Coming To The End

In my previous posting, I mentioned that the construction of Davemoor (the northern terminus of the line) was almost complete.

Well, as if to prove the point, here it is!

All of the platforms are pretty much finished - they just need the buildings to be stuck in place and the addition of people, signs, lights etc. No mean task in itself, of course!

However, all of the track is now in place - and all of it is wired to the bus. It has all been ballasted as well so it just needs a good clean and a test before trains can arrive and depart from the station's various platforms.

You will see that we have managed to acquire all of the Bachmann Art Deco platform buildings and have complemented these with the Hornby Signal Box of similar design - just seen in the distance of the bottom photograph. More of this in a future posting.

The little factory unit now has two sidings, with one of them having the rails set into tarmac so that this platform face can be shared between rail and road vehicles.

There is still much work to be done here but at least, as I say, we are almost in a position to be able to run trains again.

And it's been a very long time since we were able to do that!

Gunnmere Almost Gonemere!

Having been working for the past few weeks on (and almost finishing) the construction of the newer and much enlarged Davemoor, we decided that Gunnmere, our main intermediate station, also needed some improvement work.

To begin with we decided to use some of the Ratio Retaining Walls along the back wall, having first had them suitably weathered by Alex at Mikron Models. These have now been stuck to the back wall and we are in the process of fixing the abutments across each join.

We then decided to resurface the platforms with thin cork - as used so successfully at Davemoor. So we ripped off all of the Metcalfe sheets that were originally stuck onto the Hornby platform sections and replaced them with the cork. This was glued in place using UHU Wood Glue, which has proved to be an excellent adhesive for sticking cork.

Once all of the cork was down, we sealed it with a coating of PVA glue and, once this was dry, we then gave it two coats of Humbrol RC412 paint.

This dries very quickly and allowed me to add two strips of platform edging before we had to call it a day.

We have also added ground cover and detailing to the little good yards, seen more clearly in the bottom photograph, and although this does still need some work doing on it, is looking much better than it was a couple of weeks ago!

Davemoor Is Once More!

After a hiatus of about two months, during which time we had the Easter holiday, I thought I had better post an update on our progress to date.

As you can see Davemoor is coming along nicely now, after a few false starts which, at times, made us think that the darned station would never be completed!

Well, as of last weekend, the platforms are pretty much finished now and we have started ballasting the track between the platforms.

The station was constructed using wooden supports with hardboard surfaces which then had thin cork laid on top. 

This was then 'painted' in PVA glue, to seal and strengthen it. It was then painted with Phoenix Precision grey paint (P979) before we edged all platforms with our own version of the Metcalfe Platform edging. These were printed on an inkjet printer before gluing them in place with PVA. When this was all done, we painted all platforms, again, with PVA. 

This gave the station surfaces a slightly shinier appearance than was achieved by the paint alone and also helped to seal it and toughen it.

We are still going to have the small industrial unit, seen in the bottom left hand corner of the top photo. This will be fenced off from the rest of the station and has its own loading bay. 

We also decided to use the Bachmann Art Deco station buildings and have already added the main station building as well as the Centre Building on the middle platform. Now we just hope that we can acquire the rest of the buildings to complete it!

Because of space constraints, we decided not to use Bachmann's Art Deco Signal Box and chose use Hornby's version instead. This will, eventually, have interiors fitted since, at the moment, it looks rather empty!

The new Lake End station is also coming along - see Photo 3. The platform was made from pieces of used Skaledale platform sections which we covered in thin cork and painted in the Phoenix Precision paints P979, followed by a coating of the PVA glue.

The small engine shed used here is by Scenix. This has been weathered and has had doors added at both ends, courtesy of Alex at Mikron Models who did an amazing job!

We are not sure if the buildings and canopies, currently seen on this station, will remain here but they give an impression at least.

Finally, in the bottom picture, I took a photograph of our Class 17 hauling a rake of coal wagons beneath the girder bridge, just as the Class 121 'Bubble Car' passes overhead. Clearly there is still a lot more scenery work to be done here - and elsewhere! 

However, once the trackwork at Davemoor is ballasted and cleaned ready for use, we will get back to doing this work!

Platform for Success

This weekend we concentrated on platform construction - firstly with the station at Anchwood (see top picture) and, then, the various platforms at Davemoor.

All platform surfaces have been constructed out of hardboard, sitting on wooden supports to achieve the correct height.

The surface of Anchwood was then covered in the Metcalfe tarmacadam sheets but we were not happy with this so have painted it over in grey acryllic paint. 

With Davemoor, since there will be quite a few joins in the various sections of hardboard, we plan to cover all of the surfaces in Smooth It before painting them.

As there are quite a few curved platforms here, we first had to create templates for all platforms using pieces of card taped together. 

We then attached a pencil to an old coach to get the spacing right.

The pencil needs to be attached to the centre of the coach for inner curves and at the front corner of the coach for outer curves. I will try and demonstrate this, with pictures, in a future posting to make it a little clearer.

You will note that there is to be a small industrial unit incorporated into Davemoor, with its own siding and bay platform. At the moment the thinking is that this will be a paper factory but, of course, this is subject to change.

Heljan's Awesome Foursome

We took a trip to Howes Models of Kiddlington near Oxford the other day and came away with one of Heljan's DP2 prototype diesels.

We have been wanting to acquire one of these lovely models for some time now because it means that we have all four for Heljan's prototype main line diesels in our fleet - and all can be seen lined up in the photograph above.

Currently only two of these locomotives are fully operational, namely Lion and Falcon. These have both had Howes sound decoders fitted and have been lightly weathered by Alex of Mikron Models in Taunton.

Kestrel and DP2 have yet to be fitted with decoders and, once they are, they too will be lightly weathered and ready to start hauling trains on the remodelled Lakeland Railway.

Seeing them all together here makes me wonder if any of the full size prototypes ever met during their all too brief lives.

Outlines of Power - Nº 2: The Metrovick Co-Bo's

Here we have the second of the 'Outlines of Power' articles by Mike Turner that the magazine 'Rail Enthusiast' ran during the early 1980s. 

This one featured the Metrovick Co-Bo's or Class 28s as they were classified under the TOPS system. The accompanying annotation reads as follows:

Mike Turner has painted Metropolitan-Vickers Co-Bo diesel-electrics D5709/10 with the "Condor" fast fitted freight headboard that was often carried by the type in their early days.

The Metrovicks were introduced in 1958 and their Crossley V8 two-stroke engines produced 1,200 bhp at 625 rpm continuous rating. The Co-Bo axle design allowed the use of five Metropolitan-Vickers 180 hp axle-hung, nose-suspended, traction motors to be used and this, together with 3 ft 3½ inch driving wheels and an all-up weight of 97 tons, resulted in an impressive tractive effort of 50,000 lbs - exactly the same as a "Deltic".

Plaster 'n' Ballast

Last weekend we continued to form the embankments and landscaping that is proving to be quite a feature of this part of the layout.

We began by creating the embankment along a part of the branch between the brick bridge and the new stationat Anchwood. We went as far as we could but, at the point where we stopped (in the top picture), we will need to continue with flat, vertical sides due to the proximity of the main line.

Other landscaping was done at the Davemoor end of the main line (see bottom picture) and, next weekend, all of this newly plastered landscaping will be ready to receive a coat of earth wash.

The rest of the time was spent ballasting .. and there is a lot of ballasting to be done .. as well as adding some stone walling along the branch and greenery around the tunnel mouth and alongside the mainline between the tunnel and girder bridge.

This is about as much landscaping as we are able to do, for the moment, since we do not want to block access to the stations on the branch line until we have installed all of the necessary wires for lighting.

Next job will be to start building the platforms for Davemoor and Anchwood - wish us luck!!