From when my Parents gave me my first train set for a Christmas present as a child, I have had an interest in model railways. I originally started in "OO" gauge, but have also built in "N" and "O" gauge. The last layout I built was my exhibition layout "Holmehurst" which was in "O" gauge, and I exhibited it around the country. Photos of it can be seen by following this link.

I inherited some "OO9" rolling stock from my late father, including a loco I built from a white metal kit for him, and ever since living on our working narrowboat Hadar I have been thinking about building a "OO9" layout.

For those who do not know, "OO9" is "OO" scale, which is 4mm to 1ft, but the track and rolling stock are narrow gauge, equivalent to 2ft gauge in real life. Modelling-wise this means that I can used standard "OO" scale buildings, people, scenery etc. of which there is a far greater range of ready built items and kits to choose from, but it has the advantage that the reduced size of the track and rolling stock means that curves can be tighter than for standard gauge, without losing a realistic look within a restricted layout size.

I had thought about building a layout in our garden alongside our mooring at the Saltisford Canal Centre, but after much thought decided that this would not be practical. However I built a small layout (now dismantled) which sat on the shelf above the display cabinet, in our saloon, which houses my "O" gauge rolling stock. Having finished it, my wife Jo suggested that when we stop selling coal I could build a layout in the hold. As we stopped selling coal at the end of 2016.

I have now built the layout. This is now a full record of the building of this layout and any new additions along the way.

Please feel free to leave comments, I am always interested in suggestions or questions.

Tuesday 14 February 2017

Barn for the Farm

Today I finished building a kit of a barn for the farm on Hadarford. The roof was the final item to be glued in place, and the roof, walls and doors were weathered.

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Probably not needed, but I do like to put additional bracing inside kits I build just to reduce any bowing of walls and to keep the corners at right-angles. My experience of constructing buildings is that the thin walls tend to bow very easily, especially the bigger the building. It is always handy when kit manufacturers supply the kits with the parts still attached to their moulding spurs, which is what I used for the bracing for this model. I also added corner braces mad from other scrap plastic parts. I used the new tools I recently bought to hold pieces of wall together at right-angles to form corners.

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They certainly work well and definitely makes construction a lot easier.

Keith.

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