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Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Lifts for the Flats and an Extension at the Pub...

I though I'd spoil the little residents of the layout by adding a lift shaft to the flats that were erected recently, I also enlarged the pub - adding ground-floor flat roof extension (room for a couple of pool tables, or a dining area, or a function room available for hire - who knows!?) :-) All additions were constructed from plasticard and / or leftover bits from model kits.       
Engine Wood

Recent work - wagons and weathering

Recent work includes the completion of four Cambrian 'Herring' ballast hoppers in P4, which will be used on 'Callow Lane' (and in due course, my planned Forest of Dean cameo layout) and also on Re6/6's 'Parkend Marsh Sidings' layout:       Here are the four Herring so far completed. All are unsprung and uncompensated, having established (prior to recent lockdowns) that this format runs OK on Re6/6's Marsh Sidings layout.   As 'Callow Lane' isn't se
Paint your wagon

Tool Tip Tuesday - ceramic soldering blocks

Tuesday again. Today’s top tip is a multipurpose tool primarily designed as a holding tool for jewellery makers, a ceramic black with tiny holes throughout, supplied with stainless (and mostly unsolderable) pins. Very useful for holding and securing work, protecting from heat.   I got a twin pack, so the second doubles as a handy tool, drill, pin, wire, work and cocktail stick holder. I put it in a tin lid so the stuff doesn’t go straight through when you pick it up, but only after it
John57sharp

John57sharp in 2mmFS

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Brassey's Blog

GWR 0-6-0 Tender Engines - continued... problems...

There is a strategy to my building 2 outside frames together.  Firstly they both shared the Armstrong Standard Goods S4 boiler.  The also had springs above the footplate which is a challenge I want to tackle in one go.  And I intend to build 2 outside frame tenders that also share the spring issue.   So the Armstrong Goods now has a cab and rear splashers:     Smokebox, boiler and roundtop firebox:     The Beyer Goods, being bits of old K
Brassey

Brassey in GWR Engines

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Trying to Model the Liverpool & Manchester in ho

Some expatriated products from Robert Stephenson & Co.

Greetings one and all,   After nearly a years absence, I have returned to this blog. The layout has been many things in the past year.    1. A urban midland railway terminus.   2. A large piece of clutter on the breakfast room table.    It was supposed to be that layout on which my MR Kirtley Goods would run upon, but for various reasons that won’t be happening.   So the plan is to go back to the Liverpool & Manchester.   What all needs d
Rospeath Lane - BR(WR) Engine Shed

Could I use some Phosphor Bronze Rail?

A couple of days ago I tweaked my back which has hampered progress on baseboard construction. To keep a modicum of momentum going on this project I looked around for some light duties.   I’d been kindly given some used Phosphor Bronze track, unfortunately as it’s mainly in short lengths I’ll not be able to use it for standard 60ft sections of track. It would be a shame to discard them so I started to mull over how to justify their use. I vaguely remembered reading something about the G
Yan

Yan in Track

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Kelvinbank, a Caledonian Railway project.

Caledonian railway telegraph poles , part 3

Some photos of the poles planted in their sockets. I managed to get the spacing fairly even at 60 - 65 yards, the preferred Caley distance.   The camera is much harsher about verticals than the eye, particularly along the length of the layout. People used to Glasgow might be familiar with the effect, tenements do tend to lean back a bit. The time to panic is when they start leaning forwards.                     I’m ha
Dave John

Dave John in General

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Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Flats

Taking certain liberties with reality once more, I've made a small block of flats for my layout. I used various bits from my box of scraps, plus plasticard, card and even baking paper(!) I "raised the block up" with a section of plasticard painted to represent concrete, and a piece from a European N Scale kit to give the impression of underground parking or something like that... The doors and windows are from spares, the windows are dressed with baking paper net curtains (the kin
Paint your wagon

Numbers add up to ....

Getting down to it, 2mmFS wagons take just as long to do as their bigger brethren, perhaps longer, there’s a lot of fiddling. So some vans and now a few opens are receiving their numbering and lettering. It’s all CCT Transfers applied on gloss varnish then matt  varnished over.    I also ripped up the first 2 foot of Easitrac, it was too thick in glue and I hadn’t really thought through the wire droppers. The new length is almost ready to lay, pictures as it happens.
John57sharp

John57sharp in 2FS

2
D1001's BRDatabase Blog

BRDatabase data accuracy

Hi,   I thought I would just put a blog entry for people to highlight any problems they find with www.BRDatabase.info   If you see an error, an omission or have ideas for how the data could better be presented, please leave a message below and I will see what I can do. I really want the resource to be as accurate and understandable as possible and I cannot do that without help - I regularly see messages saying "don't trust BRDatabase" etc... but I cannot fix everything by mys
On shed for Brent

4085 Berkeley Castle

Background: This originated with parts from two Hornby Castle releases, with the body originating with Tintagel Castle and the tender from Wellington (with the other parts used on my model of Nunney Castle).  This gives the correct loco body and tender to model Berkeley Castle in 1947 condition, although the frames are incorrect in that they should be of the “joggle” type.  Unfortunately  I think Hornby have only done one release in that condition (as the NRM edition Caerphilly Castle) whic
Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Last of the Ballasting and Some Building Detailing.

Injured my hand really quite badly while cutting styrene sheet.  Annoyed at myself for not being more careful - using a scalpel and a metal ruler, the blade jumped over the ruler and cut a sizeable bit off of my finger.    Anyway, onwards and upwards!   Finished the last of the ballast today, a strip at the back of the layout.   Also, added some detail to my pub building - Air conditioning ducting from a P and D marsh white-metal kit, a stonework base (Kibri te
MES Body & Paint

ReZEL Type C 2

Work has continued on the ReZEL;   All this becomes...   This!  Tall s.o.b., too.   Probably nine, ten inches as it is.   I still need to finish the back...assemblies;   This kit comes with parts to build two versions of the backpack, so-called Type B & Type C.   Type A is not available in these colors.   I still really don't know what-all is going on with the packs, though.   None of the art I've found really shows that these variants look lik
AlfaZagato

AlfaZagato in Kitbuilding

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Rospeath Lane - BR(WR) Engine Shed

Baseboard construction - Part 1

I made a tentative start on building the baseboards yesterday. My first task was to mark the different track levels on each cross piece. All changes of track levels do seem subtle at this stage. I’m hoping that subtle changes should help to project a believable scene.     At the above stage I realised that the very end cross piece (furthest away in the above photo) was going under the turntable. How did I miss that on my plan? I’ve been lucky enough to acquire a GWR turntabl
Yan

Yan in Baseboards

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Adventures with Hornby Maglight

Stealing a Maglight from a 4 Wheel Coach and attempting to place it in a Virgin Mk3a

It's January, the Hornby R7338 maglight has not been released. I'm very eager to play with the Maglight system so wanted to get ahead of the game, with the 4 Wheel Coach being quickly released, I purchased one in a beautiful GNR livery (R40104A), in order to test out what I might be able to do with the maglight system.     Taking the coach out the box, reveals there is a pull tag to enable the lights, however when I tired to pull it out - the whole chassis came off! At least
centraltrains

centraltrains in Maglight

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Northall

Vicarage garden wall

My next diorama is inspired by The Murder in the Vicarage. I started to make a diorama plan/map.   I started to make the base, and after that I started with the garden wall. I will use the same garden wall texture from Scalescenes ( Brown brick - Garden Wall; TX 52) as I used for Rose Cottage. The texture is printed on a canvas photo paper. Then I searched for a garden door on the internet. The door that I found is downloaded and made to size. The door has a
Buildings from card.

A signal box

Again, not a blow by blow account of the build, just a few notes and pictures.  I recently built this signal box for my current layout, Farleigh.  It is based on the box at Adversane Crossing, between Billingshurst and Pulborough.     Once again 1.5mm mount board was used for the structure.  Clear plastic packaging was used for the window glass with strips of self-adhesive label for the glazing bars.  As the front elevation can't be seen on the layout, I did not bother to re
Colin's Blog

#15 - Construction continued - Detailing the Chassis

Originally I'd thought no further than using the under floor detail parts from the Ratio Kit. However a visit to Dart Models for some detailing parts which I did need, pipes, ventilators, lamps etc. set me off in another direction altogether. #15 is documented as having a dynamo and it can be clearly seen on the left side to the left of the middle door. However no battery box is visible from either side so I haven't bothered to add one! The Dart dynamo is a neat 3 part white-metal kit
Colin's Blog

#15 - Construction continued - The Sides and Interior

Completing the two sides required the shaping of the large saloon windows followed by the usual steps of filling and sanding back the multitude of joins. With hindsight I should have carved off the molded handrails and door handles earlier but as a first time effort I was happy with the overall outcome. Finally some 0.5mm PS strip was cut to shape and scored to make up the missing ventilators.   This shows the sides after painting and transfers.   The Second Saloon has
Buildings from card.

A goods shed after Edward Beal

Like the previous posting this is not a blow by blow account of the build, just some notes on different aspects of construction and some pictures.     This drawing for this model appears on page 113 of Modelling the Old-Time Railways by Edward Beal.  I required a fairly small goods shed for my currently being built layout, Farleigh (link below), and this appeared to fit the bill.   I used 1.5mm mount board similar to some of the previous builds on this blog.  This picture giv
Buildings from card.

A garage after John Ahern

This is not a blow by blow account of this build, just an example of how easy it is to achieve reasonable results using the techniques already shown earlier in this blog.   On page 114 of Miniature Building Construction by John H. Ahern are drawings of Bert's Garage, one of those wooden structures with a corrugated iron roof, found anywhere in the kingdom.   I built this model as an example of the craft as part of a series of 'Zoom' meetings, grandly named 'Card Buildings Mas
Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Traverser, Tweaks and More Tracks.

Discovered today that I had ordered a different track (PECO SL-300F I believe) than I usually use - SL-300.   The result was that the track on the deck was approx 1 or 2mm lower than the track on the layout. Hmm... If I hadn't used "set track" points at the top of the traverser I could just raise the whole thing. However, the solution was pretty simple - a (temporary) strip of plasticard of the right depth, to lift the track very slightly.     I already have s
Ray Von

Ray Von in Wiring

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