Rob's Railways
Modelling mainly in OO & OO9.
Monday, 31 March 2025
MK2 Station Building
Monday, 17 March 2025
Carry On Tracking
It's been a bit of a mixed weekend. What should have been a nice, relaxing a day out on the Saturday proved proved to be a very testing day to say the least, so yesterday I was forcing myself to slow down and spend a leisurely day laying as much track as I felt I could comfortably manage on the new layout...
Suffice to say, I surprised myself by not only laying all the required track, but also installing isolating/point switches and wiring them all along with the power feeds! Granted, I seemed to have miscalculated somewhere and I'm two isolating switches short on the layout section meaning the the 'front' line of the run round loop and the far reaches of the front siding are currently out of bounds, but I have the parts in stock so it's a very quick next weekend job.
Most importantly though, even in this state, it meant I could spend a little bit of time playing trains.
The prefect tonic to what has been a very stressful week.
Employing three (Then eventually four!) train operation, the scratchbuilt brake van, Talyllyn Coach No.4 and the Egger Bahn balcony coach were assembled into the first train and then each of the four engines took turns pulling them into the station before swapping out with another stationed in what will become the bay platform.
I actually had more fun than I thought just shuffling the same coaching stock back and forth like this for a good thirty minutes. Dare I say it, I think I'm getting some potential ideas for the annual Micro Railway Cartel Christmas Challenge. We'll see what becomes of those...
And finally, some more of the scenic elements just placed on the board to see how it's all coming together. I'm liking this. I'm liking it a lot.
Monday, 3 March 2025
Toby
I didn't particularly set out to build another engine, but here we are.
Late last year I found myself with the itch to scratch-build something. Something with planking as I find it oddly relaxing. A quick look in the parts collection revealed the complete chassis from a Vale of Rheidol brake van (The body was of course liberated for the bogie coach bash!) so the first instinct was to build either a brake or box van, but then I stumbled upon a Kato-103 chassis. It didn't take too long for my brain to put two and two together and go hunting for the July 1961 copy of Railway Modeller...
The result was No.7 (or 'Toby') unmistakably based on the standard gauge Y6/J70 locomotives of the Wisbech & Upwell tramway, a line I've always had a soft spot for. The drawing's supplied by the Rev. Awdry for the Railway Modeller article were scaled down by roughy 1/3rd, the result being an engine suitably sized to a 2'3"-2'6" narrow gauge line, certainly on the mid - larger end of the narrow gauge loading gauges.
A quick snap from before the painting stage shows the main construction off nicely. The majority of this is scribed 40thou plastic sheet with 20x40thou strip for the framing. Once again, as with the Sentinel, an off-cut of sprue was turned into a funnel with a small section of 2mm brass rod for the visible condensing gear on the roof. The 'bell' i simply a handrail knob with the locating pip removed and some handrail wire! Some might question the inclusion of dumb buffers. In all honesty, they were added to stop the ends looking too flat.
From there it was onto the painting stage, initially taking some inspiration from the Kenney/Spong Toby illustrations, whilst wanting to add some green in to match the other steam engines in the fleet...
Suffice to say, as soon as I'd finished the base colours with the brush I realised I was heading in the wrong direction! Even after a wash with Tamiya 'Tank Grey' everything was still a bit too bold and clashing.
Leaving it a couple of weeks before coming back to it, the framing was given a quick go over with the same Revell Brown as the main bodywork and the side-plates redone in Tank Grey. Essentially, I was painting the engine using just the colour palette I use for coaching stock. The eagle eyed may also notice that I remade the side-plate covers at this point to, making them from artists card with 10x20thou strip for the hinges as on the Sentinel.
Already it was looking MUCH better.
Then, the tricky task of making up some sliding window panes from 20x40 strip and clear plastic sheet. I think they're turned out ok for a first attempt, but I'm certainly not in a hurry to try again. I tip my hat to the modellers who make droplight windows for coaches!
And finally, the one photograph that certain corners of the internet would get somewhat angry about if I didn't pose.
This was meant to be a very silly project, the slightly unfortunate outcome is I've made an engine that I actually really like!
Monday, 17 February 2025
The Baseboard Commeth...
Well, this isn't quite what I expected to be writing about this week...
Having seemingly completed nearly all of the projects in Chris Ford's 'Modelling Narrow Gauge Railways in Small Scales' book I've been thinking to myself over the last year and a bit as to why I'm actually holding back from going the whole hog and building the layout. I've even had a sketched out plan and the 6mm MDF sheet waiting and ready to go for the longest time.
Last week though I gave myself the metaphorical kicking to get this layout started, spurred on by the fact that the big table saw at work was available for cutting the baseboard parts to size - No way was I planning on doing a 4ft long cut with the trusty tenon saw, even with this softer wood!
As with everything I've done out of the book, there is a slight twist. The original shows how to make a 4x1ft board and gives suggestions as to how to go about attaching a fiddle yard. Shrinking down the original baseboard measurements roughy by a third I found I could accommodate the scenic section and a three road fiddle yard in the same size area as the original board. The parts were assembled at a leisurely pace over the last weekend. There was a slight inaccuracy in my measurements for the cross beams, but at 2mm too long I thought that was pretty good going! Took the extra belt and braces precautions advised to make the board more suitable for exhibition use (Albeit, just waiting on picking up some screws) It isn't planned to be such a layout, but you never know.
Assembled, the full layout and fiddle yard measures 4ft x 9inches, splitting it into sections the scenic part is 74cm/29inch in length with 46cm/18inches for the fiddle. Just as a little proof of concept the other projects from the book were posed on top just to check again that I had got my clearances and track lengths right. It's only just occurred to me that I've unintentionally made a mirror image version of Chris's 'Seething' layout, sans overbridge.
In theory this shouldn't be that long of a project. The only major things to do after the baseboard are lay track, get the back-scene fitted (Very tempted to try a 'Cameo' style box for this), plonk the ready made structures in place and then ballast and add green stuff.
And finally, just as a bit of fun, it occurred to me that the same sized baseboard could accommodate a variation of James Hilton's Seahouses inspired micro layout. I have the odd little beginnings of a GWR branch layout, and whilst it's probably too small for the much admired Collett Goods, things did look promising for the 48XX. With one engine in steam operation and a loco lift style fiddle yard it's certainly a possibility.
All things to ponder over for another time...