Chuffnell Regis

[5BarVT]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

Although progress has been pretty reasonable, I should have taken a lot more time (and done a lot more research) before I charged into building the baseboards and laying the track.

Agreed, perhaps, but you wouldn’t have learned as fast.  And you wouldn’t have been kept out of mischief for a year 

As CJ Freezer used to say, an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory, and I think you’ve demonstrated that.

Well done.

Paul.

[Graham T]

5 hours ago, Gedward said:

Not bad for one year is it? I think you should be pretty chuffed with yourself.

 

Sorry couldn't resist.

 

 

Boom boom tish!

[Graham T]

Thanks for all the kind words gents.  Although I'm not so sure that it's kept me out of mischief!  I've been doing quite a bit of pottering today; one little job that got done was to add the warning notices kindly provided by @Harlequin

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Graham T

[NHY 581]

Evening Graham. 

 

I can see I have some catching up to do hereon........

 

Spiffing. 

 

Rob.

[BroadLeaves]

45 minutes ago, Graham T said:

add the warning notices

I can't read it from the image, but I'm guessing that they say

"This model is a complete swine to put together and the instructions are useless. Do not purchase if you value your sanity."

 

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, NHY 581 said:

Evening Graham. 

 

I can see I have some catching up to do hereon........

 

Spiffing. 

 

Rob.

 

Evening Rob - thanks very much!

[Graham T]

51 minutes ago, BroadLeaves said:

I can't read it from the image, but I'm guessing that they say

"This model is a complete swine to put together and the instructions are useless. Do not purchase if you value your sanity."

 

 

You sir, have exceptional eyesight!

[Gedward]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

 

Boom boom tish!

 

I see you're pretty handy on the drums there. Can you help me out with this one?

 

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord
Well I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh lord

The hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you and me

 

 

[Graham T]

Ah, you just reminded me of one of my favourite drum solos - have to share this

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjieD6CTYs

 

[Gedward]

4 minutes ago, Graham T said:

Ah, you just reminded me of one of my favourite drum solos - have to share this

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjieD6CTYs

 

 

Well I've been waiting all my life to get fed up of hearing that song. But it ain't happened yet. 

 

[MrWolf]

Cracking progress with the layout, as others have said, you've come a long way in twelve months.

Plus you're a step ahead with the dreaded t***table. Yours is complete and working as it should.

[Graham T]

Thanks Rob.  But I have to confess that the t***table is far from being 100%.  Although it has power, it still needs the "hand of God" now and again to persuade locos to move back off it after they've been turned.  It looks ok though.  About the only parts of the Dapol table that made it into the finished article are the handles!

[Graham T]

Here's the results of some of today's manic pottering.  Doesn't look very much now, but it's taken the best part of the day, would you believe.  The coaling stage has finally got its fire buckets, and I retouched the brickwork on the steps.  The post for the water crane's chain has had a lick of paint as well, and I've added stop posts at each of the engine shed doors too.  The shed has had a bit of weathering, not too much - soot above the door, and a few rain streaks, mostly from the roof cowls.

 

You might also have noticed that Chuffnell Regis has had another of its frequent snow storms.  I've used some filler on the groundwork around the tracks, and also used a very small amount to bed in the shed.  I think that's probably enough for today...

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

And here we are with the groundworks now painted.  I kept the track clean this time!

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

And a few other little details starting to go into the scene.  The barrow still needs a bit more attention to its paint, and I have a couple of oil cans to add as well.  Close-up of the foreman's pushbike reveals my shoddy brickwork and wonky window frames, unfortunately!

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

I'm after some opinions and advice please

 

At a bit of a loss as to what to do with the area between the engine shed and the front of the baseboard.  I have a small lamp hut that I'd like to put in there, and am pondering a grounded horse box body as a crew mess (as there was at Fairford); but wonder if the latter might be too much?

 

I'd also welcome anyone's thoughts on ground cover and so on.  I'm thinking about putting greenery down as per the pic below; the red line being the railway land boundary fence.  The grass within the GW property would be pretty short and bedraggled, and the rest of the ground would be packed dirt basically.  Does that sound anywhere near right, or am I howling up the wrong tree?

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Graham T

[BroadLeaves]

The first thing I would suggest is a paved path from the front of the shed along the side to the rear door.

For the lamp hut, why would it be there? It's a bit far from anywhere. If you were prepping a loco to go out, surely you'd want the lamp hut much nearer the track? Maybe near the water crane and coaling stage? Carrying the lamps all the way to/from the far rear of the railway land doesn't seem like it would happen in reality.

What's on the near side (off the bottom of the images) of the land? Packed dirt won't stay bare packed dirt for very long if no-ones using it - the weeds will soon start growing. You have a sort of wide road down down between the two grassy areas - where does that go to? Given the narrow gap between the engine shed and (I understand that the word itself has been banned, so I'll refer to it as ) "the thing that rotates locomotives" is too narrow for much other than foot traffic, having a single-person path widen to a large dirt area will look odd, I think.

[BroadLeaves]

One other thought. Legal boundaries, especially in open country, tend to be straight lines, unless there's a good reason for something else. Before the railway came, someone would have owned the land that is now railway all the way down to the river. The river itself makes a nice natural and legal boundary, and is easy to describe in legal documents. 

So, when the railway bought the land, why would they have three changes of direction in about 50 yards? Why would they not just buy all of it down to the river's edge? If they didn't buy all of it, at the very least I'd expect one straight line.

The question would be - what is the river bank used for, once the railway is there?

 

[MrWolf]

This photo, I hope helps to illustrate @BroadLeavespoint.

The engine shed at Wallingford has a cluster of sheds right alongside it and squeezed in behind the buffer stops. The two nearest the shed were a lamp hut and a loco stores. The one nearer the station being a parcels and cycle shed.

 

[John Besley]

How about an old coach body and van body as staff mess room and stores area

[BroadLeaves]

For the boundaries (again), I think the railway land has to go down to the river's edge, at least for a short distance. As you've drawn your red line, some of the bridge is on railway land and some is not. The railway would need to own all the land the track was on and the infrastructure to support it (metaphorically and, in the case of a bridge, literally). So, they would have to buy at least a "bridge's width" of land across the river. I would expect the whole bridge, including the end pillars and revetments, to be on railway land.

 

[Neal Ball]

How about the railway boundary being something like this in blue….

 

I agree the lamp hut needs to be nearer the coaling area.

 

Given there is an office at the back of the engine shed, I doubt there needs to be a separate crew hut.

 

 

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, BroadLeaves said:

The first thing I would suggest is a paved path from the front of the shed along the side to the rear door.
 

 

Thanks, good idea and I'll do that.
 

1 hour ago, BroadLeaves said:

For the lamp hut, why would it be there? It's a bit far from anywhere. If you were prepping a loco to go out, surely you'd want the lamp hut much nearer the track? Maybe near the water crane and coaling stage? Carrying the lamps all the way to/from the far rear of the railway land doesn't seem like it would happen in reality.

 

A good point, but there's not much space for it near the front of the shed.  So perhaps I could keep it near to the office door, as per the photo of Wallingford that Mr Wolf posted.  I assume lack of space elsewhere was why the stores and lamp hut were located as they were at Wallingford, so I could apply the same reasoning?

 

1 hour ago, BroadLeaves said:

What's on the near side (off the bottom of the images) of the land? Packed dirt won't stay bare packed dirt for very long if no-ones using it - the weeds will soon start growing. You have a sort of wide road down down between the two grassy areas - where does that go to? Given the narrow gap between the engine shed and (I understand that the word itself has been banned, so I'll refer to it as ) "the thing that rotates locomotives" is too narrow for much other than foot traffic, having a single-person path widen to a large dirt area will look odd, I think.

 

Just open countryside, I think.  In my imagination of Chuffnell Regis the town is over at the far end of the layout, behind where the station building is going to be.  So I suppose there wouldn't be any access onto the railway property from the front of the baseboard.  There would probably be some sort of pedestrian staff access on the other side of the tracks, near to the signal box.

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, BroadLeaves said:

One other thought. Legal boundaries, especially in open country, tend to be straight lines, unless there's a good reason for something else. Before the railway came, someone would have owned the land that is now railway all the way down to the river. The river itself makes a nice natural and legal boundary, and is easy to describe in legal documents. 

So, when the railway bought the land, why would they have three changes of direction in about 50 yards? Why would they not just buy all of it down to the river's edge? If they didn't buy all of it, at the very least I'd expect one straight line.

The question would be - what is the river bank used for, once the railway is there?

 

 

My thinking was that the railway wouldn't want to buy any more land than they actually needed, but you make a good point.  So maybe the boundary fence could run as per the red line in this picture:

 

 

35 minutes ago, BroadLeaves said:

For the boundaries (again), I think the railway land has to go down to the river's edge, at least for a short distance. As you've drawn your red line, some of the bridge is on railway land and some is not. The railway would need to own all the land the track was on and the infrastructure to support it (metaphorically and, in the case of a bridge, literally). So, they would have to buy at least a "bridge's width" of land across the river. I would expect the whole bridge, including the end pillars and revetments, to be on railway land.

 

 

And noting this, the fence should then run along the red dotted line, do you think?  

 

37 minutes ago, John Besley said:

How about an old coach body and van body as staff mess room and stores area

 

And - although it might not be needed because of the office space at the back of the shed - I'd quite like to have something like this, just because I like the idea of it!  (Rule 1 and all that).  Along the lines of this at Fairford:

 

 

So in my pic above the small black rectangle would be the lamp hut, and the larger one a grounded horse box.

[Graham T]

21 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

How about the railway boundary being something like this in blue….

 

I agree the lamp hut needs to be nearer the coaling area.

 

Given there is an office at the back of the engine shed, I doubt there needs to be a separate crew hut.

 

 

 

That's a hefty boundary Neal!  Looks more like the Berlin Wall