Lea Siding, a Gauge 3 layout 4 feet long is no more

the lighting, an LED strip is yet to be fitted. There is a fiddle yard at either end, but not enough space in the railway room at present.
The layout has been provisionally accepted for my club's exhibition under the heading: “Lea Siding: Getting Started in Gauge 3 Indoors” which is on Saturday 22nd and Sunder 23rd April 2017. The club is the Ilford and West Essex Model Railway Club, the exhibition will be held at St Edwards School, London Road, Romford, RM7 9NX.
The aim is to show that if you are happy modelling smaller prototypes, or branch lines, it is perfectly possible to create a gauge 3 layout in limited space indoors, and do it without spending huge amounts of cash.
the layout is really just a working diorama, inspired by the entrance to Outwell village depot, on the Wisbech and Upwell tramway. The visual area is 1200mm by 400mm with fiddle yards at either end. The track is standard components from Cliff Barker's range. The one turnout is 1500mm radius, other curves are roughly 2200mm radius. Scenery will be very limited. The idea is that locos will be shunting wagons up and down, occasionally parking one in the yard at the front to show off the detail that can be achieved in this scale.
However, as yet my stock consists of 2 1/2 locos, and a few wagons, and I'm the only G3 fan at the club. So, I realise late April is still nine months away, but diaries do tend to get filled up well in advance, so I'm giving plenty of notice. I will need volunteers from the G3 community to help out on both days, hopefully bringing suitable locos and stock, and being prepared to discuss all aspects of modelling in gauge 3 with the public. Although the layout is East Anglian, anything would be welcome, if you've got a pacific or a big diesel that will negotiate 2.2m curves, please bring it. Obviously Thomas's will also be welcome to attract the younger audience.
You don't have to commit youself just yet, but I would appreciate responses from anyone who thinks they will be able to come, with an indication of the sort of stock/expertise you would be bringing.

pm sent.

I like the new look of the longer layout! The new building "view blocker" mock-up on the left-hand side reminds me of my own attempt on 'Withyn Reach', albeit I wouldn't be so presumptious as to think my 'inside out' building is the inspiration here - far more likely to just be a coincidence!!

thanks, Jordan, you may have just inspired me to model the interior of that view-blocker house at the front...

For the interior of that house there is a large range of fittings available for the dolls house fraternity. 90% of dolls houses are 1:12 (5in gauge but don't even think about doing a Cookie and changing scale!), but that leaves quite a bit at 1:24.

1:12 is tempting, there's something about the numbers. If I ever went live steam it would be a de Winton in 1:12. But that's a big if.

I've seen quite a few 1:24 bits in my local model shop, which specialises in architectural modelmaking, and looking forward to adding that sort of detail. But first I've got to get the backscene painted, and the roadway laid.

With regard to April 2017, I am sure I could help clutter up the layout with some more wagons. I might even have a loco finished by then .

thanks, Ian,
having just served a short, but exhausting apprenticeship helping run Blackgang at the GCR do in Loughborough, I'm all fired up to make progress on the scenery.

the backscene and proscenium arch have been glued and screwed on, and painted. I've also painted some small boards to go behind the exits and make those large 'doorways' less obvious. i've built up the space between the sleepers with 1/8" balsa to minimise the weight of ballast that will be needed. The track is painted with Humbrol 29 matt dark earth, which I saw recommended in an article in Railway Modeller a long time ago, as better representing the dried out and bleached appearance of a little used branch line in East Anglia. the yard at the front will be paved with setts, as will the turnout with 18" either side, as per street tramway legislation.

painted the 'soil' along the back of the layout, then connected one of the fiddle yard boards and had a test run. Everything seems okay, although there is a Gudunk going over the turnout frog, so I'm going to fill the up to 2mm below the rail height. The Y6 disgraced itself by blowing a Peter Spoerer sound card, when I installed it last week. I think it was because I had the motor block upside down. The gears didn't mesh properly and caused an overload. It blew the Revo motor fuse. Unfortunately I'd only connected one fuse to the sound card between it and the battery.
Bit of a shame, because the one connected to the J65 sounds really good.

I like the Technical Description:- ..."Gudunk"...!!

Describes it perfectly!!

A second attempt at building the large sash window in one of the two buildings on the layout. First attempt using only card was a failure, so I tried using different shapes from the evergreen range, overlaying a template printed on thin card.
at present I'm very proud of it, though it needs a couple of dabs of filler, hoping I still will be when I look at it again tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately there isn't any plastic embossed flemish bond brickwork in either gauge 3 or 1:24th scale, so I used turbocad to print the brickwork on paper and glued that to the structure. I then printed out the bricks in thin card, and I'm applying them individually. since taking the photo I've done three quarters of what's left.
I'm considering making some patterns for resin casting, for future projects though.

A bit news for the exhibition next April, I'm told we can run live steam, providing we can show a valid boiler certificate, so, anyone got a live steamer that will negotiate 1500mm curves?

A bit of progress has been made laying the setts.

I picked up the resin cast buckets of fish and coiled rope at a G scale do years ago. After over 50 years modelling, this will be my smallest layout in scenic terms, and the first one to reach the detailing stage.

geoff_nicholls said:

A bit news for the exhibition next April, I'm told we can run live steam, providing we can show a valid boiler certificate, so, anyone got a live steamer that will negotiate 1500mm curves?

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Roger Marsh built, and Trevor Goodman has a very nice live steam saddle tank which has been run on a 3ft diameter circle of track, so your 1500mm radius is quite acceptable! Not sure how controllable it would be on a 4ft layout though? Probably wouldn't get the cylinders up to temperature.

Mike

That loco would be ideal.
There are 4 foot fiddle yards either end, so there is a 12 foot run, but I think I'll set up a rolling road at one end as well.

geoff_nicholls said:

A bit of progress has been made laying the setts.


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Once again, the "like" button is wholly inadequate...

geoff_nicholls said:

Unfortunately there isn't any plastic embossed flemish bond brickwork in either gauge 3 or 1:24th scale, so I used turbocad to print the brickwork on paper and glued that to the structure. I then printed out the bricks in thin card, and I'm applying them individually. since taking the photo I've done three quarters of what's left.
I'm considering making some patterns for resin casting, for future projects though.

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It just occurred to me, that if you printed the bricks on various reddish-brown/"brickish" shades of card, then mixed them all up as you cut and applied them, it would almost save painting the building afterwards.