Leaderboard

I wanted to make a 5-bar gate to go at the top of the track down to the disused loading dock. I drew up a 2D cutting plan and wondered about cutting it from .8mm ply and laminating multiple pieces together but in the end I thought I'd have a go at a 3D model and print on my Anycubic Photon. This was my first print using Anycubic's grey resin (the printer came with a translucent green). Printed at .05mm layer height I printed four on the build plate at a time and the job took about 1 1/4 hours. One of the 4 failed and 3 out of 4 seemed not bad for a first attempt. To give a sense of how it will look I've just positioned it at the top of the track, it still needs a gate post(s). I'm very pleased with the performance of the grey resin, the look of the part off the build-plate is so nice compared to the translucent resin. I also had some fun (?) pouring some Woodland Scenics' 'Deep Pour' water into the river. I think I got away with it but I had a bit of a disaster with leakage, I really thought I had sealed the area but the resin managed to fine some gabs and drips were rather too prolific! Fortunately the resin started to set and sealed the holes before the entire river had drained onto the floor. I'll get some pictures once it has completely set (24 hours). David

Dear friends - those of you who keep track of my blog may have noticed a few (un)subtle difference recently. The most obvious of these is a change of username and the second is the way I have started to sign my comments. The reason for this is a personal one but briefly I have suffered for most of my life with severe depression caused by gender dysphoria. After many years of suffering in silence I have (finally) decided to take action. As a small step I am changing all my online accounts to my new name. I would really appreciate it if you use it. With thanks, Samantha

I have made some progress with the *F, some details added (smokebox door handle, whistle etc) and have now painted and numbered it. Still a little work to do (glaze cab, fit rear steps etc). I have also been workingh on some Pre group wagons, all Cambrian Models. The transfers for the Hanwood wagon are from Coast Line Models and the Cam Rys are from the Welsh Research Group. I commissioned the Lilleshall ones from Alan Jones at Coast Line models and they are now generally avaliable. The etched underframes are from Brassmasters and are suitable for Gloucester and RCH all prior to 1923. David

I wanted to make some fencing to start defining the field boundaries. The fencing I choose was concrete posts and wire. I felt the route of the fence should include the side of the old track down to the now disused loading dock, there will be a gate at the top of the track where it meets the minor road. I chose to make the posts on the laser cutter out of 1.5mm MDF. These were painted with humbrol enamel Matt 121 to give a suitable concrete colour. I found I had to blow on the posts to ensure that no paint blocked the holes the wires were going to pass through. The posts with the slightly large spacing are intended to be used as 45 degree bracing for the end of the fence runs. The first attempt I had worked ok, I drilled holes in the ground to take the posts and then spend an agonizing couple of hours trying to feed EZ-line through the holes. It was a complete pain! The end of the EZ-line would want to go anywhere except through the hole in the post. I managed it in the end but decided there had to be a better way. For the second length I tried something different. I thought it was worth trying to thread the Ez-line through the holes while the posts were still on the laser cut sprue. This worked out to be much easier as I could use tweezers and a lamp at what ever angle was easiest. The second run of fencing then took about 1/10th the time to install as the first! I'm very pleased with the results, I think once I get some long grass along the bottom of the fence and some small shrubs and bushes it should look pretty good. Thanks to Middlepeak for the EZ-line! David

I'd started the process of weathering my track in the last entry. I prefer to do this before laying ballast to avoid spoiling the ballast itself and to avoid a uniform colour across the entire trackwork. I start with a good coating of Halfords grey primer, my go-to for any painting project now. In the past I have applied paint direct to the track but it never quite adheres right and looks ugly. Next up is a coat of Railmatch sleeper grime. I mask/cover any areas I wish to avoid getting paint on/in and wipe all paint from the rail heads immediately. A cotton bud dampened with white spirit usually does the job. Although this can have the unfortunate effect of leaving cotton behind as it snags on the gaps between rails courtesy of insulated joiners! Lastly, I paint the rail sides to resemble rust. In the past I have used a Humbrol enamel which is a close approximation to a muted rust. However on reflection it wasn't the most accurate of colours. This time I opted for Phoenix Precision Paints' Rusty Rail paint. On the first attempt I unfortunately put it on too thick. The result was a glaring colour which looked too bright and like I had quite literally painted the track! It also took ages to dry and when it did it was gloss. What a disaster! Luckily I had only tried this on a small section, so I could respray with sleeper grime and start again. On my second attempt I gave the paint pot a much better shake/stir. This has always been recommended to me for any painting project, but I never really paid the advice much heed... until now. After a proper mixing the paint went on a charm, dried quickly and set in its proper matt form. Perfect! I was much more reserved with the paint, almost dry brushing this time. The result was a much more subtle colour that you almost have to look for. I'm pleased with the result. Although not ready to lay ballast, I started to consider what I would use when I did reach this stage. Ballast has been something I've never really been happy with; the size, the colour. It's just never looked quite as I expected it to. So I trawled forums for advice on ballast and found that there are as many options for ballast as there were frustrated modellers seeking a better way! The key appeared to be research of your chosen area/era. Addleford Green may be fictitious, but the line on which it is based was not, so that gave me a starting point. I found this most useful website: https://colourrail.co.uk and was able to purchase a few digital photos of considerable resolution for stations along the Hawkhurst branch - in colour! None of the books I have feature colour photography. Not only will these help me to get a feel for the general "mood" of the area for later into the project, they also showed me the kind of ballast I was looking at. I wanted something that was mostly brown/tan with some grey in it. I looked at the most recent ballasts to be released, hoping things had changed considerably since my last attempts. Hatton's own Constructor range and DCC Concepts Legacy ballast seemed like contenders. Hatton's ballast seemed too grey for my liking, the highland mix being closest to my needs but still too grey overall. Legacy's steam era ballast was much closer but ultimately seemed too dark and better for mainlines that see a lot of use - were I modelling Paddock Wood instead this may have been my choice. It's really very hard to tell for sure from photos but in the end I wasn't satisfied and decided to make my own mix, something that has always felt like a job reserved for "serious" modellers! I had some Woodland Scenics buff and brown in coarse which I had used for another project. I liked the colour of them when mixed so I bought a bag each of the fine variant and poured them together. I also had some leftover grey (possibly my first ever ballast, still going strong) and some black stuff - no idea of its origin! I grabbed a small jar and used an old teaspoon to mix a small amount together. I started with 3 spoons of buff/brown, 2 spoons of grey and 1 spoon of black, mixed and applied to a piece of test track. I was very pleased with the effect and surprised to have something so close to what I wanted so quickly. The only thing I'll change is the amount of grey, as I felt it overpowered the buff/brown mix by virtue of it's larger particles. Oddly I found the black was mostly lost in the mixture and actually gave a pleasingly subtle colour variation. My final mix will be three parts buff/brown, one part grey, one part black. Weathering of the ballast itself will be completed separately, after it is fixed to the track. I'm a long way off laying the ballast for now. I want to get the platform installed first and possibly some of the other railway infrastructure. On reflection I won't be using nearly as much ballast on this layout. In the past I have smothered every track in it. But this time I'm going to try for some more varied and realistic coverings; cinders/ash around the engine shed, tamped earth around the sidings and goods area etc. A lot of new techniques to try and learning curves to handle. All for now, Jonathan Next blog: Installing the station platform.

It's been a cold, wet, dull, Spring and I have been finding it difficult to gain much inspiration for modelling. I got somewhat bogged down in the intricacies of what Amy Wilcote calls those 'old broad gauge things'. I have, however, been enjoying viewing the splendid work shown by other modellers, in various threads on this site. So, in an attempt to get my own ideas flowing, I have been wandering around some of the less familiar parts of North Leigh. The creamery is not a very attractive building and that end of the layout rarely features in my photos, so I thought I would poke my camera into a few areas and see if the results would suggest some ideas for improvement. The creamery lies at the end of a short siding, which also serves the cattle dock, between North Leigh station and the terminus of the narrow gauge line from the quarries: At the other side of the creamery, to the right, is the reception area, where milk from local farms is brought in for processing. To the left of the creamery, can be seen the engine shed for the narrow gauge line, with its office in a grounded coach body. Behind are the lime kilns, also served by the narrow-gauge railway: Of course, I rarely visit North Leigh without finding that Amy is about, with her easel. She told me that the village is unusually quiet, at present, since their father, Sir John Wilcote, has sent her sister Blanche away to finishing school in Switzerland. (how will they cope?) I mentioned the creamery building and she said that she feels it is a real blot on the local landscape and quite out of keeping with the style of the village. I was, therefore, somewhat surprised when she brought out a painting, apparently made from a window of the Railway Hotel. I was also surprised to see her accompanied by a foreign-looking gentleman, who was standing very close to her easel. She said that one aspect of the building that she did like was its profusion of towers and odd chimneys, which showed well above the old forge. At this, her gentleman friend murmured something about taking her to see the towers of his home town of San Gimignano, where the warm sun would give an added zest to her painting. I thought it would be discreet to leave them at this point but it has been very pleasant to spend a little time thinking about what I enjoy in railway modelling. I agree with Mikkel's suggestion that working on a few small scenes can be a great help in keeping up one's spirits, while larger things hover in the background. Lets hope that the sun will break through soon and give some rather more pleasant evenings, like the one shown below, also taken from the Railway Hotel window: Mike

Some time has elapsed since I first decided to paint the wagons red on my GWR 'North Leigh' railway but I still look out for any further information that may shed further light on when and where this colour was used. My 1st edition copy of 'Great Western Way'(GWW) stated: "it would seem to be about the end of the 1870s that wagons and vans first sported a standard pattern of painted lettering. It was about this time, too, that the change from red to grey as a body colour was apparently decided upon." Since that was written, however, opinions have been revised and many now think that red was still in use up to 1904. (the way things are going, I'm sure someone will eventually conclude that red continued until nationalisation, when it was renamed 'bauxite' ) My old GWW also states that the earliest lettering took the form of the letters "G.W.R",...on the left hand end of the vehicle usually three planks up from the bottom of the body side" The text continues by stating that the lettering soon moved to the bottom plank, with the legend "To carry ... tons" above the initials. At the opposite end (RHS), the wagon number appeared, with the tare weight above. Then, in the early to mid 1880s, the pattern was reversed, with G.W.R at the right-hand end on the second plank up and the number and tare at the LHS. Legends for load and tare were now below the letters and numbers. Numbers also began to appear on the ends of wagons. GWW also reports that, in 1894, the use of cast plates for ownership and number information started to be applied and continued until at least 1905. With that received wisdom in mind and some knowledge of later opinions, I happened upon an interesting photo in Ian Pope and Paul Karau's book 'The Forest of Dean Branch - volume one' This photograph shows Cinderford ironworks and is believed to have been taken in the 1890s and certainly after 1880, because it shows a structure completed in that year. There is another photo, also taken in the Forest of Dean, in 1883, of a wagon at Coleford in what is described in GWW as "the earliest style of painting with lettering on the solebar". A selection of wagons appear in the foreground of the Cinderford photo, in a considerable mixture of liveries. For research purposes, I have copied two small sections of the photograph, to illustrate this point. In the upper row, five wagons can be seen, of which two appear to be of a darker shade than the others. Taking the two 'dark' wagons first: the one on the left has G.W.R low on the LHS with (presumably) load above, while the number and tare are to the RHS. The other dark wagon has the G.W.R above the load, to the left, and a number (level with the G.W.R) to the RHS, with some addition small lettering above and to the right of the number. The lettering on the 'lighter' wagons is less distinct but G.W.R always seems to be on the left side. In the lower row, the first wagon on the left is unclear but, next, is a dark-looking wagon, with G.W.R on the left and other lettering in the centre and RHS. Next is a lighter-looking wagon, with G.W.R at bottom left and (presumably) load above but what might be the tare seems to be below the number on RHS. The next wagon is not clear and the final wagon has G.W.R high on the left, with load below and number on RHS, though not on the visible end of this wagon. I have noted that there is a clear distinction between 'light' and 'dark' wagons and that the shades of these two types seem consistent, between the various members of each type. At this point, I decided to try some experimental archaeology. I set up a line of model wagons from my collection, some painted grey and some in my interpretation of GWR red. After photographing the group, I processed the photo using a Photoshop plug-in that allows a Black and White conversion, with an adjustable colour response. I chose a 'colour blind' response, typical of 19th century film technology, when film emulsions responded to blue, violet, and ultra-violet wavelengths but only very slightly to green and not at all to yellow and red. My experiment shows that the model wagons divide into 'lighter' and 'darker' shades, as in the Cinderford photo, with the red wagons being darker. If I extrapolate from my experiment to the Cinderford photo, it suggests that, at the time of the photograph (known to be after 1880 and probably around 1890), there were three red wagons in the yard, together with seven grey wagons. Both types, however, showed a mix of liveries, with G.W.R either above or below the weight information in both cases. If my guess about colours is correct, then it appears that both styles of painting were in use concurrently, both before and after the time of the change of lettering style! Could one have been predominant on the South Wales line from Gloucester, while the other was Swindon practice? I'm sure there are many knowledgeable people on the forums, who may have ideas on this matter. The books on the Forest of Dean railways are well worth tracking down for the superb illustrations of many industrial scenes from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

It's been a longer interval than usual since my last entry in this blog. Readers of the forums may know that this is because I recently spent a month in SE Asia and, in passing, took a few photos of the Sabah Railway Before I left, I had decided to build a brake van to accompany the early 4-wheel coaches that I described in a previous post . Like the coaches, the brake van is based on the photograph taken at New Milford shortly after conversion of the South Wales lines to standard gauge in 1872. There are three vans in the photograph, all of an earlier design than diagram V2, for which an etched brass kit is available from the Broad Gauge Society (BGS). The earlier van is of straight-sided construction and, therefore, seemed a simple task for scratch-building and would, once again, provide me with 'something different'. While I have now built several coach sides by using my Silhouette cutter to create the panelled detail, I decided to try a different method of assembly for the present coach, which I thought would make it easier to align the various layers. I am pleased to be able to report that this has turned out to be the case and I intend to use this method, described below, for my next build and, possibly, to re-build some of my earlier coaches. The first step, as usual, was to prepare drawings of the chosen prototype. I do not have a good side-on illustration of the prototype so have had to make several assumptions about the dimensions. In particular, I assumed that the panel sizes were the same as on the later diagram V2 van. The van in the foreground of the New Milton photo shows the layout of the panelling very clearly (different from the V2), whereas one of the vans in the background is the opposite way round and shows more detail of the guard's end. Taking these together, I made the following interpretation of the original vehicle, resulting in a body length of 20' 6". I was unable to read the number on the sides of any of the vans in the New Milford photograph, so chose a number from one of the vans involved in the Shipton-on-Cherwell accident of 1874 . This has the additional advantage that I know this van worked in the Oxford area, where my layout is set. As before, I designed the sides as three separate layers; the inner having cut-outs to represent the window drop-lights, the next layer being colour-printed to represent the main detail on the sides, and the top layer representing the outside framing. For this model, however, I decided to construct a whole box, so as to create the body first, before applying the outer, cosmetic, layers. This mode of construction meant that I could concentrate on assembling an accurately aligned structure, without risk of damaging any external detail. I used my Silhouette cutter to mark out the sides and ends of the main body shell on 20 thou (0.5 mm) plastic card. There was very little detail cutting required - simply the drop-light for the guard's compartment, one each side, and the end windows. I find it quite difficult to snap out small details, such as windows, when using the Silhouette cutter with 0.5 mm card, so I cut an additional two diagonal lines within the window aperture. By working from the centre of the window, I can fold the resulting triangular sections back, to form a clean break at the edges of the window. A little work with a small round file is sufficient to clean up any roughness at the corners. I assembled the sides and ends around a rectangular floor plate, cut from 40 thou (1 mm) plastic card, using polystyrene cement, to create a firm, rigid structure. Once the cement had hardened, I painted the areas around the drop-lights with Venetian Red colour, where it would show through the window apertures in the detailed side layer. I then attached the side layer, pre-printed on photographic paper and varnished with Humbrol 'Satin Cote', by means of bookbinders adhesive - carefully aligning the window apertures over the drop-lights in the inner sides. Varnishing the ink-jet printed sides is essential, to prevent damage from the water-based PVA. The next step was to add the guard's look-outs, for which I had left apertures in the printed sides (etched brass look-outs are available from the BGS but have a different pattern of framing). I made a 'solid' body for each look-out from a rectangle of clear perspex, filed to form the rounded lower edge and sloping top, where the main roof overlaps the side projection. The resulting plastic shapes were then glued into place on the sides of the vehicle, using a hard plastic adhesive. I had prepared printed front and sides for each look-out, to match the main body, and added these before applying the final layer, which is the outside framing, painted black before attaching to the body. With the printed overlays and outside framing in place, this (somewhat superannuated) small boy was delighted to see the light shining through the guard’s look-out windows ,when lit obliquely! This lighting also brings out the depth of the outside framing, which adds a lot to the 'character' of the model. I have fitted MJT compensated W irons under the floor, which I was pleased to find are back in stock, and I received mine by return of post. Finally a view of the model, lurking in an industrial-looking area of North Leigh, at the back of the creamery. I found that building the body shell first was much better than laminating the sides first, since it meant that the sides received far less handling during assembly and it was easier to align the various layers. I hope the model has more than a passing resemblance to the prototype photographed at New Milford in 1873. There is still work to be done on the under-frame, and I need to find a source of long-shank buffers, but I am pleased that the body has captured the mid-19th century 'look' and will soon be able to run in the 'Ox & Cow' local service to Oxford via North Leigh ...... which reminds me that I still have to complete a tender for No.184 Mike

I had a big modelling hiatus between January and March, caused by breaking an ankle and not being able to get up to the loft. I had the excitement of Ventnor West appearing in the Railway Modeller March issue, but had to pull out of the Stafford exhibition. Still, we are booked for November at Tolworth with Ventnor West and Merstone. Meanwhile, I have been building rolling stock for both layouts, and an engine shed for Newport. Now I am able to get back in the loft I will be able to resume on "Medina Wharf" (inverted commas because it is not an accurate model of the real thing at all) and get that into an operational state. Most of the track is layed but not wired. The engine shed is built from my own CADs which were laser cut for me by Julie at York Modelmaking, for whom I have nothing but praise. I am currently working on the CADS for the row of eight terraced house backs which overlook Cowes Station from Granville Road. More on these as the project unfolds! Here are pictures illustrating the latest progress. Note how many more coaches there are now on the layout! I think I am up to 14.

In between a few projects recently so, this weekend, I enjoyed a stress free few hours assembling this ABS Models GWR Shunters truck. Sometimes kits can be a labour of lurve and tribulation and this kit is no exception. a bit of a struggle from start to finish. instructions are the equivalent of `jottings in the columns of a comic` and take some fathoming out. not a lot of image info of the real things. A lot of pre clearing of flash from parts before assembly. I opted for a super glue assembly using Gorilla Glue Products with just a smidgin of soldering for the handrails and stancions which are very large split pins. I even made the sprung buffers using the supplied drawing pins........

I finally plucked up courage to get out the static grass machine out and try it. I've not used one of these before and was a bit worried how it would go. I wasn't particularly impressed with the build of the Peco PSG-2, the handle feels a bit loose in the 'business end' and the connecting part is just a 3D printed part. They didn't even include battery which seems penny-pinching to me. I tried some Peco spring grass and some Heki summer grass. I used a mix of 2mm and 4mm lengths. I used Woodland Scenics Static-Tac which is quite a dilute white glue and stays tacky for some time. I found I could cover about 20cm x 15cm in each go. Obviously this is only a first layer and I have some Peco 'layering spray' which is intended to stick a second layer of static grass on top of a first layer. I think I need to do some preparation to mark out where the hedges and fences are going to be so that I can vary the ground texture between the pasture and the embankment side. I'm quite pleased with the way the little used track down to the old loading dock has come out. The occupation over-bridge now has grass down it as it only leads to a farm and I'm working on the theory that it wouldn't have been weeded even when the railway was in operation. So lots more to do but hopefully a good start. David

My previous post in this series about modelling early GWR coaches ended with the comment: " All that remains is to try and establish some dimensions and start cutting." Since there are several good side-on photographs of these early coaches, it is only necessary to establish one firm measurement and then scale all the other dimensions to this known 'yardstick'. Rather perversely, I have decided to model a different coach from those I illustrated in the previous post I was looking at a photograph of New Milford, dating from about 1873, which appears in 'Great Western Way' and noticed a line of coaches emerging from the train shed. I scanned a small section of this photo to show these coaches in more detail.* The coach (arrowed), immediately next to the brake van, appears to be very similar to a composite coach that also appears in a good side-on photo in 'Great Western Way', so I have now decided to model this coach. I chose to take the diameter of the wheels as my reference measurement and my method was to super-impose a dimensioned drawing of a coach with similar wheels and then to adjust the relative sizes, until the two drawings matched up. All this was achieved by pasting the known drawing as a 'layer' in 'Photoshop Elements', over the photo of my chosen coach. Once the layers were aligned, I adjusted the overall size of the image, so that 100 pixels represented one foot in the real coach. I then printed the image at a scale of 250 pixels/cm, which resulted in a 4mm scale image of the coach. Now that I had a scale colour image, I could import this into my 'Silhouette Studio' software and add the cutting lines around the windows. (In my case, because I prefer to create an 'industry-standard' drawing, I actually drew the lines with 'Autosketch' and imported the result into 'Studio' as a .DXF file.) However one chooses to do the drawing, the 'Studio' software is used to add registration marks and the colour image is then printed on good-quality photo paper. I also created an inner layer, with smaller cut-outs for the drop lights in the compartment doors. The printed sheet was then cut out, by means of the 'Silhouette' cutter. Lastly, I cut a second copy of the inner layer in 20 thou plasticard, to provide a support for the two printed layers. As is well known, the 'Silhouette' cutter cannot make clean cuts through 20 thou plasticard, so it was necessary to 'punch out' the individual windows. To do this, I placed one long edge of each window over the edge of my cutting mat and pressed down firmly with one of my wax-carving chisels. This produced a hinged 'chad' that I could then bend, to break it free from the rest of the side. The final step was to spread a thin film of bookbinders adhesive on the innermost layer and add the next layer, carefully adjusting its position for exact registration of the windows. Then repeat for the top layer, which comprises the coloured coach side. I decided not to cut another layer for the very fine panel edge mouldings but may try adding these with plasticard microstrip, later. The end result of this stage is a pair of complete coach sides, with recessed drop-lights in the doors. Next step will be to complete the box body, with a pair of plasticard ends, and then I shall build the 4-wheel chassis. Mike Next Post * The 1873 photo of New Milford (also in Wikipedia) was presumably taken shortly after gauge conversion. There are many other interesting items of rolling stock, including several different types of cattle wagon, in the foreground.

Whereas there are 'umpteen books about the development of the steam locomotive, relatively little has been written about early railway carriages. One of my aims in making models of some earlier carriages was to hep me visualise the changes that took place in the mid-19th century. As railways moved from purely industrial uses to the carriage of people, the first thought was simply to mount benches inside ordinary wagons. The next step was to adapt the road carriages of the time to run on rails. Even Brunel, considered visionary in so many ways, did not appreciate the potential of his broad gauge, since his initial idea was to use large diameter wheels outside the body of the carriage itself - just like a road carriage. Thus, he missed the potential for much larger vehicles, by failing to leave sufficient clearance around his running lines. It was not until the second half of the century that designers began to think of railway carriages in a different way and to move on from the 'stage coach' roots. During the 1870s, the Midland Railway imported some American style Pullman cars, which were on a completely different scale from what had gone before. The GWR had started on its own course with the broad gauge but, by the middle of the century, the writing was on the wall for this system and the fortunes of the railway were in steep decline. There was no incentive to invest in new broad gauge stock, while their first standard gauge coaches came as acquisitions from other companies. These coaches were usually built by specialist contractors (often with their roots in stage-coach construction) such as Joseph Wright and Sons, Saltley Works, Birmingham. (not to be confused with the Saltney works of the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway) When Joseph Armstrong (formerly of the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway) arrived at Swindon, he faced the need for the GWR to build its own standard gauge stock and a new carriage works was built at Swindon, starting in 1868. The Lot system for new carriages and wagons had started in August 1867 and it seems likely that there was a period of 'working up' for the new works, with some orders completed at Worcester or Saltney. The early carriage designs were of the simple slab side and flat end variety, with additional embellishments being incorporated as the local skills developed. Lot 57, finished in May 1872 was the first of a new generation of carriages from the completed shop - followed in January 1873 by the 1st class coaches (later Diagram R2) shown in the above illustration. I took the following photo in the Swindon Steam Museum, where an exhibit shows the method of construction used in these early carriages The dramatic change in scale of the new generation of carriages produced after 1872 is clearly illustrated by my two models of passenger brake vans. The earlier design (on the right) is of the slab-sided variety, probably built at Worcester or Saltney in the late 1860s, whereas the later Diagram V5 dates from 1892 and is on a completely different scale. The increase in the size of carriages during the 1870s, when designs finally moved away from their road-vehicle roots, only really came home to me when I built the models. My last photo shows two trains passing at North Leigh Station. On the left is the down local 'Ox and Cow', heading for the 'County' end of its run, made up of old-style carriages and headed by the former OW&W locomotive GWR No.184 while, on the right, is a 'modern' train, including a V5 van and some clerestory coaches, headed by a Dean 2-4-0, No.3505 . Mike

I meant to mention, in my previous entry, how I made the curved plasticard roofs for my early GWR coaches. I have read about wrapping plasticard sheet around an empty wine bottle, filled with boiling water, in order to 'set' the curve. Somehow, I'm always uneasy about pouring boiling water into glass bottles, so looked for an alternative - beer cans came to mind but these seemed of rather too small a diameter for my coach roofs. After searching around the kitchen (strange, alien place), I found a stainless-steel coffee jug that seemed just about the right size. As shown below, I taped the rectangle of 20 thou (0.5 mm) plasticard, for the roof, to the side of the jug, using broad strips of masking tape: I was pleased to find, after the water in the jug had cooled, that the plasticard had acquired just the right curvature and sat neatly on top of my coach sides. Only time will tell if the new shape is permanent. In building these coaches, I have realised that there was a revolution in the construction of railway carriages during the late 1860s, as their stage-coach origins were finally left behind. The new coaches of the 1870s were on an altogether more massive scale, with much more robust framing and iron solebars. I have taken a couple of photos to illustrate these changes: The train on the left is composed of the Dean type coaches (mainly Ratio kits), typical of the late 19th century, whereas on the right is a mix of earlier designs. I like the undulating roof line created by the juxtaposition of low, almost flat roofed stock, with the more impressive clerestory roof stock, much used by the GWR. I regret that the coaches are not yet finished (pace Mikkel). When I have finished enjoying contemplating the various styles that they represent, I shall get down to all those fiddly details Mike

Having shown my printed coach sides in the previous post, 'all' I had to do to complete the coach was to assemble the 'box' structure and add wheels. These small tasks have taken some time, as a result of other distractions but, apart from final detailing, I can now show the coach on the track and alongside some later (1870s) GWR designs. In order to complete the coach body, I needed ends and a floor. I used my 'Silhouette' cutter to make curved-top ends from 20 thou plasticard and cut additional parts to act as compartment separators. The floor is a simple rectangle, cut by hand from 40 thou (1 mm) plasticard. Since the innermost layers of my laminated sides are 20 thou plasticard, It was easy to assemble the body, using MEK-type cement to weld everything together. I fixed one side and one end to the floor first and, when these were firm, added the opposite parts. I then placed partitions at the appropriate places, which also serve to maintain the spacing of the opposite sides, along their length. For the undergear, I used MJT 2299 W-irons (temporarily out of stock again but, fortunately, I had some in hand). I find it easier to make the narrow transverse folds first and then fold the W-irons (opposite to instructions). I mounted one unit on the rocking plate and filled the space between the tabs on the fixed unit with a rectangle of 40 thou plasticard. I marked the centre-line along the underside of the coach floor as well as the positions for the two axles, at 52 mm (13ft equiv.) spacing. I glued the two units to the floor with bookbinders adhesive and allowed to set. The springs are MJT 2248, 4' 6" springs on J-hangers which, unfortunately, come with oil axleboxes. (I may file these down to represent flat-faced grease boxes, but have left them for the moment). I then added sole bars, made from strips of plasticard fixed below the edges of the floor. The MJT 2299 etch includes several detailing items that are useful for representing the fittings on wooden sole bars. I still have to fit the lower foot-boards and there are many other details to add. Since I am considering building the companion all-third coach, which also appears in the 1873 New Milford photograph, I shall probably wait until both are constructed and then add detailing in a 'batch process'. As usual, it is difficult to appreciate the relative sizes of different coaches, from the illustrations in books. I had already noticed how low the sides appeared to be, while I was building the coach, which seems to reflect that the average height of passengers was lower in the Victorian period than nowadays. To visualise the difference more clearly, I included the coach in a train made up from other GWR 19th-century coaches. In the following photo, the coach immediately behind the current one is an S5, dating from 1874, described in a previous blog post This is followed by a clerestory U29, described at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-13364-six-wheelers-wip-update/. At the end of the train, the light has caught the ducket of a V5 PBV, which I built using 'Shirescenes' sides on a 'Ratio' chassis. I decided to photograph this train from the opposite direction that I usually choose, when photographing North Leigh. My usual choice is partly because it is slightly more difficult to use the camera from the other side but also because I need to do a lot more work on the scenery at the 'Oxford' end! The creamery building can be seen behind the train but the back scene is far from complete, except for a small area around the lime kilns, which can be seen in the background, beyond the narrow-gauge engine shed. Perhaps showing this view will spur me into doing some more work on the scenery at that end of the layout