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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
    • 2,893 views
Jim Champ's "Introduction to Great Western Locomotive Development"

GWR No 1490

Built in 1898 this odd experimental locomotive is arguably significant only as having the first set of pannier tanks. It had outside frames and an unconventional firebox, wider than it was long and  initially featuring water tubes inside the firebox. Apparently it was unsuccessful in its designed role as a passenger engine and was relegated to shunting duties before being sold off. Initially it went to the Ebbw Vale Steel and Iron Co, then to the Brecon & Merthyr at a time when they were par
JimC

JimC in GWR Locomotive Sketches

3
Methuselah's Blog

14. How Long.....?

I can't believe that it's two and a half years since I last scribbled here. So what's happened in the intervening time...? Bluntly - not enough....! Sure, there are more boxes of 'stuff' collecting dust in the loft of the barn, but, since I've still not finished renovating the house, the 'train shed' itself is still, perforce, down the list of priorities. Perhaps later this year will see it happen - but, no shed - no railway....😐😐😬        My time being in such short supply, I did commi
The Ffarquhar Branch - In Micro!

Knapford Part I - The Harbour

Hi all! Knapford is a can of worms I’ve chosen as my first step into layout building. This post will be a recap of my thinking so far, and look into what’s to come.    Knapfords track plan was never explained in detail by the Reverend although he did write in detail about some of the changes that it did undergo throughout the years. A full post about that will be made in future and will be linked here:    What is known is that Knapford has a junction station just NORTH of the Ri
The Ffarquhar Branch - In Micro!

A Wise Man Once Told Me... How To Eat An Elephant

Hi All! If you have seen any of my previous threads where the foundations of my current musings began, welcome to something that will hopefully more organized and updated consistently.   If you aren't familiar with the Ffarquhar branch, you're in for a treat. It was originally created by the Rev. W. Awdry, yes the author of The Railway Series, which for those who don't know has a large and storied lore behind it - far beyond just the trains with faces aspect. It is all fiction, but the
splodgestudios

splodgestudios in Introductions

3
Artful Or Compromised?

A couple of weeks in limbo

So, as predicted in a previous post, this blog has been pretty quiet for a couple of weeks - unfortunately not entirely due to working on this layout in the background, as everyone in this family seems to have been struck down with some perpetually annoying virus over the past fortnight, in addition to which we've finally had some progress on us moving house, which sparked a panic about the amount of clearing out we need to do before that happens! So, with that in mind, now is not the ideal time
JamFjord

JamFjord in planning

2
Jim Champ's "Introduction to Great Western Locomotive Development"

Cross-fertilisation in design... Locomotive/Marine

Browsing through Steamindex having awoken in the early hours I happened on a mention (by LA Summers) of a GWR Dean era proposal for a water tube boiler on a 4-4-0. You'd think that came out of nowhere, but a couple of months ago I was given sight of part of the Swindon drawing office register of drawings for the time when the 3521  0-4-2Ts were being worked on. One thing that struck me was the number of drawings being produced at Swindon for the GWR's ships. They clearly didn't maintain a separa
JimC

JimC in Miscellaneous Musings

0
Netherport - GWR 1908 7mm (mostly wagons for now!)

GWR 4-plank with sheet supporter and sheet

What's that you say? Another GWR 4-planker? Haven't you had enough of those? Well, if you're sure...     This is 41211, freshly turned out in 1908 style: grey paint with 25" lettering, axleboxes upgraded to oil types, and a sheet supporter fitted. All the latest features of a truly modern merchandise wagon of the new century, in fact - Swindon has played its A-game. Not so, unfortunately, the folks who have loaded it. The rather filthy sheet has been put on crooked, obscuring
magmouse

magmouse in Wagons

19
Northumberton

Northumberton March 2023

If you have ever considered starting your own blog I would highly recommend it to you. Even if few or any read your work, it is extremely useful for taking stock of progress and clarifying your thoughts for the next phase. I was extremely busy from about last October on some major DIY on the house, no complaints, I feel very lucky to have the time being retired. But now my thoughts return to my railway modelling. I'm pleased to say I still have a splendid picture in my head of the finished
Northumberton

Northumberton in Buildings

0
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

Modelling a ‘house removal’ train

I see that we’re now in the 10th year since I started writing my pre-grouping blog. Looking back, I realise how much my approach to railway modelling has changed over that period. There have been two major technical innovations and one significant change of emphasis in my interests.   The first technical innovation, which occurred soon after I started exploring the earlier period, was the Silhouette Cutter, which opened up the possibility of creating complex panelled carriage sides. Si
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
My version of Boscarne Junction

Could I plan the layout better?

The new "Man Cave" is an extended Dunster log cabin and in part of its construction there are two walls that protrude into the internal space of the room.   Initially I was thinking about turning Rospeath Lane into a "roundy roundy" but these two walls hindered this to some degree. Many plans were drawn but I began to realise that it would become a very ambitious layout. One that may require more time than I have left to bring to a reasonable state of completion. Also I started to
Yan

Yan in Layout Planning

12
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

Broad Gauge Covered Van

Because of various distractions, I’ve not had much time for model-building recently. I have however been spending quite a lot of time thinking about those very early days of the GWR when those first engines, which I modelled last year, were being delivered. Some of these engines were delivered by canal to West Drayton, where it seems that the first depot of the GWR was established. At that time, the way ahead was far from certain and concerns about the desirability of adopting Brunel’s proposals
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

7
richierich's Blog / D&E WIP Workbench . . .

March 2023 - Bees Hill Models Farish Class 37 (DCC) Dummy Chassis - Part 1

Another project I’ve just started which hopefully can be wrapped up in a couple of parts is putting together a dummy chassis for a Farish Class 37 body I have. I saw these on a group I follow on Facebook.   Having purchased some years ago a Farish Class 37 421 body finished in Colas Railfreight livery, which I’ve yet to replacement chassis for, thought making this into a dummy loco isn’t a bad idea.    This kit is 3D printed and comes pretty clean with mainly just the bogie equalis
Netherport - GWR 1908 7mm (mostly wagons for now!)

GWR 2-plank open wagon

The GWR adopted iron, and later steel construction for underframes quite early, compared to most other railway companies. For reasons of variety and aesthetics, I wanted to have a mix of wooden and metal underframed wagons, and my 1908 period was partly chosen for this reason - there were still a few GWR wooden underframed wagons around.     One such is this 2-plank open, built from the WEP etched brass kit. Overall, it is a nice kit, and I built it pretty much as intended, b
magmouse

magmouse in Wagons

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richierich's Blog / D&E WIP Workbench . . .

March 2023: Realtrack Class 144 009 - another repair job… Part 1

Well another project. This time a Realtrack Class 144 009 in WYPTA Metro / Arriva Red and Silver. Acquired from eBay as a non-runner.   After a lot of investigation this production run of a Realtrack 144 has a thin printed circuit board in the dummy car. Although working out which is the pin 1 on the 8 pin DCC socket isn’t clear. Also found the motor car the red LED tail lights have failed. I have another 144 009 and the motor car on that one also has the same problem with red
RJS's Railways

A Little Hut at Savernake

When I was a boy, one of my Christmas presents was "The Model Railway Constructor Annual 1984, Edited by Chris Leigh". This was one of my regular "go to" books through my teenage years and beyond, and was later joined by secondhand copies of other editions, but the 1984 issue was always my favourite.   One article was entitled "A Little Hut At Savernake", which included drawings and photographs of a hut set into the cutting side at Savernake Low Level.   In the late 1990s, du
RJS1977

RJS1977 in Templebar Junction

0
Chesworth - Horsham MRC's 00 Finescale project

February progress

It's been a busy month for the still small team working on this layout. The first two baseboards have been built and the trackbeds cut out. As these tasks were done by two people and the pieces only came within touching distance on club nights, the process of fitting track bases to the open frames will happen in March. The construction of the baseboard frames using the sandwich technique has delivered light and strong baseboards. However some modification had to be made to the design to achieve
whart57

whart57 in Monthly Reports

4
Netherport - GWR 1908 7mm (mostly wagons for now!)

GWR Loco coal wagon (diagram N13)

Locos need coal. I haven't started building the loco stock I will need for Netherport, but I thought I would get ahead by building a loco coal wagon.     Slaters offer a kit for a 10T example, which claims to be a diagram N13 - ideal for my 1908 period. However, there are some significant issues with the kit, most notably that it has square corners with riveted angle-iron reinforcement, while the prototype had round corners with no reinforcement. Later types had square corner
magmouse

magmouse in Wagons

11
0.87

February 2023 FREMO UK meeting - some impressions

Just back from a good weekend playing trains at the lastest UK FREMO group meeting. It was great to meet up with the regular crew and also to have some newer faces along to run trains. Allowing for occasional incidents, everything was governed by the timetable and run against a 4 x fast clock.   These are some of my dodgy mobile phone photos and as usual they fade into dottiness pretty quick, but hopefully you can get an impression of the action. At each meeting it's great to see scene
readingtype

readingtype in FREMO

0
Playing with 1/50 scale

The 1/50 project, A self uncoupling wagon , part 2

The body is made up in my usual way, 10 thou styrene cut by the silhouette and laminated to form the structure. The mechanism takes up about 2/3 of the volume so I had room to form a simple brake compartment. Never all that popular in the UK, but quite common elsewhere in the world.   Four 2x2 mm round magnets hold the body on, as in the loco these carry the current for the marker lights at the ends and the cab light. The leds have come out very bright in the photos, much less to the e
Dave John

Dave John in The 1/50 scale project

0
The locomotive history of Charlie Strong's yard.

Gasworks Peckett

Another one that had a short career at Strongs was this 14-inch Special Peckett. It was built in 1899 for use at a gasworks in the London area and after several changes of ownership ended up at a gasworks in Saltley, from where Strong purchased it for scrap. It saw limited use at Garrison Lane before being sold to the Harboro Stone Company of Derbyshire. This rare shot, by Terence Torrity, shows it shunting scrap at Watery Lane Sidings.
Ruston

Ruston in A

0
The locomotive history of Charlie Strong's yard.

Unidentified Peckett W4

Little is known about this one as it seemingly appeared and disappeared. Fortunately, it was recorded on film by Gordon Eggert on one of his visits of various industrial railway sites around the Midlands. As can be seen, it was clearly not in working order as the rods were missing and the whole thing looked to be in a sorry state. A group of IRS members, including Rob Carvill and R.K. Shell, noted it as being outside the cutting area on the 5th of May 1970, but were unable to identify it. Presum
Ruston

Ruston in A

0
Artful Or Compromised?

A last-minute field trip (and more stuff I've been reading)

Last Sunday, I found myself with a few hours to spare, so I jumped in the car and headed to Wales. I’ve been planning a more organised recce around a series of locations in Powys and the Welsh Marches, to knock off a number of the places I’ve identified as possible prototypical examples for 'The Art of Compromise'. However, Sunday’s trip was just to take a few photos, get a feel for the potential setting and judge whether I’m on the right track (no pun intended, but I’m keeping it). I took a few
JamFjord

JamFjord in research

2

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