Been hard at it over the weekend. More work on the front roof.
Attached ‘L’ beams to the base of the ‘X’ trusses ready for the glazing bars to rest on. Painted them all and glued in place after carefully measuring out (more than once!) to make sure that they are correctly spaced over the Bow string girders.
Spent I don’t know how many hours sticking 1.2mm ‘T’ bars to the plastic roof strips. All at 20mm centres and this afternoon glued these glazing strips to the ‘X’ trusses. So this side of the roof complete. Ordered more plastic roof panels and ‘T’ bars to be able to complete the far side and sections of the rear roof .
Finished the in-fill panel and the pitched roof. All parts pinned and glued to just one pillar and glued to the infill panel. Time will tell if it takes the use!
NOW YOU SEE IT NOW YOU DONT …….
Definitely worth the effort as add substance to the overall station and roof and fills that uncomfortable blank space on the left.
Ivatt 4MT 43012 has arrived in Platform 2 with a semi fast from Bournemouth West – Bristol TM. Built in 1948 at Horwich Works (Better known as Mansell Street works Greenford!) and with double chimney and sent to Bath 29.1.1949.
The first 49 of the class of 162 were built as such but they very quickly showed poor steaming and after much testing on the Rugby Test Plant the drafting was sorted and the remaining 113 of the class were built new with single chimneys with the original 49 having their double chimneys changed to single on subsequent works visits.
43012 did not last long on the S&D finding the high rates of steaming on the long banks just too much in double chimney form and was re allocated to Bristol Barrow Road 22A in 1950. Moving on to Saltley Shed 21A and then off to the Midlands for a while before returning to Saltley shed in 1960 for 2 years and put in more appearances at Bath Green Park on workings from Birmingham.
As I thought the front part of the train shed has gone together much more quickly than the rear as a lot of prep already done and probably less than half the size. Pillars in, Bow string girders in, side bow strings fitted, cross members fitted. Well as far as I can go I’ve run out of the under roof trusses and have ordered some more laser cut trusses.
Platform 2 looking in to the platform ends and, swinging the camera round, looking out passed the Bonded Store at the weekends new construction. I’ve camaflouged the track that cuts across the platforms. The roof is in place but not fitted until I have the extra roof trusses and the slate roof covering. The bow string ‘X’ trusses are temporarily held in place with some of Hilarys hair clips – dont tell her! Roof for the far side still a card former as yet to be cut, painted and fitted.
I’ve split the roof over P2 by inserting an acrylic panel to be able to look in and see when uncoupling a double headed express in P2 – hand has to go in through Bay 6. Not ideal but most expresses use P!
Waiting on an order of various ‘T’ bars to be able to go on and do the roof glazing panels. Ordering some more of the roof slate panels.
I had some serious concerns about painting the front screen and how to do it without getting paint all over the plastic panel that it’s all mounted on.
Had a lightbulb moment a couple of day ago and got hold of one of those tester pots of Matt Ivory emulsion. A perfect colour match and if I got any on the plastic panel could easily remove with a bit of plastic scraper. Perfect and painted it up whilst watching the rugby yesterday.
Going to have a bit of a think about the back scene. I used what I had to hand but I think I can do better. The gap in the roof to access and uncouple locos in P1 and P2 is now a lot smaller than first designed and I’m thinking about constructing a lift off fill in section to match.
I’ve got a couple of pillars to realign but hopefully now within a couple of weeks or so of finishing this rather BIG job.
Been working very hard on fitting the ‘X’ truss beams on top of the bow string beams. Mounted all 6 large and small ‘X’ truss beams.
The glazing bars are made from ‘T’ section Plastruct. !.6mm for the longitudinals and 1.2mm for the actual glazing bars at 90’. Segments of 10” so just over 2 per roof run. 15mm apart and have a 10mm overhang in each case. One of those jobs that can be done in front of the TV making up the glazing bar segments!
At the moment the glazing bars are only occasionally tacked in place. I now have to glue all 200+ !!!!!!!
Am pleased with the overall results so far
One thing that I’m considering: in my period 1950’s/60’s a proportion of the glazing bars were missing. Removed I suppose due to rust, decay etc . Now do I do similar or ignore this for the overall look?
You can see the new 5th bow string has fitted in very well. I had to stop today as ran out of 1.2mm ‘T’ section Plastruct so ordered 5 more packs. That will finish off this end of the station all being well by/over the weekend and then next week make a start on the front.
DEVELOPMENTS AT BATH GREEN PARK As construction of the train shed has progressed I have looked again at various aspects of the train shed design. The TWO issues are: Combe Down tunnel track that cuts across the middle of the train shed AND access to uncouple locos at the platform ends. The former – nothing to do there it is what it is The later has developed further. Originally I thought of a lifting flap in the train shed roof but early on discarded this as the structure just will not be strong enough to take constant handling in such a way never mind the odd heavy hand! So worked on leaving a gap in the roof for that ‘Hand of God’. After all, this whole area beyond the dividing track was going to be ‘off stage’ and so is a big bonus. Now that construction has moved forward far enough I can see that I may not need to leave as large a gap as I had first thought. I plan to add one more bow string as you can see in the photo below. This has an added advantage that the 3 ‘X’ trusses on the far side of the roof can now run right across from front to rear sections and so amalgamate the whole visually.
The view internally of the extra bow string girder Today I’ve started glueing the ‘X’ trusses in place on to the main bow string girders.
Both roofs are now painted on their undersides – sooty cream. For me its important that the model looks ‘Shabby Chic’. I’m trying to represent Bath Green Park in the 1950’s and 60’s when it was looking rather past its best. The glazed roof on the left is, on the original, a solid pitched roof but I’ve made it glazed to allow more light through and allows a better view into the platforms as the main roofs do cover a large area of the platforms.
I must be spending 4 or 5 hours a day on BGP train shed, well, I haven’t got anything else to do!
Big progress in the last week: I hope to finish the rear part of the train shed over the next 7 days and then be able to move onto the front and more visible part of the train shed.
The pitched glazed roof on the side of platform 2 is almost complete – I ran out of 1.2mm ‘T’ bar strip to complete the glazing bars. You can see I’m only 3 sections short. Ordered and will finish that in the next couple of days. Issue – there is a lot of light reflection from the room window on this glazing and so I have experimented with a matt lacquer spray on a test piece of acrylic. Will reduce the light reflection but also the view down onto the platform. Going to wait on that decision until I have to fix the glazing in place.
You can see just how many truss beams I have cut, fettled and glued in place. 100’s already and more to finish this rear part of the train shed. One of the most difficult things is trying to line them all up. I only have a side view and even with my GoPro camera and the good old mirror trick it is still very difficult to align them all perfectly.
I’m pretty much ready to cut out the roof for both sides now. The black card will be used as formers to cut the 1mm birch ply
I’m doing a trial run with the ‘X’ trussing on top of the main bow string girders so only attached with Bluetac at the moment.
The ground frame is ready for platform 2 crossover. This was worked by the loco fireman and used by trains terminating at Green Park to enable the loco to run round the stock either preparatory to returning to Bristol or to shunt the empty stock into one of the middle sidings. The G/F being released by Bath Station SB.
I’ve another one to make for the crossover at the end of platform 1 by the Avon river bridge.
Beyond the fenced area at the end of the platforms was a decent sized circulating area. Mine is about 10mm deep! But doesn’t show badly?
In this picture a lot of the trussing looks white. Its all cream. Funny how the light makes a difference.
Following up on Bath Green Park and the buildings.
Here is a better shot that shows the offices on platform 2 and the main station building at the end of the platforms and the myriad of cast iron work and pillars.
These are all real pictures of Bath Green Park that I’ve taken off the Internet and copied and enlarged them to the required size and then pasted them onto my walls.
You can see all the horizontal trussing that Alans brother laser cut for me. This is a fraction of what I have to fit.
Today I’ve started on the pitched roof. Glued the horizontal trussing in place and cut the acrylic (glass) roof panels and fitted the glazing bars onto the right hand one. The other I’ll do tomorrow
Yesterday and today amongst other things finished making the Trussing with Ogee guttering attached that fits along the outside of the side bowstrings on platform 2
About 3’ of it. A bit repetitive! I did the same (without the Ogee guttering) earlier in the week to fit along the top of the wall backing Platform 1 and to which the side bowstrings fit
Regarding disguising the track that crosses the platforms. A single colour is always going to stand out so needs camouflage and I thought about the old train shed picture that has held sway for the last 15 years. Photo copied the centre sections in B&W, darkened them right down and here is the result as fitted to the right hand side. I’ll fit the rest and leave it up for the moment. The other idea is a picture of the station building again in B&W and darkened right down. I’ve only attached it with Prit Stick so easy enough to remove. Once I’ve got far enough to cut out the roof sections and temporarily fit them it will become obvious what is right.
I have the final 5 side bowstrings to make now but waiting on more Plastruct to arrive next week so over the weekend I have those small adjustments to make to the bowstring that is fitted to the station building. Once I have adjusted the width between these two pillars so that it matches all the others I’m then ready to fit this and glue in the pillars on Platform 1
I’ve now finished the back wall behind platform 1 and today I glued it in place on the platform. I’ve glued some of the side bowstrings to their pillars. Before I do all the others down Platform 1 I have an adjustment to make to the station building backscene. As mentioned previously I glued the first bow string to this backscene. Measured it all out but somehow the pillars sit 15mm further apart than the others so before this backscene is fixed in place I’ve have to adjust this. Don’t think this will be an issue and those pillars have to be in line.
Once this is done I’ll then glue all the pillars down that far side on P1. Having got those upright and straight I can then glue the pillars in on P2. So the next few days going to be fairly critical.
One of the other jobs started today is painting that front bowstring – the one mounted on Perspex. I started with painting the pillar bases brown. Used masking tape for a clean crisp finish and to test how I’m going to paint this front bow string.
Not great. Paint leaching up under the masking tape – see picture. I used green decorators masking tape! All the others I did free hand and are ok ……… but don’t see myself painting all the beams etc on the front screen free hand. Envisage paint everywhere!
I’ve now got 36 pillars placed. Low down shots on the GoPro really beginning to look good
Northolt Model Railway Club 