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Everything posted by chris
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Gone for a thinner wash in slate grey followed by a dry brush with white. It's very effective. I may build the raised bed tomorrow.
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My mate was speedy with his printing and dropped them through the letter box while on his daily exercise. Completed another in about 90 minutes. I've now moved up to slightly more complicated office block. Still low relief but with more build outs and window. It is taking much longer to complete. I'm enjoying these builds. It's nice to follow a set of instructions and not become distracted try to think up how to customise it.
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They are suitable for use "below ground" so I'm assuming they will be OK without treatment. Mick, did you treat the blocks in your viaduct?
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A day to be indoors. I started working on a new baseboard which will be across the road form the pub and have a duck pond. Still haven't got the look of it in my minds eye so I made very little progress. Decided to start working on a backscene to go near Colwick Station. Had a go at ModelRailwayScenery print at home "kit". To save a lot of gluing and cutting card I streamlined the process greatly by using the plotter cutter, this also improved the cut accuracy. The model went together well, and only took a couple of hours to build, if that. The only issue was the quality of the print. My inkjet is a bit old now and the colour hues were off. I've asked a mate to print the next one I make.
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Too cold to be out today. I gave one carved block a quick wash with dark grey. I think I prefer this look. Might give it a dry brush with some white tomorrow.
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Yesterday I cleared the soil down to a level and removed as many obstructions as possible. The fence post foundations are an issue. I've chipped away at them to reduce their footprint. There is also a second set left from where the original fence stood over 20 years ago. I couldn't remove a concreted in Met-Post, so sledgehammered it below my woking level. My plan is to put in a weed membrane first. Build the block on top of that. Back fill between the blocks with soil. Put on another layer of membrane and top with stones.
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Because you had the brilliant idea of using them for a viaduct. You do know that brilliant ideas are rationed out, we only get a very few each.
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After years to procrastination I have finally started work on the Paltryville Ridge & Peak Railroad. My second railway in the garden, it will run close to ground level below Amblethorpe which is on a shelf about a metre above. Running on 16.5mm gauge track at 1:48th scale it is an American Narrow Gauge O Scale commonly known as On30. Paltryville is a fictional location found in The Miserable Mill, the forth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. The book begins with the children traveling on a train to Paltryville when they find themselves working as slaves in the Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. The Ridge comes from the design of the layout. The main run will be on a raised bed built from aerated blocks. The blocks have been carved to create a rock face effect, the railroad will run along the ridge. The Peak is in there because I like the interlaced alliteration and that the abbreviation P.R.& P.R. Ground works have begun. Blocks have been carved. Track is on order.
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When I add lights to trains I make them very bright. Indoors they look ridiculous, but out in the garden they are visible from distance, which is the point on the railway, they are to be seen rather than light up the way. The manufactures are sitting lights bright enough to look correct indoors and they look dim outside.
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Hatton's price hike is currently an irrelevance because they have no track to sell. Well they do have some. I bought a box of flexi yesterday, O-16.5 Streamline Code 100. It's probably the only Code 100 Streamline they have! It's more expensive, but it always has been, 12 in a box for £46. Obviously no Code 100 rail joiners to be found.
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I've finally started work on the outdoor element of this railway. Aerated Blocks have been delivered and work has begun on building the raised bed. I may have to start a topic in the Garden Railway section.
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I had some old Hornby track when I started. I've used it in the shed. All the new track I've bought has been Peco. You should have no problem mixing and matching between the two if you stick to Code 100, and you don't want to be using Code 75 outside anyway.
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Hi, My advice to anyone starting up is to search through this forum and find a railway you like and the copy it. This sounds unimaginative, but there is so much to learn when building a garden railway it makes a lot of sense to follow in someone else's footsteps to begin with. Having build a shelf based railway, I'm about to start on a ground level one. This time I'm using Mick's techniques of using thermolight blocks. While you wait on your house move one task you could practice is soldering bonding wires to rails. Its essential element of a garden railway and a pain in the arse. I have written a How To Guide on it. Best of luck.
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We've got a Kestrel hawking over the railway and landing on the OLE masts. I always take a break to watch him.
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An afternoon where the threat of a shower was ever present. Three panicked "drive everything back into the shed" monuments. Ran things differently today. I ignored Colwick, far too risky to bring that station out in this weather, and ran trains into Amblethorpe. It is a two platform terminus in front of the shed. Trains ran from the shed round a full loop of the garden to terminate there before picking up the return service to the shed. Some visited the refuelling point, accessible from platforms 2. Intermediate stops at Barnmouth were observed, apart from when it started spitting and everything was express. I enjoyed running the railway this way. Only a couple of points needed to be changed. It was possible to have two trains running and observing station stops. Not something I often achieve operating on my own. As a finale I ran my intermodal train. Looping round the garden it behaved rather well for its first run in 10 months. Yes there were minor derailments, but I kept a close eye on it and popped the bogie back on the rails while it continued to run. Got about dozen loops in before the clouds became too threatening to risk continuing.
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Well Mick. I had a rule when I started with Amblethorpe. I could only buy stock which had passed the bottom of my garden. So I should be able to get recordings for nearly all my trains. I think I may have missed the boat on the Pacers. Not seen one pass in service for a 6 weeks. They were still woking the York–Sheffield three times a day stopper, but that has been cut from the Key Workers timetable.
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No sound chip. I went hunting for video of trains passing the house. Found a Grand Central HST. Then went though my footage of my model and found one where the speed of pass was roughly equal. It's not quite rain, the real thing had 6 coaches rather than 5, but I aligned the sound with the rear power car and the effect is rather good. I've borrowed a microphone off a mate and plan to record some better quality (bass) sounds of passing trains. I'll then film my models to match the sound.
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For years I've kept a rain cover over Amblethorpe Station. I binned it a month ago. Today I found that the cover was a good idea. This was taken after I had unblocked the small drain pipe and the standing water had flowed away for a minute. Interesting that the trunking had formed a water tight seal with the roofing felt which can be seen dry between the two sections once I'd lifted the loose platform top.
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I'll admit that I was surprised to find that 8 running trams. 5 are Bachmann. The 3 Leeds trams are die cast models that I've motorised. Not that I can run them, my tramway is socially distancing in the spare room of my Mother In Laws. I've 4 white metal kits of trams to build. One, a Dearne District Light Railway tram is almost complete. The 3 others are still in their boxes.
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With the weather turning colder and wetter it was time to turn to the list of jobs I've been putting off to a literally rainy day. May be I should have written the list down, because i couldn't remember all those tasks I'd mentally put to one side. The one I could remember was to build storage trays for my trams. I'd dug out a suitable box over a year ago and it's sat waiting for me to get round to working on it. Procrastination on how to arrange the trams within in the box had to end and work was required. A shortened beard stroking time resulted in the decision to build trays to sit in the box with the trams laying on their side. The Tescos delivery had provided an empty box which had once carried 6 bottles of wine. The side of which turned out to be a very good match for my storage box. It was cut into a tray and glued. A forensic search of the house provided me with several packing materials and double sided carpet tape was used to hold the various lumps of cut foam in place. The trolly polls are a real pain to deal with and made it difficult to place padding on the roofs to hold them. Thinking about it now, if I get round to converting any over to Bow Collectors then they may not fit in these trays. As with all things the second tray was much quicker to build, evening tough the trans were a little more varied in shape, size and trolley poll. Each tray could do with a padded lid/cover to hold the trams down. And then they are done.
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Not the weather for being out in the garden today. Fitted sound to my Grand Central 125.
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One day I record the sound of trains passing the garden and then mix them into a video of the same unit. Thinking about it, I have a recording of a Freightliner 66 passing slowly on a container train. That gives me an idea.
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What class? I've got (my mates) 117, 118 and 121s in the shed. I think they may be Lima. We've DCC them so have opened them all up. I can take a look again if its one of those, or similar.
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I was waiting for this info from you. April showers no longer fall in April. The ground in York is rock hard.
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It is quite challenging driving two trains at once. Even with all my iPhones and iPads that let me walk alongside a train, it is difficult to operate more than one loco. Ideally you have one driver per train and a man in the signal box. I occasionally get that when my mates come round. The problem is that they all end up chatting and train watching rather than driving. Not the there will be anyone popping round in the foreseeable. I guess with a passing loop the trick is to come up with an operating procedure that enables you to run two trains. Maybe a freight could trundle round slowly while the passenger sprints between station and loop. There's no chance you could do that while filming it.