Your buildings!

[LnBmad]

My other station building was intended as a temporary measure even on my old line but will probably make a brief reappearance until I build some proper structures:



It's an Early Learning Centre station with little more work than a coat of paint - the clock is actually to be found at Paddington real life! As I say, very temporary, but I'm afraid I do rather like it....

Absolutely love the simplicity with this... Have been eying up some of my kids happy land stuff for the garden as the scale isn't far off and as you've shown here can be effective if repaint end to look less plastic.

[lazy]

a few of mine..

[Woodfields Light Railway]

... Woah

[MDLR]

LIKE the Gents in particular!

[lazy]

thanks, they are made from scrap foambord..

[Woodfields Light Railway]

Could you take a snap of the whole railway?
Just want to see the town as a landscape. Thanks

[lazy]

this is the closes i have to hand..

[Woodfields Light Railway]

Wow, I like the use of astro turf. Gauge 1?

[bazzer42]

I love this thread from Gscalecentral. Thanks Mike (?) for inspiring the use of foamboard, you're a master.

[lazy]

I love this thread from Gscalecentral. Thanks Mike (?) for inspiring the use of foamboard, you're a master.

busted!

happy to help..
no, its 45mm -g scale.. im disabled.. so getting dowsns easy.. its gettin g up thats hard.. so i built this railway raised up..its not finished, only half done..

[jim@NAL]

lovly pictures there

[Woodfields Light Railway]

Half done!!! When I first looked at those pictures, I thought I was looking at somewhere like beaconscott model village! Where are those houses from, or did you make them?

[Woodfields Light Railway]

How do the buildings look now spring has properly sprung?

[jim@NAL]

il post some pics tomorrow lots of lovly spring plants in my garden

[Woodfields Light Railway]

Yay

[TTHLRMatt]

Andy, in a previous photo, how did you make your island platform?

[andymctractor]

Andy, in a previous photo, how did you make your island platform?

Hi, I'm assuming I'm the 'Andy' you are asking.
The track base under the running lines is bricks mortared onto concrete sub base so it is quite substantial.  The island platform at Bramley Bank station was built onto this track base.
I used Jigstones platform edging castings to form the outside shape of the island platform.  (The moulds are available from Back2Bay6 ID J5JM5) These castings were glued into place using SBR. (SBR is a special builder's version of waterproof pva and behaves similarly but is more robust once dry)  Once these castings have created a closed area I applied a strong mortar mix and smoothed it down so that it left about 1/4" or less between the top of the edging castings and the top of the mortar.  Once the mortar was completely dry I spread a generous coating of neat SBR on top of the mortar layer and straight away poured chicken grit on top of the SBR and spread it level with the top of the edging casting.  Then I used a fine water spray to damp the chicken grit which encouraged some of the SBR to rise to the surface of the platform.  Where the SBR didn't show itself I dropped some more neat SBR onto the mix from the top.  It did not need washing up liquid.  Once everything was flat with chicken grit in view across the whole area of the platform surface and all grains surrounded by milky SBR  it was left to dry for a couple of days.  Hint - use only enough water spray to rise the SBR as too much water at this stage will weaken the finished surface.  
Look at the attached diagram and in sketch (1) you can see what I've just described.  
I only had one edging mould and there were about 50 castings needed for Bramley Bank station so I was very pleased to get it all finished for a steam up I'd arranged.  A problem worthy of note is that the height of the jigstones castings prevents the RH Billy or Katie chassis cylinders from passing over them.  If I'd realised this I would have located them farther away from the track but my visitors at the steam up had to wait while I used a grinder to reduce the height of the edging stones to clear all chassis in use on that day and since.  This was a little off putting as I'd spent weeks collecting enough castings to make the platform.  Later I used a mini drill with small grinder to re introduce some mortar joins onto the top of the now reduced height edging stones.  
Look at the attached diagram and in sketch (2) you can see what I've just described.

When I did similar to the island platform for Crowfoot station I used some Italian stone tile pieces instead of the jigstone platform edging but otherwise the process was the same.  The jigstone edging stones are very good but with Crowfoot's platform being larger than Bramley Bank's the stone tiles were a very much quicker option.  
WARNING NOTE - if using this method make sure the top of the edging stones along the whole length of the platform are level. If not the wet SBR will creep to the lowest end and overflow over the edges and over your track. Please don't ask me how I know this.

These platforms can be stood on without any problems and I've had no loss of surface material after at least 3 years out in the weather.  I even used a low pressure setting on my Karcher to clean muck from the surface.  

Hope this helps.
In the diagrams the squiggly lines represent the chicken grit used.  

[Peter Butler]

Andy, I have also used SBR and chicken grit in an attempt to make ballast but my attempt didn't hold up to the damp weather. Maybe I used too much water in the mix?
Having read your description and obvious success I will try again as a test sample to see where I went wrong.

[andymctractor]

Andy,   I have also used SBR and chicken grit in an attempt to make ballast but my attempt didn't hold up to the damp weather.   Maybe I used too much water in the mix?

As an experiment I've got a driveway brick onto which I secured a small length of sm32 track.  I ballasted that track with stone chippings secured with SBR.  This brick has been lying around in various parts of the garden in all weathers for 4 to 5 years and I wouldn't like to try and remove the track or ballast without a cold chisel and a lot of effort.

I'm going to attempt to ballast my running lines using SBR when this gets to the top of the 'jobs to be done list'.  
With the platform work and the little bit of ballasting work I've done I always coat the main surface things are to stick to with a generous helping of neat SBR.  In the case of the track I ballasted I spread it onto the brick or the track bed, in the case of the platform work I spread it onto the mortar fill.  After applying the chippings in the case of track ballasting or the pidgeon grit in the case of platform work, the only water applied is in the form of a fine mist enough to wet the material to draw the SBR up and allow the milky substance to surround all the grains.  Neat SBR is dropped onto areas where the wetting doesn't draw up enough which in the case of track ballast is quite a lot.  I like to allow the SBR to dry for at least 24 hours without rain or wet weather.  (Always difficult in Wales )

Forget what you know from using pva on small scale track ballasting projects.  You don't dilute the SBR and you don't need washing up liquid to make the water wetter.  

A couple of years ago I made two small raised 'flower beds' for one of my platforms using the pidgeon grit method.  The weather closed in on me unannounced and I thought I'd covered both beds to protect them from the rain.  A little rain got into one but not the other before they had dried fully.  Later the grit in the wetted one just broke away whereas the other is almost like it is set in resin.    
WARNING - if you ballast track this way using SBR you are likely to have to sacrifice your track if you decide to make any changes so you might be tempted to do what I did and use a bit of scrap track bed and an unused piece of track to see what you are going to get.
Good luck