Leaderboard

The Comet GWR C54 third and Worsley SR Continental 3rd are now complete. I couldn't find a decent photo of the compartment side of the C54 in 1930s livery, so for now it's missing the various smoking/no-smoking signs. Not that any of the passengers are likely to smoke, being a mix or plastic and whitemetal.... The Continental is finished in late 1940s condition. As an experiment I used Humbrol acrylic Malachite green, which seems slightly darker than the Precision equivalent but isn't far off some colour photos. I'm assuming this coach has had a few coats of varnish which has darkened the paint.... I'm rather pleased with both of these. The Continental was my fist attempt at one of the Worsley "scratch aid" kits and it went together very well (although lets face it, a slab sided coach with 4 doors is never going to be that hard!). I've got a Thanet 3rd and the one off SECR Continental brake composite in my to do pile and hopefully they wont be far off getting started.

So far my blog contained pretty much the layout and it's ancillary items as they were when I was last Railway modelling back in the late 1990's. Over the last couple of days I have been tidying the 2 station boards up, and getting them connected and installed in the loft. A couple of photos below show the full extent of the trackwork constructed so far, and give the overall impression of what the station layout will eventually look like. I have also begun the construction of the retaining wall that will go around the end of the platform road. Beyond the wall will be the Station approach road which is a few feet higher than the track bed. The wall is being made from Will's Coarse Stone plastic sheets (as are all of the stone walls that will be on the layout), Once the walls are complete, they will be painted in a mortar colour and then the individual stones will be picked out in various shades of grey - time consuming but I think very effective (the Signal Box and Platform face have already received this treatment, the brickwork on the Signal Box chimney was similarly painted but in various brick-coloured shades). The photos below hopefully show my method of curving the plastic sheet to form the bend in the wall.

I've finally finished this one; I didn't use the supplied chain as it didn't fit through the pulleys well enough for my liking (probably my fault fitting them together) so I substituted it for a 110mm length of 27 link per inch North Yard brass chain, suitably blackened. In hindsight 110mm is perhaps a little too long. I attached a single coupling link on each end, from some scale 3-links, which has been glued to the chain hooks on each end. The chain actually looks slightly underscale but I can live with that. Couplings themselves are Smiths, standard on my EM wagon stock. The numbering (deliberately crude) was done with a Pergamano mapping pen and white Windsor & Newton ink, thanks to Paul (Worsdell forever) for that tip. I did toy with the idea of making it work but decided againt it. Next time perhaps... A nice little kit, one day I'll make a couple more.

I have several wagons and vans completed, photos below (all of the pictures were taken on what will eventually be the cattle dock siding). The vehicles display a variety of lettering that would be seen on GWR stock in the 1905 period, small "G.W.R" painted lettering, cast plates and the latest 1904 25" GW. The tarpaulins on the two Coopercraft Open wagons were home made, a thin sheet of A4 paper was turned black by covering it entirely using a thick black permanent marker, the lettering and numbering then applied in white drawing ink :

You could always steal the contents of a lava lamp!

"I did toy with the idea of making it work but decided againt it. Next time perhaps..." Probably best if you want to keep your sanity! Lovely work Paul, the painting really sets it off. Regards, Nick.

After some thought, and a few minutes with a file I've carefully reshaped the "brow" over the windows. I think it now looks a lot more like a Warship, although the front is now looking a bit sorry for itself with various splodges of copydex and filler. This is the current state of play after a couple of hours work tonight. New handrails (the ones under the window now have the central pillar), replacement lamp irons (Shawplan) and beefed up headboard clips (plastic strip). I also removed Bachmann/Mainline's attempt at the ventilator above the right hand light. It's the wrong shape. My chosen prototype seems to have lost it anyway and just has a dirty blanking plate in it's place

Will - I reckon no backscene, just a 'mountain' that dissappears out of view at the top would be VERY effective, especially with such tiny trains. What does Z scale track look like? Is it quite coarse or can you get stuff that looks as good as that 2mm easy-trak stuff I've seen chaps use on here?