BR Blue BG with working lights

Recently I finished off another project, this is a MK1 BG coach, in BR blue.  This coach is the Bachmann model with the newspaper lettering.  I decided to do a little bit of experimentation with the interior lighting for this coach, using a layouts4u lighting kit.  These are considerably cheaper than the Express Models lighting kits, so I ordered a couple to have a little play around.  

The lights are on at the station!  The finished BG.

As per normal I dismantled the coach and removed the glazing.  I then weathered the roof and coach sides separately, before rejoining them together and sealing up the gap between the coach sides and the roof to stop lighting bleed.  To do this I glue in some microstrip  and then fill in the gap with glue and glaze.  When this has set I paint it black.  

The coach during reassembly with the stay alive unit on the left.

When it was all ready I added the lighting unit together by super gluing it to the roof and wired it up to a stay a live unit.....and it all failed to work!  I checked the lighting unit and this worked, but the stay alive unit was dead.  In the end I just left this out and wired the lighting kit straight to the pick ups.  Verdict - these lighting kits are pretty good and easy use.  Personally I prefer the effect of the Express Models lighting kits, so although they are more expensive I will continue to use these, as I only intend to do 6 coaches in total.  I thought the lighting in this BG is a little bit fierce, but that is personal preference.

The newspaper BG being shunted around the Charlton station.

Another view looking down the station.

This coach will be coupled to back of the passenger service to Charlton, which consists of two MK1 coaches.  The BG will then be uncoupled at the station.  So this wagon has been finished with a 3 link coupling at both ends, in order to enable easy uncoupling.  I am very happy with this project overall and will add a little variety to the rolling stock at Charlton.  I just need to find a little time and a location to have a proper running session soon.

Working station lights plus some final details

Over last weekend I managed to finish off some of the last remaining jobs on the Charlton layout, which were the adding of the lights to the station and the addition of some trees behind the station.  These were jobs that had been put off for a while, but once started progress was swift.  The layout is only 1ft wide, with the station position near to the back scene.  This has caused some problems, as the station needs some context behind it before the backscene, but there is not a lot of room to play with.

The lights are on at Charlton!  This was photographed in very dim light and there are clear shadows being cast on the backscene from the station lights.  However, I am still very pleased with the result here.

The trees behind the platform help break the scene up.

There was not a lot of room to work with here, so I began by fitting in some trees behind the main platform.  These were off the shelf models from Noch and Faller and it was a bit of a tight squeeze to fit them between the station and the backscene.  I have also recently purchased a big box of sea moss, so I set about making some smaller shrubs and trees from these.  This is a first attempt at using this medium, but I was delighted with the results and these were also fitted in behind the station.

The shadow effect is clearly evident in this picture.

In less dark lighting the shadows on the backscene are reduced, with the lights producing a pleasant effect.

The stations lights were added to the station by drilling some holes into the platform (taking a deep breath!!) and supergluing in place.  The lamps are 3v LED lamps from layouts4u, a cheap and good looking sets of lamps.  These were wired up to a double AA battery holder and hey presto, quick and easy working lights.  The  light from the station lamps is a little bright so I might tone this down in the future with the use of some resistors.  There are shadows clearly being cast onto the backscene.

The far end of the platform with a couple of trees added in.

The station building I constructed many years ago and it is great it has finally found a home.  However, I had managed to place a frog juicer on the underside of the baseboard right under the platform.  This meant I could not simply drill through the baseboard to install a light for the station building.  So, I purchased a 1.5v circular batter and simply bent the connectors of a small 1.5v LED to shape and installed it into the building.  It is a pretty quick and easy fix to give a good light to the building.  As the building was built many years ago it was not designed to have a working light inside it. Consequently, the light clearly seeps out under the edge of the building.  I am going to insert a small floor to plug up this gap in the building.  Both platform structures are simply positioned on top of the platform - so changing the battery will not be a problem.

A simple solution for interior lights!

Over the last few weeks I have also built a little station building to fit over the baseboard join.  This is a run down little structure knocked up from some plasticard and painted with some enamels.  This was placed on the platform with the other station furniture glued down, such as signs.  I think this shelter really looks the part and am pleased with the overall outcome of the station.

The new platform shelter, which will eventually be positioned over the baseboard join.

So the layout is finally finished!  There will be a little bit of tweaking here and there, but overall it is complete. My first completed, working layout.  This was meant as a quickie project over 6 months and has taken on a life of its own.  But it is a real relief to get it over the line!  I need to find of day and some space to set the whole layout out and really give it all a proper work out.  I am generally quite pleased with the result and learnt a lot of lessons along the way.  The problem is, at the moment, I do not have the space to run this layout regularly......so a little 5ft micro-box layout is already on the cards!  I will start this off over summer watch this space!  Until then there is plenty of stock to finish off to run around Charlton with the first exhibition date fast approaching.

Milk tanker - first wagon for the milk train

Modelling railways in North Devon during the 1970s means that certain types of freight wagons are a necessity, principally china clay wagons and milk tankers.  Barnstaple Junction was handling both types of traffic throughout the 1970s, with the milk traffic stopping sometime in the late 1970s and clay traffic in the early 1980s.  So in preparation for getting the Charlton layout ready for its first exhibition I have made a start on these wagon types.  The first wagon out of the paint works is a milk tanker.  This is the ready to run Dapol offering, which has been much lambasted in the modelling community.  The underframe is rather crude, with the wagon seemingly somewhat a generic representation of a myriad of different types of wagon.  I opted for the weathered version as a first attempt.  The crude underframe and generic representation of the wagon does not bother me too much, although if a decent kit was available for this wagon I would certainly prefer to build my own.  However, with time pressing I am more than happy to convert RTR stock.  Anyhow, the finish on the wagon was genuinely awful!  The weathering revealed paint patches everywhere (caused by spraying over the finished wagon) with the tanker itself having mould lines clearly visible.

  

The out of the box finish.  Masking of the weathered finish is clearly visible.

So the first job on unpacking the wagon was to dismantle the wagon, which did require a little bit of pressure (Dapol seem to use some form of superglue to make these) and tidy up the various components.  Fitting the 3 link coupling was painful and required chopping away some of the chassis and supergluing the 3 link coupling in place.  However, after a few hours work the wagon was ready to enter the paint works.

The wagon ready for painting, after fitting couplings and sanding off the mould lines.

Close up showing the underframe, with a cut out made for inserting of the 3 link coupling.  This has been glued in place.

Given the variation in the original finish by Dapol, combined with the additional sanding of the worst offending mould lines, the surface for painting was highly variable.  This automatically meant that the wagon would have to be pretty heavily weathered to blend this all together.  However, some web perusing revealed this not to be a problem, as most of these wagons were absolutely filthy in the 1970s.  Various shades of weathered black, rust, sleeper grime, matt white and underframe dirt were applied to the wagon. The various components were then varnished before reassembly.  

Finished milk tanker posing on Charlton.

Although the underframe is pretty crude, I did try to bring it to life a little, through the use of different colours and highlighting certain details such as the axle boxes.  Overall, I am pretty happy with this.  Yes it is a crude wagon, but with a bit of work I think it can pass off as a milk tanker - at least for now.  So that is one down - and three left to go!  Hopefully the milk train will not take as long as my parcels train to complete!