Diesel Hydraulics at Portencross

[Hound Dog]

And so it started with the NBL Warships.......Kernow's D601 Ark Royal - a present from Christmas which has just been fitted with a premium sound decoder and stay alive........looks the part, runs like a dream and sounds just like it should.......just missing the clag !

More Hydraulic action to follow as I slowly wind the clock back to try to create an early to mid 60's West Country feel to my garage layout......

[Steve M]

[cheshire lines]

Definitely looks the part.

[glencairn]

Lovely scenes Hound Dog. Well done.

Glencairn

[Hound Dog]

Been continuing the work to try to take my Montgreenan 1980's layout back to the early / mid 60's as Portencross, a medium sized town in mid Devon at a time when Steam was being replaced by Diesels, and specifically for the Western region by Diesel Hydraulics.

Whilst I contemplate how I want the west end of the layout to look, it was pretty obvious that my traction maintenance depot would need to be altered to represent an old dirty Steam shed that is now having the accommodate delicate diesels.........the shed choice was easy as Metcalfe do a lovely dual road shed that is fun to build and which I tried to make a dirty and oily as possible, including using soot from my wood burner to dark down the brick work and the pristine slate roof.......I am pretty pleased with how it worked out, although the scalpel was needed to trim the shed to make it fit, so the rear side won't win any prizes. I also covered up my modern black and yellow hazard door with a home made replacement wooden door......beyond that I think the depot only needs oil drums, stillages and perhaps a few rusty wheels to finish it off.

Other changes at the adjacent junction involved replacing the concrete signal box and the modern concrete footbridge........I am really pleased with the solution for the later which is a cut down Dapol kit. I initially planned to paint it GWR Chocolate and Cream, but then I thought that this would be overkill for a railway workers bridge and so tried to produce a simpler wooden affair.......sprayed it with Railmatch sleeper grime which brings a lovely flat and old wooden colour to a basic plastic kit.

I am pretty comfortable that I can switch the shed and junction back to the 1980's without a great deal of hassle, and only the weathering on the background buildings is irreversible, but then again they were way too clean for a railways environment anyway..........I think just about everything else that is permanent on the layout can generally fit both time periods, but I am contemplating replacing my original card based platforms with wooden versions, but that is for another day.

I am attaching a before and after picture, plus an after-dark picture.........shame how old D601 has already been downgraded to hauling coal wagons as the shiny new Warship, Hymek and Western loiter in pristine condition in the grimy old shed - bet they don't stay that way for long........

Hope everybody is safe and well and enjoying their modelling - cheers Richard

[Walkingthedog]

Brilliant night shot.

[bulleidboy]

Great pictures - all looks very realistic.

[Bandit Mick]

Great pictures - could almost step into the scenes.

[Barclay]

Fantastic pictures and a nice selection of Diesel locomotives.

[Mountain Goat]

Very nice! But do diesel hydraulics have much clag? They have higher revving diesel engines. Diesel electrics by nature clag as they are made for their low revving torque to turn a generator.