Leaderboard

Finally back from that annual ritual of the Summer Holiday and have just about survived the over optimistic schedule, leaky cars with wobbly wheels and dodgy stomachs and now have to go hell for leather for a couple of weeks to get everything as ready as it can be for the first outing. There was a bit of progress in the week before we went but was just too busy to write it up and manage to take a bit of stuff with me so shall up date on these soon. Right now it is write a big to do list and do some serious prioritising. Before any of this however, I really must tell you about the lovely little line that we visited yesterday, le Petit Train Baie de Somme. I had heard some good things about this line and they are all true! Unfortunately we didn't manage a ride (didn't fancy the though of being without access to a toilet for an hour at the time - dodgy steak tatre!), but did chase the train through some very varied coastal scenery, over bridges, along roads and even pavements. When the show is over I shall do a bit more research and post some more pictures.

Progress on the arches is going slowly. But I make progress. There were some other things I had to do for Station Road. For instance the movie poster on the side wall of the yard. By accident I came along this ODEON board This one is more 1940’s than the end of the 1950’s. So I started for a search for correct time based movie posters. I selected the following: With Publisher I created my own 1959 ODEON announcement board. Then I saved it as a picture and re-sized the picture in Word using the height of the stones as a reference. Now I can use the board by cutting it out. Then glue it on thin card colouring the edges grey. I’m also working on my Northall story. I have changed a lot of street names. And did number them by street. The yellow dots are meant as a guideline for me to create my story. The dark blue dots are diorama’s already built or under construction. The light blue are diorama’s that I hope to build in the future. This is not the final version of the map. I have to change some points in the map writing the story. As always: information and comments are much appreciated. Next time I hope to publish the finished arches. Kind regards, Job

Hi all. Just a quick entry this evening to show a little more progress. Work the last few days has focused on finishing the backscene whilst I wait for a fresh delivery of track components and the locking, folding brackets for the fiddle yard legs. I always intended the backscene to be a fairly simple affair, essentially representing a lovely sunny Hampshire day (he types, as it's grey & wet outside!) To get the effect I was looking for, the whole backscene was first sprayed with Halfords white primer, and then a light blue colour was added with lighter coverage towards the bottom, leaving the fade from white to blue you get on a clear day. I think this gives quite a nice, simple effect as shown in the photo above. I may be tempted to add clouds at a later date, but I'm undecided at the moment as a badly done backscene can spoil the effect and detract from the rest of the layout. Cheers, Tom. Ropley is a N Gauge Model using 2mm Finescale Easitrac modelled after the real location on the Mid Hants Railway Watercress Line.

Having been spotted on RMWeb by a fellow rail artist Craig Tiley, my outdoor layout got featured in RM by him, which was very flattering considering that the railway is still a work in progress. Anyway, Craig asked what the name of the railway was and I hadn't really thought of one, so came up with my old spotting location of Cadwell plus a description of Moor, which I suppose goes with the rugged viaduct and heathers? Have had a couple of recent running sessions with some visiting locos. The Devon Belle seems to have got itself diverted onto my patch of the LNER This is a Golden Age model and is superb, but I didn't seem to have enough amps running to power it properly, which was a pity. Also a stray E4 and C2X seem to to have wandered my way. The C2X and E4 are radio controlled and worked well - made very nicely by Malcolm Saker, who has got a nice weathered tone and colour to them. Returning to the LNER here are a couple more pics of my stock, The blue A3 expertly painted by Colin Tyler is a modified Sunset model and the Royal Claud is a Mallard model by an unknown maker.

Hello Just a little update, nothing really exciting to report this time but there are a couple of things worth mentioning... 1. Tank wagons... This is the latest test build of my anchor mount tank wagon. I have tweaked the etches to make a 10ft wagon this time as its the one I actually need! This particular wagon has also got a 3D printed tank, printed in the classic FUD and with a very small amount of sanding came out really well. It looks like there has been a problem with the paint reacting at some point and had produced some crazing in some areas but you know what, I quite like it and I think it add a nice 'effect' to the wagon so its going to stay. 2. Jinty. This has been on and off my workbench for a while now and has been in parts more time than I care to remember testing out various different components, but its now together and running really well. The components work and if I take away all the 'testing' aspect of it, it has taken about an hour to convert from N Gauge to 2mm Finescale plus its not that difficult to do either. Julia