Hawick via Grantham, Inverness and SIAM (00 gauge DC)

[manna]

G'day Gents

Certainly looks as if the floor between the tracks, is covered in a 100 years of oil, ash and grease, Wonderful.

manna

[flying scotsman123]

Really nice work, I was going to go out to my shed today but decided the cost of electricity to keep me warm would be prohibitive, so well braved! I went and fired up my cutter instead, nice and warm in the modelling room.

[Eastern]

Have to say that that this like great work! Agree with Manna about the weathering and texture plus the details like the steps etc

[Ex-Pat]

Thanks manna, flyingscotsman123 and Eastern for your comments.

All the above work was preparatory for the next challenge, and which will be the loco shed.

The 1950’s saw the desecration and transformation of the loco shed from this pre-1955 (to my eyes at least) beautifully attractive building with its peaked, corrugated roof and arched entry doors.

to this post-1955 ugly monstrosity (I am lost for words to even try describing it!) The only commendable part for me is that they kept the arched door entry on the through line at the back of the shed.

The changes had started in 1955 with a relatively innocuous and uncommonly photographed initial replacement of the door arches with the strengthened corner towers and insertion of the cross girder as shown in this photo.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Railway-Phot ... 3395837799

So no contest - I shall of course be modelling the Beauty (and it’s in my time frame), and I was fortunate enough many years ago to take this tracing copy of the drawing held at the Scottish National Archives in Edinburgh,

And from which I prepared fairly rough scale drawings -

so I have more far detail from which to work than with the coaling stage, and with the experience gained from the coaling stage it should be a doddle - famous last words!

[manna]

G'Day Gents

This will be an interesting build, looking forward to watching it rise. Is there anything left, today, or was it 'Bulldozed ???

manna

[Ex-Pat]

Thanks manna - not a trace!

The blue-starred building next to the roundabout is the Hawick Teviotdale Leisure Centre and it more or less stands on the site of the old goods shed and station car park. The shed would have been just to the top mid-right of those buildings.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Not very likely that the Railway will Ever get reinstated to Hawick, unless they go 'around' the town.

manna

[glencairn]

There is serious talk of extending the Waverley line from Tweedbank to Carlisle. In those talks, electrification of all the line from Edinburgh to Carlisle has been proposed.

Those talks are ongoing. Extending the line through Hawick will not be a problem. Nor, it is said, will Whitrope Tunnel (even with overhead wires). Hopefully building will commence soon.

Glencairn

[Ex-Pat]

Construction of the loco shed is now under way. The coaling stage construction suffered from warping and, as the loco shed will be 5 inches longer, I was determined that Rule 1 would become “Thou shalt not warp!”

These are some of the “parts” involved - the majority of the white pieces were actually cut out 3 or 4 years ago pending their slot on the production line.

The sheet materials are Slaters (white) corrugated roof sheeting and 2 (brown) types of brick/stonework Plastikard. The shed has quite distinctive stonework and for which normal brickwork and the large brown sheet were totally unsuitable. The smaller brown coarse stone was better but didn’t have the random larger stones that are in evidence in photos. In the end I decided to plump for the grey Wills SSMP200 Coarse Stone – although this is the other extreme and I have had to “distress” some of the larger stones.

Each of the 16 windows has quoin surrounds (these having been prepared 3 or 4 years ago). As the windows have quite deep recesses I prepared card “frames” to help build up the depth. The windows were commissioned from Scale Model Scenery .

and whose website is: https://www.scalemodelscenery.co.uk/

As I didn’t have a large enough size sheet of Plastikard I had to make the shed sides in 2 halves. So the first step was to join them together ,using a ruler to ensure they were aligned correctly. A butt joint was not likely to hold so I used a small strip of Plastikard to bridge the 2 halves.

Here, one side has been joined and the other is just about to be.

T.B.C.

[Eastern]

Looking forward to seeing this build on this project - no doubt with some excellent weathering!

[flying scotsman123]

Random stonework is always difficult, the random sheets are never the same random as what you want! Anyway, I'm sure you'll make it look just right.

[Ex-Pat]

Thanks Eastern & flying scotsman123.

In pursuit of the new Rule 1

I decided to use brass square section along the tops and bottoms of the side walls. All I could get in Ireland was K & S sections, but I have to say that I was rather disappointed in that I found they were not 100% true, but I had no alternative other than to use them.

Also the sections were not long enough to cater for the full length of the walls and as can be seen here, the wall was still capable of bending.

I therefore decided to risk melting the Plastikard by soldering the sections together. Here I am using a smaller section that can slide into the longer section, but it needs a packing piece under it.

All sections are now soldered (not the prettiest job but I dared not dwell too long with the iron!).

Attention turned to the side walls and, as can be seen, it would take 3 full lengths plus a short piece of Wills Coarse Stone.

T.B.C.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Engine shed is looking good, K&S, is about the only brass available here in Oz, but as you say, rather short.

manna

[Ex-Pat]

Thanks manna.

The Wills coarse stone sheet (which is thicker than normal Plastikard and a lot harder work to cut) has been cemented to the Plastikard sides and holes drilled through to aid cutting out the window spaces.

Viewed from the other side

4 of the distinctive quoins have been added to the windows

Close-up of the quoins

T.B.C.

[Daniel]

A delight to follow, Ex-Pat.

Daniel