Twright

Well this is certainly a thorough project Chris, its looking very good, well done. I look forward to seeing it progress.

Hi Chris Thats alright. thats a good picture (as an aside for detailing, as it is the later batch of 16xx the spare lamp irons are by the front splasher on the firemans side). I'll have a read through the rest of the build in a bit. Thats good news. As I said to you earlier, and for the benefit of everyone else, while the plastic chassis works, its very temperamental so I would recommend option 2 for a build of the 16xx. Option 3 and 4 would also work but would need a bit of cutting of the body to fit the chassis and as you say using the 64xx does have the compromise of the oversize wheels (which worked for me as I couldn't get a kit chassis to work). Thanks, I look forward to seeing how it goes.

Sorry for not getting back to you all, I have been away for a while dealing with a lot of other things. I don't know if anyone has. I know someone is starting a build using a Nucast chassis. I don't see why it wouldn't work with my CADs. Hi Mark Thanks, I'm glad you like them. When I first completed the 16xx when I was still getting started I did a completely stripped down version similar to what you suggest however in the years it was available no-one bought any so when I finished the updated version, I removed it from sale to focus on the updated ones. I will investigate stripping one back if you want though with my current work load it might take a while. Regards Hi W101 and W102 are my early, less detailed versions, which are designed for the cheaper WSF plastic and are only for building with a kit chassis. W104 and W105 are my later, more detailed versions which are for use with the Bachmann 64xx chassis using a higher detail print, hence the higher price. Hope that helps. See post 11 on this page for pictures of my finished one. Regards

I have finally got around to modifying the board, cutting 1 corner down to allow a lorry to be loaded. While in the mood for some railway modelling I then laid all the track which now only needs some final wiring to complete it. I decided in the end to stick with a single board but in the future I may extend it through the quarry, remodelling it from a working quarry to a disused one and building a new larger quarry. The 6 peco hoppers have all been painted, weathered and numbered, the bogie wagon needs some extra painting and I have some more underframes to build some extra wagons on. The 2 simplexes are painted and just need some final detailing. I have another loco built on a kato chassis and an arnold chassis that will have a steam body on it.

If I can get the right plugin/program to do it then I might investigate it again this summer. The trouble with the last ones was that the space that its trying to fit in was so small the bevels couldn't engage properly, and the material was too brittle to allow it to fit onto the axles or to screw grub screws into secure the necessary cogs.

I'll admit I wasn't aware that it had been re released, thanks for letting me know. I imagine that it would fit without too much hassle and some of the castings could be used to add the extra details required.

Unfortunately due to work, exams, life in general and a shift in interest to 009 narrow gauge, it has progressed no further. It is stored at home so with luck I'll get round to working on it over summer.

*Shameless plug* The 16xx has made it into the news section of the June issue of Railway Modeller. In other ModelWright news an 009 60S simplex has been released to complement the new 20hp types. These are all completely new and offer much higher levels of detail. They are designed for a World craft chassis to allow them to work while retaining an empty cab.

That extra section looks very good Alex and looks like its transformed the layout. Shame I wasn't able to see it at Cheltenham.

Good work, that's shaping up to be a nicely proportioned tank.

I can only really echo the comments everyone else has made, an excellent layout, fantastically detailed and very inspirational. With such a small fleet, do you have DCC and if so do you go for sound?

Thanks, yes I could, or even a junction, passenger one way, sand the other...

This is how I could see it extending. Boards 1, 5 and 6 would be the original ones. 1 is a working sand quarry 2 is a possibly disused quarry that passenger trains run into 3 is countryside with a river and a level crossing 4 is a halt 5 is the canal exchange 6 is countryside 7 is the main passenger station 8 is the loco shed 9 is the bagging and tipping They all have 1 track in the centre of each end and when combined would be 13ft long.

After much deliberation, here's another plan. I have come to the conclusion, that I cannot put all the elements of the quarry in 1m of space. Therefore, as the 2 most important parts to me are the loading/unloading, I will represent these to start with. The black lines represent a scenic break and where once I have finished the first sections I may cut the baseboard to add in a run of country side, a loco shed, road tip and bagging areas. The quarry is at the left hand end and in the middle there will be a tip into a narrow boat with a false floor. the right hand end will have the head shunt behind a bank which I will add scenery to both ends so that with careful planning of track, I can turn it around and make it into the countryside section when the other parts are added (or I could just add a fiddle yard and move the canal section to the end, then giving a run in the countryside, we shall see). The benefit to having a fiddle yard is that I can run bagging/spares/passenger trains to the quarry without having to have all the sidings. However I do lose the complete visibility which I wanted, showing that there's no trickery with the loads.

I think its balancing on the left hand side, it blends into the platform. Very nice work, I need to get something similar.