R. Dwan & Co

The second version of the factory for R. Dwan & Co is coming along nicely.

R. Dwan New Factory

I came to the conclusion that my buildings were not taking full advantage of N Gauge so I decided to give R. Dwan & Co a better building 180'-0" long i.e. 360mm. I stumbled across a drawing of a North Light as produced by The Standard Patent Glazing Co and used this to produce a simple outline for one section which was read up into Model Builder as a gif and then replicated. Once the roof is sheeted and glazed it should look OK

R. Dwan & Co. Ltd.

There was a problem with the building as the upper floor not only has very small windows but a low ceiling height. For this reason it was decided to modify the roof to a North Light saw tooth design which will address both of these problems plus make it possible to add a very large extractor fan above the dye testing lab. This should all help to improve the working conditions on the upper floor

R. Dwan & Co. Ltd.

Unfortunately, construction work on the factory for R. Dwan has suffered a delay, the blame for which can be laid firmly at the feet of Jackie, my wife of forty years

for it was she who handed me a cardboard tube and said "this might make a gasometer". The result of this is that I have been researching gas works. I'm sure we all know the basic process and can remember in general what a gas works looks like but when it comes to the specifics of buildings and cooling towers then that is another matter all together. I'd very much like to take the Bury St. Edmunds plant as my prototype if I can get enough details of the buildings. In any event I think I will hang fire on everything except the gasometer until I have visited the museum in Fakenham where I may get all the info I need. Meanwhile if you have anything which might help, please contact me - Eric@EricYoung.biz

Scratch Building

I'm familiarising myself with a great piece of software called Model Builder which allows you to produce the same kind of thing as a ScaleScenes kit but working from your own design e.g. a station building of your choice. Initial impressions are very good and I hope to have my first building ready soon.

Factory Building 3

Young-Corker Engineering have grown so strongly since 1913 that they have had a new factory/office block built. Naturally, given the period, it is in the Art Deco style

I was on ScaleScenes website and I saw that they were selling a plug-in of all their brick papers for Evans Designs Model Builder Software. I watched a few demos and decided that at $39 (£24) it was worth a punt. I also got the plug-in, which is a tenner, because being American software it only has American bricks. My first attempt is the low relief building shown above. The clock and the doors were lifted off the Internet as Jpegs which the package readily imports. I put the 50p for the benefit of people who are not familiar with N Gauge

Factory Building 2

This is the same kit but I've reversed it, reduced the height of the doors and added sign writing. I reversed it (a) to test the idea and (b) because I want the Works Office to be more central. I used the printer's Mirror Image facility plus a bit of PhotoShop. You can't open the file because it's password protected so I grabbed the front of the building using Print Screen and took the image into PhotoShop where I lowered the lintels and added the sign writing. I now have to decide how I'm going to link the buildings.

ScaleScenes Buildings

I'm experimenting with ScaleScenes buildings to see if that's the way I want to go for the majority of the buildings on the layout. Their system is that you buy the kit as a PDF file which you are then free to print as many times as you wish. In order for you to assess their product they provide a free kit of a low relief warehouse. I have built one and modified it, adding a large chimney where the office should be because I want a factory building. I'm now going to build another but printed mirror image (a) to test this idea and (b) because I'm going to put it to the right of the first building and I think the office in the middle will look better. Here's where we're at

The chimney appears to be on the huh due to the lens in my cheapo phone. I'll use a real camera when it's all finished and weathered

To make the chimney I simply cut a sheet of copier paper in half lengthwise, rolled it into a tube and let the tube expand slightly at the bottom. I then glued down the edge using Uhu Stic. The tube was then wrapped in brick paper which I produced by scanning a piece from my odds collection and adding the sign-writing in PhotoShop. I print using Fotospeed's pigmented ink so it won't fade.

The Basic Design

I have a space which is about twelve feet long by two feet wide. The roof is split by large cross-members into four cells; one to the right of the ladder which is all storage and two to the left. In the first of these I have a workbench opposite the main station, Rosedale Quay. Then in the second cell there will be a mainly scenic area with a viaduct at the front and Fornham All Saints at the back. This section will be a continuous oval. The station names are simply names that I like. Fornham All Saints is a village just up the road and Rosedale Quay is from our house name which itself is named after a favourite spot on the Yorkshire Moors.


The track diagrams were chosen by leafing through An Historical Survey of Selected Great Western Stations volumes one and two. They were chosen on the basis that I like the look of them and I own enough track to model them. This method ensures that the layout will look believable and will function. Everything else about the layout will be what I want, so the station buildings etc. will not be taken from the originals.

Background

I've just re-started work on an N Gauge model railway and I've decided to record its progress in this blog but before that I thought I'd tell you a little bit about me. Just things which are relevant to the railway.

I was born a few years after the end of WWII when railways were very much steam hauled. My dad, who was forty at the time, was Head Shunter at King's Cross Top Shed so I grew up with access to the ultimate train set! We went everywhere by train. We had no car because railway workers got cheap travel which was factored into their pay. If you ran a car you did yourself down double (a) you had the cost of the car (b) you didn't make use of the cheap travel. I had an ID pass which got me tickets on BR at 1/4 of the normal child's fare and anywhere on the underground for sixpence (2.5p). The world was a very different place then and by the time I was ten I would walk to Cockfosters tube station, buy my ticket and ride to King's Cross. I would then walk along to the depot and present myself at the timekeeper's office. I always got the same reaction, "you're Bill Young's boy aren't you?" followed by "does your mum know you're here?". He would then fetch dad and I would spend a few hours with him helping to move the locos about. Dad's job was to ensure that the right loco was in the right place at the right time in good running order and if it was for the Royal Train that everything visual was also 100% spot on. He even had a signwriter to make sure that all the lettering was perfect! Naturally I got to drive some of the locos and my best ever was to drive Mallard (the world speed record holder) down the yard and back turning her on the turntable and picking up coal and water. How much of the driving was me and how much the official driver I don't know but I certainly pulled the throttle lever and we went down the yard. Good enough for me!!

The picture below is from Steam Shed Portrait by H.G. Forsythe and shows dad and his mates drinking tea!

It's hardly surprising that even though I wanted to be a photographer dad wanted me to have a proper engineering job so I served my apprenticeship with Standard Telephones and Cables and became a Mechanical Engineer. Although I started as a Toolmaker I ended up as a Designer. I've designed all manner of things ranging from factories to hi fi cartridges.

My first model railway was the usual double oval on a board which slid out from under my bed. When I "grew up" I gave it to my nephew. All that three rail Hornby Dublo! Hey! Ho!

I spent a period modelling in 3mm scale which I still think is the ultimate scale but there was so little commercially available that I traded it all in for a load of N Gauge kit. When we moved to this house in 1988 I decided to build a loft layout and made a start but it never got anywhere due to a lack of time. I did a fair amount of model making however as I belonged to the Bury St. Edmunds MRC where I was the Chairman for many years.

 Now I'm retired (except for my photography business) I have the time to build my layout. So what am I going to build?