this rebuild. I also want to go through all Blog postings and remove out dated ones.

After that I have new model railway projects in mind, which will undoubtedly appear on this Blog, if they take off.

Feel free to comment on any of the postings in this series.

Postscript

Just to show that a layout is never really finished this is a Calf Float that I subsequently knocked up. My own designed 3D printed kit with printed paper overlays.

Calf Floats were used to convey calves and small animals between the cattle dock pens and rail wagons.

A preserved example is on display in the Train Story museum on the Isle of Wight.

To Project 16 Part 1.

Project 16 - Crewkerne Tunnel Pt. 3 Fin.

This is the view down from the top of the tunnelled  hill. 

The completed tunnel portal is shown below.

Note: The normal viewpoint is from the right hand side, where the portal is mostly hidden by the embankment.

The best way to peruse this scene is through the mirrored wall at the back of the station layout, which also gives the only view available to us along Clark's Lane. The foreground track work is also seen (out of shot here) making this the deepest landscaped view across the layout of about 5 feet.

Below I have flipped the image to show how it should be seen if I squeezed myself  into the 30cm gap between the station layout and the mirrored wall.

To Part 44.

To Series Part 1.

42nd Farnham Show

What a fantastic show! Of course, that depends on your perspective but for me I saw some wonderful layouts.

20 layouts and umpteen traders across four halls in Aldershot, Hants. On first entering the exhibition the first layout on display captivated me. Red Hook Bay (HO) has a plethora of well modelled buildings, boats and cameo scenes where the railway is almost incidental. If only it was a British landscape and not American I thought as I pondered that this could be my Best In Show - and I have only seen one layout! How wrong could I be.

The next model that drew me in was The Worlds End, another Peter Goss masterpiece. He who created the atmospheric Rowlands Castle, which was featured on BBC TV Local News as the Parish on which the model is based want to buy it. 

The Worlds End (00) is a similar concept to Red Hook Bay, being a whole community of exquisite model buildings and people set in cameo scenes. As with Red Hook Bay the railway is incidental in the landscape being only a two track main line with station, although the castellated railway viaduct is a dominant feature.

Very difficult to choose a Best in Show but I have to give it to Wickwar (N) [below]. The modelling is also to a high standard and the almost seamless integration of three dimensional  foreground to two dimensional back scene gives it such depth. The layout also featured an integrated Faller road system and an animated figure - in N gauge would you believe! A woman flagging down a vehicle that duly stops at the bus stop (incredible).

I did not have a shopping list this time but came away with some Hornby Zero 1 accessories at prices that could not be refused, comprising 2 chips and a walkabout controller for my own layout that cost significantly less than Ebay prices, and the trader had many reasonably priced RTR boxed locomotives too.

Once again I find the best second hand bargains not on Ebay but, at a model railway show. (Not wishing to deride Ebay as it has its use).

Project 16 - Crewkerne Tunnel Pt. 2

One of my pet hates is modelled tunnels where the hill top is just a tad higher than the tunnel mouth and to make matters worse a town is built on top! It's just not authentic.

At Crewkerne tunnel the hill is tall, steep and unpopulated. On my model the hill (A) is cut down but still tall, taller than looks from this angle, and the top is left open because it is above normal viewing eye level.

A removable side panel for access (D) is held in place with one magnetic latch.

This view shows the depth of the interior walls (C). It is not the normal viewing angle, which is between B and D, and with the embankment (B) now in place there is even less scope to view the portal, let alone inside it.

The embankments are my usual build method of polystyrene foam blocks covered in Plaster of Paris bandage. The surface is then smoothed over using Wickes wood filler.

Just showing on the far right is the side wall of the other portal on the Hewish Gates side of the layout.

To Part 43.

To Series Part 1.