Pempoul

I took a day out to visit the Spalding show on Sunday. This was for two reasons: firstly to try and encourage a close friend, who is trying to make a start in the hobby, in making a decision about what to build; secondly to see Gordon and Maggie Gravett's Pempoul.

On the first, I think there was a modicum of success. My friend is looking to build an N gauge layout. This meant much of the visit was spent discussing the different merits of what was on show in that scale. We met up with two of the old Mablethorpe and District MRC gang who offered their advice which was duly taken on board. I think the light bulb moment for my friend was after good chat with Ray Slack operating Bodmin, coupled with his kind invitation to to get behind the layout to see how the layout was constructed and operated. My friend may need a little help in layout design and operation along with a gentle push but I could see the cogs starting to whir.

On the second I'll let the following photos speak for themselves

Not the best photos that have been taken of this superb piece of 3D artwork. Pempoul was not the only layout on show worth admiring but for me it was best in show.

On arriving home I was able to spend some time in the "Man Cave" to make a little more progress on Tredethy Wharf. So overall an excellent day...

Stuttering progress and the next project

Well, the last two weeks have not gone to plan... How often do we all say that? With two weekends away visiting friends and family along with a number of week nights spent away with work, progress almost ground to a stand still on Tredethy Wharf. What I have been able to achieve is not really much to shout about so will have to wait for the next blog...

But.., while spending evenings in hotels, not drink in the bar but playing "Billy no mates" in the hotel bedrooms, I've been giving some thought about what comes after Tredethy. Over the years, before I joined Scalefour Society, I'd collected almost all of Ratio's GWR buildings with the intention of building a GWR branch line terminus. I've also been slightly sidetracked by thoughts of a Taff Vale colliery and collected a few buildings and stock to suit.

Since starting this blog I've realised that there is a big difference in timescale to what can be achieved in OO compared to P4. This realisation has come from the time it has taken me to get Tredethy Wharf built. So I'd started to think, is there some merit in a small project being a viable option to follow on from Tredethy? A small layout would enable me to exhibit if it was considered good enough. It would also be an achievable project especially if I go really small and extended Tredethy to include a Clay Dries or Stone sidings....

So while being 'Billy no mates" I revisited some of the track plans I've collected over the years, then with pen and paper in hand I sketched out some ideas. While doodling a troublesome thought kept creeping into these ideas. Once Tredethy is scenically built, to complete the project, I will still need to build a few locos (a Beattie Well Tank, a WR 1366, BR Class 03 being three locos) as well as a few more wagons. These are not going to be built overnight and at the pace I'm progressing may take two or three more years before I can exhibit Tredethy with a correct loco fleet spanning a few years. If I change tack to a GWR BLT or Taff Vale Colliery these layouts would required a different loco stud and other rolling stock to be built. Hmmm.... so a change of tack might not necessarily be a quick project.

So what of the first and last big project, Grogley Junction?

Well, thinking that after building the above three locos for Tredethy they would also be available for Grogley brings me back to thoughts about this big project. It is the one that I still have a passion for. It is the one that I can picture in my mind. It is the one that I have been researching and building an alternative universe for. On the down side if I make a start on Grogley in P4 I now realise it will probably never be finished. But does that matter...? If it brings me enjoyment while building it,  probably not. If I cannot exhibit it, does that matter? Probably not.

So during my second week away I dug out the current track plan for Grogley and started to have a think and a bit of a tweak... The below is what I've ended up with.

The major changes I've made, since the last track plan I've posted, are adding a three platform station reducing the line towards Wadebridge junction to single track and adding Polbrock Engine shed. The more minor additions are a small loading dock siding and a siding that will be used for coaching stock storage. This is version 15 of ideas for this project and does look like it has grown "arms and legs". My thoughts have been, if this is going to be the (first &) last big project then it had better include all that I would like to see on a layout and give good operational opportunities. So a layout with a station, exchange goods sidings, a junction, and an engine shed, what more could I want...? Hmmm, don't answer that 'cos I could think of a few if I tried :-)

Below is just the track plan showing the kick back for the Bodmin cassette storage so it can be accessed from both directions. This would allow Bodmin to Wadebridge trains to be stored on these cassettes.

One advantage of this latest track plan is, by replacing the previous hidden sidings with Polbrock Engine Shed, it has allowed me to increase the scenic area of the layout. This extra space has given the opportunity to represent a length of single track running along side the river leading into Polbrock. This will give me a better chance to replicate the picture below.

Another possible advantage is as there are two signal boxes (Grogley Junction & Polbrock) I could split the layout to allow for two or more operators. Wow, it is getting out of hand...

While away I've also been able to get the basic elements of the above into Templot. Some slight alterations have had to be made but overall it is the same as the above. To complete the track plan in Templot, I have to finish the turntable; a double slip; a three way turnout; and those tricky diamonds at the junction to draw. Apart from that the drawing is complete.

Well, will this project get off the ground or is it just a dream? We'll have to wait and see...

Scaleforum 2016

Well another year goes by and another excellent show in Aylesbury. Scaleforum 2016 celebrated 40 years of finescale modelling and certainly did it in style. On show was a wide selection of models from the very beginning of the society to some of the most recent innovations. These exhibits were supported by a good selection of traders who, over the years, have helped the society bring P4 format to a wider audience. 40 years ago I could not see myself having the ability to build a P4 layout. I now count myself lucky to have come back to the hobby, with all that the society and trade now offer, and be able to possibly achieve something that might pass muster as an acceptable P4 layout... Many thanks must go to the dedicated band of modellers that 40 years ago decided P4 was an achievable discipline and have driven the format forward.

So on to some of the layouts that were at the show...

Being a relative newcomer to P4 there were a number of layouts that I was able to view for the first time: Shelvington, Sidmouth, Ferring, Pwllheli and Cirencester.

Cirencester

Pwllheli

Ferring

Sidmouth

Shelvington

Best at show...? Well I could not really decide as I felt all layouts on display showed P4 at its best and were an inspiration. Shelvington, however, opened my eyes to different lighting techniques along with computer control, so as far as the most technically advanced Shelvington should get my vote. But... all in all being able to watch and admire all layouts along with the ability to make a few purchases for my test plank made the 6 hour round trip well worth it.

RailWells 2016

We arrived home last night after a few days down in Wells. This was our first visit to Wells and also my first vist to Railwells. Late on Saturday we arrived at our hotel, The Old Gatehouse, and after booking in we walked out of the back door of the hotel onto Cathedral Green to find the view below.

Wells Cathedral

What more could you ask for?... After a long drive, with drinks in hand, sitting with my lovely wife, admiring the changing colours on the west face of the cathedral during sunset... perfect...

Next day (Sunday) my wife was more that happy to have a wander around the city while I ventured into the Town Hall for RailWells.

There was a definite Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway theme going on due to its closure 50 years ago. Layouts that took my attention were...

Cheddar S.& D.J.R. (P4)

Cheddar S.& D.J.R. (P4)

Cheddar S.& D.J.R. (P4)

Along with the whole look and feel of the Cheddar I liked the little stories applied by Simon Challis to the cameos of figures on the layout. Above shows one of several little cameos with a discription on the facia of the layout, others include a nurse and baker on their rounds...

New Mere is fictional layout sited a what might have been Wincanton-Warminster branch of the S.& D.J.R...

New Mere station S.& D.J.R. (P4)

 

Overal view of New Mere S.& D.J.R. (P4)

A nice depiction of Ivo Peters, wife and Bentley overlooking New Mere station

A slightly smaller layout was Chewton Mendip on a fictional branch line to Priddy.

Chewton Mendip S.& D.J.R. (EM)

I met Gordon (our North Lincs Scalefour group leader) at the show and we had a good chat with Tim Tincknell regarding couplings, the merits of EM and P4 along with the sector plate on his Chewton Mendip layout.

Angelbank was one of a few non S.&D.J.R. layouts. It is an EM gauge layout based in Shopshire around Ludlow and I found it interesting due to the working quarry incline...

Angelbank (EM)

Angelbank (EM)

I also thought the bare trees, closed signal box and slighly delapidated loco shed on Angelbank added a nice rundown atmosphere especially as most of use try to depict the opposite.

There were other fine layouts in 2mm Finescale, P4, EM, OO and O along with good trade support. One new trader that I made a purchase from was Attwood Aggregates from Devon who supply stone ballast for N to O scales. All ballest is sourced from six different West Country quarries, one of which is Meldon Quarry. I thought a bag of very fine roadstone and china clay might come in useful...

Overall an excellent day. After the show my wife and I stayed on in Wells for a couple of days to explore and enjoy this unique city. Next year Railwells 40 is planned to be a very speical show, so I need to have a chat with the boss to see if we can do the same again.

Progress on the Barn

I've been using the following photograph as a colour guide for the stone work on the barn. It was taken a few years ago when I was in Cornwall and shows the wall opposite the cottage next to the old track bed at Helland Bridge.

My interpretation below...

After my attempts at representing weathered wood on wagons, I felt I could attempt the barn doors. A different combination of colours was used than those applied to the wagons. This time I started off with a light grey base coat then built up the colours by dry brushing dark grey, followed by Lifecolor's Dark Shade and a few strokes of Bestial Brown.

There is still the roof to get to grips with, along with a little more weathering and tidying up of the rendered walls. I'd also like to add some moss to the roof but at the moment not sure how best to do this?

Weathered wood (Part 3)

With the repainting of the 7 plank progressing more to the warm dark shades of browns, I thought I'd try a different approach with the Bachmann 5 plank wagon. Below is the start of the process...

On this wagon I thougth I'd start with a light base coat so applied Lifecolor's Cool Base. You can see on the right od the wagon the start of dry brushing some light grey over the base coat to try to acheive a sun bleached effect. Unfortunately after further dry brushing of a darker grey, along with good old Bestial Brown from Citadel followed by a few strokes of Lifecolor's Dark Shade the result is again not totally what I'm after.

Further work is required on the internal woodwork of the above Bachmann wagon and I've only worked on one external side. Not sure if I have the courage to apply some light stokes of a silvery grey over the wagons current state but I think that is what it needs...

Below is a further photo of the current state of the revamped 7 plank. I think this one will eventually need more black (coal dust) washed over the sides as I'm not really happy with the way it's turning out.

Both wagons require numbering, then once I've added the brake gear, axles boxes and springs to the 7 plank, some delicate weathering will be applied to the sides and running gear.

Well... I'm still not quite achieving the results I'm after with these wagons but nonetheless I am enjoying the process.

Weathered Wood (Part 2)

Well the attempt at creating a bare wood effect on the old wagon is going OK but I'm still ending up with warm browns not the more washed-out effect I'm really after.

I'd recently purchased a set of Lifecolor's Weathered Wood acrylic paint. On the face of it this set contains some vibrant colours so I did wonder what all the fuss is about from good reviews. To find out I thought I'd trial the colours on this wagon.

I started off applying the UA714 Warm Base Color with a small brush to try and get an uneven coating. Next using the same technique, the UA715 Warm Light Shade was applied, followed by the UA716 Warm Light Shade 2. All seemed to be going well although the result was too bright for my liking. It was toned down after applying, again with a small brush with thin strokes the UA713 Warm Dark Shade which allowed some of the underneath colours to show through. I then tried to apply highlights using UA718 Cold Light Shade with an almost dry brush. To finish, a very thin coat of black was washed over the wagon to pick out the plank edges. For the moment the Iron Work has only had a coating of Chaos Black. Tomorrow I'll be weathering the iron work, also trying to pick out the bolt heads, and tidy up the plank edges.

Overall the result is not too bad, once finished it might pass muster and appear on Tredethy Wharf. Still room for improvement though especially as it has not given me the effect I'm trying to achieve.

Weathered wood (Part 1)

A few years ago (blimey it was in 2011) I built a 7 plank private open wagon and tried to paint it to represent bare weathered wood. Though I liked the outcome at the time, on reflection, I feel I'm a little off the mark...I now think my attempt was a tad too yellow. It needs to be a little more silvery-grey with subtle light grey-brown tones along with hints of yellowy warmth. With the doors on the barn for Tredethy Wharf requiring similar effects, I though I'd return to some wagons to trial weathered wood painting techniques

I'm going to use the following three articles off the web along with Craig Welsh's article in MRJ 200 as examples.

Craig Welsh rmweb blog
http://thief.washboardabs.net/textures/wood/ 

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/weathered_wood/
(If you explore the last link you should find some nice techniques for wooden effects when startng out with a blank piece of white plasticard).

So, to start this little project off, I dug out a very old, part built, wagon which, I believe, is an Ian Kirk kit.

On the left: 7 plank built in 2011: On the right: old 7 plank kit to be used as a test

In the picture above is the aforementioned 7 plank wagon on the left, on the right is the very old kit with a poor attempt at representing bare wood. We all must have some items that have been put away in disgust at our attempt to create an effective model and this one must have been languishing in a drawer for over 20 years. Behind the two 7 planks is a Bachmann 5 plank wagon that is also up for a bit of a repaint

More to follow...

What a splendid day it was.

As an early birthday present a 'footplate experience' at the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway was organised by my daughter and very good friend Nick Cook. This all took place at the end of the Easter holiday period.

Though I'd cottoned on to what was happening towards the end of last year I didn't realise that:
1) Nick and his family were going to be in Cornwall the same week as ourselves.
2) Nick had booked himself on the same day's driver's experience.

During the week there was much subterfuge in keeping myself away from the Cook family. It had been planned to be a total surprise for me that Nick was taking part in the day. My daughter and son had great fun in communicating with the Cooks, even meeting up with them during the week without me knowing. On the Thursday unbeknown to myself we were all on the Camel Trail. Apparently we passed each other on at least two occasions either on our bikes or while one group had stopped for a bite to eat. I was later informed that during the day my son was not texting a girl but texting the Cooks to keep them informed of our whereabouts. This was all to keep me in the dark until the Friday morning when Nick walked into Bodmin Station to my exclamation of 'What the **** are you doing here...!' to which he replied 'You didn't think I'd miss out on this day did you?' I've been told the look on my face was a gem!

After all the introductions we were soon taken to our steed for the day, a GWR Pannier tank number 4612. It just needed a top up of good Welsh coal before we were on the footplate for the first instructions. The experience of being on the footplate during the 1:37 climb from Bodmin Parkway to Bodmin General was awesome! Let alone with my hand on the regulator; shovelling coal into the firebox, plus keeping an eye on the pressure gauge; coupling & uncoupling the loco from the coaches during the tunarounds; pulling points at Bodmin General and Parkway; topping the side tanks up with water; along with listening to the driver and fireman passing on their knowledge. At the end of the day we had great pleasure in giving a modicum of help in disposing of the loco.  I even got chance to have a very quick visit to the signal box. Much was learnt, and excellent memories made...

It all went far too quickly for us novices. The crew and staff at Bodmin were brilliant - very friendly and accommodating to us and our entourages. My heart-felt thanks must go to all who had a hand in organising the day. I don't think it is surprising that in most of the photos both Nick and I are grinning from ear to ear. I just want to do it again...

As a memento of the day both Nick and I walked away (after giving a small donation) with a genuine GWR standard 2 bolt chair, I wonder if the boss will allow me to collect a few switch chairs...just as a discussion point (no pun intended) with our cottage guests?  :-))

Last year was a bad year for the train set

2015 turned out to be a year for wargaming. The fact that is was 200 years since The Battle of Waterloo enticed us to put on three ofthe four main battles that took place during the 100 days of the Waterloo campaign; Quatra Bra; Wavre; and the big one Waterloo. It took us most of the year to paint and collect enough figures for these games and especially for Waterloo but eventually we mustered well over 2,500 figures for game. More can be seen here.

2015 also saw us go though the procedure of gaining conservation planning consent for new windows along with planning further internal changes. With Waterloo out of the way it has been on with the internal building projects. This has entailed just about gutting our little house and putting it back together. We started by ripping out the existing stairs, kitchen, bathroom. Demolishing internal walls upstairs to create a new bathroom upstairs along with a slightly smaller single bedroom than making good with new starircase. We then carried on downstairs with solving some damp issues, a new kitchen and utility room, then installing pocket doors between dining and sitting area. Only two rooms have not been affected, both being bedrooms and both having to store, along with the "Man Cave", all our furniture and belongings. So again access to the layout has been severally restricted during this time. It has been interesting to say the least but hopefully we are in the final straight. All the plastering should be finished this week, a log stove will be installed at the end of the month in the sitting room area and then it's on with decorating and new flooring.

I'm so sorry that it's more excuses why this blog has become stagnated but I'm working towards mid May to get everything finished. Once finished the boss has promised I can spend as much time as I need in the 'Man Cave' getting the layout ready for the 2017 Lincoln show.

More posts will follow in May.

PS. To answer the question posed last April. I have managed to dyed some of the rope material and carefully coloured the rope on the first wagon that ropes were applied too and it looks good. So the answer is a resounding YES, ropes will be added to the other clay wagons. Photos to follow...

Louth Malt Kiln

During last year, the Malt Kiln in Louth was demolished and the local museum held a small exhibition charting the the site's history. I paid the museum a visit while the exhibtion was on and thought I should share a few pics.

Along with much information pinned to display boards about the Kiln and the Malting process there was a superb scale model of the Malt Kiln built by an ex-employee. The model was opened out to show the internal structure of the Kiln along with supporting information about each area.

I took a few photos of the model before I walked around the table recording the video below.

One of the photographs, on display, showed part of the orginal malt kiln that was burnt down during the second world war along with another very grainy photo of showing more of the original kiln.

I'd be happy to send the still photographs of the model to anyone who is interested in building a model of Louth Station that would include all or part of the Malt Kiln.