Newton Broadway

Small improvements that make a bigger impact visually: I have been planting some greenery along the alignment of the programming track, and above one of the tunnel entrances.


P_20190408_161020_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190408_161046_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190408_161106_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190408_161157_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Mininatur: there's ivy plus I have used some of the tree foliage as stand-alone bushes. There is a bit of beech foliage and something else I have forgotten, possibly maple foliage (I'll have a look when I go back into the train room).

 

... And three more of the burdock plants made up and positioned but not yet glued down. I have tried to make these a little less 'flat' than the previous ones. They join the existing couple previously made up and now permanently fixed. I have enough material left in the kit to make two or three more of these plants.


P_20190409_213511_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

P_20190409_213530_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

I have now added a few more of these 'little' details: weeds and undergrowth items from Busch this time, plus some Langley metal bollards and a warning sign for the level crossing.

Lots more to do but it does make the scenes look a little more complete (if there is such a thing as completeness where model railways are concerned!).


P_20190410_104426_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Is that possibly Lovejoy's borrowed Morris Minor there?



P_20190410_104457_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190410_104546_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190410_104648_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

I'm still 'building' plants and placing them on the layout. The latest ones are from Busch and are plastic wild lupins. They are fiddly to put together with each stem (with or without leaves), and each lupin head being a separate moulding, needing to be snipped off the sprues and glued together, then planted into a moulded base with holes.

I have placed the ones done so far around two locations on the layout, but none are in their final positions. I will be doing something about blending the bases into the scenery properly once I decide where they really belong.


P_20190428_233823_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190428_233754_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

I have been rearranging the undergrowth and flowers a little, today. I concentrated the undergrowth plants in smaller areas, and shifted all of the lupins I have done so far to the flower bed at the end of the church.


P_20190504_095048_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190504_095103_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190504_095121_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190504_095308_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


I like the effect of the lupins, but I'm still not sure I have the other areas looking 'right' yet.

 

An unusual visitor to Newton Broadway: a Model Rail Magazine LNER J70 locomotive, 7139.


P_20190511_214111_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


The loco actually belongs to my good friend Doug. I gave Doug a Bachmann 36-568 6-pin decoder to use with the loco. The decoder sat rather loosely in the socket, and absolutely refused to be read, either on Doug's Digitrax system or my NCE system. I ended up bringing it home with me after the read failure on the Digitrax system, and swapped a rather anonymous blue shrink-wrapped decoder into it, and it worked first go. The decoder read as a Soundtraxx one, but further digging revealed it was the earlier, less sophisticated Bachmann 36-558 version (36-568 is a rather good Zimo product).

Anyway, Doug has a working locomotive on DCC, and I had a dud decoder. Or was it? I decided to test it in something else before writing it off. A Hatton's P class 0-6-0T was the perfect candidate, particularly as it already had a Bachmann 36-568 decoder in it, so I knew it was a workable combination. The swap was completed, the loco placed on the programming track, and it lived! I have no idea why it resisted all attempts when in the J70.


IMG_20180607_204715 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

More gardening, and a little farming to report!

Further to completing more lupins, I have also been assembling some roses from the same manufacturer. I have experimentally placed them along the access roadway to the cemetery.


P_20190520_221544_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190520_221534_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


At the other end of that side of the layout, I have been trying out a few ideas for the farm corner at the very back of the layout. I decided it would be easier to work on it off the layout, so cut a slab of expanded polystyrene to suit. This will be landscaped further later. I also want to terrace the farm a little. The lane passing the farm, and providing access to it, occupies a small part of this scenic 'board' as well, and will gain a few slight undulations in due course. I have sculpted the side of the embankment and the ends into varying slopes since taking the photos. The lane will be just over one car, or tractor, wide.

The buildings are mostly from Hornby's Skaledale Holly Farm range, with roofs painted grey rather than their original black.


P_20190519_143909_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190519_143919_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Yes, I agree the flowers need bedding in a bit. That will come once I get closer to the final layout of that area.

I will be using layers of card then plaster on the polystyrene base = a sheet of card glued underneath will hold it together and the layers on top will also help bind it all.

 

Another new arrival, although it was ordered and paid for years ago. D602, Bulldog, from Kernow Model Railways has been run in on DC and now has a decoder fitted! I opted for the Zimo MX638D, which is a fully functioned budget decoder. I discovered that it did, indeed, need to be converted to an MX638C, as with the Dapol class 22 earlier, by the simple expedient of programming CV8 to a value of 3. All lights now work under independent control.

F0 has the reversible marker lights - single white for forward end and single red for the trailing end - pictures 1 and 2 below (the red barely shows in the photo, but it is quite bright ... that's another job to do: dim all of the lights).


P_20190527_214353_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190527_214423_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


F1 operates the forward cab and F2 operates the rear cab (forward and rear simply refer to the closer and further ends in the photos, of course).




P_20190527_214408_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr




P_20190527_214501_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr





F3 and F4 operate the headcodes at each end (only the forward end shown here, together with the marker light on F0).




P_20190527_214436_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Two new additions to the goods stock on Newton Broadway are these Parkside kits I have been building as a quick and easy project. Both are BR 24.5 ton mineral wagons. I could not find many pics of the real ones so used some generic weathering ideas from the similar looking 21 ton wagons. I chose to do the white end door indicator stripes in different fashions as well, also based on photos, although not of the specific wagons I have chosen. The underframes could do with a small amount of extra detailing, such as the rod linkage for the brake gear, and also need a little further weathering, but overall I am quite pleased with the effects I have achieved.


P_20190606_160548_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Another 'new' loco has made its appearance on Newton Broadway. This Hornby Bulleid West Country started off as a Battle of Britain, 34067 Tangmere, before its previous owner repainted and renamed it into his fictional railway's no 53. He had also hard-wired a Hornby decoder in and added two front headlights. I got it for a pretty fair price off eBay, and when I received it, it worked well enough, although the Hornby decoder was a little jerky on starts but otherwise fine, but I am not a fan of Hornby basic decoders anyway. I rewired it with a Lenz Standard+ decoder, which made it a lot smoother on the starts and stops.

I repainted her into BR green and added orange/black/orange lining, etched name plates and crests, etched smokebox number plate, an early BR crest on each side of the tender, and new cabside numbers, to produce West Country 34019, Bideford. There is a small amount of work still to do, a couple of minor touch-ups and fix a couple of slightly wonky bits of lining, but overall it has come up well.



P_20190610_185202_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

I had a quiet and relaxing Sunday morning running session with some of my European trains again today. After a while I decided to take a few videos of the trains as they ran around the double-tracked high level main line.

 

I have long intended to add a small rise or mound leading up to the bridge sides, to get away from the flat baseboard appearance along the front, while not blocking the view of trains. Work commenced yesterday with a block of foam, followed this morning with a coat of hurricane grey paint, and some scenic grasses this afternoon. The glue is still wet in these photos, and there is plenty of loose scatter material to vacuum up once it has dried, but this gives an impression of the final look. The bridge has been shifted slightly to one side to prevent it accidentally being glued down, as it has to remain removable.


P_20190703_161022_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190703_161042_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Projects for the last couple of days, on and off:

Ballast the curves at the 'eastern' end of the layout. I am experimenting with powdered glue mixed in with the ballast but am unsure of what proportions I need. Result with the outer track was that it didn't set at all, and I had to do it the old fashioned way of soaking with detergent and water then dripping diluted PVA glue in. The inner track has a lot more of the powdered glue mixed in, but is still wet in the photo, so the jury is still out as to the success or otherwise of this mix.



P_20190706_171610_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr



I have also been constructing some Hornby deciduous trees, varying my techniques a bit to improve the appearance. I also bought a job lot of trees from our friend Malcolm's deceased estate, with some being quite usable with a bit of thin wire drilled into the bases of their trunks. I planted four of these plus one of the Hornby ones beside the overbridge where the main lines cross the underground tracks, and a couple more of the Hornby trees next to the steep road hill near the programming track. None are permanent, yet, while I assess in my mind how successful or appropriate they look. More of the Hornby trees are drying at the moment on the workbench.


P_20190706_171552_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190706_171754_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr



P_20190706_171833_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

The track ballasting has been successful this time, with the powdered glue setting properly on the inner track.

Here is BR(S) N class 2-6-0 31860 with a ballast train. I think the men working on it must be on their tea break, perhaps hiding somewhere in the village High Street nearby.


P_20190707_104554_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190707_104639_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

A little improvement to the upper level scenic area in the form of some track painting. I really should do this before I ballast the track, but once I put the third rail in, that has to go in after the ballasting anyway, then has to be painted - any other order results in difficulties and bare areas on the rails where they have slid through the 'pots'. I have left the inside areas of the point blades unpainted where they contact the running rails.

The ancient Mainline brake van has Bachmann metal wheelsets fitted, and is being used to test flangeway clearances after ballasting.



P_20190708_223238_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr




P_20190708_223335_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr



Another major improvement was to wire up the Heljan turntable, which is now fully operational, albeit I am still on a steep learning curve as far as programming it goes. The tracks leading up to it are not yet properly laid and are not yet wired, either. Excuse the clutter around the turntable - this whole area is still very much a work in progress.


P_20190708_223252_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190708_223305_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr