4mm Llanfair

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Thanks for the comments.

Regarding ballasting, I always use a mix of fine grey and fine dark brown ballast (for 00) to give a clean-ish mottled grey. Then I add the rust with a spraygun. Its quite realistic this way as the rust run-off can be varied from quite newly ballasted track where the rust is mainly just below the rails to rust right across the ballast. This picture of real ballast can be easily emulated with a spraygun. Incidentally, this was one of my early Fuji Finepix digital photos from 2001...
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
Heading towards Towyn. Abergele is in the distance. I think I took it from Millers Cottage camp footbridge. Train is the 6K22 Penmaenmawr-Crewe.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
I had to buy a Ratio kit and try a GWR water crane! The siding behind the water crane was re-laid and spaced further away from the running line yesterday to leave room for a water crane...
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The starter signal sitting temporarily in its large hole. I may have to move it bigger distance from the platform...
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Mikemill

Western Thunderer
Larry
As a dyed in the wool GWR man and a fan of branch line modelling your layout is one of the best I have seen over the years. The addition of the backing brings the whole scene together an emulates the real railway feel.

Excellent job, keep up the good work

Mike
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
I leave the local roads to the tourists Bank holidays, so in between sunbathing, I sprayed and weathered the circular tank water crane...
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Regarding the main colours, I followed information in 'GWR Structure Colours' by R. North. Detail weathering came from photos taken in the steam-era. Heritage railways appear to have followed their own ideas and mainly used GWR Nos 2 and 3. The base of the column up to around 5 feet was usually painted No. 4, but evidence suggests that black was the norm in the 1930's. The painter at Llanfair carried on using No.4.....
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paulc

Western Thunderer
That water tank crane certainly fits in well Larry and as you said , doesn't 'overpower the layout' unlike the original tower . The whole layout is coming together nicely.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
No prizes for guessing where I am definitely not! The shed was already 85 degrees when I opened the door at 8am. Some of us spend all winter dreaming of hot sunny days, then when it arrives, it's the wrong kind haha....

I was looking back at my early layout beginnings and was surprised to see that by 2009 I had already established a few basic norms. Like I D Backscenes, gluing & ballasting track in one go, Hornby drystone walls, Ratio fencing, and bullhead track (SMP) married to Peco Code 75 points. This was after a false start with Peco Code 100.

The big mistake was building a busy multi-track Diggle Junction. The bullhead track with a mineral wagon on it had been ballasted using the eye-dropper method and was a complete pudding. The three tracks on the right were glued and ballasted in one go. I was learning....

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In short, the layout was too complex and too wide. It never got beyond the shed wall, which was a good job seeing as there was no room on the window wall for a fiddle yard. The baseboards were built with a curving slope as at the real Diggle Junction, but free-rolling wagons would not stay in the sidings...
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Amongst my locos was a Fowler 7F 0-8-0, so typical of the Standedge line before the Austerity 2-8-0's took over in 1957. After this, I went in the opposite direction and built Moorgate Halt, a simple wooden platform affair about a mile west of Diggle and ended up building Delph. After that, it was a case of small layouts rule.....
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