Re6/6

Paul, the buildings that you have modelled are just excellent. I lived there for over 40 years and you've captured the village so well. In the first picture I recognize 'Mount Ridley', our old family home! It's great to see that it has progressed so well. I went with another member of our Devon Riviera P4 group to Witney to hurriedly dismantle and collect 'Bodmin' from that vast room. Unfortunately it hasn't survived due to heavy corrosion of the steel rail and the warping of the chipboard baseboards. The lovely buildings still exist and are now in the hands of another society member. The website is very well researched and a good read.

A lot cheaper! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/D-Limonene-Citrus-Orange-Turpene-250ml-100/133431036895?hash=item1f111c0bdf:g:MDIAAOSwLs9ad3-m

David, did you manage to get to grips with Schweizerdeutsch?

Here's a challenge for you Rob! Mind you you'd have to be modelling Moroccan Railways. Did Norman ever go there?

Ha, bl**dy ha!

I have one and was fortunate that the body was built by Malcolm Mitchell no less! It was a perfect solder job, so much so that it was virtually impossible to see the solder lines. If only I could solder whitemetal as well as that! The chassis is at the moment undergoing a 'heavy general' overhaul for me by CK which is proving troublesome. Maybe replacement by one of the above chassis will prove to be necessary. The engine is destined to run on Marsh Sidings.

Again, thank you Tim. The 4150 shot is particularly helpful showing what the end of the Sawmills siding was like and the coping stones.

The design is exactly the same today. The float and the 'Hauley' tugs were replaced with new I guess about 30 years ago.

I'm certainly looking forward to doing the track 'grassing'. The aim is to be similar to this. Thanks Tim. This is particularly helpful regarding the walls.

Thanks for that 1990s image. It's given me a better clue as to the stone wall on the right. If anybody has any pictures of the the old sidings area it would be very helpful. Thanks.

I had to ask Tim!

Picture duly credited! Tim can you remember if there were rail built buffer stops at the end or maybe a sleeper built one? I've not been able to find any pictures?

A couple of weeks prior to lockdown, I decided to self isolate (elderly and with issues!) and not knowing what the immediate future might hold and as a diversion from the completion of 'Balcombe', I decided to build a new layout using materials that were 'in stock' in six weeks to keep my sanity. Well, that was the silliest of thoughts! It's now almost three months on and only the baseboards have been built and the trackwork laid and operational. So much for completion in six weeks! I've always had a hankering to build something which had been in the Forest of Dean so I decided on Marsh Sidings at Parkend. This would be designed to be part of a bigger layout of Parkend Station itself (if that ever got built!). It is built to scale length as far as could be gleaned from the various maps which all seem to differ in small ways! The plan below fits the pictures best of all. Plan ctsy of Wild Swan. I was inspired by some marvellous pictures in Neil Parkhouse's 'FOD Lines' vol 2 (Lighmoor Press) and Severn and Wye FOD vol 1 (Wild Swan). It was an interesting place operationally with coal from the 'free miners' being loaded on one side and stone from Whitecliff Quarry on the other. Picture ctsy Parkhouse/Lightmoor Press Picture ctsy Parkhouse/Lightmoor Press This picture was found on the net. Photo ctsy of Tim Venton Operation is planned be in three different era sessions, steam (16xx and 57xx Panniers), early green diesel (Cl 22s and Cl 14s) and later blue diesels (25s and 37s) The boards were built using some pink 'polyfoam' sheets which were available back a few years ago in a subsidised government insulation programme. Unfortunately they're not available any more. After things return to normal an alternative would be blue 'Kingspan' available from insulation suppliers. Plain line is Exactoscale P4 'FastTrak' and all pointwork is hand built on copperclad strips. The threeway was built many moons ago and started out life on the original DRAG TT1 test track and then on 'Matford'. It needed fettling but now performs well. The track bases were made from 6mm ply glued and screwed onto the foam using non-solvent 'Gripfill' (yellow) grab adhesive It is 'old school' and is using hand operated points using RS Components robust slide switches and DC control. It was tested yesterday and it all functioned well (with a few glitches requiring tweaks!) The next task will be track painting and weathering. Just to point out, the Swiss shunting layout 'Rüthi' has not been forgotten, it's just been put on the middle burner! I keep looking at all that lovely Sommerfeldt OLE..........!

I on the contrary have found the use of steel rail disastrous living here on the coast. I'm sure that it would be fine in a nice warm, dry and ventilated environment The planned renovation of an acquired P4 layout by DRAG didn't end well. We had to scrap it due to the steel rail corroding so badly. Our winter climate can be very damp and salt-laden. Regarding stainless rail, I can concur with you Keith about solderability. This can be made a little easier using the 'special' flux supplied for the rail. My main complaint with stainless rail is that it's very soft and the slightest wrong bend cannot be rectified. I have around 20m of the stuff that we bought for use on the Ouse Viaduct to save cleaning. An expensive mistake!

Is it 0m or HOm?