Wednesday 22nd December 2021

Worklist:
Scenery shaping
Retaining wall
Cottage designs

It was great to have all three together again and some catching up took place over tea and mince pies.

The first job was to remove board #4 (the scenic exchange board) and replace it with the bridge board so that the foam blocks on the engine shed board could be shaped to suit the bridge hillside. Once the ES board is more advanced, the adjoining boards will be swapped back to allow board #4 to be shaped to match the ES board.

Board #4

Bridge board

Geoff got to work with a pair of Surform tools - one long and one short - both of which were perfect for the job. 


Edges were shaved off, then the cottage footpath slope was evened out. Debris was then hoovered off and the slopes admired.


Extensive discussions took place on how to treat the front face of the hill adjacent the main line. It was quickly decided that to match the stonework adjacent the quarry siding 'next door', plaster cast rocks will be used. The mould was found, but there was no casting plaster. Unable to use our previous supplier, Stephen will either find another source or bring some one-coat plaster he has been using at home. The foam where it will sit will be left intact until the rocks have been cast.

It was decided that the rest of the hillside - the lower height section - was to have a coursed stone retaining wall. A sheet from the pack purchased for the buildings from Slaters matching the bridge stonework, was offered-up and agreed. A length of 5mm plywood was cut to shape and the plasticard stonework glued on with contact adhesive. The area of foam down the back of the engine shed was trimmed to allow a reasonable 'maintenance gap'. Strips of wood were then glued onto the back of the plywood to allow a row of coping stones to be fitted on top, in due course.

One thing we noticed was missing stonework on the rear of the bridge, facing the fiddleyard. This, and a rather poor lining to the bridge portal itself will need to be made good.

While this was going on, Stephen presented some rough sketches he'd prepared of the cottage elevations. He had become particularly concerned about the way the doors worked with the steep slope which was now appearing. The pairs of cottages had been drawn with two options:  A - central doors, which worked with the slope, but the floor levels were either well below ground or well above it, which might look slightly odd. B - having the doors wide apart created the need for large steps outside the lower doors, which again looked impractical and ate into minimal footpath space. C - the previously undrawn third option was to have stepped single cottages, which Stephen now preferred, but this was not universally accepted! (D - sloping roofs, was common in such workers accommodation, but was not an attractive solution). 


Stephen first used his paper models to demonstrate the perceived problem, then, after cutting them in half, showed how much better the single cottages option worked. The group were swayed over and Geoff printed off some more cottages onto thin card, to get a proper view of the whole terrace. It looked even better. Even bending the cottages outwards onto the newly created hilltop worked well for single units, which we had discussed early on, but the double cottages never really fitted. 

Everyone was pleased at how well it all worked. We discussed the construction of the 'winding' top two cottages and foresaw no problems - just interesting details!


The coursed stone retaining wall.



Another cut-and-paste exercise was for a slightly larger dwelling at yard level - a house for the yard manager? Double fronted and with a full height first floor to lift it above the tunnel structure behind. Maybe in 1963, it has become an office? 


Geoff was also keen for there to be a discernible gap between this house and the adjacent industrial building which, presently, will be a corrugated iron infill unit. Various ideas were discussed, but the presence of the constructed buildings will help to decide the answer.







Wednesday 15th December 2021

Worklist:
Check rails for yard road surface retension.
Engine shed pit edging.
Scenery sub-structure.

Laurence on family duties this week.

Geoff finished off the check rails in the mason's yard to contain the road surfaces and only had a few short sections of the 'repurposed' rail left over. It looked great.


Stephen used prepared strips of 2mm plastikard to reinforce the edges of the engine shed pit. 



Attention then turned to the foam blocks that will eventually become the sub-structure of the hills. Pieces cut up and shaped during the previous exercise and dismantled to work on the underside of the layout were slowly repositioned. Anything that looked ok was glued down with PVA glue. The bandsaw made quick and clean work of shaping some pieces.




We had to stop when the numerous lumps of metal to hold the foam down got in the way. There's always next week.


The paper building models were loosely placed on the foam structure and generally worked well, especially on the section extending out to the engine shed siding where the cottages and winding footpath could now be envisaged much better.
 

Wednesday 8th December 2021

Worklist:
Refit engine shed point servo, point actuator and section wiring.

Just Laurence and Geoff as Stephen not too well, but there was no slacking. The layout was cleared of loose items and the boards clamped vertically to give easy access underneath. The realignment of the engine shed road meant moving the point and so refitting the servo meant a new hole for the activation wire. Once complete, the point, new track section and the inspection pit rails were all satisfactorily tested.