esngblog

Over the last few days, lockdown has enabled me to carry on working on the layout.  Having marked up and cut out a lot of plywood, I ended up with a kit of parts for the main board.  Looks a bit like one of those commercial laser cut boards, as in the background, but without the accuracy!

I slowly and carefully glued and pinned (in places) the bits together to build the shadow box of the main board.  Stiffening was added to the underside, using a diagonal pattern rather than the more usual cross-pieces.  This should be more rigid, and is made easier – and indeed possible – as I haven’t got to dodge the point motors under the board.

Back the right way up, I’ve added the spacers between the two board scenic levels.  On the left are the two roads under the station, Waterloo style.

And with a coat of primer inside (pretty rough, but it will be covered in due course) and varnish outside.  Just a tin of dark mahogany varnish that was lying around, but it brings up the plywood nicely.

Having placed, but not fixed, the upper board in place, I fished a few trains out of their blue plastic boxes to get an idea of what the finished article might look like.

Not bad!  Next job will be cut the holes in the ends of the board for connection to the next baseboards.  I may also get the sky backscene in place.  Then tracklaying?

Setting this up has brought up a few thoughts and problems.  Once again I muttered about the silly idea of putting the station on a raised section.  It occurred to me that I need to get some scenery on those roads under the station before I fix the top board down.  So there will be a little pause whilst I work out how to do the road and bridges for this section.  And I suppose those long road ‘tunnels’ ought to have lights, too.

The other question is whether to lay the Finetrax track in situ, or build it off the layout and then install it.  Although the latter would be easier, the number of adjacent points on the layout suggests that it would be better to build them in a single unit.  The solution is actually simple (for once).  I’m going to split the upper board in two, so that all the pointwork is on the right-hand, 750mm, section.  This is a small enough size to be worked on off the layout, completed, then fixed in place.  Splitting the board will also make fitting the upper board in place easier.

We’ll see what happens next…..

A little progress.  I looked at the scenery again, and where the road bridges might get in the way of the point motors.  So I changed the scenery a little.  It will probably change again when I mark things out full size, but this is close.

And so to the loft…..

I got the Finetrax templates glued down to give an accurate track layout.

Marking it up full size gave an accurate check of clearances and the length of the loco and parcels sidings.  They were all a little different from my ‘scale’ drawing.

Once again, my set of railway curves came in useful.  These were commonly used by draftsmen before the age of CAD.  This set were ‘rescued’ from work during a massive clear out – they were otherwise headed for a skip.

And here’s the upper level, cut to size.  Next job, will be to mark up the lower baseboard, making sure that there are suitable holes for access, wiring and point motors, but that the solid sections for the roads under the station are still there.

And here’s the road level board, with holes for access and point control.  Point motors could be a bit short of space, though!

Hopefully, I’ll cut the rest of the pieces for the board tomorrow.

As you realise, not much (if any) progress with the Minories over Christmas.  For the last few days, I blame Amazon Prime, with loads of live football to watch.

But, gentle reader, you may recall a design something like the below:

Of course, I was soon overthinking this.  I had several issues with the design:

1. The platforms are marginally short for what I was looking for.  I know I also thought that smaller is better, but I did want to comfortably run a Brighton Belle EMU.
2. Although this is a classic Minories, I preferred an extra siding to the design, to have a little more stock standing around  – more interesting to look at and operate.
3. That long strip of waste ground is not very interesting, and not really realistic for an inner London layout – though in the 1950’s, a WW2 old bomb site would be appropriate.
4. I had doubts about the break in the platform at the baseboard joint.  Yes, I’ve seen it done well, but I think it would be a little too obvious.

So I came up with the design below, with two 900mm boards.  I also added back the separate locomotive and parcels spurs.  This needs another point, but also ensures that a full length platform is all on one baseboard.

I still wondered about this design.  Really, I find the left hand board just uninteresting!  As I commented in yesterday’s post, it is difficult to make a busy urban platform interesting.  The lack of movement is not helpful.  The actual concourse has some interesting features, but long empty platforms are a bit boring.  And that length of waste ground is still rather uninteresting.  Some under arch industry would be OK, but again not really appropriate under a London terminus.  It would be better to have another length of road here, but I then lose the two buildings at either end of the board.

Really, all the interest in a terminus is at the station throat, bringing back memories of transpotting on the outer end of platforms at Kings Cross and Paddington.  So, I tried cutting the board down to a single 1200mm long board.  I feel this works rather well.  It presents a singe, scenically interesting, picture, much in the Iain Rice ‘Bitsa Station’ tradition.  On the left, a short board gives the extra train length, and as it is off stage, it can represent a 10 coach long platform in 300-400mm.  It also makes uncoupling very easy for loco hauled trains.  There is still the fiddle yard to sort out on the right.

The baseboard is still just 250mm wide, as originally I’d left 50mm at the back for the baseboard framing to support the top of the board and its lighting.  However, with a single board, this isn’t needed, and we can widen the visible section to 300mm.  This would allow, say, 25mm at the front and 25mm at the back to increase the scenic potential.

I’ve decided (for today, anyway) to opt for this version.  I’ve ordered the extra point, and will start marking up the track on a board.  I’ve decided that with the new year, I must get back into modelling.  This is NOT a resolution, as they always get broken.  But you never know…..