Andy R

Tony- your Mo is a wonderful lady. Regards from ‘downunder’ Andy -NZ

Sad but true… Black Caps often can’t deliver a killer punch and proved that again yesterday. As a kiwi, it’s very frustrating. But once again the Aussie’s showed us how to win under pressure. I respect that. Cummins is a decent bloke and good leader.

New year’s greetings to you and Mo from down-under. Touching on the first points made, the real challenge for most of us entering our ‘ageing’ period is how the family deals with our layouts and the associated stock etc after we leave the station! And on that happy note I’ll head back to my Sun lounger by my pool…. regards, Andy

And finally a few more to complete the first ‘excursion’ into mancave for 2024.

And a few others… GWR and Southern Railway have running rights on the layout…

New year greetings from down under… New Zealand. Warm, humid sunshine weather …. Ventured into the mancave a couple of days ago and took a random set of train photos for relaxation! Here’s a few scenes…local goods trundling through Hawkinsfield Junction westward

A ‘drone’ photo of how the Abbottsford branch is treated as it curves away from Hawkinsfield Junction, past Budden Farm and lane arched bridge and runs behind the backscene- to a simple loop to hold two very small branch trains if needs be. The loop entrance points just show. At normal viewing angle the loop can’t be seen without peering over the top of the backscene. I also point out one of the points indication boards for Hawkinsfield hanging above the station. This is the Hawkinsfield East box diagram, with West box further to the left. All the junction points are American Bluepoint switches that are moved by way of levers that are attached to the Bluepoints by metal rods, with the levers set out front of the fascia board and numbered. You can see a couple in the photo. By contrast when I rebuilt the terminus station ( Melcombe Regis) I’ve used Tortoise electric motors and a LED mimic diagram approach. You can see the two approaches on either side of the wide angle shot with club member visit recently

Hawkinsfield Junction has a reasonable marshalling yard and is the start of the small branch line to Abbottsford ( off stage behind the backscene). Here we see GWR railcar No.26 easing into the bay platform at Hawkinsfield having travelled down the branch and under the lane over bridge.

And through junction station towards the viaduct and the train turntable junction split

And moving towards Hawkinsfield Junction…

A couple more shots of the terminus - Melcombe Regis and moving around the layout through Hawkinsfield Junction and round over the viaduct scene into the train turntable junction area. I’ll have to do the photos in several posts due to size…

Basically 10 months since my last post! Where does time go? Trip to UK mid year went well and Severn Valley, Festineog and Snowdon Mountain Railway ridden. Also a very pleasant half day running Mr Tony Wrights Little Bytham sequence under strict guidance from the master himself. The layout runs beautifully as has been recorded many time. I hadn’t met Tony before and he and Mo were delightful hosts to this stray colonial. Hawkinsfield has had further development- over our winter a friend constructed the central train turntable and others helped us put in track and wiring. Several photos here show the result. It makes the layout so much easier to operate- to and from terminus.

Absolutely fantastic photos -thanks for sharing them. Andy R NZ

Great photos Tony- even if we 'colonials' cant get to the show in person its great to see some excellent layout shots. Keep them coming please. Andy R NZ

Absolutely super set of photos there Tony. For us colonials so far away from the UK layout scene these are great to see. Thanks for sharing. Andy R NZ