There was little modelling activity of any variety during 2010 - we moved house rather than renovating, and the White Mountain Branch was finally demolished in late spring 2010. After a couple of false starts we finally moved into our new home at the end of August. After an initial flurry of DIY around the house, I have mnanaged to find my model making equipment and have made a start on some HOn30 equipment. I have built caboose #551 from a Funero & Camerlango kit, and another Plymouth switcher.
At present the garage which I was hoping to use for layout purposes isn't entirely watertight, so everything stored in there is under plastic sheeting. As a result I will need a small layout in the study, and the Kingfield module will be perfect.
April 2009
The winter of 2008/9 was unusually hard in southern England (the most snow for 18 years). Activity in the shed was not only not sensible in view of the impending renovation, but impossible due to below zero temperatures.
The winter was therefore spent indoors, building Forney No.8 - see the stocklist pages, and scratchbuilding turnouts. I have never scratch-built a turnout using wooden ties and spikes before, only using copper clad ties strip and solder. I found it surprisingly easy, and built a stub switch using a B&K turnout kit and scratch built a No.6 (approx) wye. Due to the pink foam construction of the layout the turnouts are built on their own 6mm ply bases which will be sunk into the lauot surface.
Spring has now arrived in the UK and loyality has now transfered to the German N-scale layout - see its pages and progress report.
December 2008
During 2008 it has become apparent that the White Mountain Branch - my HO scale Maine Central layout - will shortly be dismantled. A major home renovation is planned and the real estate the shed it is housed in is required for domestic purposes. Such is the problem with space starved England, where every last scrap of land is precious. In some ways I'm not sorry to see it go, there were major short-comings with the layout (especially curve radii), and I had improved it as far as I could without completely rebuilding it. The scrap crew will be on site shortly.
The up-side of the home remodeling means I get an inside room suitable for both layout and work-bench! The new layout is likely to be both HO and HOn30, but with the main focus to be on the HOn30. 2009 promises to be a year of turmoil, and I am therefore targeting my resources on the two portable layouts which can move around as required: the N-scale Schontal, and the present HOn30 module which I am now calling Kingfield. I am building a lot of HOn30 items at present see my Maine 2ft stocklist page.
The plan for the new American layout incorporates part of the SR&RL, running from Farmington, via Strong to Kingfield, ME. The present "pink foam" module suited the size of the compact stub end Kingfield depot, rather than Farmington. The plan for Kingfield really isn't too far off scale, but to fit with my longer term plan it's a mirror image - with just the industrial sidings being seriously compressed at one end. (In real life they were 1/4 mile further out of town nearer the Carrabasset switch).
April 2008
The initial design concept and baseboard construction happened very quickly in January 2008. I use the term "baseboard" rather than the American "benchwork" because this is a more traditionally British design of portable layout - rather than the WMB which is a small American style home fixed layout.
Farmington Union Station is a 2m x 450mm module - it is designed to fit on a shelf in my study and will be worked on when work on WMB is not possible in winter. It is extremely lightweight and portable design. Baseboard construction is "pink" extruded foam core with 4mm ply long sides and 18mm ply ends (I had run out of 12mm so I used what I had on hand). The thicker ply is designed to take bolts to hold the individual boards together.
The track design differs from the prototype Farmington considerably. What I have tried to do is pick out several Layout Design Elements these are; a Std / narrow diamond, ball signal, a covered trainshed over the narrow tracks, an interchange freight shed, and timber clad furniture factory. I've also managed to squeeze in a small narrow guage engine house - in real life it was the standard gauge which had the engine house and the narrow only a turntable and water crane.
The first set back came when I started experimenting with the SR&RL HOn30 brass Prairies - they don't like Peco turnouts - not even the wide radius N scale ones. They don't like the pressed steel switch blades. This means acquiring #6 or wider "kits" from B&S in the USA or hand laying with copper clad tie strip or basswood ties and spikes.
The furinture factory at Farmington is close enough to the main mill building in the South River Modelworks Whitney Bent Furniture Co. kit that I intend to use it as the focal point for the left end of the module. Its about time I built one of those kits!
Appart from building the baseboards the main progress for this module over winter 2007-8 has been the building up of a suitable collection of narrow guage locos and stock. See the Maine 2ft stocklist page.