I will model in N gauge for life - it the ideal scale for my principle interest, that is modelling realistic urban scenes, but recently I've been thinking more about having a go in OO.
What is tempting me to play with the big trains? Well the catalyst is the Bachmann VEP, and the forthcoming CEP from Honrby. The detail on the Bachmann model is so impressive, and living in a third rail area, its something I've long been tempted to model. This is a new addition to my modelling interests - the
After some feedback from a couple of people, I've made a few tweaks to the 350 - most notably thining down the roof-top air con pods, and adding a shadow effect to the bottom of the coach side to represent the slight curve that should be there. This image is a bit deceptive as it is sat on very short bogies (until the 'correct' ones arrive), giving the appearance of the whole body being too deep, but once on the final set of wheels it looks okay to me.
Ive also been making my list of thing
Well there we go - its the end of my free time this week, so this is just about done. The ground scatter needs hoovering off tomorrow morning, and there's still one building to clad in card, but apart from that, this is complete. 4 days and almost entirely left-over modelling material, the track is unpainted, the ballast rough, details light, it follows very little thought or planning, but it was fun!
I'll post some pics on Sunday with some stock movements, but this has been really enjoyable
Getting grumpy lately with not much modellig to do has helped make my mind up to finaly commit to building a new layout - same size as Ring Road, and in as many ways alike as different.
Planning will be ongoing for the next few months, and once finalised, I will be able, as with Ring Road, to begin building construction well before the baseboards are started, which won't be until next spring at the earliest.
So what are the plans?
A couple of screen grabs (copyright belonging to Goog
As I'm having trouble uploading images at the mo, here's a quick quiz to see if anyone can guess what I am currently having a go at scratchbuilding from the 'ingredients' alone:
3x Farish Mk1 coach chassis
8x Farish class 158 bogies
2x Farish 158 air dams
2x Farish dummy class 150 couplings
1x Farish pantograph
1x pack BHE third rail shoes
1x Tomix '20m' motor chassis
1mm styrene sheet
Pictures to follow when I can upload them!
David
I set up the layout this evening in order to give the stock a run-in before the photo shoot on Thursday, and guess what - my Dapol stock is playing up, again!
Over the past 2 months I have spent over ??250 on Dapol stock - the 156, 153 and 67. The 153 arrived on Saturday and seems happy - for now. The 156 is less than 1 month old and now judders, jolts, and sparks when it (occasionally) moves. My 67 now does the same thing - hardly 'super-creep', more like 'super-creepy'!
This infuriate
My once in a lifetime treat arrived today, 92002 H G Wells. I cannot sufficiently describe how good this model is, it really is by far the most astonishing loco. Details include drivers and fully painted control desks!
These pictures speak for themselves - and remember, this is N gauge!
David
With the Delner couplers now added, this is complete! The base is lazer cut, a chance to experiment with some of the advanced CAD/CAM machines at the Arts Uni. There are two slots cut for the wheel sets to sit in (an inverse rail kind of thing), while the text was engraved.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with how the 350 has come out in the end, its pretty rough in places, and the bodyshells have slight mis-forms in places, but with the strong livery, this definately 'looks' like a Desiro, and
Not finished yet (some alignment work to do, and some filling on the corridor connection), and the decals are only temporary ones, but this gives an idea of how version 3 of the Desiro is coming along!
David
With the weekend at hand and nothing much to do, I decided to rip up my aborted Weymouth 'plank' layout, simplified the track plan and came up with a 5 feet long micro layout.
There is still a lot of the Weymouth idea in this, but its a simple island platform station with a hidden run off, just enough to shunt some DMUs about. A couple of sidings in the front will add to the fun, and there's plenty of room for a decent station car park and road scene.
All the building shapes are just moc
I've worked up a quick concept sketch for the proposed new layout (see entry below) to get a feel of the similarities/differences to Ring Road. Very heavily influenced by Coventry, my aim with this layout would be to keep the overall style and architectural/urban elements of Ring Road, but arrange them in a different way, with the layout in a slight cutting, roads going over the top, and the station adding operational interest.
Still a year or so off even starting this dedicated exhibition l
Still more details to add to Ring Road, but given its already had more exhibition invites than it would probably stand up to, I'm in the very early planning stages of a dedicated exhibition layout. Don't get too excited at this point, this is a long way off fruition (2011 I am aiming for), but here's a sneak peek of what will eventually become the 'public companion' to Ring Road (which will do 3 or 4 shows at the most then remain my 'home' layout only)...
With N Brass' range of OHLE droppers still unavailable, I've decided to make my own so that I can (finally) complete the layout. I've only done two of the seven gantries so far, but already its made a vast difference to the model - it now definately feels like part of the WCML! They've not been painted yet, waiting until they're all on then touching them up in one go.
David
I was tempted to name this layout "Left Over Street" given that almost all of it is made up of left overs from both Ring Road and Westbrook (the eagle eyed will spot more than a few items from Westbrook on this!), but settled on Jubilee Street.
Now the model is never going to win any awards, but its actually really fun just to plonk things on without any planning! An afternoon's work has brought the layout to this stage - the platform is done, as is much of the backscene - just the big space
Another item on the to do list is insure all my stock for travel to exhibitons, so I've been doing a bit of cataloguing today (and terrified myself with the total cost of my fleet!), and looking at my multiple units, I thought how great it was to have so many different types available in N. When I first started out, there was the Farish 101 and that was it. What a change over time though!
The workhorses of the railway network, MUs were always neglected in model form while there were the mor
A few shots of some newer stock having a run in, including the Dapol 58
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O3FRokJf2A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI9G6QsLF-g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L9bBxf7FB8
David
Well my replacement Dapol 156 arrived over Christmas, so I have been running it in today, and so far so good - but then the last one started okay and went nuts shortly after! The 67 however, I am giving up on - I am no mechanic, and whatever is wrong with it is probably easily fixable if you know how, but as I don't its incredibly frustrating. I've taken the body off and guessing the pick ups aren't working right, have bend the strips downwards so they make better contact, and its improved sligh
A nice afternoon running trains today, so here are some images and videos!
The Javelin (or is it now Blue Rapier as Hornby are calling it?) has finally been reliveried into the correct service livery for Southeastern. You can also see the finished OHLE in this image
Here's a vid of it too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqAE6M5kSR4
Some Christmas presents - the start of a train of new hoppers!
Dapol 153 with lightbar installed#
My second 156 having a run in
David
I've come up with 2 versions of a small 6ft by 1ft shunting plank (with a 3ft run off board), just so I'll have somewhere to run what will be a very small range of OO stock. At the moment, from what is available or has been announced, the stock line up will eventually become thus:
Class 37 Railfreight - Sound
Class 08 EWS - Sound
MPV
Class 31 Sound
I may possibly add something like a 121 bubble car or a 108 on NSE livery.
Rolling stock will be a couple Autoballasters, some Seacows
Still awaiting the OHLE droppers to finish the layout, but there's been an explosion of new rolling stock this month, so here are some photo updates.
Here's the lovely Farish 150. I painted the snowploughs as this was rather an odd omission not to have them pre-painted. I think this wins points over the Dapol 156 for me just down to the beautiful underframe detailing.
Farish DB class 66 hauling a rake of NGS cartics. Eventually this will become a full 8 car set, although I am going to
Ring Road had a very extensive run last night, as it was set up for filming for the next volume of MSIM's Modern Image Layouts DVD series.
It was a great fun evening, which has hopefully produced some good shots for the DVD, including some interesting angles that will certainly show the layout in new ways.
What I got out of it most though (apart from a good chat with Nigel!), was a real sense of what being on show at an exhibition is like. When running a continuous and varying stream of
I've been getting restless lately (in a modelling sense that is), as having sworn not to start a new layout until next year (after Ring Road has done a couple of exhibitions), I've had nothing new to get stuck into.
Fanciful ideas pop up, such as making a small single board layout just to run the locos round (seemed too much effort for small return due to limitations of layout size), deciding what to do with my stalled entry into OO DDC Sound, and ideas for the next large N gauge layout...bu
