The Chronicles of Canary Sidings - Eastern Eccentricity in EM

[Herb Garden]

Nice work! Inspirational, in fact.

Thanks! That's very kind of you to say so

 

[paulc]

Oh of course, that's the ticket.... I've got some really fine stuff with a thin carrier which would be perfect....

Must have had a complete mental block today.... Thanks @Phil O

Not sure if you resolved this but you could use 5thou plasticard which i have used for the same purpose .

 

[Herb Garden]

Not sure if you resolved this but you could use 5thou plasticard which i have used for the same purpose .

Yes I did resolve that issue a while back. Good suggestion though

 

[Herb Garden]

So we have come to the end of winter and spring is very much here. Also we have come to the end of the winter project which was unplanned but now a now have a small fleet of finished locomotives.

Finally finished and weathered is #151


So the weathering and details follow the same as the previous locomotives. The headcode is the GERs single line code that was used on the Tolesbury, Thaxted, and Stoke Ferry lines. Which as there was no GER headcode for the MSLR as it was independent it seemed appropriate to have the red disk below the chimney.

Now @Liver & Fry requested a line up of the finished fleet.....



And now it's on with building a layout from these to run on....

 

[Herb Garden]

So the York show last weekend was fantastic. It was good to catch up with so many acquaintances.... And look at some fantastic layouts.


The highlight of the show for me was the chance to see Terice once more Iain Rice's masterpiece that has inspired me so much in my modeling.

Inspiration has encouraged me to get on with a very boring job on the layout this week

So yes it's a pile of track. I've spent the week checking, adjusting and fettling each turnout and adding the dropper wires. A thankless and boring task but we are finally ready to lay track

 

[Herb Garden]

Next step is the track bed and land form

I've printed a second copy of the tack plan and mounted this on lining paper to give the full formation not just the P&C work

The plan is to lay this on 5mm foam board to give a base and provide depth for wiring, point actuators and coupling magnets. I've now cut this out for one board


There will be some 25mm polystyrene between the foamboard and plywood eventually to give the landform. East Anglia may be flat but it ain't that flat

 

[simond]

Depending what you’re putting under the boards, there might be something to be said for printing a mirror image and pasting it to the underside - as long as you have a couple of datum holes to line it up.

it’ll make wiring and point motors easier!

 

[Herb Garden]

Depending what you’re putting under the boards, there might be something to be said for printing a mirror image and pasting it to the underside - as long as you have a couple of datum holes to line it up.

it’ll make wiring and point motors easier!

That's an interesting thought.... I certainly might consider that.... One interesting feature of the baseboards that you might just be able to see in the above photo is that they are not solid just nearly a skeleton which has pushed the design of wiring and point actuation in an interesting direction.... Watch this space

 

[Phil O]

George,

I see that you did the track plan in Templot, it's possible to do a mirror image using the group templates function.

 

[Herb Garden]

So a bit more progress on the trackbed front



You can now start to see the make up of the land form. The material under the foam board is just cheap polystyrene from Wickes.... Yes I know theres potential for better materials out there but it works for me.


I'm now starting to plan the routes for the electrical and point control wiring back to the baseboard control box, seen here on top of the landform but will be mounted under the base board eventually

 

[Herb Garden]

So the first of the landforms has now been glued together and you can start to see the layout coming together

Not glued into the frame as yet but it fits well I think



Couldn't resist posing 151 and a couple of wagons just to get the scale of the thing



One thing that strikes me about models is that when out of context or looked down upon they can look very small but when framed and at eye level they start to look more the right size




And here we are looking from the end of the coal yard to where the loco shed will be with 151 in the platform

You might have to use your imagination for a bit...