When a picture is worth a thousand words

Things are coming together

 (Don’t worry, I won’t write 1,000 words).

 It can take a lot to please me when it comes to my model railway projects. I think that may be why I flit from project to project, scale to scale. I’m trying to find a way to create that indefinable "it" quality that I see in other peoples work that drives me on in this hobby. Like when I first saw pictures of the old Model Railway Journal O scale layout Inkerman Street. That layout had the "it" quality for me. So therefore, I reasoned, if I want to produce a model railway with the "it" quality, I must model in O scale. Or if we choose a more up to date layout. James Hilton's Canal Street Wharf also has that personal "it" quality. Therefore I should model in 006.5 if I want to produce a layout with those qualities. Of course we all know that’s not the case. It’s what YOU put into YOUR layout that gives it that quality.

 For me, this new picture of my layout has that quality, the atmosphere that I’m after. It feels like the corner of a yard on a small industrial or estate railway system somewhere. The elements are there. The workshop with tools and equipment on view. (I may yet lay a temporary section of track into the workshop, so I could display something in there). The wall on the left hand side looks the part. It was the correct decision to go with this rather than the hedge I originally considered. The track in the back corner is getting buried up to rail level. I wanted a short section of buried track. I didn’t want to bury it all as I’m quite proud of what I achieved with Plastruct sheet to make the sleepers. I may yet use this back corner for a working tipper feature, as was the original plan and also on Carl’s layout. The corrugated building will be used for loading the skips. Much like the original Squarefoot. I’m very pleased with the way the angled wooden building draws your eye towards the loading shed. 

 Just peeping into the picture is the Landrover view block. That works surprisingly well, The Amberley loco is a little too tall to be totally hidden by it though. Shorter locos are hidden very well.

 In my minds eye I can now see the weeds, litter, and other detritus on the ground all adding to the atmosphere. Buildings need to be bedded in, bargeboards, gutters and down pipes added. Some weathering needs to be done, but its getting there.

The layout is really coming together now.

A new addition to the roster.

Say “Hello” to Amberley

After all last weeks activity, I decided to take a brief step back from the layout. Things have been going pretty well, but I need to think about a few details and consider what the best way to do them is. So I decided to build one of the LocoRemote kits I had in stock. It’s the Brush battery electric number 16303 from 1917 loco that ran at His Majesties Explosives Factory at Queensferry in North Wales. 

All the Brush b/e locomotives in preservation are rather unique/ugly in appearance (depending on your opinion) and when Chris Rennie at LocoRemote announced his intention to release a 3D printed kit of the models in preservation I couldn’t decide which one to buy. In the end I went to for the Amberley one. It’s called Amberley because that’s where it’s preserved. I like the curved battery compartment covers over the more angular ones of the version from Manod. 

I shan’t give you a blow-by-blow account of how I built it. Just to say that it is to the same high standards as Chris’ other kits. Everything fits perfectly together, and there’s only a few parts that need to be glued. The battery and control unit are under one of the battery compartment lids and weights under the other. Both are hinged to open, you will need to get at the LiPo battery to change it when it needs to be recharged. The on/off switch for the power unit is in the side of the compartment but is very unobtrusive.

The cab is rather cramped, and as a consequence, the figures that will fit in there are limited. Clavey Models in the UK make a couple but as the shipping for a single driver is over twice the cost of a figure, I won’t be in a hurry to get one. Perhaps wait until I need a few and get a bulk shipping rate. Besides, the loco needs painting, and it’s going to be a couple of months before the temperatures here in Minnesota warm up enough to go down to the garage and spray paint things.

Anyway, there you go. A great little model. One that makes me glad to be working in 16mm.

Amberley hogs the spotlight, Huddy lurks in the background

Amberley looks tall but still just fits under the door

Overall, a pleasing addition to the fleet.

Real progress

 The relative success of creating the workshop really spurred me on to make further progress on the layout. 

General overall view. I was planning a tall hedge behind the workshop. But I think a brick wall is easier.

The workshop interior. The up and over door feels right too. A short length of rope hanging down to facilitate the closing of the door will set it off perfectly.

Debris and detritus around the yard will help create the right feel. I might also run a disconnected length of track into the workshop.

Aerial view

The brick base to the building really makes this. The door adds something too, a big improvement on the plain wall previously.

The view is layered, creating more depth. Final positions of scrap  to be decided.

Calling Arthur “two sheds” Jackson

 That’s a Monty Python reference for you young ‘uns.

Progress ground to a halt on this layout for a while as I couldn’t decide how to treat the left hand side of this micro. I knew that I wanted a shed cum workshop on there, but I couldn’t find a shed to inspire me. Yes, I really do have to be inspired by a shed to build it. I don’t quite know how I found it but a video appeared on YouTube of a German gentleman’s Feldbahn collection. I spent hours on the internet watching his videos and perusing his website in the name of research. Feldbahn in Obersulm is the site, and I heartily recommend it. I don’t understand a word of German, but I found the videos very interesting. His backyard railway would make a great micro layout. He has, on his railway, a workshop, and it spoke to me. It’s a home built thing. Using pressed siding for walls and roof, and though I didn’t have the siding type to match it. I had plenty of different corrugated siding.

A couple of stills showing the workshop/loco shed

That was all I needed. I set to and using the video stills as a guideline. I started. I also had plenty of strip wood in stock, so I could model the framing inside, it would be clearly visible. The most difficult part of the project was deciding how large the shed should be to fit some workshop equipment inside. Construction was quick, just cutting wood and sheet styrene to size, and before long I had a shell that I liked. In my mind, it has the correct homebuilt feel to it.

Workshop shell. Not a match. But the original gave me the push I needed.

The speed of the project quite fired me up and before some of the glue was fully dry, I had a quick test fitting of some workshop equipment, just to see how it all looked. I think it looks pretty good.

The workshop seems to sit well in the scene

The door opening might look tall. It’s a scale 8 feet, and as there is little room for swing doors to open. I may model an up and over door instead.

That quick project has certainly got the momentum going on the layout again. You can now look for more reports as things progress in the near future.

Moving on in the new direction

Wholesale changes are on the way for the challenge layout. Though I thought the layout was generally OK. That was it. It was just OK. It didn't grab me. So I was looking around on the good old internet Searching for structures and their arrangements to recreate. Steve Thomason's ingr.co.uk site is an excellent resource and I found plenty of ideas. Also I found the shapes of some of the buildings at Twyford Waterworks quite interesting. 

One thing I did like about the original layout was all the different materials I had reproduced in model form. Stone, brick, rusted corrugated iron etc; it suggests that building were built at different times and for different purposes. Something I felt should be carried on in the structures for the new version of the layout. 

I had in stock a lot of wooden clapboard siding. So it was inevitable that it would end up being used. So I’ve modelled a long storage shed using that. Right now, that wall looks a bit long, I may put a door in there to break it up. The length and location is nice, as it funnels the viewers gaze towards the corrugated loading point at the back.  

The long wooden wall directs your view to the back and the loading point.

The corrugated covered loading point has an interesting staggered shape and roofline

The corrugated structure will have a working wagon loader in there. My layouts invariably have working wagon loaders featured. Another interesting feature of the loading point is that in this picture at ingr.co.uk two different sizes and styles of corrugated material are clearly visible. I suspect it could be corrugated asbestos/fiber cement and corrugated iron. I have some 7/8th’s (perhaps 1” scale) corrugated material I have used for the main structure and I’m corrugating my own sheet using foil baking trays for the regular material. The contrast between the different corrugations is noticeable.

The baking tray foil based corrugated sheet doesn’t show too well in this picture.
As soon as the weather gets above freezing here I’ll get down to the garage to spray it

The Landy moves back into the scene. I do like it there.

As I write this, we are currently in the middle of the December bombogenesis (or bomb cyclone) you may be reading about in the news. Right now, it feels like -30 Fahrenheit out there. It may be above zero tomorrow. It might make it to freezing (32F) by Thursday. Then I can think about going down to the garage to spray paint the loading point. Stay warm!

Did you know that Hudson skips used to be clean?

It’s difficult to believe I know. Generally, the only pictures we see of them are when they are battered and caked in mud, dirt, and rust. With that rust eating though to become fully fledged holes. It’s difficult to believe that at one time they were brand new and clean.

I often wondered what they must have looked like brand new, or at least just a few weeks or so old, they must have got dirty very quickly.

Then while leafing through Steve Thomason’s excellent website industrial narrow gauge railways in search of  atmosphere for the revamped challenge layout. I discovered some pictures of skips that were only months old. The rust was starting to build up. But they were quite clearly yellow in colour. Upon delivery this must have been quite the bright yellow indeed, probably matching the hi-vis yellow of the loco’s. On top of that, there was a logo on the side. “HUDSON RALETRUX”. The spelling didn’t do much for me either. But it was there, and working on the theory that you don’t see many Hudson Skips in a relatively clean condition on layouts. I thought that when I assembled the next two Binnie skip kits I have, I’d do them in a relatively clean condition. So I would need decals for this logo.

Hudson “RALETRUX” logo

I call myself a graphic designer. I spent 15 years designing and making signs after four years at art college. But I left the art and design industry behind almost 20 years ago. Things have some along a lot since then. Tasks that were done in design programs like CorelDraw that cost hundreds of dollars back then can now be done in Apps that are free or cost only a few dollars.

I design trackplans in an App called Graphic ($8.99). So I though that producing the artwork for my own decals wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Especially as the typeface was very square. Then I as I started started to work on it, I recalled terms like “node edit” vector/raster graphics, which I knew little about back then and had forgotten most of that by now. But I was confident I could solve those problems. 

Let’s get started…

I opened up Graphic and full of the confidence that working in a new scale brings, started work. It’s true that I got a tad frustrated when I couldn’t add nodes to manipulate things the way I wanted, but the simplicity of the typeface made it quite easy to find a workaround, and after a couple of hours had flown by. I had a logo that I was very happy with. It might not be exactly to scale, but it looks pretty good. Now all I have to do is print it off. Printing my own decals. There’s something else I know nothing about. 

Done! Feeling pretty pleased with myself

The lesson learned from this is to try things. You never know what you can do until you try. I need to take that attitude into other aspects of working in 16mm scale. Already this 16mm scale journey is very rewarding.

Next steps.

 The deadline for the Micro Model Railroad Cartel Christmas Challenge is past and I’m running a resounding last in the voting. But that doesn’t bother me, not in the slightest. I’m having so much fun with 16mm scale. When taking the photographs for the challenge entry post, I was shuttling the Huddy up and down the tracks, just enjoying watching it pass through the scene, and feeling very good about what I had acheived.

Overall view of the small layout 

Right now, there is just one loco. The LocoRemote “Huddy”

The simple trackplan. (Rock face removed to see the other siding)

The view into the yard that no-one will be able to see

Being busy with the Micro Model Railway Dispatch and taking other layouts to three shows in four weeks recently, severely curtailed my abilities to work on this model. But I felt that as the person who came up with the concept of the challenge, I had to see it through. So the layout wasn’t finished to the level that I wanted. But I really like what I see in the layout. The scenes have come out as I envisioned them. The large size, and the physical presence of the stock gives this scale an indefinable quality. There’s a feel that I can’t quite put my finger on. I honestly haven’t felt this way about a model railway scale since I first picked up Gn15, and we all know where that led. This shot below, that I converted to black and white almost gives me the chills.

Atmospheric “feel”

It’s fair to say that I’ll be in 16mm scale for a while longer, that’s for certain. To that end I joined the 16mm Gauge Society the other day. At only $25 for a digital membership, it was foolish not to. There are other 16mm indoor micro layout modellers out there, I know some of them. Perhaps there are more. Perhaps there are others just waiting to be converted to the idea of a small layout in this large scale.

As for the layout, the buildings have already been removed and more atmospheric, prototype structures to model are being researched. Some structures will remain, others will go. The plan is to keep the forced perspective element, because I feel that worked really well. I was very surprised with it.

There will be no change in the viewing angle either. The layout was also an experiment in running the trains to and from the viewer, rather than passing in front of you side to side. Again, I think this really works very well. I’m glad I tried it out.

Lots of excitement for the future then, keep following the blog.