Another 'inspired by Mr Ford' project ticked off of the list, and another building essentially complete for Corri-llyn. Truthfully the basic shell of this building has sat around since last June, so it was a quick weekends work to make up the door, paint and weather.
In situ on Corri-llyn with the yard office and a 009 Society wagon, already you can see the scene coming together. Comparing the two buildings, my attempts at mortar course washes are also visibly improving too.
Amongst all the 009 activity there is the seeds of a GWR micro layout in the background. It's one of those projects I'm taking much slower but still having a lot of fun with, occasionally building the odd wagon or structure to put in the stash. The idea is to essentially build up all the components first, then the baseboard later when room permits.
The latest foray into this theme saw me completing one of those jobs I've put off for too long, adding couplings to a set of Parkside (Ex Ratio) kits, namely an iron Mink, a 5 plank open and a ventilated box van. Armed with a set of Parkside NEM mounting pockets and some Bachmann cranked and uncranked NEM tension lock couplings a productive afternoon was had. The majoirty of them need cranked couplings, but with the Iron Mink being low slung it needs the alternate kind.
All still need weathering, and complete transfers, to be considered finished. Jobs for another day.
Progress on anything is still at a snail's pace. It does however mean I'm being more realistic with what jobs I set myself when modelling. The days of having two or three projects on the go to switch between whilst others glue and dry seems a long time ago now. So, this week I laid in the 'wharf' siding on Corri-Llyn.
The original idea had been to have the siding swing round and the turntable spurs being at same angles as the baseboard edges. As is always the way though, drawing an idea down and actually building it are two very different things, no matter the amount of planning. As drawn the siding would require a 6" radius curve, not impossible but I wasn't too keen on the idea of coupling/uncoupling on the bend. The below sketch on the baseboard show this well: The leftmost circle is as planned, the one on the right is the new one.
For reference, the line on the inside of the curve is the overhang for the Peco Glyn Valley Tram, the widest engine I own (Also the tallest) it's always turned out for planning sessions.
A bit of playing around with radiuses and placements resulted in this new slightly skewed wharf layout. The curve radius is a slightly gentler 7", whilst the turntable placement still means I can get the hoped for three wagon limit on the siding, but that one of the has to cross the table to allow it. This certainly isn't a compromise, I'd always hoped I'd be able to get a wagons length beyond it to create the idea that shunting by hand would be a possibility.
The completed track with the in-progress goods store. Very happy now that none of the buildings sit parallel to the edges, even at this early stage it's making them look more natural alongside the trackwork.
Spare time has all but ceased to exist at present. I did however manage to at least get the main loop laid on Corri-Llyn.
On the plus side, this now means I have somewhere to just let trains for a while, something they haven't been able to do for quite a few years now. The 16" length of The Garden Railway isn't exactly a long run!
I did enjoy a short half hour just watching stock run round, it's easy to forget just how enjoyable a simple loop can be.
I mentioned before Christmas that a there were plans for a new micro layout brewing, and now they've finally come to some sort of fruition, if only a current work in progress.
I'll hold my hands up, the main motive behind this particular layout was to be able to have a place to run the small collection of Bachmann 'Skarloey Railway' stock. Compared to my usual staple of Minitrix/Arnold chassis based 009 stock the Bachmann offerings not only have longer wheelbases (Bar Rusty) but they're also fixed wheelbases. Skarloey being the longest dictated a minimum radius of six inches after testing. For baseboard size I gave myself a small challenge: Back in 2017 ExpoNG held a contest to build a layout in 50x30cm, I've been sketching ideas for this footprint since, but never quite found anything that suited me till now.
I know, it's a terrible name. I scribbled it down as a rough note on a sketch but it seems to be sticking. Inspiration naturally came from the Talyllyn railway scenery wise, Pendre being a good means of providing a scenic break with the staggered structures view blocking the line in the background. The wharf area was dictated from wanting to use a couple of structures built from guides by Chris Ford.
The only area that's a bit up in the air construction-wise is the station. I had originally planned a straight up copy of the Pendre building as seen in the above doodle, but now I'm starting to wonder if a Corris style station with overall roof might work. There's an old Dapol/Airfix station canopy in the stash that could easily be adapted, it just simply boils down to space.
Baseboard construction was helped by a very good piece of fortune. Rather handily a pallet of materials at work arrived topped with a 2x3' lid of 6mm MDF. After checking that it was headed for the skip it was quickly liberated. The top of the layout was marked out at 50x35cm with frame rails at 4.5cm deep, the whole lot of was then glued and pinned together providing a light yet surprisingly sturdy baseboard.
Board assembled, it was then given a coat of 'Earthly Hue' emulsion tester pot paint to seal it. Whether or not this was nesseccary could probably be debated, but I decided it was better to spend a quick half hour painting than to see the whole structure start to twist and warp horrifically during the water based ballasting stage!
Next stop - Track laying.