Banbury in N scale - A great time at the Abingdon in March 2024

[Swifty11]

Progress looking good!

[roundhouse]

Thanks Tom

 

The layout will be loaded in the car on Thursday plus night so not much time left to work on it.

Ian

[roundhouse]

This morning we the gas bottle cages were panted.

 

Before I fix them down the gas bottles need to be completed and the cattle dock drainage grooves in the concrete surface need to be scored a into the surface.

 

Two staff walkway lamp posts are now in place with the remainder to be positioned on the next board hopefully tonight.

 

It's supposedly the going to be another warm weekend so off to Home base tonight to buy another freestanding fan for this weekend's show.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

A bit more progress tonight despite the having to spend some time to fix the garage door alarm that broke when I opened the garage door!

 

First photo shows the lamp mounted on the building and an unused post lying between the disused rails. Three other lampposts have been fixed on the next board.

 

Another task was to fit one of the Dapol magnets under the black crossing. This meant removing the section between the rails, and the sleepers and cork before packing thr magnet and thrn fitting a thinner piece of black styrene over the magnet. The operators side of the rail has bern painted yellow so we know which tracks have the magnets. Once this has had a weekend of use at DEMU, and if all works OK then other tracks will be treated the same.

 

Work has continued to on the cattle dock. Using a piece of styrene as a spacer and masking tape along the last line scored, and the next drainage groove is scored. The masking tape has lifted some of the paint but that can soon be rectified. Next task will be to scribe the angled grooves hence the angle on the piece of styrene

Edited July 4, 2013 by roundhouse

[Woolleysh33p]

Annie work. Keep up the good standards

[roundhouse]

Thanks woolley.

 

The tank car in the middle photo was one I picked up yesterday at the Bluebell. I Last night I removed the Esso markings and weathered it after fitting short Dapol Easy shunt couplers into the NEM boxes. A nice quick easy modification of bringing the number of TTAs available on the layout to two to run in the Bescot to Didcot wagon load service that runs in the evening through Banbury.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

This morning I decided to change the method of making the gas bottles.

I am now using Evergreen rod with a hole drilled in the top for a smaller diameter pice of rod to represent the the handle and valve shroud.

Before I fixing this smaller piece the top is filed to give the rounded top of the bottle. I once the smaller piece is glued in place it is left yo dry.

The first one I did this morningI looked the part but I dropped it. I Saw where it fell in tbe conservatory and spent 10 minutes looking but can't find it. I Could have made two more in that time!

 

So far 5 have now bern made and not lost. Will need a few more.

 

Tonight they will get painted

 

Ian

[jonas]

I lost 2 spare Dapol coupling springs to the carpet monster last night...I feel your pain!

 

Really enjoy the regular updates, your layout is a real standard bearer for what can be done in N.

Edited July 2, 2013 by jonas

[roundhouse]

Thanks Jonas.

 

There are nicer N scale layouts out there IMHO (Loch Tat is a beautiful looking layout for instance ) but I try my best!

 

I may have found a better method of fitting replacement springs in those couplers.

 

At the weekend I opened a fresh pack of couplers and added a tiny bit of canopy glue to each spring whilst still in place.

 

However one coupler had the spring missing.

 

I had some off cuts of wire from a decoder installation so I picked up one of these and threaded it into the springs in the little plastic bag they come in. Once on the wire it is then removed from the bag, a little bit of canopy glue on the lug on the knuckle then very carefully slide the spring off the wire and onto the lug.

 

All done under an illumining magnifying glass of course!

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

After fixing the loft water tank valve to stop the over flow running I managed to paint some of the gas bottles and put the grooves on the cattle dock. These grooves aren't as neat as I would have liked but they give the right effect.

 

A few more glass bottles to finish and paint before these and the cages get stuck down in the morning.

 

 

There's a few other details I would like to add but time is now running to do these.

Ian

[roundhouse]

Something has been boot ring me over the last few weeks.

The outbuilding next to the cattle dock was too long after studying the photos that Longrail had posted a few weeks ago.

 

This morning when I gotup I just had to go into the garage and lift that building. After using some masking tape to mark where to cut the xacto saw came out.

The building has had just under 10 mm of its length removed and luckily the joint is almost invisible after gluing back together.

It now looks so much better than it did. Just need to add some N scale pallets to form a walkway in front of the doors.

 

The remainder of the gas bottles have now been painted Rex and once dry will be fixed in position allowing me to finally glue the cages down around the gas bottles.

 

I had a little bit of time left this morning to carry on working on the class 168 headlights. This is now the main task left to do before DEMU Showcase.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

I was out last night seeing g parents do the only thing that I managed to do was to glue the gas bottles and cages down.

However this morning I found my pack of Ratio pallets so these were assembled and glued down as access to the outbuilding which I now remember being told that this is the lamp room. The crates have been weathered but a title more touching up and fettling of the area around them will be needed.

 

Thanks to Longrail photos the above could be done but also one of the photos indicated that I had put the cattle dock lamp posts too close to the dock. Luckily I managed to pull them out, very quietly drill new holes at 05.30 in the morning!

Once the posts were repositioned the ladder and support were added to one of these. The other will be done tonight. After using some superglue accelerator the lamp and ladder were painted.

 

This area of the cattle dock ock had a quick dosing of Dullcote spray to matt down any adhesive that might be visible.

I will probably spend this evening working on the layout before boxing it up ready to load tomorrow night now that it's meant to get hot tomorrow speaking it in tbe car during the day isn't a good idea.

[cornish trains jez]

Superb stuff Ian! I'm really enjoying following your progress on this excellent layout.

 

Best regards,

 

Jeremy

[roundhouse]

Thanks Jeremy

 

I hope I am not spending too much time talking about gas bottles and cages but there's a third one in red primer yet to build that is just to the right of the ones I have done plus a little more handrail on the cattle dock - it looks so different now since the first show back in 2011 at Barrow.

 

Some even older shots during the main construction period of the layout.

 

There's an awful lot of details such as these recent items that I couldn't have done without the help of so many people such as Eggesford Box, Longrail, Big Jim and others who have PM'd me photos plans and general info.

 

Its amazing just how many details there are on the modern rationalized railway. I keep finding more details to model.

 

There is still plenty of work to do the the Royal Mail site plus just to the left of the cattle dock where there is a small brick hut, gates etc but those tasks are for the future.

 

Ian

Edited July 4, 2013 by roundhouse

[shanks522]

Excellent updates Ian, Your attention to detail is brilliant, really like the work in progress shots to.

 

Cheers

 

Graham. 

[jonas]

Really nice to see how far this has progressed! I'm really interested in how you are adding all the small, characterful details - most layouts don't make it this far, so congratulations!

[roundhouse]

Thanks guys.

 

A few of the details are still yet to be worked out as to how to do them.

 

Those red ex NSE seats still bug me although I think I know how to do them. Had emailed a few people to see if they were going to do them in N but no joy so far. No doubt the moment I build them a kit will surface!!

 

I have some flower pots to chop in half to put next to some of the platform lamp posts but cant find them when I want to work on them!!

 

I have one item I want to do tonight if I remeber - if it works it will be quite noticeable.. watch this space.

 

Ian

[Swifty11]

Hi Ian,

I'll hopefully see you on Sunday at DEMU so I'll say hi, nice work by the way

[roundhouse]

Tom

Thanks.

 

Hopefully see you on Sunday.

 

Ian

[MRDBLUE17]

Hi Ian,

It certainly is different since Barrow and I was very impressed back then. Its great seeing all the detail you have added and I will enjoy seeing it all in person at showcase. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

 

Mark

[roundhouse]

Thanks Mark

See you Saturday.

 

I managed to do a fee more details on the layout last night before boxing up the layout.

It's already for loading tonight when we will set off and stay the night part way. It could be busy on the M25 tonight!

 

This morning I managed to get the decoder and LEDs installed in one of the driving cabs of a 168 but it's not yet been tested or programed.

That will now have yo wait till tomorrow.

 

ETA into Barrow Upon Trent 08.00

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

We had a very good day yesterday at DEMU.

Good to have a chat with a number of RM webers.

 

The layout worked very well but still a few annoying issues with some couplings giving us grief that hadn't done so in the past. Once these are replaced with Dapol Easy shunt couplers these issues should go away.

 

Looking forward to another good day today.

 

Ian

Edited July 7, 2013 by roundhouse

[Jon Gwinnett]

Would be great to see the layout again, I was lucky enough to see it at Barrow but I was part of the RS Tower crew for the weekend, so didn't give it the barrier leaning time it deserved. Keep the updates coming Ian, never enough gas bottles or whatever as far as I'm concerned.

[roundhouse]

Thanks Jon

 

There will be more about gas bottles when I get round to doing the third cage!

 

Detailin Work will continue after this weekend as we will be at Midland RAILEX next month.

 

Ian

[porkie]

Wow, having just read your feature in rail express.

 

Its hard to believe this is an n gauge layout. Truly stunning modelling.