Here we have three OO steam loco’s weathered to a medium standard. They have all been renumbered before weathering. As they retain the tension lock couplings at both ends, they have not had detailing added.
Bachmann J72
J15
Ivatt 2MT
Here we have seven wagons I have had for several weeks, they are for a couple of friends.
Mikes wagons
Colins Wagons
Note the faded lettering
This is for Colins new Layout – Dunwich Tramway.
It seems a long time since these items appeared at the Garden Railway Show 2021 in a pristine state. Well, they have now been weathered for their next appearance in a couple of weeks time.
Had a visit today from Barry Aldous (Bazza), we had not met up since September 2019, when he helped us operate a couple of layouts at an Exhibition.
We had lots to talk about and time went by so quickly. Before he went I weathered a pair of OO Bachmann Class 20/3 Locos that Barry intends to run on both RHTT and Flask trains on his Layout.
They are weathered to a light to medium standard.
It has been a very busy two days. I have been adding the polystyrene to the MDF formers that appeared in the previous post. I have started to add a path that runs the whole length of the layout and I have also made a start forming the river banks in 1/4″ Cork. I have used polyfilla to fill any spaces in the polystyrene and to ensure a nice gentle slope down to the track.
Yet another busy day on the layout. First job today was to chamfer all the cork edging on the outside of the tracks, very happy with the result, well worth the effort.
I have sketched out various embankments around the layout and today I started to form the outside MDF boundary. The below photos show the work done so far on the first board.
I am posting every move I make with the Kato track as it may be useful to others. Today I am preparing the track on the scenic sections for ballasting or should it be ballasting between the tracks and on the edges. I have purchased two packets of compatible Kato ballast to use, but at £7 a pack for such a small amount I decided to put a further layer of cork in all places that will be ballasted later to save on the amount of ballast needed. The below photographs show how I cut the cork to size, glued it and temporarily pinned it down, the pins are Peco and all are salvageable.
I intend to do a small section to see what is the best way to glue the Kato ballast down. I will use sandpaper to make a chamfer on all the cork on the edge of the track, this should help the finished appearance. You will note that I have started to disguise the wiring for the board joins.
I have now finished all the wiring on the layout. All track is now pinned and glued, I have tested all options and the whole layout runs extremely well.
I really hope I can disguise the KATO oddities on the scenic sections.
As John is on holiday next week, I hope to do some renumbering and weathering in 16mm, 7mm and 4mm, quite a change from my last few weeks.
Today John came down and we had a massive running session to ensure all was to his satisfaction. So that we could now start on the scenic section, we split the layout and turned it to make more room.
After turning we tested all tracks to ensure the move had not upset anything – all was fine – let scenic detailing commence.
Test Loco
This post brings everything up to date on the layout. Much progress has been made over the last four days, the Fiddle Yard ends have been added, the four isolating sections have now been wired in, the scenic area track has now been corked and partially pinned, the points on the scenic section are now fully wired.
This afternoon I had a two hour running session testing all track with all options, again thankfully all worked extremely well. My Son John is bringing a few more Loco’s and stock down on Thursday of this week so that we can check the capacity of each Fiddle Yard loop and the sidings.
We will need to cut and wire the sections for the baseboard break and then turn the whole layout around so that the scenic section can be designed. I am very much looking forward to doing the scenic work.
