Exeter St Davids OO

[bootneckbob]

Thanks for your comments Mountain. I actually have 3 HSTs on the layout with Blue grey/yellow, Inter city executive, one with Executive livery power cars and the other with Swallow.
I've been looking at photos and videos of 1987-88 for the last 10 years and all 3 liveries existed during that time at ESD. Also the formations are copied from actual video footage but you're right in that formations and buffet cars could be found in a variety of different guises. I was trying to see if 1st class was always at the front on the down line to Penzance but no, could be either way, same with the buffet. Also having 2 1st class was ok on some formations but not on others. Pretty much anything goes in the time I'm modelling. I'm keeping the coach liveries fixed but the power cars could be on any of them, certainly with the Executive livery.
I've got a very long way to go and if you keep following this you will see quite a variety of locomotion, rolling stock and liveries. I've already got everything and its all hidden in the fiddle yard/s. Not really shown much of them at the mo.

I really wanted the TMD/stabling point as it will hold so many locos awaiting their next duties just as the real thing did. Also it adds a lot of depth to the layout which is obviously not a good thing if you can't get access to all areas, hence I'd given a lot of thought as to making the track plan authentic for the TMD but also to be able to sever the lines relatively easily. I had to do a similar thing on the open scenic curves when I took that board out so the shed could be used for storing the house furniture during the rebuild last year. That's been fully reinstated now and fishplates added to keep alignment perfect.

Tonight I painted the new scenic area ready for the earth scatter later. Pictures to follow!

[bootneckbob]

So here's one formation, granted this photo is 1981 Cardif-Paddington but it's the first picture I came across.

[bootneckbob]

Would you believe it this was the second! For those not playing the game; the buffet cars are flipped in the formation.

[bootneckbob]

.....Mixed livery and only one 1st class.

[bootneckbob]

Colorful isn't it!

[bootneckbob]

Going to avoid this, although the Hunt magnetic couplings I use on the HSTs make swapping coaches a doddle.

[bootneckbob]

Finally to round this off; the last BR HST livery with the original.

[Mountain]

It is interesting. What normally happened was that first class was arranged to be the easiest to get to at the London Paddington end for any services to and from London Paddington. So it was normal that a HST coming from Paddington into Swansea (As this was a regular service and still is) would reach Swansea High Street terminus at the standard class end.
What was very rare when the new grey livery started to come in unless it was done purely as a publicity event was a full HST in the new livery sitting next to a full HST in the older livery, and what was never ever seen that I did once see on a layout in a magazine was a full blue grey liveried HST sitting next to a full Swollow liveried HST as they are two liveries apart. Why? Because the way they painted (Now it is normally done via transfers rather then paint) the formation, they would start with the one power car of each formation, and then paint the other power car until all the power cars were done, and then paint the buffet cars of every set and only after they would start to paint the rest of the coaches one by one, and the very last coach on the very last set would be painted in the next new livery and skip a whole livery. This seemed to have been done for a number of years on the Western Region as a way of knowing which vehicles in the formation had been referbished or serviced? I am not too sure but there seemed to be a set pattern like this repeated over a fair few decades.
It is interesting that the photos of the buffet cars were sometimes turned. I don't remember then in Wales like this (I live west of Swansea and there was an early morning and late night service. It is hourly into Swansea. The First Great Western HST's powercars were totally referbished with new enviromentally friendly GM engines (I believe it was General Motors) and were said to be good for another 50 years when I was on the railway and this would have been around 2006 to 2007 at a guess. It came as a surprize they they were taken off the Wales (Usually Swansea) to Paddington service, as they spent massive amounts of money on these power cars and to downgrade them so soon after spending so much money seems like a crime as they really were rebuilt from their wheels up!
The new electric hybrid trains have taken over and they are said to have had a lot of reliability issues with them. Often it takes aroumt a decade or two to sort all the teething issues in a new train.

[Mountain]

The photos you put on at 1027pm is very rare to see as the power cars were normally painted first. The next two photos were common (1031 and 1035pm).
The last photo was very rare as the power car has skipped a livery. It could be that part of the set was from another region which had not got round to painting their sets, or they did not paint their sets the same way the Western Region did?

[bootneckbob]

Well if you think the HSTs are bad just wait till you see the loco hauled fleet! It's a colorful period as has already been stated, plus I have NSE running quite heavily in the region too. All locos and stock have been seen in research photos and or video although I'm not getting into having the exact numbers or names; maybe in time if I find everything else is completed on the layout I'd look at that.

[bootneckbob]

Had a bit of time in the shed this afternoon so I got the first scenic layer on the new 'hill side'. These will have trees, bushes and static grass in due course. I also painted the small section of rail on the lower lines. This is all new or firsts now so having painted the points I was pleased to see they worked fine and the train ran over them with no issues. Doing that extra work with the electrofrog points is worth it.
I've had a play with ballasting. A got fine which should be good for scale, and I think it is, but I'd used medium before so it seems really small now!
The trunking in the photos isn't fixed down. It will go there but will be more bedded in to the earth. Although I've added scatter to this section I will be doing more landscaping in places. It's one of the joys of this. If you don't like it just do it again.

[dan8400]

This looks fantastic, well done.

The ballast looks very good, as does the ground cover. It will be truly impressive when it’s done.

Looking forward to more progress.

Thanks
Dan

[bootneckbob]

Thanks Dan,
I actually hoovered off the excess cover yesterday and have done a bit more weathering on the tunnel and the viaduct. If I get back up in the shed today I'll retake those pictures again. I also think I need more brown in the ballast on one track. The ballast is just loose so I can play around with it but ballast is ballast and I think the randomness and mixing it up is far better than just one type. Again, Rich on Everard Junction has done a really good job on his.

I think the ground cover looks awful at the moment as it's like a childs railway layout (nothing wrong with that if you're a child!) and I'm hoping for much more realism in time. It's a tough one because I suppose you could not put pictures up to show it in build, but then that was my original intent, to document the process.

I might have to pull my finger out and order a grass applicator and a shed load more scenic materials!

[dan8400]

I agree about Everard Junction, his ballast is excellent.

Don’t worry about the scenery, as is. It always takes several passes to get it how you like. I like to get something down so I’m not looking at bare baseboard.

I’ll look forward to your next update.

Thanks
Dan

[bootneckbob]

Well I don't know where the time goes! I thought I better concentrate on onething and that needs to be getting the layout running, points sorted etc. Can't really move on until that's done. Trouble is the viaduct needs to be done in order to put the track back so I spent most of my spare time this weekend doing that. Not finished but I thought I'd throw up some of the in progress photos. I also took some of the bank away on the lower side of the incline as it was making the river flow odd for the viaduct. It's now as wide as the arch and central rather than offset and 2/3 as it was which was reminants from the original plan when a road was going under it.
I also made a start on the 2nd tunnel portal. Using an old metcalf tunnel portal as the foundation for this one. I used foam that I carved on the first one but it ended up being really close to the metcalf profile so I thought I'd just use one this time.
The bit that really takes the time with these tunnel portals and the viaduct is the brick effect on the arch. I cut the platicard in to single courses of half bricks then glue each bit seperatley. I still need to trim up the viaduct with the dremel.