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Highworth

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About this blog

1970s Blue Era "00"

Entries in this blog

"Roding Reach"...in the beginning

Being a kid of the 70s BR Blue was all I knew. Growing up in the south of Essex and commuting to school and college on the LTS and Southend Victoria lines not surprisingly EMUs were pretty much it.   But 30-odd (somtimes very odd) years on a bit of nostalgia is creeping in.   Not having room for another 00 gauge layout I thought, why not have a go in N gauge. And maybe build something that could be built and used in doors during the winter months.   I've deliberately kept it small for st

AndyB

AndyB

Highworth backscene

Thanks first of all to those who pitched in on the scenery thread I started where I was trying to reconcile the grey stone used on the Metcalfe warehouse with the redder hues on the Peco backscene.   To square that away I'm experimenting with various washes over the Metcalfe kit to blend the two colours.   Anyway, here's the first attempt at adding depth to the model using a mixture of Peco backscene and hand-painted hills and skies.   I laid down a white MDF primer some time ago - anyt

AndyB

AndyB

Scenery - hoorah!

After quite a long time fiddling around with ballast it seemed a good idea to ring the changes and have a go at some scenery.   As the tunnel portal looked quite good I figured, why not make some progress on this area and start to blend it in with the (currently) flat MDF board on which the station throat sits.   The station throat is on quite a steep gradient; long story, but the fiddle yard below has plenty of room to reach into!     Basically I wanted to disguise this gradient a bi

AndyB

AndyB

Woking 2010 exhibition

Just posted some images from the Woking exhibition; a small smattering of what was on offer.   Thomas Junction - what can one say?! Delightful, engaging, but most of all clever. Richard Pretious has certainly done much to get the very youngest of next gen. modellers interested in the hobby, not forgetting Thunderbird 3 and Kermit the Frog who ably assist him!   For me, Umbridge summed up what N gauge is all about. A work in progress it is an ambitious 4 track mainline, with harbour, ferry

AndyB

AndyB

Tunnel portals for Highworth

With some 9 tunnel portals on Highworth I've started looking for prototype inspiration and working up to a bit of scratchbuilding.   The various ready-to-use offerings are ok and have worked so far, but there are a couple of "vacancies" for something better/a little bit different, see below.   The twin track portal that forms the entry/exit to Highworth station is the first one I want to tackle.   http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/gallery/image/22472-picture-138jpg/   This pa

AndyB

AndyB

Rain dance seemed to work...

The early morning rain dance seemed to work, delaying painting the house's window fames. Which frees me up to do some ballasting on Highworth station.   Somehow I always end up with excess ballast sitting on top of the sleepers. The end result has the air of a ramshackle set of tracks leading down a disused mine shaft.   Interested in the new Metcalfe warehouse kit as a half-relief along the back of the station. However at £12 per foot of coverage this seems quite a lot when you conside

AndyB

AndyB

Garage day!

An unusual birthday present from my wife, maybe, but most welcome. A day allocated exclusively to working on the garage layout - Highworth. No kids, no chores. Ploughmans lunch served at the layout. Excellent.   I set to working on the area behind Highworth Station. I've a fair number of the usual Metcalfe and Superquick shops left over from a previous layout. So, the bog-standard "High Street" seemed to be inevitable.   Nothing wrong with that approach - but I do tend to glaze over when lo

AndyB

AndyB

Recycled platform materials

Hiring a skip seemed to make sense for this year's clearout of our sideway. It was that or 20 round trips in the Rover to the local tip. It was during the "topping our" ceremony, where in a Pythonesque moment I was trying to cram one last item on to the teetering pile inside the skip that I saw this shelving unit through new eyes.   http://www.focusdiy.co.uk/Payless/Payless-5-Tier-Shelving-Unit/invt/252707   Disassembling it to see if it would fit into ths skip, the shelves looked as if, wi

AndyB

AndyB

Royal Deeside railway

Just added and album with photos of the Royal Deeside Railway (the preserved bit).   http://www.deeside-railway.co.uk/index.php for more details of the railway.   And.... http://www.royal-deeside.org.uk/RDattract/station.htm for a wee write up about the station at Ballater - next stop Balmoral!!   Definitely worth anyone reading up about this railway which has seen everyone from Tsars of Russia to Kings & Queens of Europe using it.   Interesting visitor centre at Ballater station

AndyB

AndyB

Hornby Class 31 for Highworth

Without going into endless detail I've purchased a Hornby Class 31 for the layout. The 31s were a familiar sight on my childhood commute, so along with my 37 something of a "must" for my layout.   My local model shop was offering them at £68 which seemed to be a good price. Sadly the first one I took home succommed to a problem that apparently has dogged Hornby - the cab floor at one end cracked and sheared off. So, back to the shop with that example. The replacement broke in a different pla

AndyB

AndyB

Garden path and garage door!

For most of the time I've been building Highworth I was accessing the garage through the main "up and over" door. As the railway was pretty much circular this meant that to get to the freezer we all needed to limbo under two baseboards then do the return journey clutching frozen food! Not ideal, but it kept us fit.   The major disadvantage was that whenever I was working on the layout it was exposed to the elements. That made it almost impossible to do anything through the winter months.  

AndyB

AndyB

Highworth

This is my second layout in "00" since returning to the hobby. The first was a shunting plank which left little opportunity for sitting back and watching trains go "round and round".   So, my wife, seeing the problem, suggested I fill the whole garage with a model railway to suit. "Highworth" is the result - and is very much a work in progress.   Being in my mid-40s, BR Blue Era is my thing.   The basic plan is a compressed oval of track - it looks like double track, but isn't. Off the

AndyB

AndyB

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