It must be about twenty years since Hornby released their improved West Country/Battle of Britain pacifics, supplanting the old triang-era model. I've got four of these nice models, mostly acquired with little thought to region/period suitability. It was only when I started work on Stourpayne Marshall that I started taking a closer look at what I had, and how they might fit in with the S&D theme.
Back in October, with the help of some friendly commenters, I came up with this non-
Westward Ho, above: seemingly not a regular on the S&D.
I've seen lists of the Bulleid WC and BoB classes which ran on the S&D, but I can never find them when I want them. As much for my own reference purposes as anything else, as I look to renaming some of my examples of these locos, I thought I'd have a go at compiling a non-exhaustive list.
I went through all four volumes of Ivo Peters' photo albums on the S&D in the 50s and 60s and noted all the WC/BoB cla
Be it through the work of Ivo Peters. Norman Lockett, or any of the other renowned photographers of the Somerset & Dorset, it's often commented that the northern section of the line was rather better documented than the southern half. Lacking the drama of the ascent over the Mendips, with generally less dramatic scenery, and fewer goods trains, perhaps it's no surprise that the locations south of the border were not so well captured. Even allowing for this, few stations were as shy of the ca
I've really neglected this blog since 2021, mainly because I was more focussed on the French stuff in the build-up to the RMweb member's day, but it's high time for a modest update to show some recent alterations.
In this shot, S&D allocated 9F 92006 waits for the go-ahead to depart Stourpayne Marshall with a Bournemouth to Bath stopping train.
What may be of interest is that until recently, this shot couldn't have been taken, as it would hav
After the full brake I showed in the last entry, I cracked on with a second vehicle from the same range of kits, while the build sequence was fresh in my mind. I think it's a composite!
I haven't progressed this second one completely as I'm still puzzling over the roof details, and might want to revisit the first one in the light of better understanding. The kits come with
four different types of castings representing the set-up for day and night running, but the instructions ar
A year or two ago I acquired four kits for S&DJR six-wheeled vehicles from the Connoisseur Models range of 4mm "Pocket Money" models. These kits were reduced from the 7mm vehicles in the main Connoisseur range and judging by the packing on mine, date from the 90s.
An evening's work saw the main body put together without too much difficulty. Although I have a rolling bar, I'd misplaced it, so all curves were formed by gentle finger pressure. Once completed,
I then found the o
The summer module is getting on for four feet deep in one corner, so I need to have completed any fiddly work at the back before working forward to the front. In fact, part of the layout is still be bolted into place and once that's in, it will be hard to get to the back right corner at all. With that in mind, now has been the time to take care of the backscene.
I used a photographic backscene on the spring module, but the two I've done since then have both been painted directly onto a rigid
Getting there (slowly), I hope. I bought some filler from Focus, and trowelled it over the existing plaster landscape, aiming to get a more smooth surface for the eventual application of some snow-type product. The foreground stuff has been down for 48 hours so I'm assuming that any cracks would have appeared by now.
The next job, I think, will be to ballast the track. Is it worth it, though, given that I want to create the effect of the rails almost totally covered by snow? Lat
Yesterday's recap seemed to go down well (thanks all who kindly visited) so I thought I'd take a few
more general snaps around the layout for the benefit of those who haven't seen it before, or lately!
These were mostly taken freehand with just the automatic setting on my camera so the depth of
field is fuzzy in places. Normally I use a tripod but it wasn't handy there and then. However I
think there is something quite pleasant and old-school about a good old slightly
Again nothing particularly new here, other than the odd weed or two, but I thought I'd have a go at doing a deep depth of field shot on the brook scene, with Combine ZM image stacking software. I quite like lineside pictures without trains in them - it's something about the anticipation of the train yet to come, or the quiet that comes when a train has passed. Borrowing a trick from my mate Marc Smith, I'd like to get some birdsong going on quietly in the background here, appropriate both to the
I've been working on and off on an old EFE Hants and Dorset bus. After opening the bus up and painting the interior, as well as adding people, I wanted
to make the front axle rock, to help the bus sit nicely on uneven ground. I also wanted to add a slight turn to the wheels, which I think always makes for
a more interesting look.
The rocking mod is quite simple and I've done similar jobs on kit-built road vehicles as well.
First, the existing axle w
Being a lazy sort I've generally got by with taking photos the easy way - whack the camera on aperture priority and hope for the best, basically. However tonight I decided it was time to bite the bullet and have a fiddle with some different metering modes and manual white balance. I don't know but to my eye these photos get a lot closer to what the layout looks like in the flesh, to to speak - there's none of the pink cast present in the other pics, even though I fiddled around with the colour b
Ballasting is now complete, track weathering has begun and I've taken another look at the occupation crossing on the spring module. I'd originally placed the pillbox in front of the railway line but I found I was always moving it whenever I wanted to take a photo. The solution was to relocate it toward the background, on the other side of the line, and fill in the ground it occupied with a bit of hanging basket liner. The pillbox is now just plonked down on the existing scenery, making it easily
One of the models that's survived with me down through numerous upheavals and house moves is this Hornby Battle of Britain class "Spitfire". It was a Christmas present in 1981 so will soon have been in my possession for forty years.
The model was much anticipated as the original Triang-Hornby Spamcan had been out of the catalogue for some years and I had high hopes that Hornby would have used the gap to improve the product a bit. After all, this was the time when Airfix
One of the great things about yesterday's very enjoyable RMweb member's day - due thanks to all involved for their hard work - was that I came away itching to try my hand at achieving some of the brilliant scenic effects I'd seen during the show on a number of layouts. In particular I was impressed by the textures and variety of scenic effects on Re6/6's fantastic Netherhope Halt diorama, which I kept coming back to with a view to taking mental notes.
Tonight I got out the scenic box and spe
Today I spent an enjoyable afternoon progressing with the winter module. After applying plaster I gave the whole lot a coat of white acrylic in the hope that this would look sufficiently snow-like in its own right, but it's clear that there's more to be done; the texture of the plaster still shows through so I guess I will have to apply another layer of polyfilla or something similar. In time there will be some hedges and undergrowth, suitably snow-covered, and a few wintery trees. No shortage o
I kicked off the ballasting on the summer module with this short stretch over the culvert, which will be difficult to access once the road bridge is in place. As mentioned elsewhere, I now use Copydex rather than PVA, which retains a degree of resilience once it has dried, so that the ballasted roadbed still has some give in it. Other than that the process is the same; sprinkle down the ballast, mist over with water, then add the dilute Copydex solution through a pipette or eye-dropper. The resu
With the glorious weather we've been having, it seems only fitting that progress on my S&D layout finally reaches the "summer" module. And now that I'm finally forced to make certain critical decisions, it's become clear that I'm no longer even pretending that this is Shillingstone, or even an attempt at "essence" thereof. I'd already made major compromises with the track layout, but the clincher has been the need to disguise the entry and exit points of the track through the backscene. I've
Some recent low-stress modelling on Stourpayne Marshall:
This Bachmann Jinty was renumbered to a Bath example and then weathered. It came with "British Railways" lettering which I was reluctant to remove, even though I don't have any evidence that this particular loco carried that scheme. A number of S&D locos did, though, right through until 1953 or so, so it's not obviously out of place.
It runs smoothly, and incredibly quietly, but I can''t get it to s
Just a couple more shots of the cottage, now that is has lighting and a few details to place it in the surroundings.
Like many of the buildings on my layouts, this one is absolutely ancient but has been tarted up a bit to keep it in use.
A few days off work saw some enjoyable progress on the summer module. Currently it's in "GWR" guise although as mentioned earlier in this blog, all the region-specific fittings are designed to be easily swappable so that I can switch to S&D operations with relatively little bother, as well as having some scenic areas that can be changed purely for variety.
Here's the current state of play in the station/goods yard area, before I ran out of Wills sheets to do the setts between the sidings
Following a suggestion by Wenlock of this parish, I've added a road sign to the junction at the top of the bridge - it's a Dart Castings "Somerset" sign but I guess Dorset is close enough? I also extended the road into the backscene, and took the opportunity to add a bit more detail and variations in tone.
And look who's arrived in his midnight blue Bentley? If Ivo's expecting some S&D trains, he's in for a bit of a wait. But perhaps he'll be able to make do with the Western Region traff
Work progresses on Stourpayne Marshall at an extremely leisurely rate, interspersed with more running sessions where I can get
some of my S&D-related models out of their boxes.
As mentioned, I decided to replace the LSWR-style covered footbridge with a Ratio concrete one, which I felt was more in keeping with the S&D ambience,
The Ratio kit is good value and goes together nicely. In common with the other two bridges that have occupi
Some examples of 4MT and 5MT motive power on the layout, including an exciting blooper!
First off, a Bachmann 4MT 4-6-0 which has been renumbered (using HMRS and Modelmaster transfers) to an S&D example:
Light weathering is applied by brushing on liquid acrylics, then almost immediately swiping it off or buffing it around using cotton buds. I must admit I rarely use the airbrush for weathering these days, preferring to use brush
I've been mucking about the backscene on the spring module a bit these last couple of days. I decided to paint an impression of middle-distance trees directly onto the original photographic backdrop, with the idea being that, placed in the right position, these will be able to soak up the shadows cast by the taller 3-d trees in the foreground.
I started by mixing up some gungey greens and reddish-green shades using almost neat acrylics, and then dabbled them onto the backscene using the roug
