West Allen Street & Thawne

[danielb]

Good morning everyone,

Over the last 18 months or so I've been working on a portable HO switching layout designed to take to shows.

The layout started out initially as an Inglenook fed from a sector plate, with the addition of a kickback spur from one of the fork spurs.

Here is a trackplan of the layout in it's initial format - known then as West Allen Street:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxJ0XC...FFSbG9sVGM


The layout was built on a budget of £200, that was to include locomotives and rolling stock, but not the DCC controller or tools used to build the layout.

That said, the cost of the DCC locomotive could have equally gone to the cost of a DC controller and a DC locomotive, which makes the total cost still perfectly feasible.

All locos and stock were purchased second hand at train shows to keep the cost down.

The first incarnation of the layout was successfully built to the stated budget, including 2 DCC fitted locomotives (Athearn CF7 and Bachmann GP40) and 10 freight cars - all Athearn blue box.

It was exhibited at the Trent Valley North American Modellers exhibition in 2015 in this first incarnation.

Since then, the layout has been improved upon and expanded - the cheap ground cover (sand used to represent gravel) was dug up and the whole thing redone with DAS modelling clay painted to look like asphault and packed dirt.

This - plus expansion of the locomotive roster and freight car fleet - was completed ready for the layout's second exhibition at Mansfield Model Railway show 2016


After this, and the purchase of a small fleet of gondolas at Mansfield (they were a real bargain - £20 for 6 Blue Box gons!) I decided that the layout needed more operating potential, and wanted an industry to make use of the gon fleet.

Thus came the plans for the first expansion of the layout - Thawne.

Scrap yards are overdone, IMO, so I decided on a stone masons, with large blocks of stone brought into the layout in gondolas, unloaded into the factory, and stone products shipped out in gondolas, boxcars and bulkhead flats.

One of the main issues I had with the original layout format was loading cars onto the sector plate, due to the narrow gap between the backscene and the factory on the kickback spur which was used as a view blocker to hide the sector plate itself.

As such, the first requirement of the extension was better staging. This evolved in the form of a single spur (made from the old sector plate!) attached behind the backscene on the extension, with train disappearing through the backscene to reach it.

Naturally, the stonemasons would be fed by kickback spurs and sit in front of the hidden staging.

In addition to the single spur feeding the stonemasons, another curved spur was added to the front of the layout to act as a locomotive stabling point and caboose track. This track also proves useful when switching the masons.

Unfortunately during initial testing of the track layout, it became apparent that the curved spur was not long enough to fit my longest locomotive on it, so a small extension was added to the front of the layout to correct this.

The idea of the curved spur was to represent an older industrial branch that was no longer rail served, and has been abandoned.

Future plans for the layout include a new extension on the left end of the layout including a coal trestle and a heavy travelling crane to serve the Handy Co. metals factory. After that is finished I have an idea for a third extension moving from the locomotive stabling/caboose track on Thawne.

Below is a link to my Google Drive folder with a couple of hundred pictures of the layout through it's various incarnations. I would appreciate any feedback you could give me.

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[faraway]

Your layout is an excellent example how to build a great ISL on a tight budget I love all the details.
You showed some pictures in Facebook and I was impressed by some great brick walls. You directed me to Clever Models. That makes you "guilty" of my last wallpapered structures

[danielb]

Thanks Reinhard.

I'm now going to scurry off to your layout thread and get to finding what it was I inspired.

[danielb]

Following on from the post yesterday, here are some work in progress photos of the next extension to the layout.

It will fix onto the end of the inglenook part of the layout, to the middle spur which feeds the loading dock for the Handy Co. Metals factory.

The spur that feeds the travelling crane will be where the Handy Co. load/unload larger cargo, as well as a gravelled "team track" for them to unload various other components.

The front spur feeds a coal unloading trestle and general merchant which are a seperate industry to Handy Co.

The switch is hand built, although probably not very well - it's only the third switch I've made, though the second one was the 3 way that replaced the sector plate on the extended layout.
















Last of all, here is the general plan for Ramon Blvd, the next expansion which will project from the current locomotive stabling spur on the front of Thawne.

[danielb]

Over the last few days, I've been working over my lunch breaks at work to build the coal dealership office/warehouse building, which fits onto the Handy Co. extension board between the coal trestle and the retaining wall. The freight door on the second floor connects with the wooden bridge which is attached to the coal trestle (see photos in previous post).

I decided to add a ground level loading dock and freight door for transferring freight from rail cars to motor vehicles. It will need trimming to allow it to fit flush against the retaining wall, but that can wait until the building gets planted onto the layout.

Enough waffling on from me, here are the progress photos:













Hopefully I'll have more progress to show in a couple of days, as I've got a small tool shed planned which I'm hoping I can knock together in a couple of hours.

[danielb]

Before I left for work this evening I snapped a couple of shots of the warehouse/office building in place on the layout. Clearly both the canopy and the loading dock will need trimming down before it will fit in place correctly.

That, plus a small shack are on my lunchtime to-do list today.

[danielb]

Today's progress on the layout has been to build a yard office for the Handy Co. facility. A detailed step by step build thread can be seen in the Scratchbuilding section of the forum.

Here are the finished photos - the building does need some steps for the front and rear doors, but those will be my project for tomorrow.

[faraway]

Looks perfect! You had another perfect lunch break

[ngauger]

Don't know how I missed this thread until now. Great modeling!! I love the brick details.

Beautiful work!!

[Tyson Rayles]

[danielb]

Progress report - I've been working on a trackside cafe to go at the front right of the Handy Co. board, as there should be plenty of opportunity for details - filth, grime, trash, etc around a back alley diner.

The structure itself is pretty much done, it just needs further work bedding it into the layout and then detail parts adding once the rest of the scenery is done.

IMG_20170114_203302 by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

IMG_20170114_203247 by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

IMG_20170114_203234 by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

IMG_20170114_203222 by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

IMG_20170114_203209 by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

Lastly, here's an overall shot of the progress:
IMG_20170116_160414 by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

[danielb]

This evening I spent my lunch break working on the low-relief background building for the Handy Co extension, and so far have managed this:

by Dan Beresford, on Flickr

I'm not sure yet if I will layer up over this with card and more texture papers, but if I do it will be much later along, as I've got more pressing jobs to finish - like the ground cover and the rest of the structures!

This building is still a work in progress though, and I've got a lot of work left to do on it.

[faraway]

That looks good.

....I'm not sure yet if I will layer up over this with card and more texture papers,....

I hope you do so and explain step by step how to do it.

[modelsof1900]

Great start of a good looking project. Looking forward to see your progress!

[Tyson Rayles]

Excellent work Dan!