With 'Engine Wood' planned to be attending 'Hornby Magazine Live' at Hartlepool in early July, I thought I'd open some of the boxes of new R-T-R stuff and introduce a bit more variety in terms of stock used.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a pair of Hawksworth coaches, three full brakes (one each of Hawksworth, Gresley & Mark 1 BG), a Hornby GW horsebox, a Hornby 'Van C' and finally a single 16t mineral wagon (needed one more to make up a second rake of 16 tonners). I
I've managed to get one or two useful little model railway-related jobs sorted today.
First of all, I received a new hand-held controller from Stapleton Electronics, in Canada, in the post this morning. It works off 12 - 18v AC and has very good slow-speed control, with optional 'intertia' settings:
I've tried it out on various locos on Callow Lane and I'm very happy with it.
The reason I ordered the Stapleton controller, though, was due to my trusty AMR hand-held unit developing a
Having used Johnsons 'Klear' (original formula) for fixing virtually all of the ballast on Callow Lane, I've been having mild doubts about it's suitability in the long term to hold everything in place.
Whenever I've done any work in the vicinity of any ballast, I've often found bits of ballast coming loose, and the overall impression I've got is that the body of ballast is slightly brittle and fragile.
I'm keen that I don't get ballast coming loose for a pastime, when the layout starts t
It's well known my many on here that I have a habit of making up fictitious railway histories and palming them off on an unsuspecting public as if it were 'fact'.
My OO layout 'Bleakhouse Road' is one such case in point. It's modelled on a real area, albeit one that never had a railway in that particular location, and the name is completely made up.
Imagine our surprise, then, when we took the layout to the recent Blackburn show. We were sitting in the Wetherspoons in Burnley having our
Since finishing the signal box, I've been working on the railway goods shed for Callow Lane. Several years ago, I bought a Townstreet plaster-cast kit, which I felt has a sufficiently 'Midland' appearance to it. I'm aware it's not in the styles of the M.R. goods sheds at Bitton or Yate, for example, but I like it, it cost a lot of money at the time, and so I'm going to use it on my train set.
The gist of these kits is that you fettle the individual cast components to get a good fit, then glu
Cheltenham (St Margarets Hall, Hatherley) - 24/25 October 2009
This was a really delightful little show and very friendly too. I have posted some photos of the show in the main exhibitions thread here: My link
This coming Saturday (6th November 2010) sees the High Wycombe model railway exhibition at John Hampden School, High Wycombe. 'Bleakhouse Road' will be there, and should be located right next to Chris Nevard's lovely 'Combwich'.
Chris and I have been discussing how we may effect some kind of 'through running' between the two layouts. Due to the time constraints and logistics, however, a permanent link during the show was ruled out quite early on. The solution, hopefully is a 'Transfer Casset
Further to my previous blog entry, I've now completed the construction of an A5 'right-hand' crossover in OO-SF for the new goods only shunting layout that I'm planning.
I was going to build another two A5 points for the entry to the yard, but most fortuitously found a tandem turnout that my good friend John (Re6/6) had scratchbuilt for me a few years ago.
John's tandem turnout had never originally been intended for this new goods-only shunting layout, of course. A few years ago, I had b
Just a quick entry, this, because I have to get back to the hair shirt....
I managed to dismantle the Bachmann chassis for 82044 and found, after some cleaning and careful re-assembly of the side rods only, that the problem was in the valve gear. The basic 0-6-0 chassis ran reasonably well with wires directly soldered to the motor and the valve gear and cylinders removed. I found one of the connecting rods quite badly bent and twisted. They are of very hard metal, so it could not have been c
I've not had very much modelling time lately, for various reasons, and what time I have had, has been devoted to weathering the Bachmann chassis for 82044.
Tonight, I thought I would give it a good running-in on my circle of Lima track, which I keep specially for the purpose.
Prior to the start of running in, the chassis did exhibit signs of jerkiness, especially in one direction, but, ever the optimist, I hoped that this would improve with some running. However, after 90 minutes of cont
My thanks to Brian (Taz) for bringing his new City of Truro for me to have a look at the other day. I really do like this one, and my resistence to getting one is wearing extremely thin.
I thought she would look good posing on Callow Lane, seeings as this is the only layout that is normally kept in a 'put up' state at home at the moment (for construction).
But no, I didn't do a quick P4 conversion job - we simply balanced the loco on the P4 track, and mighty fine she looks too!
I've no objection to rolling roads, and I do use one myself, but I do like to give locos a good running in on track as well. A few years ago, I made up a circle of P4 sectional track, using identical curved lengths of flexitrack (SMP, in this case), with the curve held in place by some copper clad sleepers soldered in place. Fishplates were also soldered on, and the result is a 7' 6" diameter circle of track, that can be dismantled into 16 seperate curved sections for storage.
It takes a whi
Having received my most attractive-looking 14XX from Hattons last week, I have finally got round to running it in, as per the instructions provided with the loco.
I have added lubrication to the two locations under the chassis keeper plate, and also to the coupling rod bearings, as per the instructions.
I did test it briefly yesterday, but it wasn't a particularly good slow speed runner 'straight from the box'.
I have cut out a circle of Daler board this morning, to lay my circle of
I am currently running another RTR loco in, this time a Class 24 in P4, which is destined for use on 'Callow Lane'.
Although I do use a rolling road, I prefer, where possible, to undertake running in on actual track.
The P4 circuit is 7' 6" in diameter and is effectively a circle of 'P4 set track', made up from sections of C&L flexi track, curved and held in the correct radius by copper clad sleepers.
I wish I had a permanent space for this, but the dining
I decided to re-number my Hattons/DJM 14XX today.
Much has been said about the 'sunken' number plates adopted by DJ Models for GW prototypes (14XX, 1363) and I have to say that I have yet to meet anyone who likes them.
Some folk have decided that they're happy to live with the 'sunken' plates, which is fine.
Those who need to re-number their model, however, have a choice - either remove the existing 'sunken' plates or simply stick new ones over the top of them.
It's been said by
Recent work includes the completion of four Cambrian 'Herring' ballast hoppers in P4, which will be used on 'Callow Lane' (and in due course, my planned Forest of Dean cameo layout) and also on Re6/6's 'Parkend Marsh Sidings' layout:
Here are the four Herring so far completed. All are unsprung and uncompensated, having established (prior to recent lockdowns) that this format runs OK on Re6/6's Marsh Sidings layout.
As 'Callow Lane' isn't se
John F (Re6/6) came over today and we spent a very convivial afternoon helping each other out. I'm preparing 'Bleakhouse Road' for it's first show in 20 months at Coventry, and John is also there demonstrating scenery, including his superb trees.
John is also taking his lovely Wye Valley diorama 'Netherhope Halt', and wanted some weathered ballast wagons (ex-Tintern Quarry) to pose on it.
I had been meaning to improve one of the trees on BHR for some time. I had scratchbuilt the armature
Following on from the testing of the left-hand point that I put up on my blog a few weeks ago, I have in the meantime added cosmetic plastic chairs.
What I should really have done, is put spacers between the copper clad sleepers and the underside of the rail, which I have done before, but I didn't do it in this particular case. It's somewhat easier, I find, when building the point, if the rails can be soldered direct to the sleepers, but you do pay the price later, when you come to add cosme
For a variety of reasons I've done no modelling for over two years, but yesterday I managed to arrange things so that I could at least test a scratchbuilt OO point, that I'd built prior to that. The aim is to incorporate this and other copper clad OO points that I have available in a small new OO goods yard layout in due course.
It's not currently possible to put any of my existing layouts up at home for any length of time, so it would be good to have something a bit smaller, that I can run
CTMK is a budding writer and blogger, and has composed this piece in connection with a weekly blogging competition, the theme of which was 'Pasttimes, passions, hobbies and entertainment'.
I'm not much of a poet myself, but I thought this one of hers was rather good (with a doffing of the cap to WH Auden... )
I've just come back from the Three Spires show in Truro (Falmouth MRC), and we all had much fun operating 'Engine Wood'.
This was a very nice show, and friendly hosts, and there were some other nice layouts present as well. It was particularly good to have the chance to have a good look at the lovely 'Treneglos' and meet 2Manyspams and his colleagues!
I found myself admiring the operational discipline of the 'Treneglos' team, in terms of the fact that you only ever saw locos on their lay
I'm having one of my 'OO interludes', so work on the layout is temporarily on hold. The main job at the moment is to get the new chassis for 82044 (in OO) finished. I started this a couple of years ago, and have modified a Comet 76XXX chassis kit to fit the 2-6-2 tank. The reason for this is due to the original Bachmann chassis refusing all attempts to get it to run smoothly.
The process of building the new chassis has not been without it's frustrations, requiring a complete strip down once
One of the perils of adding cosmetic fishplates is that if you are using the rather nice P4 Track Co plastic ones, you need to cut them in half (unless you are putting them on an actual rail joint).
When laying the track on Callow Lane, I prefered to lay the track more as lengths of (made-up) flexi track, using their components, rather than actually try to lay individual 45' or 60' panels.
This means that I now have to cut small grooves in the tops of the rail heads at the appropriate in
I've not had a lot of time for much modelling since late summer, but have finally got round to doing a few conversions etc. to P4. I've also built a couple of Ratio clay opens (non-hood fitted), as a kind of experiment to look at what kind of standards we want for the new DRAG layout project, although these will certainly see use on 'Callow Lane'.
Here are a few photos.
First up is D7042, which I bought second-hand a few years ago, and finally got round to converting a couple of weeks ag
One of the reasons for building 'Bethesda Sidings', was to be able to run some of my existing OO stock, without having to put 'Bleakhouse Road' up, the latter being too big to leave set up at home for any length of time.
I like to operate a green diesel sequence on my layouts, so I decided to test my Hymek and Class 33 on 'Bethesda Sidings' recently. To my irritation, I found that the Heljan wheelsets didn't like the OO-SF points on the layout.
Both locos are original iss
