Newton Broadway

Having bought a new Hornby Huntley & Palmers Peckett 0-4-0ST (probably the last one in Melbourne, if not Australia), I added a decoder, using a TCS M1 wired to the 4-pin 'looping' plug. During that operation, I managed to lose the whistle, so crudely turned one up from some brass wire in the Dremel (shown earlier). That worked as a stopgap until I tried a second time and came up with something that looked a little more like a whistle.

After I was happy with that, I weathered the Peckett using black powder. There's more to do but I think it looks more like a well-used example while still showing off the lovely H&P lined blue.

A few months ago, I swapped an original Bachmann London Transport body from its split chassis onto a new DCC-ready chassis. The split chassis was converted to DCC some years ago and wasn't too bad a runner, albeit not up to the standard of the newer chassis. The LT swap left me with a heavily weathered BR black pannier body sitting on the old split chassis. I thought that this would not be a likely seller, so decided to have a bit of fun and make it into a might-have-been Huntley & Palmers loco (without logos as I may eventually remove the legend from the Peckett to make it more generic). I started by painting the pannier body in a rather lurid Revell blue. With the already red coupling rods, this didn't look too far off the H&P colours, although I was well aware it would need toning down somewhat.

I was going to apply a second coat of blue but decided that for industrial use, a second-hand loco would probably have had the paint slapped on carelessly to give an idea of identity.

Some white edged black lining from an LNER sheet of transfers applied to just the tank sides aided the identity change, together with an arbitrary number 8 on the cabside completed the main work. I touched up the black parts where I had gone over with the blue, then dry-brushed some more black onto the upper surfaces of the tanks and boiler, followed by a heavy application of black weathering powder.

I have posed the pannier tank with the Peckett so you can all judge from the photos how well I have succeeded, or how far I have fallen short.




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After a long hiatus (is that one o' dem t'ings youse gets after liftin' weights wot are too heavy?), I returned to the upper level level crossing. The basic "woodwork" (actually Wills planking) has now been finished and glued into place, so the next stage is to paint and weather it before fitting the gates.

 

Thanks for the compliment, Ian.

Ron, the Herald is a pocketbond model. They offered several different colours, as well as Herald, Vitesse, Coupe and Courier van versions. a quick check on Hatton's website showed quite a few available,but unfortunately not the blue one in my photo.

 

Last weekend was a long weekend for we Victorians, with the Labour Day Monday holiday. that also marks the annual model railway exhibition at Sandown. DougN and I went on the Sunday, catching up with many old friends along the way, and as a result, staying a lot longer than we had anticipated. Among all the high quality layouts and traders, I ran into an old friend and fellow BRMA member from Queensland, running a trade stand as Modeller's Warehouse (http://www.modellers-warehouse.com.au/ for anyone who is interested - hopefully no one will mind the free plug), selling some rather nice trees and various high quality grass mats and scenic materials. I looked at some of these but didn't buy any straight away, preferring to come home and look to see what would fit my needs (even though ordering online would mean additional postal costs). Anyway, I ordered some rather nice Alpine Larch trees with a view to adding them to the church area, replacing a nice, but out-of-place weeping willow at the top of what I would imagine to be a fairly windswept hill.

While fiddling with that and the level crossing, which had the rail centre infills reduced in height slightly to allow easier track cleaning, I dug out some DAS clay my wife had bought me some time ago and started filling some of the gaps around the edges of Church Hill, as well as blending the levels a little better. It looks a little patchy at the moment, but it all adds up to improving and finalising the scenic aspects of that area.

While I had the DAS out, I also filled some of the gaps in the back gardens of the terraced houses down the hill in the village, but haven't taken any photos of that area yet.

Anyway, here's Church Hill as it looks now, with further work to follow.





Such photos, while not of the highest quality (taken on my mobile phone), do show up any imperfections or items that need further attention, rather cruelly in some instances. One such example is the church steeple, which at the higher angle of the first shot can be seen to have a gap with "daylight" showing under the gutters.

p.s. I did also buy several of the Model Scenes grass mats which will add great effect to some unkempt embankments and other areas I have in mind later.

 

I did some 'greening' today, to reduce the slightly barren look of the village and its surrounds. Mostly I have used offcuts of various grass mats, but I did use almost the entire rough embankment mat bought at the same time as the trees at the church. None of this is intended to be the final look. It still improves the overall appearance of this area, and also gives me the illusion that I am making progress!

 

Thanks, Chris. That is the sort of thing I'm aiming for, based on memories and personal observations, as well as various images in magazines and on the Internet.

 

Thanks guys; I'm very flattered.

That must be one of the few photos I've managed where the couplings that are a dead giveaway for a model are actually hidden.

http://www.click

 

Thank you, All.

Yes, Hornby have really outdone themselves with the Pecketts. So much so, they are like hens' teeth in the shops now.

 

Today I decided to make the scenery for "The Arches" area at one end of the layout a little more permanent. I have long had the Wills arches sitting Blu-tacked to the high level track bed, acting as place-holders for something to come. However, I do like the Wills arches so have decided that to make them more permanent and better suited to the location, I worked out that the ground level needed to be raised. This was done yesterday with some expanded polystyrene.

This morning, with the glue having dried overnight, I painted it with the usual 'Hurricane' grey acrylic paint. That was also allowed to dry before printing out some Scalescenes road textures and a little brickwork (I'll explain later!).

The photos show the progress from this morning's effort, firstly with the paint still wet, then with the road surfaces added, although there are several joints to disguise on both the road and the arches.











One little trick I tried (successfully!) was to use a solvent based contact cement to glue the Wills arches to the MDF high level track bed, with a small amount of the glue also added to the bases of the arches, knowing this would attack the polystyrene beneath; this was to get the arches to bed into the ground. This was a risky strategy, because if the glue had been too aggressive I would have had to redo the ground level foam again, or perhaps needed some filler.

I will be adding some weeds and dirt along the edges as part of the finishing work. There will later be a backscene along the edge of the layout, starting where the right hand arch brickwork ends.

Now for that brickwork I printed earlier; the left hand edge of the left-most arch lines up roughly with the tunnel mouth for the low level tracks on the other side of the high level track bed. to cover the gap under the track bed, I needed a brick wall. Because it is mostly hidden and in darkness, it didn't need to be a full relief moulding, so I was happy to use some printed brick walling (actually viaduct / bridge supports from Scalescenes).

I do wish to allow photography through the arches to look along the low level underground lines, but where these arches are corresponds to the underground lines tunnel, so the filled arches are the go here. Those to the left of this scene (to be done later) will be open arches or girders.

While I was busy scenicking, I decided to add one small extra touch to the church area by adding a garden bed to the end of the church farthest away from the car park. This was simply cut from one of the Model Scene grass mats - one called 'blueberries'.