esngblog

Yesterday, I put together a ‘kit’ of parts for the second baseboard.  It should appear online in a day or five – not much progress will be made over the weekend with FA Cup football on TV and internet!

However, the Bartlett household was a bit like this over the last few days.  Fortunately, the ‘Old Lady’ is pretty tolerant of my purchases….

Here’s most of the haul.  Bits and pieces including cobblestones and Plastikard to get things moving again on the Minories.  Also the bits to join baseboards, so I think the next job will be to build the other boards.  Did I mention that Amazon is bringing me a couple of narrow shelve runners for the traverser…..

And did I mention this beauty.  You can keep your class 92’s!  The US switching line is a most useful test track….

Perhaps Maxine will order one of these….

One parcel included a copy of the latest Model Railway Journal (as WH Smiths, Redhill didn’t have a copy last week when I visited) and a book.  Big shout out for the Titfield Thunderbolt Bookshop.  Perhaps not the widest choice of railway books, but I rate any shop highly that includes a hand-written note with the purchase.  Full marks to Simon.

And the book was this one.  Great little volume, full of photos of those everyday items – like the signs and signposts shown – that we think will always be there, but have largely gone from the British Isles.

And I’m wondering about a new layout……

Better not, but what a model that would be!

Cut the holes in the end of the shadowbox for the tracks to enter/exit.  I can think about building the other boards now, I guess.  I also need to think about legs or trestles for the layout, but that might have to wait for covid to subside, and an ‘essential’ visit to the woodyard.  I’ve also added the skypaper backscene.  There are a couple of poor joints to this, but they are on the ends of the layout, so won’t show much, if at all.

I then broke out this book to look at bridge designs.  It does just what it says on the can.  I bought it for £7 second-hand at a show, but it seems to go for £35 or so second-hand on Amazon these days.  Not something that I read often, but so useful when you need it!

Here are a couple of the drawings of overbridges – just what I need.

Google maps is so useful.  Here’s a girder bridge that is at the end of Waterloo station.

Ludgate in the fog shows the underbridge detail.  I think this can be modelled with plastikard strips on a sheet across the bridge, as there is not enough depth available to model the full depth of the girders.  Strips will look much as below.

Here’s another old Ludgate bridge, with some interesting stonework on the piers.

Modelling has paused for a day or three, whilst I wait for materials to be delivered – bricks, roadway, girders, and lighting for the long road bridges.  But I did pick up these three London Transport Guy Arab II utility buses for the roads.  A little early perhaps (last one went in 1953) for the layout, and they, like all the GF buses, were too small, being made in 1:160 scale.  However, they are lovely models, and will be perfect for the back of the layout.

And here’s the real thing in Southampton colours, with a USA tank shunting.

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.