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War Department First World War Narrow Gauge Layout O-16.5 WDLR

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Narrow gauge at the bottom of the garden!

OK, a complete aside from War department projects but I can't let the fact go that Sir Hayden (or Corris #3 as I prefer!) is currently sitting just 200 yards away! It has always been a happy coincidence that our ideal house was right next to the Severn Valley Railway but although I now know every loco by it's sound, standard gauge just doesn't do it for me! But..... as part of the annual steam gala which has trains running right through the night (and good beer opportunities!) this year Sir Hay
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Biggest Train Set Ever!

I have spent (a rather exhausting day), at the biggest train set I have ever seen! Well that is what it seemed like. My first visit to the Statfold barn Railway seems to have left quite an impression on me. I don't think I can really describe it adequately at this time of night so do look it up but basically it is a collection of immaculately restored narrow gauge locos (with some real gems waiting to be restored), running very intensively on a fiendishly clever track layout. Why clever? It is t
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Soldering Iron Tip!

This may be of interest. I have made quite a few references to the Maplin variable power soldering iron in posts and comments but have just noticed that it has got even cheaper;   http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/50-w-solder-station-n78ar     I will freely admit that it is not the best iron in the world but for £10.99 it has to be useful especially to someone who just wants to try one, possibly for soldering white metal for the first time. Do keep the receipt though as they do tend to go wrong.
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1000 bricks don't add up to much....

.....not when they are 1:48 scale! I should have known this really from my adventures in building a real extension and the unfeasibly large quantity of bricks this too. Anyway I have some scale enough bricks now from a German company called Juweela who make an eclectic range of scenic products which are worth a look although getting hold of then is a bit of a challenge. Well I bought a bag of 1000 but now wish I had gone for the 4000 bag.     These will be used for making jagged edges to th
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GW Rivet Press and an H class wagon

I have had a GW rivet press sitting somewhere under my piles of stuff for quite a few months now but have only now found an excuse to play with it. Actually, the Mercian H class tank has been sitting under the same pile for even longer but started it off as something to do while my lovely wife was in the same room Googleing where I am being sent off to on holiday this year. As regular readers will know, no filing of metal or soldering is allowed to occur in the same room as her! After a bit of m
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Remarkable Baldwin Progress

With nothing better to do the other night I decided that I really ought to make some more progress on the steam engines so opened up the box of a Wrightlines Baldwin 4-6-0 that I started a couple of years ago and then shelved. I was pleasantly surprised at how much progress I had made.     I had detailed the backhead, fitted pickups to all wheels including the pony truck that I had fitted with a neat swinging and swiveling contraption. Then the reason I had shelved it appeared in the form o
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Ford Model T Ambulance

While I continue to ponder exactly what I am going to do with the village end of the layout I thought another little distraction would be in order, hence I have set about an ambulance based on a Ford Model T. I did wonder if I could get away with a Polish plastic kit that is available and is an ambulance but true to my usual form I have taken the hard route. I therefore got one of the Duncan Models parcel vans which I thought could be modified. The kit as it stands should build one like this but
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Blood, Sweat and Cheers!

Having got a bit bored of fiddling about with all the little odds and ends of problems that were thrown up by the first exhibition I just couldn't resist the primal urge to build something new for any longer!   At the TTTT show the chap next to me had a whole display of 3D printed models and on going through his shop on Shapeways when I got back, found that there were quite a few things that would fill gaps in my roster. A few days later a remarkably light parcel arrived from Holland. First up
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A thousand sandbags later....

I assure you I have better things to do than actually count the number of sandbags I have made in the last couple of days but it has to be around the 1000 mark. I have got pretty quick at making them now and thankfully this is probably all I will have to do now. The sandbag emplacement is a railway control post copied from a picture in the Davies book and is complete with lots of little details like the ammo boxes built into the sides and the plank for the flag man to stand on - all off which wi
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The Westinghouse

As I already had a Dick Kerr body made up this was the easy bit, but as I fancied a Westinghouse version this was where the fun started! Although designed to the same specifications and basic plans the two versions of this loco were surprisingly different as I was about to find out, and it took many different techniques to build. Firstly, this is what I was aiming for;     The trouble is that this photo and two or three others like it are all there is to go on. There is one Westinghouse sti
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Lovely weather for duckboards

Very dull and wet today so a perfect day for building duckboards - but how. Firstly, what out of? Plastic micro strip would be great but could turn out pretty expensive as each board needs 30cm of material. Brass no go for same reason. Card cheap but too bendy so it had to be wood really. Guess it is the obvious choice for something made of wood.   Now, how? I first thought about making up a jig but the chances of getting bits glued in would be very high and if had to wait for glue to dry each
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A wagon but not as we know it!

As a bit of light relief I started PLM Castaways GS wagon kit last night. I had looked at it a few weeks ago but have now got the little Shires book 'Horse Drawn Transport of the British Army' - now there is a title I never though would be gracing my book shelves! Although the parts are nicely cast there are no instructions and bits do not just seem to fall into place as I hoped they would. To make matters worse It just does not seem to fit any one of the pictures, drawings or diagrams I have fo
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Mystery items

This post is a slight aside to my normal activities - activities that, incidentally, are continueing but at a rather boring pace and am saving up progress for an entry that might actually be interesting!   Anyway, yesterday, I was fortunate to come across a couple of boxes of bits and pieces most of which I could identify and either put to good use or find homes for but these two items have stumped me and I wonder if anyone can identify them. The first is aluminium and has a small stamp which
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Sand Bags

This project is throwing up a few things that even a much experienced (which I am not!), railway modeller might find new and unusual. OK a military modeller might not but be put out by such things as sand bags, shells and barbed wire but even then I need them in far greater quantities than a 12 inch square diorama would need. I have found a few articles on making sandbags on the net but they tend to recommend using Miliput. Now Miliput is something I have a bit of a hate - hate relationship with
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Getting out the big guns!

This is last of my 'specials' for nowand almost finished. Lurking under all that plastic section is the last of the 3D printed F Class wagons and is providing transportation for a very big gun indeed. The gun is a Duncans models kit which I got, ready built (lazy!), very reasonably from Ebay. I have not done much with it yet but have an appointment booked for a dose of weathering.     And here is the inspiration;     The book is Roy Link's wonderful WDLR Album - a real must have if you
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Troublesome Trucks

Managing very effectively to divert myself from my aim of getting the actual layout finished I have addressed the problem of rolling stock. This came about as I needed some wagons to test the Baldwin with and it turned out that I only had three that were serviceable - not enough for a layout! I managed to resurrect two quite quickly, coupling had fallen off one and bogie off the other, giving a slightly more respectable five. I did take the opportunity to modify them even further though. I have
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Another dugout

This was really hard. After doing one dugout entrance I didn't really want to do another but forced myself and here it is (with a bit of a PhotoShoped background).     Was actually quite hard as wanted to make something the same but different if that makes any sense. In reality this would have been a second entrance to the first deep dugout so couldn't be really different but wanted some variation. Still needs some work on the colour of the sandbags and the wood a bit. Will really come to l
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BGM 4 short

Much as I hate truncated text speak Baldwin Gas Mechanical is a bit of a mouthful so BGM it shall be. This is from the Neil Sayer kit which is although not particularly cheap is complete except for couplings so there are no nasty add ons such as wheel, motor and gearbox which slyly manage to make most kits at least as expensive as this one - a lot a no where nearly as well designed as this one as well! The have been a couple of very good blow by blow accounts of the build of this kit already so
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A little Deutz

Couldn't resist this little 3D printed Deutz model when I ordered the Joffre a few weeks ago and have finally got around to sorting it out. Pretty straight forward really but as with most of these things ended up taking longer than I anticipated. So here we have the basic body with a 24mm Tenshodo moto bogie fitted. 24mm wheelbase gives you an idea of how small this actually is - would be small in 4mm but in 7mm...... Still, I have managed to fit a sound chip in without too much trouble;    
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First try at resin casting.

On my to do list for quite some time has been loads for the wagons, which, with a very large number of bogie opens to sort out really shouldn't have been left until now! There are various loads to be considered, duck boards, A frames, wire, hay, ammo boxes, but I have started with shells. A bit of lateral thinking and a chat with another Dad at school who is a pretty serious shooter resulted in several bags of these;     Then some cling film in the wagon to stop them sticking and a bit of c
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D Class Ambulance Conversion

One goal that I set myself after the last exhibition was to build a few sort of self contained items of rolling stock that could just be run up and down to a a bit of interest, You have already seen the 18 pounder gun and there is an 8 in howitzer on an F that you haven't seen yet but thought I would go for the conversion of a D class to an ambulance van. So I started off with this;     A Wrightlines D class that I picked up along with a load of bogie bits off Ebay recently. First thing to
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Bus chassis finished

I certainly didn't appreciate how long this bus thing was going to take - if all goes to plan now it will be about three weeks modeling time which is a bit absurd for something that came straight out of a box. Anyway, chassis is now finished and just waiting for me to fit rear mud guards to the body and that is ready for paint. Although I may moan about how long this has taken it has been very enjoyable and quite stretching in working out how to re[lace the over scale bits. I am particularly pro
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Super Simplex - part 1

Crikey! Another post - what is going on?   Quite simple really, I have started to build my Super Simplex (see later for explanation), and have just got to the point where I need to fit the pick ups...... or blog how far I have got so far. The fact you are reading this suggests which course I took!   Anyway, the Super Simplex is my third attempt at the Nigel Lawson 20hp Simplex kit. The previous two do work but only after several modifications and four years of messing about. This is a long a
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Hudson Hold Up

Firstly a big thank you for all the fine comments on the pictures in last post - is good to know I am doing something right! But now onto less conclusive matters.....   Having had a bit of a busy spell with work progress has been a bit slow on the KB Scale Hudson but have been managing to do a little bit each day and have made it to here;     I know the boiler isn't fitting correctly but that is because I haven't cut off the spare length of motor shaft yet and may not get around to doing
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Welcome to 'Up the Line - 1918'

You know in job adverts when it says 'need someone who works best under pressure and to targets and deadlines' - well that is me. Amongst several other directionless projects I have been gradually building War Department stock with the eventual aim of building a layout. For anyone who might not know there were extensive 60cm narrow gauge systems in use by both sides in the First World War. In February I noticed a request for military layouts to display at a special event at the Apedale Light Rai
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