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War Department First World War Narrow Gauge Layout O-16.5 WDLR

Entries in this blog

The Train Set At The Bottom Of The Garden

The Severn valley Railway which, by luck rather than design, is literally at the bottom of my garden, is having it's Autumn gala which involves all night running. So after a full day of work I found myself with pint in hand at the end of the platform studying a Standard Class 4 and a masterclass in weathering of both loco and carriages. And I really regretted not having brought the big camera and tripod as was treated to a wonderful evening light - ah well!
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Telford O gauge and Great Dorset Steam Fair

Sort of started this one as a live blog last week while at he very Great Dorset Steam Fair but my dodgy phone scuppered my plans. More of this in a bit as must tell you that the layout is at the O Gauge Guild Telford show this weekend for what is it's last scheduled appereance. I am not saying it will be the last as I am sure some more will crop up but have had to scale back opperations quite substantially due to life just getting a bit too hectic.   Anyway, back to last weekend and I
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Getting Carried Away - An R/C Austin 7

Having established that I can make something from scratch AND make it move with my Foden steam wagon I have taken the proof of concept approach a bit further - or in fact - much smaller!   Starting point for this was an anonymous 1/43 die cast Austin 7 model from China via Ebay in a hideous bright green of which a bath in Nitromors has thankfully left no trace at all. I rebuilt the chassis in bass tube to give a decent platform to work from and started with fitting roller bearings for
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Foden Video

Have managed to find the data lead for my phone and got myself logged into YouTube so here is my first attempt posting a video. I need to look at canabalising a couple of N20 motors to get a 1.9mm shaft onto a higher RPM gearbox as progress really is too slow. Have also now found another steering arm which should improve the turning circle. Work on a load is progressing nicely and will be updated soon.    
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A Touch of Giles Indeed!

Simond had it spot on in his comment on my last post - I guess the glimps of a roller bearing was a clue. A very new departure here and a pretty steep learning curve but made much easier by some good advice from Giles and Pikey on the RC thread - if you have not already guessed the Foden is now Radio Controlled. Although a bit of an indulgence for the current layout, as in real life, the Foden will eventually be demobbed and will feature large in a new post war creation. There was a rather lengt
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And now for something completely different!

With the Simplex almost finished and just needing some detail painting and couplings fitted I decided to something rather different. Reason behaind this one is that I have always wanted more road traffic on the layout but suitable models for the period are rather few and far between. Having learnt a leson for once about how long it takes to convert something after doing the bus and remembering my thoughts that it would have been easier to have started from scratch I did just that! Before I get c
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On a Whim

My lack of blogs may suggest that nothing has been happening but that is only partly true! It is really just that nothing interesting has been happenimg but that has all just changed! Last Saturday morning I loked at a £2.50 sheet of 10 thouh Nickel Silver and thought ' I know what you shall become' and a week latter.....   Maybe not quite a complete whim as I had a second Mark Clark 3d printed Simplex chassis spare, the first working very well on a Wrighlines protected body, but neede
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Dinowic and Baby Elephants

This was going to be a real first - a live blog from 1000ft up a Welsh slate quarry - full 4g signal, pics on phone and then RMWeb in complete meltdown! All the nasties nicely sorted and the blow by blow account by Andy of what was going on was very nicely done. So back home from a crafty two nights in North Wales and here are some pics. After a relatively early start and big breakfast in Porthmadoc (nothing happening at Harbour or WH Heritage), a rapidly brightening day saw us proceeding on vir
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Barclay on the way at last

I started this as a quick project about four months ago.......... The chassis is from Mark Clark and the body the S&D Barclay - well that was the quick and easy bit! Chassis went together pretty well but I had trouble with the plastic gears and possibly set them with not enough slack or was it that Marks finely etched were once again no match for my ham fisted construction. Result - a pile of bits and the need for a Mashima and Branchlines box and a bit of simplification of the valve gear.
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The Big One and more from Belfast

Have now just about recovered from our Northern Irish adventure which went rather well apart from a rather exciting crossing going over - quite a contrast to the mill pond like return. Big thank you to Simon for being mad enough to agree to come along and for Les for helping out on the day and to everyone who made us so welcome and didn't seem to mind the fact that we got ourselves locked out of our accommodation both nights !   With the dust barely settled though I am now all packed up for wh
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All set up at Cultra

Long journey and an interesting evening of food, beer, music and seriously mad cab drivers but now all set up in brilliant place for a busy day.
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Biggest adventure yet - Belfast!

Yes, we are off on a bit of a trip rather early tomorrow to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum at Cultra, near Belfast. I do know that I have a lot of followers from distant lands so just to make sure they appreciate the enormity of this, it involves a 300 mile trip to Scotland, a 2 hour ferry crossing and then some more on the other side. So, car packed, as much upgrading and maintenance to the layout and stock that I can manage and a nice early night.   https://www.nmni.com/whats-on/model-
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Welshpool Show Saturday

It's show time again but very difficult to type this as desk is literally covered with rolling stock all newly fitted with my new home brewed couplings. The complete couplings saga will be related soon but it has not been an easy journey and have not seen bed until 3am two days on trot now.   So Saturday 27th Oct, Welshpool Town Hall. It is looking like a really nice line up of layouts put together by a very competent exhibition manager. Cannot do better than the little blub in the back of Na
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Absolutely Astonishing!

I have just got back from seeing the premier screening of Peter Jackson's new film in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum and as the title suggests my astonishment knows no limits! I actually only found out about this at the weekend but obviously wasn't a complete secret as I certainly wasn't alone in the cinema. Unfortunately I wasn't invited to the real premier but went along to one of the two hundred odd simultaneous screenings across the country.   The film is made up entirely of ori
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An Educational Trench

You all know the usual excuses about how long it is since the last post so won't repeat them here! There are things going on but at an admittedly slower rate than previously. One thing that I have been meaning to do for ages is an educational aid - something to more adequately explain what all the stuff going past on the trucks is for. Some of it is rather too obvious but trench building materials...... So here it is - my mini, cutaway trench showing A frames, duck boards, revetments and associa
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It is a hobby - It is not a punishment - I am enjoying it!

This became my mantra for the past three days at Tracks to the Trenches 3. An exceedingly hot train shed as accommodation and an awful lot to do by mostly by myself. Not entirely by myself though so thanks must go to Richard, Simon (when he was not playing with the real thing), and the Pont du Ferme boys.   Heat led to some electrical difficulties but main problem was that I fear new couplings are just not up to life on the road so back to drawing board on that one.   Didn't take a big camer
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TTTT3 and magnets

On the Tracks to the Trenches 3 web site there is a doomsday clock clicking down, guess it is not actually ticking down to doomsday but feels like it right now!   Just after the last show over three months ago I decided to ditch the Zamzoodle couplings and go for something else. Unfortunately much of these three months was taken up with deciding which ones leaving precious little time to actually fit them. I will leave a description of the (highly modified), couplings for another time but in o
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24.3mm Axles - Help!

Help - my patience - already stretched - is now at breaking (pin!) point!   Into my stupidly hectic schedule (which explains lack of updates), I am trying to fit in what has turned out to be a pretty major project - to ditch the scale chopper couplings and replace with auto couplings that might actually stay coupled. I have settled on a heavily modified Dingham now but removing the old couplings is proving rather troublesome. Having removed all the bogies from the wagons I have also set about
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Thomas Meets the Scrap Man and Pantograph Progress

Some very nice friends gave us all individual Easter eggs last week and mine was particularly appropriate. After looking at it for several days and decided that nibbling a little bit off his coal bunker wouldn't do any harm - how wrong can you be! Poor old Thomas literally exploded and on gathering up the bits really did look like the pile of bits you see in photos after the scrap man had paid a visit. Only trouble then was that before I could find the camera most of the bits mysteriously disap
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An Epiphany

Survived the Ally Pally show which turned out to be probably the busiest, most intense but also most interesting show yet. Also very well organised (thank you Nick), and for a big venue the staff were excellent which was a nice and welcome surprise. It has also led to somewhat of an epiphany.....   On both days I had to explain the operation of the layout to new operators (big thanks to Neil and Neil), and realised that although the basic premise is very simple (long steam hauled trains come i
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Ally Pally This Weekend

How many blog entries start with apologies for not updating for ages? Well this one won't - I shall end with my excuses! This is because I need to tell everyone that the layout is at the London Festival of Railway Modelling or the Ally Pally show for short. Alexandra Palace, London, N22 7AY 24th - 25th MARCH 2018     Quite excited about this one as used to exhibit at car shows here in a previous life and always enjoyed the location which it has to be said was pretty much at the top of my r
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Loads More

Am afraid that this is still a bit of a work in progress which I was hoping to have finished this week but you know how things go......   Am continuing on my quest to get better loads for my wagons and more importantly complete loads for each one. As always I believe using pictures of what actually happened is the best policy so sorted out a few mainly from Roy Link's WDLR Album. I wanted to improve on the shell loads so selected one pic and from known dimensions of the wagons worked out that
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Milling Around

Bit of a first today as doing this in sweltering heat sat by the pool but sadly not in the Caribbean but watching little Iz prove yet again that she is an immeasurably better swimmer than I.   Am about to make progress in the reassemby of the pantograph milling machine. A beautifully over engineered scaffold tower has been borrowed and assembled around the bits. All that is needed now is the electric winch that I have been promised which hopefully I will pick up at Stafford show a week on Su
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Another show survived.

Am now not feeling too guilty about missing the gym a couple of times last week as this weekends exertions at Stevenage have more than made up for it. Unlike the gym I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it one of the best shows I have been to for quality of exhibits, traders, organisation and visitors! A huge big thank you to Andy, David and Michael for all the help in running and putting away again - it was really great to be able to stand back a bit and watch the layout running (almost perfectl
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Stevenage Show This Weekend

Just getting everything packed away for Stevenage show this weekend. As ever do come and say hello if you are visiting.  
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