Lacathedrale

The 3D printed roofs look promising: The finish for the roofs isn't anything to write home about, they will need to be sanded back and coated in rizla paper I think: I also need to sand the edges of the print and reduce the height of the internal partitions of each carriage to clear the strengthening ribs underneath the roofs, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

A little tidying up still required but the lining is done. I think the decals are going to break me, though - particularly the double-layer required for the all-over Umber brake:

No plans for a pelmet or additional lighting while at home, the room is more than bright enough for my needs presently, and it not intruding too much into the rest of the space is one of the compromises to get it there. I'm still not sure if I'll ever exhibit it, but if I did I'd need to figure out a separate setup and would have the lighting integrated with a set of legs, I think.

The ends are laser cut 6mm ply squares with matching dowel/bolt holes to match the baseboards. The idea would be to bolt them face to face to create a crate. The backscene would form the 'sides' of the crate. I'm not expecting it to be used for storage, but rather that it's protected from damage and dust if it needs to be stored for any extended period... Maybe a softwood frame and 3mm ply skin would be a better idea than just a piece of ply screwed to the back?

Fair point. I have 500mm square 'crate ends' to box the layout up if it needs to be stored or transported, and so that limits/suggests a height of ~400mm above the baseboard surface to yield a sealed box. Is 6mm ply self supporting enough for this? or some other suggestion? I have been tidying up the coaches too, fun tunes:

Well, the layout is temporarily in place: Due to the positioning of the boiler condensation and feed pipes on the y axis, that brick pier on the x axis, and the window on the z axis - I've had constraints on the overall height and lateral position. but I think in general it works OK. That said, I'm debating whether to cut a recess into the throat board to permit the layout to fit around that brick pier and bring it closer to the wall - I'd only move it back about 3" so no major gain, but it not sitting flush is making me feel all kinds of strange. Maybe it will be different with a backscene... My normal technique for fixing rails at board joints would be to use PCB sleepers held down with araldite, but I generally haven't used roadbed like this before - so I think this time it may be an opportunity for flathead brass screws given distance between baseboard and rail foot. The bolts I ordered to fix the boards together are a little short, so I've ordered some more, along with screws - and so I figure that my next step is to finish bolting the brackets together (they have a wide blank for the board joints to sit ontop of which is currently just resting in place), and then look at laying the rails across the joins.

No turning back now...

The first lick of paint goes on, and I'm not unhappy: They of course need another coat of the cream especially in the brake end panels, but overall I'm fairly pleased with how they're looking. Please forgive that I placed the all-over Umber brake vehicle the wrong way around, it's too early and I've only had one coffee. The paint is my usual recipe - Vallejo Heavy Brown for the interior, the Umber is 7:1 Chocolate Brown to Black, and the off-white is 7:1 White to Chocolate Brown. I had on previous vehicles used 7:1 Pale Sand to Chocolate Brown which gave a much more yellow cream colour. I'm not yet decided which I prefer, but this does at least look distinct from GWR-style chocolate and cream so I think I'll stick with it. My layout is set 1912ish so the umber scheme will only have been rolled out to those carriages due for maintenance - hence the continued appearance of the 1904? scheme.

As author one of the two or three blogs I read, I listen to your opinion.

They are quite different and shine most when they are curated well as a content-management-system, like Mikkel's, rather than a stream-of-consciousness series of updates like one might see on a thread.

One thing that always struck me as a little odd was Curly Lawrence talking about an LBSCR Single hauling a long, heavy train up and over the BML only to pull into London Bridge with the smokebox 'glowing hot' !

Right, I think now the carriages are about as done as they're going to be structurally: They are missing a few things, but I think they give a good impression and at this stage having them (at least partially) finished is more important than them being perfect. The last piece of work was the moulding on the outside of the ends and around the lookouts (0.5mm x 0.3mm styrene strip) and the steps (trimmed L-girder).

I'm about to embark shortly on laying some track which is going to need some fairly consistent curves and bends. Rather than dumping ££'s into tracksetta, I find it hard to believe there's not a laser cutting firm who can knock out straights, radius and track spacing jigs for a few quid - but I can't seem to find any. Am I being thick?

Oh, so you fill the bottle, and don't immerse the whole thing? Interesting!!

Which way do you tape the plasticard to the bottle? Are you submerging the whole thing? None of my bottles are long enough so mine has to be done in two stages, but that bit didn't seem to be a problem...

I've taken a little diversion through to some historical wargaming in the intervening period, but with my painting queue looking rather sparse, the heretofore neglected Billinton Carriages are looming large. I'm starting to wonder if balsa wood or laminated solid styrene are a better shout than trying to curve thinner sheet around a wine bottle. If I use lateral strips of tape I end up with a rippled edge. If I use longitudinal strips of tape then they're not strong enough to hold the styrene in place with the addition of water. Does anyone have any insight?

I understand the WTT for the LCDR pre-1900 suggests cattle traffic from the GER were also sent onwards to Hither Green, to be collected and marshalled for some bizarre reason at Holborn Viaduct - quite why, I'm not sure? Maybe just tacking a few cattle vans onto a diagrammed train would be easier than sending them across country? I bought this annual for this purpose and can provide photographs, scans if required.

I'm afraid not much progress other than laying some WS foam trackbed down on the boards. There have been no change of plans, just that over Christmas, and then whilst Skiing, the garage has been playing host to all the accoutrement of my camper van and so hardly in a position to do lots of modelling. I have however got the shelf brackets, screws and rawlplugs to mount the board supports to the wall, so we should at least have it up and mounted in position for final track playing during the next increment of work.

There aren't many photographs of Haywards Heath goods yard, but here is one: This is the approximate location and orientation: As my local station, and having never seen this before I feel like there are so many questions to ask... I wasn't aware that HHE formed any meaningful marshalling location, and yet there are filled stone/stand/gravel hoppers in the foreground and nowhere they can be unloaded. Why? There is coal in the staithes and infront of the loading dock, but the siding looks essentially derelict - particularly with the brake carriage against the dock, what would be happening here? Looks like BR steel XP opens by the staithes? What is the big black box at the end of the dock? BR Standard brake van behind the staithes? Anything else interesting I have missed?

I wrapped it around, overlapping - should I have gone along?

I’m not sure how to avoid the wavy edge on the roof - I’ve immersed multiple times into hot water while well taped to a wine bottle and I just end up with this. I’m not sure if styrene angle along the inside edge would help or hinder? Or maybe immerse a much wider sheet and then cut the middle out for yse and discarding the rest?

Yes, which would work except when/if someone opens the door without removing the building and it gets crushed, which I'm sure will be inevitable! I could lower the layout a little, I guess? Anyway, I got the boards together for the first time and they're good - and my little Terrier runs though the whole layout with just a single DC feed from one of the throat tracks, which I guess is thanks to the trickery of the Peco Unifrog points! I then pulled my finger out and got the foam laid on the second board: I'm pleased that it doesn't look too crowded. I'll trim the edges of the foam back once the track is laid, I'll either have to wait until the shelf supports arrive to be fitted to the wall, or the domestic authorities vacate the premises for long enough for me to get the boards in, track laid and glued in place, the glue to harden up, and then the tracks split again. Speaking of splitting, my broad idea is to cut away the foam under the rail joins and replace with 6mm ply araldited in place, with 0.5mm pcb sleepers between that and the track. It has only just occurred to me that I'm going to have to use foam underlay in my fiddle yard to bring the height of the tracks up properly, and some more 6mm platforms for the alignment pins to fit into.

I've been slowly working on the various carriages, and I think the Brake Third is done but for paint and roof: I forgot to cut out the lookouts while the ends were in the flat so this was a bit hair raising, particularly since the beading was in place too - but it has all worked out OK in the end. Annoyingly, I did this with BOTH brake carriages! I also realised that I had forgotten to add the outer beading to the ends, so that's another eight fiddly strips to fit. Somewhat bizarrely the three carriages I've chosen to build are ALL electrically lit - so any further carriages I build are going to have to be gas lit to redress the balance, I think. Layout On the layout I've managed to get all the pattern-maker dowels installed, the traverser ends planed down and fitted (it now slides very easily) and I've ordered some shelf brackets. The plan is to screw them to the wall, and screw some planks atop them so the boards have a bit of lateral movement before falling off their supports. Annoyingly, since I planned the layout and bought the boards I have had a new boiler fitted, which has pushed the layout about 6" to the left, which brings the arc of the up-and-over door very close indeed to the baseboards: The left hand of the layout is going to be the station concourse and inside face of the station building, something like the below: The concourse itself will easily clear, but I'm not sure that the building will without the layout being lowered quite a bit - and it must be high enough to fit bicycles underneath. Ah, fun times!

The 48' Composite, and two 54' brakes are basically complete save for painting and roofs now - and I think I have the perfect wine bottle to mould the roofline onto - but out of sellotape! Before I get the airbrush going and get the first coat of umber on them, I thought I'd share this picture, which is (at the moment) what I'm going for: I should highlight however, in a slightly less ambitious scale!

Thank you for the interesting picture of Maybank at Platform Level - the layout has always held a big attraction for me and I believe I've read everything (contemporaneously) written about it.