Doing a bit more looking around at the local places, so I went a mooch round earlier, with the camera, just to get a few snaps of the local station. I'm going to go back when the weather is a bit better to get a few more (it was mixing over bright, with thunderstorms this after, so I didn't fancy setting the camera up on mounts and going busy with a yardstick).
However, if anyone is interested in pinching them (the roof does bow like that), the edge of the platform is 18" from bed, the distanc
Well, two of actually.
One of the older gents who i speak to on a regular basis popped round earlier, and he does like to talk, to put it mildly; so I thought the evening was going to be totally unfruitful. The gent in question was a signaller on the old line that ran through the area, and worked out of the railway station in the village (I'll dig some of my personal photos out sometime). We were sat on the bench in front of the apartment, and he asked me if I was interested in the local r
The more things I post, there will be a recurring theme of other people's (namely family) involvement in what I do, and generally to the negative of what I'm trying to achieve. I thought it only involved things like high end camera systems and expensive hardware, but today, I realised that it also extends to the creative stuff that I do as well.
After being in and out all morning doing bit jobs, and spending the intermediate time between runs painting a loco up, and also doing some board wo
Since I'm not going to be able to get enough foam board in sufficient time to construct the layout that I was going to do for the local arts fair in November (though my other half's uncle is on the case as he works in construction and the next insulation job they do, he's ordering me a 5x5m area), I've had to revert to my plan B.
In short this is going to be a build quick, temporary layout (so temporary, that I'm using old stocks of ply sheet fastened with double sided tape to the board, dit
I was in Sabadell earlier (G-maps is your friend) on a photography gig... All was going well until my hearing aid packs in, right in the middle of a discussion; thank heavens for being able to lip read in not just English, but also in Catalan as well...
After that disaster, two hours were spent trawling "The Manchester of Catalonia" (I think they call it that, because every time I've ever been there, I get wet through... Just like in the real Manchester) for a set of hearing aid batteries, s
My Catalan project is on hold until further notice, sadly, as I can't get enough insulation foam to carve in to the correct rock formations, as expanded polystyrene (which is as common as horse s*** around these parts) being too loose for the height and carving required. I've already experimented with that, and it looks really poor, and wobbles easily making the plaster formed faces crack.
So the locomotives, and already converted stock are in the 'MPD' until I get hold of enough blue foam to
I've left my macro lens in the office, and won't be going back for it tonight!
On my 'local' (Catalan project), I've made a start on the boards, and started converting some stock to fit in with the generalisation (painting wagons in their base coats, painting one of the locomotive underframes). At present, the stock collection consists of a pair of these (Link), though one is on a track cleaner chassis at present; though that is no great problem, as when I can find another non-digital one o
After a bit of a scratch about with Anyrail on the other half's PC, and then a bit of a quick doodle in Photoshop, this is the first bit of the local project...
It's not going to be that big, just a 2x1' area, with a small train (either loco + coach, or loco + 2 or 3 wagons) scuttling in from the L/H side to the station/goods (black blocks on the right), and then disappearing out the way it came with the loco at the back to propel 'up the mountain' (as they used to on the local rack railways he
Recently, I've been getting hammer about building something for the local arts fair in November, seeing as I'd been entered; however, my 'saving grace' was the fact that my board was a foot over the allotted size, and the other thing is, my idea was not locally representative...
Last week, I'd got an 'urgent' to do in Barcelona, so my idea was in and out and then go over to the sheds in Martorell for an hour, and then have a wander across Montserrat to the rack railway museum, just to get so
The more the temptation is taking hold to do something based on the old railway through the valley.
After being out on a job yesterday, and taking a couple of shots of the old track area that ran through the middle of the farm I was working on, and out across a bridge, I'm staring at the local history pages and mumbling to myself (not a good sign, as when mumbles happen, so do crazy projects). And when the photos come off the camera like the one attached below, it doesn't sway the mind agai
After a suggestion by bcnPete the other day, I nearly did go down the easitrac route, but... At the moment, I'm just going to use up the 80 that I've knocking around, and get my skills back up to snuff before I dive in to anything else. I'm hoping that the other half doesn't realise that this one that's on the workbench at the moment is not the last one to be built. So much the temptation, I've already been lurking around in the 2mm Finescale and wondering "what if?"
Another thing that did
After much umming and ahing about track plans, and location, I've finally come up with something... Which wasn't easy given the space I'd got and what my motive power pool currently is (mainly NSE branded diesels and a couple of multiple units).
The idea is a bit real world, but a lot of artistic license involved, and whilst the plan below had plenty of settrack pieces, most of the straights are going to be put together using lengths of flexi-track.
After thinking through where w
Since life hasn't been stable for me over the last ten years or more with university and work, there hasn't really been a way to put down a permanent layout, what with moving from one end of the UK to the other, and then finally to Spain. But now things have settled down, and I've enough room in my office for a small layout. I could have gone bigger, but as I've been away from modelling for so long, and also having trouble finding things (more on that later), a 4 x 1.5' plan was devised just t
