coronach

That loco was operating in my loft today !!

Here is Ivatt 4MT 43000 heading south through Slitrigg back to Carlisle on a permanent way train after the weekend engineering work.

And here is the G5 seen on the approach to Whinburgh

A short interlude in the loft today The G5 waits for the off on a northbound local train The vans collected from Slitrigg yard by the up pick up await the down pickup to take them north to Hawick. Whinburgh North signalman has recently bought a new car

Yes I bet it is. I have a realistic natural sound of wind gusts in the loft but fortunately it is warm and dry. Following the operating session on Friday evening with my (grown up!) son, today I discovered on the layout a sheep in the top of a tree. I wondered what he was up to after I descended the loft ladder! That aside, I am really pleased with the research he is doing into the Waverley local passenger trains. He is creating a working timetable based no later than winter 61/62 that we can base our running sessions on. I understand that the schedule was somewhat decimated after that. The audit of rolling stock has identified that we have five 2 or 3 coach rakes of various LNER, LMS and BR non-corridor stock, plus lots of NPCCS and loose coaches that we can use for variation. We can also created the school goods if we are flexible with dates. There are 9 other rakes of coaches including the Waverley, Up and Down sleepers, semifasts, the Dundee- Blackpool and a couple of inter regional trains from the SR and LMR/WR so lots to go at. and then we have the freights……

I’ve got two split chassis J39s both of which are getting on for 30 years old. Both run ok, albeit requiring regular cleaning and oiling. They are useful as bankers on the steep climb to Whitrope summit! I’m just enjoying the RM article - great photos and an interesting read too. The correct operation of signalling and trains is one of the things that marks Grantham over other impressive layouts.

I wondered whether it might be. It looks excellent as it is. I cancelled my order for the J27 after hearing of poor customer reviews

The sun has come out at Slitrigg.

Lovely work. Is the loco from a kit or is it detailed RTR?

Just enjoyed a two hour running session (!) with my son. We exercised all of the railway infrastructure and several of the trains, which found out one or two issues but generally everything ran really well. The highlight for me was watching the pick up goods shunt the sidings at Slitrigg and the sidings at Whinburgh. The Heljan Class 17 runs beautifully at low speeds, which is ideal. We have made a list of the locos, passenger rakes and goods sets with the view of creating a comprehensive operating sequence. It’s all rather exciting really 😊

NBL type 2s weren’t seen on the Waverley Route but they are interesting locos to have.

Got the D20 out again too. First time I have run it since stripping it down to fix a short circuit. Runs well now 😊

And here is platform 1! The building is actually Lambley station house on the Alston branch, dating from a previous layout in the 1990s. It sits well here as it is fairly local to the Waverley. The station building on platform 1 is based on that at Hassendean.

I have remade part of the island platform surface at Whinburgh, using birch ply, coated with chinchilla dust and painted whilst wet with diluted pva and acrylic paint. A very organic finish that I am happy with. Just need to strip back and complete platform 1 next, which was started nearly 25 years ago!!!.