UppyDownyRoundyRoundyRailway

[End2end]

It's already got some depth of colour. It will only get better.
Good to see you back Ned.
Thanks
End2end

[Phred]

NedFlanders wrote:
the second half of the embankment has only the first two layers of grass and the initial clumps.

Sounds like it's growing naturally, like the real thing. Looks great!

[NedFlanders]

(Thanks for the welcome back - we are a busy clan so most of our pastimes get phases where we enjoy them and then are quietly left to wait. I never really go away )

Now ( Slightly out of Chronological order....) I had also been looking at the area above the two tunnel mouths. In order that it didnt look too odd I knew I'd have to "bury" them in the hillside.

So I mocked up the rough levels with a cardboard box suitably re-engineered and some loose aeroboard.

Happy with the rough look I relocated that board to the Kitchen table and cut out and glued down some basic blocks.

A bit of aggressive redevelopment work and I had my rough hillforms. You will notice that to the right of the inner line it has room for another line inside it. This is where I had planned to have an old headshunt, suitably weathered and overgrown, as if there had been a goods yard inside the station with a headshunt coming out as far as the top of the embankment.

The edges of the cutting will be suitably "rocky", I found these Noch light rock faces. I'm trying to avoid weight where so I hope I will be able to break these up and colour/weather accordingly.

I grew up 50 yards away from the distant bridge in this image, so this is the rough look that I will be going for - including the "ruined" folly in the upper left corner that you can just see. ( many happy days in my youth rattling around here long before it was tidied up and is now in use as a fine walkway).

Although, there's something about my upper station I'm not fully happy about.........

Until next time fellow Navvies!

Ned.

[Mountain]

You have done well... Really good so far.

[NedFlanders]

So what about the upper station was I not happy about then?

The original original plan was to have a turntable on one side of the track and a yard on the other - with the main lines tracking diagonally across the board - but.... that would have made it all track and some of it would have been over the lower station, so we shot that down as an idea.

The next thought, and what we did, was as below - the main lines running at the back of the board and a two line "local industry" on the inside - a small container yard perhaps, a permanent way dept, etc. etc.

But.... the yard lines came too close to the running line, the sidings themselves could "just" take a four coach train, which meant the loco would foul the point. I could perhaps fit double slip and put a 1st radius head shunt..... but the curved platform looked plain daft and it would always be a bit of track just shoehorned in. There! I said it. Perhaps I could shorten the two lines and shuffle them to be parallel to the main lines?... No - the platform would still look daft!

What about storage? No, you have a plan for more storage off the "Exchange" loops on the lower level. Just get over it!

So out comes the scraper, having used Copydex to glue down track means the track/cork comes up really easy.

A quick bit of cutting and splicing and gluing.

Then a quick bit of Aeroboard cutting and some testing is done.

Until next time neighbours.

[NedFlanders]

It was a bit busy elsewhere this week so a couple a small jobs.

The platforms were trimmed back to size, some cork strips were laid under the platforms be to raise them up to the right height for the rails. Timber blocks laid where the platforms carry across a baseboard join. After doing a final clearance line marking with the longest carriages and overhanging locos "Fronts", the platforms were glued down with Copydex in case I got the clearance wrong and need to lift them later.

Metcalfe Platform edging was then joined together with small strips of paper on the reverse of the joins and trimmed to length and glued on with the FoamTac Glue.

Next some Humbrol 29 was sprayed on ( from a can ) the track to tone it down and also to match the mix of Peco and Hornby track sleepers, all the while protecting the finished platform edges with strips of card ( perhaps I should have Humbrol'd the track before putting on the platform edges.... ).

To help disguise the screwheads at the baseboard joins I use offcuts from sleepers to put in a representation of sleepers. I will tweak the look once the ballasting is done.

We'll have a discussion next week on what we will do with the landform around these platforms. I think we will be "burying" them in the landscape - perhaps with some outbuildings of a farm in the dip on the inside...... maybe not. I'm leaning towards less is more here.

Theres a similar debate going on on what type of platform surface to put down, the Metcalf tarmac sheet is very apealing, but using filler/tarmac scenic products would have less joins. Decisions, decisions!

Cheerio Neighbours!

[NedFlanders]

So having finished putting in all the additional sleepers where they were missing it was time to go for some speed ballasting ala Charlie from Chadwick.

A little bit of this

resulting in a lot of this, that was suitably remedied with a hover over with a vacuum cleaner with the time honoured set of tights to collect the excess.

By the time I was finished tweaking the ballast it was too late to start the glue process so the room was left closed - or so I thought. Dinosaur foot prints had appeared by the time I got back to it two days later.

It did force me to confront my nemesis that is using a brush to tease the ballast into the right areas which never works well for me. having worked my way through a couple of options, this brush worked wonders.

Not by sweeping it along like a yard brush, but by "dabbing" it down on the ballast. It smoothed out the pawprints and if I had thought of it at the time I could have used it to give a "dip" in the ballast between the running tracks.

After using a 50:50 mix of isopropanol and water in a mister to wet the ballast first and then a 50:50 water/PVA plus a drop of washing up liquid ( applied with a pipette, I always find the syringe method results in the odd "spurt" which leaves craters, whereas while the pipette doesn't have the same volume of glue/water, it does give finer control). Be warned - the alcohol/water mix in the mister does require good ventilation.

Now to figure out the landform.....