Progress (or otherwise) on Jeff's new layout

Small improvements that make a bigger impact visually: I have been planting some greenery along the alignment of the programming track, and above one of the tunnel entrances.


P_20190408_161020_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190408_161046_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190408_161106_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190408_161157_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

It's nice to have a look around again, Jeff.   :cool:
Very nice.   :cheers

Your walls must be bulging!    :lol:

That Ivy looks really good Jeff is that a bought product who did you make that yourself?

Brian

I can't take any credit for the ivy, Brian; it is a bought product, from Mininatur. I merely teased it out and glued it down.

… And three more of the burdock plants made up and positioned but not yet glued down. They join the existing couple previously made up and now permanently fixed. I have enough material left in the kit to make two or three more of these plants.


P_20190409_213511_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr
P_20190409_213530_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Looking good Jeff  :thumbs


Ed

Thanks Ed. :)

I have now added a few more of these 'little' details: weeds and undergrowth items from Busch this time, plus some Langley metal bollards and a warning sign for the level crossing.

Lots more to do but it does make the scenes look a little more complete (if there is such a thing as completeness where model railways are concerned!).


P_20190410_104426_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Is that possibly Lovejoy's borrowed Morris Minor there?



P_20190410_104457_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190410_104546_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190410_104648_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

For a moment I thought that was my 1962 Ford Classic that I had from 1993 to 2004, but then I noticfed it's a 4 door, mine was a 2 door


 

Hi Mike. The Classic is from R. Parker in white metal. I came fairly close to matching that pale green colour, although the model always comes out much yellower in the photos.

No point me looking for an N gauge one, I model mid 1930s!

Like the Messerschmidt behind the coach Jeff dont think there are many of those around today .

I dont think it was the Messerschmidt  but i remember seeing a guy with one of the micro cars to start it he opened the bonnet and had to put his foot in and kickstart it as a motorbike does.


Brian

I'm not surprised at the kick-starting requirement, Brian. These things were registered as motor cycles and had no reverse gear either. The Messerschmidt itself is an Oxford Diecast, but I levered the canopy off to fit a driver figure, seeing as it was so obvious there was no one in it before. It really needs a bit of painting inside the wheel arches to tone down the pink where it would have been dirty (or even a completely different colour.


I'm still 'building' plants and placing them on the layout. The latest ones are from Busch and are plastic wild lupins. They are fiddly to put together with each stem (with or without leaves), and each lupin head being a separate moulding, needing to be snipped off the sprues and glued together, then planted into a moulded base with holes.

I have placed the ones done so far around two locations on the layout, but none are in their final positions. I will be doing something about blending the bases into the scenery properly once I decide where they really belong.
 

P_20190428_233823_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190428_233754_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

I have been rearranging the undergrowth and flowers a little, today. I concentrated the undergrowth plants in smaller areas, and shifted all of the lupins I have done so far to the flower bed at the end of the church.


P_20190504_095048_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190504_095103_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190504_095121_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190504_095308_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


I like the effect of the lupins, but I'm still not sure I have the other areas looking 'right' yet.

You'll be on 'Gardeners' World' at this rate Jeff  


Ed

[user=1338]Ed[/user] wrote:

You'll be on 'Gardeners' World' at this rate Jeff  


Ed

This is the nearest I'll ever get to having green thumbs! 

More gardening, and a little farming to report!

Further to completing more lupins, I have also been assembling some roses from the same manufacturer. I have experimentally placed them along the access roadway to the cemetery.


P_20190520_221544_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

P_20190520_221534_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


At the other end of that side of the layout, I have been trying out a few ideas for the farm corner at the very back of the layout. I decided it would be easier to work on it off the layout, so cut a slab of expanded polystyrene to suit. This will be landscaped further later. I also want to terrace the farm a little. The lane passing the farm, and providing access to it, occupies a small part of this scenic 'board' as well, and will gain a few slight undulations in due course. I have sculpted the side of the embankment and the ends into varying slopes since taking the photos. The lane will be a little over one car, or tractor, wide when finished.

The buildings are mostly from Hornby's Skaledale Holly Farm range, with roofs painted grey rather than their original black.


P_20190519_143909_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190519_143919_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Another new arrival, although it was ordered and paid for years ago. D602, Bulldog, from Kernow Model Railways has been run in on DC and now has a decoder fitted! I opted for the Zimo MX638D, which is a fully functioned budget decoder. I discovered that it did, indeed, need to be converted to an MX638C, as with the Dapol class 22 earlier, by the simple expedient of programming CV8 to a value of 3. All lights now work under independent control.

F0 has the reversible marker lights - single white for forward end and single red for the trailing end - pictures 1 and 2 below (the red barely shows in the photo, but it is quite bright … that's another job to do: dim all of the lights).


P_20190527_214353_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190527_214423_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


F1 operates the forward cab and F2 operates the rear cab (forward and rear simply refer to the closer and further ends in the photos, of course).




P_20190527_214408_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr




P_20190527_214501_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr





F3 and F4 operate the headcodes at each end (only the forward end shown here, together with the marker light on F0).




P_20190527_214436_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Two new additions to the goods stock on Newton Broadway are these Parkside kits I have been building as a quick and easy project. Both are BR 24.5 ton mineral wagons. I could not find many pics of the real ones so used some generic weathering ideas from the similar looking 21 ton wagons. I chose to do the white end door indicator stripes in different fashions as well, also based on photos, although not of the specific wagons I have chosen. The underframes could do with a small amount of extra detailing, such as the rod linkage for the brake gear, and also need a little further weathering, but overall I am quite pleased with the effects I have achieved.


P_20190606_160548_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Another 'new' loco has made its appearance on Newton Broadway. This Hornby Bulleid West Country started off as a Battle of Britain, 34067 Tangmere, before its previous owner repainted and renamed it into his fictional railway's no 53. He had also hard-wired a Hornby decoder in and added two front headlights. I got it for a pretty fair price off eBay, and when I received it, it worked well enough, although the Hornby decoder was a little jerky on starts but otherwise fine, but I am not a fan of Hornby basic decoders anyway. I rewired it with a Lenz Standard+ decoder, which made it a lot smoother on the starts and stops.

I repainted her into BR green and added orange/black/orange lining, etched name plates and crests, etched smokebox number plate, an early BR crest on each side of the tender, and new cabside numbers, to produce West Country 34019, Bideford.  There is a small amount of work still to do, a couple of minor touch-ups and fix a couple of slightly wonky bits of lining, but overall it has come up well.
 

 
P_20190610_185202_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

I had a quiet and relaxing Sunday morning running session with some of my European trains again today. After a while I decided to take a few videos of the trains as they ran around the double-tracked high level main line.

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