It's all right and it's coming along
We've got to get right back to where we started from
(Maxine Nightingale, "Right back where we started from")
If Wikipedia is to be believed - and when is it not - J. Vincent Edwards and Pierre Tubbs knocked off their plinkety-plonkety classic in a mere seven minutes while driving to the local hospital to visit Tubbs' wife, who was about to give birth (although they did cheat a bit in that they used a tune that Edwards had written several years earli
Give us a "D"
D!
And I'll just stop right there and you can choose how this ends for yourself. I'd suggest one of the following: debacle, despondency, dire, dreadful. I think a pattern is emerging, don't you? Alternatively, you could just leave it at D, as in "D-grade: not very good".
After several months of working on the three IHAs, I'd got to the point of adding the hood supports. It was then that I noted how lardy they appeared alongside the first wagon. I know the old adage "mea
These notes are a work-in-progress and I'll be more than happy to hear from anyone who can provide amendments or more details. I'm looking at the passenger services in and out of Liverpool Lime Street in 2006. Four TOCs operated into the main line station: I've started with Northern Rail, which operated by far the largest number of trains. Virgin West Coast, Central Trains and Transpennine Express will follow at some point in the future.
Around Liverpool, Northern operated on three main corr
As noted in the last post, the "production batch" of IHA wagons is progressing, albeit very slowly, towards completion. I'm building three more of these wagons, which will complete the planned requirement for this type in my steel coil fleet (which I described in my very first blog post, back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth). I've made some changes in the building sequence for these models, the most notable so far being that I haven't added any surface detail at all to the underframes. The variou
Wow. I've managed to get through an entire calendar year without adding so much as a word to this blog. This is going to change: the modelling mojo is strong right now and I'm adopting a more organised approach to this whole business. In a shameless ploy to attract more readers I've also added a link here to my signature file; but the quid pro quo is that there has to be stuff for them to read. Look at that: they're not even here yet and already I feel a sense of obligation towards them.
So,
This is quick job that I've been meaning to do for a while. The Farish BYA is a really nice model, which has grown on me quite a lot since it was released. It has a couple of faults: the unpainted red plastic used for some of the end details isn't very beautiful; and Farish's take on EWS red is too muddy for my tastes. On the whole, though, it's an excellent effort. As a piece of rolling stock, however, it suffers from the fact that it runs like a dog. I have nine of them and every one of them i
In my first post on this blog I wrote: "I'm just a very slow worker... I'm kind of hoping that writing this might encourage me to get on a bit more". Well, just over a year to construct one wagon wasn't precisely what I had in mind but the IHA is, nevertheless, as finished as it's going to be for the foreseeable future.
It isn't truly finished. I still need to add the eight hooks that hold the hood closed: I'll be getting these etched in due course. I need enough for four wagons so I'll need
I've noticed a number of posts about motivation on RMWeb recently (here and here, for instance). I've been experiencing a distinct lack of "get up and go" myself where completing the IHA is concerned: since my last blog post I've added the four lettering boards to the sides of the hood, and that's it.
I'm one of those who believes that the problem is that all the jobs at the very end of a project like this don't add that much to the finished model, but their absence would nag at me. The othe
Well, despite not having updated this blog for months, I have been working on the IHA in fits and starts. This where we are now: hood completed, end platform (from TPM's lovely ferry fittings etch) in position (temporarily, for the photo), still just balanced on its bogies for now but generally looking quite like the real thing.
This was the only decent shot I got before the batteries in my camera packed in, so it'll have to do for now. There are some wierd perspective effects in this p
Filling in the gaps between the hood supports has started. This proving to be much harder work than I'd expected: there's a lot of sanding away then filling back in where I've taken too much off, or where there are surface blemishes. Nevertheless, I do think that it's getting there:
When the filler first goes on, it looks as rough as hell:
But it does come together - eventually (bear in mind that these photos are far bigger than life-size: the whole wagon is just on three inche
More progress on the IHA: the hood supports have been added, as have the lettering panels and small pads for the hooks that hold the hood shut to mount on. The next job is a key stage. The area between the hood supports has to be filled and sanded back to create the surface of the hood itself. I have trialled this idea on a very crude test piece and it came out all right, but if it doesn't work in practice then not only has all the work on this wagon probably been wasted, but the entire IHA proj
Yes, just ten short weeks have passed since I started this blog and already I've made some progress! Go Me! High fives all round!
In truth, I did virtually no modelling at all for the first half of that period. Real life came crashing in in the shape of a family bereavement which took up all my time and didn't really leave me in the mood for wresting with tiny shards of styrene in what little spare time I did have. In the last few weeks, though, things have been getting back to normal and I'
Okay, here we go...
At one time or another, I've been into N-gauge modern (when "modern" meant "1982"), 3mm finescale Great Central Railway and N-gauge Union Pacific. Through much of that time I didn't pay much attention to what was happening on Britain's railways. Back in 2002, though, I travelled down to London for work and returned to Liverpool in the evening. I was quite surprised by the number of freight trains that I saw; and particularly impressed when my train stopped at Stafford alo
