Ian Morgan

Nearly done, just some glazing for the brake van, final assembly and then a lot of weathering and distressing. The LBSCR box van was one of several that survived to British Railways ownership on the Isle of Wight, used for carrying fish and holiday makers' luggage. The LBSCR brake van was similar to a pair of vans that the Freshwater, Yarmouth and Newport Railway purchased from the Isle of Wight Railway. They survived into Grouping, but I do not know how long they continued in use. Both are Etched Pixels etched brass bodies on 2mm Scale Association chassis with Fox and Model Masters transfers. My model of Freshwater station is set around 1948-1952 so these will be overdue repainting by British Railways. I have a second box van to build that will be BR grey for contrast.

More diesel hauled steam

As far as I have been able to find out, W8 'Freshwater' was unlined black when nationalised, the SOUTHERN lettering being replaced with BRITISH RAILWAYS. I am also fairly sure W13 Carisbrooke was lined Malachite green at this time. However, these two did not return to the mainland until the late 1940's. 'Fenchurch' was painted black in 1926 and numbered B636, when the Southern acquired Newhaven Harbour who had purchased her from the LBSCR nearly 30 year previously. 2647 'Cheapside' was also SR black goods livery 1936-1950, but I am not sure if it was lined.

A Portaloo with a view

Facebook and the like are awash with scam adverts for Bitcoin money making ideas, using Bear Grylls' name as fake endorsements: Bear Grylls Scam Adverts However, I was dismayed to find a lot of these adverts are now appearing on the rmweb pages. Can these be blocked by rmweb somehow?

I use Blender, but no clever stuff. I created individual bricks and tiles. The brickwork used a lot of copy and paste having laid a few individual ones to the bond pattern. Then, complete rows of bricks were copy and pasted, then multiple rows. Individual bricks were then manipulated at edges and corners. The tiles were similarly created and copied, but for this roof, most of them were then individually moved, tilted and rotated. and then that row was copied to form the basis for the next one. Finally, I went round deleted slates, resizing broken slates, slipping slates downwards, and adding the completely loose ones. Three or four evenings work for just the roof. I had created corrugated iron sheets for another building, so just imported a bit as a new object and used it for the roof above the doors.

Oberrittersgrün is on the Pöhlwassertalbahn, not the Spreewaldbahn. It is a pity, because I have a couple of Tillig Spreewaldbahn locos waiting for me to build a layout for them.

The Coal Depot for Freshwater has just been delivered from Shapeways, and I have given it a quick spray with Halfords White Primer, as it is hard to see the detail in its semi-transparent state. It will need a little rubbing down here and there, and then I will find out if my painting skills are good enough to do it justice. ... and what it should look like:

Have a look for some etched nickel-silver fencing (can't remeber a name at the moment) and you will then leave the plastic stuff for the HO brigade.

Search for Futaba Plugs and sockets.

After a few evenings work, I have finally applied all the Fox transfers to my five 4-wheeler carriages for Freshwater. Applying the individual digits for the coach numbers was a real pain. Why did they have to have them on both ends of such short vehicles? As the actual coach numbers are well documented in an Oakwood Press book, I had to use the correct ones, even though it means I will need to buy another sheet of transfers to complete the other side, the digits 3 and 6 being very popular. A test spray with Testor's Dullcote caused these transfers to shrivell up, so I used some Pledge polish (which is supposed to be the same as the old Johnsons Klear acrylic varnish) but it seems to have left the coaches looking a bit patchy. Hopefully the weathering will disguise this. The Stroudley LBSCR 4 set are etched brass, and the ex-NLR coach is 3D printed, all are from Etched Pixels. Actually, the ex-NLR coach 6336 was withdrawn by the Southern Railway when it was still in the varnished teak livery of the Isle of Wight Railway, and did not wear Southern green until it was rescued from being part of a bungalow by the preserved Isle of Wight Steam Railway.

On my virtual workbench, I have just completed another building for Freshwater - the Coal Depot. An unusual building, built using Flemish Garden Wall bond brickwork, like the station building, it had 6 openings on the rear wall next to the siding, with wooden shutters. I have no idea what the internal arrangements were, but I presume coal was shovelled from the wagons into these openings. I guess there was vehicular access from the other side. Another puzzle is the fact that when the line closed, the building was only half the length of when it was built. I am beginning to suspect it could have been partly demolished by the Luftwaffe. I have found out that two bombs were dropped on Freshwater during the course of the war, one unfortunately causing two fatalities. The full bomb reports have all been digitised by York University, but can only be accessed by academics or librarians, so I have not been able to determine the exact locations of the blasts. So, for my timescale, the building is in disrepair, with the patched up east end wall where the building was shortened, bricked up coal openings, and a roof with sagging beams, missing broken and dislodged slates and relatively modern steel (or plywood) doors. Anyway, I am now awaiting Shapeways to print and deliver my model so I can see how it turned out. Watch this space.

This website does not appear to show a direct hit at that location, but plenty in the surrounding area.: http://bombsight.org/#17/51.50471/-0.08498 I am currently working on the remains of the coal depot for Freshwater, which when the line closed was only half the length of when it was built. The eastern end wall was very 'temporary' looking compared with the solid wall at the western end. I am beginning to wonder if it was shortened by the Luftwaffe. York University has digitised all the bomb reports, and I can see that two bombs fell on Freshwater, one unfortunately causing two deaths. However, to see the full reports you have to be an academic or a librarian.

One of our school buses disappeared for a couple of weeks, and then turned up on the London-Brighton Vintage Commercial Vehicle Run. It then returned to being a school bus. One of these was nick-named 'Loppy' because it had a distinct lean to one side. Tackling the big hill up to my school, the driver would double de-clutch down into first and it would crawl up at less than walking speed. Happy days? Not my photo: