tigerburnie

Nice work Barry, can I ask what ink do you use please, I will be starting on some wagons in the next few days hopefully.

I've made some odd shaped tools in the past, but that's a first, well done Pete

Google turned up these https://spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/GandSWR/GSWRcoaches.html https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=g%26swr+carriages&qpvt=g%26swr+carriages&FORM=IGRE Second link refers to "Bill Bedford" models if that's of any help

Thanks Bill, when all the structure is completed it will all need weathering to make it look realistic. There's levers for the points to be made and people to add, need a bloke with a sack barrow on the loading platform for a start.

A more recent image with some buildings added and a passing black 5 hauled coal train

Another book is The GC from the footplate, co written by an ex footplateman, Frank Stratford.

The joy of the GC in it's later years was just about everything ran on those rails, granted most of the exotics from the Western Region terminated at Leicester, but a bit of modellers licence could allow them further north, we even had the odd southern region loco turn up on occasion on specials usually. In it's last throws in the early to mid 1960's most of the stock was ex midland region with the odd B1 or V2 thrown in, sadly the A3's were removed when the "Master Cutler" was transferred away. Have you got a copy of the book "Mainline Lament" that's a good starting point for matters GC.

Hi farren, if you click on the link at the bottom of my post it takes you to my current layout, I will try and find the Leicester one, I don't think there are many photos left on it now though. I used to live close to the GC near Whetstone station and travelled through Rothley on the train from Leicester to Nottingham a few times on steam trains in the later days of the mainline before it closed, never actually travelling to or from Rothley though. I note you have a lot of diesel locos on your track, I don't recall seeing any of those in the 1950's lol, I might need a couple for my East Coast Mainline running's though.

From a personal point of view, the type of layouts I have built would run perfectly on the analogue system, the locos would be cheaper to buy, also a larger selection of types of models in the rtr market and equipment cheaper to buy, but I wanted sound locos and as I said earlier, the way I have wired up my new dcc layout it is almost exactly the same as my old Great Central station analogue. Indeed now I no longer need to isolate loads of sections in the station with switches, the dcc layout wiring is simple by comparison. I should add that my points are not powered and neither are the 3 signals that the layout will require. I think there are people who revel in playing trains and there are people who revel in building the layouts, I sort of sit on the fence, half and half so to speak.

Nice work so far, I did model the Leicester station, but dismantled it and have a smaller station and yard in my garden room, I found the loft too restrictive to access and work in now(getting too old to bend lol). It helps when the station you are modelling is still in working order, my one has sadly been dismantled, making it difficult when only working from 2 photographs to get the detail right.

A question for you all, were the points in the yard operated by the signal box or were they hand operated? Thanks

Had a really nice few hours at the show, nice layouts, friendly folk and picked up a few goodies for my own railway.

Not been before, looking forward to this event

I take it there are no castings available?

I am a few months into a "new dcc" layout, I bought a second hand EZ command for about £30 from ebay and it has got me up and running with wiring almost identical to my old analogue layout, no great amounts of difficulty required as the points will be work mechanically just like the prototype was in the days of steam lol. As with anything in life you can make things as difficult or easy as you like, I use the principal of KISS which makes for simplicity and stress free. I am now increasing my consumption of electrickery, so will be looking at a greater ampage controller to run several steam locos with sound at the same time, but the wiring remains very simple indeed.