MikeOxon's Pre-Grouping Blog

Very atmospheric! lovely:-)

Hi Mike. There is a Hornby catalogue from the 1980s (I forget which) that had some very effective night time scenes with shining station lamps. Made a big impression on me as a teenager. Your standards of modelling are of course at a very different level, but I was reminded of it when seeing your shots here: The magic of model railways! 

 

Your image of 184 is simply mouth-watering! This is going to be something very special. It's odd to think that you may be the first person to be working with the drawings and dimensions of this loco since it was originally built. A real link to the past.

A very useful entry for me as I have an unopened box of the GWR oil lamps for my Shipston Branch.  I am nowhere near fitting them but bought them anyway, just in case (the opposite of "just in time")

 

Thank you!

Very atmospheric! lovely:-)

Thank you - even more so 'in the flesh'.  I sat in the dark last night, watching the shadows cast by passing trains - it brings out the inner child

 

 

Your image of 184 is simply mouth-watering! This is going to be something very special. It's odd to think that you may be the first person to be working with the drawings and dimensions of this loco since it was originally built. A real link to the past.

I made the image to fire up my own enthusiasm, as I was feeling daunted by the thought of having to build a working chassis.  I might tackle it in two stages, by using my powered 2500 gal tender initially, or as a fall-back.  At the moment I am transferring my sketches to Autosketch, to produce my working drawings.

 

 

A very useful entry for me as I have an unopened box of the GWR oil lamps for my Shipston Branch.  I am nowhere near fitting them but bought them anyway, just in case (the opposite of "just in time")

 

Thank you!

I'm pleased you have found this helpful.  Like you, i bought the lamps a long time ago and first took a while to fit them and then another while to wire them up.  I couldn't think of a way to avoid having to do the very fiddly soldering underneath the base-board. I tinned the ends of the fine wires first, then held them in place with masking tape, to make the final joint onto the PCB.

 

For anyone interested, I took the photos with my Lumix FZ200 camera, securely mounted on a tripod, with exposures of 8 secs.@ f/8, ISO160.  The 'moonlight' was provided by the ring fluorescent tube in my desktop magnifier.  I intend to experiment further, as I would like to achieve a more accurate impression of the oil-lamp 'glow'.

 

Mike

I intend to experiment further, as I would like to achieve a more accurate impression of the oil-lamp 'glow'.

 

I know what you mean, it can be very frustrating when the camera can't recreate the real light on your layout. There's a lot of discussion about digital images making layouts look better than they are, but sometimes the opposite is the problem!

Photographs can indeed be a mixed blessing, Mikkel!  All too often, they show defects that were previously not apparent and so lead to much gnashing of teeth, followed by re-building.  They can be great,however, for giving a back-scene apparent depth and so producing a degree of 'realism' that is not there in the model. 

 

Lighting is another game altogether and I have a lot to learn.  I recall the very effective shadows in some of your goods depot photos.

 

I mentioned Witney blankets in a comment on your blog. I have just seen a remarkable photo of a blanket train headed, surprisingly, by a Queen-class 2-2-2.  I suspect there must have been some considerable slipping when starting the long train of loaded vans!  I have the engine and some vans, so all set to go

 

Mike