Great Chesterford Junction Part Two

Well Steve.????????????....

A bit...maybe..??????....

Thanks for the photo......more ideas piling into the old grey matter once again and held for future use.

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G`day Folks,

Yes I`m still here !!!

But I`m fairly well up to my neck in household renovation at the moment and the poor old railway is not getting a look in...

The house and life has priority at the moment, so we must get the chores done first and then back to our hobbies.

It hasn`t stopped the flow of ideas for the railway though, and I`ve got a couple cooking in the old bean at the moment.....just can`t quite crack one of them though.....

Oh...and I`ve just saved the side out of a linen cupboard, possibly for a small layout.???....the jury is still out on that one, as there`s plenty to do on GCJ.....why torture myself with two unfinished layouts when one will do fine...

Toto has also requested a demo of the Superglue and paper trick, so I`ll get stuck into it and knock that up some time shortly.......in the meantime back to scraping and sanding and filling and painting in the house.

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NEWS FLASH !!!!!!
Great British Railway Journeys, Michael Portillo, interviews I.K.Brunel on the platform at Great Chesterford Junction Railway Station.
Yes folks, it`s true, that colourful, seasoned rail traveller, Michael Portillo, interviews the great railway engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, on the platform of Great Chesterford Junction whilst shooting a sequence for Great British Railway Journeys.......and I have the pictures to prove it...!!!












Michael Portillo and I.K.Brunel were ordered for me, by the little lady, from Mike Petts Supercast in the UK......so I had to set up some sort of cameo......it`s not every day that this is going to happen.!!!
I`ve also picked up some other goodies lately. Four old Airfix ESSO tankers from the Bay, in near new condition....just need to fit small Bachmann couplings to them.
A GWR removals van / container



A GWR horse transport vehicle





A diesel storage tank




And a couple of second hand buildings

The layout is becoming rather crowded......good!!!...

I`ll be back into the build soon
Gormo

 

G`day Rob,

Yes unfortunately some people sell on Ebay without giving a full, or more importantly, accurate, truthful description of what they are selling.

I would rather describe all the faults, and show pictures to back it up, rather than try and fool somebody into thinking they are buying good second hand products. Quite often you come across sellers saying I have no way of testing this and I`m not sure if it works .....blah, blah, blah ....but it does make you wonder what is really going on there..???

Anyway...enough waffle from me....and you have moved up into the big scale...good on you..

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Whooeee 60 locos,

It`s bad enough fixing one...

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G`day Folks,

Today the form work went in for the area behind the station.

I`m playing it by ear on the design side and trusting instincts and sheer luck, hoping it will turn out alright.

This lot has to be covered by plaster yet and any other manner of things required to make it look like landscape.



The hot wire cutter got a good work out today with all these weird shapes and ...VOILA!!!!....no mess.........beats cutting polystyrene with a saw blade.



I`m starting to reduce my pile of polystyrene now.......especially the thick stuff..!!



Well , we`ll let this lot dry overnight and re-assess tomorrow.

We`re on our way again.....

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Thanks Toto and Gary,

Yes it`s coming along but with a couple of changes in the wind. I had intended to use the new Scalescenes castle folley but I measured out the footprint today on the board and it`s way too big. It would completely dominate the whole site with out much room for anything else.

Oh well...best laid plans????......however I do have a back up plan which is to place an archway as part of a city wall......as in York or Chester.....on the back wall in low relief.

It will have to be scratch built but shouldn`t be too hard and gives me more space and scope to develop the town.

Gary the polystyrene will be covered with plaster and painted as per usual. I`ll stick with my current methods at this stage.......thanks for the tip. In regards to the hot wire cutter.......it saves ages of clean up compared to the saw blade snow storm.

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G`day Folks,

Long time no do anything on the railway.....

However work has commenced in a small way.

The last piece of polystyrene former has been placed in up behind the station



It`s the piece next to the grassed area. It`s raised up a little and that is deliberate. There will be a little retaining wall there and also a road going off into the backscene.....yet to be determined.

An old coaling stage with steam crane has been repaired and is ready to be planted once I`m happy with the location.



And I`ve started work on my Metcalfe red brick terraces.....not red brick anymore. I have decided to do them in pastel colours. They have been sprayed with airbrush acrylics and the colours have been mixed to suit. I have been using Tamiya masking tape to do the job and I would highly recommend it....





Of course now I`ve covered up the printed window and door lintels and also the window sills.

New ones have been drawn up in my Open Office drawing program and they will be cut out and laid over the apertures to suit. I think some quoins on the ends of the building may give it a lift as well and of course there will be slate strips on the roof in preference to the printed version.

The lintels and sills were fairly easily done on the computer.



So that`s where we are at the moment. The paint on the terraces will need another day or two to dry but in the meantime I may take the plunge and start plastering the lift out section behind the station.

More as it happens

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G`day Folks,

Where do I begin.????

Ron asked why pastels..?????....well folks it`s not as Ian suggested, although it could be an easy way to find your way home if you were under the weather.....regardless of your occupation. Ian, I can see the logic in that................jush toll me where da blue harse izz....fanks brudda..!!!!

It`s as Gary has suggested, I have seen them in the old country. The area I am loosely modelling has pastel coloured houses in abundance.....not necessarily terraced houses....more often than not, old timbered houses with thatch etc.......but the overall colour pallet of the area for the most part is pastel.

I take Ian`s point about drunken sailors because I`ve seen the multi coloured houses up on the hill overlooking the harbour in Bristol, however we have seen a number of villages now in the UK and also in Ireland where pastel coloured houses are quite common.........one example in the UK is Alresford just a little bit North East of Winchester.....another in the area I`m dealing with is Saffron Walden in Essex and of course Great Chesterford itself in Essex.

So I have these kits that can be adapted to whatever takes your colour or brick fancy and the logic behind it for me also is to make the railway individual. I could populate it with standard Metcalfe, Superquick or Scalescenes kits but the challenge is to take it that one step further and make it look a little different.

I rest my case your honour.

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Thanks Paul,

I`ll look at it again........and it`s not too late as nothing much has happened yet...

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