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Chris Nevard's Blog

A blog by Chris Nevard in RMweb Blogs

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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/

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Combwich at RAILEX!

nevard_101106_wycrail_IMG_8338_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia. Combwich will be having a rare outing at RAILEX this weekend (28 & 29 May 2011). Tim Maddocks' excellent SDJR Enginewood will be right next door, and the intention is to run occasional trains between the two layouts. To add to the excitement of this rare operational marriage of layouts, it will also be a chance to see Model Rail's specially commission Sentinel in action - at least 2 months before the produc

May 27, 2011

1

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

Combwich - on the road again, just one more time (for now)

nevard_101106_wycrail_IMG_8340_web, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Wycrail, 6 November 2010. Note the cast of 'Last of the Summer Wine' in th foreground. Combwich hits the road again on Saturday 21 January at the Astolat Model Railway Circle annual show in Guildford. Combwich is 30 years old now, and whilst the layout has been contantly updated to give the impression of being far more youthful than it appears, the wiring dates right back to the early 1980's and is very overdue for a

January 17, 2012

6

Cats, dustbin liners, 1959 and all that.....

nevard_120612_catcott_DSC_5788, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Templecombe's 43216 is captured pottering about the sidings at Catcott Burtle on a bright but blustery day in magnificent summer of 1959. Click on the photo to get a bigger view. '59 was very similar to the summer of 2006, with hot temperatures and wall to wall sunshine running well into the autumn. This is probably one of the reasons why there are so many colour photographs from that year, colour films from that era being g

June 13, 2012

4

Catcott Burtle - Now with Working Gates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSb3kSeeFdc In preparation for the weekend show in Guildford at the Astolat Model Railway Circle Exhibition, I've finally managed to bodge up some working crossing gates and a working signal. I won't go into too much detail for the mechanical brigade will probably shudder at my Heath Robinson approach using brass rod and code 75 bullhead rail; you'll just have to imagine - but if you come along to the show at the weekend I'll let you look under my drape an

January 13, 2011

17

Car Train

120503_4-track_DSC_4363, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. As an alternative to a long wait for the Aust Car Ferry or a long drive via Gloucester, the 4.40pm Severn Tunnel Junction to Pilning car train is captured speeding up the 1/100 grade towards its destination on a dull summer day in 1958. The opening of the Severn Bridge saw the end of this service aimed at the more affluent car owner. The new bridge also saw the end to the quirky Aust Car Ferry, however those that wish a trip down me

May 3, 2012

3

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

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

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

Brewery Project: Back of an Envelope Sketch

Just now I grabbed a couple of snaps to illustrate the Brewery Project's likely track plan all in an area of 4ft x 2ft 3inches, kicking off with an early rough sketch which will be used as a bases for a proper layout plan. Note the sector plate to allow access to hidden sidings behind the backscene. The headshunt seen on the above sketch will allow a small loco with just 2 SWB wagons - a shunting puzzle should be fun! The track plan has started to be marked out roughly fu

December 13, 2010

9

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

Brew-up at BQ!

nevard_110821_BQ_IMG_0878, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. The Bull: It's brew up time at Brewhouse Quay for Sentinel 'Mendip', ex-L&YR 'Pug' 51202, Planet 4WD 'Fleur' and 'Radstock' an Austerity tank recently purchased from the National Coal Board. The Ford Popular wasn't parked that well from a photographic point of view, but now 55 years on it adds to the scene. The Model: The Sentinel is a Model Rail/Dapol Sentinel which has had a change of identity, having been detailed up a

August 20, 2011

2

Books

110928_cornish_int_IMG_1342_02_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Cornish Interlude (working title) update. Railways enthusiasts generally love books, and I am no exception, needing little excuse to buy another for the collection. They are never idle purchases, they get looked at over and over again to inspire my model making. I think this is why I have far too many ideas, the purchase of a new book inevitably resulting in the back of an envelope sketch for some kind of mini or not

September 29, 2011

7

Bespoke Nameplates

nevard_110408_narrowplanet_DSC_1917_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia. Earlier today a bespoke 'RADSTOCK' Narrow Planet nameplate arrived for this Hornby J94 Austerity seen here posed on Brewhouse Quay. This loco has yet to be detailed up, so the plate is only tacked temporarily in place for this snap. Find out more from here:www.narrowplanet.co.uk/ Thank you to the kind souls here on RM web who alerted me to this fabulous service

April 8, 2011

3

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

Bedazzled buffers!

nevard_110921_leamington_DSC_3796_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Posted in my external BLOG, hence slightly generic non-rail-nutter angle. The real world is full of things that don't quite conform to preconception, with us model makers often being the worst offenders (I'm really bad at this and have to kick myself from time to time), for this reason itâ€™s so important to look at the real world. Luckily railways have always been well explored by camera lenses, so often research i

May 10, 2012

6

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

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

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

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

Austerity can be colourful!

nevard_110225_harry_IMG_9284_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia. Yesterday this colourful happy chappy called Harry arrived second hand from Paul Steedman of RHB Rhatia fame (see his layout the latest Model Rail International just out - get it from Smiths) . As you can see, the loco is in very nice condition too in its rather smart red, which is anything but 'austerity'. This Hornby model is a little dated so it could do with a little work to bring it nearer to today's expect

February 26, 2011

4

Austerity

A freshly detailed and repainted Hornby J94 Austerity shunts on Brewhouse Quay - click to enlarge to 1280 pixels across. Work so far has been as follows, a nice way to soak up the sunny garden at the same time and you don't have to worry about vacuuming up the bits! Remove the silly clumsy moulded handrail loop midway along the base of the boiler. Fill small cutaway below the above. Replace the moulded smokebox door handles with brass. Remove moulded lamp-irons and replace with bra

April 29, 2011

2

Art Deco Electric Street Light

nevard_110817_BQ_IMG_0835_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. A spare hour yesterday afternoon produced this scratch-built art deco era electric street light based on ones seen in Weybridge Surrey. The underside of reflector on the real lamp would have a mosaic of mirror glass like on a glitter ball - obviously too small to model. Looking at old photographs in the Weybridge and Walton on Thames, area they appear all over the place in 1955 Francis Frith photographs, and I remember seeing

August 18, 2011

4

Another old print from the archive

nevard_110708_BrehouseQ_1p_DSC_2784_BW, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Johnson 1P 0-4-4 No. 58086 eases a rake of vans between the hop store and the main brewhouse on Brewhouse Quay, summer 1957. It's thought that this photo was taken off the Bristol road bridge over the Avon - hence the elevated view. The eagle eyed will notice the privately owned Sentinel parked next to the wagon turntable that leads to the bottling plant. Here's a bigger scan of the above http://www.flickr.co

July 8, 2011

2

Another dose of the pedants

nevard_110101_catcott_IMG_1728_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. It's Wycrail this weekend, so Catcott Burtle has been set up for the last week or two sufficiently high off the ground to hopefully avoid the various scenic details being chomped on again by the cat who has a taste for white metal, brass and plastic card. The happy snappy above is of Catcott, the ficticious (maybe more 'faction') scenario depicting a mixed train off the Bridgwater Branch which regularly featured suc

November 2, 2011

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