Well its been a few days since the last time Foster Street was out on Exhibition, at the Weston on Trent show, and even though it was only a 1 day show I think I have just about recovered.
Foster Street is back up in the spare room, ready to have a few minor repairs completed and to allow me to make a few repairs, mostly to scenic items which were the subject of the occasional prodding fingers.
Maybe it was just luck but the fleet seemed to run well and we did not suffer any failures, an
Well its the day before the Weston on Trent 2015 exhibition, and I have kept my panic under control as I frantically tried to get Foster Street ready for its return appearance at the show.
So knowing me better than most, I made sure that all of my usual tools of mass destruction, Superglue, Mini drill, Soldering Iron where well out of reach and I concentrated on what I thought were the more easily completed jobs.
But it was no good I had to use the tools of Doom, and as the Domestic Over
Well another exhibition, gets dangerously close, and the pressure is mounting to finish off, all of the outstanding jobs on Foster Street. What a sensible modeller would do in my position would be to get on with these jobs, but I don't think I could ever be described as being sensible for anything, let alone modelling, so I have spent a little time on a couple of my on-going locomotive projects.
There is still a lot of work to do on these, but if all goes well the crimson contingent on in th
Well its nearly time to start to start to panic, well only nearly or at least that's what I thought until I read Andy's latest comment about the Weston on Trent show being less than 12 days away.
So now its officially time to PANIC, ARGH PANIC ARGH PANIC
Its a return visit to this brilliant little show for Foster Street and hopefully there has been a lot of progress on the layout since its debut last year. Well I hope some progress has been made. As ever there are still
Well I managed to spend a little time today to work on the backlog of Locomotives to add to the Foster Street fleet, and in my usual manner, unintentionally generate yet more projects to finish.
Amongst other things my attempt to create an Ivatt Class 4 for the fleet took another small step towards completion, please forgive the very, very unkind close up, it does look a lot better from a distance.
I managed to touch up a few areas, complete the alterations to the cylinders and add a sev
Well its been a strange sort of weekend, I potentially had a lot of time to devote to doing some serious modelling, which could have resulted in some of the outstanding jobs on the layout being completed. However, I must have angered the Gods or something and my plans were smashed.
The Domestic Overlord, bless their little cotton socks (well if you call feet like a hobbit little ) stated to come down with the dreaded lurgy during the week, which reached a crescendo on the weekend, which just
Well it was the weekend of the Warrington 2015 exhibition and the first time Foster Street has been at a 2 day exhibition. Despite varying degrees of panic leading up to the exhibition, mostly about whether the layout would stand up to 2 days of constant operation, and public scrutiny it seemed to have gone well.
There were a couple of minor sticky points, namely when the shuttle unit decided to blow itself up, or when a couple of the locomotives decided to take a nose dive off the layout an
Well the outstanding jobs on Foster Street are progressing well (that's it I have put a jinx on them), but I had one thing that constantly niggled at me, but I could not put my finger on it.
Still as the time passed the same niggle kept popping into my mind, over and over again, all I knew what that the feeling was not a good one, so I knew the niggle would be the introduction to something bad.......
Then it hit me, while I was stuck in yet another traffic jam, surrounded by cars with th
Well I have managed a little more work on my attempt to rescue a poor Jubilee that an evil manufacturer had painted in a horrible mouldy green livery, apparently it was some strange BR livery. Anyway everyone knows these locomotives looked much better before they were defiled by repainting by a band of criminals, working for a major crime organisation called BR (well that's what happened in my mind at least).
Anyway I managed to fit the nameplates, though these are that small, they are almos
Well the Domestic Overlord abandoned me last night, so in a vain attempt to take my mind of the monsters outside the house waiting to get me, as I was home from work late, I had to make do with listening to the Wigan match on the radio, watching the World Cup opening on TV and maybe do some work on the re-livery of my Jubilee.
So it was easy I had three objectives, and I think only one was marginally successful, for a Start Wigan got beat . The World Cup opening ceremony was terrible, and wh
Well as far as I am concerned when it comes to railways the work ended on the terrible day BR was formed , and the brilliant machines built by the LMS were given the indignity of being painted in "mouldy green" which suited the mediocre machine of the other railways more
Right now that controversial remark has probably got a lynch mob formed screaming for my blood I must admit sometimes I really do wish I modelled BR if only for the ease of walking into a model shop and being confronted wi
Well despite what seemed like an impossible task, I actually managed to find a little time this week to do some modelling (well its what I call modelling others will disagree)
Is it just me or is this nearly impossible?
For example during the week, I generally get up for each morning at 5-5:30 am start on my first work emails or tasks at about 6am. Then fit in a breakfast of Coffee and a shower, then leave for the office at around 8am, arrive at 9am. Then the easy task of working lunch
Well another weekend closer to Foster Streets appearance and the Warrington Exhibition, and I amongst all the things I need to finish the storage yard is the most important. So if I was a sensible chap I would have made this the priority and cracked on with finishing off the storage yard, but I can only manage being sensible in very small doses.
The good news is that the work on the storage yard means I get another opportunity to display my soldering God skills, and be warned pictures will f
Well the Bank holiday weekend is nearly over, and I have even managed to get a bit of work done on the layout, which is especially good as an exhibition deadline is looming, I cant believe it nearly October, and time for the Warrington event.
Anyway the most urgent job that needed completion on the layout was improving the baseboard alignment, as the layout is in 3 section I had managed to improve the situation on 2 of the 3 sections, but I still had one to do. Well I am glad to report that
Well after another manic day at work, I finally got home, and after dinner the Domestic Overlord very kindly dismissed me after I did the dishes and sent me to the spare room to play with my trains
Anyway I flicked on electric, powered up the old controllers, sat down to watch the trains going by, and slowly the work began to slip out of focus. Just as I was totally in the land of nod, I was abruptly brought back to my senses by a harsh shrill voice.....
"Billy, Billy Grimes, what's tha
Well it's Sunday, the end of another hectic week, and the eve yet another, because I have been a very, very good Boy the Domestic Overlord, suggested that I could spend a little time on my layout . Yes you guessed it I smelt a rat (maybe I'm just a born cynic, or I maybe I have a rat sniffing habit??).
Anyway, not to miss an opportunity to spend some time on the layout I proceeded very cautiously, in fact like a sneaky little squirrel. I have been working on and off on creating storage boxes
Well it the end of another weekend, and this one was quite busy, what little free time I had on Friday evening and Saturday was spent getting little jobs finished on the layout, so that it was presentable for this mornings visit by a very nice chap, who was there to turn a "pigs ear" into a "silk purse" I will have to wait a few weeks to see the results.
But more importantly it meant I had to get the backscene fitted to board three more permanently, and also try to improve the exit the branc
Well I don't believe it, (do not call me Victor)I have actually managed to get a little free time to work on the layout, with no interruptions.
As you may recall, Foster Street is made up of three baseboards, which means two baseboard joints, one at the urban end of the layout and one in the country end of the layout. One of the things I don't like about moveable layouts is the gaps between sections, so on Foster Street I decided to hide one with a road bridge.
The problem I have is that
Well its been a while since my last update, and you think I would have completed a lot of the jobs outstanding on the layout, well that's what I thought and I was wrong.
I had forgot to factor in the "inconsiderate idiot" factor, yes unfortunately I have to work with clots who think it's perfectively acceptable to call me almost constantly from 4am until 12midnight, every single day to bang on about nothing, and then when you don't reply to the phone instantly they then decide to send texts
Well you know how it is, our hobby is supposed to be a relaxing, fun one, but you know how it is you start chatting to people and before you know it you have made a commitment.
That's what happened to me, I made a comment to a couple of chaps at the Warrington club one night that I had an LMS layout, they came round to see it, and before you know it the trap had been sprung and I agreed to take the layout to the October exhibition.
Of course, none of this was my fault, I was totally inno
Well thanks to a manic work schedule and some of the effects of my condition progress on Foster Street has been very, very slow. But being a tiny bit stubborn, yes only a tiny bit (The Domestic Overlord will say otherwise ) I was determined not to let it get to me or from doing some modelling.
Even if the progress was to be slow it was still progress, that's what I thought anyway, so I got out the list of outstanding jobs on Foster Street, and cracked on. The result of this was that it not o
Well another weekend, and another chance to do a little more work on Foster Street, so being the seasoned experience modeller that I am, I reviewed my list of outstanding/incomplete work, and decided to do something completely different
I am supposed to be working on the storage yard and the correcting some of the alignment issues and to be fair I have done a little work on this, and I even managed to solder (or should that be more like weld) 10 tracks across one of the baseboard joints. I
Well I decided to actually knuckle down and actually work on the of the more important outstanding jobs, still to be completed on Foster Street, the new improved storage yard.
I have never really been happy with the alignment of the boards on Foster Street, which will be improved dramatically on my next layout (I have plans already). Working on the alignment improvements meant that I would have to improve the flow in the storage yards, originally due to laziness on my part and at the time a
Well just like unexpected visitors, that turn up, and then never seem to take the hint to go away, or those people you see when your out that you want to avoid with every fibre of your being, that recognise you before you can leg it, well another project has fallen into my lap.
The Domestic Overlord, decided to abandon me today, and leave me alone an innocent in a cruel, cruel world, so once they had buggered off and left me to fiend off legions people knocking at the front door, I decided t
Well after being at work for a monster 17 hours, not including travelling time (I know what your thinking, it's not one of my ploys to escape the demands of the Domestic Overlord ) my boss said that I could take a day off to recover. So in typical fashion, despite being "dog tired" I could not sleep, so I needed to find something to do to help me maintain my delicate metal state, so I tried to do a couple of little jobs on the layout.
So the first thing I thought I would tackle was the linin
