Stoke Courtenay

[gwrrob]

1 hour ago, The Fatadder said:

 

Something I also hadnt realised, very glad that you have brought this up before I started adding them to Brent!

 

The down station building was adorned with posters, timetables etc and not enamel signs in the main.

 

[MrWolf]

Interesting work on the coaches, I have a stash of part finished examples too, but I'm using the excuse that I still have a lot of layout to build.

I'll be using Rule#1 about enamel signs too. Aston is so back of beyond, the Great Western forgot they had it! 

[Nick Gough]

1 hour ago, gwrrob said:

 

The down station building was adorned with posters, timetables etc and not enamel signs in the main.

 

 

It must have been tricky getting the trains through with those giant letters placed across the line?

[bgman]

3 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

 

It must have been tricky getting the trains through with those giant letters placed across the line?

 

I have heard that the GWR employed members of the Magic Circle especially for that purpose ! 

[St Enodoc]

16 hours ago, checkrail said:

So the signs in the photo below couldn't have co-existed with a copper-capped Aylburton Grange

Of course they could. We have the photographic evidence right there!

[checkrail]

A gentle nudge from @The Stationmaster a couple of months ago has prompted me to equip my Toads with side lamps, a matter on which I'd been completely ignorant.  (I had noticed that Toads came with brackets for side lamps but had assumed that they were for an earlier or alternative positioning of the tail lamp.)  

 

 

 

So the four Toads in regular use are now running properly with side lamps (on one side anyway!)

 

Thanks Mike!

 

John C.

[KNP]

I expect I ought to look into these side lamp business as well, before I get a gentle nudge....!

 

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, KNP said:

I expect I ought to look into these side lamp business as well, before I get a gentle nudge....!

 

I got a lump in my throat reading that.

[MrWolf]

8 minutes ago, KNP said:

I expect I ought to look into these side lamp business as well, before I get a gentle nudge....!

 

 

ISTR that you can buy an anorak adorned with a GWR logo....

[MrWolf]

Doubtless I too will be fitting side lamps where applicable. 

[5BarVT]

30 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I got a lump in my throat reading that.

You have a bigger problem though.  Some of yours go ‘inside’ for other trains to pass and that requires the glass to be changed.

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

You have a bigger problem though.  Some of yours go ‘inside’ for other trains to pass and that requires the glass to be changed.

Paul.

I'll need to make sure that only fully-fitted trains go into the Down Goods Loop then!

[checkrail]

Here's 2818 again heading towards Severn Tunnel Junction and South Wales with coal empties.  Think I've said before that if I ever CBA to make 20 more removable coal loads you might one day see it going the other way.

 

 

John C. 

[Neal Ball]

Lovely scenes John

[gwrrob]

Do you frequent the Western Thunder forum @checkrail as the guy doing the pow's for Kingswear has done this beauty that's right up our street. Decent removeable loads are available from Bachmann.

 

[The Fatadder]

16 minutes ago, gwrrob said:

Do you frequent the Western Thunder forum @checkrail as the guy doing the pow's for Kingswear has done this beauty that's right up our street. Decent removeable loads are available from Bachmann.

 

Must go and have a look, I came very close to buying that layout before I started on Brent.  They’ve done a fantastic job so far (and an O13 milk brake in background)

[checkrail]

A new one on me Robin, but like @The FatadderI must go and have a look.  That RW wagon looks really good.

[checkrail]

Here's a couple more of the old workhorse clanking through Stoke Courtenay.

 

I've tried to achieve a fairly variegated look to this train by using wagons from different sources - Bachmann, OR, POW sides kits and even a couple of old Trix wagons on new underframes, plus of course a handful of vehicles with coke rails, giving some variation in wagon sizes and heights.  As ever it's the overall look I'm after rather than the strict accuracy of any one piece.

 

 

The second pic bears out that old adage that it's only when you photograph the layout that you see the things that need attention.  In this case a wonky telegraph pole - probably collateral damage from track cleaning.

 

John C.

Edited December 3, 2021 by checkrail
missing letter

[checkrail]

Another cropped shot.  This time you can't see the roof purlins behind the footbridge!

 

John C.

[Miss Prism]

10 hours ago, checkrail said:

This time you can't see the roof purlins behind the footbridge!

 

Never noticed them, John, it's a great pic.

 

And then something did jump out at me - the size of the lettering, and the proportion of lettering size to perimeter, on the station signs.

 

Here's Windsor and Henley-in-Arden, the latter being an extract from a Warwickshirerailways page: there are different lettering sizes, but the lettering size and the sign perimeter size appear to be roughly in the same proportion.

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Miss Prism

[MrWolf]

There's far too much of interest on the railway to be noticing bits of the building that houses it!

I'm far too busy making a mental note of what else I need to do on my own station to be honest! 

[checkrail]

23 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

And then something did jump out at me - the size of the lettering, and the proportion of lettering size to perimeter, on the station signs.

Hmm, you had me leafing through the books again last night Miss P.!  I copied the signs directly from the laser-cut plywood ones that came with the Timber Tracks kit, as illustrated in the photo on the front of the kit box below.  (I set up and printed my own on the computer because I couldn't manage to paint the TT raised letters as neatly as I would have liked.)  

For a while you had me wondering if I'd made the classic error of building a model of a model and perpetuating an inaccuracy.  But a perusal of the albums shows quite a few instances where the lettering fills the frame much more fully than the examples you cite (not least the 'platform' signs at Paddington and Snow Hill but also various others across the system).  My 1978 ed. of 'Great Western Way' (Appendix III: standard notice boards) gives the dimensions of ready made standard signs (mainly smaller ones) but notes that the cast metal letters were also provided individually in 12 different heights, ranging from 1" to 18".  Those on my 'Gentlemen' sign are a scale 9".  

 

So I'll leave them for now and maybe come back to it another year.

 

John C.  

 

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by checkrail
missed out word 'individually'

[Miss Prism]

4 minutes ago, checkrail said:

But a perusal of the albums shows quite a few instances where the lettering fills the frame much more fully than the examples you cite

 

Thanks John. And I'm not surprised - Appendix III is sufficiently convoluted !

 

It's as convoluted as Pannier pictures...

 

 

[checkrail]

Some express passenger action now after all those goods trains and Toads as 5041 heads an up express. 

(Must rectify that fissure in the ballast in the six-foot.)

 

 

John C.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, checkrail said:

(Must rectify that fissure in the ballast in the six-foot.)

Hide it with a couple of rails waiting to be laid.