brylonscamel

Thanks! We can only hope the fire is lit in the cottage!

Winter light in the far north ..

Bang on Graham! It is Georgemas - or it will be very soon.

New Year Backlog! Alongside David's magnificent hotel commission are some others which I'm building in parallel. One of these is a rather delightful station for the 'far north' which is currently a clay & card carcass ..

New Year Upgrade! A small corner of the layout that's due an upgrade is the tiny triangle of water that provides a quay on the harbourside branch. I made some Artitec fishing boats to replace the original card-and-wood models. Not only were they a bit crude but also hopelessly under-scale. The Artitec ones are HO but give a much better better rendition. I ripped the old plaster base off along with the boats but kept the quay walls and filled the wooden panel with a sheet of expanded polystyrene.

I whisked Dad's 'Caley' 0-6-0 home on the promise of 'light weathering' and coal, crew etc. The temptation to photograph it on the viaduct at Caledonian Basin was too strong ..

Thanks Lez - they are rather nifty!

The drawings were then expanded to include all the separate parts, including frames for the windows and doors. This enabled me to create a design suitable for photo-etching. I hope that helps explain it!

Hi Graham - the frames are getting some good feedback! The were made by drawing them up in illustrator, based on an architects drawing that I found in the Scottish National Archive. The Great North of Scotland Railway had a penchant for fancy windows and I decided that etched metal frames were the way forward .. Here's the original architect elevations with my initial drawings superimposed ..

Going Vintage Dad treated himself to the McIntosh 'Caley' 0-6-0 for Christmas so we tested it out at Braeside, attached to the handful of vintage stock we had available from Hornby. All box-fresh models but looking rather magnificent in their pre-war liveries ..

We ripped the last bit of 'Metcalfeshire' - the old station building. When I swept away the last of the cardboard dust, it was time to see how the new building might fit the scene ..

Following a necessary break over the festive season, progress has been made on various projects for Dad at ' Braeside' - not least the station building. Here is the carcass with the etched windows fitted and the stonework underway ..

Box fresh realism? Dad bought the new 'Caley' 0-6-0 in the run up to Christmas so I had a chance to play with it and take some photographs whilst making a festive visit. I took a few photos and posed it in front of the Braeside Junction signal box. I admit to knocking the colour back a little - the raw image off the camera is a bit vivid but otherwise it's pretty much as she fell out of the packaging, couplings and all. It shouldn't take much to fettle her into realism, which is always nice with a new model.

Ghost Train! Photos keep reminding me that my Caledonian Barclay really needs a crew!

Thanks to some characters on RMWeb, I find myself with a lovely invite to bring some stuff along to the SWAG event in April 2022! The aim is to whip 'Caledonian Basin' into shape so that it is properly finished and can offer a basic shuttle through the bridge scene. Here are some new photos of angles not available when viewed from the front. These images reveal layers that are squeezed into the cabinet.