Huggy

Hi - a couple of years, despite all that happened, seem to have gone by pretty quickly as far as modelling activity - such as it's been - is concerned. The fact is, I've decided I have a few hobbies too many, as well as having ended up ,oving from playing music live to being an internet radio music presenter with two weekly shows (it was four at one time during lockdown!) so have decided to dispose of my layout Tillingham. The stock has already gone to Hattons, and I await the payment.... If anyone would like a basically finished small layout, overall size 1200 x 1200 on two separate boards, scenic and fiddle yard, with mostly 2nd radius curves (see photos) with plenty of scope for extra detailing, a better backscene etc, or just for a younger modeller to run as it is, I'm looking for offers, starting at, say £50, £15 extra if the specially adapted trestles are wanted too, collected from Hastings please contact me by email on pkh@huggy.plus.com. No stock or vehicles, but all buildings etc as are in the photos. Kept a few old wagons and a couple of cheapo locos as I might make a couple more dioramas etc, but right now, the extra space would be most welcome. Also some model RC aircraft for disposal.... Thanks for looking.

I'm still working on how to put the whole thing into a "theatre" set up when it's done, maybe exhibit it one day, and then it will have panels at both ends, though I'm not sure I'll achieve the "wrap round" effect at the corners that you see on some. Meanwhile, I'm still working on bits and bobs so it's unfinished work, just going to attach another couple now I've done some ground cover..... Still to build - a water tank (debating whether steel frame type out of plastic girder sections or brick base), also paint the water crane, and scatter some junk and general muck about, and a couple of resident people Cheers P

Having got my main layout Tillingham to a stage where it's operative, with just the odd bit of new detail here and there to do, I started on a little shed diorama a few months ago, using a stray piece of B&Q shelving as the sub base, covered in foam sheet. I started because i'd bought an old Airfix shed kit with one roof panel , a window and a few other bits missing for a quid at a show last year. I decided on a "no points" approach due to the very small space - the whole thing is barely two feet long - with a pivoted off-scene piece of track (sector plate would be too grand a title) and a Peco girder bridge as the scenic cutoff. Still a fair bit to do but here's the progress so far. Remaining: 1. Water crane and supply tank. I have a Ratio crane, which will need a plinth making, and need to scratch build a tank as all the kits and download card variety are too large for the site, which is supposed to be a little sub-shed for the nearby junction station's shunter. The backscene sky I made from a photo of my own which was taken a few years ago, and is actually a Canadian sky, rather than Somewhere in Southern England. Who spotted it...? 2. Ground cover. So far it's all shades of brown. 3. Various bits of weathering and growth on the Metcalfe retaining walls as the rear. 4. Some assorted clutter, and a figure or two. Time my locos got some crew in any case! 5. An overall box and lighting in case I ever get the urge to try and show it. 6. Ground signals....maybe. All comments and suggestions welcome.

Having purchased a Peco girder plate bridge kit , it occurred to me that as my little shed diorama's "view blocker and exit" is supposed to carry a road, not another railway I may have made a basic mistake! Does anyone know if in fact such a bridge anywhere does carry a road over a railway rather than vice versa?

I haven't posted anything about my main layout Tillingham for a while, but here is a small batch; still no signals but station name boards, lamps etc now in place along with fencing, and I weathered a set of three of Hornby's cheapy 16t mineral wagons, having added some plastic strip detail to the outside of the doors and the ends, and painted them grey instead of the original brown (can't be doing with trying to change serial numbers though, please note) and at last got hold of an H class tank that I've wanted for ages for my push-pull set, with money saved during lockdown by not going out. I can dispose of the M7 on loan from central Southern now! I now have three of the items of motive power I used to see on the New Romney branch as a kid, H Class, Ivatt 2-6-2 Br tank, and "Thumper" diesel set, just need a C class 0-6-0 one day....

Cheers gents. Just started putting some surfacing and ballast down, and a power feed to the sector plate. Thanks for the encouragement.

Hi all, been a while since I did any proper modelling, let alone put anything on here. But an old Airfix loco shed kit I bought for a couple of quid a while back surfaced, and after overcoming the shortage of one roof panel and a couple of other bits, I assembled it, painted and weathered it and thought "It needs to go somewhere". Having a few bits of assorted flexi track and a piece of B&Q shelf about 24" long, I decided on a basic no-points diorama, with a sector plate feeding on to three tracks. There will be a bridge and a water tower view blocking the fiddle end, plus small coaling stage, water column and assorted mess and clutter, and I've cut a small drainage ditch at one end in the foam that I used as a sub base. Because of the way I've built the board, wiring was a bit of a hassle but is now more or less complete. It will be something my collection of small tank locos can pose in, and the track at the back will be a cripple siding or for a short engineers train etc. I enjoyed the weathering part,; the black patch on the roof is supposed to represent the result of a small fire that was caused by loco sparks igniting an old birds nest or two, while one of the back windows (one frame was also missing from the kit) suffered damage in a storm and has been covered with corrugated sheet.

There's no doubt even a rudimentary Peco sky backscene makes a difference, some photo cutout buildings etc to be added later. 295 DEMU runs nicely. Lots of little things still to do.

Hurrah! Tillingham's station building is basically complete except for the signage and additional weathering, all for less than a fiver. The original centre section was £3 in bits at a show, a plastic kit from whatever range abandoned. I've added scratchbuilt Gents toilet (left) and parcels office (right), the differences in construction are down to post-war shortages of building materials e.g. bricks,. the latter extension having been added in the early 50's. These parts are card and Scalescenes printed papers, with Ratio corrugated iron roofs. Note blistered paintwork on the parcels office "wood"....hamfisted use of adhesives there I'm afraid, but hey, who says it wasn't the painters?

The layout has a real old time goods yard atmosphere I reckon, looks great - the sort of thing I want to get into my next project. This being a tad longer than the average micro layout helps, such yards were big places. Good work!

The only trouble with powders is, if you just get even a tiny bit - particularly black - escaping the work and going on the bench/cutting mat/hands/cat - it gets everywhere and appears to be impossible to shift. Yet mine are always reluctant to stick to what I'm actually trying to weather, unless I mix it with some Mattcote or similar. Whyzatthen?

I love static grass! My applicator was bought at a show and features the same parts as far as I can see.

At last, the pigs are in the pen! The farmer has a bit of a clear up while they finish off dinner. Got a bit more farmyard tackle and debris to go on, and one or two puddles. Will try and pick off that rather oversize to scale bit of my hair you can see next to the wheelbarrow too, now I can see it in the photo.....

Good progress Bob! It's reinforcing my thoughts that I should have another go at an 009 layout when I've completed my 00 ones. I have a handy 4' X 2' baseboard already built....

Coming along nicely Luke. I like the idea of the slope at the front to create the impression of looking down into the layout.

A little bit of fencing being prepared for the farm paddock. Scale Model Scenery kit does a pretty decent length of fence - this is about 1/3rd of whats in the pack - and the farm gates are good, you get three of those. Used DeLuxe Card Glue to laminate the bits, bit of greenie-brown paint mix on the fence. On the layout shortly.

Some great ideas and nifty touches on this layout, top stuff

At last! A little progress on the layout; I must confess to having been a bit idle getting anything new done, along with a few short operating sessions, in recent weeks, but finally Sid the Signalman has his box. It's a little Ratio platform box kit, mounted on a scratchbuilt brickwork base, with a laser cut set of steps left over from something else, and a balsa and card "landing" and handrails. I printed the name board on the PC, and mounted it on a thin balsa backing plate. I've had to put another small sliver of wood under the front edge, as the building had a slight "list" towards the track, since taking the pics. Next job will be to put s bit more fencing up along with some trees in the nearby farmyard and paddock, and think about completing the station building. In addition, I'm itching to make a start as soon as summer ends on the next project Filsham Yard (see separate layout topic).

Been a busy period with one thing and another, so not much to report modelling wise. However, a weeks holiday in Prestatyn gave a boost to getting back on it, not ;east because we had a couple of nice walks along the course of two famous North Wales branch lines. If you have a week or two up that way, the walk up the course of the Dyserth branch from Prestatyn is lovely, a steady climb up into the hills on a well laid tarmac patch (watch out for high speed cyclists coming down the gradient!) with a couple of tea stop opportunities including the golf club cafe near Meliden, and some nice railway artefacts left to remind people what it was like. Nice to see the Meliden goods shed nearing the end of a sympathetic conversion into a village meeting and heritage centre (and another cafe), with the remains of the old loading gauge gently corroding away in what was the goods siding. It's 2.6 miles each way between the 45 years odd of tree growth since the line finally closed, very welcome on a hot sunny day, and you can easily imagine steam exhaust blasts echoing round the place as a hard working loco shoved it's empty wagons up to the various mines and quarries before coasting back down with the previous days output. The long-gone passenger service with the tram-like LNWR steam autocoach, perhaps with well turned out Edwardian folk going up to Dyserth to have a wander down to the waterfall, is also easy to imagine. I didn't know much about the Holywell Railway, that served the heavy industry in the Greenfield Valley - rather a misnomer in the 18th and 19th centuries for sure, but now a lovely, tranquil, heritage park with the Holywell stream feeding the various reservoirs built in the day - but to sum up, over two centuries a horse drawn tramway to the mills, quarries, copper works etc was supplanted by a short-lived steam version in the later Victorian era. Then after a few years while the LNWR directors tried to recall exactly why they bought it in 1891, turned into a quite successful shuttle passenger line from re-titled Holywell Junction on the Chester - Holyhead main line (actually in the village of Greenfield) to Holywell Town, which got up to 23 round trips a day in the 1920s and 30s among a steadily decreasing goods traffic, again, with a loco pushing wagons and carriages up the taxing incline, Britain's steepest wheel adhesion reliant railway, and coasting down on the brakes. This too has a rather fine well surfaced wide path to follow up through the woods to show where it once was, and the whole heritage park is picturesque, with lots of bits and bobs - some extremely large, like the iron waterwheel segment in the old mill complex - that show what a great job can be done when attempting to remind modern day folk that once the UK wasn't full of investment bankers, software developers, stockbrokers and the like, but did rather more tangible things, albeit with the same kind of effect on the environment that modern China is experiencing. Both well worth a visit. These walks were very pleasant indeed, and I must also put in a good word for Arriva Trains - yes, really! - and a faith- restoring honest citizen when my smartphone fell out of my pocket on a train between Llandudno and Rhyl, and was handed in and traced to Chester station lost property almost within the hour! Better yet, our daughter lives in Chester, about five minutes walks from the station, and was able to pick it up and return it to me nenxt day. Result! Anyway, all this railway related stuff got me at it again back home in Hastings, and a long awaited signal box for my layout Tillingham has been completed, and is now in place on the layout - pics on the layout topic in a while. Meliden goods shed nearing restoration as a Heritage Centre. One of several intact overbridges on the Dyserth branch line walk. Restored goods yard crane at Dyserth. The Greenfield Valley looks a lot more picturesque now than in did when the Holywell branch ran through it. Big chunks of Victorian engineering remind us of what used to be in the Deeside area. (All photos Paul Huggett)

Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees

Some wonderful old images, and great ideas coming out of this one!

If You Could Read My Mind - Gordon Lightfoot "What a tale my thoughts could tell...."

Ha! Ha! Said the Clown - Manfred Mann

Best of My Love - Eagles

Leicester Square - Rancid (yes, really! )