The men stood in silence and stared at the broken crate. It had fallen on its side and the contents had spilled out. There was no mistaking it: There in the middle....
.... was a human skull.
Station Master A. Woodcourt was the first to speak: "Well it may be a murder, but it's hardly a recent one!"
At this point the director of the travelling theater company launched into
"Francis, what on earth is that?"
"I don't know, dear"
"It says 'Monster' on the side. How terribly silly. Why on earth would they call a railway carriage something like that?"
"I don't know, dear."
"Perhaps it's for third class passengers? I don't suppose the working classes need much light."
"I don't know, dear."
"Francis, I do wish you were more knowledgeable."
"I know, dear."
As the Longbottoms fell silent, the Monster rolled past them in all it
All those close-ups of Code 100 track in my past couple of entries made me want to push ahead with the C+L track for "The depot". So here's a little interlude to the "All in a day's work" story, showing what I've been up to with the track inside the depot.
Timbertracks panels stuck down, sleepers shortened to appropriate length, and webbing removed (see the earlier dicussion in this entry). Next time I'll just lay some individual timbers!
"Surely you do not intend to transport my prize-winning champion in that ?!". Mr Bull looked incredulously at Woodcourt, the Station Master of Farthing.
Woodcourt was acutely aware that the situation required all his diplomatic skills. "I'm afraid this is our only option" he replied "and we do convey horses in cattle vans quite frequently. The sheeting will keep her from panicking." He decided not to mention that the only horses ever carried in cattle vans
Farthing, June 27, 1914. Europe is on the brink of war, but noone knows. The staff go about their morning routines, and No. 835 sleepily shunts a horsebox.
Station Master A. Woodcourt examines the scene. He likes the order and calm of the bay area. He is feeling his age and hopes it will be a quiet day.
But it is not to be. As he propels the horsebox into the sidings, driver T.F. Oberon notices a problem. Throughout hi
It was the winter of 1997 and I was in London for the Watford show. Or to be honest: My life was a bit of a mess, and I was trying to escape from some difficult decisions that had to be made.
I had arrived a day early and was staying in a cheap and gloomy hotel not far from Paddington. The idea was to spend the day touring the model shops around London, but things were not going well: The weather was cold and windy, the shops were uninspiring and I couldn’t escape my o
Been doing some further experiments with the Timbertrack panels from C+L. This is mundane stuff for experienced track builders (especially as there is no pointwork involved), but for me it's all new and part of an exercise to see if this whole track-building lark is something I want to get seriously into. 'The depot' is a good test-bed for this, because most of the track won't really be seen anyway J Above: The C+L GWR panels are essentially intended for EM/P4. In the comments to an earlier post
I've been exploring some of the smaller and lesser known 4mm whitemetal figure ranges recently. Here's a handful of photos showing a selection of some of them. These are cruel close-ups, but if we're concerned about the details of our stock, shouldn't we be equally concerned about whether the figures look right?
Above: This group of horse shunters are from the Geoff Stevens range, which features sets of railway staff that can be used together in little cameos. As evident
A few more examples here of prototype-inspired short trains for Farthing. These are all a bit unorthodox, as opposed to the more standard formations shown in an earlier entry.
PBV - Composite - All Third.
Above: The above formation, for instance, illustrates that not all short trains were pulled by tank locos! This train was inspired by a photo on the Warwickshire Railways website, which shows a 2-4-0 3226 class pulling a 4-wheel PBV to dia V5 (or V11?), a 6
My coaches are brush-painted, and I have sometimes been asked how I paint the panels. This video shows it. Be warned though that this is one of those bodged (hopefully not botched!) techniques I seem to often end up using - there are definitely more "correct" ways of doing it!
Edit: A bit more info as a supplement to the video:
In my experience, there are four key factors that effect results of this technique:
(1) Using the right paint.
I've been looking at options for modelling the slate roof on the goods depot at Farthing. For what it's worth, here's a quick overview of the options considered. Above is one way of doing it: Lengths of thin card strips scribed vertically, and overlaid. I think this can give good results - in 4mm at least.
But thin card also has its drawbacks! I recently noticed that the roof on the parcels office at Farthing has buckled. Either the glue has simply let go,
Brake Third, Third, Composite, Brake.
Above: Small layouts require short trains. Recently I've been looking at prototype examples of short GWR formations in pre-grouping days, and options for employing them on Farthing. Here are some of the more obvious/common ones to start off with. Above are the classic Ratio 4-wheelers, with an RTR-bashed PBV at the end. The Ratio kits constitute a T47 Bke Third, an S9 All Third, and a U4 Composite respectively. I am not sure why these particular
Been working on this little van - an Outside Framed 8 Ton Van from the David Geen whitemetal range. Still need to add rainstrips, I completely forgot about them! According to the instructions, these lovely O/F wagons were introduced in 1879 - although the Atkins et al bible seems to have different dates?
I tried out Vallejo acrylic primer this time, brush-painted on. Doesn't look so neat at first sight, but once the van was fully painted I couldn't tell the difference be
After a less than glorious summer (too much work, too much rain) it's time to get the autumn modelling season going. The past weekend saw a bit of progress on "The depot".
As some may recall, the depot can be viewed from both the inside and the outside. These are the three outside walls, now approaching completion.
Still need to add downpipes etc once the roof is fixed on.
I’ve used a photo of Windsor goods depot as inspiration
A follow-up here to the track experiments in the previous entry.
A batch of Peco Code 75 has arrived, enabling a comparison of the four types of track seen above. Everything is OO, ie 16.5 mm gauge. The Timber Tracks panel is the GWR 44' 6" version for P4/EM, and it's interesting to note theslight narrow gauge look this track has when viewed directly above. This isn't C+L's fault of course, but a result of the slightly incorrect gauge.
But we don't ofte
Time to get some track in place for The depot. For a pragmatic modeller like myself, it's easy to dismiss finescale track as something for the purists only. A little too easy, perhaps! With this in mind, I'm currently taking a closer look at some of the C+L track components. The idea is to see whether this sort of thing works for me, and how much it adds to the overall impression of the GWR in the 1900s. It's still OO, and so far only straight track, as that is all I need for the scenic part of
This 4 minute video spans the period 1867-1947 on The Farthing Layouts. These 4mm layouts are normally set in 1907, but occasional forays into earlier and later time periods has allowed for a bit of pragmatic "out of period" modelling and operation.
Farthing, 1887. The Great Western is a sleeping giant. The system is plagued by gauge inconsistencies and circuitous routes, and the Churchward revolution is yet to come. In the bay platform at Farthing, a Buffalo tank sleepily knocks a few wagons about.
For the past ten years the world has suffered from a global economic depression, but Workman P. Quince has never read a newspaper and is more concerned with the stinging pain when he urinates. Perhaps he should fi
So far there are five layouts in the Farthing series, each depicting a section of the same overall station. The trackplans are simple affairs, but when linked to fiddle yards all contain a certain operational scope. The layouts so far are:
1. The Branch Bay. This was the first of the layouts and is complete. It shows the bay platform at Farthing ca. 1904-1908, and draws on features from the bays at Newbury station.
2. The Goods Depot. This
The whitemetal wagon kits from David Geen have tempted me for many years, so I thought it was time I gave them a go.
I began with this round-ended 3-planker of 1881 vintage, for use in my “out of period” running sessions.
The good stuff! Nothing like a bit of research to start off a new kit. The round ends were not long-lived on the 3-plankers. From 1883 the GWR introduced square ends, and many of the existing round-ended wagons appear to
More "out of period" operation here. This time going back in time quite a bit. In fact, it seems they didn't even have flush-glazing back then .
The year is 1867, and it is early days at Farthing station. Mr Crummles gently guides his wife towards the first class carriage, while Mr Doyce looks on in anticipation of the journey ahead.
Mrs Crummles is somewhat apprehensive. It is only a few months since that dreadful accident at Warrington,
Here's a brief illustrated write-up on my recent experiences with modified and detailed HO figures for Farthing.
My normal source of figures is to backdate OO whitemetal figures from Monty's and other ranges (see this separate blog entry). But this can be time consuming, and for pre-grouping modellers the options are limited. Like others before me I have therefore been attracted to the large German HO ranges, and especially Preiser who have a small series of figures from the Vi
Some time ago, Miss Prism suggested that I could add a mezzanine floor to one end of “The depot” for extra goods storage.
I liked the idea, and sought inspiration in some of the larger GWR depots, including (very loosely) the arrangements at Hockley. I tried to build the structure to look like an afterthought, added by the GWR when it ran out of storage space on the ground floor decks. The visible part of the mezzanine is imagined to connect to a more expansive off-scene sectio
