A little more progress....

Having recently returned from taking a break in the sun, I still find myself in holiday mode, which, when I come to think of it, is a bit rich, coming from a man of leisure.  To make matters worse, I've yet to be tempted back to the modelling bench, a situation not helped, by what must be the finest Bank Holiday weather in recent years, well at least in our part of the country!  Anyway, before we left these shores, a little progress was made on the layout, and this post more or less brings things up to date.

One job that I had been putting off was the removal of old backscene, which was necessary due to a little wear and tear.  The new scene is a like for like replacement, but I've a few jobs to attend to before I get around to fitting it.  Both signals are now in place, and thanks to the simplicity of the 'Tortoise' remote actuators they are fully operational, yet easily removable, whilst work continues around them.  The old cattle dock has been repaired, but still retains its derelict look, and now finds itself supported on a stone base made from scribed foamboard.  An overgrown access road will eventually lead to it, but first of all the landscape needs to be modelled, and more experimentations carried out on the 'Noch' grass mat, which appears in these photos.


After much thought I decided to sink the lever frame into the Titley Junction cassette deck. It could easily have been fitted at the Llanbister Road end, but being right handed I found it easier to operate the levers from the Titley end of the layout, eventually the frame will be hidden from view by the creamery

This is how things currently look at the Titley end, the bridge, which is made from foamboard, with styrene detail is almost complete.  It will carry nothing more than a simple cart track over the railway, so its narrower, than would usually be the case.


This is the sort of scene that I have in mind, though perhaps more open, the creamery would be partly shielded by the bushes and trees to the right.  At the moment the creamery is being represented by the part relief structure from the old layout, whilst I faff around with a mock up for the new building. I've also extended the backscene support, so that it wraps around the cassette deck, which will be partly scenic.



Its a dodge that I used on 'Penhydd', but in this case the creamery will not be modelled in full.  The cassettes dropped in place between the backscene and the rear of the building.  The arrangement worked well for my limited operating sessions, but more space in which to manoeuvre the cassttes would have made things easier.

At the moment I'm testing a foot switch to fire the uncoupling magnets, and I'm finding it far easier to use than an electric pencil or spring loaded switch, as it allows me to concentrate fully on positioning the stock for uncoupling,  The idea came to me as I watched my better half working on her sewing machine, the pedal allowing the machine to be operated hands free.  There are only two magnets on the layout, and both are powered up together when the switch is depressed, the load is taken off the switch contacts, which are rated for 10 amps at 240 vac by a simple relay, which in turn powers up the electro magnets.


A rare photo of '4560' in charge of a passenger train, thanks to Bachmann its never been easier to have a top class model of one of these engines, and there is no longer any excuse for running large tank engines such as a 61XX on a branch line layout.  That's unless they happen to be one of your favourite engines :-)


On a different note, Pauls blog post on the recently introduced Collett coaches from Hornby, and Gerry Beales article on improving them in MRJ, No.247, have given me food for thought.  To begin with, at only a scale 57 ft long, they are ideal for small layouts such as mine, and as Gerry has shown they don't need much work to lift them into a different class.  So I've converted one of my Hawksworth coaches back to '00' and sold it on, the proceeds of which will fund the coach you see here.  I'm also hoping to spray my Comet A44 driving trailer whilst the weather is favourable, along with one of my old Bachmann suburbans.  Meanwhile at the other end of the layout, the twelfth coat of varnish is waiting to be added to the river, alas its far too nice here to be stuck inside, so it will have to wait a little longer.

Geoff