Building Elvenhome, an N Gauge layout

With a few key purchases secured at Model Rail Scotland it was time to finalise the scenic work for the gasworks at Weathertop. This video show the steps to complete the gasworks, including using net curtains to make a chain fence along the final side of the works. I have also installed working Belisha Beacons and started work on installing the banking for the canal.

 

It's been a busy time over the last couple of weeks. I have continued the scenic work between the gasworks and the church school. A gras verge has bene laid together with pavement, and it has received its gaslights. Working traffic lights, which are very mesmerising to watch, have been installed. The first parts of the canal and its basin are in place, and a building that has been on the layout for about a year makes a return in all its lit glory. My sound fitted Midland 4F arrived and is now doing sterling work on the suburban train in the running session. I also show a website that I use to help me just the scale speed at which my locos are travelling.

 

The main focus of work over the last couple of weeks has been around the canal and its basin. I have added an embankment down from the viaduct to the side of the canal and have started edging the canal before it goes under the canal. I discovered that the large roll of cork that I have is the same thickness as the foam board I had bene using and it provided an easier way to fit in the canal basin. I have been painting my barges and the lock and its gates. I've also completed the other two buildings that go with the sawmill from the last video to make up the timber yard buildings. Oh yes I also entered the murky world of CVs to see if I could get one speed step on my handheld to equal 1mph - scary stuff

 

Work has continued with creating the basin for the canal and the main industry that will be around it, a timber yard and saw mill. In particular I have been looking at how I created the various piles of wood in different stages of production from a fallen tree to planned wood for sale to the public and trade. A number of options have occurred, or been suggested to me and show them in this video. A new rake of Collett coaches have arrived and get to run behind a Castle class loco, and my 56XX gets a run also having been hidden in the stabling road behind the engine shed for too long.

 

I have now started constructing the embankments that ties the canal basin to the town of Weathertop. I've also looked again at the relationship between the board that sits in the left corner of the layout on which the village of High Elven sits and the space it gives for the canal basin. In my last video I showed some scenic material that I had just bought and, as I promised, I give a closer look at it. Some of the items are new to me at least. The Castle Class and the 4F, both sound fitted are on duty in the running session and with a new microphone for my phone to get to hear them both. Finally I have been busy creating various timber piles to go in the saw mill and timber yard and I show you the point i have reached.

 

After my last video I continued to having problems getting the point motors at High Elven to work with the Train Tech DCC unit. Something had to be done to bring the performance of the points up at High Elven to the consistently reliable standard of all the other points which are on a AC circuit fitted with a CDU. But what. All is revealed in the video. Doing this gave me less time to get on with the scenic work in around the canal basin. I did get something done and I am rather pleased with the result. One of my Pannier Tank engines has been sat up at Sharkey's End station since the line to High Elven was lifted. It is time to let it run in between two Auto coaches, and for the LMS Fairburn 4MT Tank engine to take the suburban service around Elvenhome.

 

It's been a busy time over the last couple of weeks, and then lurgi struck last week. Some things have been done including mocking up the road down to the canal and how it will relate to the hillside above it. Two small figures arrived with me recently that are now painted and delivering a piano to the church school.

 

In the last video I explained my approach to blending the raised area around High Elven with the canal basin below it. A comment from a subscriber suggested a different approach which is simply brilliant, and I explain what I am now going to be doing. Also, in response to my last video when I mentioned the problem with the new PECO wagons and the NEM pockets a number of people told me about a conversion kit that Dapol make. I respond to that in this video also. Two Sonic J50s get to run around, line astern, on the mainline, while the main running session has a Midland Pullman and the Coronation Class Duchess of Norfolk in BR express blue in service

 

The foam sheet arrived to allow me to see whether my idea for carving out of it the main part of the quarry face would work. Fortunately it does. That has now allowed me to decide the order in which I need to complete things in this last area of the layout that requires major structural work. AS I promised in the last video I have also now fitted NEM pockets to some old tooling PECO wagons, and I show me completing a NE Guards Van in the video. The running session has an 8F with a rake of Stannier coaches up against an A4 with a rake of Thompson Coaches. Not entirely a fair fight, but enjoyable to watch nonetheless, especially as they are both sound fitted.

 

Thanks Ian. I enjoy doing them so there will be more.

 

After a short summer break time to get back to work. I was asked after my last video whether the Dapol NEM pocket conversion kits could be fitted to older Grafar or Lima wagons. I show my mixed success in fitting them. I've also started the work to allow the board on which High Elven sits to be fitted, including starting on building a two portal tunnel entrance. Finally a new loco joins the fleet following my first foray into buying the Graded Dapol stock from DCC supplies

 

A bit earlier this week posting before I nip off to the Whisky Fringe for the afternoon - 40 distillers with samples to try although I won't be trying them all of course. I have completed the building of the two portal tunnel entrance and you will see it painted an installed on the layout. That has allowed the ballasting over the viaduct and into the tunnel to be completed .I also make good on a promise I mad win the last video to show the converted wagons with the easi-shunt couplings in use at one to the High Elven sidings

 

I have been trying to decide how to support a Bow String Bridge that links the final two stations on the branch line. Left alone with blank paper and a pen I started to doodle, and came up with an elegant support made up of two elegant curved arches. The problem was to encourage my die straight strip styrene which did not like staying bent to fit in with my design. A solution was found as you will see. I also seek views on which of two 3D printed chimney pots I should use to replace the bulk of my Metcalfe buildings chimney pots. I have overlooked them being overscale long enough and something has to be done. Finally my new Graham Farish sound fitted Standard 5 arrived last week and it, together with the sound fitted 4F that arrived earlier in the year, take the lead in the running session.

 

A change spot in my local model shop set on me on an unexpected path in decorating the side of the layout, but only after I had slightly surreptitiously decorated the fridge without permission. The outcome of my question about the size of replacement chimney pot I should buy is revealed together with the first block of tenements adorned with their new pots. Finally I have actually done something I planned to do in completion the bridge I was making in the last video and restoring the track link between High Elven and the rest of the layout.

 

I can't remember when I removed the village of High Elven and its station from the layout as I prepared to change the end where it sits. 18 months or more I think. But in this video it is restored to its place and I complete the basic scenic work that was more easily completed with the board off the layout. All the buildings are back and wired in, and the whole board is now fixed in place on the layout. Next to make some quarry cliff faces.

 

Finally I have started the work of creating the cliff face and the hillside that links the board on which High Elven sits and the canal basin below. It took much longer than I anticipated to work out how to achieve the image I had in my mind, and then for plaster cloth and shaper sheet plaster to dry. I am not able to run trains just at the moment as I work on this are. For the running session I was going to put a montage together of recent sessions, but on reviewing them from February I have chosen four that really show how much the layout has changed at its southern end since February.

 

At last, after completing the restoration of the upper section with the branch terminus of High Elven, and the cliff face at the front of the layout, I could complete the construction of the quarry face. The layout is still swathed in protective covering so two more past running sessions with new music attached so that this is not all chat. I'm pleased with the outcome which leaves me only a small section of major structural work to complete before I can get on with the scenic work around the canal and its basin.

 

After seven years the layout is now structurally complete. Lots more to do by way of scenic work and detailing, and completing parts that were competed sufficiently to allow the next part of the layout to be completed. In this video I show the final bits of work creating the rock face and tying in the village of High Elven to the layout.

 

I spent Christmas building a pin Arch Laser kit of a signal box including scratch building a lever frame and block signal equipment for the interior. I also tackled an impulse purchase from the St James Quarter in Edinburgh, which may present gauging issues. I also show my recently received Stannier Black 5 received on the Saturday before Christmas thanks to lightening work at Rails who only got them on the Wednesday), and that is shown running together with its younger brother the BR standard 5 MT. Finally train cam can now take you up from Weathertop to the Branch terminus High Elven throug a continuous landscape.