Charlton micro layout - further progress

This week I finally managed to solder up the powerbus for the fiddle yard and give the layout a test run.  I have previously sound chipped a number of locomotives and I wanted to see how the layout would sound with 3 sound chipped locomotives running together.  The answer was very noisy - probably prototypically so, but a little bit too much for me! There were some definite outcomes from the running session.  The first of which the fiddle yard is too small, which necessitates excessive handling of locomotives and stock. This is fine when I am playing around at home, but definitely won't work if I am exhibiting the layout.  So the fiddle yard is going to a get a 1ft extension.  The second outcome is that two locomotives and two DMUs will be sufficient to happily operate the layout.  The stock will very between early 1970s and early 1980s, but say a warship and a class 22 plus a 108 and 121 DMU will keep the movements pretty varied.  However, to achieve this the fiddle yard is way to small!

Plenty of noise on the layout!

On the layout detailing side the station platform has been glued down.  Two buffer stops have been added at the Ilfracombe side of the station (it is a truncated branch) and the manual point levers have been added.  With these in place the ballasting has started - one of the most tedious jobs of railway modelling without doubt!  However all progress and it is starting to come together (starting!).

One of the manual point levers installed and ballasting started.

The Ilfracombe end of the layout with buffer stops installed.

Station Progress part 2 - Charlton platform

Another week flies by and a bit more progress has been made on the layout over the weekend.  The fiddle yard has been tacked down and the dropper feeds soldered to the underside of the track, although I have yet to attach it all to the powerbus.  There are two medium sized electrofrog points in the fiddle yard that are operated by hand.  In the end I settled on a 3 lane fiddle yard.  It is big enough to hold a two coach train (minus locomotive which sites over the points!) or 2 car dmu, a 121 unit/spare locomotive and a short freight working.  I am hoping this will be enough to keep the layout ticking over at an exhibition, where I ultimately hope this will head.

The very short 3 lane fiddle yard

Finally I have finished painting the back scene, which seemed to take ages.  In the end a blast of matt white white from an aerosol did the job, to create an opaque finish. I have also made a lot of progress with painting the station.  The main painting has been finished, although there is some detail to pick out here and there, such as the stairs leading to the station.  Various shades of grey, green, black, concrete and rust were sprayed over the station, producing a very pleasing dappled colour to the concrete.  I did wonder if it was too dark, but the photographs seem to show it slightly lighter than it appeared when painting it.  Some of the platform will have some static grass applied to it, to depict a forlorn 1970s-1980s feel.

Overall view of the station

With the back scene finished I just need to finish scribing the cobbles (a tedious job!!) and then I can glue the main buildings down.  The station in particular is key, as once this and provender store are glued in place I can make a start on the ballasting.  The current plan is to finish the station this week and glue it down, to allow ballasting to start in earnest next week.  The layout is on the verge of the exciting stuff happening, when it transforms from a empty baseboard into a layout - it feels like it has been a long time coming! However, the electrics seem pretty solid to me, so I am hoping it will have a long and trouble free life (famous last words!!!!!!)

View from the provender side

The steps leading to the station require a bit of painting by hand

Lamprey wagon - repaint

Recently I finished another wagon for the layout - this time it was a repaint of a very old lamprey wagon, that I built about 12 years ago.  At that time I did not have an air brush and I was not happy with the result through painting by hand.  So I placed the lamprey wagon, a class 25 body shell and a walrus wagon into a bath of superstrip to remove the paint.  The class 25 and lamprey wagon faired pretty well.  They have cleaned up ok and the class 25 is about to get a coat of primer.  However, the walrus wagon pretty much disintegrated into the superstrip - the plastic became very fragile, and when I was cleaning it up I broke so many parts of it that I ended up binning it.  

 The finished lamprey wagon sat on a very empty layout!

Once the lamprey was out of the superstrip I cleaned it up a little with some fine sand paper, before priming (Precision Paints) and then airbrushing various shades of rust and olive green onto the body, with various weathering on the underframe.  Transfers are the excellent Cambridge Custom Transfers pack and it is fitted with a 3 link coupling as standard.  When I built this wagon originally I cheated slightly with the bending of the hand rails at each end, creating a simpler shape, and with hindsight I now wish I had thought to replace them before painting.  However, I forgot, so I am going to live with this for the time being.  So another wagon finished and ready to run on the lay out...speaking of which a further update on this soon....