Eastern Region themed mainline

Absolutely stunning!

Its all coming together nicely Bob.The scenery around your station is excellent.can't wait to see you cover those white foam hills!

Cheers,John.B.

New Wagons

A few months back I purchased some wagons at an exhibition; they are kits by Peco and they were very cheap. So I bought six. However, they have been sitting on a shelf gathering dust. Today it was cold and wet, so I thought I would have a go at one of these kits. I was very surprised to learn that they go together in about five minutes and I soon had them all built. This is the box they come in:




There is a salt wagon, two fish vans and three 10ft tanker wagons. I have given them a coat of paint, dusted on some weathering and they are ready to go on the layout. I can't think why I left them on the shelf for so long!

 

Very nice Bob, I like the fish vans.
Looks like you’ve done some more scenery too.

Marty

A little more work has been done on the scenery, although most of my effort has been centred on the other side of the layout.  I am creating a city station out of the fiddleyard and this is taking time. I hope to reveal progress soon.
I too like the fish vans as they add a bit of colour amongst the browns greys and black of BR stock.

A post Christmas update……………..

The Christmas break gave me a chance to get up into the railway room and to work on the layout. I decided to continue developing the fiddleyard, which is becoming a large city station. Here are some views. Please excuse some of the detail that has been plonked down and not yet fixed in place:

The first is a general overview. It can be seen that some areas still need to be ballasted and the footbridge is still to be completed:


A new area is the siding complex at the North end of the station. At the moment it is being used to park up resting locos. The large space on the left, will likely be developed to take on this role:





Looking the other way, eight platforms provide ample space for the longest of trains:



I am changing the lights from the Kato tall ones to British style lights, some having been plonked in place to see how they fit!


I am thinking of replacing the platform canopies as time goes by and will add island platform buildings and goods access lifts.

Heritage NER Class R, 4-4-0, pulling a rake of LNER teak coaches passing through Tempsford on the down line towards Doncastle.  The loco is by Union Mills, with Dapol coaches. A gift from santa!

That’s a nice looking new engine you’ve got there Bob and the I’m just going to crawl away into my corner and whimper when it comes to comparing how much work you’ve done.
You must have spent weeks putting together those terrace houses alone!

A nice way of giving your fiddle yard character.

Thanks Marty, although I can't take the credit for building all of the terraced houses, some were bought ready made at a show. I try to do a little something on the layout each day, often a little bit of several projects. I find that is the best way to keep my interests going.
As for the loco; it looks wonderful, but is a really rough runner, especially for a Union Mills job. I did not buy it new, so can't complain too much. I will speak to Colin in the coming days to see if he will take it in for an overhaul, as I have tried all of the usual actions to improve running.

Over the last weekend I went back to the otherside of the layout to do some more work on the scenery.  Having laid some polystyrene hills, I smoothed them down with plaster and gave the whole area a coat of green paint. I have also marked in the route of a small stream as well as the road. Finally I have set a road over stream bridge into the landscape. So far so good!

Here is an overview of the area:



The bridge and stream:



The road set into the terrain:


The hills:

I've stopped by for a good look tonight.

Very impressive, Bob.   :thumbs

Nice little winding country road Bob.

Nice expanse of scenery (one of the big advantages of N gauge), looking good Bob  :thumbs


Ed

Setting the road bridge into the countryside:

Having finally set  the stone road bridge in place and settled it into the landscape with  plaster, overpainted in green I have added some scenery, a fence and  painted the stream. The scene represents a narrow brook, clogged with  weeds that runs under the railway via a culvert. The first picture is a  bit blurry:



A close up of the bridge area:


From the other side. The culvert can just be seen behind the bridge:



Here  is a closer view of the culvert, consisting of two concrete pipes that  run under the track, supported by a concrete abutment. This was scratch  built from three bits of card, a couple of mm of plastic tube, cut in  half length ways and the surround built up with filler:

Very convincing, Bob.   :cool:

You have been busy, nice work Bob. :thumbs

I have added some more scenery around small stream, including some sea moss trees:





In addition, running alongside the line, I have added a dirt track and added some more scenery. Slowly the area is taking shape:

Looks fantastic - really shows what you can do in N

Tempsford has been more or less dormant for the last couple of years.  Apart from a few running sessions and a little tinkering there has been little action.

The big problem is that the baseboards have come to the end of their life.  Tempsford is the third layout to have used these boards, which, after 15 years, are now seriously showing their age.  I have tried adjusting here and there but the MDF, which I used for the surface has warped, giving a wavy effect.  This shows up very clearly in N gauge.

On several occasions I made up my mind to tear the layout down and start again, but each time I made excuses and held back.  Then, my good friend Reg (Sparky) died and I completely lost my model railway mojo.  The railway room door remained closed and the layout gathered dust.

Last week I took the decision to take down the layout and to start again.  The old baseboards will go and a new layout, again in N gauge, will emerge.  My plan is to ponder until the winter to plan for a large mainline operation.  I will not use MDF again!

I will update as things progress.

Bob

"I will not use MDF again!"  Don't blame you. A decent quality plywood is what I've always used and it just stays flat, with decent support of course.

A shame you have to rip it all up as it's a really nice layout.