Jump to content
 

Dava

RMweb Premium
  • Posts

    3,496
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Dava

  1. Unbelievably its almost 10 years since this loco was exported to Aus! Always good to see it and to hear from Harleymartin. I haven’t acquired or molested an Atlas Plymouth since! They are becoming quite rare but at last I am working on a shortline project which could employ a hacked version.
  2. Hymeks & Westerns had an elan & style which most DEs lacked. Warships & D63xx were sad-eyed losers and class 14 were mutants. Don’t expect many to agree! Dons HVV & leaves….
  3. Check the twigs are free from fungus, rot or infection. Also free from insects or larvae. They will go brittle as they dry out, could be dipped or soaked in Glycerol or glycerine to compensate for this. I have used natural moss & lichen, dried out and same approach. Or can be left live and water sprayed but will give off organic aromas and may be habitat for mini beasts!
  4. Quite a lot of shows remote from a rail station include a vintage bus shuttle to/from the station. Stafford being an example. Retro and quirky but what about their environmental impact? One of the best shows and venues was at Derby in the Roundhouse venue, couldn’t be closer to Derby station though parking was a bit limited, and environmental performance of the building restored with oodles of public money was at BREAM standards. But post-Covid, Derby College stopped its use as an events venue and Derby has lost its premier model rail event.
  5. Yes the bobber caboose is a Roco one the seller had added wire handrails & scale ladders to, I already had one but this will get the line’s roadname in due course. Both came at modest cost. The line is inspired by the Pinsly and other New England shortlines but it’s not a model of any specific one. More details in future posts.
  6. This thread will have occasional diversions, one took place yesterday when I had a long trip to Winchester to visit the O Scale US & Continental show, fortunately the weather and road conditions had improved to make this possible. It was good to meet, talk and trade with other modellers. I had arranged to collect some items from a modeller selling his collection, these included a few short wooden-framed cars for internal works use on the shortline, and also the rescue of a well-used KTM B&O C16a dockside shunter, pictured. I will admit to already having an unpainted brass version, which will stay that way for the near future, and this one will beremotored and converted to DCC as the working loco. The story is that when B&O dieselised its dockside workings in the 1940’s, a C16 saddle tank and 16a tender switcher were sold for shortline use They weren’t, but could have been. My shortline is set in the late 1950s era when early GE diesel locos such as 25, 44, 45 and 70 tonners would be found, taking over from residual steam operations. It will be located, in imagination in the New Hampshire/Vermont region and practically in the 3000 x 600 mm [10x2 feet] space here, in my workshop.
  7. I braved the floods yesterday and went to the Winchester US & Continental OScale event. It was enjoyable with a multigauge test track, big 3 rail display, small layouts including US & European O scale and On3. Plus traders with lots of kits & bits. Everyone had a good time and there were no disputes between fine and 3 rail coarse scalers! Also there are more O scale US & European modellers in the UK than you might think.
  8. Volunteers & skilled workers at a premium in Strathspey region. Board needs to understand this.
  9. The diesel loco is a Bachmann Williams GE 44 tonner, a reasonable model above the footplate with slightly overscale handrails. Below, the trucks have a direct drive axle and freewheel axle with coarse wheels which can be replaced. Very similar to the GE 70 tonner I bought which awaits conversion to scale wheels & removal of fairground sound system. Otherwise these are reasonable models, available from Tootally Trains in UK which makes importing easy. Dava
  10. This thread has taken about three years to get started. In Autumn 2020 we were 'locked in' and I started to get interested in North American shortline railroads. North American, not just USA, because I had first-hand experience of one in Canada. I'd been modelling British light railways in 7mm scale for over 10 years, and read 'Classic Trains' magazine (Kalmbach) most quarters. But US railroads have massive locos, mile-long trains, and there's nothing you can buy, right? Well, no. Let's see the photo below, from one of the many shortline groups on FaceBook. Its a red GE 44-tonner with a single flatcar on the Pinsly-owned Claremont & Concord Railroad outside an engineering foundry on a former electric trolley line in downtown Claremont. Pinsly saw that the Class 1 railroads like the Boston & Maine were closing loss-making country lines which no longer served industrial companies such as papermills, engineering and other companies that needed rail connections. Rather like a Massachusetts version of Colonel Stephens, Pinsly built up a shortline empire of 16 railroads between 1938 and 2020, when the Pinsly RR sold off its final line. He replaced steam with red GE 44 and 70 tonner diesels, cut costs, serviced clients and created a unique operating model and visual image for his shortlines. So in the past 3 years I've been acquiring a few (too many?) US 2-rail finescale locos suitable for a shortline, in the UK, or imported from US, and even Switzerland, mainly brass. All have cost less than a new Heljan class 25 or similar, import costs included. Also a small fleet of shorter boxcars, gondolas and flats, sets of turnout parts and rail. I have a design for the layout, and a name. Now I'm ready to go. More next time. Dava The story of my involvement with the CB&NSCR in Nova Scotia is told here, sadly the illustrations were lost in the great RmWeb meltdown a few years ago.
  11. There is North American 2 rail finescale in both US and Uk. This weekend we have an annual event at Winchester, see below. Come along & see! Conversion from 3 to 2 rail is a PITA. Some of the Bachmann Williams locos like GE 44 & 70 tonners are candidates. 3 rail seems to be attractive because of the extreme curve compression, fairground sound & light effects & instant entertainment it offers, Neil Young has a lot to answer for. 2 rail is entirely possible, I’ll be starting a thread on my shortline project on here soon. Preview of some testing playtime below. That K-Line Plymouth started life as 3-rail, converted to 2-rail DCC (not by me) is a sweetie! I’m converting matching 3 rail ore cars back to 2 rail, they are Atlas bodies which just need plastic trucks, scale wheels & Kadee couplers. Dava Dava
  12. 48DS is a baby loco, 88DS is a gawky teenager. Some industries had both. Plenty of 88DS BR NE departmental locos. Someone will do a class 22 someday!
  13. Visited Malc’s Models today as I was in Ilkeston for brewing supplies, home brew stores being as rare as model shops these days, Ilkeston has both! I’d seen Malc’s at shows but not visited before. Extensive stocks in N, TT120, 00, 0, G scale, plastic kits. Well recommended. Kato N stocked , also 009. Dava
  14. The list of projects to replace HS2 seem likely to cost multiples of the £36bn ‘saved’ (if it is). According to Andrew Adonis and others. Quantum theory is being applied to public finance to make this possible. To explain, I have saved £36bn from not building HS2n. So I can commit £36bn to NPR, but I still have £36bn which can be ‘spent’ multiple times. But we cannot know how much these projects will actually cost, nor whether or which ones will actually be started or completed. As with A1 doubling north of Newcastle, announced multiple times since 1992 but never started. If they are not started only the £s spent planning have been spent. Quantum theory defies linear logic but it can ‘explain’ what is being proposed. Quantum public finance. I hereby claim my Nobel Prize! Don’t try this at home….. Professor Dava
  15. You can do a surprising amount in O gauge in 6 x 1 feet and every extra bit of space helps. I built my Coxheath Sidings microlayout using foamboard in this space in 2015 and had a lot of fun with it. It’s successor, a US shortline, is now under construction in the 10 x 2ft (3000 x 600mm) space in my workshop. The Coxheath story is here with some re-added photos. Dava
  16. This thread lost the later photos of Coxheath Sidings hosting my American shortline locos for test running, I have added a couple below. Coxheath still exists in store and construction of its larger replacement US shortline is finally about to start. Dava
  17. Last time I looked, HS1 was mainly owned by the Canadian Teachers Pension Fund. Eventually, when HS2 is completed in whatever limited form, it will also probably be sold to an international owner, such as Dubai, India, China. But it’s viability is very much in question from the constraints being made on the route. Dava
  18. Enjoyed the Stafford show, recommend the Grandstand cafe for huge breakfast bap and waiting indoors for show to open. Lots of space, fine selection of layouts in most scales (no TT, T or Z, observation not complaint!). Easy to reach from East Midlands and reasonable VFM - same price as Guildex in the same venue. Dava
  19. Will be visiting as a punter on Saturday. Intrigued as to why advance tickets are £17, on the door £15? Will be in the queue. Hope the cafe is open for crispy bacon bap! Dava
  20. Look to the future rather than the past. The 870 km Rail Baltica project, which is due for completion in 2030, will connect the capitals of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia with Warsaw and the rest of Europe, allowing trains from the continent to run uninterrupted. The high-speed railway that's uncoupling the Baltic states from Russia and their Soviet past. https://www.railbaltica.org/about-rail-baltica/
  21. A friend on another forum kindly brought me a copy of the Groudle Glen Railway book back from the IoM gala week. As expected it is the definitive book on this line which has had a better history since it reopened in 1986 than it did before. The standards of loco builds, rebuilds, coaches, buildings and everything else are superb. The book is expected to be on sale on the mainland later this year, watch for Nigel Bird Books. I was delighted in the section on models of the GGR to see a photo of my 012 models of Polar Bear and Sea Lion in a Display case, each with a matching train of the 4 wheel coaches. I built these in 1985-6 to run on my Groudle Glen Railway layout, which I sold to the current GGR President back in 1997, before moving house. I now know what happened to them. The book photo is shown below. Forgive the parallax view and my 1980s modelling. The locos ran on BerlinerBahn chassis! Sadly the Thixofix used in metal-plastic joins perishes after 25 years or so. Both the book and the railway are highly recommended. Sadly, Mrs Dava does not wish to experience the charms of Mannin,so not sure when I’ll revisit. Should have done a solo trip this summer! Dava
  22. There are some interesting LNER tank locos on the floor plan, the J75 is Hull & Barnsley but the J138 is a new one on me! Dava
  23. They were manufactured by Lima from the start, just imported and sold under the Wrenn brand. Mainly wrongly scaled mutants from the start. I confess to owning a 4F and some coaches in a brief N gauge foray. Best forgotten. There never was a King, J50 or class 31. Minitrix weren’t to perfect scale either but they ran much better.
  24. Looking forward to being there on Saturday as well. Shortline modeller. Anyone got any shortie ore cars they don’t need? Dava
  25. The Clans were the only uniquely Scottish class of Pacifics, by dint of their names and route allocations, though not actually built there. If the Southern Chiefs had been built, they wouldn’t have kept this distinction. Some sported blue smoke box number and shed plates, unofficially. Dava
×
×
  • Create New...