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 Posted - January 26 2023 : 03:37:29 AM
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Trying to do something like this with a cut:
Got a ways to go. the inner cut needs to be extended towards the inner rail, more. Too far away. Too close
and it will foul passenger coaches. Hill needs to be less jagged, more smooth.
Adding in some lineside fencing, as British rail was entirely fenced to prevent livestock incursions.
I won't fence every foot of the railway, as will start to draw attention to the circular nature of the
route, as well as being a huge task.
Turf is added along the base of the EZ track, which has been washed in dilute India ink to mute the
sheen. The addition of turf will soften the look of the rigid plastic roadbed from the ground.
Edited by - Chops124 on January 26 2023 03:39:02 AM
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 Posted - January 26 2023 : 2:39:47 PM
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That is a gorgeous backdrop for your layout.
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Posted - January 28 2023 : 9:54:18 PM
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Nice work on those hills/rocky areas, Chops. Will you be adding Woodland Scenics clump foliage to the hills as well, or trees?
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." - Matthew 5:16
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Posted - January 30 2023 : 3:12:05 PM
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| Thanks, I am looking to smooth out the hill so it is round with rounded lumps. Hedge rows and some trees in the hedge line, different shades of grass for divided pastures. Needs to be rounder, and the left embankment closer to the inner track. Got some days off to plink at it some more.
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Bamos
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Posted - January 31 2023 : 05:53:06 AM
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Nice Chops. That is one nice-looking mountain very realistic.
Bill
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Posted - February 01 2023 : 12:09:23 AM
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 To clear up any confusion, the "back drop" is only a downloaded image of what I am trying to
replicate. The hill has a ways to go. Needs to be smoother, rounder.
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Posted - February 01 2023 : 10:46:18 AM
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| the can of krylon looks out of place :D
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Posted - February 02 2023 : 5:25:22 PM
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The hill inched a few inches closer to the inner rails. Still a bit bumpy, but a little better.
The green paint is to dull down the bright white of the plaster underneath for when the
scenic flock goes on.
Edited by - Chops124 on February 02 2023 5:34:34 PM
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Posted - February 17 2023 : 7:12:32 PM
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Progress is slow. The yellow patch will be bounded by a hedgerow. Tree lines and more
hedgerows due to come.
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Posted - February 17 2023 : 10:15:55 PM
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Looking really good, Chops!
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." - Matthew 5:16
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Posted - February 18 2023 : 12:40:55 AM
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It looks properly English now but it needs sheep, lots of sheep.
Bill
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Posted - October 11 2023 : 02:48:22 AM
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Thank you for your kind words of encouragement! Much appreciated. Sheep. Yes.
We will need sheep. In the meantime, I planted a giant trilobite excavation, in
regard to my fascination with stones and bones.
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Posted - October 15 2023 : 5:00:18 PM
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| That turned out great, Chops! Did you use the pre-plastered cloth strips that just need to be dipped in water and placed? One of the tricks I've learned, and you used enough grass foam for it not to matter, was to mix a thick batch of plaster of paris and paint it one the hardened mountain to smooth everything out.
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Posted - October 16 2023 : 10:47:28 AM
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Looks nice Jeff.
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Posted - January 21 2025 : 12:41:25 AM
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Sutton Hoo, a Viking excavation famous in the UK.
The Catford Urns, in honor of Catford Ken, who unfortunately has fallen off the radar.
Jokingly, these are ancient beer brewing urns from 1500 years ago. Of course, no
such things exist (except in ancient Egypt, and of a size that would not exceed ten gallons).
A pair of handsomely dressed people from the 1800's is visiting them, where they
have been turned into sort of a park.
I enjoy Britain's medieval history so much I had to figure out a way to put in a castle,
which I found after much searching and failed attempts with other products. I had to
work in some knights in armor and medieval people, so there is a little ticket booth
out front where a medieval monk is selling tickets for a Renaissance Re-enactment Fair.
The myth of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland has always appealed to me, even more so
when my late mom brought back a little Hornby 0-4-0 lettered for "Loch Ness." I find it
amusing to work in different spoofs on Nessie, this one being the Loch Ness Monster
being chased by English Fox Hunters. Sometimes, she turns the tables and chases them
or invades the cricket match or chases tourists!
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Posted - January 21 2025 : 12:44:50 AM
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One more, this is the White Horse of Uffington. In real life it is this magnificent
portrayal of a horse, done in some ancient white stones, that was created perhaps
a thousand or more years ago. This is truly a work of genius, as to be able to see it
you have to be on a hill across the valley, or from an aircraft. These people were
showing off their superb skills both as surveyors (as how it must have been
accomplished) and artists.
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Posted - January 21 2025 : 12:59:50 AM
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Love it! The ornamental end pieces of the viking ship sticking out of the ground is a nice touch. 
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Posted - January 21 2025 : 4:55:05 PM
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Very nice Jeff
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Posted - January 21 2025 : 9:13:05 PM
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I am humbled at the ingenuity and determination of these ancient peoples.
I'm going to dab in a little gold glitter to represent some of the incredible gold artifacts this site
revealed. The Vikings are a huge piece of UK history. They built these extraordinary boats
out of entirely wood, sailed them across ferocious seas that will happily kill you, and conquered
an island nation, virtually making it into a Viking province.
(Try as I might, I cannot upload more Sutton Hoo images. Go on the Net to see more).
These guys were as clever with wood, a little bit of iron they could pull out of the Earth, leather and
stone as our era of space shuttles and silicon chips.
Edited by - Chops124 on January 21 2025 9:22:15 PM
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Posted - January 22 2025 : 01:49:41 AM
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 [/url]
I crumpled some discarded wrapping paper and covered it with damp paper kitchen towels and from there was able to gently press it to satisfyingly soft curves of mid-Britain. From there I cut squares of Woodland Scenics Plaster cloth and laid it on dry, and gently wetted it with water off the finger tips. It doesn't take much, and is much easier to work with than dipping it into the water and trying to lay it flat. It sets up within five minutes.
Not barely dry, I pain on a mixture of green and a small amount of black tempura paint with a glob of white glue. The black dulls the brightness of the green.
While still wet I sprinkle on whatever woodland scenics ground cover I have on hand, which in this case is coarse turf, adequate for a hill. I may soften it up a bit with a lighter green later so it is not too monochrome.
I'm not entirely sure I like the "Catford Urns" as I once did. The Urns are a spooforific Neolithic beer brewing urns, and I'm beginning to think they are distracting and probably tomorrow I will remove the urns and turn it into a much more thematic sheep pasture- like the ones I enjoyed in Wales.
The gate is propped up with a toothbrush whilst the glue dries. Will like relocate the gate somewhere else- maybe to the Lord Wormwood monument.
Edited by - Chops124 on January 22 2025 01:51:56 AM
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Posted - January 25 2025 : 02:20:22 AM
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The "Neolithic urns" are gone, as is the gate ruin, and it will become a Welsh sheep pasture.
"The Catford Urns," an inside jest, were more distracting and confusing than they should be,
and so are retired.
Another long time in planning an addition is the Granite Tramway- an actual feature of the UK
countryside, where the forerunner of trains was pony-pulled carts with wood wheels upon
granite tracks. Less friction was involved, so more could be pulled, and it didn't turn into a muddy
mass.
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Posted - January 25 2025 : 09:23:44 AM
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I like the archaeological bent you’re incorporating into Henley.
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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Posted - January 25 2025 : 11:08:52 PM
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It's interesting that the tramways are still there. You'd think that they would have long ago been replaced by another kind of road.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - January 26 2025 : 12:07:44 PM
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well like Daffy Duck says in Duck Amuck
"Hey Who's ever in Charge The scenery Where's the scenery?"
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Posted - January 26 2025 : 6:38:25 PM
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quote:It's interesting that the tramways are still there. You'd think that they would have long ago been replaced by another kind of road.
Originally posted by scsshaggy - January 25 2025 : 11:08:52 PM
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Good question. My guess is that the colliery dried up, and they were in the middle of nowhere and communicated to canals for transportation. Or, if eventually served by rail, it may have been too legally problematic to obtain rights to the existing. Canal companies were always trying to hang the new railroads up wherever possible. So perhaps the granite were simply abandoned while the railways went off their own way. I'll ask around on a British Forum and see if insight can be gained.
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Posted - January 26 2025 : 10:08:51 PM
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According to Wikipedia, the Tramway served a granite quarry, which was closed in 1858 because Cornish granite could be had more cheaply. Part of the Tramway right of way was in fact later used by a railroad.
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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Posted - January 26 2025 : 11:55:41 PM
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Several tramways hauled various ores, coal, and granite. It was surprising to learn that the wheels were
iron and that as many as 12 to 15 wagons, with a wheelbase of ten feet, were strung together and pulled
by a team of 12, or more horses.
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Posted - January 27 2025 : 4:28:34 PM
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quote:It's interesting that the tramways are still there. You'd think that they would have long ago been replaced by another kind of road.
Originally posted by scsshaggy - January 25 2025 : 11:08:52 PM
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I put that question out on a British Model Rail Forum, and got several responses:
It varied from tramway to tramway and the mines or quarries they served.
Some ended up being rebuilt as railways though their original courses did not follow the same routes as horses could pull waggons up 1 inn4 inclines, where steam locomotives could not (Unless specifically adapted to do so. Actually, the very early locos built to run on these early tramway lines were built so they could go up very steep gradients which is why there was debate in the very early 1800's about rail adhesion and why some very early experiments with toothed wheels to overcome this. I read an account written around 1812 of a rail journey taken by a person who sat on top of a loaded waggon (One of many) going behind one of these early locomotives, and they reached a bank and ditch going across the line where the line itself went up, down and up again... Horses just took this in their stride as they just walked them back and took a waggon or two at a time and re-assembled their train on the other side. This steam loco could also do it but they used a different method, so realistically, many of these early tramway lines, there was no big advantage over using a horse or horses.... But the procedure was to empty all the load from the waggons first and load back on the other side which obviously the extra time taken was no advantage compared to a horse. The loco itself had a way where they could directly inject a full amount of steam into the cylinders giving it more direct power? (It had something to do with it being an unconventional approach that was not possible in locos built in later years as these early locos were designed differently to do this. I can't picture what they meant but remember being fascinated by the description). They would then operate the loco by walking with it up and down the bank as it pulled its now unloaded lightweight waggons with it along with all available people pushing to help, and it would be all hands on deck to load everything back on the other side.
I don't know if you have seen that well known elderly film done in humour, but these old locomotives could actually do things later locos could not! (I will see if I can find the YouTube clip of it. Here it is below).
https://youtu.be/QXBwzC4JYC0?si=W2houyZ5VYz4iZGA
Now another two reasons why for around 25 to 30 years they rarely used steam locos on these lines. They did break plates. (Rails). For a good few hundred years on narrow gauge lines (Which most of these early locos were though they used various gauges depending on use. Usually the narrower gauges of 2ft or 2ft 3 inches were used due to the need for waggons to go through narrow mine passages. However, many tramway lines were wider because it suited horses better. Most underground mines were hand pushed. Now for a few hundred years, the 2 ton waggons were preferred or of a lower tonnage for inside mines but the two ton was the weight a man could handle them on their own on surface lines. (Underground it was less). Now larger waggons of 3 ton were tried but these not only were not so forgiving with the iron plates, but they needed two people to push them. So for 2ft gauge lines (Or similar gauges) they preferred 2 ton waggons as standard, and down mines for specific use they were smaller... The wider gauges were the ones more popular because horses found it better. So 3ft or there abouts (Or around 2' 6" onwards) the longer distance horse drawn tramways were more popular. (Stevenson actually came on the scene around a decade later when it comes to steam locos BUT started independently to the events going on in Wales, but what Stevenson did out of convenience, is use the stage coach of its day and take that as the gauge width for his locomotives, which ended up being 4'8". Later when higher train speeds came along, they had to add an extra half inch when train speeds started exceeding 60mph and edged to hit 80mph to prevent excessive wear on the wheels and rails. The extra half inch track gauge where the gauge of the locos wheels remained the same became the solution. Broad gauge did the same but as broad gauge was designed with speed in mind, they only had to add an additional quarter of an inch which is why early lines were listed as 7'0", and after a certain date they were listed as 7'0 1/4")
But apart from gradients of early tramways being suitable for horses, curves were also often too sharp. So when thees old tramways were eased to re-build them into railways, extensive work was needed, as these old tramways were often layed on the surface of the ground. They did do some groundwork where needed and some tramways were quite engineering feats in themselves! But most of them were the most convenient way to get their goods from one place to the other!
Now mines and other industries can have all sorts of things happen where they either do really well and the tramways end up as railways, or they can hit disaster of one kind or another where they close along with the tramways that relied on them for their survival.
In the UK many mines closed when the outside world opened up so ores could flood into the UK from far away places at cheaper prices then they could be mined in the UK. Incidently, were you aware that Wales (UK) was rather unique in that geologically speaking contains such a variety of ores under its ground that to match the variety, it would take the whole continent of North America to do so. It is the reason why the industrial revolution in Wales started earlier than it did in most of the rest of the UK. E.g. coal mining was well established in some parts of South Wales in the early 1500's in one valley which had already exhausted itself from an entire large woodland area which was almost entirely cut down to feed the hungry iron furnaces which in its day was the largest supplier of cannon and musket balls in the whole of Europe not too far away (Known as "Kings Wood" due to its past history and was a very famous very large woodland). The furnaces actually supplied cannon balls and musket balls to customers on both sides of some of the past notable wars! When they ran out of wood, they found coal to be an ideal replacement where "Cell mining" began. Cell mining was done before the days where water pumps and air ventilation solutions came along. Indeed, such was the demand for pumping engines in mines, many early locomotives were soon converted into mine pumping engines instead. The basic idea of cell mining was to drift into the side of the mountain following a coal seam to form a circular cell under the ground where they could reach some of the coal. They could not go further in due to lack of air and the risk of flooding. (The area they did these cell mines was vunerable to flooding through sudden bouts of rain which also had arounda months delay on the water table, as local springs can go from almost dry to full flow a whole month after heavy rainfall had been and gone!) Once the cell was mined out as far as they could go, they came out, moved sideways and created another cell, and then another and so on. So many small cell remains now collapsed into holes can be found on this mountain side.
These cell mines were back in the 1500's but certainly by the 1700's onwards when methods of mine ventilation and water audits were invented and later came steam pumps, they could then follow coal seems further in. Thus the early tramways came along along with canals and then railways. Indeed in this valley where the side of the mountain was cell mined, had a route used to take coal by pack horse (Coal in saddle bags) to take it the few miles to reach the sea for onward travel to the furnaces. Then canals came along and these were used where barges further up the canal in some places used a large sledge system instead of using locks, where the flat bottom barges would slide on the bottom of this large metal U-shaped device that the canal barges slid on before going back into the water at a higher level. Then the filled in some of the canal to build a railway on top, part of which became a cycle path when the remaining coal extraction ceased. (Still more coal down there than was ever extracted, but todays environmental concerns and insurance costs and now we have gone all "Green" despite the coal being a smokeless coal, means that there is no market for it).
But this is the same with tramways. The railway was served by a few mine tramways at certain times where these tramways had served the canal before that. There were similar tramways including inclines on the other side of this hill. A whole large history in one place. Yet... It was one of a great many places like this in South Wales dedicated to extract coal or iron ore as depending where, coal and iron ore in the south were the main ores... BUT (And you will love this) the cell mines minimh for coal were not the first mines! Not far from the cell mines was an old Roman silica mine which many years later when the industrial revolution came along was reopened to mine for coal! The Romans wanted silica to make bricks. Both mountains also had top quality clay, so finding both clay and silica in the same small area was like gold to the Romans!
Talking about gold... Around 60 miles away the Romans mined for gold on a massive scale, and later developed a method of extraction that abstracted far more gold from the area than using modern methods! Could not be done today due to population living in the area, but what the Romans did was to make large reservoirs of water a the top of the area they wanted to find gold. They would then when ready, suddenly break their dams letting the big rush of water go down the hill thus exposing the gold. This water was a massive amount at one time and scoured out the valley below. I think they were genius to do this! Hope no one was down the valley below at the time unaware what was going on! :D
Just to add extra info about mines and Wales. (Rest of the UK also had amazing mines and tramways).
Mid Wales have loads of abandoned lead mines.
North Wales has slate mines and quarry, and also copper. The only useful ore that was in Wales but in not in quantities large enough to bother mining was tin. Cornwall had tin. But other ores Wales had, and the three main ores which were said to be the finest in the world were slate, coal and iron ore.
and:
https://youtu.be/HWBRKeR8IvY?si=7KvWX5fp3E2jOc6z
https://www.youtube.com/@wayoutwest-wor ... 299/videos
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Posted - January 27 2025 : 5:18:47 PM
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Wow, that's a pretty thorough discussion of the topic.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - January 28 2025 : 01:00:53 AM
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Yes, those Brits are very strong on their amazing rail history. I copied and pasted this reply
from a fellow across the pond, not my work.
Added in some more trees. The terrific coal wagon Ben sold me is visible in the rake. I plan
to dirty up the colliery a bit more.
Today, I put in this hill upon an annoying bald spot near the goods yard. The
trees give a layout so much better texture. I like the way the hill provides a kind of
distraction from the fact that the canal abruptly ends.
The foreground is going to need more treatment. The cardboard base is showing through.
Edited by - Chops124 on January 28 2025 01:02:44 AM
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