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I spent the weekend exhibiting Sherton Abbas at Railex http://www.railex.org.uk/ accompanied by Al (Barry Ten), to whom I'm indebted for all his hard work setting up the layout and for his ninja like operating skills🙂 We arrived in Aylesbury around 6.30pm and took about 90 minutes or so to unload the hire van and get the layout set up in the exhibition hall. Everyone was very helpful and welcoming, particularly David Lane (David Bigcheeseplant) who's the exhibition manager. Setting up Image courtesy of Kevin Wood Once the layout was set up we headed for the "bright lights" of Aylesbury and enjoyed an excellent curry at the Bengal Blue Indian restaurant. https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186222-d2546313-Reviews-Bengal_Blue-Aylesbury_Aylesbury_Vale_Buckinghamshire_England.html This was followed by a couple of pints in the Bricklayers Arms http://www.bricklayersarmsaylesbury.co.uk/ a particular treat for a London boy who's been living in Wales for the last 30 years! London Pride On the stroll back to the accommodation we crossed the railway line and I took this picture, I've no idea what the stock is, but it most certainly isn't Edwardian Great Western!:-) 21st Century Railway! The following morning the exhibition started at 10.00 am, so once fuelled by a fry up and coffee we arrived back in the hall for 9.00 am. The exhibition was very well attended, but because of the well managed layout of the hall it never felt cramped or congested. Exhibition in full Swing photo courtesy Anthony Mead Al doing sterling work shunting at Sherton Abbas David Lane had arranged a social event for the Saturday evening, so we were taken by vintage bus to the Hop Pole pub https://www.aylesburybrewhouse.co.uk/thehoppoleaylesbury which has a remarkable range of real ales on tap, my particular favourite was a beer called Gravitas, definitely recommended! A convivial time was had by all, chatting and eating pizza:-) I arrived back in the hall on Sunday morning to make some minor adjustments to the level of the layout, on Saturday we’d experienced some free running wagons catching up with the locomotive after uncoupling and I was keen to rectify this! Some judicious packing was required under a couple of legs which seemed to clear the problem:-) During Sunday afternoon David brought his rather lovely Lee Marsh 517 along which ran beautifully, though for some reason he declined my offer to drill its buffer beam and fit a wire suitable to couple with my Spratt and Winkle fitted stock! Lee Marsh 517 class Towards the end of Sunday afternoon I was surprised, though delighted to be told that Sherton Abbas had been voted “Best Layout” at the show. This was particularly gratifying on account of the many excellent layouts on display at the exhibition! I was presented a rather nice plaque by Jerry Clifford which is now in pride of place on the front of the layout🙂 Photo curtesy of Anthony Mead Pride of place! It was a thoroughly enjoyable, though tiring weekend, my knees are only just recovering! It was great meeting the many RMweb members who have commented on this blog over the last few years, thanks to all of you for your encouragement. Finally thanks must go to the Risborough & District Model Railway Club and David Lane in particular for holding such an excellent event. Best wishes Dave

Progress continues on the Bird class, proving if nothing else that I need to refine my riveting techniques, but I hope the overall effect will be satisfactory once the frames are painted and less attention-grabbing, as they are in plain brass. The major work on the body is now done, with the cutaway parts of the boiler and firebox reinstated with plastic card and filler, and as seen by the safety valve, I've begun to put back some of the detail. Minor gaps around the base of the lost-wax safety valve were filled in using Mr Surfacer, a very useful product perhaps more widely used in the aeromodelling community than railway modelling, but well worth investigating. Unlike normal plastic filler, it's more like a thick paint that you can apply quite precisely with a brush. It's excellent for dealing with minor seams in wing roots and so on, but also handy for these kind of job. It's very hard on brushes but I've found if they're cleaned thoroughly immediately after use, they do survive! The etched cab sheets are from Branchlines and fit neatly over the original mouldings, but they don't correct the error in those, in that the sheets don't extend far enough back. I didn't bother fixing this issue as it's never bothered me particularly with the City. With the boiler off, it's clear that there's a lot of room for weight over the drivers: In fact it's even better (or worse!) than it appears as the body will still need to be packed up a mm or so to allow ample bogie swing. In any case, virtually the whole of the firebox and rear part of the boiler can be stuffed with weight without any risk of the loco being nose-heavy. Once the boiler is fitted permanently, the smokebox saddle can be filled and smoothed over to eliminate the join, and various other bits will be tidied up. I think it'll be a bit easier to get the weights in before I do that, though. This is a jolly fun project and while there will be a fair few compromises that would be too much for the purists (wrong boiler, wrong footplate step position, cab side sheets, ride height etc) I will be more than happy to have another outside-framed 4-4-0, and which will be something just that little bit different compared to a City. Plates were purchased at RailEx - and yes, it's Bullfinch!

After a very early start we arrived at the RailEx just as the back of the queue was clearing. This unexpected visit was stimulated by the offer a lift in the fourth seat of a very comfortable car. As always, it was an impressive exhibition, and it was rather nice to be able to wander around with no responsibility for operating a layout. Having made a comment to several people during the course of the day about the curve on the front of one of the 'Cameo Competition' runners-up, I thought I ought to put me mind to seeing if I could do better! The layout in question included a reverse curve between the over bridge and the hole in the sky. While the curve across the front of the layout was a gentle estimated c 7metre radius, after the bridge the line sudden took an approximate 2-3metre radius turn to the right, for no apparent geographical reason in the scenic context, to bring it more parallel with the low level lines in the fiddle yard. Such a combination of curves is, to say the least unusual in the prototype and would have looked better if the geometry of the bridge and/or the fiddle yard had been slightly altered to make a straighter or more gently curved run-off. So, if the purpose of going to exhibitions is to be inspired to make progress in one's own modelling, it worked. How would I tackle the setting out of a curve. While thinking about this on the return journey I decided it was time to make some progress with the track on my new, circular, FiNe 1/160 Klein Holtzapffel. While being circular this layout does no offer opportunities for a reverse curve, there is an interesting link between two curved points at one end of the station. The two points are based on Peco track templates (why draw them out when it is easy to print them off), but to avoid the look of set-track and to provide enough space for the platform between the running lines there is a short curve that has the potential to ruin the flow of the track. I found the full-size track plans and mounted them on a piece of laminated chipboard. To check the curve would look right I taped down some rail through the points following the template curves and and carefully marking out the rail position in the 'transition' section between them. This is not a true transition curve and I have no idea of its radius.... But it looks right both with just the rail and when rolling stock is placed on it. Viewing and photographing from several angles suggested where adjustments need to be made. Having thought I had got it right on Monday evening, an early viewing on Tuesday morning showed ten sleepers needed to be moved slightly as the rails moved off centre. The final picture shows the adjustment with a new centre line and the sleeper ends moved up to 1mm from the original marks. At least in this picture the loco is running right line (trains run on the right in Germany). It is good to be challenged into sorting this out as a response to making a critique of another fellows work. It is also good that this little project can run with a minimal amount of material already in stock. I find it interesting after some years of exhibiting smaller, public transport travelling, layouts that there seems to be a greater interest in such things at least in terms of size. I am not sure that in a changing world there can be any sound justification for large, resource consuming layouts ... just because it is possible either technically or financially. In the great scheme of things, as seen through a mind set with concern about the climatic future, model railways are probably not even on the list, let alone the really important list. Now to set about making three crossings (one for the other end of the loop) that will work in these curves..... but that will happen another day as there are young spinach, corn and beans to be planted out from the greenhouse and some work to be done replacing some track at the station end of the garden railway after improving the access to the soft fruit garden with recycled paving slabs and bricks. We still have last year's blackcurrants in the freezer and this year is already looking good! .... and the rhubarb needs weeding again!!

Today's fun: trying to fit Bill Bedford BR 'modern image' W-irons under a Cambrian SR/BR 25t Toad. Catch is: the gauge is EM and the van has the narrowest frames. Evah. I chose the (sprung) W-irons because for some reason I thought the van wouldn't ride nicely (old moulds, my dodgy construction skills, runes consulted etc). I trimmed them to broadly the right shape with a knife (note the ones on this van, at least following the mouldings in the kit, are unusually wide and lack any weight relieving holes). Trouble is that the width of the whole W-iron unit is 26mm, a good 3mm more than the space available between the frames. So the two W-irons have been chopped in half and (carefully, but not skillfully) soldered back together. The only axle I could find that would go in was an old Märklin one (remember: h0 is like 00, just 0.87 times as much ...) and this axle was 24mm tip to tip. Filing off the tips got it down to 23mm. Off came the old wheels, the ends of the axles were ridged with a file (as in the Gibson instructions for fitting drive gears to proprietary axles) and on went the Gibson wheels. There's not a lot between the front face of the wheel and the rear face of W-iron. I've cut the moulded W-irons on the solebars back to the springs. We shall see how this turns out; the frame's currently held together with hair clips and the solvent is doing whatever it needs to do. And here is one of Paul Bartlett's photos of a prototype 25t van. I'm doing this diagram, D1582, there are a few others covered by the kit