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The Blyth and Tyne this afternoon, between Freeman's Crossing and North Blyth. Freemans crossing 56115 down coal April 85 J8271.jpg Freemans crossing Class 101 charter The Chevy Chase Newcastle to Blyth and Tyne etc April 86 J8554.jpg Cambois Class 56s 29th June 89 C12089.jpg Cambois west staithes sidings April 82 J7642.jpg North Blyth 56133 Alcan train to Lynemouth 28th March 89 C11795.jpg David

I had to remove a tree to get this picture! It is happy replanted now.....

Breakfast in the orangery in the Imperial. Love this part of the building. Just a shame that you can no longer walk in via the garden from the station as its locked and you ha e to walk all the way around to the front of the building

My own rendition of the big E. The locomotive is heading home on the 'Tea time fast' and about to pass under the now defunct Upperton road bridge. Photo courtesy of Derek Shore.

Like many others I suspect, I don't currently have access to a 30 feet plus run for my current mainline (twin track) home layout project. A length of 16 feet with (mostly) 3 foot minimum radius gives me a little under ten feet of visible open run between the end curves. Although I would like longer, I have been able to work with this. If you think about a model railway, the normal viewing angle is unprototypically high for most locations. There is no doubt that from this elevated angle a longer run makes for much more satisfying viewing. However, most of my train watching in real life has been from a line side viewpoint, and from here the field of view is much more limited. I recall standing on Twyford station a few years ago to see 61306 on a steam special, she pulled into the station and stopped about two coach lengths beyond my location on the platform end... I was disappointed to see so little of the engine, at an acute angle even at such a close range. When observing a full length train, your whole field of view can be taken in by just a part of the train itself. I am building my own layout a little higher than usual, about 47 inches (120cm) above ground level. I find this low enough to work on easily whilst standing, but it also gives me an eye-level viewpoint when seated. And from this viewpoint, you certainly don't need the full 30 feet to achieve a realistic impact with a 10-coach plus train. I haven't posted much in the way of photo's on this forum yet as I am still at an early stage with an incomplete layout and a great deal still to do re: modifying stock, weathering, lamping up etc, so my apologies for the as yet lightweight "personalisation' of the RTR stuff evident in this photo, and the use of an i-phone camera to get the low-down viewpoint. But I include it simply as an illustration that you don't always need 30 feet to model something mainline that is still impactful to the eye.

my travel insurance for the next 12 months has just paid itself.. wonder how it did that?? Had my first appointment of the season. It is in Bradford and is a "hot spot" may just decline that! Fred Karno and his army have appeared to paint the rendering on a next doors neighbours house. The ladder looks dodgy..the lad climbing it is not sure footed... could be a recipe for disaster! Bacon butty consumed so time to .. get some "stuff" sorted! Baz

Ey up! Sunny morning here so far. Herself is off to provide scoring assistance for a friendly cricket match today. My umpiring skills are not required. However, the Leagues are starting to realise they will be very short of umpires for their half season (11 week) leagues. Perhaps they should of realised that a lot of umpires are over 70 and have particularly varieties of things wrong with them to abstain from umpiring at the moment. I won't decide until I see if the League provide meaningful guidance to cover the guides sent by the ECB and the Association of Cricket Officials. I doubt they will so it may mean that I won't be umpiring. Strangely enough I don't miss cricket at the moment. Mugatea to be drunk, time to kick start Saturday. Have as good a day as you can. Hopefully we will hear from one or two of our missing ERs. Baz

Greetings one and all Let me begin with CDs and in-car music. I agree with Flavio about the tangible aspect and have wondered more than once in the past how you get someone to autograph a download. I have little experience of streaming services such as Spotify. Most of the music that I go for is definitely at the minority/obscure end of the spectrum and it was no surprise when some gentle readers professed never to have heard of much of my Top and Second 10s. The music that I like is often so niche that I come to know the perpetrators personally. I'm sure we all have discerning taste and that we do not all discern the same things. FYI, the two most recent additions to my CD collections are by Sam Carter, an up and coming singer-songwriter who is also part of a modern folk-rock band called False Lights, and Calan, a delightfully noisy band from Wales. I may not do it today but it will not be long before I go shopping for a modest CD player. A generation ago it might have been called a ghetto blaster. Today, I'm told, we do not blast ghettos but live with them in peace and harmony. I should have been in Bristol this weekend for Pride. Last year 18,000 of us marched through the city centre and it was just as much of a blast as it had been the year before with a mere (?) 12,000 marchers. That had been the start of a life-changing sequence of events to which I shall return. Meanwhile, there are persistent suggestions that those who rule us will soon insist that we all wear facial masks. Perish the thought. If they were at all effective, would there not have been more adorning powerful faces before now? Before I get into more trouble, I drew much reassurance from the kind and sympathetic reception given to my post yesterday. Thanks, folks. Chris

Does Rule 17 still apply if I'm on a ramming course? I thought the idea of getting married is so you don't have to do the cleaning anymore. A deeply confused Bear.....

More sunshine this morning. What a difference it makes. Part cloudy at PN though, as an 02 passes, bound for Ferme Park. Very shortly afterwards it meets 61073 starting away for Grantham.

good morning from a sunny Exeter. A good journey past the Stones on the A303 yesterday morning and then a detour to find a samll brewery near Chard down veey narrow lanes. My other half nearly had kittens many a time down these lanes as she does not like them at all but I am OK with them apart form her panicking distracting me driving and we did not find the brewery either. Took he doen more narrow lanes form Seaton to Beer and on to Branscombe before getting back on wider roads ot Exeter. Made the mistake of joining the M5 / as normal few miles of queuing to get onto the A30 with yet more road works being started with cones going out for 8 weeks or so over the main Summer holiday season. Parked up at St Davids and took over half an hour to try and pay online or by phone so in the ned used the ticket machine despite signs saying to use the previous two methods. I then needed the loo and the barrier staff in the station were kind enough to let me use the gents along the main platform. Station was the quietest that I have ever seen with with the buffet and WH SMiths shuttered along with the shops on the approach to the station. Then it was to the Imperial for a few pints till we could check into the hotel. A couple of nice dark ales. Fairly empty in that huge Spoons and the first time that we used their app to order. It was quicker going to the bar in the orangery but different ales on the app to those at the orangery bar as the other two bars aren't open for queuing. After check in at the hotel we had a wander around town. The model shop near the steel bridge is closing down and had a queue outside so we didnt get in to see what discounted stock was left. Most pubs in the city are still closed with a favourite looking closed down with the interior being ripped out. Even the Great Western hasnt reopened yet so no Dartmoor Jail ale for my other half. We did get into the Exeter Brewery which now opens its bar on Thursday and Friday evenings. We had food in the Mill on the Exe then over the river to finish in the Thatched House. A good evening in the end. Today we go for a long walk along the canal and river to Topsham.

Noël seems to be playing it safe by hiding behind Donk in case he gets blamed for the heist. Bit of a Coward is he?

Found the wheels...... As you can see I tend to do a lot of the painting/weathering before I put the transfers on. This allows me to slightly age the planks by painting a lighter grey wash along each one without having to worry about the lettering. Then i do the final weathering with them on.

Just had my hair cut. A close friend gave me a Boots Voucher a couple of Christmas's ago, I didn't know what to get so came away with a Hairdressing kit. My Stepdaughter has just done mine, and is now doing her Boyfriends. Result, the cost of a can of Coke.

We saw this house being built. Never thought we would live here!

According to my GP friend, the rhubarb that is left to grow the longest, and therefore harvested the latest, would be the “end of the season“ rhubarb and has the highest concentration of oxalic acid in the stems. Which is, apparently, why you can only buy fresh rhubarb in the supermarkets around here for a limited time only. A rather ghastly day awaits: Mrs iD has instructed me that, in the absence of our cleaning lady, I have bathroom and kitchen cleaning duties. Mrs iD, being a good Swiss, has very definitive ideas about the correct way of cleaning such parts of the house. waving a soapy rag at the porcelain will certainly not do the trick. Porcelain will be sterilised, cleaned and dried; chromed taps and hardware will be washed, dried and polished; liquid soaps will be topped up and nozzles cleaned and the WC will be submitted to the highest possible hazmat clean up protocols. Mrs iD, of course, is nowhere to be found as she is off giving a first aid course. I am therefore left with (1) cleaning duties, (2) dog exercising duties, (3) Patisserie duties – I have to prepare some fruit tarts for tomorrow and (4) the usual dinner creation and preparation. So much for a quiet and restful Saturday. I now must excuse myself as I must respond to the siren call of the sanitary ware demanding their weekly ablutions. iD

I'm amazed, press 2 for renewals. Beep.. And Human speaks. Amazing for a big insurance broker on a Saturday morning, I was expecting 10 minutes of musick. Time to go make some sawdust

Some from last night/this morning UTU around the Mersey rail network , 37610 powering crewe bootle Oriel Road Sandhills Ormskirk We then did Kirkby and should have turned back at marsh lane but the points were out of use so we had to go to hall road to turn back Lovely waiting room And finally back into crewe nice little job, back to a normal one tomorrow On a Possession again

Evening all, The chiropracting went well being described by him as gently brutal - at times he definitely went easy on the gentle bit but allegedly there's no gain without pain. Then a visit to WHS (no 'toddler in stock yet) but a 'Radio Times' was secured so normal life may continue from tomorrow. Some folk seen to be suitably masked up and quite a lot being sensible about social distancing although there was a minority who weren't but I think a smaller percentage than seen on previous visits to the town. Town was reasonably busy but the large car park adjacent to Waitrose was very definitely not up to normal occupation level although the other town centre car park was. Having 'masked up' before going into WHS and with some narrow pavements on the route home I kept the mask on until reaching home and much to my surprise it wasn't at all uncomfortable despite the air temperature having risen due to uninterrupted sunshine and a three quarter mile + walk with an ascent of a little over 100ft. Early dinner this evening was salad but as I'd had my usual sautéed mushrooms and grilled bacon (see below) for lunch that was not a problem likely to lead to starvation. I do like crispy bacon - although today's wasn't but I definitely don't like it burnt there being a considerable difference between the two. Equally I very definitely don't like burnt mushrooms and, apart from the butter in which they are sautéed when eating them with bacon, I don't put in any additives at all so the natural flavour comes through and goes really well with bacon. Regrettably the current packet of streaky I'm using has rather a lot of fat on the rashers - a consequence of me not doing the shopping and going through umpteen packets looking for the leanest rashers. Enjoy the rest of your day in teh lands where daylight is still present and the rest of your evening for those of you nearer the meridian of Greenwich.

Have you heard that rapper Kanye West has announced that he will run for election as the President of the United States of America this year? Kanye West is married to Kim Kardashian So, if Kanye West wins, Kim Kardashian will be the First Lady. Kim Kardashian is famous for having a big rear end Which means that for two Presidential Terms running there will be an enormous a**e in the Whitehouse.

Ah, it's as often as quarterly! So that's 1/4 past, 1/2 past, 1/4 to and on the hour then? Water is the original recyclable resource, after all! (With your erroneous impression, the phrase 'Image Alert' pops into mind!) Hope she makes a good job of his or he could quickly become her ex-boyfriend

Morning all. Bright and breezy here, well at least the weather is. At school in the I960s I was taught how to use a mechanical calculator. We were told that everyone should know how to use such a device as it would be useful for the world beating technological future awaiting us. Not a lot happening today, no deliveries expected. Perhaps I will cut my hair. Tony

At least there was a nearby auto salvage get some parts...

Mooring Awl, inner Temple Hare, Not too bad a nights sleep, 4+2+1 hours. There's just been a piece on TV about a young girl who did some of the maths proving 8 smaller guns were better than 4 bigger guns in a Spitfire. In it they showed a mechanical calculator of they type she used in 1938... I was taught to use the same model at school in 1970!!! Then we never saw it again and had to use log tables etc. This mornings patrol was with a much happier Ben the changeable Collie, he was happily following scents around the garden till he found a ball.. Kick the ball dad kick the ball... Charge!!!! Scattered clouds but a bit cool out there. I've been following a long discussion on Rule 17 of the Racing Rules of Sailing, 170 posts and I still wonder if some of them in the discussion have bothered to read the rules. If a boat clear astern becomes overlapped within two of her hull lengths to leeward of a boat on the same tack, she shall not sail above her proper course while they remain on the same tack and overlapped within that distance, unless in doing so she promptly sails astern of the other boat. This rule does not apply if the overlap begins while the windward boat is required by rule 13 to keep clear. Very shortly it will become expensive.. Landrover insurance time.. Time to... Wait till 09:00

Good Evening All, Been a pleasant day here. Sun out but a cool wind. As Syd had a sleepover we took him for a walk first thing, well at 10am and when we got back Bil had brought nephews round to play in the garden (or on the iPads). Managed to do some work and a bit of modelling. Didn’t take as long as I thought so did a bit more work so hopefully a bit more modelling tomorrow. Bit down yesterday. One of my friends from ‘the club’ had two heart attacks last week and was due out of hospital yesterday so went round with a card and some magazines. He wasn’t home so spoke to his mother and later that night I found out he’s just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He retired this week so it should have been a happy time for him and his family. The sickening thing about the situation is that he’s only 58. Anyway he seems in high spirits which I suppose is the main thing. Now he does have something to grumble about. Goodnight everyone,and make tomorrow count, Robert

Last haircut I paid for was 26 years ago so don’t know how much they cost these days and most of know that I don’t look like I am in the ZZ Top band. My other half said she would pay if I come with her to get my haircut In Bognor Regis as we go see her Mum afterwards. It was good to get sheared last Saturday.

Tea time, and there is another WD on the Down slow.

I use this: When I was spinning a lot of 78s, I used this rig: I prefer the sound quality of records over most other sources. I have not (knowingly) listened to Spotify or any other streaming sources.

Oh, I don’t know. It could be, equally, the recipe for an afternoon‘s light weight entertainment. Perhaps, to spice up matters, a small wager could be made with Mrs Barry O as to how long it will take until the first mishap occurs. Depending on how the events of the afternoon unfold, you may also be fortunate enough to be able to submit, once the events of the afternoon have ended, an Observer’s entry for the Darwin Awards Website. I am assuming that this is a straightforward typographical error. If it is not, then it sounds like an exquisitely complicated psychological condition requiring considerable therapy often with specialised equipment that - to the uninitiated and uninformed - may resemble railway modelling material. Fear not, Mr Stone, today I am scheduled for my quarterly bath and scrub down so I will finish the day with everything – including myself - clean enough for you to eat your dinner off (actually, re-reading that It does create the erroneous impression that I would also be clean enough for you to eat your dinner off me. Now that may “float your boat”, but it’s not for me – no matter how squeakyclean I would be) I know that they can be horrendously expensive, complicated and time-consuming to bring up to current standards for household properties, but there is something very appealing about older properties that seems to be absent from practically everything built since 1945. The less said about the brutalist architecture of the 50s and the ghastly inner-city prestressed concrete monstrosities and tower blocks of the 60s and 70s, the better. I know that the 1930s semi and the Edwardian “Villa“ (basically a fully detached house) have been dismissed as “speculators rubbish“ by the architectural intelligentsia, but the something very appealing about these properties. And certainly the housing designed and constructed quickly and as cheaply as possible in order to house the burgeoning working class can be pretty shoddy, but much of the same type of housing stock was built to very high standards and have become much sought after properties. As an afterthought, whilst much of the housing stock built in the 60s and 70s has not worn well, that housing stock that has worn well, such as the apartments at the Barbican, are infinitely preferable to the ghastly little boxes that nowadays are being thrown up as quickly and cheaply as possible (yet sold at eye watering prices). Oddly enough, and as far as I can tell, all those architects wanting to be “innovative”, “daring” with their client’s projects seem to be living in very desirable examples of period property or in those modern properties that none but the most well heeled can afford to think about. Well, lunchtime is now over and I am off to start in the kitchen. I certainly will be sometime... iD

Don't forget to wash / sanitize your hands between tasks!

Morning all from a sunny Charente, which mercifully is still a long way from an Ikea. The boss is still asleep but last night orders were posted that today should be a day of rest. I wonder if this state of affairs will continue. However there are a couple of tasks. The shorter ine is to shovel a third of a ton of sand out of the trailer onto a board and then cover the sand to prevent various deposits from feral cats and other creatures. The sand will comee in useful some day, but the trailer is needed rather sooner. The other task is to monitor the leakage from the pool. Even though it was only filled to 6cms depth 23 square metres of area means that there was approx 1.3 tonnes of water in it. I may have to cut a larger hole in the liner to asist it's exit. Apart from those two tasks nothing else is planned so I may do some more photo scanning. I'm now doing a year of negs and a year of slides at a time and am starting to get to the point where I took quite a lot of French railway scenes. Once there are plenty done I'll probably start another random railway photo thread for European railways. Eventualy I plan to do one for North and Central American ones as well. All good fun. Anyway regards to all and Douglas I sincerely hope that you haven't just acquired a new landlord following the Supreme Court ruling. Jamie

Seven quid?? Now that's what I call a result. Mine were £12 a time, and that was before C-19 kicked off..... Tail Gunner. Don't come any braver than that......

Evening all, Alas the United Parcels Service van didn’t come, and neither did the mail, which was strange. I went down to the shop this evening as someone had moved the wrecked gate, so we went to investigate. A photo has been included below. The guy who crashed into it was drunk and lost control of his 2004 corvette at about 65 mph. All captured on camera as well. stay healthy, Douglas

Mine only cost me £10 post Covid and I’m not a pensioner. Having said that SWMBO says I look a bu88er! Robert

Aditi wants to watch the New York Met opera Eugene Onegin being streamed this afternoon. I asked if it is about a sailing ship company. She said no and it was set in Russia and surely the name made that obvious. I said I thought perhaps it was Irish? Tony

I am quite relieved that our house is box like. Nice rectangular rooms are easier to decorate. Our previous house had timber cladding on the upper storey. I said whatever we bought next should be mainly brick. This house is brick and is not like others decorated with faux Elizabethan timbers or Georgian plaster mouldings. It isn’t pargetted either. My nephew in Sussex is beginning to look for a house. He doesn’t want anything that is going to require constant maintenance or requires massive energy consumption to keep warm, so I expect fairly modern. The nephew moving to Zurich soon has a temporary room rented but the company he will work for are sending him details of various rental properties. One he liked was on a car less development. You leave your car at the edge of the development and cycle or walk to your apartment. Tony

A'noon all, I'm still relying on a stack / stash of favourite CDs in the car and I usually keep one or two in rotation in my work bag, the outgoing fleet of Freightliner vans all have CD players but some of the new ones don't. Ennio Morricone is top of the heap at the moment with some other soundtracks getting a look in, I find it very relaxing listening to this kind of music at night on the way to or from a twelve hour ballast job in the middle of nowhere! I've yet to master 'ripping' / 'downloading' and don't currently own a smartphone anyway, so 'old school' it is until further notice.

G'day all. The house we live in was planned by me (in terms of room size and floor plan plus some of the exterior details - so guess who gets the blame if something, anything, is found unsatisfactory (even if it has nothing to do with me). The house one grandfather lived in was probably 18th century, if not earlier, and had the luxury of a tap just outside the back door - that was its only mains service. My other grandparents lived in much greater luxury - because the dairy had been at one end of the building they actually had a tap indoors and when their new milking parlour was built in the early 1950s electricity was to hand so they also had it installed in the house - 100% visible wiring fixed to the walls etc so the 19th century plaster needed no attention or chasing out and redoing. In both cases of course the toilet was outside and one cooked on a calor gas fuelled cooker while the other used a coal fired kitchen range. All sounds terribly old fashioned now but to them it was everyday life - as it was to use when we stayed there. The weather is not to bad today and the G word has been more than mentioned - instructions have been issued regarding dealing with some of the long grass near the greenhouse which is crowding the outdoor tomato plants. As for oxalic acid in rhubarb I wonder if it could be used to make something akin to Exmover for cleaning really ingrained dirt of the cars? In fact it leaves n me wondering if rhubarb had a part in the manufacture of Exmover of which oxalic acid was a major component? Strange how things come together like that? Pasties are promised for dinner tonight, whoopee (sorry Baz). Mushrooms have been acquired for my lunch by the Tesco foraging expedition. Have a good day one and all and stay safe. By the way it has often been said that one reason why masks were not recommended at an early stage in the Covid tale is because there was fear the NHS would be short of supplies. I suspect the far bigger reason was that it was realised many people would refuse to wear them and the hand washing might get overlooked if folk thought masks were the real deal and nothing else was needed.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Just spent an hour catching up on I-player A House Through Time. I had missed the last episode and decided to catch up whilst it was still available. The cottage I had in Burnham-on-Crouch was built in 1862. I managed to find a bit of the history but sadly not a lot as this was before the days of the internet. My grandparents house in St. Leonards was even older, built in 1815 of massive sandstone blocks, the nearby quarry were the sandstone came from was turned into a small park a few years after the house was built and is still a park. Both properties were built as terraced 2 up 2 down workmens dwellings and had scullery and bathroom extensions added later.

Good morning everyone A sunny start here in the northwest of England today as well. Breakfast is now but a distant memory and after spending a few minutes applying the last coat of varnish to the shelving, I'm off to the workshop. I may be some time! Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later

Calan. We first saw them some years ago, in Caernarfon, then followed this up with another in Bangor. We had booked their latest gig up here...but covid got in the way...next scheduled concert in Caernarfon, 11 December. One of my favourites. Edit. The Welsh lines roughly translates as: Sgrech y storm mewn gwewyr : The storm screams in pain Mellt yn rhwygo’r awyr : Lightening strikes the air

We had a day cleaning carpets. Machine with hot water and a solution. Extra rugs not back in place yet. The promised thunderstorm finally arrived after 7 pm. There may be more over the weekend. Dayle was out again before I was out of bed. Even at that hour she found her walk too hot.

Thanks @Krusty - did Model Railroader also state how soul destroying it was? Well, how do I follow that last update? Anything after that is pretty much going to be an anti-climax innit? AS I've mentioned, it is getting close to the finish line though it seems every time I pour over my reference photo's I find something new cropping up that I have kept missing in the last 6 years. The emergency equipment was a prime example. When I started chasing that squirrel I found out that there were two fire extinguishers specified. According to the drawings, they were located on top of the electrical cabinets in the end corridors. Sure enough, when I looked at my reference stuff, I could just make out what certainly appeared to be a fire extinguisher right at the far end of the corridor. Nothing for it then but to try and make a couple. I'll be honest and I did actually google 1/32 scale fire extinguishers and found a couple of resin examples. Then conscience got the better of me and since I've scratch built 99% of this thing I figured I may as well continue. 3D printing came to mind, but again, I thought nah!.... let's try it the old school way. An hour later I had two of these thingamabobs turned from brass rod on the lathe. At the top end I drilled a small pilot hole - the hope being that I could make these mostly from brass. A couple of 0.8 mm lengths of rod were hammered flat on the vice, then in time honored fashion it was time to drill unfeasibly small holes in equally unfeasibly small handles. A bunch of Ø0.5 mm holes were duly drilled and a small brass rivet used to hang everything together. No need to worry about cutting them to length just yet. A dab of solder was added to keep everything fixed in position, then a few swipes with a file cleaned that all up and brought things down to the correct length. When I say 'correct' I mean something approaching sort of looks like what it's supposed to look like, maybe. The rivet was then rammed into the pilot hole and luckily was tight enough to stay put. I originally tried to solder the handles on to the body, but the larger part was too much of a heat sink and I couldn't get it to work - so interference fit it was. Follow that up with some enameled black wire, another small piece of brass tube, and a piece of electrical wire and we get a decent approximation of a fire skoosher Happy with that it was then time for paint. I used the last few drops of red gloss and then the airbrush decided to spurt and splatter causing a few expletives to be uttered. Since it was going to take some time to obtain some more (and Testors have stopped producing any more) I had to resort to Humbrol satin red of some description. It wasn't quite as bright as fire extinguisher red, but at this juncture, I considered it close enough. Black gloss applied to the handles, then Alclad chrome to finish things off While I was waiting for the paint to dry I had an idea.... I wasn't sure how the fire extinguishers were fitted atop the cabinets and thought some kind of housing may be used. Out came the 5 thou brass sheet and using just a ruler and a standard blade I managed to cut a form out. I kept the scribing on the fold lines light -just enough to be able to bend the brass but not break it Holes were drilled at the intersections of the folds so the edges would not interfere as it was folded Then folded up we have this. I'm not certain I'm going to use them but have painted them up and will have another look tomorrow and see what I feel like then. The thing about fire extinguishers is that they always have lots of labels slapped all over them. I checked my extensive fire extinguisher decal collection of which I have and let's be honest here...zilch. An executive decision was required so I decided just to press ahead and sorted out some decal scraps that when put together sort of looked like they were intended for this purpose. At the end of the day, you're only ever going to be able to see these things from above, so I really only needed something that looked suggestive of a label. These scraps all came from various Wessex transfer sheets Hose bits fitted I think those will do nicely. When I took this photo I noticed that I had forgotten to paint the small brass spout black - that has now been done and they've both received another gloss coat. Job done, now on to the next thing on the list. Passcomm handles I believe Stay safe and have a good weekend folks

Good evening everyone The weather has been a bit mixed today, it didn’t rain whilst I walked to the butchers, but it did on my at back. Luckily it was only light rain and I didn’t really get wet. The same happened on my way to and from the Trafford Centre, but I was in the car, so it didn’t really matter. The sun finally shone mid afternoon and lasted for the rest of the day. After this morning’s disappointment in not getting the latest copy of RM, I decided that after dinner, instead of reading I’d make some almond scones instead. I only made a small batch, 4 in total but they are quite large. They went down well with the management, as half have been eaten already! Goodnight all

Err, um, yes it does appear that I have a new landlord. . So technically I live in Muskogee nation now and not the USA anymore. However I think that means my parents won’t have income tax anymore!

Mine says it arrived in Texas yesterday morning, but still says its being delivered tomorrow. Its a bit like that meme where you order the Amazon Prime package and it gets there 5 minutes before you order it. Well this isn't quite like that ...

Caravan main activity today so far is gluing the bits back on that shouldn't have fallen off.

Well, the new chassis has been completed for the ancient Millholme 2P, replacing the previous K's-powered white metal lump. I tried the 27mm drivers first, but they made the loco ride too high. These are older Romford 26mm; the over-scale flanges give the impression of a larger diameter. I cut off the front bits of the Comet frames because they were too long overall for the body. I rather think this is because the body is too short. I retained the original white metal bogie but replaced the wheels. Two Plastikard rubbing surfaces can be seen. The guard irons were originally on this bogie, which is incorrect - they should be on the frames. I just lopped them off. The body/chassis length discrepancy can be seen here. I just soldered the cut-off bits to the body. How the bogie pivots and how it's sprung is evident. The bogie has to take some of the weight of the front end of the body, otherwise the loco is too nose-heavy. Speaking of weight - you certainly get your money's worth of white metal in a Millholme kit. A couple of fibre washers were necessary at the back end, just to make the whole thing sit level. After thorough (successful) testing, the chassis' painting/weathering will now be completed. And, in between times, I've done some more on the DJH 8F.

I bought a TCS DP2X-UK decoder for the Prairie this morning. The shop had also just had a delivery from Matt's Ballast so I bought another bag of that too. While I was browsing, I found something very interesting on the shelves - a brand new set of Slaters 1.5mm letters and numbers. These have been out of production for about 10 years to my knowledge, so it is conceivable that this was the last set available in a shop anywhere in the world (prove me wrong folks!). I pointed this out to Mark, the owner, and his amazement was capped only by his amazement that they showed up on his computer stock list. More ballasting after lunch (and lots more still to come...). First I finished No 2 Spur. Next, I cut some cork to form the infills between the Up Main and Branch (platforms 2 and 3) at each end of the station. I then ballasted as far as the end of the Up end infill. This shows the full sweep of the approach to Porthmellyn Road after ballasting. Here is the Up end of the platforms. The final position of the island platform end might end up a few millimetres to one side or the other. That doesn't matter, as it's easy to cut the infill away or add a bit more. You can also see the uncoupler magnet markers quite clearly here. Tonight I'll have a look at the Prairie and see whether there is anything obvious causing the wobble.

Finally for this week the rail ‘over bridge’. This had slipped my mind until I realised the sewerage works had no access then checked the photos. Worst thing about creating an unplanned bridge is the amount of ply cutting needed. Thank goodness for multitools. I’ve used Peco OO gauge girders with added rivet and steel sections. Measuring them they seem a good size for small prototype bow girder bridges. After priming the girders with the usual Halfords rattle cans I’ve sprayed them a dark rust colour with an airbrush. One coat of AK interactive ‘heavy chipping’ fluid later and then on with an acrylic rail grey. The satisfying bit comes next with using some cotton buds dipped in water to rub away the acrylic grey to reveal the rust. Easy to overdo it though so careful. But the result is a chipped and worn girder. The interior walls are plywood with ‘stone’ sheets from Slaters. I also wanted to light this tunnel so used a pair of OO modern image streetlights extended with brass tube. A sod to fit from underneath I hot glued them into place after weathering them (not that you can see it). Since they had bright white LED’s I dabbed a spot of yellow paint on the lenses which results in a nice yellowy 1980’s glow. These will work off a separate 6v supply. The huge coping stones are plywood cut into sections then sanded to form the ends. Most of these will be covered over when painted anyway. Nearby roads await grates, manhole covers and detailing. I’m doing all the boring civil engineering work on these remaining frames before detailing the whole lot in one go..