Jump to content

Chris Nevard's Blog

A blog by Chris Nevard in RMweb Blogs

entries
137
comments
848
views
116,033

About this blog

Welcome to my RM web BLOG, it's used like most to highlight recently modelling projects and photographs. The postings here tend to mirror my independent BLOG at http://nevardmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

Entries in this blog

Sort By

Bachmann 3F

nevard111228_bachmann3F_DSC_0671b_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. The new Bachmann 3F you may recall from before Christmas, has now received its final session of weathering after a renumbering to Templecombe's 43216. I tend to weather engines in stages, breaking for a day to two to appraise the effect under the layout's lighting and how it looks in relation to the layout and other stock. I like to get a uniform but not necessarily totally even look between engines and other items o

December 30, 2011

1

Brewhouse Quay: 5 Months On

For want of a BLOG post, rather than dwell on pretty photos and blarney, this one is about the journey so far, for Brewhouse Quay has to be one of the quickest layouts I've been able to get together. There is quite a bit more to do, but I think that layout at a push has reached the stage where I'd be happy to take it to a show. That however won't be until September at Model Rail Live in Barrow Hill Roundhouse. Any spare time over the next few weeks will be taken up tweaking Combwich for RAIL

May 3, 2011

11

Beer, Cake & Toy Trains

Operator's cake, this hospitality rapidly becoming the trademark of Wycrail, with the cakes becoming more luxurious year on year! ï»¿ï»¿ ï»¿ï»¿Wycrail is always a shining jewel in the toy chuff chuff calendar, it being a wray of virtual sunshine the weekend after the clocks change plunging us into dismal, miserable darkness for 5 months. I gather it's to do with farmers in the very north of the British Isles, though why they cannot just set their clocks an hour later than everybody else

November 6, 2011

11

Brewhouse Quay: Track Laying

Just before the Xmas holiday I started to lay the track on Brewhouse Quay. The delay in getting the snaps here being due to that increasingly shocking excercise of actually interacting with people face to face (cue the H&S Executive for another new directive no doubt) rather than keyboard, eating all the wrong foods, drinking too much beer in foreign climes and probably in due course getting a dose of lurgy due to all public places being heated to suit the staff rather than the heavilly dres

December 30, 2010

6

Lower Writhlington Colliery

nevard_110601_writhington_DSC_2419_web, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. This is my first post for over a week, that's because we needed a well earned break. However whilst away, we all know that a train buff will never really switch off, especially when close to such a former rich industrial area like the hilly landscape a few miles south of Bath. For some time, I've been gathering information and constructing buildings for my Mendip Colliery project, so a spare hour of so in the Radstock

June 4, 2011

6

Eclipse Peat (Catcott)

nevard_120614_catcott_DSC_5845, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. I haven't typed a 'Billy ######' page for ages, so here goes a snippett of parallel universe 'faction'....... Click on the photo above if you think it's pretty and want to see a bigger one! In 1966 Eclipse Peat (Catcott) upgraded its loading facility with the ability to handle the loose product as well as bagged. In August 1969, diesel hydraulic No. D6313 is captured propelling wagons under the loading hopper. On loading

June 14, 2012

6

Mendip Colliery

nevard_100705_pithead_IMG_7394_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia. If you buy Model Rail Magazine, you might have read my little piece about Mendip Colliery, my 4 x 2 foot coal mining micro layout project. Due to space restrictions the finished shot of the pit head building is couldn't be shown too large, so to prop the feature up here is a BIGGER VERSION of the photo of the finished building. They say that conventional communication using pen and paper is dead; not quite the

November 19, 2010

3

Combwich, 30 years ago!

8104_stogursey_003_01, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Combwich is a lot older than most people think, the baseboards and track dating back to 1980. It was originally called Churchstanton, then Stogursey and finally the present Combwich when I rebuilt it in 2001-present. The layout is still very active, in fact it's better now than it's ever been: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/sets/72157630183211760/with/7397034112/ Most of the stock seen here is still in regular use t

June 18, 2012

8

The Old Days!

8404_smrs_expo_019, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Earlier today I decided to upload a few 35mm negative scans of toy chuffers taken between 1981 and 1984. Many of them were taken down the long gone Southampton Model Railway Society clubrooms at Sholing Railway Station which housed Newhampton, a huge OO gauge out and back and duck under Southampton Terminus inspired layout. I remember that the standard of modelling at the time was generally a cut above the norm, with the miniature portrayal

April 14, 2012

10

Brewery Project Approved by the Cat!

As a brief diversion from my Mendip Colliery project, and because I have a spare freshly made 4ft x 2ft baseboard kicking about as well as a keen magazine editor hungry for stuff like this, I've decided to do a quickie in the form of a brewery based around the excellent Bachmann Scenecraft Oak Hill Brewery buildings. Interestingly enough, the Oakhill Brewery did really exist, and in the early part of the 20th century was served by a 2ft 6 inch gauge railway from the standard gauge S

December 6, 2010

14

Barking Bill

Watched by Tiddles the huge station cat bruiser, SDJR 7F No. 53809 arrives at Combwich with the afternoon goods from Evercreech Junction during the August of 1961. The obligatory WIDESCREEN wallpaper version is here! This is of course the rather super new Bachmann SDJR 7F 2-8-0 which has appeared a few time over the last few week on this blog. The big difference now is that I have at last finished the weathering process. I never weather in one go, but tend to do it in stages over a

January 23, 2011

3

Railex 2012 - and what a show it was!

120527_railex12_DSC_5164, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. The annual Railex in Aylesbury on the weekend of 26th and 27th of May cued the beginning of summer like it so often does. Iâ€™m sat here in the garden with laptop taking advantage of the weather, our rather limp-wristed wi-fi just about giving me a signal strong enough to allow me to reflect on a fabulous weekend away from the more usual camera, sofa or modelling bench. Railex as always is in a very well lit supersized tin shed bui

May 28, 2012

4

My First White Metal Kit

Old tosh: Templecombe's familiar ex-LSWR G6 No. 30274 is captured here under stormy looking skies at Combwich on one of its very rare outings from shunting in Templecombe Upper Good Yard. Click on the photos to enlarge. Fact: Here's my very first white metal kit in the form of a Wills LSWR G6. I recall at the time buying a Wrenn SECR R1 0-6-0 for the chassis. In 1979 when I built this kit, the missing centre flange on the heavy duty chassis was reasonably acceptable, with many rea

March 1, 2011

3

Combwich 1960

Here we are back at Combwich looking south into the midday sun, it looking like a windy day judging by those clouds. A little flare from the sun has been captured unfortunately across the smokebox door of 44417, the result of not using a lens hood. The loco has just arrived with the morning goods from Evercreech Junction, but because it's a couple of hours until the next passenger train and the shunter is having lunch, the engine will probably be taken along to the shed for a pit stop before

June 16, 2012

4

Bachmann's Super S&DJR 7F 2-8-0

Bigger view? Click on the photos above and below for a bigger version! B) Bachmann's much anticipated SDJR 7F 2-8-0 has finally arrived at Nevard Towers from Hattons in Liverpool, and what a beauty she is too. I'll refrain from commenting in detail too much, because there are many merry souls who get out even less than me who'll no doubt keep the forums bulging over the next couple of months with stuff about the loco that you cannot see. To me Bachmann have captured the look of this ic

December 23, 2010

10

Rural Backwater and a People's 'Grasmaster'

111109_polbrock_IMG_1809_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Hopefully a little scene a tad like that from the excellent Railway Bylines? Here we picture an EWS class 08 trundling through Polbrock with coal for the nearby china clay works. Passenger trains haven't stopped here since 1967, and despite lack of use the ex-GWR corrugated iron 'Pagoda' looks in fine form considering its age. It would also appear to be in Southern Region colours, a result of frequent regional boundary changes.

November 9, 2011

12

Fresh in from Kernow

nevard_120125_class22_IMG_2312, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Yesterday morning I opened the door to the porch to find this rather well packed parcel from Kernow Model Rail Centre sitting there in the form of the much awaited Dapol Class 22 - a very useful item, especially for those that model railways half a century ago anywhere west of Heathrow. I have yet to look at it properly, but was able to find a few moments to grab this snap of the compact little beast. Obviously the detail pac

January 25, 2012

5

Midnight Oil/Brewhouse Quay Plan

I suffered from a little insomnia last night, so between midnight around and 2 am I worked on my rough brewery trackplan pencil sketch to produce the below using a little Photoshop to tidy up some of the rougher bits. I've tried to avoid that computer look - preferring that 'back of an envelope/organic' style as seen in magazines like the excellent French model railway magazine Voie Libre and the wonderful illustrations of Paul Lunn. I'm in a lucky position to have been asked to come u

December 15, 2010

13

Bachmann SDJR 7F Test Runs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alp5njFTJZs The new Bachmann S&DJR 7F 2-8-0 performing some test runs on Catcott Burtle. Any jerkyness seen will be the YouTube processing and compression. In real life I'm very impressed by the smooth running qualities - sadly not seen here on YouTube. For my original review and some nice stills, follow this LINK.

January 4, 2011

14

The Return of the Titfield Thunderbolt

nevard_111011_CatcottB_IMG_1462_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. It's not generally known, but following on the success of the Ealing Comedy, 'The Titfield Thunderbolt', the iconic Ealing Studios shot a sequel called 'The Return of the Titfield Thunderbolt' in the summer of 1956. The film was released the following summer, but was a complete flop due to the total Americanization of the cast, so sadly the movie has been lost in the mists of time but does occasionally make a secret appea

October 11, 2011

6

Brewhouse Quay: Wiring fun

K_point_wiring_01, originally uploaded by nevardmedia. Brewhouse Quay update.....The materials have arrived, so I'm looking at the most complex bit of track well in advance to plan the wiring and where isolating breaks will need to be cut into the rails and how power will be fed to various sections. Slitting the sections will probably be easier after laying due to the fine nature of code 55. Point operation will be via manual miniature yard levers as in Nigel Burkin's feature in th

December 18, 2010

7

Having a little doodle

cornish interlude 01_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. I like doodling and thinking of ideas for small layouts, small layouts appealing to me because they can cater for all the different type of railways I like. I don't think I could ever commit to just one big project, I'd probably get bored halfway through. Here we have a back of an envelope plan for a 3x1 foot (excluding fiddle yards) micro depicting a fictitious halt and crossing on the Wenford Bridge branch line. The forthcomin

September 26, 2011

13

Further Street Light Nerdism

nevard_110819_BQ_IMG_0868_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr I'm really getting into building streetlights; with this 'Lucy Large Swan Neck Bracket taking about an hour from start to finish and was scratch-built from bits of wire, brass tube and plastic rod as with my Mk1 version here http://nevardmedia.b...reet-light.html It depicts one of the later electric designs with a less ornate swan neck from the 1950's with a rotary timer from a design dating back to the 1920's. To get reall

August 19, 2011

5

Grain Wagon

nevard_110920_grain_IMG_1294_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Currently on the workbench; a Dapol grain wagon. Breweries and maltsters need barley to turn into malt, so at least a couple of grain wagons will not look out of place on Brewhouse Quay and as part of a good train for my other layouts. At Model Rail Live last weekend, the fine folk at Kernow Model Rail Centre who had a stand at the show with all sorts of goodies, also had a bargain bucket to suit cheapskates like me who

September 23, 2011

2

Quickie Brewery Progress

Today a bit of work turning flat earth into a proper baseboard ideal for show presentation. Bendy MDF is great stuff from B&Q and ideal for curvy backscenes.There is still some fascia work and panelling to add of course. The trackplan has come together, it being fed from behind and between the two key brewery buildings. Off stage there will be a sector plate which will feed 3 hidden staging siding behind the backscene. Neither of the 2 exit points will be visible from the norma

December 9, 2010

10

×

×

Create New...