Dava

All the track on the existing sections of Grand Lake RR is down and being tested by the existing locos before remaining ties & ballast are laid. Here #96 is on the back road via the traverser to ensure there will be clearance alongside the warehouse loading ramps, there will be a loco servicing area further along. The warehouse started life on Coxheath Sidings, built in Canada 9 years ago.

Well there’s a reason to visit Melton! There are some good pork pie & sausage shops too, not just the famous ones. Not far from Rocks by Rail too.

Thanks for saving me a less than productive trip. Hope to see Hibel Rd at a future show.

Anyone else noticed that these lovely models are being produced to the incorrect ‘mongrel’ gauge of 16.5mm, equating to 2’4”, rather than the correct gauge of 2’, for which 14mm is the scale equivalent? Of coarse I understand why, it’s commercial, but it’s inaccurate. Let’s hope an 014 conversion can be produced, which will probably need new or reprofiled wheels to meet the EM wheel standards for 014. Hopefully EDM Models will offer a solution… Dava

Tickets booked for my birthday on Sunday!

I'd like to see 'Hibel Road'. Used to be a member as a youth up to 1980's-ish when I moved away. I guess most everyone I used to know has moved on... Dava

I should have written that in 1:120 scale most people(including myself) would find them indistinguishable, or maybe not interesting enought to tell them apart. Also I dont think Hornby promised a 57xx in TT120, just a pannier tank. As for eyesight, I've just spent £500 on new varifocals and avoid specsavers ever since they gave me a duff prescription.

The story of Bunny Old Hill, Mine and Mill (all real places in Nottinghamshire) can be found with other 014 musings below. You can be forgiven for missing it, borrowed away in the narrow gauge backwater. The layout has no sheep but a fox, badger and working rabbit.

Even I know the 64xx pannier tanks were auto-fitted and most people would find it very difficult to distinguish between a 64xx and an 8750 [57xx with later cab].

Hi Pete, I havent looked for a few years but I expect if I go looking in the Bunny Old Hill area there will be outcrops where I last saw them. I'll PM you. Dava

I found a broken wire coat hanger in the wardrobe. Small event but I needed one to make the wire operating handle for the traverser on Grand Lake RR. The traverser still needs its locking bolt and guards to prevent mishaps. Its completion opens up the ‘back road’ accessible from it, an obscure legacy track. This will access a warehouse but also be an isolatable track where DC steam locos can be stored when the line is in DCC mode or vice versa, or be a programming track. There will be some scenic breaks in this area, behind the freight house to conceal the traverser pit. I enjoy following Chris Mears Prince St blog/Fbook on his modelling, located mainly on freight lines in Halifax NS, an area I know. Small observations on progressing modelling projects.

Thanks, just too chunky & need a smaller one which used to be available.

This weekend I laid the track on Grand Lake which will serve the warehouse backs of local businesses. Is this the team track? Anyway, it’s laid and runs nicely with 40ft boxcars. There is a Banta kit which will become 2 warehouse backs. I need a small locking bolt to finish the traverser, small barrel bolts seem to have disappeared so I have to make this from an Allen key, brass tube & sheet.

Thanks, so it was the Lough Swilly but I was at the wrong end! I visited Burtonport station about 30 years ago, the station building was derelict and we didn’t visit any others on the BPER. We stayed in a converted barn overlooking Killybegs Bay so explored the County Donegal stations including the museum at Donegal and the railway at Finntown which was running with Belgian tram trailers at the time.

‘The Railway Station Man’ is a minor enigmatic film from 1992 being screened on BBC4 tonight 13.3.24. It brought together Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland long after ‘Don’t Look Now’ in the setting of County Donegal, NW Ireland. It centres on the restoration of an old railway station amid political and personal tensions. The question is, which station? I reckon it is either Buncrana, Fahan or Tooban Junction on the Londonderry & Lough Swilly as the station building resembles the quite ornate structures of that line. There is a single eaved wooden signal box in Swilly style, this may be a recreation. A authentic engraved brass plate on signalling equipment reads Enniskillen. landscape is bleak bogland with spectacular coast and mountains. Wikipedia says it was filmed in Glencolumbkille, it may have been but there was never a station there. Does anyone know?

There are so many homeless cats, the rescue centres can’t cope & have waiting lists. Mrs Dava lost her Fife farm tabby through old age, the last of 3 sisters. So not content with 3 mature cats, we had to visit the Derby cat’s rescue centre. A young cat had a litter of 6 kittens so we adopted a ginger boy & his tuxedo sister for company. They have romped about and disturbed the oldies no end since arriving 3 weeks ago!

The main update from Grand Lake RR in recent weeks has been laying & testing the sidings and associated traverser. this is 1 linear foot or 48 scale ones, providing runround or access to the backroad. Side, end guards & locks yet to be fitted, tested with a range of locos, it’s fine. Yes, the British loco fleet will have occasional running powers on the line!

Having been in 2023 and with the sad demise of Warley, this show is top of my list for this year, along with Soar Valley in Loughborough. Dava

The other ingredients I could do without as they can leave an oily film.

I use surgical spirit for track & wheel cleaning, plus other uses. Dava

So as my Grand Lake Railroad project required a Yard Goat quickly, an Atlas Plymouth conversion was the obvious ‘short cut’ as it were. One was acquired at reasonable cost, tested and dismantled. Then marked up for cutting. I should have taken more care as a slip with a junior hacksaw hacked my forefinger, but there is a First Aid kit in the workshop for these mishaps. A full-size hacksaw was mainly used after that as I don’t have an angle grinder or similar. I do have a razor saw which was very useful on the plastic frame & body. I also have a book on Critters and Swithchers which reveals that only the narrow gauge Plymouths of this kind had outside frames, the SG ones having their wheels exposed. So millions of such locos in N, Ho & O scales are all wrong! But they do look better with outside frames, so they were shortened too and replaced. The first one I hacked at the start of this thread dated back to 2012 and I didn’t intend making another but it meets a need for the time being at least. It just needs a repaint (not too smart), couplings and details to complete. I can see now why Jordan added etched chequer plate and will do the same.

Yes that photo helped motivate me to contact Karlgarin aka Richard McLeish to enquire about & purchase the Boxcab. I have given up my project to build a plastic 25 tonner, I will build the 2 Doors Down brass one instead, then the Boxcab. At the moment the line needs a small loco quick as Yard Goat to test the track (still being laid), wiring, traverser and generally bat railcars around in DC mode. The brass steam & diesel locos all need work on them and the little K-line Plymouth is DCC only. So an Atlas Plymouth switcher and MTH boxcar which just needed new trucks (I have a pair which don’t fit anything else) were acquired from Elaine’s Trains. The Plymouth has been subjected to predictable butchery and the result at least runs, is more compact and just needs couplings, repaint and detailing. Similar to Jordan’s but I first did this conversion back in about 2012. It has already found some pointwork it doesn’t like.

NRM has hardly anyone left who is qualified to do restoration work on large artefacts, as distinct from conservation. It has to be subcontracted or carried out by organisations such as heritage railways on items on loan. GCR currently has 3 steam locos under or awaiting restoration and 2 diesels from NRM.

Thanks Mike, I bought a 25 tonner kit from Robin at a GOG event a couple of years ago, his last of these kits he said. He had a pair of lovely 70 tonners on display but none for sale. I have a Bachmann Williams 3 rail one for conversion unless a 2 rail one turns up. There are a few of these locos still in shortline service, or were until recently. Cue iconic photo of Claremont & Concord 70 tonner no. 9.

This GE 23 ton Boxcab kit arrived today, the last one! Karlgarin models just have the EMD 200 hp double-ender centrecab left. http://www.karlgarin.com/2doorsdown.htm It saves me making one from plasticard. The 25 tonner from the same stable is likely to be built first. I do like small postwar era GE locos.