Glen Ogle

[gtmspyder]

This is a possible new project, based on a section of the Callendar and Oban Line in Perthshire, central Scotland.

This roughly attempts to show the section of the line that runs up Glen Ogle at a gradient of 1 in 60 for approx. six miles, from Lochearnhead towards Crianlaric, with a link to Killin on Loch Tay, from an exchange junction just past the summit of Glen Ogle.

The line was threatened with closure during the 1965 Beeching closures, but this was pre-empted by a landslide in Glen Ogle which blocked the line, and the line from Callendar to Crianlaric was closed and abandoned slightly earlier than officially planned.

This very scenic section of the line is now a part of the national cycle/walkway scheme that makes use of abandoned railway lines across the country.

The proposed model supposes that before the cycle/walkway route was proposed and put into play, a group of narrow gauge enthusiasts, tabled a proposal to use the abandoned track-bed, and build a narrow gauge tourist line from Lochearnhead to Killin, with a new station at the head of Glen Ogle as a tourist attraction.

And so to the model:-

I am considering making a model of the proposed new railway to check out the possible construction methods I would have to use to make the base boards.

The idea for this came to me while looking at the superb "Cliff Hanger" layout of John Lodyzhensky, I knew that Glen Ogle offered a similar potential for a railway running upon a ledge in very scenic surroundings and thought I would have a go.

The layout will be sized at 8x2ft with a central split, and a vertical height of 2ft, with possibly, in the future, a right angled extension at the Glen Ogle head end down to Killin.

The model of the model is a quarter size, made out of a single sheet of 4mm Foam Board to check the feasibility of it's construction.

Looking at the attached photo's, Lochearnhead is at the left with the old railway bed rising up the back of the lay out, over what should be a 12 arch viaduct and onto the head of the Glen at the right.

The railway is paralled on the front of the layout by the road.  Down in the valley bottom is a small river, and an even older road, which was part of General Wade's remit to try and tame the Scot's, after the  Bonnie Prince Charlie uprising, by improving the then practically none existant roads.

More later.

Well, the more later was to be photo's of the model I am building to see how the proposed model build of the layout can best be achieved, but I can't get Photo Bucket to work to download the photo's to the forum, sorry.

I will keep trying, but without photo's, the words are pointless,  hey ho.

Anyone got any ideas for the transfer of photo's from Picasa, or Windows Live photo gallery, where I adjust the picture sizes to 800x600 to display them on here if I have no success with Photo Bucket??

BrianT.

[Isle of Stoner]

sounds good. keep it up.

John W

[gtmspyder]

Hello John and thank you for the encouragement.

My plan, if it ever gets off the ground is a right angled extension at one end which I have copied off your "Isle of Stoner", this will take the line down the valley from a junction at Glen Ogle head to Killin on Loch Tay.

Regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Well at last, I seem to have some get attable photo's for you, so, to recap:-  

The layout will be sized at 8x2ft with a central split, and a vertical height of 2ft, with possibly, in the future, a right angled extension at the Glen Ogle head end down to Killin.

The model of the model is a quarter size, made out of a single sheet of 6mm Foam Board to check the feasibility of it's construction.

Looking at the attached photo's, Lochearnhead is at the left with the old railway bed rising up the back of the lay out, over what should be a 10 arch viaduct and onto the head of the Glen at the right.

The railway is paralled on the front of the layout by the road.  Down in the valley bottom is a small river, and an even older road, which was part of General Wade's remit to try and tame the Scot's, after the  Bonnie Prince Charlie uprising, by improving the then practically none existant roads.

So, any comments would be much appreciated, in the mean time, I will attempt to download a more colourful photo of progress since these photo's were taken.

Regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Still having problems with Photo Bucket, sorry.

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Well folks, I have had to abandon Photo Bucket Until I can get help, so I have opened a flicker account and posted one of the colour photo's on there.

Flicker does not seem to work like Photo Bucket as you seem to have to click on the bumph below to access the photo, sorry about that, but it's the best I can do with my very limited knowledge of how these photo hosting services work.

Regards,

BrianT.


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gtmspyder/8684688154/" title="DSCF4816 (600x450) by gtmspyder20, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8124/8684688154_5b9bbee8a6.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="DSCF4816 (600x450)"></a>

I have now managed to add more photo's to my Photo Bucket site, but I have posted them above.

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Good morning all.

I now seem to be back on track for uploads and use of Photo Bucket, I think????

The problems seems to be that the new version of PB has the ability to upload every photo that you put on your PC, every time you download from the camera, and promptly started to upload all my photo's from the Picasa site I use for storing my photo's, onto PB.  At 2gig, it said I had no more space available without payment and stopped any further uploads to PB.

Also on the new version of PB, there is an on screen button that you can switch from read only, to read and offload to elsewhere, so I could not get at any of the URL's to transfer my pictures to any of the forums.

Now I only ever use PB to get my pictures into a position for downloading using the URL's, into another forum such as this, I don't want all my photo's stored on PB, I am quite happy with the Picasa programme.

So, I have now deleted all the photo's uploaded to the PB site from Picasa, apart from the ones I have in the past uploaded for use in forums, that was a marathon in itself.   This has freed up space on my PB site, and by accident, I discovered what the on screen button does in unlocking the read only to read and write to PB, so I seem to be back on track,  HOPEFULLY. :D

I am not sure I am using the correct terminology for uploads and downloads, it seems to me that either term can be used for what I am trying to do, but basically, I think, I download photo's from my camera to the computer, and upload the photo's from my computer to Photo Bucket or anywhere else on my computer.  I hope that is clear.

Kind regards,

BrianT.

[clayliner]

Pleased to hear you've got your photos sorted.

Like you, I don't really understand these things either, but following the helpful instructions posted elsewhere Flickr works okay for me - if you click on 'share' and cut and paste the BB code the photo should open directly in the forum. But it looks as though Photobucket is back on track so that's good.

We're all still learning...!

David.

[gtmspyder]

One of my problems David, is my very very very  short term memory.

I can start reading an explanation on how to do something, and by the time I have got to the bottom of lets say an A4 equivalent of the written word, I have forgotten the opening paragraph. :( :( :( ;D

One of the worst offending sets of instructions are the electronic ones, where something times out after what seems to be a short time of inactivity.

So you read that to do a certain thing with a certain button, and by the time you have found the said button on the equipment, the equipment will have timed out and you have to start over again, not funny. >:(

For instance, I have just written the above few words for some reason, and have had to scroll down this post to find out what I was replying too??  Sad, but I can assure you, true? ;D

Any way, from the few replies my post has generated re Glen Ogle, I think I am going to give it a go as a two or three, four foot per board, portable layout, with lots of scenery, and very little railway content.

Please chip in with your observations, comments, suggestions and criticism's, no offence will be taken, and thank you in advance.

The first move will obviously have to be the construction of the baseboards, and here, will probably the first of the criticisms, as I think I will be constructing from MDF and softwood framing, mainly on the basis of cost, which size for size, appears to be 2/3 the cost of equivalent plywood, the penalty will be increased weight I believe.

Each module will be four foot long and some where in width between eighteen inches and two foot in width depending on the combined angles I make the sides of the glen.

From the model I made, it is clear that I made the sides of the glen too steep, so this will be modified on the actual baseboards during construction, we will have to see.

That's all for now, kind regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

I have made a tentative start on the construction of the baseboards.  I decided from photographs I have viewed on the Google site showing Glen Ogle, that the angles I constructed on the model were much too steep, so the first thing I have done is to cut three pieces of 2"x1" and joined them with a single screw where they overlap, and adjust them using my model, and a couple of photo's I have printed from the Google site, to get a feel of the two slopes of the Glen side.

I have also decided I need to construct the layout size of the actual 12 arch viaduct, so this will be my next step, I can then marry up the viaduct and base board timber angles, to finally decide on the slope angles of the Glen, before finally committing saw to timber.

I have decided to make the viaduct from 6mm foam board, I have opted for an arch span of 10 feet, with 3  foot pillars, which takes the scale viaduct to over 25 inches in length, plus a further 3 arches that the railway crosses further down the climb up Glen Ogle, through which the stream/river passes through, running off the Glen side on it's way down to Loch Earn at the bottom of the glen.

In my model, I did not show this second 3 arches, and also showed the river/stream climbing all the way to the top of the Glen which I am not certain it actually does.

There is a further tributary feeding in from the road side of the Glen, which a few years ago, caused a landslide that closed the A85 road running up the other side of the Glen.  It's a good job Dr Beeching was not still in office, or he might have shut the A85 as he did the railway. :D

So, while I get on with making the  12 arch viaduct, here are a couple of pictures of work in progress in my garage.







kind regards,

BrianT.

[clayliner]

My memory is pretty useless, too, so if there are complicated instructions on-screen which will take time to follow I just print them out, and work from that at my own pace :)

Yes, MDF is horribly dense... I'm using papier mache (apologies - can't be bothered to find the accents, though I promise I do know what they should be!), i.e. paper towel and wallpaper paste, for my scenery - it's very light and very tolerant, i.e. easy to remodel if it doesn't look right and to repair if it gets bashed / squashed.

But Glen Ogle's looking good so far. The most important thing is that you enjoy it!

David.

[gtmspyder]

The viaduct under construction

4mm foam board, very delicate when cut to size, with a 6mm balsa wood decking, hot glued to the foam board, and with the pier cutouts used to strengthen the very spindly piers.

The piers are over long as I don't yet know how the structure will sit in the actual scene, depending on the form and angles of the Glen side.

The viaduct is cut at a 1 in 30 angle to have the piers vertical, some of the piers have yet to have the vertical strengthener's glued behind them.

When the second side is attached, I am going to paint the whole structure with PVA glue and paint on a creamy mix of Artex  or some such plaster or clay mix, and attempt to show the stone work of the viaducts construction.

Has any one tried this method or any other suggestions to achieve that end.

I know it would have been easier to do this work in the flat, but as the viaduct has a curve, I thought that the covering mix would crack as I attempted to attach the decking, and due to the delicacy of the arches, the additional weight would make it more vulnerable to breaking as I attached one to the other.

You may note that the two outer piers have all ready been damaged as I manoeuvred the them into position, even in there present state.  The damage will hopefully disappear under the covering of the paste mix.








Regards,

BrianT

[MickT]

Very impressive Brian. I look forward to following more progress on this project.

Mick

[gtmspyder]

A little more work done on the viaduct.

The Viaduct is made from 4mm foam board verticals with a 6mm Balsa wood decking.

The inner arches are formed from 2 thicknesses of heavy duty decorators wallpaper lining paper, cut into strips wider than the actual arch, pasted together using wall paper paste, and the arch formed by hanging the wet sheets around a brush handle until dry.  

This makes a surprisingly strong thin card, which when dry, was glued into each arch with "UHU" glue and left to set.

The excess was cut off along each arch and any unevenness sanded back to the foam board, arch pillar.

The whole structure was then painted with neat PVA, and set aside to dry.

This can then be painted with a runny mix of "Artex" ( This is a form of white plaster, mixed with water to a certain consistency, and painted onto surfaces such as ceilings or walls, into which, a pattern can be formed by various tools, to enhance the bare plasterwork left by the plasterer), this makes a quite useful plaster mix for modelling, and working on, to form rock work.

This when dry, can be scribed to form stone work, or if you are real masochist, brickwork, which accepts acrylic or water colour paint, which is absorbed into the finish.  The downside is that any chips to the finished surface will show very white against whatever colour your finish is, this can be mitigated to a large extent by adding a base colour to the water used to mix the modelling "Artex", Old emulsion paint, poster paint etc, can be added to the mix as the "Artex" is made up.

A runny mix of PVA, used as the mixing medium, as well as the water, also helps strengthen the mix when all has set.

The dried surface can then be scribed to form whatever the surface is supposed to represent.

For rough stonework, another method of forming the stone faces, is to add small lumps of the mix on the end of a spatula or scriber, to the dried surface, to leave a raised face.

This is the method I used to form the proscenium arch curtains to the 20 note busker organ I made my grandson for Christmas.







The photo below shows the last step so far of the viaducts construction, with the first coat of the "Artex" mix, painted onto the prepared construction, and the ingredients used in it's production.

It also shows, I have just noticed, that one of the piers is not correct, I hope that can be straightened on the base board, or there will have to be a tree planted. ;)





Regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Well I am sorry to report that I have failed with the viaduct and it's back to the drawing board.

Despite all the pontificating above, the methods outlined have failed due to my poor workmanship, and a fresh start will have to be made in constructing a new viaduct.

The final straw on the Camels back was my attempt tonight to lay the stone work onto the structure using the methods previously outlined above, but the poor base structure I was working on with it's twisted and out of line piers meant my heart was really not in it.

I had an idea today that I might be able to simulate each stone block work by loading the "Artex" mix into an Icing cake set and applying shaped blobs to the structure, so I went and purchased a tool that I reshaped into an oblong .

I quickly realised that this was not going to work, abandoned the result, and reverted back to my previous method of placing small blobs of the mix on the structure with a tiny spatula.  But all the time I was doing this very time consuming work, I had this niggle that the poor structure I was working on was not worth all the effort I was going to have to put into it to achieve the finish I was hoping for, so I gave it up and decided to start afresh.

My apologies to anyone who has been following the very slow progress I  have been making, but what I have decided to do now, is use this existing viaduct structure as a template, and start building the base boards, now that I have established the shape and size of the viaduct that will need accommodating.

Regards,

BrianT.