Bakewell - Peak District Line BR - Layout Views

[Alister_G]

As a second post for the new year, I thought I'd do some photos of views around the layout.

 

I missed the 3rd Birthday of the layout, which was December 2nd, so this is a belated catchup.

 

Also, this thread hasn't had any layout photos on it for a bit, so newcomers may not have seen it without digging back into the depths.

 

Here's an aerial view of Bakewell Station and surroundings:

 

 

and a view from track level:

 

 

An aerial view of the goods yard:

 

 

From behind the Goods shed:

 

 

and from the Goods Shed towards Hassop:

 

 

A view across the cutting to the barn:

 

 

and a closeup of the abandoned truck - I swear those nettles have grown!

 

 

That's just a taste of where the layout is now, hopefully this year I can really get some work done to finish it off.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Marcus 37]

Happy New Year Al. Thanks for posting the photos. It really looks the business now. Cant believe its been 3 years since you started it, where does the time go?

Cheers

Marcus

[Alister_G]

Happy New Year Al. Thanks for posting the photos. It really looks the business now. Cant believe its been 3 years since you started it, where does the time go?

Cheers

Marcus

 

Cheers Marcus, Happy new year to you, Diane and Anthony.

 

I know, 3 years and counting!

 

I don't feel I got much done over the course of last year, work seemed to get in the way a lot, but actually, looking back, I did get quite a bit done.

 

Hopefully this year I can find a bit more time for the layout.

 

All the best,

 

Al.

[Jock67B]

Afternoon Al,

At home recovering from a hernia operation on New Year's Eve, so no dram and me a Scotsman!

Superb set of images as usual and I look forward very much to the next fascinating episode! I hope that you and your family have an enjoyable and prosperous 2016,

Kind regards,

Jock.

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Al, I see from those Christmas CCTs that you're going late LMS period! Well done!

[Alister_G]

Hi Al, I see from those Christmas CCTs that you're going late LMS period! Well done!

 

Lol

 

Sorry Jonathan, but I'm afraid BR are going to absorb them into their fleet, although they may have forgotten to repaint them...

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

As I said yesterday, one of my Christmas goodies was a Hornby Class 40 Diesel with TTS sound.

 

Being part of the Railroad range, it is externally very basic, and so as a gentle way back into modelling I thought I'd do a bit of fettling to make it slightly less toy-like.

 

Here it is out of the box, with no modification other than the removal of the coupling at the number one end:

 

 

 

As you can see, it does look quite toyish, and plasticky.

 

The body is just clipped on - no screws holding it, and once removed, reveals the undergubbins:

 

 

This is my first ever sound loco, so the sight of the speaker and chip is quite exciting for me... I needed to have a lie down after that.

 

 

The body is completely devoid of internal detail, no effort has been made to model the cabs, in fact the only thing is two of the exhaust ports are opened out to allow the sound out.

 

So, I thought I could do something about that, so I took some offcuts of 20thou plasticard and cut out the cab bulkheads:

 

 

Note the tasteful decoration of the cutting mat breakfast tray, I'm constrained to modelling in the living room, with the tray balanced on my knees, so as not to be unsociable   

 

Using an A4 hole-punch, I made the porthole window in the bulkhead door - it may be slightly overscale but gives the correct impression.

 

 

Referring back to the model, I had to cut the bulkheads off short, to clear the front and rear bogies. I added some relief detail using scrap bits of styrene strip and rod,  and then I painted them up in a suitable greeny-cream colour:

 

 

Once the overall coat was dry, I picked out the detail in various colours:

 

 

I built a rudimentary dashboard and chair out of more styrene:

 

 

and painted up a driver:

 

 

Then, I added the detail to the number one end cab, and the bulkhead only to the number two end:

 

 

 

That looks a lot better now from outside:

 

 

 

Externally. I weathered the body with various washes - quite subtely though, as this is after all a fairly new locomotive for my time period, and gave the bogies and fuel tanks a good coat of sleeper grime.

 

Back on the photo-plank, I reckon it looks a lot better:

 

 

 

I want to add some better hose detail to the front Bogie, so I'll work out how I'm going to do that.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Afternoon Al,

At home recovering from a hernia operation on New Year's Eve, so no dram and me a Scotsman!

Superb set of images as usual and I look forward very much to the next fascinating episode! I hope that you and your family have an enjoyable and prosperous 2016,

Kind regards,

Jock.

 

Hope everything went well Jock, Best wishes to you and your family for the New Year.

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Happy New Year Al, I see your up to your old tricks of superb modelling mate, that looks much better, really good.

 

Well done and looking forward to more of the same in 2016.

[ChrisN]

The cabs do look the business.

 

Not wanting to be a pain but in green diesel days was there a second man in the cab?

Edited January 2, 2016 by ChrisN

[Alister_G]

The cabs do look the business.

 

Not wanting to be a pain but in green diesel days was there a second man in the cab?

 

You might well be right Chris,but I've run out of suitable figures to butcher, so for the time being the second man's snuck into the engine room for a butty

 

Cheers,

 

Al

[ChrisN]

You might well be right Chris,but I've run out of suitable figures to butcher, so for the time being the second man's snuck into the engine room for a butty

 

Cheers,

 

Al

 

Al,

Of course they have run out.  If you are going t chop their legs off they are not going to hang around are they? 

[Alister_G]

Al,

Of course they have run out.  If you are going t chop their legs off they are not going to hang around are they? 

 

Ah, I never thought of that. It would explain the sudden empty spaces on the sprue. Maybe in future I should perform operations away from the rest of them...

 

I just hope they haven't spread the word too far, or my order of new victims crewmen from Dapol may never turn up!

 

Al.

[Mrkirtley800]

Nice set of Bakewell pics, Al. They do look super.

All the best for 2016 to you and yours.

Derek

Edited January 2, 2016 by Mrkirtley800

[Marcus 37]

 You might well be right Chris,but I've run out of suitable figures to butcher, so for the time being the second man's snuck into the engine room for a butty

 

Cheers,

 

Al

Actually he's gone off to attend to the steam heat boiler........or possibly a pee after drinking too much tea 

Anyway in those days the secondman was normally driving so its the driver that's probably disappeared. 

Edited January 2, 2016 by Marcus 37

[Removed a/c]

Very nice Al, and you "modernize" I stepped backwards and bought a Black 5 in LMS livery. 

[georgeT]

Really transforms the basic loco, can't beat a little weathering, great job Al...

[Sasquatch]

Happy new year Al.

Like the improvements to the "Whistler". Am looking forward to some more great modeling from you again this year.

 

Shaun  

[Alister_G]

I said at the end of the last post that I wasn't satisfied with how the front of the Class 40 looked. Remember that this is a Hornby Railroad model, and therefore very basic - it doesn't even come with a detail pack.

 

Here's a reminder of the out of the box look:

 

 

Even after plastering it in a wash of rail grime, it just looks messy, but no better:

 

 

So I decided to create a detail pack myself...

 

First thing to tackle is the big lump of the NEM socket, so I cut that off flush with the front of the bogie. I also added a proper coupling hook, instead of the moulded on representation.

 

 

I also drilled a number of holes in the buffer beam, in the locations where hoses should be.

 

I then made some hoses, thinner ones from bare copper wire, and thicker ones from 1mm round styrene rod, with thin offcuts of 2mm round styrene rod for the ends, and some 10thou by 25thou strip for stopcock handles:

 

 

These were then added to the buffer beam:

 

 

 

Looks better already, but a bit of paint should help:

 

 

 

Yep, that looks pretty good I reckon, just need to find a screw-link coupling from somewhere to go in the middle.

 

Here's a couple of shots of it on the track:

 

 

 

Would you believe, I haven't had this running yet, so I don't know if it even works, or what it sounds like, but it certainly looks better

 

I'm supposed to be decorating this week - and in fact I have sugar soaped and applied a first coat to one wall in Courtney's bedroom. However, whilst waiting for paint to dry,   I have made a start on the Parkside kits I got:

 

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Hi Al, it would pay to check your Loco, Peter in our Club is on his 3RD Class 37 (the first would go a little way, stop and FLY BACKWARDS at 100 MPH) and 2nd TTS Duke of Gloucester.

 

I've heard the Class 40 and the sound is really good so all the best with yours mate.

[Alister_G]

Hi Al, it would pay to check your Loco, Peter in our Club is on his 3RD Class 37 (the first would go a little way, stop and FLY BACKWARDS at 100 MPH) and 2nd TTS Duke of Gloucester.

 

I've heard the Class 40 and the sound is really good so all the best with yours mate.

 

Thanks mate, Yep it would have been sensible to do that first - only problem is I haven't got a working DCC controller.

 

I've bought a Sprog 3, but I haven't had chance to set it up with a computer yet. This is my task for this evening, in between coats of paint

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Thanks mate, Yep it would have been sensible to do that first - only problem is I haven't got a working DCC controller.

 

I've bought a Sprog 3, but I haven't had chance to set it up with a computer yet. This is my task for this evening, in between coats of paint

 

Al.

What's a Sprog 3? never heard of that unit.

[Alister_G]

What's a Sprog 3? never heard of that unit.

 

Here you go:  http://www.sprog-dcc.co.uk/

 

It's basically a little unit you plug into a computer by USB, and then you can control a layout, or just set up CVs and things using computer software.

 

The software I'm going to use is JMRI  http://jmri.sourceforge.net/ which is free.

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Here you go:  http://www.sprog-dcc.co.uk/

 

It's basically a little unit you plug into a computer by USB, and then you can control a layout, or just set up CVs and things using computer software.

 

The software I'm going to use is JMRI  http://jmri.sourceforge.net/ which is free.

 

Al.

Thanks for the info Al, Its still gone WAY OVER MY HEAD, but never mind, on day I'll get into computer control, (or NOT) I like to turn knobs and push Buttons.

[Alister_G]

This evening, as mentioned, I've been setting up my DCC controller, which is a Sprog3, using JMRI software to control it.

 

First, though I forgot to show you these:

 

 

Those two LMS CCTs I bought, now looking a bit less new...

 

Anyway, for the benefit of AndyP (and anybody else who's interested) the Sprog3 looks like this:

 

 

The black wire is from a 15 Volt 4.5Amp supply, and the multi-coloured network cable is a temporary connection to the track. The white wire on the right of the picture is the USB connection to a laptop computer.

 

The sprog controls the voltage to the track, as well as the DCC signal, so the 15V goes into the Sprog and back out to the track, and you can turn the track voltage on and off from within the software.

 

The Software:

 

(You may want to click on the following pictures to enlarge them)

 

The software running on the computer talks to the Sprog, and allows you to modify the settings of any loco, identified by its DCC address as usual. The class 40 has address 32, as it is D232.

 

Here's the basic information held on the computer:

 

 

As you can see it automatically detects the decoder type, and fills that information in for you.

 

The next screen is where you can edit all the CVs on the loco:

 

 

Not only can you write to them, but you can also read what the loco's CVs are set to, before you start.

 

You can set the sound volume on this screen:

 

 

With individual volumes for each effect, or a master volume that sets all of them.

 

There are lots more screens, where you can tweak the speed profile, acceleration and braking, and other options, but I haven't played with those yet, and I don't want to bore you too much!

 

However, there is one more screen to show you:

 

 

This is a driving throttle, for controlling locos. You can have up to 10 of these open at once, and you can shrink the windows down so that they are all visible together, so you can swap from loco to loco very quickly.

 

As you can see, it has a slider type throttle control, and the function keys for sounds and lighting.

 

It didn't take long to set up, and therefore it was with some surprise that I noticed that Bakewell has been overrun with smelly Diseasels whilst my back was turned.

 

It looks more like West Shed!

 

 

 

However, here's a bit of video to prove I actually got everything running - Oh, and thankfully the Class 40 seems to work fine!

 

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.