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Having just about got the hang of the new software and negotiated the family birthday fest between mid Jan and mid Feb, I've returned to the modelling bench. The 2MT detailing has been finished off. I've added injectors, ejectors, upjectors and downjectors, quite a few bits of wire that no doubt have very technical names. I cut out the original door recesses and replaced with a new set back one and added side hung handrails. I've fitted a new chimney (thanks Dave) and subjected the body and chassis to a heavy weathering waft. I'll probably cut that back a little. I've a few areas to revisit and am awaiting the smokebox plate from 247. Once that's one, it's just the glazing and a little coal in the bunker and I think we're done.

Evening all, A debrief from the excellent Stafford show of last weekend. I did draft up the post last week but as I was getting used to the new software I managed to delete the entry just as I was about to post it Start again, fresh eyes... As previous entries have described, I decided to replace the two turnouts to try and improve running as they were built almost 10 years ago. This turned out to include other remedials and more than I had anticipated in the last few months. The two turnouts were laid, tested, painted and ballasted. I had removed the front fascia to make access easier and the backscene, ramp and bridge was also removed as part of the upgrade. I had printed three backscenes originally so had two spare - the previous one was removed to reveal the curved vinyl sheet I had found in our studio - I had forgotten it had a gold outer side so it made for an interesting in progress shot I then applied the backscene and the two new fascia pieces laser previously cut from 3mm plywood. Whilst I was at it, I decided to upgrade and simplify the operators side fascia. This has removed the redundant switches from the DC operation and now has just the two turnouts and the five uncoupling slots. The fascia was cut from 1mm veneer and the trackplan and slots formed using a sharp scalpel, changing the blade regularly. To achieve the red effect it is mounted onto a sheet of stout red card from our studio. Finally the fascia was repainted and the lettering reapplied. So all all set to go but the weekend before revealed some inconsistencies with the two turnouts which was still there Friday morning 3 hours before I was due to leave for Stafford My thanks are due to Mark F (2mm Mark of this Parish) who kindly came to help resolve it...By various tests with my meter and probing Mark found the station turnout had a dead frog feed and both switches to operate the turnouts were dead Knowing was there little time to replace them we set upon a temporary lash up to get me through the weekend, with two new switches hanging out the backscene to change polarity and the old switches disconnected but used for changing the point throw only. Shortly after I was on my way to Stafford, arriving to set up the Friday evening - have never been to a show where you can back up your car virtually to your exhibition space Was also extremely honoured that Kylie (as Mr Yorke refered to it ) was depicted on the front of the show catalogue - many thanks Colin. The layout performed well at the show, bar some loco failures (prompting a bit of an overlap between time periods) and I have a few things for the to do list. I received a lot of nice comments on the layout, a lot of people surprised how small it was...one commented the picture on the catalogue was bigger My thanks are due to Bryn, Andy H and David L all of this parish for helping out some periods allowing me to get some breaks as well as see the show. A lot of nice layouts, it was great to see some old faces and meet some new ones. I also trialled the new Kylie T-shirt (when temps changed from early morning cold to very busy hot) which Mark B (46444) joked that I should produce...it has the current Kylie tour dates on the back...the layout just needs some roadies now Here are a few pictures showing some progress as well as the layout at the show. As always, comments are welcome... Pete

I thought it was about time I got back to some modelling. My arm/shoulder is still recovering, but i have sufficient movement to use small tools, etc., without over stressing it. So, I decided to fit the DCC chip as part of the finishing off process. This required separation of the chassis from the body, taking care not to damage the paint or weathering. That's not to say some minor touching up will be required by the time I've finished. The chip used is a Digitrax DZ126, the current nearest to the DZ123's I've tended to standardise on in all my recent locos. The (spare) lighting wires were cut off close to the encapsulation, just leaving the four traction related wires. Actual fitting was very easy as I had already fixed four copper-clad pads to the side of the gearbox, one each for the two pick-up connections and the motor terminals. In the temporary DC operation, short bridging wires linked the relevant pads to connect the pick-up wires direct to the motor. It only took moments to un-solder the bridging wires and connect the appropriate chip lead. The chip will just rest freely inside the boiler/smokebox when the loco is reassembled. The photo below shows the attached chip and chassis. Dave.

In-between working on the Ivatt 2MT for Cheddar, I've been looking at the ex GER 4 wheel brake, which ran as coach no 14 on the WCPR. The prototype was originally used to convey milk churns but was involved in a fatal accident in Worle in the 1920's, after which it was towed to Clevedon and never used again. There are a couple of photos of it in the dump road in the mid 1930's. This blog is really a co-ordinated effort because it uses a number of resources of this fair forum (that's RMWeb to you and me). Last year, a 3D printed model became available through Rue_D_etropal of this parish who designs and draws them up for sale via his Shapeways shop. A link to the relevant page is here. Being the last real item of rolling stock I need to complete Clevedon, I decided that I'd like to have one. I've avoided 3D printed models to date because I haven't been convinced that the surface texture is yet smooth enough. The surface texture looks akin to wet and dry paper in my eyes. To be fair, this is made perfectly clear when you look at the website, so this isn't intended as a complaint. The model looks accurate to me dimensionally, though I decided that everything below the sole bar would be removed. The lower footboard and springs were duly snipped off with a pair of side cutters and filed smooth. The body was given a trial sanding using my various filing sticks but it soon became apparent that I wouldn't be able to sand back to a flat finish without destroying the detail and defeat the purpose of the exercise. So, first up I applied a coat of filler primer from a Halfords rattle can. Two coats of Precision gloss varnish were applied with the coach side being held perfectly horizontal. I figured that the varnish would settle to its own level, particularly in the panels. I was inspired to try this by Mikkel in his experimentations on GWR chocolate and cream painting on Ratio GWR 4 wheel coaches, though I can't find the link at the moment. Once that had fully hardened, I then applied two coats of Humbrol orange enamel and have tried to represent the varnished teak effect Mike Trice so skilfully achieved here using Burnt Umber oil paint and 'Liquin'. Mike makes it look very easy is all I'm saying! The coach in the photos is quite a light colour which I presume is the effect of leaving it out in the Somerset weather for 20 years! The body is presently under a soot wash and I'll dry that back before I start to add detailing, buffers, handrails, springs, handles, plates and so forth. The plan is to have the coach available for the Preston show in a couple of weeks as it's the only show I'm doing with Clevedon this year. Overall, I'm satisfied with the finish. It's smooth enough and although I've lost some of the detail, I can still see what it's supposed to be and rule No 1 applies here! The chassis is a bit more straightforward, being sprung using Bill Bedford NPCS W irons on a false floor base of copper clad. The brakes were simple single sided Morton type and I'm presently making these up using bits from the spares box.

An action-packed photo here from the 1920s showing ex-TK&F No.6 leading a string of lead hoppers into the yard whilst two goods trains pass on the main line above. China clay and empty alumina trucks in transit to Tidmouth, milk and fish heading east. Just visible behind No.301 is the tender of one of the ex-ROD locos lending banking assistance out of the steeply graded docks branch. The mighty air-braked hopper wagon is also visible. This was designed to be attached to passenger trains for the uphill run to Toryreck, but rendered obselete when Knapford (Harbour) station closed to passengers.

Well, another three evening sessions have now resulted in FULLY inset trackwork Building 1 is also stuck down. I'm going to sort the electrical connections next I think. I have my standard 2 pin din socket so any controller I have can be plugged in

I've been doing a lot of test running over the last few days, running trains around at ludicrous speeds and watching what falls off where then trying to fix it. I've also had various older bits of stock out and been working over issues on them. So out of the draw came the old faithfully Gibson J15, powered by a small portescap with an extra idler gear. I tried shunting wagons in and out of the coal siding and it kept stalling so it was out with the cotton buds and lighter fuel. Just cleaning the wheels didn't do the trick so it was off with the lid to have a good look. What a lot of fluff! To say it worked better with out that lot in would be an understatement. (alternative title 'nice bit of fluff') David

I haven't posted anything here for a while so, here are a couple of pics to be going on with; looking towards the tunnel mouth, and looking out from it. There is actually quite a lot of work going on to the left of the broken viaduct arch in the first picture. A slate works will appear in the background along with some rocky scenic developments around the short narrow gauge section. Pictures soon.

My model of the GWR stable block at Park Royal is now almost done. Here's an overview of the build and some pics of the finished item. The stables at Park Royal followed the classic outlines of what I call the “Style B” of GWR stable blocks. Above is a sketch. The model itself was built using the GWR drawing that is reproduced in "Great Western Horsepower" by Janet Russell and in Adrian Vaughan's "Pictorial Record of Great Western Architecture". I used my Silhouette cutter extensively for the build. The GWR drawings were imported into Inkscape, on top of which I then drew up my own drawings for the cutting file. Getting the hang of this was a learning process in itself, and I’m grateful to Jason and Mike for their excellent threads on using the Silhouette and Inkscape. The digital drawings were used to print the main sections on my Silhouette Portrait cutter. The cutting mat for the Portrait is shorter than the length of the stable block, but I eventually discovered that two mats can be used in extension of each other, with the styrene sheet bridging them, as seen here. The Silhouette can't cut 20 thou, which is a problem if you’re using embossed sheets, since most of these seem to be of that thickness, including the SE Finecast sheets that I favour. So I used the Cutter to score the rear side of the sheet, and then cut through manually with a scalpel. The cut sections were laminated onto further layers to create depth. I ended up with five layers in total. The front of the building was done before I discovered that I could cut the full length of the building in one go. The vents, lintels and sills were also cut on the Silhouette. This is where it started feeling like making your own kit. I initially struggled a bit to get the windows cut well. The silhouette isn’t really designed for this sort of detail work. The best I could manage was 0.3mm glazing bars. The hit and miss vents aren’t perfect, but once painted I think they came out OK. The doors were built up like this. They were quite tall and wide, which initially puzzled me until I realized that some rather big beasts had to pass through them! The windows and doors were fitted as the middle layer in the 5 layer sandwich. I modelled a couple of the windows in open position, to add signs of life. The rear wall was easy work. It was very plain on the prototype, as per most GWR stable blocks. I assume to give the horses a bit of peace and quiet (windows were sometimes retro-fitted when the stables were converted to garages). The slates for the roof were cut from vinyl, a tip I got from Lee’s blog. Once cut, the vinyl strips can easily be pulled off the backing and are not as fragile as paper or card strip, which allows repositioning. Right, I thought, nearly done! But then came the roof vents… The roof vents – aka cupolas - turned out to be a whole project in themselves. I needed six, which eventually amounted to some 220 individual pieces. The photos below show how I made them. I hope they are more or less self explanatory: There followed a discussion in the workbench thread as to whether slate was actually used on the cupolas. Some photos *seem* to show it, but it remains an open question. The safe bet for anyone else would be to use metal sheeting instead, as several photos and one drawing shows this - although whether this was zinc, copper or lead sheeting is not clear to me. After painting, I realized that the individual slats in the roof vents had come out with slightly different angles. So my method for making them could be improved on. The camera is cruel though, and it's not that noticeable in real life. A view from above. The roof vents were not evenly spaced on the prototype. I have done a bit of light weathering, but it probably needs more. There is also the question of a manure pit, which I haven't built yet. I need to make some planning decisions first, more on that later.

In my fictional world, the imaginary spit of Sandy Shores would outwardly appear as a very laid-back and relatively tranquil place. And indeed at the time this layout depicts (1952 ish), it probably is! But history has not always been so kind. The sand bars just offshore have long been a hazard for shipping; numerous ships have met their fate here. Meanwhile, the weather, whilst delightful in summer, turns to a bleak and windy wilderness come winter. So how and why did the Sandy Shores Light Railway (SSLR) come into being? Mid to late 19th Century Given the danger to shipping, it should come as no surprise that in the early 1850s a stone lighthouse was built upon deep foundations on the foreshore; similar in design to the Low Light at Spurn Head. In order to bring heavy supplies for its construction, it was decided that a narrow gauge line should be built across the dunes; for the spit was too narrow and soft, and access too difficult for any other form of transport. The line also served another purpose; carrying personnel down to the coastguard station, and of course the new lighthouse. At some point after this, a small stone quay was built (predominantly for small fishing vessels) and the railway served as a useful way of transporting people, goods, supplies to the coastguard cottages, and materials for maintenance of sea defences and such. Early 20th Century Thanks to the natural beauty, the area slowly became popular with tourists; to the point that a steamer pier was built to satisfy demand in the early 1900s. Once again, the railway was pressed into use. Sadly though, this was short lived as the pier was built too short and vessels often ran aground; particularly as the sand relentlessly silted up the seabed. With the steamer pier out of action, and WWI beginning to bite, there was little need to have the railway running. Thankfully the lines only locomotive was stored in the shed; although most wagons were left uncovered, and soon deteriorated in the salty sea spray. WWII The onset of WWII would see the entire spit taken over by the MoD. As part of the takeover, the railway was pressed back into service; initially to help construct all the various buildings. Given its strategic position overlooking an inlet; a bunker, battery, and several pillboxes were hastily constructed. Even the abandoned steamer pier was restored and lengthened to solve the silting issue. Even after construction had finished, the railway was retained to keep up maintenance of the coastal defences. Eventually, with the war over and the spit surplus to requirements, the MoD finally passed the spit and its railway back to the local authority. Sadly, late one winters night, a freakishly big storm wiped out the far end of the old (lengthened) steamer pier. A decision was made to demolish the rest shortly after, leaving only a few stumps. Given the soft terrain, it didn't take long for the battery and pillboxes to slip away into the sea or get covered in sand; and indeed whilst the battery and bunker are both hidden under the dunes, one of the pillboxes is just about visible, haven sunken into the foreshore! Preservation A few years later, a small party of interested people was formed, with the aim of restoring the railway back to its former glory. Like many fledgling groups, volunteers were key in getting the line back to working order. Whilst relying on donations meant facilities were at first rather basic, and progress slow; it's purely thanks to them that what we see today exists for all to enjoy! Their pride of fleet (a 40hp O&K contractors loco) was donated to them after having worked at Calshot (not really, but shh...!) for many years. Indeed, the passenger stock and some of the goods wagons can also be traced back to RAF Calshot, having become surplus to requirements there. An ageing "Tin Turtle" can also occasionally be seen on short freight work, but is not favoured by the crew! Plans are also currently afoot to satisfy fare-paying customers with a small railcar, although workshop space is... well... virtually non-existent! Negotiations with a larger preserved line for use of some workshop space are "in the works" (so to speak!). Back to Reality Now that we've taken our flight of fancy, I think we should perhaps go back to the real world for a bit and briefly talk about the reasoning behind the layouts existence, and how it operates. Rather than being designed from the start as a small layout, Sandy Shores was originally intended as a tiny test bed for scenic techniques for my big oil refinery layout Old AGWI Rd, but.... well, I got transfixed by my own dream scenario! The plan below shows the final idea before I changed tactics completely. The board to the left of the dotted line is the Ashlett Creek board (as already partially completed) from AGWI, whilst the section to the right of the dotted line would have been the extension. The idea being that I could test out relevant scenery techniques on the new extension on a small scale before committing to the larger boards. It would also have meant that I could take the Ashlett Creek board and the extension and have it as its' own layout. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it!) the curves would have been too tight, and in the end the idea of a self contained small layout won me over instead! Back to Sandy Shores. With my previous layouts all based upon real locations, for this one I really wanted to create a "dream" scenario - set on a fictional sand spit somewhere on the South Coast. The kind of place where nothing is done with any sense of hurry, and a narrow gauge train trundles slowly across beautiful sand dunes to a charming (if slightly tatty!) halt. A lighthouse sits on the foreshore, with remnants of military past sunken in the encroaching sands. Whilst deep in the dune, a converted railway carriage is where I call home; it's all very idealistic, but it's good to dream, is it not? On a more sensible note, the comparatively simple and small layout was designed to get in as much as possible; whilst leaving enough room to prevent the layout from looking cramped and "busy". I still wanted to use this as a scenic test bed, so a lot of the same elements on this layout will be found on Old AGWI Rd. later on. For example, the quayside, walkways/jetties, mudflats, corrugated iron buildings and coastal setting are all to be found on both layouts. But I was also keen to put in features and scenes that inspired me in real life; such as the lighthouse, grounded railway carriage home, and remnants of WWII military buildings. I'm also a sucker for coastal settings (as can be seen from all of my layouts!), and this is the second one to be set on a spit! The one thing that I wanted to portray above all else was a tatty seaside narrow gauge railway; the type where only the bare minimum of maintenance is carried out, and facilities are modest at best. The final size of the layout was dictated mainly by the smallest footprint that would allow everything in that I wanted to portray whilst keeping it small enough to carry and set up by myself; hence the 4' x 2' 2" board size. Oh, and the board shape? Well... I have an annoying habit to prefer awkward and smooth curved shaped boards; that's all there is to it! As can be probably guessed from the track-plan above; the layout's operation is rather unusual, but is a necessity given the lack of space along the spit; there being no run-around loop. Until the layout can obtain a railcar, usually any passenger trains have to arrive carriage-first. Alternately, when a second locomotive is available, a bit of shunting can be carried out to release the loco ready for the onward journey. Freight trains on the other hand are much easier to handle as both sidings kickback off of the headshunt trestle. The added bonus being that subject to careful driving, a locomotive can shunt the sidings whilst a passenger train arrives. As there is no signalling on the line, all movements are done by eye and at very low speed! Well, I think that's about everything for this set-up post; it's been a long time coming (both in terms of writing it, and getting it here on RMweb!). Next blog entry, we'll take a look at both the design of the boards construction, and we'll also see those designs put into action as I explain how the woodwork was built. I really hope you enjoyed this blog post; feel free to post questions or comments down below! Jam

I have been slowly painting and lining the D1. It must be said painting and lining is something I have never been good at. I know how to do it but I just don’t seem to have the artistic flair for it. More than half an hour and my eyesight and hands become two entities with wills of their own, so it might be a while longer while I do the D1 bit by bit. Mind you, I have no shortage of crew ready to drive it. Figures by Andy Stadden, The close up pic shows me where I need to just correct the paintwork a bit.

The new format for RMWeb sent me into reminiscing about ‘the old days’. I realised it is just forty years, since my young son provided me with the excuse to move from thinking about a model railway to putting those thoughts into practice! It started, of course, with a lot of avid reading of magazines, followed by sketching out various plans. The railway had to be small, to fit the available space and, initially, 009 was an attractive format but my wife had some old Hornby-Dublo track and various kits of buildings, including many Faller kits, with pump-driven water wheel, a working saw-mill, and a motorised windmill, all of great appeal to a small child. And so, work started in earnest, early in 1979, with enthusiastic assistance with baseboard construction provided by my 3-year old son. I have described the concept of my railway before but here are some photographs from those early days – starting from a bare frame, to which was added an ‘upper deck’ to carry the 009 section. I was keen to put contours into the landscape, so the base was constructed on several levels, with a stream flowing down from a Faller water mill to a Faller saw mill – both working models, although the use of real water in the first of these models had to be undertaken with some trepidation and was soon discontinued! (many years later, this was where I found Amy Wilcote at her easel) The buildings were an assortment of plastic kits, some of which are still available, like the ubiquitous Airfix Church (now from Dapol). These were assembled into a somewhat cramped village in the central area and a single platform was placed along the front of the baseboard. Photographed in 1980 At first, the rolling stock was a strange mixture of Hornby-Dublo wagons, some Kitmaster coaches in Southern-region green, a Southern R1 engine and an A4 ‘Golden Fleece’, which could hurtle around the main loop at improbable speeds, to the delight of a 3-year old! (Amazing how they could make a ‘Pacific’ locomotive negotiate 15” radius curves!) My first ‘purpose built’ train comprised a K’s 14xx locomotive and an Airfix auto-trailer and, thus, the GWR orientation began! As an introduction to kit-building, the K’s was not a great success and I never managed to make it run smoothly, so it was soon replaced with the newly-introduced (1980) Hornby 2721 Pannier, which seemed a very sophisticated model at that time! Autotrain from the 1930s 40 years ago, my sense of nostalgia only stretched back to the 1930s but this little railway provided plenty of ‘kiddie’ pleasure, for several years, until other interests took over and it fell into many years of neglect. It was much, much later, after I had retired, that a new interest in looking further back into the 19th century grew in my mind: Back to the 19th Century But that is another story, which the rest of this blog has followed in some detail. Mike

A couple of months ago I bought 3 different small IKEA boxes. Just to see what I could do with them. So, I have now three different personal challenges. For the first one I used an IKEA box of 31cm wide x20cm high x 7cm deep. The box is not very deep. For that reason, I approached the building of the diorama as a three-dimensional painting. I started with the sky and than the city background. In this way the colour tone of the “painting” was set. From this point on I tried which colours/textures I had to use for the station building. This is also the first step in creating my “new” Northall. And what is better then start with the station. This time in an Edwardian setting. Northall Junction Station is designed as a passenger station for country towns. The station has a booking office, waiting rooms, a station-master’s residence combined. The building is a good example of a suitable building of his class. As a reference I used a drawing of Much Wenlock station. This time I wanted to build again in card using a kit from Scalescenes as a starting point. His R004 Medium Station Building is useful because of its modular design. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a real Great Western appearance, so I did some research on the internet. Here a came a along Culham station. There is a nice part with modelling sheets to build the station. You can find them here: http://www.culhamstation.co.uk/kit.html . I also had to make some compromises. Although I had made some Edwardian posters, I decided to use the posters boards from R003b GWR Station & Goods Shed based on Staverton. I used them as a base and used some of the boards I had made. Here you can see why I decided to use the Scalescenes board. The edges are not good enough for me. I tried the slate roof texture from Scalescenes first. But the size and colour didn’t fit in. I tried several roof textures and finally choice a texture from Model Railway Scenery. Door and windows I found on the RMweb: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67105-a-free-lance-gwr-themed-terminal-station-building-for-bears-end/ . I had only to resize them a little bit. Background is from Peco. I Used a picture from the internet that was just the right size to create a background in the box. The sky is also found on the internet. And of course, there is a little story in the scene. Wm. Charles Godwin, insurance agent for The Liverpool and London Globe Insurance Company is on his way to visit a client in Southend. He is looking at a poster while his suitcase is standing beside him. There is also a trunk visible for Mrs. Mary Hope Mary, who goes to visit her sister in Littleworth. She is waiting in the Ladies waiting room for the train Kind regards, Job

I've been beavering away for the past year or so building a 1:32 (Gauge 1) layout for our annual October event at Shepshed,Leics.. which was held last Saturday. The general idea was to see what could be done on a 7ft 6 ins x 2ft baseboard in G1 similar to my previous O gauge layout 'Alexandra Yard' though that was 6ft x 1ft 10ins. Anyhow the attached photos show what has been achieved so far, the layout being far from finished as there is a LOT of small detail yet to be added. The theme is a small quay 'somewhere' in the UK c 1910 , home to a couple of my kit built Manning Wardle 0-6-o's and a few wagons (all of which are scratchbuilt). The great thing about layouts like this is you can tie yourself up in knots shunting wagons though, as I found out last Saturday, three link couplings can drive you to despair in any scale!!