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Yesterday I had a new class 117 with sound arrive from rails of Sheffield. This was a present to myself purchased with a portion of a recent bonus. I then continued painting the backscene and adding scenery around to the left of the scene. And today I worked on painting and blending the road. More photos to follow of other work completed and hopefully a day or two more to make progress before I return to work.

Nice weathering on the rails but everything else is too clean.

After a busy period at work I managed to get a few weeks off visiting my parents. This means plenty of railway progress. Here is an overview of what I've achieved. I took the decision to make a temporary loop in the loft allowing me to build a 12ft scenic section, 12ft fiddle yard and have the other 2 sides on temporary shelves. The scenic boards and fiddle yard are modular and simply rest on support legs. Here you can see the next 4ft scenic module in place. Here are the other two boards. You can also see some broader work I completed in the loft including boarding out some extra floor for storage and making it more habitable by adding new lighting, plug sockets and floor foam tiles. The new scenic board is a simple cutting into a tunnel and will be worked on in the future. Although I've already painted the tunnel portal to match the viaduct. Over several days I've worked on the backscene and gardens at the opposite end of the layout. More detail to follow.

I would certainly look at brands other than Sunlu, most brands have water washable options. Sunlu's reputation is not good, though I've no direct personal experience. I was looking closely at them as an alternative source when having problems with my preferred Siraya Build resin, but they really had nothing to offer that came close. User feedback was very poor. That one issues I had with Siraya resins was down to an out of date batch, they have since tightened up their batch IDs and no subsequent issues. While I've only trialled a few domestic (Anycubic) water washable resins, I did find their performance less impressive than the regular versions from the same brand. I too have suffered skin issues which I at least partialy blame on the printing, but haven't positively identified what aspect. Knowing about the IPA issue, Methylated Spirit has been recommended as better than IPA, though quite a bit more expensive. It's something I intend to explore, at least experimentally... Cheers Bill.

As Peterem says above, the location of " Bridlington " Post Office is indeed High Street in St Mary Cray. The building next door, with the blue shutters, is actually a Police station. It occured to me that the arches of the viaduct looked quite wide, suggesting a four track railway. The buildings on the left, with the timber cladding, also seem typically "Kentish" in design. Having spent half an hour or so researching four track viaducts in Kent, I then found the same locations website. Fortunately I was having a beer whilst looking, so it wasn`t a complete waste of time.

I think that this counts as a cheer-up.

Taking of colour, I started this topic on the subject of colour back in 2017. I photographed three models, all Bachmann, two green and one blue. It was mainly looking at how different auto white balance setting on a Nikon D70 camera affected the colour, but with front and back light (natural daylight). The models I used were a Blue Bachmann Class 40 top row, Green Class 40 middle row and the slightly less saturated Class 37 bottom row. I have also put these on black and white backgrounds to show how the contrast of the background can affect the perception of the colour. Having worked in the film and TV industry for over 25 years and now head a degree course in visual effects and editing, including colour grading, I tend to regard what a colour is more about how it has been recorded, and how it has been processed as much as what the original colour is, as that is a key aspect of colour grading. Also the conditions the source of the colour has been through especially as red fades more than some other colours in sunlight. For those who remember how yellow clothing changed to white under sodium street lights. That is an extreme example of how the lighting conditions affect colour, but different types of film, different cameras, different colour/white balances, the angle of view, how the film, negative or positive have been stored, different times of day (the golden hour for instance), sun or artificial light, a mix of the two, if there are filters on the camera lens, colours on the light sources if they are artificial, and of course how long the subject has been left out in the sun all affect the colour, and that is before dust of different areas, brick dust, limestone dust, sand etc. all add their tint to the surface being shown. This doesn’t mean that there is no right and wrong, and trying to emulate the original paint mixes is important, but the journey of your reference material has to be taken into account. The one thing I would say I do with regard to colour is that I always weather with a little Humbrol brick red and chocolate in the mix, as my layout is an urban brick built town. A little colour wash on everything does tend to make them all feel like they belong in the same location. A technique I have also used in film, TV and also graphic design to make things just sit together better. I hope that is helpful. Jamie

Le mojo, Daß Mojo etc are rumoured to be available but from local suppliers. UK-to-EU trade rules make it harder / more expensive for mojos to be exported from these shores now.

Just reinstated the Dornoch station building photos from the post some time ago - see previous....... Here is one of them....

He doesn't appeal to me. Without becoming political in any way it still beggars my belief that someone of his standing has chosen to fly in the face of due legal process and has made every attempt (with more no doubt still to come) to place himself aside from - though not entirely above - the law of his land. He has been found guilty by a jury of his countryfolk, selected as impartially as possible, and subjected to the scrutiny of the law. Those countryfolk have decided beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty as charged. Deal with it. Or "Do the crime, do the time".

But not from all your products. Just like Jeremy patiently waiting Rapido N gauge products.

Out of curiosity, how long did the Mulberry piers last that were installed after the D-Day landings? Cheers, David

And of course the return fare an absolute bu&&er.

Points of view........... The fiddle yard is also under development. Rather than using kits or proprietary points we (Eric) will be hand building all the points using copper clad and soldered rail. This is the yard for the "Up" or Southbound trains, with a start being made on the "Down" yard. Each loop will hold a twelve coach train with engines. The points at the outer ends of each yard will be constructed on curves. Eric has made the tracings for all of these and I'll show progress shortly, I hope. Our main club meeting is Tuesday evening but we have regular working sessions on Tuesday and Friday mornings as well. Here we see last Friday's workers hard at it. We regularly solve all the world's major problems be they local, national or global.......... Steve.

That's fair enough, I get where you're coming from. We don't see many buses here either and never parked on a bridge.

And so we set off again, on the 4.5hrs leg to Dimitrovgrad. Always pays to have the camera to hand leaving a major location. A most enticing looking 2-8-2. Preserved? Stored? Dumped? Who knows! Apparently, this place is a tourist location. Historic capital of Bulgaria? The Man at 61 cheerily recommended it as a stopover if we didn't manage to get booked on the sleeper! From now on, the scenery got increasingly spectacular, befitting its green shaded status on the European Rail Map(!) A junction station, deep in the mountains. The branch connection awaits. I like to call this one: 'lady on station platform, holding a dog' Train the other way completes the interchange. The descent out of the mountain was a prolonged downhill section, with a ruling gradient of 1-in-40. Brakes were checked at the top before we entered this section! (Did the Orient Express traverse this section? Must have been a helluva climb the other way) A 'plinthed'(?) loco in a slightly better condition. A heavy duty 2-8-4T - maybe the previous motive power for such a route? Banking loco for the Orient Express?(!) Eventually, we leveled out and the mountains receded from view. More interchange; more graffiti'd rolling stock. And here we are! After a long day of train travel, we're now within striking distance of our destination. Just need that sleeper to turn up now ...

I use the MTB point motors - mostly the MP1 variety. These are slow action. The older versions like the MP1 & MP5 are analog devices and need a separate DCC decoder device to drive them. I use the Digikeijs DR4018, no longer available, but there are good alternatives on the market like the YaMoRC YD8116. The MP1 is quite small and it is straightforward to mount the motor under the baseboard beneath the turnout. MTB now also produce DCC versions of the point motors like the DP4 linked above by @GrumpyPenguinwhere the decoder is built in to the point motor itself (as with the Cobalt IP Digital) and the feed to the point motor is the DCC signal from your controller. Which approach is best for you partly depends on budget and your skills with electronics and wiring. In general, motors with built-in DCC decoders are simpler, but more expensive. The MTB point motors have one or two built in switches that operate with the motor. They can be used to control frog polarity for electrofrog turnouts, for example. Yours, Mike.

It's not necessary that the buses don't go they just don't stop.

Agreed, but there was the quite rare left-hand drive version (catalogue number 255) for export markets, 364,000 produced against 617,000 No.236 in RHD. Frustratingly the colours were the same -which makes spotting one at a toyfair more difficult. (Great job on removing the cast L-plates - I gave up on mine many years ago).

It just gets better....... These red and yellow boxes just contain essence of dark cult......😉🤔 And we just cannot help ourselves. I have just been laughing out loud tonight at some of the stuff going on between us on RMweb.

@Tangoman69 - Apologies if I was not explicit enough. The stories (told to me by Paras and Marines) were about the less-competent actions (or inaction) of other UK forces. Without going too far off O/T 😀, the kindest example is a RM Major (who I later worked with) who had to draw his own weapon on a squad of Guards who refused orders to advance. Because their "comfort boxes" had not been disambarked from their supply ship. That's the extra rations they get as a privilege for being in the Guards, more than regular troops. I could add several more stories, but they would be 😒 instead of the 😀 that this topic deserves.

Hi Folks, I'm beginning to think I'm going crazy but I'm sure in recent years a magazine ran a series of articles on building a Scale Model Scenery baseboard to fit into a Really Useful Box with a simple inglenook layout... Then there was a reader offer to buy the box, baseboard, track, flock etc from a shop - Gaugemaster iirc. Can I find any reference to this on the internet - no? Fairly sure it was in BRM but having scanned the covers in the archive I can't find anything at all. I thought at the time I could actually get into practical sustained modelling projects at a slightly higher skill level but there's always excuses and stumbling blocks, so wondering know, if I build this on a budget (and probably sell it on) what is there to loose if I learn skills and practically how to do things... The only problem is the articles have vanished from my grasp... Any pointers appreciated! Thanks Ralf

I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Sounds like a gang of kids confessing before seeing headmaster for dabbling in the dark cult! ....well I'll join you on naughty step as I sinned and printed in tt120😄

The main line station is also a bus ride away from the town centre.