Glen Ogle

[Scott Rixon]

Brian..  Nice work on the trees.. The trimmed ones works for me at the back.

[gtmspyder]

Thank you Scott, still a little hair spray and scatter to do yet, but they aren't bad are they?

Regards.

BrianT.

[Scott Rixon]

They deliver that depth, that tricks the eye a little more, which in turn gives a great backdrop for the trains to pass though, over that amazing bridge!

You also a nice job of telling a story with your posts, which makes for a really nice read :)

[clayliner]

Agreed, Scott - it's very enjoyable to have a bit of narrative.

Can't believe those trees are only 46p each! Makes me wonder why I bother making my own...

David.

[Scott Rixon]

Where were the trees from?

[gtmspyder]

this is a copy of my ebay order, I don't know if you can access the ebay site from this information.

Just been on the site and it appears to have further reduction in the prices if you order enough.

Regards,

BrianT.


  Seller: ethersell88 ( 118163  )
Seller information: 
一 许
广东省 C505# HuahanKeji, LangShan Road, Kejiyuan North,Nanshan,Shenzhen 

Item title   Price   P&P price   Quantity   Item total   

10x Green Trees Model fit HO N Scale Railways Street Bulidings Landscape Layout ( item: 400453544432  transaction: 363332498027 ) 
 
Paid on 17-Jun-14   

[gtmspyder]

Well, it's been a productive day in Glen Ogle today, a further 60 trees have been planted, a fresh coat of varnish laid in the river bed, the station has had a surface makeover, and an influx of passengers has descended upon it.   A surveying team are busy near to the new drain laying, and all in all, the changes are ready to be photographically recorded.

So here we go:-

I'll start off with a site video, not quite upto Ted's standard as I don't have the room to set the camera up on the tripod to be able to sweep the length of the layout in one pan, so it's hand held I'm afraid.

Click on the picture to bring the video up.



Three views of the garage with the recovery lorry being worked on, and one or two locals gathered around the postbox, having met up as they post some mail, the internet not having reached this part of Perthshire yet in the period of 1969 when this little fairy story is set.







The AA man is still visiting the toilet.




The land slide that brought the old LMS, ex Calander and Oban line to a halt, three months ahead of it's official closure by Dr Beeching in September 1965, is beginning to blend into the scenery as the raw stone and rock, weathers and starts to have some growth over it, four years on.



The tree brought down by the landslip, lays across the Ogle Burn, and is all ready becoming a part of the topography.



The Perthshire County Council employees are still hard at work laying the new surface drain from the A85 down to the Ogle Burn, this is to alleviate the excess water the runs off the eastern slopes of the Glen and flooding across the road.





The County Council surveyor has his theodolite set up, and checks the levels of the new work.





A view across to the viaduct as cattle graze peacefully by the Burn.





The sun catches the water in one of the pools that are still full after the recent rain.



The cattle appreciate the shallow water of the pools as the grass around the pools grows lush and green, or it will do when I've lushed and Greened them a bit more.



More foot passengers approach the bridge across the Burn to join the train standing in Glen Ogle station.





The station is quite crowded today as the sun shines.







A long view, back up the Glen.



And finally, as the layout grows and expands, more thoughts come into my head about how it will be operated as a single operator layout.
I can foresee difficulties with the radio controlled loco's returning down the rear of the back scene to the fiddle yard turntable, so I have decided that it will no longer be an end to end, but the turn table will go, to be replaced by a loop of rail similar to the top of the layout, so that trains can run continuously.

That means the elaborate turntable come cassette system is redundant.





So if anyone is interested in acquiring it, please let me know, it will have to be collection only I'm afraid, but

[Tom Haythornthwaite]

Brian,

Glen Ogle has been impressing me for quite a while already but at this stage it's truly breathtaking.  Well done, and thank you for letting us visit.

t

[gtmspyder]

Thank you Tom, you are very generous with your praise, but it is nice to receive it.

Kind regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Some new infrastructure is in the process of being added to Glen Ogle.

In my last post above, I said I was replacing the fiddle yard come turntable to make the layout a continuous run.  This is the new baseboard section, all 600x600mm (24" x 24") of it.

Usual construction of 50x25mm (2" x 1") timber, butt glued and screwed joints, with MDF topping, screwed into place.  Brass patternmakers dowels and M8 bolts and nuts to fix it to the original baseboard, and a diagonal brace to support the outer edge back to the leg of the main baseboard. Nothing high tech.

Upon this virgin base, I have laid a loop of track to connect the main scenic section of Glen Ogle round in a 225mm,  (9") radius circle with one additional point to connect to the twin storage tracks that run  down the back, off scene of the viaduct, from a similar loop at the deviation section of the lay out, adjacent to Glen Ogle station, at the top of the Glen.

Henceforth, this will be known as Lochearnhead.

My original intention was for this to be a simple loop connecting the front sceniced track, to the rear off scene track, to make a continuous run layout, but then I got to thinking, as you do, that this loop could be partially scenicised, as a completely separate section with half of the loop track hidden, and the rest, a small station, so that at the moment, is my intention.

Then I had another thought, I have noted the number of views this layout seems to be accumulating, but there are only a few regulars who respond to my ramblings, so the majority of viewers could well be new modellers, just browsing with no particular interest in Glen Ogle as a layout, but maybe looking for ideas or how to do's etc.

So, I have decided to use this little section of layout as an entity in it's own right, which just happens to be part of an overall scene.

I hope I am not telling Grandma how to suck eggs here, but I will give a blow by blow account of how I develop a layout from scratch.

I have already given an account of how the little base board was constructed and it's purpose, so I will continue with the construction methods.

The two tracks I have to join to make a continuous circuit, are only 225mm, (9") apart at the Lochearnhead end, and were originally joined by a turntable come sector plate,  So it required a rather serpentine track of a small radius, to join the two ends of track.  I purchased a set of N gauge setrack sections of No.1 radius, but I could not get the ends to meet using all setrack  dispite my best efforts, so I had to resort to a section of narrow gauge main line track as well as the setrack to achieve my aims.   I also fitted a single small radius point in the configuration, and carried the two out of site storage roads  over onto the Lochearnhead board, giving me slightly more storage, and within sight of the front operating position.

Just a reminder that this is a radio controlled layout, so it will be handy to be able to see the loco's that are in store, there are no strategically placed section breaks to halt a train.

Right then, having got all the track laid, with the baseboard joint track ends soldered to some PCB to secure them in place, and the sections of track held with Peco LIL pins, we can start to scenic the track

This first picture shows the ingredients for the way I lay and ballast the track.

Starting at left of picture, there is a green plastic mixing bowl containing a 50/50 mix of PVA glue and water, Behind that is a cheap spray bottle containing water with a little washing up liquid added. (This helps break the surface tension of the water allowing it to flow better through the ballast.) To the right of that is the washing up liquid, now safely back under the sink where my wife stores it!  To the right of that is the industrial size container of PVA glue. (Cheaper than buying the DIY size dispensers.)  In front of the PVA is a bag of fine granite ballast, with a cone of the ballast poured out in the centre of the base board.  In front of the washing up liquid are two Tic Tac sweet holders, the green labelled one is used to store the Peco LIL pins, the orange labelled container holds the Peco N gauge fishplates.  These little containers are very handy for storing small items, the sweets are quite pleasant to eat, and the containers are quite robust in use.   The small bamboo stick is used for stirring the PVA/water mix, the clear plastic spoon is for pouring the PVA/water mix onto the pre wetted ballast, and the paintbrush is to tease the granite ballast into place.



I have laid a little of the granite ballast and brushed it into place.





Here the ballast is being formed into a shoulder.



And the brush drawn along the inside of the rail head to clear any stray pieces of ballast away.



Ballast is sprinkled along the outer radius to be brushed into place to form a shoulder.





When you are satisfied with the lay of the ballast, the section is wetted using the water spray, be careful that the blast of water droplets does not disturb the carefully adjusted ballast, because once wet, the granules of ballast have a mind of there own when you try to push them back into position.



The pre diluted PVA/Water mix can then be spooned a little at a time onto the pre-wetted ballast, where it will disperse between the granules.



The ballast can be left overnight to dry.



You will have noted that I do not use a cork or any other form of sound deadening underlay to my track, and that I use real rock for my ballast.
It is my opinion that an underlay's only useful function is as an aid to providing high shoulders on standard gauge rail laying, and serves no useful aid to sound deadening whatsoever, and nothing looks like real rock ballast, than real rock.

Stands back and waits for incoming flack.

That's about it for tonight.

Kind regards,

BrianT.

[Chris Hunter]

As someone looking to come back into NG modelling after 35 years this is extremely useful.  Thank you - please continue your 'idiot's guide'

Chris

[gtmspyder]

To continue the Lochearnhead loop.

The loop is now ballasted where the rails will be on view, off scene the track is N gauge flexi and settrack, with an old Roco N gauge point to join the single track to the two storage roads.



The on view rail sides were painted with rust colour.



The old Roco point does not have an overcentre spring to hold the switch blades in place against the stock rails, which the Peco Points have, so the point motor needs to have a latching mechanism at the end of it's travel.



This is a 40year old Hammant and Morgan point motor which does have an end of travel latch, it also has a built in change over switch which could be used for switching the frog polarity, but this switch could be unreliable, so when I last used this and many other H&M's, I mounted them on an aluminium plate, and fixed two micro switches that were operated by the operating lever of the motor.
You will see the home made Omega loop connecting the operating arm of the motor with the switch blade tie bar, the omega loop compensates for any over travel of the operating arm and removes any strain to the point tie bar.



The rail ends which stop at the baseboard joints, are soldered to a piece of PCB to strengthen the fixing.



The bare base board is now ready to be dressed with scenery. I am thinking of having a station here, not sure in what form, either another halt type as at the head of Glen Ogle, or something a little more substantial, like this ex Triang station I bought off Ebay for

[B.Meldon]

Like you we also use granite chippings and fix the track direct to the wooden trackbed.

However we use a pipette of the glass type with a rubber squeeze bit at the end to apply the 50/50 PVA mix.  I mix the PVA and water in one of those small measuring cups you get with some cough medicine (Night Nurse?) and add a drop of washing up liquid to the mix. This gives very good control of the amount and location of the PVA mix and just like spraying the wide area breaks the surface tension of the water allowing it to flow better through the ballast.

I think the last 500ml of PVA I purchased came from Poundland in a re-sealable bottle and this has lasted quite a few years now.

The final thing that we have always done is to paint the rail sides, sleepers and the ballast a uniformed rust colour. If you look at an established well used railway you will find that it all looks the same colour anyway, it is only on new sections where the ballast is clean and obviously grey.
But how the track looks is all down to personally choice.

Brian Meldon

[gtmspyder]

Hello BrianM, I used to use an eye dropper for the dilute PVA, but it is many years since I last used it, and in my chaotic modelling world, it has disappeared, but the plastic spoon works quite well.
Today I am laying the platforms at the Lochearnhead site, hoping to get a little feedback suggestion on the question I posed re the type of station.

Thank you for your interest Brian.

Kind regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

 
Well, I've not been inundated with suggestions to my query with what form Lochearnhead station should take, so I've made an executive decision, and we will all have to live with it, at least 'till I get a better idea.

A little more work done at Lochearnhead, the curved station platform is 6mm Balsa wood, formed by laying the length of Balsa wood over the pre laid rails, and applying weight to the back face, which will impress the rail outline onto the soft Balsa wood, this was then cut using a Stanley knife along the indentation. When the excess had been cut away, the cut profile could be tested in place alongside of the rails, and any discrepancy in being parallel with the rail, can be remedied by drawing a compass set at the distance you require for safe passage of the rolling stock and the platform face, then with the compass point rubbing along the inner face of the rail, and the lead running along the platform top, you will get a parallel cut line that you can trim back to. The remainder of the station yard was laid with further planks of 6mm Balsa wood, butted upto the platform surface piece. You will note from my previous posting above, that the station has been painted, and looking at the pictures, poorly, there is a lot more paint requires splashing over the structure to make it presentable, but I do like the Caledonian Blue. :o




The Wills fencing and half an Airfix level crossing gate have enclosed the station yard very nicely at the front, the platform edging flagstones  have been scribed and the edge has a white line along it.



Someone has shut the gate, we can't have none fare payers littering the platform area.  There is still a little more ballast need sprinkling along the edge of the platform vertical risers, and when the other side of the track has some scenery, the ballast will be extended upto the greenery too.



Something has just been delivered to the station yard area, and he is now leaving, with the help of a passer by to hold the gate open.



There is still a lot to do dressing this station, and there is all the rest of the panorama to scenify, but that's about it for now.

Regards,

BrianT.