Ratio LMS 13t open wagon

This week I managed to finish off the painting on a LMS13t open wagon, now in use on BR.  The wagon has been finished with a light weathering, in a faded olive green livery.  As per normal it is painted with an airbrush and transfers are from the Modelmaster range.  I started building this wagon in 2016 and the box has been long lost.  There may have been set a of transfers which came with the wagon, but these are also long lost, so I mixed and matched from various Modelmaster packs.  So another wagon ready for the layout, although it has taken nearly two years!!  The floor in the wagon is not so good, due to the two halves of the kit joining the floor in the centre of the wagon.  This is how the kit is designed and if I had thought about it when I was building it, I would have added a false floor, but alas too late now.  However, it is not so visible at a distance and I will place some spent ballast in here when it is running on the layout to disguise this. 

Finished wagon, with an attempt at a faded olive green livery.

This photo shows the subtle underframe weathering up well.

The join in the floor is just about visible in this shot.

The layout (Charlton) progress is quite slow at the moment, whilst I paint the station building.  This is coming along nicely and hopefully I will post an update of this later this week, when it is ready to place on the layout.  Once it is stuck down, along with the other buildings, I will make a start on ballasting.

A Dogfish caught at Charlton Station

A small project that was finally finished off this week was the repainting of a Heljan dogfish wagon.  The model has the original couplings cut off and was then subjected to a bath of Superstrip to remove the original dutch finish. Three link couplings were duly added before painting in a fairly non descript grey, with rust seeping through, and a fair whack of frame dirt.  As per normal all painting was carried out with my airbrush and transfers are from the Modelmaster range.

Finished Dogfish

I started this project about 1 year ago and it is good to see it finally finished.  It is amazing how time flies!  My airbrush sat dormant over the festive period but I am now making a concerted effort to finish off some projects that have been languishing in the painting boxes.  I have also nearly finished the platforms for the Charlon micro-layout and I need to free up the space to paint these. Anyhow, another wagon added to my ever growing stock of kit built engineering wagons!

Western relegated to engineers workings!

The short consist, with recently finished open wagons

Closer view of the Dogfish

A short video of the Dogfish in the short engineers train, heading back to Exeter, with a Western in charge!

Charlton Micro layout - Station Progress 1

I have spent a few evenings over the last few weeks building the station for Charlton.  It is not finished yet and I have run out of fencing so progress has been halted. So in the mean time I placed the station on the layout to see how it looked space wise and how it would accommodate a short train, etc.  I must say that I am really pleased with its overall dimensions.  It can hold a two coach train and allow the locomotive to run around it, or a shorter working.  Just playing around with the buildings gave a sense of how the layout would look.  Given the boards are only 1ft wide, it is all a tight squeeze and will require a little imagination to blend the backsenes with the rest of the layout.  I particularly like the view from the between the provender store and warehouse, placing the camera on the area of clay which will be some cobbles in due course.  So it is starting to come together nicely.

View of the station from just beside the provender store.

View from between the provender store and warehouse on the cobbles.

Western pulling in a short passenger train with parcels.

Overall view of the layout with a class 37 sitting in the siding off the run around loop.

 

A class 25 with a 3 coach train.  This number of coaches blocks the run around loop, so it will need another locomotive to haul this train out.

View looking down the station, still under construction!

Anyhow I gave the layout a small running session with my recently completed Western (with DCC sound) as it hauled in a (very!) short passenger service with some parcels wagons.  I am pretty satisfied with how this is shaping up at the moment.  Todays big job is to get the point motors finished off (I started this yesterday evening) and give the back scene another coat of paint.  

One of the great things about this small layout is the feeling of progress and ability to not get bogged down by the project.  The fiddle yard with have a maximum of four storage lanes and it will more likely be three. Therefore, I am going to go with a very small fleet of locomotives and they will all be sound fitted, with all coaches having lighting etc.  I currently have a class 122 sound chip to fit as well as class 22 to detail and the sound chip on the class 25 needs re-blowing. Plenty to keep me occupied!  Oh and I might have just purchased a second hand warship to detail and repaint......

An ebay bargain, a very run down warship to bring back to life!  Luckily it runs fine. Does anybody know where I can find a spare detailing pack for this??.....

SPV Parcel Van and the 22t tube wagon

A happy new year to everyone.

I had big plans for modelling over xmas, but of course, I did not achieve half of what I wanted to.  I did have a lovely xmas break though!  Anyhow, one further item of rolling stock has been finished, another SPV parcels wagon.  This is 2 of three that I have to finish.  I used the Railtec transfers on this and they went on perfectly!  Another one of the ever growing fleet of parcels stock for use on my layouts.  One more to go!

Another finished parcels wagon!  Just how much mail does North Devon need!

In much better natural sunlight I also managed to take a photograph of the 22t tube wagon I finished a little while back.  The wagon has replacement planks painted on and these are visible in the better light.

A better photo of the 22t tube wagon.

Tasks for today are to build the station for the Charlton micro layout and paint the backscene - more updates to follow on this.  The micro layout is slowly coming to life....

Charlton Micro layout - further progress

A short update on the developing micro layout that I am  building.  I have nearly finished all of the boring jobs!  Not quite, but a large amount of progress has been made.  The back scenes are now all attached and require painting. Given the narrow width of the of the baseboards (1ft) it would have taken too much space to have a curving backboard, so I have settled with 90 degree angle in each corner.  Not ideal but I hope I will be able to disguise it.

Back scenes in place, ready for painting

General overview of the micro

The fiddle yard has been built and has a small area for continuation of a siding on the scenic side at the front. Being only 3ft long it is a very tight fit.  The entrance to the fiddle yard is a thin piece of back scene with a small hole cut into it (obviously!).  Rather than have a tunnel I am going to try to disguise this as much as possible, but not worry too much about it. The powerbus has been extended under the fiddle yard and some track has been temporarily laid down.

The small entrance to the fiddle yard

So now there are two last jobs.  The first is to install the point motors, I am using the Gaugemaster PM10s with frog juicers.  A simple fix for a small DCC layout and all seems to be working well.  The CDU is installed and it is just a case of placing the motors under the boards and wiring them up - although this is a pet hate of mine!  The second thing to do is is lay two sets of points into the fiddle yard and glue these down properly.  Just one more weekend of soldering and fixing and then the whole layout should be 100% operational!

  

Just testing out some the positioning of the buildings....

So time for the buildings.  I have some resin buildings to use, and these will be supplemented with a bit of basic scratchbuilding.  I am not great at making buildings, so each attempt gets a little bit better.  I have to make the station, which is a job to start at the end of next week.  However, I am pretty happy with the current level of progress and my aim is to finish the layout by the end of February.  I had originally gone for a Christmas date - but that now seems unduly optimistic.  The great thing about small layouts is that you can seem to make progress quickly!

A quick video of the layout working....

Now to get some type 2 sound decoders to run on a class 22 and 25.  I have finished the western.....now I wonder about a warship......this layout is definitely going to be pure BR blue and plenty of sound....

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas

See you in the new year

The western front - Heljan class 52 ready for service

I have finally just about to managed to finish off the Western detailing project I have been working on for a while (2 years or so!!).  It has been a really fun project and overall I am pretty happy with how it has turned out.  However, the longevity of the project and the stop/start nature of it meant that I lost some of the parts along the way, as well as a bit of momentum.

The finished locomotive running around the microlayout.

The locomotive is for use on the my Devon based withered arm layouts, that are struggling through the 1970s.  The model is the Heljan version, which I think is an excellent model by and large.  I replaced the original wheels with Ultrascale versions which has improved the running characteristics of the locomotive no end.  All painting and weathering was done with railmatch enamels via the air brush.  Faded blue was spayed on the body, as well as matt white from a paintbrush to replicate paint chips.The model has been fitted with a loksound decoder, with the Howes sound files.  I really like the Howe sound recordings on this one - I think it sounds it great, although I will turn the volume down a bit to about 75% of its current level when I have the track operational on the new Charlton micro layout.  I attempted to model the locomotive towards the end of its working life and it is therefore pretty grimy.

The finished locomotive posed on the micro layout.

Jobs that have been finished off this week are the adding of windscreen wipers, some detailing of the windscreens and a bit of wheel painting and then cleaning.  Small jobs that do make a big difference.  So below are some finished photographs of the Western.  I have also included some photographs of the locomotive in its various stages of painting and detailing.

The cab showing the weathered front.

With the lights working.

Body side, showing faded paint and open windows.

Detail of the bodywork a bit closer up.

The body shell during painting and weathering from the airbrush.

Reassembled locomotive, before final detailing.

The first stage of weathering involved splashing white paint over the body work and then hand brushing some grime over the body, before wiping some of it off with cotton buds.

As it looked from the box, a second hand model.