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  • SouthernRegionSteam

    Coastguard Creek - 15 months of planning!

    By SouthernRegionSteam

    Hold on to your socks - this is going to be a lengthy one! (In fact it's so long, I've now split it into 2 separate posts - the next will be up soon...)   I think it's fair to say that you are all long overdue an update on Coastguard Creek. Due to other commitments, no real progress has been made since the last post way back in March 2021; almost 15 months ago! If anything, things went backwards for quite a while, as I kept finding more and more inspiring locations that I really wanted
    • 8 comments
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Oxendale

Ballasting the track

18/07/23   I've started the painstaking process of ballasting the track. I have decided to start on the freight only line first then do the BR mainline second.   I started it by dealing with a small section of the high level line first. I used my track ballaster I brought on eBay and a bottle of Ballast Bond. I should note that and it was an absolute fath to use (the ballast bond, not the track ballaster) and I probably won't be using it again. I then resorted to the more eas
Mattington - 4mm Scale Layout

A small TMD - Part 4

I finished construction of the scale scenes diesel depot, now down to a single road, clearances are a little tight (due to a central heating valve) so large locos can't fit but small ones can.   I swapped the old container crane to the other end and the fuelling siding will now be alongside the tanks but I need to add pipes at some point to the tankers siding.   Now working on a west hill wagon works test facility. Its going in the siding alongside the shed on a separate modu
MattB

MattB in General

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Goverseth Sidings (Dubbers)

Making Progress!

I was posting updates over on Twitter but I have decided to move to something a little more substantial to track and show progress on the layout! With that here is some rather crude progress photos of the layout. These include the painting or corking on the baseboards as well and track laying and glueing with the final picture the track laid with it cut and back in the boxes!
Fxtgood

Fxtgood in Goverseth Sidings

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DBC90024's Blog

30th June 2023 - Loco Update

30th January 2023 - there's a Dyson in town   Having taken the Dyson for a quick spin on the test track at the local model shop yesterday,       today was a layout debut for the highly anticipated Accurascales DB Schenker branded Class 92, 92042. As it used to be known, ''Honegger'', well, Honegger got to meet his new stablemates,       alongside probable brief classmate George Eliot (92027), briefly visiting Johnson Street IE
How to Not Build a Model Railway

Season 2 - How to not plan a model railway (part 1)

Episode 1: “The only way is up!” - a nadir is reached…   I’ve been interested in layout design and track planning for as long as I’ve been interested in model railways.  After all the books I’ve read, videos I’ve watched, and ideas I’ve doodled, I’d suggest there are two fundamentals to be decided on at the start.  Most importantly: what’s the vision?  What do I want my layout to represent, or achieve?  Trouble is I like a lot of different things and have far too many ideas, as demonst
Barry Ten's S&D blog

Bye bye for now...

Stourpayne Marshall is no more!  Or at least, it's back in its box for the time being. When I switched my layout from GWR mode to S&D mode back at the end of summer 2020, I had no idea that I'd keep the S&D theme for the best part of three years. However, it's been far too much fun running Bulleid pacifics, Fowler locos, Black 5s and so on to want to stop. However, I decided this week that was enough was enough (my GWR locos were feeling neglected)  so over the course of an evening or so
Barry Ten

Barry Ten in LMS/BR

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MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

My Atmospheric Caper – Part 3

Assembling the Parts   In tackling the assembly of the components that I printed as described in Part 2 of this series, I was reminded of President Kennedy’s words “We choose to … do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard“   I had realised that the assembly of the parts was not going to be easy but it turned out even trickier than I had expected. To re-cap, the parts I printed were as shown below:   3D printed Atmospheric Apparat
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

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Fen End Pit's Blog

Progress on a possible J17 kit - part 2 - self quartering P4 wheels anyone?

In my previous blog on this subject I mentioned I'd 3D printed some wheel centres to fit into Alan Gibson 4'10" tyres. I put these into my test chassis and got it working but I was not entirely happy with the result. The issue I believe is that 'Gibson Style' wheels rely on having the centre molded out of a fairly 'grippy' plastic, the hole through the centre is designed to be a good tight fit on an 1/8th inch axle. even so most of us have had a wheel be a bit loose at times and some people reso
Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in J17 Build

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Sixties Snapshots - 00 scale

No. 168 GWR - the Great Way Round – the concept.

The past couple of years have seen a number of exciting modifications to the railway that have so far passed unrecorded.   I was first alerted to the misuse of the initials GWR by George Behrend (Ref 1) in his 1966 book Gone With Regret.  In his recollections of the Great Western Railway he extols the virtues of God’s Wonderful Railway and notes that opponents of GW methods would dismiss the company as the Great Way Round.  (Something about Brunel’s original route to Bath and Bristol via
Ffarquhar Layout

Peco Electrofrog Points - Please Help!

Hello, I am a fairly novice modeler and I have decided to dip my toe into wiring. I wanted to do a test of my wiring beforehand by utilizing the Peco PL-10E, PL-9, PL-13, and PL-26B, along with a medium radius Peco Electrofrog point. I have followed the steps of the Dean Park YouTube channel, and modified the point as shown. I am very confused as to how I am meant to continue, as my first arrangements have not worked. I cannot get the point motor to work. Again, I am very new to this, so patienc
Barry Ten's Blog

Paynestown - pushing on

With Paynestown's appearance at the Barry show just over a month away, I've been pushing on with some of the outstanding tasks.  Most of the work has been on the right hand end, including the building of this pub from a Metcalf kit:     I toned down/adjusted the colouring with washes, added a proper roof and some gutters and drainpipes, but other than that it's as Metcalf intended. I've named it the Railway Inn and made it a Rhymney & Crosswells pub. I spent a happy few h
Barry Ten

Barry Ten in GWR

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MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

My Atmospheric Caper - Part 2

Introduction   In Part 1 of this series, I described my model of the piston-carriage for the South Devon (SDR) atmospheric railway, based on drawings by Paul Garnsworthy in the Broad Gauge Society (BGS) Journal ‘Broadsheet’Nos 44 and 46.   It’s been great to receive so many positive comments – clearly some of my viewers like reading about ‘forgotten’ corners of railway history. They spurred me into getting on with the next phase. Thank you!   The carriage body was r
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

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Notes from the loft

Backscene West

The easiest bit of my backscene is the sea to the west of my layout. It's inspired by the view from West St Leonards with Hastings seafront to the west and Beachy Head to the right.   In my last post I showed how I set up my backscene and created the sky.  For the sea behind my layout I cut a 100mm x 3000mm strip of lining paper and airbrushed that with a slightly varying dark teal colour and stuck that so that the top was completely level to simulate the horizon.     For the
deepfat

deepfat in backsecene

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Upgrading Draxbridge

Coaches and wagons

Currently, I only have a few items of rolling stock:     BR Mk1 Ex-BG Network Rail generator coach   BR Mk1 BCK Network Rail   2 HHA Hopper wagons in Freightliner livery,    A pair of MJA wagons in Freightliner livery   A pair of IOA wagons in Network Rail livery   An ISP Snowplough     I'm hoping to get some more at some point including:   T7 Translator vehicle (converted Class 313)   Caroline ob
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

My Atmospheric Caper - Part 1

Introduction   Having worked my way back to the very beginnings of the GWR, it’s been hard to think of where to go next. I’ve enjoyed exploring those odd-ball engines that Brunel ordered for his new concept of a railway, even though they proved to be disastrously undersized. Nevertheless, several of them had quite long lives as branch-line engines.   I do enjoy ‘bringing to life’ forgotten areas of railway history and, for the broad gauge, the ultimate in odd-ball ideas was,
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

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Ffarquhar Layout

Confusion With Point Motors

Hello all, I apologize for the long duration between posts, I have been extraordinarily busy with my various other obligations. I have a question surrounding the function of Peco point motors, specifically the use of the PL-15 micro-switch. Up until about an hour ago, I was under the impression that Pl-10E, PL-13, and PL-9 were all of the parts required to operate the basic Peco point motor, as these were the only parts mentioned in the various tutorials I have watched. I saw the PL-15 show u
0.87

UK FREMO summer meeting

Onc more it's come around to a UK FREMO meeting, which will take place this weekend. Most of the UK FREMO members are attending, along with invited guests who help fill the driving roster and add to the conviviality. There will be something like fifteen of us (or maybe a few more) over the two days.   The arrangement, made up of modules mostly from the group, is H0 to NEM standards with code 75-80-ish track and gentle curves, and we run to a timetable (reminds me I need to check over i
readingtype

readingtype in FREMO

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The Strawberry Line

Cheddar P4 - July 2023 update

I've finally finished the station board and have swapped it out so that I can start on the last board, the one nearest Wells or board 8 if you want to be specific. It includes Station Road and its bridge. The last things on the station board were the coal bins on the down mileage sidings and fencing. I've still to do the station chimney pots but that will require a visit to the actual station to take some better photos as these will need to be 3D printed. The roof is going to be fixed down to cu
ullypug

ullypug in Cheddar

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Kelvinbank, a Caledonian Railway project.

CR Diagram 16 pig iron wagons.

According to the 1907 wagon census the Caledonian had 1861 pig iron wagons, of which 1300 were to Diagram 16 in various build lots to either 8 or 14 tons.  Certainly the CR moved a lot of pig iron from furnaces to steelworks and foundries, but these wagons were used as a sturdy one plank dropside for anything that needed moved. One of those wagons that turned up everywhere and is very useful for forming short rakes on the layout.   These two are from the whitemetal 51L kit, they go tog
Dave John

Dave John in General

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Upgrading Draxbridge

Locomotives

Currently on Draxbridge, I have three locomotives:   Class 08 08585  Class 31 31602 Driver Dave Green Class 73 73121    Now, I have come to realise that I need a lot more in order to run a decent timetable. However, I can't just go and buy one. I'll have to save up for one or two then buy them when I get the chance.    The diesel classes that are seen on the mainline which I'm after are:    Class 20 Class 31 Class 33 Class 37
Upgrading Draxbridge

The trackwork

On the scenic section, Draxbridge had two sidings, one of which also acts as a headshunt, a crossover and a point that leads into the TMD shed. However, I think it could do with an upgrade as I'm not particularly happy with the current track layout.      So I set about thinking on how I could improve the layout. One of my ideas was I could add a pair of points on the two sidings. I had three points already but I could always buy some more if I needed any. So I set about comin
Northumberton

Northumberton - Further Metcalfe Modifications

Hi again, a quick update and a description of some working doors I have fitted to a Metcalfe engine shed. The track is almost all down now, I want to spray this with a black/brown mist coat before finally connecting everything up. This also looks better in the tunnels where I will not be ballasting. I have been experimenting with my laser cutter (X-Tool D1 Pro) which has proved to be better than I had hoped. It cuts thin plywood e.g. 3mm with ease – examples below being the roof trusses in the l
Northumberton

Northumberton in Buildings

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