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Hello It seems like an age since I have last posted and I am scared to check to see when the last post was! I havent given up on things though. I was hoping to post some swanky piccies of all the many things I have finished but sadly not, so you will have to make do with these shockingly bad (taken on my phone) photos instead.. Elvis is alive! Well, to be correct, Elvis now has wheels! It also has a working chassis (well it worked until I removed the temporary wires so I could paint the chassis. I did have to chop the body slightly to get the bogie sideframes to fit but its now sitting at the right height and the bogies seem to have some movement in them too so fingers crossed it will go around corners! Secondly, the crane is now complete. I have now fitted the hook bit and the chain (which was a pain to fit) then weathered it a little. Sorry the pictures dont really do it any justice but the peeps who have seen it said it looks good! Missy

The new Hornby O1 seems to have been well received. With my roots in the north east of England I would have preferred a Q6 or maybe a Q7. However they are not as yet available so I have invested in an O1 to complement my WD 8F. My Ian Allan Shed Book confirms that I ‘spotted’ two of the four O1s allocated to Tyne Dock. I am guessing that I would have seen these engines passing around the outside of Newcastle Central I can imagine heading north on a freight bound for Edinburgh. First impressions of the Hornby O1 were very positive. Out of the box it looked good and it performed well on the layout. I have posted a number of short videos on YouTube comparing the performance of the O1 with Bachmann’s O4 and WD 8F. These are obviously personal views and highly dependent on my particular models. In summary using the same Controller setting (DC) and same train load, the is the most sedate. The comes in the middle while the is quite the fastest - almost racing round the layout. With the Controller setting lowered the Hornby O1 will crawl nicely on the level but the running becomes slightly less confident than the Bachmann locomotives. In conclusion my Hornby O1 would not need any additional ballast. Whilst I might have been happy with the performance of the Hornby O1 I did have an issue with the appearance! I had intended to use the view above in my previous Post. However when I came to publish I noticed that the footplate was not level (the camera never lies!) and I had to investigate. Hornby O1 Chassis with flywheel in smoke box and motor driving in ‘reverse’. Close up of Motion Bracket In contrast to Bachmann who tend to make their ‘motion’ from individual castings (and which I prefer) the main parts of the Hornby motion are preformed from sheet metal. On my model one side of the Motion Bracket was sitting too high and required some gentle persuasion to get it to a more suitable level. With the Motion Bracket lowered I had then expected the footplate to return to a nice straight profile. However nothing is quite that straightforward. Hornby O1 Footplate The plastic moulded footplate is very thin and after being forced up by the incorrectly positioned Motion Bracket it had no intention of taking up a straight profile! Underside of Footplate An inspection of the underside of the footplate is quite revealing. Removing the body shell from the chassis had been straightforward but I had noticed some reluctance when parting the footplate from the Motion Brackets. The view of the underside of the footplate suggests that during assembly Hornby have lightly glued the footplate down to the Motion Bracket – probably to prevent damage to the relatively delicate footplate moulding when lifting the locomotive off the track? Use of Double Sided Tape. There are probably numerous solutions but I applied a couple of pieces of double sided tape to the footplate above the Motion Brackets – success! All straight Well how do I rate the Hornby O1? Well perhaps a smidgen below the 28xx. For those of you who like numbers, the Hornby O1 weighs in at around 280gm while the Bachmann O4 is only a touch over 250gm. Both engines have complex tender couplings incorporating relatively stiff wiring harnesses which I suspect will confuse load transfer between engine and tender.

Nörreport station, Copenhagen. Every day after work, I wait here for my local train home. Today it’s late, rush hour is over. Everyone is tired, noone is talking, noone is present. We’re not really here, we’re already somewhere else. While I wait, commuter trains roll into the platforms and leave again. Many are nearly empty, having already dropped off most passengers at Copenhagen Central. They will terminate soon, at the next station. Then an ICE train pulls into the platform, all the way from Berlin. At the sight of it, something stirs inside the weary commuter: A slightly unusual train, an arrival from far away. Is there anything like it? And thoughts begin to wander... Imagine a fine summer’s day in 1906. Imagine the bay platform of a junction station. A 517 class arrives with an autotrailer. Bit of a cliché, I grant you, a bit twee. But as a tired commuter, I’ll go with twee any time! And the autotrailer, which one is that? Ah, it’s the unusual A12 from the Plymouth area. Oh and look, here’s another train. River Class No. 69 “Avon”. Odd that, I thought I’d sold it some time ago? And what’s a fast engine like that doing in a bay platform? Never mind, it’s my daydream so I can do what I want! Argh, what’s all this disturbance now? Oh, it’s the Nivaa train. Well that’s no use for me. And quit staring at me people, I’m not really here, can’t you see that? Ah that’s better. Now this is what I call passengers! Stylish, sophisticated and not a care in the world. No ashen-faced commuters here! A-ha, here's the River again. And the infamous fireman known as "Mad Charlie", in conversation with Station Master A. Woodcourt. I wonder what they’re talking about? How she’s running today, maybe. Or the qualities of different kinds of coal. Or the Bambatha Rebellion. Certainly not tax forms or car repairs or any of the other trivial matters of today's world. Speaking of the Bambatha Rebellion (yeah well, look it up), here’s some real buffalo power! And it’s propelling an interesting 6-wheel U28 clerestory. And here’s a Buffalo with a tender! Well sort of: The Armstrong Goods were pretty closely related to the Buffalo tanks, if I’m not mistaken. And in my daydreams I’m never mistaken! Now what? Oh, it’s the train I’m in. So it arrived? I got on board? Never even noticed! We commuters are like robots sometimes. But look, it’s been snowing again. Looks nice with the lights, eh? And these are decent DMUs: comfortable, sleek, effective. Come to think of it, reality isn’t that bad after all. I wonder what’s for dinner? Click images for full size

In one one of my last post's concerning stock for Juniper Hill-my Northamptonshire Ironstone micro-layout I posted some pictures of the Hornby J94/Hunslet I'm working on called 'Cranford'. Paul (Halfwit) suggested I could improve around the injectors by cutting and drilling away excess plastic as he had done. I think he mentioned Chris Nevard had done something similiar. The easy way out would be to just cut them off and use some RT cast injectors but I went with Paul's advice and was impressed how easily the operation went. In a matter of minutes the excess plastic was removed and a new pipe made from brass wire was bent up and glued in place. Final details were crew from Dapol (Airfix), real coal, RT Models oil cans, lamp brackets from bent up staples and a homemade Stones turbo generator. Here's the finished result. Also, I've finished detailing the Sentinel 'Twywell' with real coal in the bunker area, crew and an oil can from RT Models. Both models are finished with Tamiya/Vallejo acrylics. Nameplates/worksplates custom made by the excellent Narrow Planet. I'd like to thank Paul for his suggestion on the injectors-it has made a difference. Cheers, Mark

Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything to this blog. I haven't lost interest, I've carried on collecting and weathering wagons, but there isn't really much to show when they are identical dogfish wagons. I have, however, obtained a dutch Class 37 and more importantly...a baseboard! So here is a dodgy photograph taken from my phone of said 37 doing a bit of shunting of the PW sidings. The layout is basically a long inglenook for shuffling wagons around on - perfect for me, as electronics and complex trackwork are not my forte. Track is stuck down and as you can see, ballasting has started - still a lot of tidying up to do, but I've got an idea of where I'm going now and I can't wait to get stuck into the scenic work!

Session 2 Thanks for all the comments for my first entry, they are very encouraging. I am working on how to power it and thanks for the suggested reading all very useful and inspiring. So after building a card platform with number 1 son (8 years old) for his Thomas and Friends garage layout, its 10*7 tail chaser with engine shed, turntable controlled with a JMRI powered Raspberry Pi, Hornby Elite and phones and Ipad for control. It keeps the boys happy (and dad), but thats maybe another blog. Back to the Clayton, work has started on the first engine cover. I am leaving the cab interior until the power challange is solved. The engine covers are being built separately for the same reason. This took about an hour. I need to work on my soldering technique as there is sometimes too much solder. Back to work for 2 weeks, so plenty of time to work on motors.

Having put the 2251 chassis to one side while I wait for new handrail knobs, and having once again failed to buy the required plywood for the baseboard, today I have been working on wagons. Fitting bill Bedford springie bits, along with the parkside / Cambrian brake bits to a 13t sr mineral, a parkside lner 5 plank, 1 plank and van, a Bachmann po mineral and a Bachmann conflat. The latter two wagons have received replacement underframes from Cambrian leftovers, but still need brake gear / leavers. Finally I fished up the underframes on a ratio iron mink, working from photos in the hmrs mink book I picked up at Bristol I gauge show last month. Going to be adding at least one more of these with replacement wooden doors at some point... The other work today was some modifications to my work bench, a 3 inch wide raised platform was added to the back of the workbench. Fitted onto a 1.5 inch high strip of 1inch thick ply. Onto this a length of redundant concrete sleeper track has been glued, which will be wired up to a set of terminals to connect to a ex or dcc controller. The final stage of my planned modifications to the bench is to add a better quality vice, and add holders on the right hand side for glue / flux bottles along with holes for files etc

With little progress to report, I thought that I would attempt to get the mojo working by posting a couple of pictures of the large-ish barn/workshop conversion in the yard behind the road-side shop, and indicate a few of the challenges that I face. Learning curves are a feature of this project! A start has been made on the large square shop building in card, whether this will meet the standards I am hoping for remains to be seen, The prototype has a smooth plaster-type surface on all sides with block-work being represented by the surface being scored. It appears to have traditionally been painted on all sides in various pastel shades over the years. See photo 3 below which also gives a glmpse of a collection of small linking buildings between the shop and the yard buildings. The yard has a number of interesting features, not least being the cliff face at the rear, which has a natural cave converted into a garage! I estimate the cliff face to be about 65 feet high at this point. Should be an interesting challenge to model. Note the safety fencing at the top. (pictures below taken with permission, obtained on the day, last August) To the right of the picture is the workshop conversion of whatever the original building was intended to be, this part of the building is alongside the lower station. The other half of the same wall is shown below, indicating a number of (interesting? and challenging to model) modifications to brickwork and doorways plus added skylights. I suspect that most of these alterations have occurred in the last 3-4 years or so, to accommodate the requirements of the current user, (Perry & Phillips, Undertakers! who also occupy the rear half of the ground floor of the shop building). I mentioned in my previous blog entry that I had model vehicles to suit the needs of the users, and have acquired a Limousine and a Hearse from Oxford Diecast. There will be no need to weather these items! The prototype vehicles returned from duty about 15 minutes after I had taken these pictures. This building butts hard against the cliff face, and I suspect that it does not have a brick end wall but uses the cliff as a wall, certainly the roof tiles are cemented to the cliff face. I did not ask permission to venture inside to check! The back wall of this building is plain with no openings or roof lights, and is mostly hidden by the steps leading up to the guest house over the bottom station. The end wall facing the shop building and the road has what appears to be older brickwork with an unusual pattern of ornamental bricks set into the gable end. When I first saw them, my thought was that they were perches associated with a Dove-Cote. The only evidence to support that theory that I can see is a blanked hole, of about two bricks size, set high on the left side. Any other suggestions?? This picture also gives an example of the surface finish of the shop building, another challenge!

Building a 2mm Clayton. I am building a layout based on the section of Waverley route that runs passed the Lady Victoria Pit in Newtongrange. Coal from here was hauled by Clayton's for a time and unfortunately its not RTR yet. After trying to work out how to draw one in Sketchup and have it 3D printed I discovered that Judith Edge kits did a 2mm version of their 4mm kit. Perfect (I couldn't figure Sketchup out any way), so the kit was ordered. But I've never built a metal kit before and when it arrived yesterday the size of the task ahead got a little frightening. So today I decided to take the plunge and make a start. The following pictures are todays progress. The kit as it arrived. The first part completed. Starting the cab area. Both together. I have really enjoyed the build so far, I have learnt that you really don't need much solder at all. Hopefully more tomorrow!

....black, as the saying goes.... If there is one thing that can make or break a model it is undoubtedly the paint job and finishing. I always brush paint my models using enamels or a mix of enamels and acrylics, generally from the Humbrol range though I will happily buy and use Revell paints if that is what the local model shop has in stock. One thing I have found is that it always pays to thin down the paint at least a little before brushing it on. Firstly this lessens the 'tugging' action the paint has on the bristles of the brush and thereby lessens the likelihood of finding brush hairs cocooned in the final paint finish, secondly it allows a thinner coat of paint to be applied and thereby stops finer detail being flooded out with paint and thirdly it means that when the paint dries you are less likely to find it has streaked or left brush strokes on the finish. So; let's go through the paint job thus far. It really began even before I started the model- the first thing I did was to give the resin castings a bath in warm soapy water to remove any grease, dirt, talc etc that comes with the moulding process. If I were feeling brave I'd have done this again after building the model- this time to remove fingerprints and suchlike- but I didn't trust myself not to knock the details off in so doing. I then gave the model a thin coat of Humbrol 33, matt black. I applied this with a smallish brush (I have found in the past that using larger brushes results in something of an uneven finish, or you end up with a brush that is bone dry on one side and clogged with thick paint on the other). The trick I use is to brush in long strokes working in the same direction. I always start by loading the brush up with a decent amount of paint and dabbing it once or twice on the area I want to cover, then starting in the corner of that area with the paint that remains on the brush. Once the brush is dry I turn to the first dabs and work the paint there in long strokes until that produces an even thin coat. What you end up with is a model that appears to have quite a streaky finish.... but then when it dries you have a first coat that might be too thin in places but which is generally devoid of streaks or brushstrokes. I then leave the model for a day or two to allow the paint to harden off and then give the model a second coat in the same manner as I did the first- small brush, thinned paint, long strokes. Once I have got the main colour to my satisfaction I turn my attention to the smaller areas. The only ones here are the bufferbeams. I have in the past used Humbrol 19, gloss signal red (I think)- but I think a model finished with both matt and gloss paints looks a little odd. Something to do, I believe, with the fact that when taking in the prototype you necessarily only see a relatively small part of it at a time, so the eye misses the 'this bit is gloss and that bit is matt' detail. With a model of course you see the whole thing in one go so it jumps out at you more. What I use instead is Humbrol 73, matt wine. This is perhaps a little too dark in shade for a bufferbeam but when you consider how the model is going to ultimately be weathered anyway it can also be argued that the darker hue saves having to weather the bufferbeams! Next time I'll talk about the only large jobb left to do on the model- fabricating a bunker bottom and coal.

Time to inspect progress at the main station. All the ballasting is complete, just need to get on with some Station canopies. That will be a job for next summer! This is a view of the 'bay' platforms with a Bachmann 22xx on a branch train. As originally conceived this was The Terminus for an 'out and back' layout. In fact an 'out and back' double track mainline and a single track branch line accessed from both The Terminus and a junction on the mainline : The layout was constrained by the flue from the Aga and I long coveted the space beyond to form a continuous run. After much negotiation a plan was drawn up and approved and the main terminus platforms were swung to the left using 5 ft (1.5m) radius curves to allow the lines to just skirt the chimney breast, much in the same way that Brunel's original Temple Meads station was extended westwards. Interestingly as soon as the woodwork and track laying for the extension was completed, the Aga was converted from oil to electricity and hence the necessity for a Class 1 flue disappeared. Life is too short so don't even think about suggesting doing away with the chimney breast.