Standing on time and Chalkden Station becomes alive!

I was in Louth in Lincolnshire today with Mrs. Woody. A really historic Lincolnshire town nestled in the hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds which proves not all of the County is flat! I did come across some very interesting sights and facts whilst having a walk round but these two particularly fascinate me.

The first is that the Greenwich Meridian goes through the middle of the town as recorded by this in the pavement which I stood on making me stand on time!

The plaque on the wall above explains.

A bit further down the street was this plaque which showed the modest beginnings of Currys which is now one of the UKs largest electrical retailers. From small acorns....

Back at WMD HQ, Chalken Station has benefitted from the installation of the platform seats (with station nameplates added) and lamps I was working on and even a few people have made their way into the scene. They are only temporarily placed to see if their positioning looks OK before being glued down.

I am really pleased with how it has turned out. Just Need to put the Greenwich Meridian down the middle of the platform so the 4mm people can stand on time!

Lets sit in the light!

More rummaging in boxes at WMD HQ Stores found a few items for the platform on my 009 narrow gauge layout Chalkdon.

First off was a pack of 12 PECO platform benches.

i thought at first that they looked a bit low but with my nearly painted 00 gauge platform figures to hand I cut two seated poses from the sprue to try them out. Although their hats and shoes still need painting this did not affect them fitting on the benches looking comfy!

I also glued two pairs of seats back to back - the reason will become apparent later!

Light wise I found this kit by Ratio for swan necked lamps.

Once unpacked I could see that whilst the kit offered many options on how to assemble the lamps to get different configurations, the parts were tiny and likely to break whilst being cut off the sprue.

Despite my concerns the first lamp went together with no need to make a contribution to the swear box!

A couple of hours saw two double lamps and one single lamp constructed. In addition I have also put in some uprights between the benches to support the station name boards once I make them!

Next stage is to paint these and then get them on the platform which should make that a little more interesting to look t and somewhat more pleasant for the 4mm scale passengers and station staff!

Rummaging!

I am doing a lot of rummaging in boxes at the moment looking for certain things I know I have but can not remember where I put them! Strangely, the usual manner in which these rummages go is that you do not find what you are looking for but do find other things that you were looking for months ago or had indeed forgotten about! 

For me I found an 009 loco and some coaches that I can remember having but not where they were.

The loco is an old, I believe GEM, whitemetal kit now manufactured by PECO and represents a Glyn Valley Tramway loco. It rums on an old Graham Farish 0-6-0 chassis which dates probably from the 1980s/early 90's and is DCC unfriendly!

You can see in the photo below that it is a fairly substantial piece of metal with the parts glued together with epoxy - probably Araldite. I bought this second hand about 30 years ago when I first started dabbling in 009 gauge. 

In storage the chimney had broken off as the picture above shows but this was a straightforward glue job with a blob of superglue. 

The chassis was given a good clean, wheels taken out and pickups cleaned and bearing surfaces lightly lubricated.

The coaches are kit built Parkside Dundas products that now trade just as Dundas. They are based on the coaches used by the Festiniog and Blaenau railway in Wales. As is usual for me, I never finished them and they have sat waiting for those last jobs for the past three decades! Those jobs include glazing Which is why I never glued the roofs on at the time and the probably long lost roof vents want fitting as well as things like door handles painting. I did reattached the Greenwich couplers which are an etched metal coupler that you bend to shape and articulate with a bent track pin. 

Putting all this re-found rolling stock on the layout made an attractive train which has given me the desire to finish the coaches and convert the loco to DCC - not an easy task but if you know how it is possible. I can run it on the layout in its DC form as my Bachmann controller has a facility to allow one DC train to be run in conjunction with up to nine DCC locos. It is not good for the DC loco motor but it does at least prove that the chassis and motor work and that my servicing had not caused it any harm. 

I like this photo where the old rickety passenger train runs side by side with the new comfy bus - a sign of things tp come!

Tree Time!

I have taken the possible tree for Chalkdon on by actually finishing it! I needed to find the tub that I had put the Woodland Scenics foliage mat into some years ago when I was last doing this project. You can see in this photo that the tree is formed from about 24 lengths of garden or florists wire that is twisted as one to make the trunk and then separated out into smaller and smaller bundles to make the main branches and then the smaller branches.

Adding the foliage involved cutting suitable pieces from the mat and drapping them over the ends of the branches.

I am no expert in either making or identifying trees so this could be anything apart from a conifer! However it does not look too bad.

In its possible final home it looks quite good although I am not sure about overhanging the track and whether that would happen in real life. However this is my little World so I should forget about that and just judge it on how it looks and if I like it!

A railway garden!

You have probably heard of garden railways but out with Mrs. Woody today we passed this.

Now that is the type of garden I like! I think Mrs. W saw it more as interesting but not for her! She was more taken by tis lovely small church which just cries out to be modelled. Another one for the list!

Back at WMD HQ, Chalkdon, my 009 narrow gauge layout has had a little bit more scenic work done to it with the exposed card edge of a sub-base disguised with undergrowth!

I also dug this out of a box having been reminded by the trees around the church that I had it. 

I started this about 5 years ago with an idea for a layout that has stalled! Sound familiar for me? It is not a finished tree but the tree structure was made up of pieces of gardeners (see there is a connection with the first part of this post) wire twisted together and then shaped into a tree like structure. This was then covered in acrylic artists paste before being painted. The start of the foliage is Woodlands Scenic products. I am still at the point of wondering whether I need the tree at that point just to provide some height and intertest. As with all these things it is sometimes best to leave in place temporarily and time will tell!

Chalkdon progress!

I am beginning to sense I might actually finish this layout of mine! Unbelievably more progress with some ballasting and scenic work having been done.

Ballasting has been carried out around the station platform area having glued the platform in place last night. I just need to do some scenic work where the ballast meets the two gardens and the platform itself needs some additions to make it look more like a station!

On the main road the road has been taken over the tracks so that the 4mm road users can drive off the layout. Only thing is that it s about a scale 200 foot plunge if they do! Again, there is further scenic work to do.

At the cattle grid some hedging has been added making it look a bit more as though there is a reason for it all. I need to repaint the road between the cattle grid and the bridge as the grey is too dark.

Meanwhile, to actually find out how near to finishing this layout is, the WMD drone has been out.

Analysis of the photos does indeed show it is getting near to being finished. Knowing me though I will now be distracted onto another project! 

Spring clean!

Having slumbered through the Winter the exhibits in the Exhibition Center at the Rocks By Rail Museum will be awakened in just over a week as the Museum opens for the 2023 season.

Some are ready to roll,

some still undergoing the long and hard work of restoration.

In the restoration shed and in the dry on this rainy day, John and me decided to Spring clean tidy up the public walk through ready for our guests.

We got serious with the vacuum cleaner coming out. Cobwebs, dust and dirt stood no chance!

It does look a lot better and we filled 4 of those white buckets in the photo above. We also found a lot of things that should not have been in the shed which are now back in their rightful places. There is even talk of painting the floor!

Hope Mrs. Woody doesn't think that I should be doing this sort of Spring cleaning back at WMD HQ!

Growing grass!

My day has mainly been spent growing or trying to grow grass.

On Chalkdon, my 009 narrow gauge layout, it was time to apply some grass after having done some ballasting yesterday. PVA glue was spread in the required areas.

Then my puffer static grass applicator was used to apply the grass.

Once the grass was applied it was left for a few minutes then I vacuumed up the loose fibers leaving what I think is a pleasing result. 

I still need to add some bushes and undergrowth but I like the way the cattle grid looks and is something not often seen these days.

In the garden I have been trying to grow grass! Still suffering from the aftermath of the builders my lawn is still looking like a battlefield. I have been seeding areas having raked the clay off as far as possible. Using sieved soil I am trying to get it back to a smoothish surface too. The one area that required some digging was where the soakaway for the drain from the rebuilt conservatory. It had been left with a hump which I thought would be an easy job of just removing the turf, taking a few spadefulls of soil out and put turf back. I should have known by the fact I found a brick (they are used tro create the soakaway) sticking out above the grass that this was not going to be easy. The spade went in about three inches and hit brick. Taking the turf off there was a sea of bricks. No use to allow the grass to grow as it will just die in the warm dry weather that we will hopefully have a few days worth of this summer! 

So out came about 12 inches in depth of bricks.

With the brickless void backfilled I used sieved soil to get some element of grass friendly growing media for the seed that will hopefully be through in a few weeks. It will need more levelling as the backfill compacts over time but at least I don't have a hump in my lawn looking like I have buried something. Now, where is Mrs. Woody?