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11 hours ago, Chamby said:

 

Rob, a question if I may.  How much of the weathering in these images is done digitally, and how much is modelled physically?  It looks as is these models have been rather more than just ‘unboxed’!

 

Hi Chamby, the weathering is entirely real, not digitally added, but the models were purchased as weathered.  The crew (in answer to Tony) is  digitally added.

 

I do digitally alter things like wheel profiles and tone, saturation, colour balance and so on  Smoke is digitally painted using my memories of the real thing and photos as a guide, I am no fan of the grey smudges I se in many magazine pictures.  My aim is generally to evoke memories of the real thing, and enjoy the process of photo editing, having only one good working hand I'm  bit limited in modelling.

 

Here if I may is a second A3 at speed... in this one I have added the ame digital crewman, altered the valve gear a tad and narrowed the ashpan lever, but will try to refrain from more pics as this is a modelling thread. These pictures are quite a few years old, I have become better at rendering track colours, and yes Tony I shall try to remember the ribs on the Mk1s are wrong. 

 

What handsome, graceful engines these were!

 

60046_ECML_A3_at_Work_1961_3abcdef_r1820a.jpg.802b1111822497e4f581569cf779d15b.jpg

Edited by robmcg
typo
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2 minutes ago, robmcg said:

 

Hi Chamby, the weathering is entirely real, not digitally added, but the models were purchased as weathered.  The crew (in answer to Tony) is  digitally added.

 

I do digitally alter things like wheel profiles and tone, saturation, colour balance and so on  Smoke is digitally painted using my memories of the real thing and photos as a guide, I am no fan of the grey smudges I se in many magazine pictures.  My aim is generally to evoke memories of the real thing, and enjoy the process of photo editing, having only one good working hand I'm  bit limited in modelling.

 

Here if I may is a second A3 at speed... in this one I have added the ame digital crewman, altered the valve gear a tad and narrowed the ashpan lever, but will try to refrain from more pics as this is a modelling thread. These pictures are quite a few years old, I have become better at rendering track colours, and yes Tony I shall try to remember the ribs on the Mk1s are wrong. 

 

What handsome, graceful engines these were!

 

60046_ECML_A3_at_Work_1961_3abcdef_r1820a.jpg.802b1111822497e4f581569cf779d15b.jpg

 

They certainly don't look like a design from almost 100 years ago.

 

No doubt some eagle eyed critic will spot that 60046 din't run with that type of tender when it had electrification flashes or some other faux pas but I really like what you do.

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1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

I am sure it is all quite legal and above board, just a bit disconcerting to pick up a book and turn the page to see a photo of your layout when you were not expecting it, or seeing it on the internet in a place where you didn't know it was going to appear.

 

So whatever the rights and wrongs, I like to ask before I post the work or details of other people.

 

If you noticed, I even asked you if it was OK for me to post your own photos on your own thread.

 

I am not saying it is wrong to not ask first, just that I like to have some peace of mind that it is agreed by the person whose work is being featured before I do it.

 

Perhaps a bit quaint and old fashioned but that is just the way I am! 

Finding a photo of your layout in an advert. The slides were on loan to the magazine and someone at the magazine used one of the photos to help a small producer. I am not sure there was any of the small producers items in the photo. 

 

1565208326_IM(6).jpg.a353c30601dbf2e5a128445835b01383.jpg

If anyone who worked on the magazine and was involved with using this photo and views this forum, here is a reminder. I never did get the stuff offered as compensation.

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7 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Finding a photo of your layout in an advert. 


Been there, in a magazine ad, and flyers! A picture of my layout advertising an exhibition it wasn’t going to, and one that I wouldn’t have gone to either. Used because it was found on a Google search, I’d love to know what search terms they used, it appears on a blog but with no caption, so a search engine would be challenged finding it. Honour satisfied by an apology and donation to Help for Heroes .

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7 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

You pass the Malcolm Crawley "fitness for the road" test! Crew, lamps and fire irons.

 

He used to say that without all three no real loco went out on the road and other than laziness there is no reason why a model one should either. I suppose you could get away with those locos with an enclosed fire iron tunnel but having them stacked on the tender like that does add a lovely touch.

Coal?

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24 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Junk the DMUs and get some proper trains:devil:

 

(Hat ... coat ... gone!)

I am on the case,

011a.jpg.df59144711848032914b7c7ea7a1b9dd.jpg

Class AM2

100_4621a.jpg.1b356df8b8a3c829b5961edcae1d8d5c.jpg

Class AM4

008a.jpg.475570251e11ca748fcf8c6709d45a45.jpg

Class AM5 3car

 

013a.jpg.d69077f269448cb91edf29cea7f0466f.jpg

Classes AM7 and AM8

 

004a.jpg.2aa538c519d94b1883bc68ede5c687a3.jpg

BR North London set

 

005a.jpg.6205770b6372f6061e2d930eb4f37de5.jpg

LMS GEC North London set.

 

Doesn't solve the problem EMUs look just as daft with a driver each end.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Manxcat said:

Checking through some photos on my external hard drive yesterday I happened across several short video clips of my last but one layout Fairhaven Road. I have edited these together to make the video below which I uploaded to my YouTube channel.

 

I made everything on the layout myself apart from the RTR rolling stock and a couple of ready to plant buildings. Those buildings were modified before planting, even if only being re-painted to a more appropriate weathered finish.

 

I fitted all the semaphore signal lamps with amber surface mounting LEDs. When shining through the red or blue spectacle plates this gave an excellent red or green aspect. This does not, unfortunately show up too well in the video because they are not filmed head on so I have added a couple of stills below to show the effect. Spot the SPAD in the video when it first opens due to operator error while I filmed !!

 

The video is from the Bonnybridge Model Railway Club show in, I think, 2014. I was pleased to exhibit it without barriers since I have found in those circumstances people love to come very close but respect the model enough never to touch it. In saying that, we were not in the main hall and footfall through the room was less than elsewhere in the hall. I was very delighted when the layout was awarded the cup for Best Scottish Image Layout. 

 

Elements of my layout have improved since 2014 because of Tony. I now have all locos lamped and crewed and tail lamps on all trains. Tony has mentioned his dislike of gimmicks. In the video you can spot at least two. These are the life painting class at the rear of the art college and the broken down car with a serious engine fault and with the AA attending. You have to wait till close to the end for the latter. I have a wedding but it is at the hotel, not the church. 

 

Some years later I took the layout to Model Rail Scotland where Tony was the judge of the layout class for layouts exhibited by member clubs of the then Association of Model Railway Societies in Scotland. He awarded me the first prize. That really was the icing on the cake of the sense of satisfaction it gave me to design, construct and operate Fairhaven Road. 

 

 

 

1348141682_FairhavenRoad60.JPG.060118de9eae466c1c78be69bb819709.JPG

 

 

1430071146_Image7.JPG.dbd0d308b8608c616bbb31e1badf9e59.JPG

 

 

Archie

Someone once said that you should be able to work out the location of a good model railway without any trains on it. Your model kirk says "Central Scotland" very clearly.

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2 hours ago, LNERandBR said:

 

A crewmember in the rear cab could be the Guard. 

 

Crew in the 'inner' cabs of trains made up of 'multiple' units could just be travelling and making sure they're not taking up seats for passengers.

Hi Stephen

 

Not in the 1960s, he had a very comfortable seat in van end of the brake coach.

 

If he entered the cab of a DMU and sat in the drivers seat there would have been the shout of "All out brothers" as the drivers went on strike and the poor guard would have become Billy No Mates in 2 seconds.

 

Back in the 80s on a Sunday there was an early morning 2 car DMU train from Colchester to Liverpool Street, I use to catch it if I was on duty at one of the Chelmsford hospitals. It was full of BR staff going to work, the drivers sat together at the front of the train and the guards at the back. There was no room in the cabs as there were so many of them.

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44 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Coal?

 

He was talking about the three things that often get missed. Coal doesn't really come into that category. It is usually there.

 

Most people know they need coal although a steam loco could be oil fired or have an enclosed bunker. When you walk round a show, seeing locos with no coal where it should be is fairly unusual and you could always argue that the fireman has just shovelled the last scrap on. To do that, you have to have a fireman!

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4 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Ah!!! Crews for trains. I like my DMUs and running in multiple with each other. My layout is a terminus station.

 

Do I have a driver in each end? One in the rear cab looks daft.

 

When running a eight car train made up of four 2 car units that would be eight drivers with six of them looking out the front window at a bloke doing the same back at them. To me that is even dafter.

 

A DMU without a driver just looks silly.

 

What does one do in this situation? Look daft, look dafter or look silly?

 

A pop up driver when running forwards on end cars

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I have seen, on an O Gauge layout, some of the "spare" functions on a DCC chip being used to flip the seats at either end of a DMU so that the driver is at the front and the back cab is empty.

 

It was one of those times when you do a double take as you glance at it and the driver is there, glance again and he is gone.

 

Very effective and very clever!

 

There is an article in the just released MRJ about making passengers for carriages in 2D. I wonder if people say that they prefer to have their carriages empty when they really mean that it is too much work to populate them and they can't be bothered.

 

I saw the "Rowlands Castle" layout a few times at shows and it had at least one troop train, which had many hundreds figures, all hand painted, as passengers. The proper "crammed in the corridor troop train" effect was there. It looked fantastic and the impact if it had been empty would have not been half what it was.

 

 

Edited by t-b-g
autocorrect changed too to to so I changed it back
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3 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I have seen, on an O Gauge layout, some of the "spare" functions on a DCC chip being used to flip the seats at either end of a DMU so that the driver is at the front and the back cab is empty.

 

It was one of those times when you do a double take as you glance at it and the driver is there, glance again and he is gone.

 

Very effective and very clever!

 

There is an article in the just released MRJ about making passengers for carriages in 2D. I wonder if people say that they prefer to have their carriages empty when they really mean that it is to much work to populate them and they can't be bothered.

 

I saw the "Rowlands Castle" layout a few times at shows and it had at least one troop train, which had many hundreds figures, all hand painted, as passengers. The proper "crammed in the corridor troop train" effect was there. It looked fantastic and the impact if it had been empty would have not been half what it was.

 

 

Hi Tony

 

One thing I have noticed with passengers in model coaches they normally look wrong. Seated model figures for some reason have full bottoms, depending how big your bum is it flattens  out when you sit down. Model coaches normally have the seats too high and they are solid. The cushioning on a railway seat (old ones not today's rock hard things)  sinks in a couple if not more inches when you sit on it. So why don't modellers take this into account and file a couple of mm of the ar$e of their figures before gluing them to their seats. I saw a photo of an LMS period 2 coach and the passengers knees were above the lower edge of the window. A little bit of looking at passengers in coaches would have suggested this was wrong.

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5 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I wonder if people say that they prefer to have their carriages empty when they really mean that it is too much work to populate them and they can't be bothered.

I could populate a few of my passenger trains, such as the "namers", that run direct from one set of storage loops to the other but the rest all spend some of their time in carriage sidings on the visible part of the layout, so perhaps I can use both excuses!

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Just now, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Tony

 

One thing I have noticed with passengers in model coaches they normally look wrong. Seated model figures for some reason have full bottoms, depending how big your bum is it flattens  out when you sit down. Model coaches normally have the seats too high and they are solid. The cushioning on a railway seat (old ones not today's rock hard things)  sinks in a couple if not more inches when you sit on it. So why don't modellers take this into account and file a couple of mm of the ar$e of their figures before gluing them to their seats. I saw a photo of an LMS period 2 coach and the passengers knees were above the lower edge of the window. A little bit of looking at passengers in coaches would have suggested this was wrong.

 

You are quite right. As always, good observation is the key. I don't know if filing somebody on the derriere is an arrestable offence but if it is, I plead guilty! Ken and I adjusted loads of figures for Narrow Road. We sawed quite a few in half vertically too, so the same figure sits one half by one window and the other half by another window elsewhere. 

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2 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

I could populate a few of my passenger trains, such as the "namers", that run direct from one set of storage loops to the other but the rest all spend some of their time in carriage sidings on the visible part of the layout, so perhaps I can use both excuses!

 

It is a more tricky decision with no right answer for a layout that has carriage sidings. I genuinely don't know what I would do. There are some trains on Buckingham that go into sidings that have people on board. I guess whichever is done, it is wrong some of the time and right at others.  

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That is the problem with passengers on trains....

I have been on plenty of empty trains in service, but fortunately very rarely seen one in the sidings with passengers still on board...

 

IF that did happen (and it did!) you knew there would be  "Please Explain" letter headed you way very soon....

 

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9 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I don't know if filing somebody on the derriere is an arrestable offence

Worse than chopping someone's legs off at the hip to get them to fit a railbus driver's seat?

 

11 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

We sawed quite a few in half vertically too, so the same figure sits one half by one window and the other half by another window elsewhere.

What a great idea!

 

Seeing as my layout represents summer Fridays and Saturdays in Cornwall, if I ran the namers with all the corridors on the viewing side I could cram those full of standing passengers and not worry about the compartments at all.

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5 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

That is the problem with passengers on trains....

I have been on plenty of empty trains in service, but fortunately very rarely seen one in the sidings with passengers still on board...

 

IF that did happen (and it did!) you knew there would be  "Please Explain" letter headed you way very soon....

 

At one place I worked, some passengers would quite often "forget" to get out of the train at the terminus as it was a shorter walk home from the depot than from the station.

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6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

At one place I worked, some passengers would quite often "forget" to get out of the train at the terminus as it was a shorter walk home from the depot than from the station.

 

St Bz was a lot nearer to my house than Par station was .....

Although I was sort of meant to be there, I was sort of not meant to be there ;) at the same time

 

Edit!

That reminds me that if a certain "well known poster on RMweb" was about, one used to skip very lightly across the yard on the way out :D

 

Edited by LBRJ
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8 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

 

St Bz was a lot nearer to my house than Par station.....

Although I was sort of meant to be there, I was sort of not meant to be there ;) at the same time

At Brighton once, just before Christmas, a train arrived in the depot in the early hours with a well-dressed chap sound asleep in a compartment. When he was woken up he asked "Are we at Hastings yet?" It turned out that he had got on at Victoria much earlier, been to Hastings, back to VIC, down to Brighton and into Lovers' Walk without being disturbed. The staff felt sorry for him so, as the last train had long gone, they gave him a lift home in the depot van.

Edited by St Enodoc
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2 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

At Brighton once, just before Christmas, a train arrived in the depot in the early hours with a well-dressed chap sound asleep in a compartment. When he was woken up he asked "Are we at Hastings yet?" It turned out that he had got on at Victoria much earlier, been to Hastings, back to VIC, down to Brighton and into Lovers' Walk without being disturbed. The staff felt sorry for him so, as the last train had long gone, they gave him a lift home in the depot van.


my understanding is that there’s many a taxi/mini cab driver at rural stops beyond commuter zones who make their living from “refreshed” oversleeping passengers.  I’m put in mind of an episode of Drop the Dead Donkey where the morning after the Christmas party, the camera opens on the editor waking up fully dressed.  As the camera pans out, you realise he’s passed out on a bench in Oxford railway station!

 

David

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