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Over the weekend I had a chance to crack on with working on 7802. He she is completed and I'm really pleased with the finished result: The main focus of attention has been in the cab area where I made new flush glazing from an Oxford Diecast clear plastic box. The cab interior received the cut down David Geen screw reverser and scratch built ATC bell. The cab tarpaulin/sheet was made from a piece of blue masking tape rolled up with tapes made from the same source, This was painted with Valejo acrylics and fixed to the inside of the cab roof with a few dabs of super glue. Finally the wonderful fold down GWR cab seats were also made up from scratch. To me these improvements have certainly lifted the model but with crew insitu they are not easy to see. The crew come from my stash of Dapol figures: I wanted 7802 to look 'lived in' so I used a mixture of Valejo German Grey, Hull Red and Gun Metal to lift the detail on the model and also lift the paintwork through the use of dry brushing and washes. Hopefully the look is of a loco which has received the oily rag treatment. To achieve this I gently rubbed the paintwork with a clean dry cotton buds as well as buffing the paintwork with my finger tip to add a patina. You'll notice I've added the steps on the buffer shanks as well made up from Mainly Trains etched tread plate. I decided to keep the water filler lid shut in the end! I need to source the mouldings for the brake gear pull rods and will fit them when they become available. Overall I'm pleased with the finished result and now I've got a decent running representation of a late GWR period Manor Class which as many of you know rates as one of my favourite loco designs. Of course DJM Models will announce a modern version at Warley to a standard the same as the Hattons King Class! Cheers, Mark

We took St Ruth for a day out at Wycrail yesterday - actually a day and a night because we set up on the Friday evening, having previously discovered that trying to do a one day show in one day is a fairly stressful experience. All in all a very enjoyable show although I'm puzzled why it's not a 2 day affair - it certainly justifies it on the basis of size and quality. We had Missy Julia with a demo table next to us so it was great to have a catch up. Several other folks popped in to say hello too. I took my DSLR and tripod along to do a bit of experimentation once the punters had thinned out towards the end of the day. It's fairly well established that St Ruth's lighting rig produces an illumination that cameras find rather challenging so photos taken at shows wind up looking, well... not great. Very noticeable areas of light and dark between the areas in the middle of the spot beams and those less well lit are the usual issue so I thought that I'd have a bit of a play. I'm not sure that my efforts were very scientific and artistic merit wasn't something that I was aiming for but here they are anyway. What I wanted to try was using 'High Dynamic Range' processing to see whether it would help. This is a technique that tries to overcome the weakness of all cameras (compared to the Mark 1 eyeball) in handling scenes containing both strong light and dark areas. The trick is to take several photos at different exposures and them combine them using software. My efforts were fairly conservative - in each case I took 3 shots - one with what the camera judged to be the correct exposure, one overexposed by 1 stop and one underexposed by one stop. I trawled the net and found some software called Fusion F2 that can be had for no money and can be used to experiment with HDR. Other options are available - some free and some... well... quite pricey. In both cases I've posted the middle 'normal' exposure followed by the HDR processed version. I used the 'sum' method in Fusion because the results from the 'HDR' method looked pretty awful. I also needed to tweak the colour saturation because the default setting seemed to reduce this quite a lot compared to the original image. I tried to get back to something comparable with the original but I may not have got this quite right. I'll let you judge whether or not the HDR versions are an improvement over the 'normal' exposures. First a shot of the station area. Then a shot from the 'up' end of the layout. The sea wall is very close to the front edge of the layout here and is in fairly deep shade.

Just completed my SER 1864 coal wagon kit in 4mm. Fiddly but fun hand lettering, the font is very forgiving!

Evening all I've taken advantage of the rotten weather to have a very relaxing weekend indoors making progress with the auto trailer. When I last posted back in January, it had been stripped of all paint and had the detailing added from the Dart kit. Roll forward some 10 months (yikes) and things have moved on a bit. The body finally got sprayed all over carmine and I've fitted the Lazerglaze windows from Shawplan. Funny thing was one side needed virtually every piece of glass filing down. The other side virtually nothing! It is a faff but it is worth it. I was really dreading the top lights but in reality these were the easiest to fit. The cab's been detailed and I've got some passengers to fit. They've been primed and I'll paint them this week. I was going to fit Bill Bedford bogies but as the auto trailer has repeatedly made it from one side of Wheal Elizabeth to the other without falling off I came to the conclusion that it was going to be a lot of effort for no improvement. The roof still needs another cost of paint and I need to apply transfers. Anyone got any ideas what font & size the running numbers were? There are a few little details to fit but nothing major and I'm quite pleased with how this has turned out, given I think it was 33 years ago that I bought it! All being well it'll be in service at Warley at the end of the month, along with the Railbus.

It's taken a few months to make much progress on the level crossing. I made some gates but hit a problem as I tried to mount them on the stepper motors but needed to make them removable. This meant that there was a bit of slop introduced and that allowed the dreaded backlash to rear its ugly head. It took sometime to adapt the code to deal with this as I had to make the stepper motors 'take up the slack' every time the gates change direction. Here is a little video. David

Just in case you don't know what I 'm on about, I mean these bad boys : Now they are not cheap @ £17.95 each, but they do the job of several switches in one go, and they can be interlocked. Those in the picture are not mine btw, I see this chap had the same problem as me, getting all the guides lined up properly, unlike him i didn't glue mine down before thinking about it ! I am a little confused about DCC's instructions in painting these, it says to polish the guides up to a bright steel finish using wet & dry, no problem there, except they don't seem to be made of steel, and neither are the levers, the handles of which you are also told to polish to a bright steel finish, the levers seem to be made of a copper/brass alloy with the copper being a touch on the heavy side. It looks as though I will be doing what this chap has done and resorting to painting them with silver paint. I'm still in the process of putting mine together, I've started by doing as advised and cleaning everything up, you need to do this anyway, because the castings are not what i would call "top quality2 which you would expect for the price, to get mine anywhere near decent I had to start working with an 800 grit paper, and so far I have worked down to a 400, with copious amounts of water, once I get them really bright I plan to clean them with alcohol before giving them a coat of varnish. The idea being to sink the bulk of the switches into the baseboard, so that only the top of the frame shows, then if my skills allow, I'll build a signal box like cover around them. So far I like the look of them, but I am yet to be covinced that they are actually worth £17.95 each.

Evening all! As I'm having a weekend off, I thought I might begin filling this blog with some content, and start with a bit of an illustration of how my decision to re-orient myself professionally for essentially reasons of personal sanity and the preservation thereof – which some of you reading this may already know about in some more detail – took shape over the course of this summer! The short version is, I had signed up for a posting as a tram driver with our local public transport operator Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe, starting on 1 June this year. Of course, this meant that, as part of a group of eight, I first need to complete driver training. Here, two weeks of depot service for introduction and three weeks of theoretical instruction were followed by seven weeks of practical driving training, which I successfully concluded with the driving exam on 25 August. This, in turn, was followed by 35 revenue shifts with two senior drivers functioning as operations trainers at my side, the goal here being to further improve driving skills and to learn the finer points of driving with passengers. So, may I perhaps just offer a collection of photos I took during my driving instruction to give you an overview of what tram operations in this city are like! The week from 20 till 24 July was filled with night time driving training, with this time of day offering additional possibilities for practising running with simulated malfunctions. During the night from 21 to 22 July, NGT12 car 1231 "Bielefeld" is seen here during our break in the stabling sidings on Kurt-Schumacher-Straße on the west side of Leipzig Central Station. The through tracks in the background are used by Lines 9, 10, 11 and 16 in revenue service. One night before, we had been driving a "tract", meaning a double unit, of NGT6 "Leoliner" cars, and stopped over in the Gerhard-Ellrodt-Straße loop in the borough of Großzschocher, off what is Line 3 in revenue service. Our formation consisted of 1340 "Meusdorf" and 1332 "Leutzsch". In addition to the 48 production cars, we also continue to operate the two NGT6 prototypes, which were approximated to the production cars during their first revision but are still sufficiently different to the latter to warrant separate instruction. Here, 1301 is seen at the Naunhofer Straße loop at the east end of Line 2. We also had taken 1301 to the reversing triangle at Herrmann-Meyer-Straße, off Line 1. Aboard 1302, one stopover had been at the Meusdorf loop, which is the regular southern end of Line 15 and also served by Line 2 during peak hours. The NGT6 prototypes are not named. NGT12 car 1215 "Addis Abeba" is seen here in the reversing triangle at Lützschena off the northern branch of Line 11 to the outlying town of Schkeuditz, one of the various auxiliary reversing spots which continue to prove useful in the event of route closures caused by disruptions of any kind, or by engineering works. Aboard 1205 "Hannover", we had taken a break at the Eutritzsch, Krankenhaus loop off Line 16. This location had – matching the destination signage we put on temporarily for this commemorative photo – indeed been served by Line 14 till 2008, but not with NGT12 cars. The NGT8 type cars are a typical 1990s design. Here, we had stopped over at the Sellerhausen loop rounding Emmaus Church, driving 1133 "Christian Thomasius" that day. The single dedicated driver training car in our inventory is 5001, one of the lot of refurbished Tatra T4D-MC cars originally produced by Czechoslovakian builder CKD during the GDR era. Here, we had paid a visit to the Museum Depot in the borough of Möckern, off Georg-Schumann-Straße. As a summarising comment from my point of view, I'd first like to mention that I could not find any fault with the extent and thoroughness of LVB driver training, and would definitely like to commend the dedication demonstrated by everyone involved with our instruction and ops training. I certainly felt well prepared when I passed my driving exam and commenced ops training on 26 August, and even more so when I subsequently completed the latter and could pick up my certification card (or driver's licence, if you will) on 29 October. I am, of course, happy to answer any questions you might have, of course emphasising that I will take care to apply common sense in everything I write, and reveal no information I might know to be sensitive in any way and which might go significantly beyond information that could be retrieved from openly accessible sources – whether in print or electronic, and however technical in nature – in any case. My goal, if you will, is to simply illustrate the workings of public transport in general and trams according to German regulations in particular from my personal point of view. To this end, I also elected to make this blog accessible only for registered users as an additional safeguard. Cheers, Dom

I am still undecided whether to move the loco building from the blog here to a thread. But in the meantime I have some thinks that I am lining up to build in the future some are ready and others needa few more parts adding. I have an early Ex LSWR/Southern S15 to do, this will no doubt be a challenge as it is from the ACE range. It now has everything needed for the build except the motor and gearbox, I am actually looking forward to this one. One it is a particular favourite of mine, and I do not get to do many Southern engines. I have aquired a nice set of etchings for a GWR saint, loco only. I have enough bits to cobble together a 3500 gallon tender. Unless one comes available. I also need castings for the loco but a call to Scorpio Models sort them out I just need to sort out paying for them. Just after getting the loco, I managed to pick up a set of drivers for a song from a certain auction site. As you have already seen I have a Dukedog to rebuild, I now have the tender wheels and I also bought new axles and cranks as I think the new ones are better than the D type ones. Whilst away I aquired an Oakville LMS Jubilee. For this I managed get a set of tender wheels. I was a bit annoyed as I have just sold a set of driving wheels for one of these. So will need to start searching for some more. As you can see it is all tender engines at the moment. I must find some more tanks to do I they are nice for a quick turn around.

This Post describes some modifications that I have made to a Replica Railways BR Mk1 RB. Previously i have modified the Mainline Maroon RB by fitting Finecast glazing, wire handrails and Bachmann close coupling mechanisms. I promised myself that I would do the same for the chocolate and cream Replica BR(WR) RB. Success! Replica Railways BR(WR) Restaurant Buffet on BR1 Bogies First task - find a suitable coach! Replica Railways Mk1 RB from around 1992 Models are bit like London buses. When I first started looking for a BR(WR) RB there didn’t seem to be any around and eventually my coach came from Australia. Then suddenly there were lots available here in the UK. On opening the box I was surprised to discover that Replica had painted the solebars chocolate to match the lower body panels – why? Was someone confused by the blue solebars on the blue and grey version? They should be black and they can be over painted with new transfers added from the Pressfix range. Alternatively a complete replacement black underframe can be sourced from say a Mainline coach. Extract from Modern Railways January 1962 The above extract from the January 1962 Edition of Modern Railways reports the introduction (in 1961) of 74 new BR Mk1 RB vehicles from Pressed Steel’s Paisley factory. We are told that the vehicles were destined for all of the BR Regions with the exception of the LMR. The article indicates that the vehicles were turned out with Commonwealth Bogies and the accompanying picture shows one of the 14 BR(WR) vehicles in BR lined Maroon livery on Commonwealth bogies. I have discussed the authenticity of the Replica Chocolate and Cream livery with Alun Hughes. He was of the opinion that the model chosen by Replica (W1732) was finished in chocolate and cream - but that it was outshopped with BR1 bogies. Wire handrails and Finecast glazing Back to my model and I replaced the moulded handrails on the coach ends with wire and fitted Finecast glazing all as detailed previously for the Mainline RB. Modified underframe Also the underframe was modified - again as detailed previously for the Mainline RB. What about the BR1 bogies? Replacement bogies are available to purchase from Replica Railways. I purchased a kit and prior to assembling the side frames I substituted part of a worn out Bachmann bogie to matchup with the Bachmann coupling mechanism. Using the solvent MEK/Butanone the joints between the bits of plastic can be made as strong if not better than the original plastic. Complete modified Replica Railways BR1 Bogie left, Replica kit of parts (modified) centre, Bachmann donor bogie right There are some views below of the finished carriage on its BR1 bogies. A good result I would say. I would even suggest that the Finecast glazing looks better against the cream window surrounds rather than when used on the maroon Mainline model. Replica Railways BR (WR) Restaurant Buffet on BR1 Bogies Replica Railways BR (WR) Restaurant Buffet on BR1 Bogies Replica Railways BR (WR) Restaurant Buffet on BR1 Bogies The more observant will note that I have also added a BR roundel to the coach sides. The Mainline maroon RB model was produced with a roundel so maybe perhaps the chocolate and cream version would also have had a roundel? The Bachmann Mini Buffet was also produced with a roundel but there again in the 1960s was it ever painted chocolate and cream – seemingly not.