Barchester

A Happy New Year everyone and may all your modelling days be good ones. Well I have managed to get some modelling done in between the festivities so here goes into 2006.

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First job of the New Year was to get the new platform canopy made and put into place. Pencil and paper plus a few quick measurements and away we go with card, knife and glue. Didn't take long actually and was well worth the small effort to produce it. The support posts by the way are kebab sticks with 4 'steel' (card) right angle plates at the base of each post.

Nothing much to look at here but it is appropriate for it's position on the wide platform area.

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Have also made up some ground stop signs. I am calling them that because they show me where I have to stop engines in certain shunting operations (more freelance stuff). 




You can see one of my new ground stop signs in the lower right hand corner of this picture where the Class 66 has halted before reversing into platform 4. It's clearer in the bigger photograph.


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Ordered two more kits from Metcalfe, the Country Inn and another row of terrace houses. The Inn will go next to the church. 
Have finally managed to get the sequence of operations correct for the two branch lines. The sequence consists of 66 separate movements which goes through the day with all the rolling stock finishing back up in the starting position ready for the next day.
The next step is for the main line sequence, which should be simpler.
Well, it wasn't simpler, by any means, in fact it has taken almost a week of train movements and scribbled notes to get it right. The main line sequence consists of 65 separate movements to bring all the main line passenger stock back to where it starts at the beginning of the day.  
Next step is to marry the two sequences together with a final run through to make sure all is well. When that has been done then it's a question of a timetable. Each fiddle yard track will be a different destination of a sequence of towns, in this case the towns will all be of my favourite model railways. The towns will be different distances apart so that each branch and main line train will be away for a different length of time. I suppose it must all sound very complicated and a long way from just watching the trains go round but for me the railway takes on a life of it's own. Not at the moment, as it is just another collection of bits and pieces but when all the things that will bring it to 'life', people, animals, junk, cars, trucks, the every day things, then suddenly it will start to have an existence of it's own.
Well, only another week to the end of the month and not a fat lot to see for it. I have done the timetable and it's all printed out and looks good. The final thing is to run through the whole thing and see if it works, not only correctly but also in a manner which is interesting to the operator. Not tomorrow though as my new Metcalfe Country Inn kit arrive today so I will be pressing on with that. I have had a quick look in the box and the footprint for it seems rather large. Fingers crossed now and hope it fits when made up.
Made a good start on the Country Inn kit and it is certainly going to be bigger than I needed. It is made up of three separate buildings and now I have made up two of them and got them together it looks bigger still, oh dear.


This shows how the two main buildings of the Country Inn should be assembled. Bear in mind that I have changed the roof on the left hand model as it would  fit snugly up against the roof of the main building if assembled as per Metcalfe's instructions.



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Well the kit is finished and looks good but I have separated the three buildings as together they covered too much real estate. This meant that I had to make a new roof for one of the buildings as it's roof was a special shape to fit on it's neighbour.

Here we see the model Country Inn modelled to fit the space I have for it. They are two separate buildings now and the building on the right has had a different roof put on it. The wall at the front is my addition. There is a third building with this kit, a red brick outbuilding, which I will be using elsewhere.


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It's the end of another month and it's finishing with me having a shocking bout of bronchitis. Knocked me for six so the next few days will probably find me very quiet.




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