Great Chesterford Junction Part Two

Yes Paul,
That back scene on the door has been there quite a long time........I`m not sure how it will look in a photo......depends on the angle I suppose..???
Here`s an old video I did when the bridge across the doorway and the door were given the scenic treatment.
There is a good view of the scene on the door from 2:58 to 3:35




Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
Painting of the end board is now complete and everything fitted to the railway.
The back scenes have been fitted into place





Even the edge of the backboard has been coloured to blend in with the little timbered shop to the right.





A further back scene ( Gorman`s Electrical ) has been added too. I took a pic of this shop when I was in Bicester a few years ago.
A memorial column has also been fitted.





A car gives it some scale
The line of objects is important here........I want the viewer to be drawn towards the road leading off into the distance past the houses.
I ran a straight edge from the corner of the pavement here in the foreground, to the corner of the building on the left hand side of the road. I then placed the base for the memorial with it`s right hand front edge just touching the straight edge.
These reference points lead the eye from front to back, 1,2,3...... suggesting that the natural flow of the road is towards the road in the back scene.
This is further reinforced by the triangular piece of paving set against the timbered shop on the right in the following pictures





And another





The next step is to build a brick wall along the edge of the roadway next to the track.





The wall is made from 3mm MDF and needs to bend around the roadway.





I have put in some vertical Kerfs with a knife doing four passes for each one





I placed the area to be bent, over my rounded bench edge, and gradually eased it into the desired curved shape.
You have to go gently and evenly so as not to open up the cuts too much, but just enough to achieve the desired shape.
Having achieved the curve, it will now be easier to add brick paper around the bend and when it comes to gluing the wall into place, some weights against it should do the job.





The wall ends when it reaches the top of the platform, and then platform fencing will continue on towards the station building.
Everything is just test fitting for the moment so that I can get an impression of how it may look when finished.





I am pleased with how the scene has ended up on the new end back board........it seems to imply that part of the town is near the railway station, but there is more of it that goes off into the distance.
It`s starting to feel like a terminus.....
Cheers
Gormo

 

Howdy folks,
I`ve been laying bricks today........well brick sheets if the truth be known.....
The wall with the bend in it on the left has received brick sheet to both sides and is now under weights being glued into place.
The inner side of the outer wall has also been done.





I am most of the way through adding brick sheet to the outer side of the outer wall, but I need to print some more sheets to complete the job.





A view over the wall from Little Bardfield Heights scenic lookout.




Still to do........wall capping and vertical brick piers spaced at about 32mm ( 8 scale feet ).......slowly, slowly moving away from this end of the layout.
Gormo

 

Thanks Brian.......
Gormo

 

Thanks Phil,
Sometimes it`s hard to bring all the elements together and make sense of it all.
For me, the addition of the end board, with the suggestion that there is much more to the town, has tied it all together into a logical scene.
There is still more to be done, however each addition now will enhance the visual deception
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
Started fitting the brick piers into the walls at the end of Bamford terminus..........a mind numbing job, but worth it in the end.
So here we are at completion, and or, knock off time today





The outside of the wall is fitted with piers as well





You can see some piers spaced slightly tighter than some others.....there have been some repairs and alterations done to these walls over a long period of time, so I guess that would explain these variations....
I like to throw these variations into the railway for two reasons. Firstly I don`t necessarily always want an absolutely perfect wall or building because real life ain`t like that, and secondly, the odd spacing can cover up joins in the brick sheets that don`t necessarily blend colour wise all the time.
So basically........convenient history explains away these anomalies.





Just test fitting some coping here.........this is not a true indication of colour, so I may have to check the settings on my phone camera.???.....anyhow the coping is designed to just cover the tops of the piers, so it will have to be clamped when I get around to gluing it onto the wall.
We also have two different thickness of wall here.....the very short wall at the end is considerably thicker than the long walls, so I have had to get a bit creative with the angles for the coping where they meet.





So the next stage is to add the coping and then we can move onto ballasting the area to blend it all in with the track.
More as it happens
Gormo

PS......the latest update on YouTube

 

That`s interesting......thanks Brian
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
The walls have been finished today.
First the coping was added and then coloured / weathered to tone it down a bit
These little clips are available from Newsagents and do a Stirling job of holding the coping secure until the glue sets.....especially around a bend where the part needs to be held every few millimetres or so.





Once the glue had set, the clips were removed and some colour was added to the coping.
Then ballast was added between the brick walls and the track.........once the ballast is dry, I`ll come back and colour it to suit the scene.





I had some darker ballast to fill the area on the right......this ballast looks fairly good for the moment, though it`s still wet....









The Branch passenger service has arrived. The loco needs to uncouple and then run around.
The local bus service has almost arrived too, delivering potential passengers for the return 2:00pm service to GCJ via Little Bardfield.





A reality check.......this is a similar view in the same direction showing the Bamford board when I first started my railway build.
We`ve come a long way over a long time and made some modifications along the way.





And another.......early days here


Gormo

 

G`day Chris,
Well first of all thank you for your comments.
I guess I too expected Bamford to be quieter, however it has just evolved as it went along, rather than having a fixed plan to work to.
I get influences from all over the place. If I see a picture of a scene that I like, I might try and incorporate some form of it into my railway........so I`m not working to a fixed plan all the time.
I also had a bunch of kits to build and use somewhere, so that was part of it also.
Gary dropped in for a visit yesterday and funnily enough, the subject of extending the railway out into the garden did come up.
It`s something that I`ve had in the back of my mind for years, however never took the plunge.
At the moment we are also considering whether we need to move house for various reasons, and that raises all sorts of problems for model railways etc. etc......the main problem being, do I take GCJ with me or start again...???.........the railway was set up with the thought that it would never be moved, therefore those original decisions affect the ease of moving it.
The main problem being the cabling which is extensive.......it would have to be cut.......probably the easiest way would be to rewire.
Anyhow it may not happen and I might extend out into the garden.
Life is fall of curve balls, so we`ll wait and see how things pan out.........in the meantime I have a railway to finish.
Gormo

 

OK mate,......it might look a bit weird though with your American and Aussie trains.

Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
The light coloured ballast has now been coloured to darker tones to try and match it`s surrounds.

Before pic



After pic







It just needs weeds and odds and sods put in there now to sort it out a bit more
Gormo
PS......I must move that cup......

 

Thanks Ron,
Yes I agree re the cup........and TV etc......however we can turn this to our advantage sometimes to check things on our model railways.
Many times I have taken a photograph of a model and thought...." Oh heck....I never noticed that before ".....where some error or blemish shows up that has gone unnoticed until seen in the pic.
Let`s call it a form of quality control.....
Gormo
PS.....the other option is to crop it out