It’s a cold, crisp and frosty December morning as we approach Christmas at Canute Road Quay and the crew on board ex LSWR Adams B4 Class No. 100 try to keep warm whilst shunting on the quay as flurries of snow start to get heavier.
As the festive season and New Year break is upon us, I just wanted to say many thanks to all of you whom have taken the time to read my rambling over the past 12 months. I hope you have found such ramblings interesting and informative. I have also enjoyed corresponding with many of you that have made contact me either directly at shows, email or via the comments field on my various posts. I look forward to corresponding with you again in the New Year.
A further flurry of activity will be taking place at the start of the new year with both Bachmann and Hornby announcing their new ranges within a day of each other on the 7th and 8th January respectfully and I will bring you all the exciting Southern Railway / Southern Region related news on here as soon as their announcements are made.
I once again take this opportunity to thank the various manufacturers, publishers and retailers whom have allowed me privileged access to some of their plans and developments and often taken on board feedback, suggestions and advice, with the sole aim of promoting and furthering modelling of the Southern Railway / Southern Region.
Seasons greetings, whatever your faith or beliefs, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! Fill up your life with as much love, compassion, tolerance, peace, happiness as you can and hopefully some time for modelling!
USA 0-6-0t No 72 still with original style bunker and cab shunts past a warwell wagon loaed with a Sherman M4 tank at Canute Road Quay.
The Model Railway Club’s own Layouts: Copenhagen Fields (2mm FS), Empire Mills (EM), Lacey Dale (N) and Putnam Yard (HO) will be operating. In addition to Canute Road Quay a couple more visiting layouts will be in attendance namely: Rixworth Green (P4) – 1920s Southern and Elkington-on-Sea Tramways – inpsired by the 1950s British seaside resorts.
Other displays include the MRC’s 00 and 0 gauge teams running stock from their layout projects on the test tracks. There will also be a selection of pre-owned models available from The MRC shop, and of course refreshments (including a selection of freshly made rolls and Greene King beers) will be available.
The min exhibition with be open from 11am to 4pm, admission is Adults £3, accompanied children: Free. Entry for MRC members is free upon presentation of a current membership card. Please note: there are stairs to all rooms.
I am not actually a member of the The Model Railway Club so I feel it has been a great honour to have been asked to take Canute Road Quay along and I am very much looking forward to visiting Keen House and exhibiting Canute Road Quay. Please do drop by if you can and say hello, you might even end up with a controller in your hand…
As the inspiration for the layout was mainly due to the release of the Model Rail commissioned USA tanks, for which I provided their team with a small amount of assistance, it was therefore only right that first published article about the layout was in Model Rail Magazine.
As a slight departure from other model railway publications the article is in fact written by the Model Rail in-house staff writer Mike Harris, following a telephone interview rather than the layout builders own words.
One of Chris Nevard’s excellent pictures captures both a USA and B4 on Canute Road Quay. Picture courtesy and copyright C Nevard/ Model Rail.
I did however provide some written text before the interview to ensure that much of the content that I wanted to be included got suitably covered.
I have therefore tried to ensure that information such as Tim Horn’s excellent baseboards, the LCut Creative laser cuts building components and how I created the inset track work and other details have been duly included within the article.
My kit built ex LSWR Adams B4 brings loco coal towards the small sub shed at the quay. Picture courtesy and copyright C Nevard / Model Rail.
Although a small layout (only 4ft x 1ft) Chris as ever has managed to find and capture a few new angles with his cameras and many of the little cameos I have included on the layout were duly snapped.
I hope that you can get hold of a copy and enjoy the read and Chris’s excellent photographs.
It has been just over a month since Canute Road Quay made its first proper public exhibition appearance at the excellent Exe Model Railway Society’s exhibition so I thought a little update might be in order. It certainly made a change taking a layout to an exhibition where I could firstly see out of the rear window of the car and secondly, unload, be set up and operational within 20 mins of arriving at the venue. Fisherton Sarum takes up the whole of the rear of the estate car (seats down and floor to ceiling) and on average takes about an hour to set up!
With Simon at the controls, Canute Road Quay is closely inspected by visitors at the Exe MRS show last month.
One of the advantages of taking a layout to a show a distance away is the opportunity to see layouts that I do not usually get to see and also it’s a chance catch up with friends (some of whom even had a play) and acquaintances from the area that I don’t often get to meet up with and this show did not disappoint on either count.
My kit built ex LSWR Adams B4 0-4-0T shunts at the Quay.
From an operational perspective I was ably, and with thanks, assisted for the weekend by friend and fellow modeller Simon Paley and we found that operating the layout on an hour on / hour off basis worked exceptionally well and kept the operational interest up on what at the end of the day is just a little shunting layout.
Two USA 0-6-0 tanks (No’s 64 and 72) meet in front of the Waterloo Arms public house and road crossing.
Also the operating position purposely located at the front left hand end enabled pleasant and easy interaction with the viewing public. I was very pleased with the positive reaction and comments from the visitors to the show, especially my little bit of cheating with perspective for the terraced houses on the backscene that can be read about here. I also picked a few more potential exhibition invites that I shall follow-up accordingly.
There are a few things still to complete on Canute Road Quay such as: adding proper interiors and lighting for the front two main buildings (which are not yet permanently fixed down so I can complete this activity), actually wiring up the street lamps so they work, finishing the gantry crane with its hook and pulley and some more weathering of the buildings especially on the roof lines as a result of the number of seagulls present!
The Adams B4 0-4-0T is still in use and not yet ousted by the USA 0-6-0Ts soon to rule the Quay.
Also since the exhibition I have taken the opportunity to take a few more snaps of Canute Road Quay, during a couple of running (play), which is one of the advantages of being a small layout that I am able have set up all the time at home. Some of these quick snaps can be seen accompanying this post.
USA 0-6-0T shunts right on the edge of the Quay whilst the fireman “can see no ships”.
In my Lighting is Quay post I discussed the use of the LED strip lightning that I have deployed on Canute Road Quay although at home and for most of the time at the Exe MRS show the lighting was extremely effective there was at certain times of the day a shadow cast on the backscene of the front pelmet due to sunlight shining in through venues high level windows (I do not think it was really noticed by visitors to the show but I found it a little annoying at times from an overall presentation perspective). I have therefore fitted a second LED strip without any opaque strip of plastic in front to enable either of both LED strips to be switched on to give three different lighting levels to counter an effects of a venues ambient lighting.
In other news, I have been approached by two of the main model railway magazines to feature Canute Road Quay, in order to allow time between publication and ensure that different articles can be written I have accepted one of the approaches, give priority to the magazine whose lovely exclusive tank locomotives gave rise the initial idea of building the layout in the first place, so it shouldn’t take much to work out which magazine it will feature in first… The photoshoot has been arranged for September with the article hopefully appearing before the end of the year, so watch this space.
As I reported in my last update post here about Canute Road Quay it made is first semi public outing and a days running in anger so to speak at the RMweb annual South West Area Group members day in Taunton at the end of April. This is not really an exhibition as such but a gathering of like minded friends and modellers for a day of informal chat with some trains running at the same time.
Caunte Road Quay makes its debut at the RMWeb SWAG meet in April. Picture copyright and courtesy Ava Hay
The day proved to be a success from my perspective with Canute Road Quay operating as intended (I am as ‘happy as Larry’ shunting wagons around) during the day and the layout being well received with plenty of positive comments from those that stopped by for a look.
From a transportation and setting up perspective, being of course much smaller, it is much quicker and easier all round than taking Fisherton Sarum to shows. I also thank my friend and fellow modeller Simon Paley for helping me play trains during the day.
Shunting in action on Canute Road Quay. The vinyl cut lettering on the proscenium arch can be clearly seen. Picture copyright and courtesy Ava Hay
I certainly believe that when exhibiting layouts at shows, presentation, just as with lighting that I discussed here, is just as important and should be carefully considered. Canute Road Quay’s overall presentaion is aided by the design of the Tim Horn baseframes with the proscenium arch giving a letter box style view. The whole board is supported on folding adjustable trestles which does allow a range of viewing heights to be chosen, although I will generally opt for the higher viewing position. As the trestles are wider than the 12″ of Canute Road Quay I have also cut a length of plywood to act as a shelf at the rear of the baseframe for the all important cup of tea and also spare stock etc.
Around the bottom edge of the baseframe I have glued a Velcro Strip to attach one of the curtains that I use on Fisherton Sarum to hide the trestles etc. To match the curtains the outside faces of the baseframes have been roller painted matt black with Vinyl cut white lettering in Gills Sans, from vinylletteringonline for the Canute Road Quay name across the top of the proscenium arch.
A view of the simple compact fiddle yard of Canute Road Quay. Picture copyright and courtesy Ava Hay
I operate Canute Road Quay from the front of the layout, at obviously the left hand end as that is where the fiddle yard and control are located, as with Fisherton Sarum operating from the front allows for easy interaction and conversations with the public at shows and is very much part of the exhibition experience that I enjoy.
The observant amongst you might also have noticed the subtle change the exhibition side bar to the right of the page which has had a title change and includes the fact that off the back of its Taunton appearance Canute Road Quay has been invited to attend the excellent Exeter MRS exhibition at the The Matford Centre, Matford Park Road, Marsh Barton, Exeter, Devon EX2 8FD over the weekend of the 1st and 2nd July.
P.S. Are you fed up withe the ‘quay’ puns yet, I am kind of hoping so as I might be running out of them….
The left hand front office building is yet to be affixed to the layout
The two main front buildings have been assembled from the excellent laser cut card components from LCut Creative these have now been initially painted and external details such as gutters and downpipes added from a mix of Peco LK-78 buifdings details pack and Wills SS46 Buildings Pack A. These buildings are not yet permanently affixed to the layout as I am still to add the internal details and also some lighting.
The main warehouse loading platform also has a representation of its underside wooden support beams. Photo taken before the gantry was fitted
I gave the LCut Creative buildings a coat of Humbrol grey acrylic primer prior to dry brush painting the brickwork using a pallet of brick work colours from Precision Paints mixed with a little dirty black and also picked out slightly different brickwork such as the window brick arches a slightly lighter colour.
The gantry and A frame has been added to the right hand warehouse
The main warehouse loading platform has been made using Wills floorboard building sheets rather than the LCut Creative card items as I was making the platform quite long and the Wills plastic sheets are larger and stronger. This has been painted a weathered greyish brown colour.
To give access to the upper floor loading doors I have created a gantry hoist supported on the quayside by an ‘A’ Frame. The block and tackle / pulley would run on the smaller section ‘H’ girder mounted below the main cross girder, to either lift items to and from open wagons and or in theory the girder would be cantilevered over the quayside to lift items from moored vessels.
Another view of the warehouse and freelance gantry hoist
I have made this somewhat freelance design from scratch using two different sizes of brass ‘H’ section soldered together with some corner bracing details added from thin brass sheet embossed with a number of rivets.
The engine shed nestles in the roar corner of Canute Road Quay
The engine shed tucked away in the back right hand corner assembled from Skytrex Model Railways resin parts is now complete and suitably painted. The inside floor of the shed has been painted to represent a concrete floor and outside the shed a mix ash, using real ash from my wood burning stove, ballast and coal around the coaling platform, a Hornby Scaledale product, have been glued in place using the usual method of diluted PVA glue. The water crane is a Kernow Model Centre commissioned SR style made by Bachmann Scenecraft.
USA tank No 72 crosses the quayside access road
A few people and black wing gulls have been suitably positioned around the layout from Langley Models, I have also used their etched drains and drain covers in suitable places. The SR barley twist post style gas lamps, from Gaugemaster, are yet to be wired in although the transformer, voltage regulator and input wiring is already place to do so.
The end of the right hand warehouse and loading platform
Other details items such as wooden crates, oil drums, sacks and fish crates have been added from cast plaster items from Ten Commandments suitably painted.
In my last post about Fisherton Sarum attending the Epsom and Ewell exhibition last weekend, Canute Road Quay makes its first almost public appearance this coming Sunday at an RMweb forum members event in Taunton. I would like to thank all those readers of this blog who came by Fisherton Sarum at the excellent Epsom and Ewell exhibition, it was good to speak to you all. On the whole from the layouts perspective the show went well despite a couple of electrical niggles, and I am looking forward to hopefully a good day with Canute Road Quay on Sunday.
An overall view of Canute Road Quay showing its curtrent state of progress
Just like a good backscene; see my A view from the line post regarding Fisherton Sarum’s backscene here, or my Canute Road Quay backscene post here; another area that I think is vital for any model railway layout, especially if being exhibited, is good lighting. There are a number of reasons for this: firstly and the main reason, is of course to show of your modelling efforts and skills in the best light (pun intended) possible, and secondly due to the fact the ambient lighting at exhibition venues can be variable at best. One key area to bear in mind is the colour / warmth of the lighting that you provide, more of which below…
Over the years a number of methods have been used with mixed results, such as using a number of spot lamps, fluorescent tubes, a mixture of the two and more recently LED strips. I am generally not a fan of multiple spot lamps especially facing in different directions as they can give unrealistic multiple shadows. Note also that technically you plant bulbs but use lamps as a light source in a luminaire…
The colour of white, might sound odd but in fact it’s actually a thing, or rather the colour temperature is. This colour temperature is measured in Kelvin (K). The slightly unnatural yellowy orange tint of a classic tungsten lamp would be in the 2700K (warm white) range, with the light becoming colder and whiter and slightly more natural, up to around 6500K for a cold blue light and even more blue up to 10,000K.
Many of us find doing actual modelling or craft work under a daylight cool blue white lamp (the daylight lamp I use is around the 4000K mark) easier on the eye and also better for rendition of other colours under this artificial light, this especially useful when painting.
Therefore the lighting that we use on our layouts will also benefit from being at the more daylight blue and more natural end of the white temperature spectrum.
A split image showing lighting on Fisherton Sarum from the public’s view (top) and operator’s view (bottom)
On Fisherton Sarum I use, mounted inside the overhead pelmet (painted white inside), two daylight / cool white range (6500K) florescent tubes to give the overall and even illumination, with two additional spot daylight rated (approx 6000K) spot lamps to give additional illumination to the front corners of the layout specifically around the shed and houses areas (these are far enough apart and carefully angled to prevent any unwanted / unrealistic odd shadows).
Many modellers are now using LED lighting for layout lighting and usually via the increasingly widely available strips of surface mounted LEDs that you simply cut to length. They either come with a transformer and or a controller of some description. This is what I have chosen to use on Canute Road Quay. Just like lamps and fluorescent tubes these LED strips can be obtained in a variety of white colour ranges usually: warm (between 2700-3200K), daylight (4000-4500K) and cool (5000-6200K).
A view from the inside of Canute Road Quay with the LED strip installed in the underside of the pelmet
I obtained a metre long, cool white, self adhesive LED strip, plug and play kit complete with plug mounted mains transformer from LED Hut this was inexpensive, already the correct length and very easy to fit. The kit came with a simple plug and socket connection to the lead from the transformer, which I have extended to enable me to mount the socket under the baseboard.
With the overcast greyish sky backscene and drab industrial colours I am using on Canute Road Quay I opted for cool white as the more yellowish warm white would conflict with the overall layout colouration and appear to be less natural.
The even lighting of the LED strip can be seen in this picture of Canute road Quay as it currently stands
This strip has given a very even natural looking light, that alone slightly too bright for what I will want if and when I exhibit Canute Road Quay, I have therefore now added added an opaque strip of plastic in front of the LEDs to reduce the brightness slightly.
Some of the more expensive LED strips on the market allow you to control both the brightness and colour range, which would also give rise to changing the lighting to represents different times of the day etc. and I can see such effects being utilised more and more in the hobby.
Following on from completing the basic ground and the inset concrete trackwork areas on Canute Road Quay as detailed on my post here, I have now in addition to adding some ballast in around the point work and also the headshunt, started to add the next stage of the ground cover and colouration of the concrete inset track.
Earth and Static Grass areas
Green Scenes texture paint has been used to give the base colour to the earth and concrete areas
Static grass uses fibres to represent individual blades and strands of grasses etc. that is applied via an applicator. The applicators are usually battery powered, that charge the fibres with an electrical charge. The applicator is also connected to the layout, near to the area being applied via a lead either using a crocodile clip attached to one of the rails (as in this case on Canute Road Quay), or to a small nail temporary inserted locally into the scenery to provide the opposite charge. This results in the fibres when shaken out of the applicator standing up, just like grass, with they land on the thin layer of rapid drying conducting PVA style glue on the scenic area. I prefer to use the excellent static grass applicator and fibres from W W Secnics. Their ‘Pro Grass applicator is made in the UK is lightweight, powered by a 9V battery, an illuminated on-off switch and has interchangeable sieve heads to handle a range of fibre lengths from 2 to 12mm.
The initial couple of layers of static grass have been applied
Static grass comes in multiple lengths, and colours ranging from springs to summer / autumn more yellowish colours, the reason for this is that you build the grass up to achieve a realistic looking grass and varity of tines to suit the location and time of year you wish to represent. I find that a lot of the available fibres are often a far to bright green, which is one of the reasons why I like the fibres from W W Secnics and even then I then to use their more muted summer and autumn colours.
Looking the other way to show the grassed area between the loop tracks
Now that I have stated with the initial build up of the grass I will add further layers, where appropriate and also additional textures using some Woodland Scenics materials in due course for further complete the scene and the effect that I am looking for. I will also add some discolouration / dirt / oil stains etc. on some the grass where it has grown up between the sleepers on the track itself.
Concrete Inset Track
The expansion joints have been added to the concrete inset track area
The Inset track area, having been initially built up with layers of cork has now also been a coating of textured paint from Green Scenes this time their concrete colour.
For such a large area of concrete, in real life it would soon crack due to expansion and so in practice it would be laid as slabs with a bitumen based expansion joint between to allow for any movement of each slab. I have therefore added such expansion joints to the concrete area in the foreground of the layout leading up to the dock edge. IN practice the distance between expansion joints is dictated bu the thickness of the concrete slab and in this instance I have gone with joints set at 15ft intervals which would be appropriate for slabs up to and around 8″ thick.
Another view of the concrete inset track area and the expansion joints
To create the impression of the joints I initially scribed the joint lines into the surface of the concrete with the edge of a small screwdriver blade before running a soft pencil down the scribed line to give the weathered grayish look to the jointing bitumen. Some of the joints towards the edges of the slabs, i.e. those areas not seeing much vehicular traffic, will also get some fine turf Woodland Scenic material added in due course as I further detail the scene.
The overall view of Canute Rod Quay as it current stands is below, more updates to follow soon…
I have spoken before in a view from the line post about my views on the need for a backscene on a layout. Even simple a plain blue or grey painted back board is better that nothing. A good backscene helps create impression of depth and finishes the overall illusion that we are trying to create with a layout. The style of presentation, on Canute Road Quay as I have utilised an excellent laser cut Tim Horn baseboard, the back and sides are an integral part of the overall baseboard module.
On Fisherton Sarum, as can be seen on many of the images on this blog, I am indebted to fellow High Wycombe and District MRS member Ron North who superbly hand painted my Salisbury based backscene. On Canute Road Quay, being a bit of an industrial dockside scene, I thought an grayish overcast sky would give a simple effect and not draw the eye too much from the layout itself. I therefore opted to use a photographic overcast grey sky from Photo ID backscene from Art Printers.
A view of the backscene looking towards to the RH corner. The engine shed in the rear corner is only half complete at the moment with no roof or inside wall in place.
I opted for their Premium range of Photo ID backscenes that are printed on tough Polypropylene that are stated as being waterproof, scratch and tear resistant. They are self-adhesive, which is how I have affixed them to the primed plywood rear and sides of the layout; but can be used without removing the backing film and applied using a non-aqueous glue if required. This has on the whole been a success, although the self adhesive backing was not quite a strong as perhaps I would have liked, but time will tell.
A view of the backscene looking to the LH corner. the still to be completed ground cover is evident
On the rear right hand corner of the layout I have allowed for the backscene to curve slight rather than be an 90 degree corner to help trick the eye to not seeing a sharp corner but on the rear left hand corner due to the proximity of the high low relief warehouse building, and due to the length of the supplied Photo ID backscene I have simply left a 90 degree corner as it is less noticeable.
Although the Photo ID Sky backscene itself is just I was looking for above the mix of low relief buildings (mainly Bachman Scenecraft) , that are also positioned to form part of the backscene, it would not look right on its own in the gap between the buildings where the roadway supposedly heads off the scene.
This is due to the fact that in reality at such a location you would not simply see the sky finishing at the near horizon. I therefore initially wanted to fill the gap with a scene of a suitable warehouse style building in the near distance.
However, I was not able to find a suitable photograph of any warehouses that were taken in the right period, most images I was able find were of old warehouse as they appear now, either to dilapidated, renovated, changed use such as apartments and or with modern items in the scene such as street furniture etc.
The original terraced houses Black and White image before manipulation in Photoshop
I did manage instead to locate an old black and white image of a row of terrace houses that I could manipulate within Adobe Photoshop to fill the gap and meet my needs, in fact since the addition of the low relief public house a row of terraced houses fit into the overall scene quite nicely.
The final image shaped and coloured before printing
The first step was to reshape slightly to both fill the gap and give the perspective I wanted; and secondly to re-colour the image including the brickwork, slates, chimney pots and windows but leaving the colours slightly muted as if being viewed from a distance.
The final image cutout in place on the layout next to the low relief public house
The path and roadway have been matched as close as possible to be the same colours as applied to pathway and road on the layout itself. This was then printed onto art quality paper and carefully cut out before it will be finally affixed (as I have not yet permanently affixed it yet whilst I finish some of the scenic groundwork) to in the gap directly onto the sky backscene.
An overview of the Backscene on Canute Road Quay as it stands at the time of this post. It still requires the ground cover to be completed
Details of the LED lighting I have used on Canute Road Quay will be the subject of a future post, as I am still experimenting with defusing the lighting slightly to enhance the overall slightly drab, overcast visual effect I ultimately want. The level of brightness at the moment is good for working under, in the photographs it should be noted the backscene appears slightly more bluish than in reality it is to eye, so watch this space for more progress.
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The model railway world and mainly Southern Railway meanderings of Graham 'Muz' Muspratt
