Jubilee Point TMD - 3mm scale TT3

[TT-Pete]

2025 is the 60th Anniversary - Diamond Jubilee - of the founding of the 3mm Society.

 

As part of the celebrations the Committee has issued a challenge to members to produce dioramas to be displayed at the 2025 AGM in Burton, with the only 2 rules being that it has to be set after 1965, and contain a diamond.

 

I had just recently started building a shed for another layout, but then I thought why not use it for a Diamond Jubilee Challenge diorama instead?

 

To start off I had delved into my bits box and come out with enough parts of the old 1960's Tri-ang TT3 diesel shed to be able to make a 3 bay model. Game on.

 

First off the base was made from sandwiched layers of sheet styrene and 12mm gauge track inlaid wired up for 4 isolating sections.

 

But 3 bays is unfortunately not long enough to house 2 long locos (e.g class 50) nose-to-nose, so I'm adding an admin/boiler block that the locos can protrude into. Brick paper used is the Brickworks-3mm sheets produced by the 3mm Society stalwart and much-missed Peter Gentle quite some years ago, glued on and coated with Winsor & Newton "Artists' Matt UV" varnish to prevent fading.

 

The first test assembly is starting to look good, but those are some pretty massive voids that need filling with frames and glazing.

 

My sanity and patience won't stretch to scratchbuilding frames out of styrene strip - so I knocked up some drawings and got the custom-etching service of 4DModelshop https://modelshop.co.uk/  to etch me a sheet in brass. (Excellent service, highly recommend them.)

 

At the same time I also purchased a set of Preiser 1:100 scale "Architectural" figures and fittings, a bit pricey perhaps but perfect for 3mm. Having repainted the figures I am calling this vignette "Meeting without coffee"

 

The Railman on the right is explaining some misdeameanor, but judging by the body language the Depot Manager is not buying it.

 

I'm hoping they will be visible through the windows (which are incidentally why I know that my sanity won't stretch to shed window frames) as the office will be lit.

 

Which brings me to the wiring loom. I'm using Woodland Scenics warm white stick-on LED lights to illuminate the bays, and it will be threaded through the roof and down the back wall of the admin block.

 

Something like this

 

 

 

with the overall trackplan something like this

 

Cheers,
Peter :^)

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Hi @TT-Pete, forgive me, but I can’t see where your diamond is - or will it be a surprise?  Just wondered, Keith.

[TT-Pete]

Aaah @Keith Addenbrooke, but note that they didn't specify what kind of diamond...  😉

 

So far I've thought of 3 ways to include a "diamond" theme (well, technically 4) into the diorama not involving trackwork. Stay tuned. 🙂

 

P.

[TT100 Diesels]

Nice work @TT-Pete, following this thread with great interest. 

 

Diamond wise, if you haul yourself out of banger blue into freight sectors, there is plenty of scope for diamonds....... RfD general, Coal sector..... just sayin' 😉.

 

Also, back to the diorama, are you planning a run out into a fiddle yard / fiddle sticks etc ? or is it as is, a pure diorama ? And  whose track is it ? 

 

Sorry, questions, questions.

 

Cheers

 

D.

[Red Devil]

9 hours ago, TT-Pete said:

 but note that they didn't specify what kind of diamond...  😉

Get pub somewhere on layout/diorama/backscene.......

Job done.....twice!

[TT-Pete]

Funny you should say that @TT100 Diesels, my initial concept was that this would be a stand-alone diorama, but as I was laying the track out to make sure that what I have in mind actually fits into the  space available, it did occur to me that you could easily put extensions on both sides... 

 

P.

 

 

[TT-Pete]

19 minutes ago, Red Devil said:

Get pub somewhere on layout/diorama/backscene.......

Job done.....twice!

 

Grrr. Stole my thunder 😠.

 

There will be some advertising hoardings somewhere in the background. One of them says;

 

 

The second hoarding will also have a diamond-related advertising message, but I'm not saying what. 🙂

 

So agreed @Red Devil, that makes 3 so far...

 

P.

Edited June 22 by TT-Pete

[Keith Addenbrooke]

If set in 1971, you have Sean Connery’s new movie, “Diamonds are Forever” showing at the local Odeon, or advertised on billboards?  Contemporaneous with DD ale I’m sure, Keith.

[TT100 Diesels]

How about this, its dead subtle and railway related, and it has 'essentially' already featured in this thread...... up.

 

That superb North British D600 Warship lurking in the shed, well, I will stand corrected but don't NBL have diamond shaped works plates........

 

But it is a very lovely model indeed. If my maths is correct, that makes 4 assuming it makes an appearance in the diorama showcase at the AGM.

 

Cheers

 

D.

[TT-Pete]

@TT100 Diesels you know that hadn't actually occured to me?! (thinks: damm, that means I've got to make and fit some now.)

 

P.

[TT-Pete]

11 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

If set in 1971, you have Sean Connery’s new movie, “Diamonds are Forever” showing at the local Odeon, or advertised on billboards?  Contemporaneous with DD ale I’m sure, Keith.

 

Agree. Something like this

 

 

Which takes us to 5 😀

 

 

[TT-Pete]

The rear retaining wall has proven more fiddly and time-consuming than anticipated over the past week and has featured a back to the drawing board, Plan B moment.

 

 

It started out as several MKB Modelle double-track elevated arches laser-cut card kits, https://www.mkb-modelle.de/gebaudebausatze-h0-tt/bausatze-spur-tt/brucken-und-arkaden-tt considerably butchered and stuck together end-to-end with the parapet added on.

 

Unfortunately Plan A looked simply awful and wasn't acceptable, so with a heavy heart and a scalpel soggy gluey bits had to be carefully prised off again.

 

So to Plan B - as you can't buy additional sheets of brickwork pattern card from MKD I need to find a brick paper for the parapet walls. Closest match on hand is some "ruby red English Bond" inkjet-printed sheets, but they are to 3mm scale and the colour's not quite right.

So although the correct scale for the diorama, the bricks are oversize when compared to their MKB cousins as these are to Continental TT 1:120 scale, something like this

 

So it's the wrong size bricks and not quite the right colour, am I bovvered?

 

Not really - I think it works ok as a backdrop and a bit of weathering at a later stage might help tone down the colour mismatch a bit.

 

The signal is also a compromise, it's an Eckon 4mm scale light reduced for 3mm scale by removing 1cm from the height, reducing the spectacle plate width, and adding a 3mm scale etched brass ladder.

 

Et voila, diamond number 6 😀

 

Job for this weekend is going to be finishing the bridges that cover the running line exits

 

stage left, and stage right:

 

 

Cheers,
Peter :^)

[PatB]

Clearly the parapet wall has been rebuilt at some point, resulting in a mismatch of the brickwork.

 

The signal looks excellent.

[Phil Mason]

Nice work going on there, Pete.

 

Phil

[TT-Pete]

I find it particularly gratifying when the physical object I am assembling actually starts to resemble the idea I started off with in my head, especially when home-brewed cider was involved in the initial inception... ;^)

 

The blank slate consists of a 82cm x  42cm piece of 1cm thick marine ply board with a supporting frame and covered with cork sheet. Why those dimensions? Because it was fished as is out of a huge pile of offcuts in the garage loft left over from our house reconstruction 6 years ago that the builders were about to sling on a bonfire before I salvaged them  (I still mourn the massive 70 year-old pitch pine roof beams they burned before I knew what they were up to) and that I thought might come in useful one day - so it seems auspicious to use it as is...

 

The bridge abutments were used to test out my approach for building retaining walls; brick paper stuck to corrugated cardboard sections made out of the dividers found in bulk boxes of Felix cat food. I cut another 2 ladder rungs-worth out of the signal height as it still looked a bit too tall and careful observation on a recent trip to Temple Meads confirmed that the signal head base is roughly at cantrail height.

 

@TT100 Diesels asked what track it is; well, I inherited a load from the late Bruce Smetham a few years back, it's 12mm gauge 3mm Society track base with what looks like code 100 rail, it looks better for TT3 than the 12mm gauge Tillig 1:120 Modellgleis that I usually use as the sleeper spacing is more prototypical, so I may well stick with it from now on.

 

The road vehicles are from various sources (e.g Matchbox, Kyosho) and the closest to 1:100 that I could find, the grounded van body is from a Tri-ang T71 12t van and the lineside hut a cast-resin replica I made from a TT3 Tri-ang original.

 

So all in all something of a typical 3mil scale hodge-podge...

 

Cheers,
Peter :^)

 

[Robert Shrives]

Inspired use of parts stashed away - I have several of the diesel sheds and the fuel point bits and tanks- albeit Triang did not make a bund wall .

The tanks if at right end would make a view blocker and balance shed mass.  Fueling point and release cross over would make the foreground. 

happy modelling!

Robert  

[PatB]

I'm intrigued by the possibility of using 3mm Society sleeper base with Code 100 rail. Does the sleeper base appear to have been modified in any way to fit the larger rail section?

[TT-Pete]

@Robert Shrives almost, but not quite. :^)

 

I also have a stash of Tri-ang fuel point bits to be able make 2 fueling roads in the centre foreground like you suggest, but the tanks are staying where they are as there will be a little cameo/vignette in the front right corner based around this:

 

 

Which again will have interior detail and be lit with an LED.

[TT-Pete]

6 hours ago, PatB said:

I'm intrigued by the possibility of using 3mm Society sleeper base with Code 100 rail. Does the sleeper base appear to have been modified in any way to fit the larger rail section?

 

This got me thinking so I went back and had a closer look at the pile of track, it turns out that both Code 75 and Code 100 rail have been used. Both types slide in to the Society sleeper base with no issues:

 

[TT-Pete]

 

So the Crompton (a Smetham cast resin body kit on a BTTB chassis) is entering Shed Road 1 from under the overbridge. The cat food cardboard patterns help judge the dimensions of my pillars and abutments imaginings "in the flesh"; they were almost but not quite and a few adjustments are neccessary.

 

I think I slightly overcooked the foreground bothy/office scale when compared to the vehicles (which are both from the range of 3mm cast resin transport models produced by Bruce Smetham) and the Preiser figures, but hopefully it won't be too glaring.

 

The gentlemen with the taxi are a little vignette I put together at the same time as Meeting without coffee, and are entitled Joe with his Advisors

 

I wonder what the Advisors are thinking? (the body language does not look encouraging...)

 

 

 

Cheers,
Peter :^)

[TT-Pete]

On 09/07/2024 at 20:25, Robert Shrives said:

 I have several of the diesel sheds and the fuel point bits and tanks-

 

Ta-daa. 😁

 

 

[TT-Pete]

I have finally made a bit of progress after a lot of competeing things having got in the way of late,

 

Track is now laid and wired. Each road is separate and has an isolating section, so that things can be shuffled up and down a bit and also -@TT100 Diesels - anticipating that things maybe might extend. The point is inoperable, it's a horrid old GEM turnout with the rails cast from some whitemetal alloy, weird and fragile. It's just there for looks.

 

The end plate is on so I can move to the "card, glue and brickpaper" workshop to knock up elements for the backscene - an overbridge

 

and several terraced house "ends of rows" -

 

 

 

So far, so good;

 

 

Diesel refueling point next I think...

 

 

Edited Sunday at 13:20 by TT-Pete

[TT100 Diesels]

1 hour ago, TT-Pete said:

 

@TT100 Diesels.

 

 

The point is inoperable, it's a horrid old GEM turnout with the rails cast from some whitemetal alloy, weird and fragile. It's just there for looks.

 

Hi Pete, I hate to be the harbinger of doom but just thinking that are you *really sure* you want to stick with an unoperable point 😯, especially since you decided to power up the tracks thus making the leap from diorama to micro layout ?

 

Just wondering aloud really, but hmmmm, still chance to fairly easily plop in a Peco HOm (or other working) point before it all gets locked into place with ballast / ground cover. Just sayin...... 🤔.

 

Again, apologies to stir the mud so to speak, but well, you know where I am coming from.....

 

As for the overall scheme, I am very impressed with how it is shaping up, really nice work 👍.

 

Cheers

 

D.

[TT-Pete]

17 hours ago, TT100 Diesels said:

 are you *really sure* you want to stick with an unoperable point 😯

 

 

Umm. Good point (ha ha) well made. A Peco SL-E1495 is now on order.