British Oak in an APA - The Concept

Here's the idea then. The APA box we are all familiar with. If not, review this other blog posting. 

A Google search for "British Oak coal disposal point" will reveal some remarkable pictures to whet your appetite.

Trackplan wise there's not an awful lot you can do in 25" x 11" and given the industry the plan sort of suggests itself. One road to deliver empties to which are then picked up by a small shunting loco to be loaded at the screens. Yes, really loaded. (You know my beliefs about how small layouts should have working features to keep peoples interest up.) before being returned to the front road to be collected and sent off to the rest of the railway system.

As I got to thinking about this basic idea my attention was caught by my DMIR stock and looking at pictures of loading screens on both sides of the Atlantic I realised they aren't all that different and one structure could easily cover both locales. As this rendering shows.

So, a transatlantic layout could be on the cards then. This would make things very interesting at a show.  Bored with operating UK trains? People not interested in British Rail Blue? Change it over to DMIR maroon.
I like this idea.
A lot.
Follow along.

...and we're back.

So, after lying low for a few months things are moving again on the British Oak Coal depot scheme. With, however a significant change. That being the layout will be built in an APA box.
What prompted this return to modelling? And in an APA box too.
Well I've always liked the idea of having an English outline layout to show at train shows in the Midwest and already having the stock means that if anything was going to get built it would be something along the British Oak lines. (Pun not necessarily intended)
I don't quite know what prompted me to consider using an APA box for it though. I think I was perhaps inspired by what people were doing with the APA on the RMWeb community. They were putting me to shame. I mean, I proposed the idea of building layouts in APA's and I've done so very little with them. I was in the mood to do some "hands on" model making as much of my model making lately had been concerned with learning how to create 3D printed models for a new T scale layout. While technically "model making" there's no hands on cutting and measuring, just dragging boxes to shape and size on your laptop screen. That's not what I need right now, I want to feel like I'm building something.
So, I'll share the scheme with you later as blogger still doesn't seem to be suited to the iPad with regard to image posting.
But rest assured, there is progress a d new will be coming soon.

Fail.

It doesn't work.
Spreading the concept out over a period of time. It has to be done on 5 continuous days.
Monday was Martin Luther King day. I expected to work on the layout.
Below zero temperatures kept me inside.
But there was no motivation, no inspiration.
Nothing to get me off the couch and get modelling.
Big Fail.
Questioning my abilities in the hobby.
Other people have no problem building layouts.
Check back when I'm done feeling sorry for myself.
Normal service may be resumed.
Who knows?

Inertia

Clearly this isn't working as well as I had envisioned. It has been over a month since I last posted about the new layout progress and to date there hasn't been any further developments. Which, though not a cause for concern is a cause for comment. The first time I took on this 7 day layout malarkey it was so very easy with my calendar free and one days progress very naturally followed anothers. This time the gap between construction days means there's a huge inertia to overcome to get going again. There have been a couple of free days available to me to get some work done, but I just didn't feel like it. There's also been a lot of work pressure going on with ridiculous amounts of overtime to be had which may well have contributed to my attitude.
Right now, I'm hoping that I'll be fired up to get something done on Martin Luther King Day as the day is a holiday from work and I have had that day earmarked to do layout construction right from the outset of the project.
But then my good friend Ed Traxler found a certain picture on the internet and who knows where that might yet lead...

End of day one

So, with the layout sat in the corner of the room with the glue setting there was nothing more to do for the day there. So I turned my attention to the loading screens. Surprisingly for such in interesting subject for the railway modeller there are precious few photographs for research material out there on the internet. The best pictures I've found on the interent are in this Flickr photostream. They certainly show the ends well enough but views of the sides are quite tough to find. In fact, the search is still going on.

I made an artists impression of what I imagined the loading screens looked like. It's a step in the right direction. We'll see what else I find out there and how things change the more info I find. 

It's all very well coming up with the idea but it helps to know what size the structure will actually be. So with the glue well on the way to setting I fleshed out the idea by placing track on the baseboard in the approximate position. It gives me an idea that the screens will cover an area of about 22" x 11".

There you have it. The first day done. A real mixed day. First the really good solid baseboard construction that makes you feel the project is progressing very well and then the research work. Though not showing any real progress is just as important.

Still at the end of the day I'm exactly where I expected to be. I don't know when the next appointment with the project will be though. It might not be until next year what with the holiday season now upon us. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for checking in today.

Addendum:

After writing this post I discovered a few more pictures of the screens that would seem to suggest that the arrangement is quite different to how I have interpreted the photos I first found. More to come...

Lunch at day one

It's 12:15 as I write this post. A scant four hours since I started and as you can see from the picture below the baseboard is as good as done. It is now faced with cork tile and is ready for track laying once the adhesive has set fully.

So, what has happened since the last posting?
Not as if you can't tell from the picture.
Well, while the adhesive was setting on the baseboard I found it necessary to go shopping for some cork tile for the baseboard surface (it turns out I had 4 square feet of cork for the surface and needed five) and foamcore board for the structures. My plan was to go to local DIY emporium Menards but when I got there the car park was chock full of Thanksgiving shoppers and not fancying an elbow digging fight in there I headed over to Office Max where I was almost the only shopper. On my return home the cork tile was glued down and everything now sits under a several years of National Geographic magazine setting.
In the picture above you can also see the tools used and the mess I have created so far. I think you will agree that's not many tools and not much mess.
So considering its lunch time I think I am a bit further on than I expected especially when you consider that most of the 4 hours so far have been devoted to glue setting.
Now I'll grab a bite of lunch and start to block out the loading screens. Give the structures some size and bulk to see how it sets out on the baseboard.
See you later.

And we're off!

So at 8:15 this morning with the wife just reversing out of the driveway and  slip sliding down an icy 1st Street, I disappeared into the basement. With nothing more than a craft knife, a couple of sheets of 3/4"(approx) expanded white polystyrene sheet and some Loctite Powergrab adhesive... 

Slicing up the styrene sheet is so much easier than working with wood. Not to mention a darned sight quieter. Ten minutes later I had one of the sheets cut up into strips for the framing and could set about the gluing. A word about slicing the polystyrene sheet up. I find that if you cut it like you would any other material with a knife you'll end up blunting the blades quite quickly. 

For slicing the strips up I used one of those knives that have the long blades that you can snap the end off when it blunts. I extend the blade out to its fullest length and use it like a saw. Only if I need to make a second pass do I use a cutting motion. That way you make a better use of the blade and can make a much cleaner cut with very few of those annoying white polystyrene beads around to get in your clothes and hair.

So there you go after no more than 10 minutes of cutting I had all the strips of framing I needed cut up and very little mess to boot.

Next, the gluing together. I used some Loctite Powergrab that I had lying around. It had been lying around for several years so a couple of days before I glued up some offcuts of polystyrene sheet to see if it still worked. It did. So it was a very simple task to glue the whole lot together to make a model railway baseboard, as you can see from this picture.

This job was completed by 9:05. Less than an hour to get the baseboard done. Now I need to let it sit a while for the glue to start to set. Before I apply to cork tiling to the surface.