Tonglington Abbey & St. Renock Quay Kato N Gauge Unitrack Layouts

[Alexander Court]

I've been working on something over the summer, based on the fact we don't know where we will be living I decided to dismantle my large 4ft by 4ft 00 layout as it was a rather cumbersome beast, salvage what I could, and get planning again. I pulled open my map of the Isle of Siddington, did a little work on it to see what detail I could add, where I could change routes and geographical features and came up with this:

I decided, looking at the space I'd be able to have, to model the obviously overdone and cliche branch line terminus. This time at Tonglington Abbey, at the head of Tonglington Vale where the River Tongle begins in the mountains above and runs down to meet the River Muddle, and was formerly the site of an abbey which now lies in ruin but is a significant enough local feature to give its name to the station (not sure if I will manage to get any of it modelled anywhere though).

The line has meandered its way up from the stations of Lower and Upper Muddleston and Tonglington Vale and before reaching the station the line passes under a road bridge (where the scenic break is) and through a cutting formed by the railway builders deepening the large perimeter ditch of a castle mound, the mound itself still present with some form of bank and ditch arrangement, I'll try source the square tower of the Hornby N gauge castle ruins to place inside these earthworks. The line then fans out into a main platform road with run around loop with a turnout to an engine shed and another to a factory or industrial siding, and then the other side of the loop there is a bay platform road and a goods shed road. I haven't tied down all of the features yet but I have come up with a plan and started construction.

Here is the plan and tomorrow there will be pictures of construction starting:

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Thanks,
Alexander.

[Alexander Court]

Construction Begins

Some month's ago I had already stripped the baseboard I was going to use and so when Sinead went away to her mother's with the girls for a week I decided it was time to get to work, I took the board outside the front and unscrewed one of the supporting timbers, relocated it to where it needed to be to make the new board the right size, and then cut down along this beam to leave me with a board ready for use.

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With the board cut to shape and a plan to hand I started placing the straight track around where it should be and using a ruler I mapped out where the points and sidings were roughly to go.

Then I used some spare card to create templates/scenic bases, it seems that a level of one corrugated card piece should bring the land up to the height of the track on top of the kato base, but I will need to cut a piece to sit inside the passing loop for when I go to ballast so that it's not too much of a dip inside the run around. I then placed down the building pieces I had to see how it might look.

Alex

[Alexander Court]

So, the easy part of the board construction done, it was time to tackle the issue of the the wrap around back scene boards. Unfortunately at this time the weather became somewhat wetter which required me to retire to the kitchen, I basically just screwed the remaining mdf board (which had been unscrewed from the remaining frame) to the back of the board allowing the right height and trimmed it with me hand saw to straight along the bottom of the frame which paralleled the timber. Then I repeated the process with the end pieces. Here are some pics of the process and my progress:

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

Time for another update, this one is about building a bridge.

In order to disguise the exit to the fiddle yard area I decided to construct a bridge, but I didn't want to spend money on a kit when I had materials to hand. Using parts from a Peco N gauge platform I had built before and some 00 brick sheeting which came in a surprise bundle Sinead got me as a present from a model shop for Christmas.The size of the bricks on the sheeting looks good enough for large blocks of stone in N gauge.

By cutting the platform sides into shorter sections I managed to construct the sides to the bridge ontop of the plastic wall sheeting which will show its brick side beneath:

Then I placed the bridge deck in its location, measured walls to hold it up and glued them into the right place:

I then took the bridge and painted it in grey and glued it to the board which I will show off in the next update.

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

Having painted the the bridge I fitted it with the newly built up landscape and retaining walls, also painted. I then cut the hole to the fiddleyard:

I've had the last of the track delivered and some kits have arrived too so I ought to be able to get those sorted and this updated soon.

Alexander.

[Alexander Court]

Over in the UK I've heard that they are all melting in the sun....meanwhile in South West Kerry...

Still, gotta keep oneself entertained after work on these miserable wet evenings:

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(Easy to build my back side!)

Some shots from under the bridge, showing off the stonework, with different focuseseseses:

And a general view of the layout (before I rearranged the rear siding):

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

Building the signal box

This has to be one of the most fiddly kits I've ever had to construct. I started by prepainting the pieces (I had to repeatedly touch up the paint which I kept ruining with my smudgey fingers). Then I struggled to get the four base walls to stay in line with eachother while the floor above glued in the correct place,bit of a nightmare.

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I managed to eventually get the upper walls stuck down too, painted the floor brown too and glued half a grey painted man attached to a matchstick to keep him upright into the box to be Ned the signal man:

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Side shot with the walls on but before the painful task of fitting the outside fencing and steps:

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The most difficult part of the whole kit was this little box of terror, four small pieces of plastic, with grooves for alignment, should have been a doddle, but no! Everytime I had one wall fitted to another and went to fit the third it kept either falling apart or getting stuck to my fingers, I don't even know how I got it to this stage but I did.

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And the finished article fixed to a card base for stability which I then painted grey to match the brick base:

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Alexander

[Alexander Court]

After the signal box it was time to start the terrace on the street, I didn't fit windows to the rear or even paint the rear walls. Still it was a thousand times easier to build the houses than the signal box and it came out reasonably alright I think:

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And here they are on the layout,the track arrangement is going to be different to how it looks here:

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

Out came the newspaper and the pva and covered the landscape:

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

I spent an evening building the corner pub and corner shop kestrel kits. I painted up the shop in the colour scheme of the local butcher:

And the corner pub I painted up as the pub I work at, 'O'Dwyer's, The Villa':

And here are a few of the gifts Sinead got me for my birthday on the siding:

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

A general view of Tonglington Abbey station on a busy enough day:

The arrival of my other birthday presents, a minitrix class 27, a lima mk1 and a fish van:

Pulling up at the platform. The cattle wagons are parked up beside where a loading platform will be.

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

I also got a water tower kestrel kit and a Metcalfe single road engine shed for my birthday which I had to build, here is a little picture of my work station.

And here are the pair finished:

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And I also painted my station up to match the rest of the buildings:

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

Base painted the hills I had already created and made a country lane out of polyfiller stuff.
A view from the castle earthworks:

View from the road bridge:

General overview:

Waiting for the off:

Alexander

[Alexander Court]

Also,I built a small loading platform for livestock and other goods out of card, newspaper, and some peco platform sides I had spare:

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Alexander

[Alexander Court]

Just a couple of shots of the developing street:

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Alexander