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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
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Bury Goods 0-4-0

Bury goods 0-4-0

This scratch build is something I have been wanting to do for years but have never quite plucked up the courage.   There are several 'sticking points' in modelling a bar framed Bury loco, the obvious one being the distinctive wheels. All Bury locos had them so unless you get those right you might as well not bother with the rest. Thankfully, a friend very kindly drew some up and 3D printed the centres to be fitted into Gibson tyres of the appropriate diameter. However, I found the prin
5&9Models

5&9Models in Bury Goods 0-4-0

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General

Relays and Servos

For the last few weeks I have spent time working on installing more servo motors, laying more track, extending the top deck of the baseboard in the corner (a mis measurement when cutting it meant I couldn't fit the inner radius in) and starting to install the sections using relay switches.   With the servos I am experimenting with a different type of mount, I found a type on Ebay which is just a L shape metal piece of angle with some holes and these are proving to be far better than th
MattB

MattB in General

0
General

Some CR ballast wagons.

As I mentioned in the last blog I have been building some CR ballast wagons.   These were built using my usual methods, styrene bodies, copperclad sub chassis to take the W irons. The outer pair are from the 1890 drawing, the middle one is a pre-diagram version from the photo. The drawing makes no mention of canvass covers for the axleboxes and without a reference photo I can’t tell whether they were so fitted. I added them to the pre -diagram wagon which did have them. I suppose if a
Inspiration

Coastguard Creek - Further inspiration & New Forest coastal industries

Inspirational locations further afield For one of the blog entries for Coastguard Creek, I shared a sketch montage of many inspiring (New Forest) locations. As promised at the time, I'm back with more; but this time  from locations elsewhere (albeit within 20 miles). Some sketches aren't quite as detailed as others due to being done at different times, but I still think it helps to give a broad sense of what I'm looking to reproduce, in some capacity:     As we did with
General

Show and tell…

Afternoon all,   Back last night from a wonderful day spent in Derby at the 2mmFS Diamond Jubilee event. Could only stay one day as had pre commitments back in London but am so glad I went. Great to see old faces, friends, meet new ones, chat 2mm stuff with people and of course have a curry and a few beers 😜   So the final post on the diorama takes us up to the completion and it was down to the wire…that means planting trees in the hotel room at Derby Conference Centre the night
bcnPete

bcnPete in General

4
Layout Design

Coastguard Creek - A practical reapproach!

Last blog entry, I shared a generous serving of the hundreds of sketches that I've drawn for Coastguard Creek. There will be a few more here, but this time I'd like to focus on how important it can be when layout planning to stop sketching and think logically for a moment! Let me explain...   ...after months of relatively fruitless sketching, on New Years Eve I took a step back and remembered my mantra (which came about after numerous failed projects) of 'design for the space y
General

Finally...

...the 7mm copperclad for securing of rail at the board ends has arrived! Yay!   Unfortunately the railway room is in a mess, as I had decided to try and sort out what boxes of stuff I have and try and get everything grouped more suitably in my various boxes. So the floor is not exactly clear. Being a hot weekend and all, I think I won't be fixing any track down just yet. Not so yay.
Ian J.

Ian J. in General

0
Fun Town

Fun Town - Ice Cream Wagon MKII

Fun Town - Ice Cream Wagon MKII : Continuing with the crazy idea of building a few animated wagon's that would run on DCC for Fun Town's market. Determined to have an animated figure in this build, so I went for a tea drinking ice cream seller that also rotated his head as he eyed up potential customers. Things didn't turn out quite as expected, but the final result aint to bad.     Thanks for Looking............
snitzl

snitzl in Fun Town

11
Johnson Street IEMD

Johnson Street IEMD - loco update - 14th June 2022

Loco update - 14th June 2022   7th DB90 at Johnson Street IEMD    As soon as it became apparent that 90021 wasn't going to be seen out on the network in First Barbie Scotrail, it was always going to be a matter of time before she departed Johnson Street IEMD.   Then, in a short period of time we were introduced to two DB/EWS era Class 90s from Bachmann, firstly 90028 in DB Cargo red and following on from that 90030 in EWS. With 90028 "Bill" already in the stable alr
Blogpost

Testing the track

Following quite a few sessions, the track is now laid:         Hence some test runs with various rolling stock have taken place. Next step fully wiring up the point motors and the control panel.           
General

More progress…

Evening all,   As the deadline approaches to the DJ 2mmFS weekend, I took the opportunity this weekend, aside from chores to make some more progress. First up the base was given a good coat of burnt umber acrylic paint to cover the white.     This was followed by a first coat of ballast to the track which had been first sprayed brown in the model shop spray booth. Also the balustrade etch was given a coat of Matt black spray.     After m
bcnPete

bcnPete in General

5
P4

Some recent progress

Following the near completion of the Royal Scot, I have been working on the Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2 tank which has been on and off for literally years. Mods and detailing of the body has come quite a long way, though there is still more to do. However, this loco and the Black 5 model have reached the point where the chassis have had the basic painting done and the chassis both re-assembled. Further weathering will be required to give some variation and blend with the weathered bodies, some time
Dave Holt

Dave Holt in P4

0
Lack

Beyond the Baseboard

Looking back, I am a serial baseboard builder. I enjoy the woodworking and I'm happy with the results. My last effort was a simple working diorama plank with scenery (see profile photo) now home life has settled down again I'm having another go. This time trying an Ikea Lack shelf with an N gauge inglenook (Boomerang generation (sad consequence of the pandemic) mean my space is restricted again. Starting with a 110cm shelf, because it fitted over my bench I realised that by rationalising my
Liddy

Liddy in Lack

1
Baseboard

Massive Baseboard advance part 2 - updated June 2022

Apologies - this seems very disjointed as it was written across a house move and as a result my plans had to adjust as the space the layout will go in is different, again. In the process I had to pack the layout to move it, and I decided to renew the boards as the old ones, with 40 year old chip board had distorted with time so that none of the joints were flat .... so this is a June  2022 edit / correction of what I wrote nearly a year ago before the move, forced by the rmweb catastrophe that w
Swan Hill

A minor update... June '22

Something of a summary of progress on various fronts.  Thorpe's Trial & Error continues.  Work on the little warehouse building (Bricks & Mortar) continues and has been 'on the bench' today (well, this afternoon as domestic duties took up the morning).  The little warehouse drops down behind the viaduct but the drawing below is the 'master' drawing and made up of many layers, mostly transparent, so the whole facade shows up here where, for real, it does not.  So the drawing is always wor
kitpw

kitpw in Swan Hill

11
General

A bit of an experiment.

Last year I needed some styrene sections and as it happened the only place with stock was Hattons. Oh well. Anyway having ordered the stuff I needed I had a look at the pre-owned stuff. Just for fun, honest. Anyway I saw a Hornby generic 4 wheel NBR brake which had been dropped. The end was well bashed, buffers and couplings broken, the whole thing bent, body off. But all the bits had been put in the box and it was a tenner. Add to basket.   But why ? A lot has been said about these co
Westown-Heathfield

Heathfield - Church and Village Playground

These two I've grouped together as they sit side by side in the town so tend to appear together in my photos.   The Metcalfe Norman Church requires little comment. I've added interior lighting of which more later, then regretting not using coloured cellophane behind the glazing to give greater effect. In the end I dialed down the soft LEDs to low current and painted over them (to little effect). It is one of my favorite models, from the building challenge to the final product.  
Trackwork

Points and Track

I have started working on the trackwork on the top deck. I had already laid track 1 which is at the rear and added in the points ready for the rest of the trackwork on this deck. I have now extended track 2 to a loop and started work on track 3   The idea of this deck is for it not to be prototypical but to be more of a tail chaser with a heritage line bolted onto the front of it. That way I can run items that are of a different era (and my older Lima stock) and I hope the height diffe
MattB

MattB in Trackwork

0
Westown-Heathfield

Heathfield Station and Surrounding Hills

In my fictional Quantocks setting, Heathfield Station is a tiny spur off of the West Somerset railway, near the southern end of the hills. My highly restricted space means prototypical settings are impossible so I made do with what I had available.   The station has a service often worked by an Autotrain, in these shots operated by pannier 6424.       Heathfield station sits in an idyllic spot alongside the Heathfield River, presently cascading after som
Westown-Heathfield

Heathfield Village -1

The space I allocated to the village falls inside the main track loops and is a modest 600mm * 800mm providing me with a challenge to develop a realistic but not cramped setting. The core was a series of Metcalfe buildings, cottages, the Norman church and the Stone-built Wayside Station Shelter (now discontinued), later supplemented by a scratch built manor house and various minor items.   These were early steps back into modelling and I soon became dissatisfied with the look of the or
Westown-Heathfield

Westown-Heathfield - some background

Westown - Heathfield   Having come back to modelling after a long absence, this has been a learning experience.   I’m not aiming for perfection; I want the layout and individual settings to look plausible at a macro level. “I do enjoy making a miniature world where trains go to and fro”   I wanted to capture the sense of place and settings of my home county Somerset; set in the context of the railways I knew and loved as a child. I wanted to engage my 6 grandch

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