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This weekend is the annual Ploughing festival near Ely. The farmer behind the drainage engine museum lets lots of vintage tractors plough his field for him. There was a good crowd on Saturday morning, unfortunately I'm not sure the weather is going to be as kind tomorrow. I hope you'll forgive some shameless photographs of vintage vehicles. First up are Archie and Arthur, a beautiful pair of shire horses who seemed to really know what they were doing. I was amazed when the drive just said (and I mean said rather than called) 'Arthur to your right' and Arthur just side stepped to his right while Archie stood still. Next in age terms there were three traction engines and a steam roller. Lovely to see them trundling down the farm track and getting their wheels dirty. The variety of tractors was extensive, the usual collection of little grey Fergusons but lots more obscure too. And not everything had wheels either. All in all a good morning out. There's more pictures if anyone is interested.. David Now I wonder is RMWeb censors Prickwillow ?

Time for spring cleaning so I have given the railway room a good going over this week. Dust accumulates and I’d rather be making stuff but if I don’t keep on top of it I will have twice as much to do as all the stock fills up with fluff. Not to mention all the points, signal and things that just seem to jam up if you don’t. However essential cleaning is it cannot be described as photographically interesting. This is a LNWR D 466 open carriage truck made from the 51L etched brass kit. Would it have run on CR metals ? Possibly, taking a carriage to the shooting estates of the rich perhaps. Who knows what is under that sheet. So here it is, tidied up and fitted with magnetic ajs.

This Dapol pug was one of the first models I bought after returning to the hobby in the mid 1990s. Living in the Netherlands at the time, my purchases were confined to occasional visits to the UK or those few Dutch retailers who sometimes had British stock for sale. This model, if I'm remembering rightly, was bought at one of the big Eurospoor model shows in Utrecht, for the princely sum of 115 Guilders, from the stand of "De Spoorzoeker". This friendly Dutchman (Harry, if I'm also remembering rightly) had a very well-stocked shop in Borkel, near the Belgium border, which I visited on subsequent occasions, mainly because he always has good stocks of Hornby. Alas, the pug was a terrible runner! I don't think it ever made it around my layout without stalling at every bit of pointwork or mildly dirty track. It ended up getting a test run every few years but to no discernible improvement! I know these Dapol models are not regarded as particularly good runners, but this week I decided to take a more methodical look at the problem and see what could be done, without going to the time and expanse of a new brass chassis. Some disassembly showed that the basic chassis is perfectly free-running, so it ought to have a chance of running reasonably well. So why was it so temperamental? Testing revealed that while pickup from the rear axles was reliable, there was almost none to speak of from the front wheelsets. In addition, the back to backs were found to be very tight, such that it wouldn't run through a Peco double slip without bumping over the crossings. Suitably motivated, I decide to tackle these issues. The back-to-backs were adjusted first, using the high-tech approach of gently levering the wheels out with the flat part of a screwdriver, a tiny step at a time. I was surprised at how far I had to shift them before the Pug traversed the slip without bumping. Since I also use shims to tighten my Peco flangeways, the wheels were eased out even more . This done, the Pug could be pushed through slips, crossings and points without resistance. I then took a careful look at the supplied pickups. These are very flimsy fixtures which might work if properly adjusted. The problem is that once the wheels are in place, the pickups are all but inaccessible. I tried cleaning and re-bending them, but nothing improved the pickup from the front wheels. I therefore decided to fashion a new set of pickups for all four wheels, as shown here: The problem here is that there's very little room to work, due to the minimal clearance between the keeper plate and the tops of the rails. I therefore had to get a bit creative. Areas adjacent to the wheels were carved away to allow the pickups to bear onto the treads without touching the rails (not a problem on plain track, but an instant short circuit through points and crossings, for obvious reasons). PCB pads were fixed to the keeper plate and 0.35mm Phosphor-bronze wire used to form both the pickups, and the extensions which take the current to the pads at the rear of the chassis, and then up to the motor terminals. Unfortunately, the clearances were still too tight. I therefore opted to melt the extensions into the keeper plate, touching them with an iron until they sank into the plastic and allowed that vital fraction of a mm which then permitted the main pickups to be arranged within the available room. I retained the original pickups and wiring as a belt-and-braces approach. Also visible in this shot are areas of the cylinder cover which have been trimmed back slightly to provide for the crosshead movement, now that the wheel spacing is wider. The effect of these two tweaks, the back-to-backs and the pickups, is an immediate and pleasing improvement in slow speed running, with the pug now proving fully capable of slow running and being stall-free across all pointwork. It's still somewhat noisy compared to a Hornby Peckett and can't be got down to an absolute crawl, but it's still not a bad showing given its age, and the less than brilliant reputation of these mechanisms.

I have been reading “Operating the Caledonian Railway”, volume one, by Jim Summers. It is an excellent book, explaining many of the technical, economic and social reasons that led the railway to operate in the way that it did, and I have learned a lot from it. Let me give you an example. Here is a picture of a goods train passing through Kelvinbank. It might be argued that it is a bit on the short side and that there should be a few more sheeted opens, but generally the stock and the layout are all in period and modelled to a reasonable degree of accuracy. But let’s have a closer look at the rear of the train. You see that is completely wrong. CR brake vans did not have duckets and so it was considered bad practice to marshal a van or similar high vehicle close the the brake, thus obscuring the view forward for the guard. Indeed written instructions to the effect that a few lower vehicles should be in front of the brake were issued. Now thats a lot better. Just looking at the train as a whole it makes obvious sense once you see it. I am slowly looking at timetables and the actual makeup of trains. I want to present as far as possible an accurate working picture of the Caledonian. Limitations of modelling mean that in some ways I will never get it totally right but I would like to move towards a working schedule in which the vast majority of the trains run are close to how they would have actually been. As I said I have learned a lot about how things should be done (and how they should not be done) from Jims book. Volume two should be illuminating.

It was gloomy yesterday so I turned the layout lights on and tried running a few trains in the dark. Daft, but oddly fun. Anyway, a few random pics of variable quality. The station in general, I need to lightproof the roof more next time it is off. This is a lucky pic. I cant really see the from of the station building so its just done by point the camera at the mirror on the end of the layout and hoping. The resultant image is then reversed in preview. Through a window. Atmospheric, a bit....

Those that have followed this content over the last decade will be aware of a layout called Littlemore. It was seen operational with hardly any scenery at the 2mmSA 50th anniversary event and following that as a static demo at Peterborough in 2011. I worked on it some more since then, but not in the last 6 years. It's been sat in my new workshop for the last 4-5 years and been erected once. The latter event revealed that a number of Cobalt motors have failed (about half). Despite making the workshop large enough to erect it in it's entirety it is a tight fit and when folded and stored the design is such that, whilst compact, it only fits in the middle of the floor to one end of the free space. It would be most convenient if it would fit into the cupboards under my work surfaces but that would require a major reworking of the boards. When I built it I made some bold choices - by which I mean untried, untested and novel - and these have come to be problematic as time has passed and progress tried. Truthfully my attention and interest is on other things, and indeed some friends already know what my future plans are regarding a layout. There are no plans to move house (hopefully ever again) and the workshop is established. One good idea for storing the layout is, I think, to be able to store it in the cupboards under one of my work surfaces and swap the layout with various machine tools and other items so that some or all of either the scenic section of a layout, or the tools &c that take bench space can be out at one time. This will create space in the workshop and should make it more pleasant and habitable. If I am starting over with the baseboards then I am starting over with a layout. Today that would not be the same layout since I now desire different things out of the model: Large engines (my favourite being 28xx) on reasonable length trains where rule 1 doesn't need to apply from something in most trains. I have a soft spot for brown vehicles (horseboxes/siphons &c.) and a branch line can only justify so much of that stuff and possibly none of some of the wagons in my stock box. I don't need a model of a station. A siding is mandatory for doing some shunting for operating sessions at home, but beyond that I really just want to see the trains run. (I must be one of those people for whom the layout is a means to display the trains.) For this reason I'm also completely sold on the idea of a roundy layout rather than a fiddle yard to fiddle yard set up - not necessarily for home use where a bit of shunting and use as a grandiose photo plank is what I am looking at, but - for any exhibitions it might attend. I've taken delivery of the baseboard kits already and at 650x450mm for the main scenic boards, 650x300 for the fiddle yard boards they are all portable enough, although they may not all fit in the car at one time with the end boards if more than 1 passenger is present. Littlemore is therefore at risk of being no-more. I feel that I should be more sad to break it up than I think I would be and considered storing it in the loft. Doing so would allow time to make a decision and maybe one day retrieve it and complete it. It was disheartening when I last erected it and found that it needed a bunch of work to get it back to an operational state. Last year there was the call for layouts to be built as a challenge to get something smaller built as a possible entry into getting something going in 2mm, either as a stand alone layout or as the beginning of a larger project for the 60th anniversary event. I've thought a lot about what I could make, decided over and again that I would not or could not build something in the space or time available, and done nothing. I am still tempted to try though. Due to a clash of dates the event has moved back a week meaning that it might be possible for me to attend. I've thought again about a layout, which could potentially reuse a portion of the trackwork from Littlemore to give me a start. A rough calculation on weeks remaining and average modelling hours per week gives a product of around 180 modelling hours remaining. I estimate that's about the number of person-hours that goes into a Great British Model Railway challenge layout during the show. It is evident that they use a large amount of RTP along with their pre-built items. Not only would I like to aim for a higher fidelity I have failed miserably to work to deadlines and do not like to rush things when they are meant to be for pleasure. I still think that maybe it is something I should do as a preparatory prior to the larger project to have something achievable in a short amount of time.

I've started with the plaster work on the mountains. I use a mix of WS moulds, home made latex moulds and alu foil. The plaster is regular plaster of Paris. I prefer to cast in situ. I wait until the plaster shows small wrinkles in the mould before placing it on the mountain. I carve the surface with WS rock carving tools. May need some more plaster in places. I test painted the mountain... I use regular acrylics and WS earth pigments. First ochre. Then burnt sienna. And finally (?) gray stone pigment. As it is supposed to look Colorado-ish, I hope this is the way to go. It will lighten when dry. Then some dry brushing. I'm trying to match some photos I have of the Colorado mountains. The color lightened a bit when it dried. But the dry brushing went well.

OK, first draft of the pointwork etc is done, some fettling to do but it's removed from the build board and had a quick clean. Isolation gaps next and some wiring then I can test the running with a real loco or two! I'm also thinking about making the narrow gauge track move to the centre of the standard gauge, without sharing a rail etc towards the fiddle yard exit, then I can make dual gauge cassettes that can be rotated easily. Fire up Templot again!

To finish things off, some Black Smoke has been added to the wheel centres and the tender axleboxes and springs. I have also applied some Dark Mud to the seams in the tender, to indicate the start of rust, and some Rubbel Dust to the horizontal surfaces of some of the steps. The requirement was for a very grubby workhorse, which might suggest that piles of paint and pigments are to be applied, but it is just as effective to apply small amounts of both to achieve the effect, adding more if really necessary at any stage. The principle of only using small quantities at any time to achieve dirty effects is illustrated in many of the images in my flickr photostream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/laughinglobster/ That's it for now. I expect there will be more after the Great Electric Train Show at Stadium MK. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

More work with pigments now, to add to the random dirty bits that have been created with Black Smoke. I normally use MIG Productions Industrial City Dirt or Rubbel Dust (that's what it says on the jar) for lighter stains, like ash and sand, and Dark Mud and Track Brown for rusty bits. In this case it will be Rubbel Dust (ash and sand) and Dark Mud (rust). The lighter colour represents ash staining under the smokebox door and sand staining around the sandbox fillers, and the darker colour is applied to seams in the tender and then brushed outwards from there in random directions. The aim in both cases is to just hint at discolouration rather than have large deposits of different colours, and this is effected by using very small quantities (heard that before?) and brushing them out until the effect is achieved.

Another kit-built Southern liveried locomotive, this time a Maunsell L1 4-4-0 in lined olive green. The PDK kit was built by Chris Phillips: http://www.crphillips-models.co.uk/srmodelspage8.html This locomotive will be filthy! First step to be illustrated this time is the preparation of the workspace. Before commencing any work I have cleared the decks from the last project, laid down clean paper towels to give a little bit of protection to the old bedsheet covering the as-yet unlaid trackbed of my layout, and set out the main tools and materials that will be used. Those that you can see are: Railmatch Frame Dirt and Weathered Black enamel paints Glass dish containing clean white spirit Disposable pipette for transferring white spirit into airbrush cup Old paintbrush for transferring paint to airbrush cup Airbrush (Iwata Eclipse SBS) cup Plastic bottle with Eclipse adapter, containing clean white spirit Various fiddly-pokey tools, just in case MIG Productions pigments - Black Smoke, Track Brown, Dark Mud and Rubbel Dust If I remember, I'll explain the use of each of these as they are utilised.