Glen Ogle

[gtmspyder]

Killin Times

From our new railway correspondant, John Macdiarmid

 

There is much excitement over the hill in Lochearnhead as the day approaches for the official opening of the Glen Ogle light railway.

All the resident of the surrounding villages have received a leaflet giving details and times of the day

[gtmspyder]

The eyewitness report above shows that there has been a lot of activity around the site of the new Lochearnhead station as the following pictures show.

The model of the Marquee below, is made from printing paper.






Photo bucket is playing up, more tomorrow when I'm not as frazzled.

Regards, BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Well the bucket seems to be cooperating today, so to continue:-

This shows a picture of the completed paper Marquee.



And placed on the layout in one of two locations for the big event, either in the station car park.



Or on the platform?



I am expecting a lot of passengers, but they have yet to turn up for the occasion, meanwhile you might like to get you binocular's out and peruse the hillside above the station.

The top seems to have had a lot of rain, and the small burn is in spate, with the water running down the rock face.





The small loch on the top has filled up and the excess is tumbling down near the tunnel mouth catching any passengers with there heads out of the windows with a surprise shower.



But it is doing the lush new static grass the world of good at the trackside.



That's about it for this episode folks, let me know which location for the Marquee before I model the holding down spikes and guy ropes.

Regards,

BrianT.

[MickT]

On the platform so that cars can park! (Perhaps a burger van in the car park as well?).

Maybe consider having the walls of the marquee open so that you can see what is going on inside and it isn't just a white building "under construction" to the untrained eye?

Glad to see you back and "at it" again Brian!

Mick

[gastwo]

Keep it coming Brian.
Will you post updates on YMR? I know a lot of the members on there follow Glen Ogle.

Best,
Shaun.

Whoops! you already have...!

[gtmspyder]

Some more progress while the debate goes on as to Marquee position.

It has been pointed out to me on another forum, that any structure has to be 6ft from the platform edge , now for those favouring a car park site, this is academic, but I still have not made my mind up as to the position, so here are some more pictures bearing that in mind.  The car park looks very cluttered with the Marquee there?





Where as the platform position, with the Marquee turned through 180deg, looks more realistic.



Two prospective passengers wait for the festivities to begin.



And a lone train lover, selects a suitable but less crowded spot to watch the trains go by.





More later.

BrianT.

[gastwo]

Some more progress while the debate goes on as to Marquee position.

It has been pointed out to me on another forum, that any structure has to be 6ft from the platform edge

It's your layout Brian - you can put it on the track and have the train run through it if you want!

Looks best on the platform with the opening to the gate...

Shaun.

[gtmspyder]

Thank you Shaun, but I aint going to cut two more openings in the ends just to let the trains run through, and what about the sparks setting fire to the Marquee, and all the smoke and steam spoiling the food. ;)

Regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

But, to continue with some other new features on the layout.


On the hill top above Lochearnhead station, a local shepherd starts to gather in his flock with his dog "Milo".



With a fine view of the station.



And the surrounding countryside.



Regards,

BrianT.

[clayliner]

Good to see things are moving again, Brian. I do like the marquee, and there are some convincing rock faces there. The grass around the train spotter is also very good - is it static grass? I have to say I'm having more success with 'hairy cigar' grass than static of late.

David.

[gtmspyder]

Hello David, yes it is static grass  sprinkled onto PVA, through a home made tea-strainer/fly-swatter tool.  There is more to do, but I am busy torturing the many figures I am painting, with pins in there nether regions, so that I can populate the station for the big event.

Regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Here is Lochearnhead station looking a bit like Kings Cross with all the local populace claiming there free rides up Glen Ogle.



The red Land Rover Post bus in the car park, has just delivered several more from villages farther afield at Strathyre and Balquider.

lorry

The lorry behind the post bus has just delivered more liquid  sustenance for the refreshment Marquee.





The hospitality marquee continues to be a popular attraction.



That's about it for this visit,

Regards,

BrianT.

[gtmspyder]

Hello once again, a little more work has been done to my modelling.

Now this is technically not part of Glen Ogle, but is a 2ftx2ft (600 x 600mm) extension board I have made to fix to the removable 2ftx2ft piece of the Glen Ogle  layout that currently is hosting the Lochearnhead station depicted above.

I decided to visit one of the South Yorkshire groups meeting, and thought I would take a section of Glen Ogle that was easily carried with me, so I removed the 2ft Lochearnhead section from the lower end of the Glen Ogle layout to take to the meeting.   I found the experience was very pleasant and I was made very welcome by the members of the group attending.

Now as you can see from the above, Lochearnhead station is a purely scenic section of the layout, whose sole reason for it's existence was as a return loop to make, along with a similar section at the opposite Glen Ogle Head end of the layout, into a dog bone configuration, to allow trains to circulate and try and make the movements depicted, a little more interesting.

There was some interest by members of the group, but when you have looked at the little scene depicted for five minutes, you are inclined to want to move on, and with no movement of stock to hold your interest, that's what people did.

So I came home, fully intending to make a return visit, I thought I would add another 2ft extension to the 2ft Lochearnhead section to make a rather queer shaped roundy round scenic circuit that could be bolted to the Lochearnhead board, so that I could at least run a train or two round it.

So this is what I have done.

I then had to decide what I was going to model on this new board section, and decided that perhaps a wood yard or some thing similar,  might fit into the small bare area, and started looking for a suitable wooden building kit, and found this very nice laser cut wooden building from Scale Model Scenery, who seem to specialise in wooden laser cut kits, this one laid ot laid out as a stable block.



Now when I started building the kit, I had no intentions of giving a blow by blow account of it's construction, but it is actually laid out as would the be real thing, in tongued and grooved boarding, with real rafters and internal wooden panelling, all exquisitely cut with the laser.



so these views are of the finished model unfortunately.



It goes together with little tabs and I used PVA glue to secure each section.



It's weakest point is the paper wrapper supplied for the roof and brick base, and these could really be better modelled with separate tiles and bricks, but all in all, a very nice model.

To supplement this, I purchased from the scale-scenes range, a white metal kit of a backwoods saw table for cutting planks.

Now I have never before assembled a white metal kit, and if this is the standard of the supplied parts, I am not impressed.

I will show the assembly in more detail later,

Goodbye for now,

BrianT.

[Graeme Dunbar]

It is good to read about recent developments. The modular-like approach and your description of it being an oddly shaped roundy round intrigues me. From the lie of the track on Lochearnhead I imagine it to be kidney shaped.

Photos please!

[gtmspyder]

Thank you for your continued interest Graham.

I am now going to describe my build of the white metal "Rural Sawmill", and the modifications I am attempting to motorise parts of it.

The kit of white metal parts are I think Pewter, and Have a lot of excess flash which has to be cleaned off, here is the complete kit after I have cleaned up the various parts.



I have already separated some of the parts that will be motorised, I hope, by cutting the castings where a new axle will be fitted, and drilling with  half mm drill for the new axle.   Because the as cast axle bearing is very small, I have gone through the white metal as close to the actual axle position as I can,  Below is the diagram supplied with the kit, which I will refer to as I describe what I have done.

Referring to the supplied assembly diagram, parts [8]-[9]-[10] require a lot of fettling to get them to fit one another.



And here is the picture supplied, of what the model should look like when it is completed



You will see, that the single cylinder steam engine [8] has a large fly-wheel [1] fitted at its base, I have removed the cast crank shaft end and drilled a hole through the casting to fit a piece of rod upon which the flywheel will revolve.  The cylinder casting steam feed pipes are attached to the vertical boiler [9] which itself is attached at its base to the sled like structure [10].  This will be driven by a small electric motor below the model.

I am using superglue to assemble the cast parts.