sparks

Possibly more at the 'mad scientist' end of the creative spectrum, but here's a stitch job from Lavender Bay in Sydney Harbour. The line here threads it's way around Lavender Bay down to North Sydney Car sidings, site of the original Milson's Point station until the opening of the Harbour Bridge. Lavender Bay by Stuart, on Flickr (I've posted a larger size than usual because you can't see the detail at 800x194 - the original is 12559x3040!)

Thanks guys. No further progress as yet as I've been on holiday for a few weeks but I hope to get back to it soon. Once I've finished being distracted by Japanese minor electric railways, that is....

Very nice work joining the boxes together, particularly in the use of the lid. Will be watching this one with interest!

Blackfriars, 2009 Pillars of Industry by Stuart, on Flickr

A quick update before I go on holidays.... I didn't think I'd achieved a lot recently, but having listed it all here, perhaps I have! Firstly I've made a 'backscene' by lining the inside of the box with pasteboard and painting, but unfortunately this has come out exactly the colour I didn't want! I was aiming for grey-with-a-hint-of-blue but as tester pots don't seem to be available down under I had to have a 500ml 'tester' mixed and it came out like this. It's not as bad in real life so I'm living with it for the moment. I don't really have to decide until I start glueing everything down though. I had lots of part finished items so I've concentrated on getting the buildings finished one at a time in order to see some progress. The two stone and corrugated iron workshops are now done except for a coat of something to take the gloss off the stonework. The green one ended up having the stone part dismantled and rebuilt but now I'm really happy with it:- The footbridge is a work in progress. So far I've built the brick plinths to bring it up to platform level but it needs some diagonal bracing between the pillars; partly from a prototypical point of view and also to help hide the hole in the backscene. I also have some fine corrugated sheet to line the sides of the span to prevent little fingers touching the wires. Now that the final size and locations of the buildings are known I've trimmed the platform to size (I had left the ends overlength) so everything will sit together on the board. This has allowed me to do a bit of terraforming; the grey workshop has been sunk by removing the cork form under it as it was a bit overpowering, the brick factory has been raised up by a layer of cork to bring the doors up to platform level and the green workshop has also been raised to balance things out.

The briefly lived Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway used locos with skirts, and was also the only railway in Britain with an exclamation mark in it's title! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bideford,_Westward_Ho!_and_Appledore_Railway

Will be watching with interest! There's something very Clough Williams-Ellis about that kiosk in the postcard....

Not a problem. I think I may just taught my grandmother to suck eggs though! I had a feeling that there must have been some connection. My interests have mostly been 3rd rail but since I started Riverside I've been looking at the early overhead schemes too. I've recently realised that the original 1500v DC Melbourne gantries from 1919 (many of which are still in use) are the same design as those on the NER Shildon line, as the Engineer was the same person. Similarly, looking at pictures of Woodhead, some of the various gantry designs correspond to the different styles used in the postwar extensions to the Melbourne and Sydney systems. I wonder which came first?

Great stuff. One of my earliest memories is walking across Barmouth Bridge on my first family holiday in the late 1970s

You've probably already seen it, but Volume 2 of "The Glamorganshire and Aberdare Canals" has a good chapter on the railway. http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/view_book.php?ref=B9129&section=CatCanal There are also some great aerial shots on Britain From Above. You wouldn't happen to know what issue of Railway Magazine the article was in please...?

Have a look at Service Sheets No.30 (EM2) and No.37 (Cl.31) here:- http://www.melbournemodelraceway.com.au/taservicesheets.html

Slightly off topic, but I recently came across the Hamburg-Altonaer Stadt und Vorortbahn (Hamburg-Altona City and Suburban Railway) which was electrified in 1906 at 6.3kV 25Hz AC. The catenary designs shown on the Wikipedia page below are very similar to Lancaster-Heysham a few years later. The original EMUs were of interesting design with a motor bogie at the driving end and a single fixed axle at the inner end! http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg-Altonaer_Stadt-_und_Vorortbahn or via Google translate:- http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com.au&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg-Altonaer_Stadt-_und_Vorortbahn The line became part of the Hamburg S-Bahn in the 1930s although a move to 3rd rail DC traction was delayed by WWII, with 3rd rail DC units and overhead AC units running side by side until 1955. One of the later AC units (with an articulated bogie instead of the single fixed axles) is preserved:- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR_1589a/b_bis_1645a/b or via Google translate:- http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com.au&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR_1589a/b_bis_1645a/b Some more early photos here:- http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=2&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sandbox=0&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.reflektion.info/html/4000_100807_1_sb-hh.html&usg=ALkJrhjzwZOcc3zrRcNBiW6rrmr8OdRseA

Some more nice colour shots here:- http://archive.is/bYx4T

Fascinating (and well photographed) shots. Thanks for sharing!

That's good to know. I was thinking of adding a block to the rear of the box to build it up to the same width as the lid.

I'm using the lid in the same way and I've been pondering this connection myself, although I'm purposely not building the fiddle yard until I've finished the main module so I don't get distracted playing trains! I'd also come up with the idea of the over-centre catches (in exactly the same place as yours), but I can't find anything smaller than what you have there. Being able to replace the lid is a must-have for me though, as the box has to live in the living room. Unless I can find a source of smaller catches that will fit on the edge of the lid, I had thought of mounting them on pieces of angle rather than blocks which would then fit around the box when the lid is on?

Try the Sirhowy Valley Line from Tredegar down to Nine Mile Point. This was built under the third railway Act of Parliament in 1806 as the Sirhowy Tramroad, but when the GWR didn't give them a high enough offer, they sold to the LNWR instead! See also http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82673-penllwyn-tramroad-bridge-at-nine-mile-point/

I can't find the reference for the Scale Model Trains article (isn't in my index for some reason) but a photo of the Midland example when new appeared in the Railway Magazine for March 1916, and there's an article about the NSR example in Railway Bylines for August 1998. The RCTS shots of BEL No.1 (you have to pay for them but they are detailed shots) can be found here:- http://www.rcts.org.uk/features/archive/search.htm?company=&subtype=&class=&location=West+India+Docks&srch=&page=0

The RCTS also has some nice photos from ground level. Drawings were published in Scale Model Trains (I think) some years ago. As you say, the locos were based on standard open wagon parts to replace all the steam shunting locos sent to France in WWI. It should therefore be relatively simple to make one using 4mm scale wagon parts.

The Sand Hutton Railway at Warthill (NER?) Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway at Ravenglass (FR), originally 3ft/Standard, then 15in/Standard with a tipping gantry, then later the standard gauge siding was extended all the way to the Crushing Plant at Murthwaite (2.5miles) with interlaced 15"/Standard track

The shelter at the end is not unlike the Wentworth Avenue terminus of the Staten Island Railway

Perhaps the manufacturers may be able to supply replacement wheelsets? http://www.steameramodels.com/bbeetle.htm

I've also been thinking of how to make a thin and light sector plate (see http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73735-riverside/&do=findComment&comment=1090924 and http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73735-riverside/&do=findComment&comment=1138343). I hadn't thought of adding angle girder sides and/or making it out of Plasticard though - problem solved! Thanks guys!

I've been trying to work out how to achieve this very effect with transfer paper - I hadn't though of painting white underneath. Obvious really when you think about it though. Thank you!

I did my A-levels in Crosskeys 1992-94 and used to wander around this area during my lunch breaks. This footpath leads down from the Monmouthshire canal above, crosses Halls Road on the level here and then up and over the Eastern Valley line by the footbridge. I was amazed to find it all still exactly the same 20 years later! The only difference is the Eastern Valley line now has passenger trains to Ebbw Vale again instead of steel trains. Here is the Halls Road viaduct where the line crosses to the other side of the valley at Pontywaun. The viaduct is listed as the eastern abutment contains the first arch of the original tramroad viaduct:- Viaduct by Stuart, on Flickr Your mention of travelling on Halls Road has me thinking - I *must* have seen coal trains on the upper end of the line before it closed but I can't specifically remember them. One of my favourite places to be taken as a small child was the level crossing at Cwrt-y-bella at the top end of Oakdale colliery. The disused line to Markham colliery crossed a lane and disappeared into the undergrowth, protected by a rusty searchlight signal. Sadly I don't think we ever took any photos though. I was reminiscing about all this on Christmas Eve in Tasmania, when I realised that it had been a very long time since I stood and watched a coal train go by:- Coal Train by Stuart, on Flickr