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CKPR

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Posts posted by CKPR

  1. On 23/03/2024 at 19:32, F-UnitMad said:

    An evening Transfer Run was brought to an unexpected halt on my American O Scale layout last summer.

    "Someone should do something about the bugs around here" grumbled Tiny the Engineer as he and his Conductor inspected the dead moth....

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    Unless this is West Virginia and that is the infamous Mothman, in which case it is very realistic...

    • Like 2
    • Informative/Useful 1
  2. A bit more progress on the scenery. I've found that I can do scenic work on the layout for 10-15 mins here and there - that it's in my study and I work at home two days a week helps in this respect. I've been pleasantly surprised given how different areas are coming to life and a sense of both place and space is emerging. I'm going to turn the layout around at the weekend and work on the other side.  I haven't got round to moving and remodelling the electrics yet so I'll be able to actually run some trains when I can get to the controls again !

     

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    • Like 18
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  3. 7 hours ago, Dave John said:

    Is it possible that they just bought it from metropolitan ? 

    It's a possibility but comparison of the drawings of both vehicles [there is an HMRS drawing of the M&CR box] indicates that the M&CR box is different from the Caley boxes in several ways, not least in having an assymetrical wheelbase. It's also simpler in it's build with much less of the finesse or detail of the Caley vehicle. Taken together, we concluded it was either a copy or a substantial rebuild. Either way, it was a pig to make in 4mm !

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  4. I would endorse everything that Jim @Caley Jim says about DAS and it's also very pleasant to use and readily sandable without the nasty dust associated with polyfilla or plaster. I've been happily smoothing away lumps & bumps and making ditches & paths with nothing more than some old sandpaper and I think that there's definitely something more relaxing about working with 'natural' materials such as wood, card, metal and now clay. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of styrene in my model making (but definitely no resin ) and my wagons are all the better for it. That said, I do sometimes wish I'd gone down the old-school Pendon or S scale path and used card & ply from the start of my pre-group modelling in the mid-1980s (Mike Longridge's classic book on building 4mm rolling stock sits on my bookshelf to remind me of the path less chosen).

    • Like 5
  5. 8 hours ago, D-A-T said:

    The first Exhibition I went to was Doncaster MRC’s exhibition at Danum Grammar School. Late 70s it would be. I think the exhibition would have been January(ish) as I spent my Christmas and Birthday money on the Linka plaster moulding system there.

     Now my memory fails me as it was either Yatton or Winton (possibly neither!) which had a sign up saying an Express Streamliner would be going through at 3pm and I thereafter kept nagging my parents as to what time it was so we wouldn’t miss it 🤣

    Definitely Winton ! It was the subject of an article in RM November 1976 and it describes the climax of the Silver Jubilee running non-stop through the station.

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    • Like 2
  6. I've been busy with some more  of the Bausch stonework [ there must be somewhere in Germany that is geologically similar to north west Cumbria ! ] and remade all of the stonework on the goods & cattle wharf. I now just need to remove the original surface of polyfilla and wood ash, which is akin to concrete, and then it's painting everthing with gouache, which I very much enjoy, before refitting everything. 

    • Like 6
  7. Hmmm, looks some of the embankment opposite the station building will have to be cut back a bit and the goods and cattle wharf needs altering. The latter should just be case of extending the first siding and possibly cutting back the other siding and the cattle pen area. I'm going to end up with both goods sheds being truncated but that's inevitable given my attempts to fit an essentially triangular station onto a narrow rectangular base. Thinking about it, Mealsgate had a very unique and unusual track plan dating from the mid-Victorian period that remained essentially the same until closure in 1952.

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  8. Although I'm primailrily interested in the late pre-grouping and early 1970s eras, I am wondering if there is any cross-over with some other discussions going on on RMWeb, particularly those about the disappearance of old school operational layouts that were much more popular from the 1940s through to the late 1960s. By this, I mean layouts with several stations, all properly signalled and with the primary emphasis on realistic operation. It strikes me that this type of railway modelling, which has all but disappeared with the dominance of finescale accuracy, might be the answer to the lack of variety in modern rolling stock. 

    • Interesting/Thought-provoking 2
  9. As you may have realised, I'm not of the "And now for my favourite part, the scenery" school of railway modelling. I've managed to make it more manageable and much less messy by scaling down the materials and processes. I'm using school supply 'mod roc' [the same box that I used on High Blaithwaite ! ], but I'm cutting it into small 2-3cm wide squares / strips and using a saucer for the water rather the washing up bowl. Similarly, I'm working on small areas at a time with reference to photographs and maps rather than trying to do everything at once. The top coat is still the dreaded polyfilla simply because I had some in the shed but I'm going to try using plaster of paris or even Artex if I can find any. Talking of the latter, I was always impressed by the work of Jack Kine and his artistic (finescale ?!) approach to modelling a landscape.

     

    You can see that the platform walls have been redone, this time with Busch self-adhesive embossed walling. This was a delight to use and easy to paint and I might be further investigating the world of jolly expensive but really rather good German HO  scenic materials.

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    • Like 17
  10. 6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

    When I was young there was something which tended to be called an operator layout, basic scenery (possibly none) but with very prototypical signalling and operation. That was another part of model railways, one which seemed to fade away.

    Often O gauge using LMC products, powered by 3 rail or, better still, clockwork and having that elusive railway atmosphere that so few of us manage to capture these days.

    • Like 1
  11. Is possibly the case that the term 'railway modelling' refers to two different but interlinked  acitivities, namely making railway models and making model railways ? A few people such as Peter Denny, P.D.Hancock, etc have done both at the same time, some of us do both but separately like Iain Rice with his finescale model making and his Hornby Dublo layout, and some of us primarily  do one or the other. As for other forms of modelling, there is perhaps a similar relationship between military modelling and wargaming, in that whilst both involve miniature military models, the amount of model making in wargaming can vary from quite a lot to buying stuff in, all of which is then used in simulations of  miniature battles that involve imagination as well as rules [dons tin hat and ducks under the nearest table].

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  12. Good point  given that it's a First class ticket half, which probably does narrow it down to one of the Ballantine-Dykes or perhaps their friends and relations. Just a thought regarding staff, presumably a nanny would travel First class when taking the children out ? Interestingly, the tickets came from a seller in Devon, which doesn't in itself mean much after all this time,  but the majority of surviving M&CR ephemera tends to come from within Cumbria [and yes, little Miss Bossy Boots Badenoch, both Cumbria and we Cumbrians still exist].

     

    • Like 4
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