Road bridge

I decided the first structure to be built for the railway would be the road bridge, which in the real world carries the Purley Way. After looking at a number of LBSCR bridge designs, I decided to build a generic bridge based on common features rather than a specific one. There are no photos of the original bridge at Waddon just a blurry glimpse in the background of a station shot. As what could be seen was the typical southern region abutment I decided to use that as a starter and to flank them with curved supporting curtain walls which were quite common. For the centre section I opted for the Wills riveted bridge panels as the blurry photo showed a similar iron centre section.

Construction started with the four abutments as I needed these to be as indetical as possible to avoid any sloping or twisting of the bridge. Doing this first allowed me to cut all the panels at the same time, ensuring they were the same shape and size. Once the carcasses were completed I clad them with Slaters brick card and connected them with a centre section and the iron panels.

Next came the supporting curtain walls. These were quite tricky as they not only slope downwards but are curved horizontally as well. I started with the vertical shape of the wall and initially cut this as a straight line, however I soon realised this needed to be a downward curve. Once the vertical shape of the wall was sorted I then had to deal with the horizontal curve. After various experiments with cardboard I cut four formers from plastic and glued them to the base of the walls. However, after gluing the former to the base of the walls it became apparent this was causing them to twist. The remedy was to add vertical formers to the back of the walls to keep them upright and square. 

This left just the detail of the capping stones and pavements. The abutment stones were a straight forward square of plastic with the edges chamfered but the curved walls caused yet another problem. I rounded the edges of a plastic strip to represent the black engineering bricks but when it came to glueing it in place it just wouldn't sit on the wall because of the downward and outward curves of the wall. This meant cutting the strip in a chopper and applying the resulting bricks one by one over a couple of very tedious hours.

No not a tank engine, a tank with an engine!

Being a Wargamer I wanted to add something military to the layout. Something interesting that would catch the eye rather than just a lorry or staff car. As Waddon is very near the old Croydon Airport and after the 30's rebuild of the station the running in boards actually said "Waddon for Croydon Airport", I thought the TA or army might have conducted defensive manoeuvres in and around the aerodrome as an exercise. Therefore I decided one of the little cameo scenes I was going to have was a broken down military vehicle.

Attending the Reading Wargames show I spoke to the owner and former club member of SHQ Miniatures and explained that I wanted a pre-war looking vehicle for my railway layout, such as an armoured car or Vickers light tank. Peter's first offering was a nice Lanchester or Rolls Royce armoured car, which was very reminiscent of WW1 and was still in service during the early part of the war. I then explained I wanted it broken down and cutting the solid bonnet to put in a raised engine cover was going to be difficult. Peter then showed me a very nice model of a Vickers Mk2 Medium Tank. These were in service from 1925 to 1939 and in 1941 still served as training tanks in Egypt, with some being  dug in as pill boxes as a last line of defense. Therefore this fitted my background fluff as they old and outdated by the late 30's and just the sort of hand me down a TA unit might receive. It also had that post WW1 look to it. Yes it had a turret, but it also has big square high profile, riveted construction, machine guns sticking out the sides and a door in the back! "Ideal" I said, "all I need now is a crew having a smoke and a cuppa while waiting for the tank to be repaired." Unfortunately I knew this would be a case of scouring miniatures for suitable poses, trimming off guns and trying to add something that looked like a tin cup. "I've just the thing" says Peter and hands me a packet of crew sitting and standing with cigarettes and cups of tea! One I couldn't use as he had shorts and an Arabic headscarf but the othe two were spot on. 

Googling images of the tank I found how the engine cowlings opened and cut these out by drilling, gouging and filing the very thick white metal hull. I then made up new covers from plastic card and fixed then in place with super glue. I also stuck inside the hull a small piece of scrap plastic sprue with lugs on to give the general impression of an engine and manifold. Next I filed off the closed outline of rear door and added a new one slightly open, also in plastic card.

Pleased with my efforts I painted the tank dark green based on the one still running at Bovington Tank Museum and added spare transfers and weathering powders. The large letters and numbers were tricky but I found some on a left over sheet from a landing craft. The 'A' was a stencilled letter though so the gaps were carefully painted in. Next I painted the crew, which were the two SHQ miniatures, a Dart Castings figure and a plastic Faller aircraft maintenance figure, which following a little limb bending sits nicely on the hull with his head in the engine compartment. The figures in the pictures have had some further highlights and details added but other than that it is ready to go on the layout.

Alexandra Palace Model Railway Show

A visit to the Alexandra Palace Model Railway show is always a good day out and invariably quite expensive. I went along with the vague hope that I could pick up a C class, 2 Hal or even a E4 but the only sign of any of these was the C class in the Bachmann display cabinet. In fact all the trade stands were extremely low on Hornby stock and I didn't see a Hornby stand either.  Therefore it was mainly scenic purchases for the layout rather than rolling stock. 

 

The low rise buildings to the left of my station will be like those at East Croydon, which also happen to be almost identicle to the Wills kits, which I managed to pick up at Warley. Originally I was going to scratch build these based on the shops near the Reigate level crossing but when I saw how close the Croydon shops were to the Wills kit, why reinvent the wheel? Therefore I found myself heading to Langley Models to peruse their shop detailing kits. I subsequently purchased the ironmongers, the mangle with tin bath and the bakers sets. 

I also bought some additional gas lamps for the station and some lamps with a twist for the previously mentioned street. Generally I'm not keen on the Langley's figures of people but the ironmongers are good enough to put outside the shop watching the broken down tank (post to follow). Others may get put inside doorways or find themselves cut down and used as passengers.

My final purchase from Langley was a fret of man hole covers and drains. I think this is often overlooked on layout roads and adds just a little extra detail and realism.

Another purchase was a packet of the Wills bill poster hoardings to use as gap fillers and I will use the workman figure as a painter and decorator repainting one of the shop fronts rather than obligatory pasting up of the bill board.

The next items were several packets of Wills paving stones with curbs, which the larger sheets of paving stones do not have. I didn't know Wills did these when I built my bridge and consequently cut all my own curb stones. The sprues were a little deceptive in the packet as they looked like single strips of straights with an undercut to slid under buildings and two corner sections. When you open the packet you see this is in fact two straight sections folded back to back but offset due to the moulding lugs.

I then bought a few card buildings from Freestone Model Accessories to fill up the empty areas where some of the later scratch built buildings will go. These are hopefully quick build models which will add 3D structures and colour to otherwise blank areas of the layout. If you have read my other articles you will know that I like the Scalescenes kits and I still think these look excellent but with the additional detail comes additional build time, which I am not prepared to invest on temporary buildings.

Finally I have been wanting to get hold of the Cambrian SR Borail Bogie Rail Wagon kits for some time and managed to purchase two at the show. These will go nicely with the ballast hoppers, plank wagons, Dance Hall brake van and a Wills E6, to give me a permanent way train which is entirely kit built. These have now been built and will be the subject of a later post once I have painted them.

O Gauge on a budget

A good friend of mine at the railway club had some old O gauge stock given to him some time ago. He recently told me he had 'done a bit of weathering' and what did I think? This 'bit of weathering' was so good I took the following pictures during our running evening and asked him for an article to accompany them. 

It didn't end there though he also inherited a couple of white metal bogies and a chassis frame which we identified  as parts of an old Queen Mary brake van kit. This came back to the club as 'a basic scratch build', which took the drawings for me to spot descrepancies the prototype. This is his article:

"The GW open wagon is scratchbuilt on a Webster chassis. The Queen Mary is scratchbuilt using commercial bogies – make unknown. The vans are kits and the mineral wagons a mix of kits and Triang Big-Big train. The Triangs had the W irons drilled and filed out and the tie bar between the axle boxes removed. Metal wheels were also added.

The scratchbuilt wagon and the Queen Mary were built using 1mm ply (from Mick Charles Models) and card for the open wagon metalwork. These two were sprayed with grey undercoat aerosol and brush painted with Fox transfers added.

The mineral wagons were also sprayed with a grey primer then brush painted all over with a rust colour. This was followed by stippling on Railmatch frame dirt mixed with talcum powder to give a rust texture in random areas but where corrosion is likely to occur. The rust colour was not totally dry so some mixing of the colours occurred. This treatment was also applied to the interior with the darker colour (and plenty of talc) used more at the bottom of the panels, blending to a lighter colour at the top. The top edge is mostly a dark colour, again with plenty of talc. Next I applied Maskol in random areas on the outside and top edge where the rust was to show through. I found it better to apply the Maskol thickly, as although it took longer to dry it was easier to remove. Once dry the model was brush  painted with BR freight grey, all the markings added and the chassis painted with Railmatch weathered black.  When dry the Maskol was peeled away and a final weathering applied to tone down the grey and reduce the contrast between the two areas. This was achieved dry brushing with various paints  and weathering powders. The loads are builders sand and limestone roof chippings on a piece of shaped softboard fixed with PVA."

I hope you were as impressed with my friends rolling stock as I was. To me it clearly shows what can be done with basic materials and old rolling stock. Some would say it doesn't have the fine detail, or the under frame might not be quite right but to me they are far more realistic than a perfectly accurate set of immaculate wagons. And certainly a lot cheaper than £100+ O Guage Queen Mary kit. 

Cardboard City

When I started to consider the scenery I initially painted areas of the board where 

I wanted the various major elements to go, brown for platforms, grey for biuildings and green for fields. To my surprise this immediately highlighted a couple of areas where my vision was not going to work very well, primarily the road running around the inside of the layout. Where the road turned the corner following the inside of the track onto the end of the layout it used all the available space and left no room for buildings. Not very interesting. After some thought I decided to put in a sharp left turn towards the scenic break and place a builders yard in the corner plot. This also had the added advantage of giving me more room on end board for the semidetatched houses I wanted.

I then decided that building simple 3D models of the major scenic elements would give an even better visualisation of the layout, how the various elements would look in place and if they would blended together well. I could have built a reduced scale model of the layout but as it was set up for several months in my mum's garage I decided to build them full size. I had an excellent source of raw material for this as my office uses a lot of photocopy paper and the reams come in thin but sturdy corrugated cardboard boxes. These boxes are held together with very little glue, relying on nylon straps to take the bulk of the weight. So whenever an empty or nearly empty box appeared I would separate the glued ends and flat pack it for transport home. 

The first item I built was the station and platforms, which quickly made me realise just how close the station was going to be the the edge of the layout but did confirm there was just enough room.  

Next was the bridge. I had decided to put this diagonally across the left hand corner of the layout to give  more interest than one directly across the track at right angles. However, the cardboard model presented me with a dilemma. It totally bisected the usable scenic space in two, greatly reducing my options of what to place there. 

Also the road by the station climbs up to the level of the road bridge (the Purley Way) and I was intending to build this, placing some single storely shops on the road for interest. That didn't work either, as the slope and shops almost completely hid the trains from the viewing public for a quarter of the layout. So what was the solution?

My mother suggested moving the bridge towards the station but not quite 90 degrees to the track, this retained a more natural look while giving the corner space back for modelling. The road will remain flat joining the Purley Way slightly off scene so as to not hide the trains but I'm going to keep the single storey shops for interest. Finally I had to admit defeat and do away with the waiting room on the platform opposite the station, as there was just not enough room between the platform and the track in the goods yard behind it. However, it will still have a long canopy similar to the original and other LBSCR stations.

 

Metcalfe kits were used for the engine and goods sheds and I added a foot bridge, terraced housing, and fencing from cardboard. Everything was built very quickly and held toether with no more than Sellotape, pva glue or Pritt Stick. All this effort was well worth it and I now appreciate the advantages when people build scale models of their layouts at the design stage,  just to see how it looks.

Balast

I was asked a couple of times at our club show what balast I used. The answer was simple, a bit of everything. I wanted to get the balast to look the right size and colour. So, starting with the colour, that must be straight forward right? You just look in a book with colour pictures from the steam age. Which is ok up to the point you actually open your first book. It's a browny colour, no it's light grey, no medium grey with black speckles. Excerpt where the trains break on their way into the station, where the loco's stand dripping oil, or where fresh balast has been added and tamped down.

Well the size must be straight forward. I don't like oversized balast and a lot of people advise you to use 'N' gauge balast on OO track. So I bought the Peco fine balast, then did a test piece, err... No. I had some dark grey Woodland Scenic grey balast. Nice and fine but very...  grey. It was just too flat and uniform. So I bought some N gauge grey balast from Gaugemaster, a better, lighter grey with black speckles in, this would be great....  Still no. The speckles were shinny and the balast was very, very, fine, rather like grey silver sand. Woodland Scenics brown? No, far to red.  

The answer was a last ditch attempt at coming up with something I was happy with and involved a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. Yes, I mixed my own. What ratios did I use? I have no idea. All I can say is I started off with what I had the most of, which was the Peco balast and added quantities of everything else to it. I was rather worried I would get halfway around the layout and run out, so I mixed a lot of it. So much that after balasting both main lines I still have a 1 litre icecream tub full of the stuff. Never mind though there may always be another layout and all in all I am very pleased with the results. The final look will get some break dust on the way into the station an some greasey patches where loco's would stand, all gently airbrushed in.

Preparing the layout for its first show

With just four months to go before my club show it was time to put the layout back together and to get some of the major scenery elements done, specifically the hills and platforms. The first task was to drag the boards out of their eight month hibernation and check they all still worked. I managed to get it all set up in two hours without any assistance. This was quite quick and with an assistant to help me position the boards and a battery powderered screwdriver for the bolts I was hoping to halve the time.

Next on the `to do` list  was to connect up the new DCC Power Cab to the main board. This was a simple process as DCC is just a single positive and negative connection and just required removing the old connector and re-routing the power leads to the new location on the board. Fitting the DCC connector points was relatively straight forward. After checking there was no critical wiring behind where I wanted the board to go, I drew a pencil line around the cover plate and in the connector holes, to give the size of the required hole. I then chose a small wood drill and starting at the corners and working inwards drilled as many holes as I could until they started to join together. The final trimming out was then with a narrow chisel and course file. Aim for a hole slightly smaller than you need, as you can always take more out, which is easier than putting it back. As you can see from the picture ( to follow) these sit nice and flush on the side of the board. Three were installed, one for the main controller and two for the second but in practice I don't think the third will be needed. The big question that remained was regarding the power of the basic system, was it enough to run the entire layout or did I need the booster? Well, the system not only worked once it was connected but happly powered two fast trains and a third shunting in the goods yard.

I had also been given some black curtains formerly used on mixing desks by a friend at the club. Not only were these quite thick but they have been fire proofed and have velcro attached at the top. I bought several strips of fluffy self adhesive velco from Wilkinsons, which my mother subsequently informed me could have been obtained much cheaper from a fabric wholesailer and both stuck and stapled these to the edge of the board. I thought the weight of the curtains or a hot hall on as summers day may see them peeling off if I just them stuck on. I,m pleased to say that not ony did these reach to within  a couple of inches of the ground but ran around the three scenic sides of the layout almost to the inch.