Diesel Plan

Here's a quick mockup of the Bo-Bo diesel Drewry kitbash that I'm planning. My version of the kit has an extra bonnet side piece in so I should be able to make this with only the parts in the kit, styrene sheet and some other bits. I want to give it Lyd2 style lights - hopefully working. One thing I've not worked out yet is how to fix it to the chassis.

Inspiration (from April)

I started writing a post back in April about some of the layouts that had inspired me to get back into modelling and design a Gum Stump & Snowshoe based module. The post never got published but I've decided to update it slightly and post it now. I've tried to keep to the ideas I had at the time.

Whilst browsing the web I discovered the website of Brian Fayle. Underneath the Arches is one of many layouts on the site. It is 7mm scale with trains running on 16.5mm and 9mm gauge track. The layout has a road viaduct which splits breaks it up and makes it seem a lot bigger than it is. There's loads of detail and guessing what the people on the layout are up to is fun. Brian's website also has some good articles on modelling. I was particularly interested in his Directing Traffic about directing where the viewer looks.

Another modeller with a similar style to Brian is Anthony Goff. His Hilvermouth layout also has lots of scenes with interesting people. The layout is in OO9 terminus set in the 30's on the outskirts of a fictional town. He has a nice varied fleet of locomotives, some of which are based on real prototypes and some are freelance. They include a Double Fairlie and a Mallet. There's plenty going on around the railway too so in most of the pictures it's not the trains which draw the eye first.

Sometime in the spring I began reading the Fairlight Works blog. Back in April he only had one layout (Fairlight Works) but since then there have been a few side projects. He's also been scratch building a prototype PL class for Invercloy Loco Works and a Hunslet-style loco. He has a couple of large diesels in progress too: a Lxd2 kit and a drewey bash to make an Indian Railways ZDM5. The ZDM5 inspired me to think about a Bo-Bo diesel drewy bash too.

Another influence for the idea of a large diesel was my discovery of the Welsh Highland Railway. Both ends of the line have some massive narrow gauge locos - Castell Caernarfon and the Garratts at the Caernarfon end and the Lyd2s at Porthmadog. The Festiniog Railway Heritage Group Wiki is a great place to find information about both ends of the Welsh Highland Railway and the Ffestiniog Railway. It has great pictures of the lines, including photos of locomotives, wagons, coaches, engineering stock. It also has some great pictures of the WHR's number 143 SAR Class NGG16 Garratt. We visited the WHR(C) in June - we took some pictures but still haven't got the film processed.

Lastly for something standard gauge. Nigel Burkin's Platform 4a & 4b - is a superb model of part of Reading station set in the recent past. I love the Network SouthEast third rail EMUs but what caught my eye and made me want to do some modelling was the Buddleia (hopefully my 1:76 scale botany is up to scratch). I'm planning on trying to make some myself for my OO9 module. Once I get round to making it I'll let you know how I get on.

ExpoNG 2007

I didn't go but instead spent Saturday painting the living room. However due to the wonders of modern technology I spent some time yesterday evening looking at pictures taken by people who did. Michael Campbell has written a ExpoNG 2007 blog entry and posted some photos. Stephan Fulljames has also taken some photos. He doesn't have doesn't have a blog entry about them (yet) but they are well described on flikr. Edit: Stephan posted his ExpoNG blog entry at around the same time I posted this. There are also some photos by Simon King (MTA) in this NRM thread.

There were a couple of layouts that I remember reading about years ago. Benfield Hall (which I knew was going to be there) I remember from Railway Modeller and it is part of the reason I'd been thinking about pizza layouts. There was also Eitomo which is featured in a book I own "Scenic Railway Modelling" which was a plesent suprise. Another highlight was Stephan's photos was the Nn3 layout - the detail and the way the backsceen and model blend togther is amazing.

The pizza competition will be judged by Carl Arendt - Edit - the results can be found here.

Hopefully next year I'll be blogging about being there rather than other people's photos!

Rhyd Ddu: Woodland scenics vs IKEA

Colin Lea of "Rhyd Ddu" also saw the suggestion in Model Rail magazine of using 'Florera' from IKEA as ballast. He carried out an experiment 99p IKEA against £5.75 Woodland Scenics. His conclusion - Woodland Scenics is better. However I think the IKEA stuff could be useful in a yard where the ballast was going to be weathered anyway. See for yourself:

Rhyd Ddu: Woodland scenics 1 - IKEA 0 (AET)

Bo-Bo diesel

With the Life Like GP38 I recently bought and some bits from an Airfix/Dapol Drewry shunter I'm planning on building an Eastern European influenced loco. I'm planning on an off centre cab design.

To make sure I have a sensible loading gauge I'm planning on using using the height and width of the Lyd2 as a guide. Working from the measurements of the Lyd2 here gives me a maximum of 28.9mm wide and 42.7mm high.

Pizza construction

I've made some progress with my pizza - track is laid on foamcore and I've started building up where the road will go using card. A cottage will go where the wire is with the duck pond in the bottom right.

I'm also planning on trying to scratch build a couple of more British looking coaches to run - my current design is slightly longer than the Egger-Bahn coaches. The design might need changing to make them fit round the curves.

Pizza Progress

Whilst waiting for a train I came up with a rough plan. The track will circle a cottage and a duck pond. The scenery will slope up towards the back of the pizza so that about half the circle is in a cutting. At the highest point there will be a brick bridge over the track. A road will cross the bridge, go down past the cottage and there'll be a level crossing at the front of the layout.

Over the weekend I bought a 36" length of peco track, some track pins and fishplates. I also checked out base materials in B&Q but didn't buy anything as wood only comes in massive sheets and I don't have anywhere to store the excess. When I got home I searched the garden sheds and found some chipboard that was left over from adding shelves to the wardrobe. It's the white laminated stuff so not the most obvious choice by it's not going to get used for anything else. I marked out my plan on this and borrowed a coping saw from a friend.

Pizza?

Inspired by the latest scrapbook on Carl Arendt's site I'm now thinking of making a pizza layout first. It will give me a chance to practice my modelling skills and won't use any points. It will also give me a loop of track to test locomotives on and it will be easier to move (hopefully moving house soon).

Intro

I'm currently thinking about building a small OO9 layout. At the start of the month I got back my most of my 009/HOe from my parents. I'm not really sure what I want at the moment. Something small that could be used as a module of a larger line in future. I might use the trakplan from Gum Stump & Snowshoe Railroad.

What I have:
Egger-Bahn 0-4-0 steam tank engine
Egger-Bahn 2 green coaches + 1 break coach.
Waggons - 1 tipper, 1 skip type thing, 1 flat waggon.
Vans - two Egger-Bahn vans - same sort of wheel base as the coaches but no wheels.
Around 10 Peco points and some short lengths of flexi track.

I've also got a summer coach and a kit for 5 slate waggons in a box at my parents somewhere.

Created a list of some things that I'd like on kaboodle. I'll need to get some more flexi track before I can build anything.