The Yellow Pelican Mining Co. - August 2025 run-out

Sue and I were child-minding our two grandsons this week and one of the treats was to get Yellow Pelican out for a run.

I was surprised just how well it ran and how few repairs I had to do since the last time it was out on the dining room table. As you can see a great time was had by all.

Tony

Cold Comfort Lane - 1/35th scale narrow gauge layout - working electrics

Another weekend working on the layout - a 1/35th scale Narrow Gauge Railway Layout that uses HO-OO or 16.5mm gauge track and mechanisms to imitate 2 foot or 600mm narrow gauge engines and wagons.

In this second image you can see how I have used coco matting (lining for hanging baskets) and yellow imitation flowers bought from The Range to model wild gorse bushes. The yellow flower cost just £3.50 and I have enough yellow flowers to cover over half of the layout! Click on any image for a better view.

After a number of failed and miserable attempts at electrifying the track and getting satisfactory running. I have now fitted this 12volt PWM or pulse width modulation unit into the board. I can confirm that the 0-4-0 Hornby 'Smokey Joe' chassis run well (but not perfectly) on the modified Peco 'crazy track and flexi-track points. 

The PWN unit was bought from Amazon.

I have mounted the unit on to a scratch built brick and concrete base. To help with service the unit, I have mounted the concrete slab to magnets so if needed the unit can be easily removed for servicing.

The electrics have been very frustrating with a number of Hornby transformers or controllers failing to give satisfactory running. The new PWM takes some getting used to but I am so far happy with the results and the fitting.

Tony

Cold Comfort Lane - 1/35th scale narrow gauge layout - Groundcover

With the electrical work having stalled - I needed a distraction. I decided to start the 'flocking' or static grass application. I have used static grass, ground foam and dyed sawdust as well as sieved soil and ground up sandstone all applied over a PVA and Mod Podge base which was later sprayed with isopropyl alcohol before I added dilute PVA glue with a pipette. In these images you can see the still wet PVA mix pooling at the bottom of the terrain slope.

The bright yellow gorse flowers are cut down artificial flowers bought from Dunhelm - a UK based home decor store. The Gorse bushes are constructed from cut up coconut matting with ground foam glued to the upper edges. The individual flower stalks were then glued in place with superglue.

I have tried to add variety in terms of both colour and texture to the groundwork - something I have read about in various magazines and seen demonstrated on You Tube tutorials.

I will progress the ground cover over the rest of the board later as it does take some time to apply and ages to dry!

Tony

Home-made ground cover

This weekend, while waiting for the glue to dry on the newly laid ballast I had fun playing around with various home-made ground cover.

From top left they are;

Paint brush bristle stalks glued with PVA

Snow scatter that I have dyed green

Static grass tuft

Ground sponge (I used a wire brush to get the fine ground foam)

More static grass tuft

Minced foam dyed dark green (less effecting than the wire brushed sponge)

Dyed rough sawdust collected from my chop saw

Coconut hanging basket liner cut into short strands and then glued with PVA

I am confident that all can be used on the Cold Comfort narrow gauge layout.

Tony

Cold Comfort Lane - 1/35th scale narrow gauge layout. Clean up

I have spent most of the day cleaning up the track and ballast. I really want to get a dedicated power supply or transformer wired up but all attempts so far have been poor. I will need to purchase a better controller and will be looking out for one this week.

I am really pleased with the progress so far but frustrated with the poor running of my models. Hopefully I will have a more positive update soon.

Tony

Cold Comfort Lane - 1/35th scale narrow gauge layout - ballasting

I have just spent a couple of hours ballasting the track. I have used a mix of Green Scenes ballast, stones from the beach and some sieved sandstone. Once the loose ballast was in place I misted on some Isopropyl Alcohol and then a 50/50 mix of Mod Podge and water with a touch of washing up liquid dripped on with a pipette. In these images the ballast glue is still wet but as long as I don't touch it, it should be OK by the morning.

I purposely built up the ballast around the buffer stops in a haphazard manner as I wanted the area to look un-kept.

I did have a slight issue with the 'wet water' getting in to one of the points, but is seems to have dried up now and both points looks to working freely.

I'll try tidying up the track tomorrow so expect another update soon.

Tony

Cold Comfort Lane - 1/35th scale narrow gauge layout. Now wired

Another landmark - I have now wired the track and earlier today I finally got around to running a loco..... I'd like to say that it all went well but the little 0-4-0 was really very jerky and one of the wagons fouled the wire-in-tube point rod. So still lots to do but at least we now have an operational (well almost operational) layout.

The second image shows the wiring. Even though it is just a simple Inglenook Puzzle, I have electrical feeds to all of the spurs as well as the main line - you can never be too careful.

I used an old transformer and not the main unit I have planned for this layout - it worked but not perfectly.

The final image shows the three scratch built buffer stops, each one built in a slightly different design. The top one is built from layers of plastic card with wood nails down the centres for support while the two remaining buffers were scratch built from wood scavenged from an old fruit packing crate. The white areas are DAS modelling clay used to blend in the buffers and cover up the wire feeds which now exit below the board.

The weather is just too warm to be working on the layout this afternoon. So for now - that's all.

Tony