Leaderboard

The last few days have seen little modelling done, but what has been achieved, finally, is the completion (more or less) of the laying of Tetrion filler in the area around the goods shed and the Down Sidings. Only the area between the in-laid track and the goods shed, plus a small portion beyond will actually be scribed with granite setts, the remainder of the white surface area will represent a tarmac type surface. Here are a selection of photos taken today, with all the railway buildings in the Down Yard put into place to get a feel for what it will eventually look like: I have documented the construction of the goods shed previously, which is essentially a slightly modified Townstreet plastercast kit. One other product from that same company is this little brick-built yard office, which is actually a solid, single casting: The viewing side is where the wall is, in some of the photos. As regards the open space in front of the goods shed, there will be an approach road descending from the overbridge in the centre of the layout, as this crudely amendment of the 5th photo shows:

A bit of black paint, some nameplates and the smokebox numberplate, and the change from V2 to A2/1 is all but complete. There's lot of areas where I need to apply filler to smooth the bodyshell out in the various cuts made, so this isn't quite the final entry to cover on my cut and shut project. Further things which need to be done include adding a smokebox upper lamp bracket, the front coupling, front steps, cabside numbers, apple green paint to be applied to the dome and some sections of the boiler. But the majority of the model is more or less complete. If you're wondering how it is attached to the chassis, I moved the screw threads under the cab 2mm to the left and right in order to use the existing connecting points on the A2 chassis. I've also taken the opportunity to run in the A2/1, and check the valve gear, prior to taking the model to the High Wycombe model railway club next week for some play time on passenger trains. The valve gear is running rather sweetly, and I'm delighted that it's working more or less perfectly. So there we go: how to build an A2/1 from a Bachmann A2 and the latest edition Bachmann V2, using Graeme King's excellent resin castings, and a lot of planning involving scale drawings, and testing the theory on a test bodyshell. Until next time, when I hope to have finished the model, complete with weathering.

Now for a few words now about the location of the layout. This I find one of the most interesting bits as I enjoy the background research. Whilst at school I discovered in the library some dusty, unloved, old railway books, among them was an early edition of John Thomas’ Callander and Oban Railway. This quickly became a favourite line; the Killin Railway in particular always drew my attention. So for this model I will be turning my back on my turn of the century LNWR fetish for something different; the Killin Railway. Over the years I have amassed a collection of magazine articles and books on the line, the tinterweb provides a few more images (www.railbrit.co.uk type in Killin) and holidays in the locality have resulted in a few trips along the line, sadly on foot and bike. I have a plan drawn up, whilst on business in Berlin of all places, for the whole line in 2mmscale in a 6ft x 4ft space (a future project? see below), so, to avoid repetition I am delving into the rich world of “might have been”. I have re-done the whole lot in Templot so I know it does work! The Killin Railway existed in independence until grouping and was in fact one of the last lines to be absorbed as they held out against the might of the LMS for a better settlement for shareholders. This was quite remarkable for a line which never declared a dividend and relied on the good will of the Caledonian Railway to support it and provide Locomotives and stock for operation (for which it kept the majority of the receipts). It did however dream of expansion along the banks of loch Tay. My layout imagines such expansion has taken place and resulted in a small terminus a mile short of the village of Fearnan on the East end of Loch Tay with an additional intermediate station at Lawers. (Peter Fletcher modelled such an extension in the 80’s with an imagined terminus at Lawers. The layout appeared in the September 1982 railway modeller). The layout will be quite basic, a loop and two sidings (drawings to follow in a future post).

Thought some of you may be interested in the near finished Maggie M trawer I have been working on. The video of her maiden voyage can be found here

This post highlights some of the examples of Dougal Drummond of the LSWR 4-4-0s that I have models of (some of his other classes will no doubt be the subject of future posts) and can sometimes be seen running on Fisherton Sarum. Many of these these examples have been kit built. Although not his first 4-4-0 design for the LSWR, that was the C8 class, his second is probably his most well known and much loved being the T9 class known as ‘greyhounds’. First introduced in 1899 the 66 strong class had a 10' wheel base and a 7’4" firebox (both 1ft longer than the C8) with 6’7" driving wheels. once superheated during the 1920?s their performance was legendary. The first twenty engines were built at Nine Elms between June 1899 and February 1900. At the same time thirty engines were built by Dubs & Co A further fifteen engines were built at Nine Elms between December 1900 and October 1901.This batch were identifiable by having wider cabs and splashers which enclosed the throw of the coupling rods unlike the earlier batches with narrow cabs and separate additional smaller splashers for the rods. Whilst most people associate this class with the Drummond 4000 gallon inside bearing ‘watercart’ tenders a number were paired to 6 wheel 3500 gallon tenders and these weere swapped about during the lifetime of the class. In 1901/2 Drummond introduced the K10 class known as “Small Hoppers”, a class of 40 which shared the same cylinders, boiler and firebox as the earlier C8 class but with 5’7" driving wheels for mixed traffic duties. Like the C8 class their steaming ability was not great so they generally were kept on secondary routes. 1903 saw the introduction of the ‘Large Hoppers’ officially the L11 class again of 40 locomotives, these were in effect the slightly larger brother of the K10 class, still with 5’7" driving wheels but with the same longer wheel base and firebox of the T9 class. Like the K10 they were never superheated. 1903 also saw the introduction of the 10 locos of the S11 class essentially an adaptation of the T9, also superheated but with smaller 6' drivers and larger 4’9" boiler. This class was followed by the L12 class of 20 locos in 1904 that was a further adaption of S11 class with the larger boiler but higher pitched on the essentially same chassis as the T9. I am yet to add these classes to my fleet. The final 10 Drummond 4-4-0s introduced were the D15 class which was a verson of the L12 class but with a longer boiler and firebox, with an overall 18" longer wheelbase than the T9. The D15s performed exceptionally well and were put to work on the Bournemouth line run where, apparently, many drivers preferred them to the less successful Drummond 4-6-0s designs. They latterly saw extensive use on the Portsmouth line. This is an extract of my blog at www.grahammuz.com and the full post with additional information and pictures can be found here.

The Watercress Belle departs Ropley for Alton. Hello all. Since the last entry I have made a start on repainting a Farish FO to represent one of the coaches painted in a faux Pullman scheme and used on the MHR's dining services. Two of these are required, along with an RU, MK.1 Pullman and BG to make up the set used on the Watercress Belle and Countryman services. Those that read the Painting and Weathering section of the forum will know that getting to this stage seen above has been a little more problematic than I initially anticipated. The plan was to strip the factory finish with Phoenix Superstrip as recommended by many people, so a bottle was duly ordered and the BG submerged and left to soak for the 20 minutes suggested on the instructions. What I came back to find wasn't encouraging! Hmm...... As you can see from the photo above, the superstrip had some sort of reaction with the plastic, causing strange patterns to appear, and in some areas what can only be described as a 'furry' texture! Suffice to say, this body was a write off and it was back to square one. A further browse around the web suggested that some people have had success removing paint with Fairy Power Spray so it was off to Tesco to acquire a bottle. This time I placed the body in a ziplock freezer bag and left it to soak for 24 hours before setting too with a soft tooth brush. The lining and numbers had already come away, and 10 minutes later the factory finish was gone too. Much Better! The Black paint used by Farish on the ends of the coach seemed to need a little more work to shift it, becoming quite sticky, but eventually I was down to bare plastic and ready for painting. I would strongly recommend that if you intend to use Superstrip on the latest Farish models, test it out on a hidden area first! Now, a little bit of a confession. I'm quite lazy when it comes to painting, and if I can find the colour I need in the Halfords range of sprays then I'd always use that rather than faff around with the airbrush. Initially I didn't think I'd have any luck with the Pullman scheme. Lets face it, you don't see many brown or cream cars around these days! However, it seems the 70's must be alive and well in some arena of the motoring fraternity as Ford Sahara Beige and Rover Russet Brown are a pretty close match for the Cream and Umber scheme. (The lady at the till did ask if I was really going to use these colours together......) The basic scheme complete and just needing lining out. I'm quite pleased with how this as turned out, and the last hurdle is finding suitably thin lining to finish it off. The roof also needs to be resprayed a darker grey to match the prototype and some 2mm table lamps sourced. 3067 BR MK1 FIRST OPEN 'SAGE' 1955 by pix42day, on Flickr In addition to the repaint, the coach has also had the moulded on steps, lamp brackets and 'ledge' over the corridor removed as well as the Commonwealth bogies swapped for BR.1s. The pipework from the ends of the coaches will be replaced once painting is finished, although this will have to be made from scratch as the original was firmly glued in place and it was impossible to remove without damaging it. With many thanks to Pixie, a new BG body has been sourced to replace the damaged one, so work on that should be able to start once the FO is complete. Cheers all! Tom.

After a jolly day out at Wycrail yesterday, highly recommended, I set about making some Easitrac for Oakworth. Now either I am doing it wrong or I am extremely slow both of which are probably true, it took me best part of the day to do 7 pieces. I had pondered laying cork underlay but failed to get some from the show so kind of kicking myself today I also need to find some pins for when I start putting down the rails. But things are now starting to move forward. I have a shopping list ready for Warley and hopefully will be able to source some more sleepering pcbs as I think I have enough for 1 1/2 points. With the track now laid out I get a feel for the space on the board, it does seem to be quite spacious having seen other recent 2mmFS layouts. But I think it will be quick to shrink when i get more of the scenery on. I had hoped to start the buildings today, but you can only have so much fun in one day!! and something I picked up yesterday probably not the easiest loco to convert...

RMWeb uses of a certain age will probably remember a television programme by the name of "Challenge Anneka." Anneka Rice, fresh from leaving Treasure Hunt, squeezed her then shapely rear end back into a jumpsuit to race around the country. Instead of looking for clues she attempted to help different good causes by attempting to complete projects in a seemingly impossible time. This week I felt like I was facing a similar impossible task. The model railway show is now just a few days away and Skaleby West still needed a lot of work. That gap remained as I turned the calendar over to the month of November. I knew that time was running out and I needed to get the job done. The early days of half term had been blighted by household chores and a baby daughter who would not sleep. The half made kit of the good's shed was still on the desk, gradually falling apart. But time was running out and any hope of starting from scratch seemed to be out of the question. On the Thursday of half term I set myself the task of filling the gap and finishing the job. I set to work at 1pm, with a target of finishing the job by the time my wife arrived home at 9pm. This really was a "Challenge Anneka" moment. 1.00pm. I set to work repairing the good's shed kit and adding some interior detail. I added some "goods" to the interior including some barrels and sacks. 2.00pm. I test fitted the building into the gap. A cork base was laid to raise the building's height to the correct level for the track. Cork was also laid behind the good's siding as I had to extend the siding slightly in order for a wagon to reach the unloading platform. 3.00pm. I cut polystyrene blocks to the height of the unloading platform and glued these on both sides of the building to provide a larger platform. Rolled up pieces of newspaper were then glued around the rear of the sidings and across the front to form the base for a small embankment. 4.00pm. Plaster bandage was laid over the top of the polystyrene and the newspaper. I used some Metcalfe stone sheets to form the platform edges. 5.00pm. The building was removed from the layout and the bandage was then painted in brown poster paint to provide a base for scenic work. This was left to dry. 7.00pm. A layer of hanging basket liner was then glued over the top of the dry poster paint. This was covered in a generous amount of Noch static grass. A thin layer of Noch rock compound was mixed and then brushed over the platform area to represent a concrete base. 8.00pm I then attempted to finish building the kit. I cut and added the roof and guttering. This did not work well at all. I now realise the card I used was far too thin. It just absorbed the glue, became soggy and would not fit together at all. When I finally placed the building back onto the layout I have to admit my heart sank. It looked awful! The print was fading, the building would not stand straight, the walls sagged and the roof would not stay attached to the walls. It looked a wreck. I decided to try and develop the scene to make the building look like it was supposed to be run down. I added plenty of lichen and scenic flock materials to try and represent an overgrown and run down good's building. This was the finished effect. I am sure you will agree that it looks dreadful. By now my 9pm deadline had been reached so I had to admit that I had failed in my challenge. But what to do? The show was just over a week away and I was not sure what time I had to put things right. It gave me a few sleepless moments that night. I still had to tackle the additional detail for the rest of the layout and complete the fiddle yard. But I could not leave it like that. The following day after a night in the pub had been cancelled I embarked on a scratch building project. I used the kit as a template and then cut new walls from a sheet of Metcalfe stone. Glued onto some thicker card I gradually built a replacement shed. This took me a couple of hours. It is not great, but after some detailing I think it looks a little better. I still need to finish and attach the roof. Until next time...

Just got back from a spot of gricing at Stourbridge Junction. Not that I went to cop some smelly DMU's. No, today was in search of STEAM! The Vintage Trains tour "The Panier Rambler" was running today, Starting from Tyseley going out to Stratford on Avon, returning then to Birmingham to complete stage one of the tour. The second leg of the trip was from Birmingham to Worcester via Stourbridge and Kidderminster. Stourbridge Junction is my local station so a quick trip down the road to watch it pass through. Here it is, 9600 leading 7762 (in London Transport livery) Not really the best picture in the world,but considering the light was not great and they were doing over 40MPH using shutter priority meant that the Depth of field would be absolutely P!$$ poor! The final leg of this trip will be the best part though. Shame that it will be too dark for pictures with my equipment. The run up the Lickey Incline unassisted should be spectacular. there will be some real fireworks from the chimneys as the little panniers work flat out up the bank. I won't be there to see it but I know a man who will and I'll be getting a rep[ort from him in due course. Now, slight change of subject. Some of my regular readers may recall my blog entry The Pedant and odours, well I could add on the latest moan from me and that is the "Rucksack Traveller" The station was quite busy to day, almost as busy as it was back in steam days when I did my "train spotting" on this station and all stops to Dudley! Anyway, I digress (Again!) Today seemed to be the "day of the rucksack traveller or Rucksack Gricer! they were out in force at the "up" end of the Down platform this afternoon! Just when You find a vacant couple of square feet in which to stand to take your shot some idiot with a rucksack almost knocks you flying with his payload! A quick visit to the gents for "Leak of the week" was fraught with danger! Walking into the tool room I was confronted by the back end of a large rucksack, almost twice the size of the idiot wearing it! I had to do a three point turn (Not easy with my five bellies!) to get to the next urinal, even then the width of his rucksack impeded on my space so ended up using trap 2 for my relief! I must write to London Midland suggesting rucksacks be banned from all of their operated stations! Cheers& Beers Frank

I've considered building this layout for a long time (about 15 years!) - and one of the hardest decisions was whether to stick with EM gauge or go bigger to O gauge. I had built the trackwork for a compressed version of Kingswear station in EM gauge in my previous garage but I became disillusioned when I realised that although I had successfully managed to build a single slip and various other awkward turnouts, it wasn't reliable enough or accurate enough to satisfy me. I had planned it but took short cuts on the baseboard construction. I started to understand as well, that layouts like Trevor Pott's Churston have taken years of dedication, and I admitted to myself that I did not want to spend my whole life doing nothing but building a layout. I do have other interests! I think it was realising that Pendon Museum is the work of a whole team of fantastic modellers that has already taken several lifetimes to build - or that the wonderful Kingstorre layout featured in BRM and MRJ was also the work of a lifetime plus expert help bought in from outside that finally convinced me to keep things reasonably simple. I think simple and O gauge go well together. The other thing that held me up was prototype plausibility. I suppose I am not a historian or a rivet counter but I feel a bit intimidated by those who have huge knowledge of exactly what happened in every corner of the railway kingdom. I think what has helped get past this anxiety is looking at layouts like this; the wonderful Coast Line Railroad by Troels Kirk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxhNZuuNr_4 This layout is a feast for the imagination and reminded my that my train set is not an exact model for historians but is a bit of escapist pleasure. The other modeller who really inspires me is Gordon Gravett. Pempoul, Ditchling Green and his earlier Welsh narrow gauge layout are incredible - atmospheric and beautifully executed. I have built various layouts in the past with dodgy woodwork and you always pay for it in the end with unreliable alignment, or hills and valleys where the track is meant to be flat. I've got past the psychological stage of being desperate to see something running a.s.a.p. which helps as well! The construction is derived from Barry Norman's book "Landscape Modelling". I've found it really helpful to make drawings in Adobe Illustrator so the shape of each cross member can be worked out by reference to the plan view and front elevation.

First things first the Garage had been rechristened: Secondly I took this picture last night on my phone to show someone at work... I'm rather pleased with it, shame its slightly blurred: Oh and I've also done a spot more work on the layout, I have made some hedges from this: Rubberised horse hair cut roughly into hedges shapes, sprayed with hairspray and dunked into a mix of two shades of green flock: it looks the business and I'm more than happy with it the left is the untreated horse hair on the right is the flocked stuff! until next time... who knows I might even make it three times this week!

Viewers of a nervous disposition, look away now... Long-time followers of the blog may remember my 28xx, which was a detailed and repainted Hornby model: The model has always been a favorite of mine, not only because of the work invested in it, but also because it was a birthday present from my wife and therefore had a bit more significance than just any old model bought by me. It has also always run well, in fact it is probably the best of the traditional Hornby tender drive locos I've owned. The model was given a good outing a couple of years ago but has been in a box since then, while I've mainly been concentrating on running DCC equipped models. Over the last year, however, I've gradually been getting more confident with doing my own decoder installations and after fitting decoders into some fairly awkward models, it looked as if the tender drive 28xx would be a doddle, with a simple soldering job and plenty of room for a standard Hornby chip. Given that the slow speed running on DC was good, I anticipated that it would be even better on DCC. Can you tell where this is heading? In the end the decoder installation turned out to be relatively pain-free and I completed the job in about half an hour, taking my time and using plenty of heat-shrink insulation. I hooked up the loco and tender and gave it a test. As always the decoder was wired backwards, but a quick reset of CV#29 took care of that. As anticipated, the slow running was very satisfactory and I spent an enjoyable few minutes running the loco up and down a stretch of track. It looked great. I have one of the newer 28xx models but this old one can still hold its own and on my small layout there are no question marks over haulage. I looked forward to changing the tender coupling to a 3-link hook so that I could load up a long-ish train of South Wales mineral wagons. The next evening I came back and ran it again - still good. But I got on with other stuff and only gave it a short run. The next evening again, I couldn't resist calling up the loco and giving it another spin. As before, the slow running was great. BUT - something was a bit strange. The loco looked different. I was only watching it from a distance, but there was something about it ... something near the front. I peered closer and had a bit of a shock. The smokebox had melted. Yes, somehow I'd forgotten that there was a smoke unit in this model - a smoke unit which had been quietly receiving full DCC voltage and current the entire time I'd been testing my lovely engine. Of course I had never made much use of the smoke generator so it had dropped off my things to think about when chipping the loco. But here, for your edification, are the sad results: Close inspection revealed that the melting had begun to deform not only the smokebox/chimney, but also the boiler barrel. So any hope of simply grafting a new smokebox into place were dashed. It looked as if I had two options - bin the model, or source a new body and perform either a complete body transplant or the whole boiler/smokebox. Obviously at this point I was pretty heartbroken - in fact, in a week that had seen some other cockups, I came closer to thinking about chucking in the hobby than at any time in years. As it happened, sourcing a body turned out to be not as straightforward as I'd imagined. I drew a blank on ebay - I guess people tended to keep the bodies and dispose of the chassis, not the other way round. I also couldn't locate one from a spares dealer. The guy at the Cardoiff show, who turns up with lots of Hornby loco bodies, also couldn't help - he seemed to have everything but a 28xx. My wife suggested I put out an appeal on the forum but I wasn't hopeful that it would do much good. However, I did it anyway. And within a day I had an extremely pleasing response from forum member Richard (RCAR6015) who, it turned out, had acquired a 28xx body some years ago for a project that had not come to fruition. With the new model out, Richard now had no use for the body and was happy to let me have it. After a quick phone call it became clear that Richard would not even accept payment, even to cover postage costs. I was genuinely touched by Richard's kindness and think it says something very positive about the best aspects of a forum like this. Richard was quick off the mark and within a couple of days of our phone call, I had another 28xx body. After deliberating, I've decided that the best thing is to leave the body intact, and simply transplant all the extra detail from the melted one onto the new carcass - that it will be a lot cleaner than attempting a cut and shut, and in any case I'd have to redo the handrails if I went down that route. So the 28xx lives on, or will live on, after some surgery, and I get to keep on playing with my present, all thanks to the kindness of an Rmwebber. Thanks, Richard!

By moving some of the furniture, I was able to assemble all four scenic boards for the first time, today. Still on the floor, naturally, as the support structure is not yet built. The occasion for this event was a visit by Tim Venton (Tim V), of Clutton fame, following his visit to the Midland Model Engineering Show nearby. Tim kindly helped with the removals work and assembly of the layout. Attached photos show the results - looks impressively long for a single line branch terminus. Two overall views, first from the station end and then from the fiddle yard end: This closer shot of the station shows the approximate location for the control panel - right at one end so the operator doesn't block the view! Dave.

It's the 4th July. American Independence day and as a result my email inbox has been full to overflowing with emails proclaiming all kinds of wonderful holiday deals. The one from Caboose Hobbies bit me. So I bought some PECO code 75 track for the forthcoming project. (Is my typing of PECO in all caps indicative of some kind of brain-washing from the Pritchard Patent Product Co.? That's the way I've always seen the word courtesy of Railway Modeller. It just looks wrong written any other way. Peco, peco... ) So anyway, 6 yards of code 75 and a turnout are on the way. I was looking at the first picture on his page the other day http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/m/moss_halt/index.shtml Moss Platform, Moss Halt or whatever name it goes by. I just love the way the buildings stack up on the hillside behind the station there. It's something worth featuring on the layout. Don't know if I could pull it off in the triangular baseboard I have allotted to this project. But not to worry I have other ready built baseboards that it would likely work on...But thats a scheme for another day.