Leaderboard

While I carry on with the Collett coach, here's a bit of 2-D modelling that's been keeping me occupied since last summer. Those of you who've seen a copy of Neil Parkhouse's recent book "West Gloucester and Wye Valley Lines" will recognise the inspiration, in that there's a captivating colour image of Tintern station, taken somewhere between 1936 and 1939, and probably around 1937. It's one of the most amazing images I've ever seen in a railway book, a real glimpse back into the pre-nationalisation era, bringing it alive in a way that B&W photography never quite manages. Not only does it show wagons, locomotive, camping coach and so on in full GWR glory, but it's the kind of railway-in-the-landscape shot that you see very rarely even in BR-era pictures. I was so taken with the picture that I fancied doing a painting of it, and so last July I picked up a huge canvas from an art shop in Bristol and have been working on it ever since, almost entirely on Wednesday evenings at the local art society. There's still a fair bit to do, but I'm happy with the way it's developing. Its not a straight copy of the original, as I wanted to make it more "summery" than the photo, and I've deviated a bit in the relative positioning and angles of things, not always intentionally! The medium is acrylic. Having studied the original photograph for hours and hours, it strikes me that Tintern would make a wonderful model, with the sweeping curves of the track layout, the gently sloping terrain, the line on an embankment etc.

Taking a Bit of a diversion whilist the DFB awats a chassis, to a scratchbuild of an NZR 30ft Guardsvan, like this one: (Apologies for the big pics!) And here's the model as it currently stands: Thats all for now. Azuremoon - Aka Gary

I've added all the perspex laser cut barge boards now and I'm quite chuffed with how they look. I think I must get on and do the doors next as it is difficult to picture how the whole building will look without them. I'm struggling a bit with the paint scheme - I've looked at some obvious sources on the web, but there seems to be quite a bit of leeway for variation, and, as my layout is set in about 1947 and bearing in mind the run down condition of the (imaginary) line, it's reasonable to assume nothing has been painted for a few years.