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Thanks to some great work by Simon Turner who has been supplying me with excellent masters, I have managed to start to add a few new kits to the range. They’re not ready yet but we’re up to the primer stage with the GNR horsebox, GNR open carriage truck and a general purpose 2 plank wagon by Smith & Willey of Liverpool c. 1845. A London & Birmingham Railway horsebox is in the final stages and I’ve a L&BR ‘break waggon’ to build as well. I have been told that masters for a L&BR open carriage truck will be in the post soon to go with the horsebox. It seems I need to order more rubber...again!

I've been spring cleaning today, only minor modelling progress! So instead, here's a few new loco kits I did the CAD work for, a couple of variants of Manning Wardle H, and a Hudswell contractors loco. All fit the Hornby Peckett W4 chassis (which reminds me - I need to get a couple more of those when finances allow!). Early and curved cab versions of the Manning Wardle H - the curved cab version is my personal one, with a few tweaks so it's unique. Needs the chassis painting, lining and a good weathering though. And a proper dusting off! The other models pictured are both made by Andy, so I can't take any credit for them. If you're interested in any of them, see here: https://hardyshobbies.co.uk/product-category/locomotive-body-kits/

If I had one big job left that I wasn’t looking forward to it was the gantry, last night I bit the bullet and finished it this afternoon. Maybe a bit heavy weathering on the gantry, and the bases need to be merged in. I cut some cartridge paper into strips and glued them to the dowel at what seemed suitable spacing before painting it white and applying the rust. Thanks for looking.

The first full assembly. With the living room floor cleared, I have been able to do a test assembly of the left and right throat boards, to check their overall alignment in combination with the old curves from a previous test layout build. It was very nearly spot on. Unfortunately the natural variability of a less skilled hand made build has meant that there's a slight gap between the two fill-out boards added to the curves. I'd already added 9mm ply ends to them as I knew they'd come out short, but even that was not enough. I am going to have to add two 6mm ply boards to them to fill the gap. Otherwise, it's not far off. I thought I'd let my recently won Dean Goods do the honours of being the first loco to sit on the assembly, with the templates in place, and the first of the code 83 turnouts in possible places too.

I always said that my micro-terminus was an experiment - and the whole point of an experiment is to learn lessons. I quickly realised that my layout had two major faults: (a) the foamcore baseboard was so light (250 grams including rails and fittings) that I had to put a finger on top of it every time I changed a point to prevent it moving about on the tabletop, and (b) the traverser, driven by a rod under the baseboard, suffered a bit from friction and it often needed some finger-poking to get the rails to join up accurately with the rest of the track. There was also a minor irritation that the wiring, point controls, etc were all underneath the board, so that the layout had to be turned over to work on them. This wasn't a problem when the layout was being built, but it did become inconvenient when I added some rudimentary scenery. So when I found a piece of wood 50 cms by 15 cms that weighed a hefty kilogram, it seemed a fine opportunity to build a replacement layout (in foreground below, with original layout at rear): This time I started with the traverser, rather than leaving it to the end of the track-laying process, because I had learned the hard way how essential its smooth operation is for the track design. I made a 12 cm base for the traverser from a couple of freebie plastic Lottery cards (after checking that the smooth plastic coating of the cards did run smoothly over the surface of the wood). The paper envelope shown in the photo below provides a covering surface for the top of the traverser, while the base (which glides over the wooden baseboard) is left as the smooth plastic coating advertising the lottery: A length of PECO flexitrack glued on top gave the traverser base a bit of rigidity, and I added sides from wooden coffee stirrers mainly for cosmetic effect: I also used the coffee stirrers to make guide rails for the traverser along each side, and when the connecting track was laid I put strips of stirrer at the front and back to make sure the traverser stops in the right place: A copper rod (actually Mercontrol tubing) is used to operate the traverser from the back of the layout. Since the traverser only rests loosely on top of the board (hence the guide rails) it can be easily operated from the front of the layout with a finger tip. Points are operated by stiff copper wire above the board. The wire and the plastic brackets I used came from PECO's 009 uncoupler kits, but similar homemade brackets could easily be made: Electrically, block connectors and PECO pre-soldered fishplates cater for my Can't Solder, Won't Solder phobia. So far I'm very pleased with the second attempt. It seems to work well and it was cheap to build. The next stage will be a bit of scenery ... * Note for overseas readers: when British politicians are caught doing something especially deplorable they always say "I can assure the House that no wrong-doing was intended, and that lessons have been learned". This mantra is seen as an acceptable alternative to actually learning anything or trying to do things any better in future.

I finally plucked up the courage to paint the footplate and other black sections of this loco by hand - it's come out alright, I suppose. I had to go back over some of the lower frames to cover up the overpainting, but hopefully that will hide behind some weathering later on. It'll probably be another couple of weeks before I can face doing that! I need to pick an appropriate colour for the dumb buffers too - any suggestions?

Following on my last entry, replacing dodgy curved like a Thrupenny under gauge and too tight radius track, the new straight track board makes progress. Two photos, one in each direction show what it looks like now and my Pannier (Bachmann conversion) has successfully ventured on to it ... Here with the track temporarily lightly pinned down, a third track for the empty carriage road will be added once the section on the main station throat board is slewed to be parallel with the others. Track only laid approx half way along as I can't quite make up my mind whether to join the tracks with points around here ... And looking the other way with No. 3650 at the end having ventured on ...

Initially, early railways weren't very interested in third and fourth class passengers. Firstly they saw the big money coming from goods traffic rather than passengers anyway, a misconception that quickly vanished as the first main lines opened. Secondly, the passengers that they did want to attract were the well-heeled people who had previously travelled by stage coach, not the poorer folk who hitched a ride on the carter's wagon (or simply walked everywhere). But it didn't take railway managers long to realise there were lots of poor people out there ... and when they did recognise this fact they soon started providing open coaches - not always with seats - to earn a few extra quid. I decided to see if I could cut a Bachmann Prussia coach up into an open coach, and I was surprised to find how quick and easy the work can be. First I disassembled the coach and removed the seating unit and the glazing. My plan was simply to cut the sides of the coach along the top of the quarter lights (the curves at the bottom of the windows) with a razor saw. But when I removed the seating unit, the plastic side seemed a bit too thin, and so a bit too flexible, to saw across accurately without some reinforcement behind it. So I used some of the freebie lottery cards to pack out the interior and support the coach side during the sawing. (Pieces of wood, card etc would do just as well.) After sawing the sides, I turned to the ends and sawed through them as well ... ... by which time it was taking shape ... ... especially when I cut the partitions of the seating unit down to match. The basic job took under 20 minutes, although a bit of tidying up was needed afterwards to improve the appearance. The seated passengers are by Preiser, although some of the figures on the platform are by Andrew Stadden. The early railway companies' decision to provide open coaches for the poor was based on financial considerations. My own spur to experiment with the Prussia coach was a chance to exhibit some of my models at Wealden Railway Group's Annual Exhibition when an exhibitor pulled out at the last moment. But the real star of the display was Nigel Hill's brilliant conversion of the Airfix/Dapol "Rocket" kit into an 1830s Stephenson Single (right hand side of the photo), so that will be my next post!

I've thought for a while that in order to add a bit of variety during operating sessions, Sherton Abbas could do with a few wagons from companies other than the GWR. The layout is set in Dorset, so likely candidates would be from the S&DJR, MSWJR, and Midland companies. During the weekend exhibiting the layout at the Telford O gauge show, I bought a couple of kits from Furness wagon works ttps://pregroupingrailways.com/wagons/ in order to build a couple of S&D examples. FRWC17 Midland/S&DJR/LSWR/LMS/Private Owner 5plk Wagon (With Raised Ends) FRWC21 S&DJR/MR/LNWR/LMS/SR/BRRoad Van The kits comprise of resin moulded bodies, accompanied by etched brass and white metal detail parts. Kit components. A bit of filler was needed to repair a few air bubbles in the resin castings, but that apart the kits are a really quick way of building wagons! I decided to change the buffers for sprung examples from Slater's, but that was just personal choice. The S&D appear to have painted the iron work on their wagons in black, so to avoid fiddly painting I chemically blackened the etched brass components before fitting them to the body work Blackened etched brass components. I found a couple of pictures on the internet of prototype wagons, which I used to base the models on. Hopefully as they appear to be in the public domain it's not a problem posting them here! I hope I've got the tare weight right, its a bit tricky to decipher and I'm also not that convinced by the models axle boxes Model open wagon. Prototype Road Van. Model road van. Pair of wagons together. Pictures of the wagons in service on the layout. I'll take the opportunity to wish everyone on RMweb a very Merry Christmas and an excellent 2020! Best wishes Dave

When in danger or in doubt, get the model railway out. The fourth layout in the Farthing series is taking shape, a welcome relief from the lockdown blues. Above is a reminder of the trackplan. So complicated that it broke Templot. Only very advanced modellers can do that. A test piece to see what the new Peco Bullhead track is all about. I decided to give Peco a go as a change from handbuilt track. The chairs are wrong for GWR, will be interesting to see how much I notice it. One advantage of the new Peco track is that it’s voice controlled. You simply tell it where to go and it will lay itself. The layout will be operated as a micro on a daily basis, but I may add a further module for extended operation, or even a direct link to my "Old Yard" layout. The rear siding therefore extends to the baseboard edge, and is protected by a removeable buffer stop, knocked together from balsa in the stopgap style of the old N&SJR. The other stops are standard GWR, built from the Lanarkshire Models kit. In order to fit them on the Peco track, I had to carve off most of the chairs. Have others found a better solution? For replacement, I dug into my stash of C+L GWR chairs. Ironic, as I now have proper GWR chairs next to the Peco ones. Maybe I should slice up some Peco chairs and fit them instead. What a cruel close-up by the way, I need to get out the filler. I wanted some sort of 'inset' track for the front siding. Photos suggest that while proper inset track was certainly used in some GWR yards, more pragmatic solutions were preferred when feasible. This includes leaving the four foot unpaved, as seen in the bottom three photos here (all heavily cropped). That seems to have been a favoured solution where cartage vehicles needed firm ground to off-load or pass alongside the rails, but didn’t have to cross them. I haven’t seen this modelled much, so gave it a go. The outer sections of the sleepers were cut off to avoid the chairs fouling the paving. At this point I was seriously wondering why I hadn’t just made my own track! Here, DAS is being applied to the four foot. The rail was raised slightly above the edging stones to allow for track cleaning. Partly modeller's license, but also in compliance with one or two prototype photos. While not as elegant as proper inset track, I like how it creates a visual break in the setts. The setts were made using old paintbrush heads, fashioned to shape. The material is Forex, a.k.a. ’foamed PVC’ but apparently now without the PVC. The technique also works in DAS clay. The photo is a bit misleading as I used a ruler while pressing the setts, in order to ensure straight lines. A scriber was used to individualise a few setts and sort out mistakes. The material can be curved slightly if necessary. The method has pros and cons. You tend to get a fairly uniform look and it’s hard to avoid the occasional gap between the grooves when pressing down the brush heads. But with practice I found it speedy and tidy, and I like that it can be done away from the layout – especially as I have to work in our living room. Drainage channels were made by drawing a screwdriver tip along a ruler… …then pressing in setts as appropriate. This drainage channel was done differently, by simply pressing the setts deeper than the surrounding ones. The ground in front of standard GWR stable blocks was often paved with either cement or bricks. I went for red bricks, forgetting that one drawing I have says blue engineering bricks (better quality). I may repaint them, but then again I may not. For the entry to the goods depot, I used a Green Scene roller on blue foam as described in my workbench thread. The arched setts are a nod to the yard at Birmingham Moor Street. The Pooley & Sons weighbridge is a Scalelink etch. The weighbridge office is a temporary mock-up. The flagstone pavement was done using the same Forex material as the setts, with the kerbs and flagstones lined out in pencil and then scribed. My original plan was that the road the front would be laid with setts, but after encountering this thread I began to examine photos and realized that 1900s urban roads were very often laid with various forms of non-tarred macadam or similar. Here is Worthing South Street, captioned ca. 1900-1920. Even some parts of central London had streets like this. Sometimes such roads had gutters paved with stone, at other times setts were used or there was no gutter at all. Copyright Getty Images, embedding permitted. Call me a romantic but I like the dry, light and almost ethereal appearance that such roads exhibit in certain summertime photos of the period. I used sanding paper, painted with Vallejo light sand and ivory. It still needs some weathering and a good smattering of horse dung! For the GWR spearhead fencing, the initial plan was to use an old Scalelink etch - but it's rather fragile for a position at the front of the layout. So I used the Ratio GWR fencing. Photos suggest that the verticals should extend to the ground, beneath the lower horizontal bar. Never mind. The fencing sometimes had supports, may add those in due course. I wanted the fencing to be detachable, to allow for close-up photos and easy replacement if I break something. So far it rests in a groove lined with blue tack. If that proves a botch too far, I could try micro magnets. Some stations - e.g. Minehead – had a lovely display of enamel signs mounted on the spearhead fencing. I used those from Tiny Signs, cut with a scalpel, varnished twice and edged with a brown marker (in that order, otherwise the marker may discolour the sign). The signs act as view blocks, and also help draw in the eye to what will become a staff entrance. Here’s Charlie the horse admiring the adverts. He looks a bit out of focus. It must be the provender. In his opinion, the GWR always did mix in too much bran. Work to be done includes a scratchbuild of a GWR weighbridge office (the mock-up seen here is the old Smiths kit), and one or two other structures. The elevated rear section of the layout is a whole little project in itself, I'm hoping it will add further depth to the scene. Lastly, an overview shot. It’s all wired up, but I can’t operate it without a traverser. So that’s next.

I had a setback with my Dean Goods. I was spraying on some varnish in preparation for lining, when this happened: Orange peel - or something similar! There followed the usual process, so well described in Dr Mindbender’s insightful ”Coping with Failure in Railway Modelling: The Four Phases of Modeller’s Recovery” (Wild Swan, 2019): Phase 1: Despair (”Why me, Lord?”) Phase 2: Resentment (”Stupid model!”) Phase 3: Detachment (”It's only a model.”) Phase 4: Comeback (”Bring it on, orange peel!”) Moving from phase 1 to 4 can take hours or years, depending on circumstances. I have projects in the cupboard that seem permanently stuck at phase 2 (resentment)! In this case it went a bit faster. I was at stage 3 (detachment) and about to reach for a wagon kit when a sudden surge of inner strength (a.k.a whisky) prompted a search for "how to strip paint off a glued model". The results suggested that a bath in IPA might do the trick. It did, with a little help from a tooth brush. Things are now more or less back on track. Due to the 'toothbrushing' and rubbing with Wet & Dry, the edges seem to have lost a little crispness in the process (this is styrene after all, not brass) but it's not too bad, and I'm just happy that the whole thing didn't fall apart. Re-painting is now underway. Phew!

It was gloomy yesterday so I turned the layout lights on and tried running a few trains in the dark. Daft, but oddly fun. Anyway, a few random pics of variable quality. The station in general, I need to lightproof the roof more next time it is off. This is a lucky pic. I cant really see the from of the station building so its just done by point the camera at the mirror on the end of the layout and hoping. The resultant image is then reversed in preview. Through a window. Atmospheric, a bit....

Splicing. This... ...has turned into this... ...and it all works! (So far!) These quick splice crimps (from CPC of course) have been great - they clip onto the main bus wire, the dropper wire slots into the second hole and butts up against an end stop, then the blade contact is crimped across both conductors using pliers. The insulating lid is then folded down and clips into place. It can get a bit tough on the hands after 50 splices as you need to exert some force on the pliers to crush the splice down, but they are reliable and made the whole job so much quicker than terminal blocks or soldering. Everything is cable tied to the underside of the board using 19x19mm adhesive bases - both from Amazon. The dead-end splices have two cable ties to stop them slipping out, and the trailing main bus feed wires have been loomed together using electrical tape and the bare ends tinned. I may put a connector on the end and make a Junction box that sits on the floor for each board to plug into, along with the controller feed. One for another day. My two dusty old locos are running as well as I can expect, but the time has come for a brand new ready-to-run engine to test my track laying, electrics, and magnetic decoupling properly and hopefully provide some more enjoyable running sessions free from the “giant hand in the sky”. So, I’ve splurged this months budget on a DJ Models GWR 1361 from KMRC. At £69 I hope its as good a bargain as the reviews suggest...

A Monday and Tuesday well spent. Not accurate, but all we've had access to is a very bad quality scale drawing that has errors in it. But hopefully it will be better than the kit currently available. And maybe, just maybe...this might result in one of the mainstream manufacturers doing it once we've finished the CAD. Cheers!

Following on from yesterday, I've assembled the mount and motor unit, with the new compound gear. The previous version had a 3:1 gear ratio, multiplied by whatever the original Hornby gear ratio is. The revised version is 4.6:1, so it should make a noticable difference. This motor also has a rear shaft for a flywheel! Now I need to find a loco to put it in...

...well, not really, but it was time to do a test layout of the scenic modules to see if clearances needed to be tweaked prior to track laying starting in earnest, particularly as I had now finished 3d printing the platforms. Ooh look, a train! The 3d printed platforms aren't actually very straight but now I've weathered them with the airbrush, and having 3d printed combined bench and planters to help disguise some of the joints, I think it will work out once I've laid the track and got them into their final positions. The plaster retaining walls also need to be glued into place hence the slight uneven façade. They've also been gunked with the airbrush. It does show how the station is tucked away behind the townscape. I've also given Courthouse Square a quick blow with the airbrush of crud. The Wednesford in Bloom Taliban clearly need to have words with themselves over the floral displays around the town. The restricted canopy on the platform, and yes, I did forget to paint the one section. The bay platform will terminate alongside the entrance to the Civic Centre, and will be used exclusively by the Wombourne Wanderer. The bay will be a completely separate, electrically and operationally, terminus to terminus via scenic break operation which will double up as a programming and test track, allowing me to keep stock on the main line electrically isolated. AC Electrics has also had a visit from the airbrush. Station Forecourt and Civic public entrance. Not quite sure what has happened to the "Civic Board but it will butt up against the station forecourt. Courthouse Square has also had a visit from the airbrush which has toned down some of the 3d printed paving. Still needs a bit of attention/filler I think. The 1960s created a lot of what might be called "a**e end of town" type developments, with no clear public realm or sense of place, usually well away from the Zones A and B rental districts of shopping areas, but which often had important uses in them. The sort of places which often were forgotten or had unclear boundaries, I've tried to recreate such an area here with Shaw Taylor House on the right, the Central Wednesford nick, and Government Buildings on the left, housing the Labour Exchange/Jobcentre, and DSS/DWP. The nondescript Government Buildings are a Vollmer pitched roof office/school/whatever, and a Vau-Pe East German office block. Surprisingly they come together quite well. I'm going to buy an EiiR tunic button for the end wall to mark out it is a Crown Estate building, next time you go past a Post Office or Government building, have a look for the Royal Cypher, it will usually be somewhere on the building. Shaw Taylor House is a cut and shut of two Kibri kits, a Postamt Badenweiler for the entrance and a "Hochaus" for the office, with a 3d printed roof channelling vibes of Mander House in Wolverhampton, and the old Walsall central nick in Green Lane, now gone. The pinch point. Having printed the platform slightly wider than I originally planned I find the kinematic envelope on the branch bay is a little cosy. I think when I start laying track I might be able to tweak the alignment a bit as the test track uses Settrack and I will be laying flexi, but two Mk1s get around OK, although I do need to run a 153 round to make absolutely sure it has C3 clearance as well as C1. it looks like a job seeker has barfed up on the path... The Government Buildings are not quite finished and the scene needs some tidying. I've rethought out the layout of the residential district. I've moved the nine storey Euneda House to the other side of the tracks, leaving a medium-rise estate which despite comprising Kibri and Jouef HO kits actually works architecturally. The row on the right is flats over shops although the shops face away from the residential area. Crowne Court and Cylencyn Court face the Chav's boozer which has had the roof temporarily removed to allow fitting of opaque glazing film, saving me the faff of building an interior when I illuminate it. The area around the estate battle cruiser will be grass mat, and some "lollipop" trees as landscape architects I worked with call 1960s tree planting. I need to put some fat tattooed drinkers in the benches, minding their pushchairs. I might even put a bloke in there as well. Putting Euneda House on the other side of the track, together with the multi-storey mugging centre, creates a virtual scenic break and has allowed me to include a footbridge across from Euneda House and the prefabs off Sprowte Lane into the shopping parade. The buildings on the left are two Faller "Hotel Stadt-Prag" bases, whilst those on the right are the well known Kibri shops with flats from the late 60s. The footbridge will lead to the dead end of Sprowte Lane, which at one time would have been a level crossing but which was taken out at modernisation. Euneda House is the fate which awaits the prefabs on the right. A work in progress which I'll come back to after I've laid track. St Flo's Corner. Wentec now sits on a 3d printed forecourt on top of the retaining wall to the old engine shed. I've given the Bank of Bitch a slight weathering with the airbrush, difficult to see in this shot. The Co-op now has signs. I'll 3d print a supermarket interior for the ground floor before illumination. The Chief Planner for Wednesford has a VC10 sized wasp up his knickers about shop facia signs insisting they be applied lettering and 3d. The station forecourt has also had a visit from the airbrush, the asphalt looks a little less new. The Library with the Council Chamber and shops on the right, with a glimpse of the station between the two buildings. The Staffs Police badge outside Shaw Taylor house, with another glimpse of the station behind. So onwards to the track next, then Wombourne, before finishing off the remaining details. Then, working out how to light up the layout. I may still be some time...

Hello, I have been entertaining myself with trying to make posters for the North Western Railway in a sort of Art Deco style to try and root my version of the NWR in the world and give it more than just some models. Here's how I did it! If you are interested in buying one, my shop is here: https://www.railwaymania.net/shop

I was contacted last week by Keith Barker of the Ely MRC, he had been occupying himself during lock-down sorting out old media files on his PC. He had located some video of a model narrow gauge cement works railway taken at the Stowmarket in 2001 and thought it might be my layout. He was happy for me to post it up on Youtube, so I added a bit of a commentary and it is now there for all to see. I built 'The Works' in the 1990's and exhibited it for a few years prior to selling it sometime around 2005. I remember driving it down to a man in Romford. I was approached a few years back while exhibiting Fen End Pit by a couple of his friends who told me that he had sadly died not long after buying the layout so I have no idea what happened to it in the end. It was rather fun but a bit impractical for a home setting being nearly 3'6" deep with a fiddle yard hidden under the chalk cliffs at the back, you couldn't put it against a wall and still operate it really. At the time of sale I had almost finished Fen End Pit and needed the room. Still the video brought back some good memories for me and I hope others enjoy it too. Thanks to Keith for digging it out. David

It’s finally finished, even though it didn’t take that long. The side batches have been added, sometimes these have been substituted in museums for heavy duty glass, so that the public can see inside. The generator side is all done and painted, now a small box is needed for the switches. All that is left now is to find a suitable spot in the mill and plumb it in to the steam lines, I’ll post a picture in the next entry, which will hopefully be when the motive power comes wandering in courtesy of USPS. Actually I’m not even sure if it’s left Europe, so that will be interesting! stay healthy, Douglas

I usually take pictures of the layout using my iPad, but thought I'd have a go using a compact camera for a change. I've had a Panasonic Lumix https://www.panasonic.com/uk/support/discontinued-products/cameras-camcorders/dmc-tz60eb.html for a few years now, that I use on motorcycle trips and for general photography. Although generally happy with the results that I get from it, the smallest f stop that it will go down too is F8 and I thought this would cause problems with depth of field on models. The pictures were taken using a tripod, with the camera set on F8 for an exposure of about half a second. I found some free software online https://www.nchsoftware.com/photoeditor/download-now.html which has a "sharpen focus" setting which I've been playing with, I've also used the software to make the image size suitable for posting. I hope you enjoy the pics! Waiting for the morning train Arrival of Metro class number 1500 with the branch set Number 1500 running round the branch passenger Number 1500 ready to return back up the branch 517 class number 539 arriving in Sherton Abbas Dean Goods number 2467 propelling some cattle wagons into the back siding Dropping off some cattle wagons by the cattle dock Assembling the morning goods Ready for departure! Until next time........ Best wishes Dave

My GWR 1854 ST is now done. To recap, this is a much modified Finecast body on a Bachmann chassis. My original plan was to find an acrylic spray paint that gave a suitable representation of the pre-1928 green. When that failed, I was recommended the Belton bottle green which has the RAL code used for landrover green. However, while this and some of the others looked fine outside in the sun, they all looked wrong under my layout lights. So in the end I reverted to good old brush painting. Not my best effort but I can live with it. Lining is HMRS Pressfix. I never use the preprinted shapes as they rarely fit. Instead I cut out individual bits and piece them together. I know some people do not like Pressfix. Personally I feel that it gives good flexibility and leaves no traces of film. The number plates are from Narrow Planet. You enter the number you need on their website and receive the plates pre-painted. We have it easy these days. No. 1853 is for a future model of an 1813 class. I was going to fit a cab sheet, but on the photos I have of 1854s none actually have a cab sheet, so unless further evidence turns up I’ll leave it off. The fire irons are the Springside set for tank locos. Incidentally, I saw this nice fire irons fret by DJM on Mark’s blog, and ordered some from Kernow. They turned out to be a bit too long for this particular loco, but will find use on my 3232 class. So here she is messing about on the new layout. In my defence, there is progress at the other end of it!

I could put it off no more. The second difficult bit of engineering - difficult for me anyway- had to be tackled. For me, the enjoyment of a model railway is running it. I want to be transported back in time and to re-live what I imagine a country railway line in a corner of the GWR to have been like in the 1930's: what seems a golden era for British steam and a time modern enough to have some comforts, but still hanging onto solid principals of hard work and pride in that work being good and right, on time and clean. The country had survived The Great War but hadn't yet gone through the massive changes and austerity brought on by WW2: a war that changed our way of life forever. Part of that illusion for me is to model not just one station, but a small section of my fictional line: 3 stations. This means traffic will have a reason. However, even 3 stations isn't enough. The line needs to link to the rest of the network. For that I need a fiddle yard. But a traditional fiddle yard needs you to ...er.... fiddle to a greater or lesser degree. And that shatters my illusion. So early on I came up with a solution: a set of hidden storage loops with a dumbbell return loop. After leaving Newton Purcell, Down trains would join a continuous circuit for a time. A double junction off that would take the train into a tunnel. Inside, out of sight, a ladder of points would direct the train into the correct loop. I designed auto stops and reversing polarity etc so that when needed again the train would leave the loop, go over another points ladder, round the dumbbell reversing loop, back past the loops, out of the tunnel, over the double junction and back onto the circuits as an Up train. The key had to be that it would all happen out of sight and out of mind. So no point control in the normal sense. I would have to have route setting. So when the timetable says D, I press button D and don't have to give a thought to what actually happens. I would just drive the train to ....Banbury, Oxford, Birmingham, wherever! On Mk1 in the loft, the storage loops were going to be below Newton Purcell. I actually made them and they worked. The mistakes were to design Newton Purcell to sit over the top, and to have too great a height difference between the two levels. On Mk2, lessons have been learnt, but I still need to have the dumbbell going under the right hand end of Newton Purcell. It's a bit Chicken and Egg whether I should have built the dumbbell section and then put the station over it, but I did it the other way. The problems were that I needed a fairly large radius, so the reach across the baseboard would be very wide. Cutting an access hole in the baseboard solved that. Also the height difference between levels is now 3" instead of 5" which I was (stupidly) trying to use on Mk1. The framing around the Newton Purcell baseboards filled most of that 3" gap. Therefore the framing had to be cut to allow the dumbbell line to pass through. To prevent the station board sagging I have added small feet to the sides of the cuts so the vulnerable parts of the station board are supported off the dumbbell baseboard below. A bit tricky under the station, but I managed it. There was no way I would be able to lay flexitrack in such a small gap, so I have used Peco Settack 4th radius curves and soldered them together. The almost 4 foot diameter semi-circle is glued onto foam underlay with pva. I then fed the line in through the gap and around the curve. Hey presto! I ran a test coach through the first opening. All ok. Then bump. It wouldn't pass through the next opening. Peering in, I realised the gap at the rear was noticeably less than 3". The dumbbell board was dead level, I had made sure of that. But right at the start of Mk2 I hadn't been so careful to ensure Newton Purcell was level front to rear. It was only out by 4mm, but that was just enough. The easy answer would be to raise the rear of the station and make it level, but that board is screwed into the wall and I can no longer get to the screws!!! How dumb????? So in the end I had to shorten the dumbbell board legs by 4mm increasing the height of the gap. All the small feet then had to be reset. But finally I have the track in place and whilst the lower board is now slightly off level, it is not enough to affect the trains. I will delay gluing the track in place until I have the circuits and loops all laid out. The carpentry isn't exactly cabinet maker quality, but it works and is stable. There's too much clutter there, but work in progress. Note the MERG Servo 4 board wired in at the right hand end of the station, but not yet fixed in place Back to the rest of the baseboards now. Rich