7mm Stroudley Park

[SouthernFan Ian]

It’s not everyday an outpost like Stroudley Park receives a visit from the great man himself. Sharp eyed readers may catch a glimpse of Mr. O. V. S. Bullied as the exLBSCR Director’s Saloon is backed into the main platform while his illustrious predecessor, Mr. William Stroudley oversees the operation from afar.


At this time period, the Director’s Saloon was always accompanied by one of the two dedicated LBSCR double ended six wheel brake vans and No. 758 is shown attached.

The two coach bodies were lined beautifully by the master of the lining pen, Warren Haywood, everything under the coach bodies was built and painted by me. That included much scratch build on the saloon.
The next job is to install the glazing and lightly weather.
The ensemble makes an ideal short train for a space challenged layout.
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Work is progressing, albeit at an erratic pace with the build of an ex Meteor Models C2X. The build went reasonably well until the dummy inside valve gear reared its ugly head.
Suffice to say, the instructions are minimal and as I am a valve gear novice, the drawings are not as informative as I would hope.


If anyone in this esteemed group has built a Meteor C2X, I would be extremely grateful if you could share some pictures of the inside valve gear please? I’m flummoxed!
Thank you in anticipation.
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

The C2X is now starting to look better as progress has been made.
After three attempts at the inside valve gear I am pleased the huge void under the boiler and between the frames has been filled.
The information provided by Western Thunderers was most helpful and I thank you all.
The main issue with the valve gear was caused by the fact that I built my chassis as a split chassis with split axles, add to this, all axles run in Slater’s sprung Hornblocks which produced a few head scratching moments as to how to install the valve gear.
The middle axle has vertical movement as the valve gear eccentrics sit just above the highest point of axle vertical movement. The axle holes in the eccentrics were converted into slots to allow the Hornblocks to move as intended.

The fully painted cab interior, complete with real wood floor and crew slides out for when I paint the loco. The coal load is also removable. It’s getting there, slowly and not very surely!
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Creating Mortar
This is the final stage of building Stroudley Park. A large factory to hide the fiddle yard and a dairy, based on Morden with an overall roof will complete the ensemble.

However, my favourite method of creating mortar lines is to use Humbrol number 28, a colour called Linen. I use this for white coach roofs and mortar lines as it is a nice off white. The method is to paint no28 and then wipe off. This provides me with a result I am satisfied with as shown below. Locally, no28 has become hard to obtain.

I seem to remember in the past, there was a modelling product specifically to produce mortar lines, does anyone remember the name of it and is it still available?
Has anyone used emulsion paint to good effect for mortar?
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

The recent spell of baking hot weather has forced me to stay indoors. The result is more profess on the factory and dairy.
The prospect of fitting all the factory windows was quite daunting but in reality it went quickly and smoothly. Other than fitting backing to the windows, the factory is very much done which allowed me to move on to planning the dairy.
A card mock up was made to ensure all was well visually. The process included much measuring to ensure the roof fitted comfortably over the tracks and in front of the factory.
Here’s the result of my endeavours




It’s coming together.
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Progress is being made on the dairy project. Most of the construction has been made using birch faced ply of varying thicknesses. It was something of a learning curve as the dairy roof and building required some careful cutting. However, all is well and I am pleased with the snails pace progress so far. The overall roof has been glazed with PETG, a product new to me but I am sold on it. It’s easy to work with and versatile.
Did anyone notice the subtle CWS on the dairy building? It’s taking a while to complete this project, far longer than I envisioned, nevertheless, it has been very enjoyable (mostly) so far. Looking forward to ‘knocking back’ the vibrancy on the brick wall by creating the mortar lines as per the small water tower.

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

The arrival of a pair of Dapol six wheel milk tankers has produced a flurry of activity on the Dairy Project resulting in the unloading platforms being built and installed plus finishing off a few painting jobs.
Here’s a pic of the inside of the unloading shed.
I really must buy some more of Andy Duncan’s milk churns for the churn traffic unloading platform.
Here’s how the look of the area is shaping up.

I rather like the look of a black and white image to convey atmosphere.
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

A steady rate of progress has been achieved on Stroudley Park dairy. There has been much paintbrush wielding of late along with construction of the platform faces, the results can be seen below.

The next major step is building the concrete floor with drain channels. To that end, I’ve been having a dabble with C&L chairs, some sheet Plastikard and Evergreen styrene channel and I’m quite pleased with the prospect as shown below.

Finally, here’s a pic of how the scene is shaping up. The footboard across the tracks will be next. The whole ensemble looks like a very early railway station so I’m thinking the back story is something like this was the re-purposed and re-built original Craven era Stroudley Park station before the more modern Stroudley era station was built!!!

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

For my third and final baseboard for Stroudley Park, I envisioned a factory to hide the fiddleyard and a dairy fronting the factory. When you work in 0 Gauge, sometimes you just don’t realised the enormity of the end result, nor the length of time to achieve the desired result.
Much effort has been spent recently to build what I had in mind. The result (albeit unfinished) is shown here. The dairy is Marsh Lane Dairy, a play on words of another LBSCR CME ( in line with Stroudley Park) an is inspired by the CWS dairy at Croydon and Matthew Pinto’s book Milk on the Rails.
The reference to Rankin Engineering is a tribute to a friend and fine modeller who has helped me above and beyond to build Stroudley Park. I am extremely grateful for his help with the technicalities of split chassis and loco building in general.
The amount of time required to paint the track on the concrete drainage pad in the dairy shed was very surprising, it took me four days to paint just what can be seen from the viewing side! I’ll tackle the hidden side annother time.
Anyway, here’s the result of my efforts.


Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Progress Report
Although there’s been more progress on the final hurdle at Stroudley Park, it is still a work in progress. The ‘Look’ of the scene is pretty much how I imagined it to look and it’s taking shape nicely.

On the far right is the dairy owned Ruston servicing point still under construction. Again, more use has been made of Intentio used sleepers for the platform. The oil drums are Skytrex and I’m still unsure what the colour of the drums should be for 1930’s - ish.

There’s a bit more work to do in this area. One aspect of this project I didn’t consider was the factory frontage make a good backdrop to photograph locos and stock as shown below as an example.

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Two new images illustrating progress.
New signs: NO ENGINES MUST PASS THIS BOARD.

The Ruston servicing point.

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Following on from some good advice from fellow WT’ers, the dairy scene is pretty much how I envisioned it in my mind’s eye. This is the end result.

Next up is tackling the fiddle yard proper and the cassette system I want use.
There’s been some serious Fiddleyard Yard shenanigans how the Stroudley Park Fiddleyard yard will operate.
I was delighted to see the Intentio fiddle yard cassette offering. I was impressed, so I bought one to test my thinking.
I have a strong dislike of fly leads in fiddle yards when connecting to a cassette so I came up with this solution which I think will suit my needs very well.
As a picture is worth a thousand words, you will probably understand from my photo.
Here’s a description anyway.
Brass angle strip attached either side and each end of the cassette base and connected electrically to the track. The Fiddleyard yard baseboard will have similar angle strips attached to the layout running rails. The baseboard contacts will have adjustable connectors.
Here’s the concept pics. I’m looking forward to constructing this properly rather than this quickly fettled lashed upversion.


I think this has potential for easy fly lead free operation.
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Smoke, Mirrors and Subterfuge at Stroudley Park.
The dairy unloading shed has now been completed with judicious use of the contents of my scrap box. Following on from some comments made, I built and installed some roof trusses. I only made three as they can be seen through the glass roof panels. All very much, a Heath Robinson construction, the end result works for me.

Now on to more serious stuff. Another comment previously made, and quite rightly, was the two track roof span required a middle support.
This is where I raided my spare box. Brass tube was soldered to some cast white metal column bases left over from my footbridge. Pipe work for washing out milk tankers was cobbled together using brass tube and strip. All inspired by Matthew Pintos book ‘Milk on the Rails’. The hose is a length of soft solder to represent an ‘O’s’. The end result is shown here.


The backstory of the dairy shed is:
Originally, in very early LBSC days, this was the station train shed.
Under Southern ownership, along comes the Cooperative Wholesale Society, who purchase the building and they repurpose the building for their business of unloading milk tankers.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’ll post more pictures of the dairy in situ when I have the chance to erect the baseboard (I only have space for two boards at any one time).
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Today was the day I erected Stroudley Park for the first time. My wife was out for a Christmas Lunch so took over the consevatory for Stroudley Park. It’s quite surprising how much space a small 0 Gauge layout occupies in what I thought was a large space. Here’s a few general images. I just couldn’t resist ‘testing’ some locomotives!!!

There’s still much more to do but it was a very enjoyable day. I think a celebratory glass of Auchentoshan is called for.
Regards,
Ian

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

Spring time refers not to the season but spring suspension. A job I’ve been putting off for months.

The photograph shows Ruston No1 carefully pushing a Van C carrying churn traffic into the dairy and there lays the problem.
A Van C is long wheelbase and when I built it several years ago, I nievely built it without any form of suspension.
I recently discovered Connoisseur Kits retro fit spring suspension kits and this gave me the opportunity (with bated breath I might add) to carve the under frame of the van to accept spring suspension.
The kit is extremely well thought out and went together like a dream. My biggest dread was prising out the wheels to shorten the axle by removing the axle ends.
Now fitted plus a bit of 20 thou packing for free running, the end result is shown here just waiting for a bit of attention from the airbrush to blend it all together.

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

I’m making a sign for the layout but it’s not going at all well!!!

 

[SouthernFan Ian]

I am venturing into a world I have often considered but never visited: The World of Sequence Timetable Operation.
The problem is I do not really know where to start preparing a timetable that will actually work!
All the turnouts on Stroudley Park are now numbered and the crossover at the station throat is visually identified as 4A and 4B. Plans are in hand to label each turnout control switch with N and R for normal and reverse. It is intended to incorporate this nomenclature into the timetable.
I suspect to create a proper timetable that works will take a considerable amount of time.
If any Western Thunderers use a sequence timetable, would you be willing to share your thoughts please? Thank you.
Regards,
Ian