Nystrup Gravel Mentioned in Monumental Work on Danish Petrol Stations

No subject seems to be too small or mundane to escape unnoticed by writers and authors. Now Danish petrol stations have been treated in a book that must be considered as the difinitive and a monumental work on the subject. A whopping 472 pages of information, almost 800 pictures and stories about the people manning and customers using the small oases supplying fluid fossil fuel. And the book is in Danish - a language spoken by only 5.8 mio people.  The author is Nils Bloch, a Danish writer with several railway books on his CV, a range of university degrees as well as years of active service for railway preservation.

There is a small chapter devoted to petrol stations in model, and the petrol pump at Nystrup Gravel is given a favourable caption although it is a very modest creation.

Front cover of the book. The subtitle translates into 'High octane nostalgia' which is indeed a fitting description.

With a fascination of old petrol pumps I installed the red petrol pump on my first  1:35 scale Nystrup Gravel module in 2003. I wanted to create some of the atmosphere from the fueling areas at small industrial railways. The pump was a Plus Models resin kit that doesn't appear to be available any more.

The loco shed module on the 1:35 scale version of Nystrup Gravel during construction in January 2003. The fuel pump is seen in naked unassembled resin being test fitted in front of the shed. Sleepers are ready for track building.

Another image of the Plus Models pump on my old 1:35 scale layout. Here a Ford A tanker is slowly backing up to the pump's filler pipe to replenish the supply of petrol.

I can't build a layout without a petrol pump. Until a better model is aquired or built this rebuilt Pennzoil pump from a cheap Chinese manufacturer is destined for use on the 1/19 scale version of Nystrup Gravel. See info on the pump on this earlier post.

Long time since last posting

Time flies. It's been ages since my last posting, and it actually reflects the progress made on my small layout pretty well. Not much has happened due to work, illness and a heap of other activities. Now I'm slowly gearing myself up to modelling again and what more entertaining activity than rail painting should be able to inspire me?

The 2.3 m long module 1 is down on a pair of trestles to have the other side of the rails painted.

It's probably no secret that I ventured into railway modelling on the basis of an almost lifelong interest in real narrow gauge industrial railways and that I'm volunteering on a 700 mm gauge vintage railway. With two operational steam locos each turning 100 years old, we couldn't avoid celebrating with an event involving the railway's friends, partners, the local community and the volunteers making it all possible. During an august weekend we hosted a formal reception with invited VIPs as well as special trains for enthusiasts and a full day of all steam trains for our passengers. More images from the event on my Flickr-site.

From left to right; No. 3 (O&K 7459/1921) and Da 7 (Henschel 18449/1921) posing together on Hedehusgaard station. Celebrating the loco's 100th birthdays in lovely sunshine.

After a long day of service the two locos have returned to the loco shed and service area, to be cleaned and readied for the next day's service.

Unfortunately all the sunshine and happy everyday life dissappeared when I managed to catch a bad stomach infection. For a full 3 weeks I was completely and utter out of service. Fortunately I enjoyed the luxury of a loving family and the benefit of living in a society providing free medical treatment and salary during sick leave. With both strength and weight loss it took some weeks to regain my usual stamina levels - but then I'm not 51 anymore! 

 

My very first tufts of rough green grass from unwound sisal rope. I'll keep on experimenting to make it look better. If nothing else it's really cheap.

With other matters having priority of attention, only minor progress can be reported on the loading ramp. My experiments with white glue and sisal rope have also continued. This week, though, I lifted module 1 from it's usual position on top of the book shelves and placed it on a pair of trestles to facilitate painting of the rails on the side facing away from the front of the layout. I'm almost done with the first layer of paint and will continue with spot painting and a wash with diluted oil paints before the module returns to it's usual position. Hope to return with news a bit more exiting during the coming months.

Dramatic Near Miss at Loading Ramp

No, it's not a newspaper clipping about an incident at Nystrup Gravel, but archive photos from a local Danish archive showing a near miss on the loading ramp at a clay pit in 1964. The location is north of Copenhagen in rural Blistrup where a nearby brick works had a clay pit some distance away from the works. From the pit a short narrow gauge line took the clay to a loading ramp for lorries for transport to the brick works.

The loco is hanging precariously over the loading ramp's end. 7 loaded skips indicate the train having come from the clay pit for unloading. The first vehicle from the rescue service 'Zonen' has arrived. The loading ramp is built on high brick pillars and incorporates a small office and a room for the workers' lunch breaks. Photo: B18576, Gribskov Archive.

A more powerful crane has arrived and the loco is now back on the rails. A daring driver has entered the loco and is now preparing to put it in reverse and return to the part of the ramp where tipping the clay into the waiting lorry will commence. The loco is from Danish manufacturer Jens Willemoes' Efterfølger, Esbjerg. Photo: B50785, Gribskov Archive.

Obviously the well known proces of running the train of skips up the ramp didn't work out as planned. Whether it was caused by faulty brakes or simple boredom from running back and forth on the same short length of track isn't known today. No matter what the usual routine at the clay pit was interupted. Fortunately the rescue vehicles managed to get the locomotive back on the ramp's tracks. No one seems to have been hurt and work probably continued soon after the rescue service had left the scene.

The images remind me of the need to fit the Nystrup Gravel loading ramp with a solid stop at the end of the track to prevent a train continuing over the edge.

Enthusiast Package from the UK

My first order from the UK based modelling industry for a long time has arrived at my doorstep. The package held 3 figures from Modelu printed in a hard resin material. Two of the figures are railway enthusiasts carrying 1950's era cameras and dressed in typical clothing for the period. The third figure is a sitting man posed as if driving a locomotive. 

Two mates on excursion. Modelu figures straight from the package.

When I finished the Citroen Traction Avant with 1950's Copenhagen license plates I had the idea to let it be the car of a group of railway enthusiasts. In 2017 I created a team of railway enthusiasts in 1/35 scale and wondered if I could somehow do a new effort in 1/19 scale. As there where no obvious figures appropriate for conversion and as there is enough to do on Nystrup Gravel besides family, work and volunteering on the 700 mm gauge 1:1 scale HVB, the idea sort of slipped my mind. In the hectic month leading up to my summer vacation I saw an announcement from Modelu introducing a series of railway enthusiast figures. They fitted my idea of the early pioneers capturing the 1950's narrow gauge industrial railways on film. Without further ado two figures and an extra was in the online shopping cart and paid for.

The figures are 1607 'Photographer with Box Brownie', 1673 'Photographer with Leica Mk 2' and 1452 'Seated workman'.

Modelu figure 1607. A man with a simple box camera trying to find the objective through the viewfinder.

One of the more disappointing features with figure 1607 is the camera front without any detail. I may be spoiled, but a camera with no lens? I'll add details to the camera front myself.

The figures in their small ziplock bags arrived relatively safely packaged in a small box with two pieces of bubblewrap as protection. The package had been almost a month underway, most of the time sitting in various customs facilities.  

The quality is the usual large scale quality from Modelu. While the Modelu figures have outstanding realism in their poses and the figures produced fit absolutely perfect for my modelling theme their details are a little soft and sometimes missing altogether. It seems some figures suffer more than others, so I can only speculate as to the reason. In the past I have modified the figures (usually by carving/sanding and adding detail parts) and that will be necessary for all 3 figures in this shipment as well. 

Finger on the shutter release button and keeping the camera steady. I really like the figure's complete attention to the photographic task in front of him. Not only has the pullover crept up, the hair is in disarray and only the potential image is in focus.

The driver figure is an obvious candidate for a job on my Pedershaab-locomotive (one of my long drawn out projects).

Brexit have led to a sharp decline in my trading with the UK and I now source all but the most specialised modelling products from EU-countries. With a little ingenuity and effort that is quite possible, and I wonder why I didn't before. Modelu figures are so far alone in caring for some of my specialist needs as a modeller despite the recent upcoming of a German manufacturer. Perhaps this was my last Modelu purchase?

Loading Ramp #4 and End of Vacation

My three weeks off from work is coming to an end. With the corona situation still fluid in many countries me and my family decided to stay in Denmark and enjoy the fact that restrictions here are almost all lifted due to the large number of Danes vaccinated. I managed to visit one vintage railway and a few locations of industrial interest.

LJ M 11 running round its train on Bandholm Station on Denmark's oldest vintage railway Maribo-Bandholm. M 11 was built by Frichs in 1937 as building number 283.

My vacation also left me a little time for modelling in the garden and in the cottage. Progress on the loading ramp was accomplished and with all parts ready for building track on the loading ramp, work has now stopped. As I began to experiment with making rough grass from unwound sisal rope, it occured to me that with track on the ramp it would be very difficult to fix grass and plants under the ramp. Consequently I'm now examining how best to represent grass in 1/19 scale. A new (although not unexpected) challenge for me.

Current status on the loading ramp module: Ready for more ground work and ramp construction.

 

A view up the ramp with the first half ready for track building. A walkway for the workers tipping the skips will be installed to the right.

I had brought the damaged model of the Ford A salvage lorry with me to the cottage, and managed to replace the damaged rear axle assembly as well as fixing the crane assembly. Next stage in the model's progress is removing the printed on markings, detailing and painting.

A new rear axle assembly was fitted in place of the heavily bent one. The crane assembly was removed for work and to gain acces to the screw holding the rear axle.

The bent crane almost straightened and ready for detailing. The wiring will be rerun as per prototype. As supplied the winch wouldn't work as intended.

Everyday life now returns meaning long days at the office and all the usual activities associated with running a home and family. I can't complain thoug, as I have a pretty good life with ressources to spare for volunteering on a vintage railway as well as modelling.

Working in the field photographing the company's new tamping machine some months ago. The next month will see me behind a desk writing tenders for domestic as well as Norwegian and German infrastructure owners. Photo: Aarsleff Rail A/S.

Hope every reader of the blog have had a good vacation and I wish you a good return to daily life.

Loading Ramp #3

In between painting rails I took the opportunity of doing something else on the small Nystrup Gravel indoor layout. The two segments for the wooden retaining walls at the loading ramp were glued in place and when dry I began fitting the wooden uprights for the ramp itself. Current status is that the ramp is bedded in and ready for fitting the longitudal baulks and track building. Sleepers have been prepared. Everything is ready!

Sleepers being stained. The sleepers are a different type than those used elsewhere on the layout, as the sleepers on the ramp isn't embedded in ballast.

After fitting the 3 sets of wooden upright supports I had already made, I fabricated two more sets to be positioned between them. That seems to follow the practice used by some of the prototype loading ramps I have seen images of from other Danish industrial railways. 

Testing loading ramp clearances and supports. Previously made parts already stained, new parts still in untreated wood. Track panel is only fitted for test purposes. The permanent track on the loading ramp will be built on wooden sleepers.

The most basic of basic ground cover between the uprights was added before the wooden cross beams were fitted to the ramp. In this way it was possible to embed the uprights properly into the ground and at the same avoid to much splattering on the wooden parts. Plants and shrubbery can be fitted later.

First stage in basic ground cover. Wall filler creating the main contours of the ground under and around the loading ramp. To the left the first kitchen rags are already glued in place.

The basic ground cover added under the ramp. Still some edges to clean up which will only be done once the finer groundcover and vegetation is added.

While I worked on the sleepers for the ramp I stained a few pieces of unwound sisal rope. In advance of the work with vegetation I wanted to try out working with homemade sisal grass. I will be adding sand and light green coloured staining fluid to my grey tones to work with more colours. I do think the sisal can be used to represent coarse grass with good effect.

Unwound sisal rope with a touch of grey wood staining fluid. The beginning of experiments with long, rough grass in 1/19 scale.

Painting Rails

Is there something more tedious than hand spiking model railway track? Yes, painting rails! Despite the trouble, the work is well rewarded with track that looks much more like the real thing. Most railway modellers take every precaution to make their trains look realistic despite having them move in and out of view, sometimes only presenting them for less than a minute at a time. The track is there all the time, and still most railway modellers simply buy a length of track and pour ballast randomly around it. Remember it's called railway modelling.

First layer of rust paint is drying on the Peco rails. The track already looks much better.

For painting the rails I decided to use Humbrol enamel paint. My experience from the 1/35 Nystrup Gravel is that acrylic paint over time looses grip on the metal's surface and consequently chose to use enamels for this project. I used Humbrol 133 sometimes mixed with 62 for tonal variety. The rails were painted by brush taking care to cover the rail completely. Around the spikes' heads it takes a lot of care getting paint around spike head and the rail's foot - and at the same time avoiding getting too much rust paint on the sleeper. I considered using my airbrush for the task, but an experiment showed that I had difficulty in controlling the amount of overspray on the sleepers. Not wanting a lot of corrective work on the sleepers I chose to work with the brush.

The two turnouts were given an initial layer of paint with airbrush. The Peco turnouts are partially rebuilt with wooden sleepers and as the remaining black plastic sleepers need grey paint to blend in with the rest of the sleepers the overspray caused by airbrushing isn't a problem.

I airbrushed the point as the black plastic sleepers have to be painted grey anyway. A little rust overspray is easily fixed in that process.

I'm now going over the painted rails checking for faults and spots missing paint. Then I will be adding irregular spots with lighter and darker rust paint here and there. Once ballasted I will be adding a layer of dust to the completed track with a combination of airbrushed paint and weathering powders..

And just when you think the job is done, it turns out that the other side of the rails needs painting too!

While my small layout is usually viewed from one side only, both sides of the rails have to be painted. On a quiet day in my vacation the two modules are in for an outdoor painting session in the shade. Until then there is work to be done on both loading ramp and a vehicle.