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Why is it I always seem to build rolling stock in threes, does anyone else have this quirk? Firstly I completed my Norwich & Brandon Railway corn wagon kit. This one was from a lovely drawing in the HMRS collection of a frankly very rare beastie. An act of parliament authorising the construction of the N&BR was passed on 10th May 1844. The contractors were Grissell & Peto, consultant engineers Robert Stephenson and George Parker Bidder. Officially opened on 29th July 1845 the railway had already lost its title to the Norfolk Railway following a merger with the Yarmouth & Norwich Railway a month earlier. In the meantime the Eastern Counties Railway was making great progress and eventually swallowed up the NR in 1848, the assortment of Eastern Counties lines amalgamating to form the Great Eastern Railway in 1862. Thanks to Simon Turner for making the excellent masters for this and the next two kits as well. The second is a Midland Railway end door goods wagon of 1847. The drawing reputedly originated from Derby works and is dated 1847 but beyond that we know very little. The wagon is certainly typical for the period with wooden head buffers, a simple drop lever wooden brake and doors in one end pointing to a period when wagon turntables were plentiful and turning such a vehicle before or after loading was commonplace. Often loads would be sheeted over and the high round ends provide support for a canvas. The third is a little different, an open carriage truck of the London & Birmingham Railway. This one has a delivery to make, a cabriolet by James Braby of Lambeth to his 1837 patent no.7279. The patent document shows several vehicles including a very charming omnibus, Shillibeer style, which I may well be tempted to model at some point. Braby started out as a road carriage builder but found himself drawn into railway carriage building like many of his contemporaries and supplied several early railways with carriages. They're photographed at Bricklayers Arms. Please don't ask how on earth they came to be south of the Thames in 1845...! Now I have to find three more things to make!

A weighbridge has appeared at Farthing. It began as a kit, but in the end much of it was scratchbuilt. Here's a summary of the build. This was the point of departure, a lasercut kit from Rail Model. A little research showed that it is based on the prototype at Leckhampton, a drawing of which appears in the EricPlans volume on GWR and LMS structures. The kit is nicely cut, but I noticed that the corners weren’t mitred. So I sought to remedy this with a file. Bad idea! The MDF edges began to crumble. My mistake. I eventually decided to cut a new ‘skin’ from SE finecast brick sheet. This also changed the brickwork from Flemish to English bond, thereby bringing it into line with other brick structures at Farthing. Perhaps I should have built a whole new inner core while I was at it, but I like the idea that the original kit is still in there. A bit of rudimentary furniture. Also a rough outline of the scales - a Pooley design, using bits of styrene and glue brush handles. Bird's eye view of the interior. Frankly, almost none of it can be seen from outside! Regarding the blue distemper, see the discussion here – including Tim V.’s interesting photos. I decided to make the roof detacahable in case something inside comes loose, or I want to add some staff. Some GWR weighbridges had sliding windows. Some offices had six panes per window, others had four. The windows supplied in the Rail Model kit provide for this. They’re a bit deep though. Sanding them down is an option, but I didn’t fancy the MDF dust. So I drew up new windows in Inkscape and cut them on my Silhouette. I had some trouble getting the ‘crosses’ neat. A trial fit of the main windows. A closer study of GWR weighbridge offices show that details differ in almost every case. The windows on the Leckhampton structure were positioned relatively high compared to other designs, and centrally rather than off-set to one side. The roof slates were cut from self-adhesive vinyl on the Silhouette, as per the stable block. Once again thanks to Lee for this tip. Inspired by @Dave John (a.k.a. the Magnet Man) I stuck a magnet under the roof. That way I can lift it off without damaging anything. Gutters from Wills, and some downpipes fashioned from brass wire. The door opens inwards. Makes it harder for those Midland Railway rogues to barricade it from the outside. A 'warts and all' view of the window end. The Leckhampton structure was unusual here: Most GWR weighbridge offices had no window in the end wall, or just a small one. The Leckhampton building had blue bricks at the base, common but not universal. I decided to go for plain red bricks in order to match the stable block. Trial fit on the layout. I'll have to shift the whole thing further into the yard, so that the staff can better access the door. Slight planning c*ck-up there! The weighbridge itself is a Smith etch of a Pooley design. The instructions say it is based on the one at Knightwick, installed 'around 1889'. That's it for now. Thanks to everyone who helped with information!

The Up Postal passing Harrow. The southern approaches to Watford. Harrow interlude as the Branch freight arrives from Stanmore. Looking south from the bridge at Harrow. Southbound class 3 Parcels at Linslade. The Widnes to North Wembley BOC Tankers pass Harrow. The Stanmore shuttle approaches platform 7. Northbound through Watford. The Manchester Pullman overtakes a Dagenham to Halewood working approaching Watford. A class 25 heads an Inspection Saloon through Linslade. A Research Department Special heads south through Harrow with the prototype HST Power Cars. Northbound at Linslade. Passing Harrow.

For ballasting I use sandpit sand bought from ToysRUs before it disappeared. It is reasonably coarse so can pass for ballast in n gauge. One of the things I do not like about commercial N gauge track is the depth of the sleepers. I therefore wanted to use the ballast to hide this depth consistently. After some experimentation I came up with a scheme to achieve this. Once the track was laid, I lined the edge of the sleepers with evergreen 1mm quarter-round StripStyrene. The depth is just a little lower than Peco code 55 sleeper depth. An example of this can be seen in the attached image showing a bit of test track. Ballast was then glued to the edge strip using water proof wood working adhesive painted on to the strip with a fine brush. Note that the water proof wood working adhesive was used for this step to avoid the next step, which involves water, undoing this step. Once this was dry the remaining gaps between the sleepers were ballasted in the traditional way by spreading ballast carefully and setting with watered down PVA with a little washing up liquid to kill surface tension. This creates the illusion of a ballast shoulder on which the sleepers are resting. It was then airbrush weathered using a range of colours but mostly Precision Paints Track Colour. EE D6827 has no real business being there. I just like it!

This 3rd blog installment describes how the Tweedale layout is currently operated. Some people relax with crosswords or sodukos, I like to solve shunting puzzles. I endeavour to fit in at least one 20-30 minute running session each day where possible. I find the regular operating sessions help to maintain my interest. Tweedale was designed to work for its living and has been operated ever since the track was laid and wired, but that's not to say it's run in a prototypical manner. I treat the layout as a kind of board game, and part of the enjoyment is from devising new sets of rules or constraints for the 'game'. Furthermore it's run in a more casual US style than British, allowing such suspicious practices as pushing trains between stations, loading and unloading wagons on the main line, and carrying passengers in the brake van. Rolling Stock Somewhere on the Internet I came across an article that claimed the ideal number of wagons for a shunting layout is about 70 percent of the total siding capacity. With fewer wagons, shunting can become too easy, with more it can get frustratingly bogged down. It seemed a reasonable assertion, so based on that I worked out I'd need 11 wagons for Tweedale. I then had to determine what proportion of each type of wagon I would need for the kind of traffic I had in mind. This was the resulting wish list... 4 open wagons 4 box vans 1 cattle wagon 1 tank wagon 1 brake van The stock was gradually built up by rummaging through secondhand boxes at shows (the cattle wagon was the hardest to find). I've retained the hook and bar couplings for now, even though they are rather obtrusive. They work well enough using Roger Nicholls 'Yorkshire Kadee' uncoupling system, which just involves removing the hook from one end of the wagon, and inserting tufts of plumber's hemp between the rails at uncoupling spots. Uncouplers at The Pits, with a spare untrimmed one on the platform. The tufts are held together with glue and cotton and are a snug fit (not glued) into holes drilled between the sleepers, where they can be adjusted by moving up or down slightly. Card and Waybill System The currently preferred operating scheme makes use of what Americans call a 'car card and waybill' system. I don't know what the correct British term for a car card is, so I'll just call it a wagon-card. Each wagon has its own wagon-card, labeled with wagon type and a description. The card is kept in a card box (provided at each each station) where the wagon is located, and is moved along from place to place as the wagon moves. It looks rather like a pre-digital library card with a pocket (if you remember those), in which a waybill can be placed. The waybill, from a shuffled pack of about 40 assorted waybills, gives details of a shipment - its origin, destination, load, and type of wagon required. As Tweedale is a self contained system all wagon movements start with an order from the shipper for an empty wagon. Each waybill covers two journeys, the first for the empty wagon being delivered to the shipper, and second for the loaded wagon from the shipper to the customer. It is placed in the pocket of the wagon-card such that only the current journey is displayed. Card boxes for Grimley and Slaghill. The tab separates cards for wagons that have been delivered, from those that are to be picked up. Also shown is an example of a wagon-card and a waybill. Typical Operating Session The session consists of two parts, preparation and running the trains, which aren't necessarily done together. The session might be prepared before breakfast, but the trains not actually run until later in the evening. To prepare the session the operator, as 'goods agent', first goes through all the cards in the boxes, turning over waybills for wagons that have been loaded, to show the final destination for the goods, and removing waybills from wagons that have reached their final destination and been unloaded. New waybills can then be assigned to empty wagon-cards. A 6-sided die is thrown to determine how many new waybills are to be picked from the shuffled pack. For each of these selected waybills, a search of card boxes is made to find an empty wagon-card of the required type, and the waybill is placed in the pocket. If there are not enough empty wagons of the required type available, or siding space at the destination is likely to be full, the waybill is placed in an 'outstanding orders' box, and gets priority in the following session. Actual physical wagon loads are also added or removed where appropriate. For the second part, the operator takes on the role of train crew, and looks through the waybills in the card boxes to determine the best strategy for moving wagons to their destinations. The challenge is to try and do this with the minimum number of trips between stations, with the minimum number of light-engine moves between stations, and without 'reprimands'. Reprimands are for such things as having to reshunt wagons due to insufficient forward planning or lack of concentration, not clearing the main line in time for a through passenger train, and so on. It sometimes helps to list the moves on a scrap of paper first. It's satisfying to get to the end of a session without reprimands, but doesn't happen very often! The simplest session would involve just one trip from Grimley to Dale End and back, picking up and dropping off wagons en-route, but this is seldom achievable due to inbuilt complications on the layout... The headshunt at Slaghill and the sector plate each have a restricted capacity of a loco plus 2 wagons Wagons can be spotted on the main line in places, but they have to wait until no more train movements are expected along that section of track during the session. The sidings at Dale End face a different direction to elsewhere, so rope-shunting at Slaghill is needed to put the engine at the correct end of the train. That is a space-hungry manoeuvre requiring empty siding space at Slaghill, which needs to be considered beforehand. As there is no fiddle yard, all stock is stored on the layout. Empties are generally left where they are until assigned to another job, but might have to be shunted elsewhere if they are in the way. Rope shunting at Slaghill. The railway's only loco, a Bachmann 04 shunter, has pulled the wagon down from Dale End. A rope is used to haul it into the siding, so that the loco can then reverse back and couple onto the other end for the onward journey to Grimley. Passenger Trains A rudimentary passenger service is provided, using the brake van, and runs from one end of the layout to the other with stops at each station. The passenger trains have waybills in the shuffled pack the same as for goods, but they are given absolute priority and there is a time element involved. If the session includes a passenger run, then a kitchen timer is set to go off at some random time during the session. Normal shunting can still take place, but the operator also has the pressure of watching the clock. By the time the alarm goes off, the main line must be clear of wagons from one end to the other, and the loco must be ready to depart with the passenger train. A passenger train arrives at The Pits with a removable load of miners. Less-than-wagon-load goods Occasionally a van for small loads travels from one end of the line to the other and back. During each session it is moved to the next station along. It takes about a week to do the return journey... not the most efficient delivery service, and it ties up a van for a week, causing a shortage elsewhere. Wildcards The pack of waybills also contains 'wildcards', like the Chance cards in Monopoly, designed to disrupt normal operation. For example a card may pop up specifying that the last wagon assigned a waybill has developed a fault and must not be moved. That can cause more or less of an obstruction depending where it happens to be located. Another card may report that the loco has blown a gasket and can only haul a maximum of 2 wagons at any time... a limitation that can turn shunting into a bit of a nightmare. Conclusion Perhaps surprisingly for such a simple layout, I still enjoy running it after a year of regular operation. Some of that I put down to the fact that its a system (if that's not too grandiose a word for it) rather than a single-station layout. I find there's something more satisfying about running trains from one station to another rather than just to a fiddle yard. Also the rules are constantly changing and evolving, which keeps the interest alive. The more I learn about prototypical practices, the more they get incorporated into Tweedale, and I'm always on the lookout for new ideas that would enhance the layout's operations. Probably the greatest help in retaining my operating interest though is that the layout is set up all of the time, and ready to run at the flick of a switch. I'm sure it would soon lose its appeal if it had to be unpacked and repacked whenever I wanted to use it. Cheers, Alan.

‘Mess about’ [British, informal] > to spend time doing things that are not useful or serious: to waste time Merriam-Webster dictionary Here’s a 1½ minute video showing my new traverser in action. Or frankly: Just a bloke enjoying his layouts. The trains run daily at the moment, maybe it’s operating in a living room environment that makes it a more natural and sociable part of my daily routine. To my surprise, I hardly miss my man cave in the old house. Not to everyone’s tastes I’m sure, but I’m enjoying it.

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.

Toot toot! A new Sudrian Spotlight is out! This time it's the product of the fictional expansion and life-extension of the Barrow Hematite Steel Company. Hunslet 48150 Class No.14....

More fiddly stuff that leaves it looking like not much has happened. Finally the signal wires etc are done. Painting signal wires that you can barely see is a new form of masochism, but worth it. I tried Dark Earth, Dark Rust and Grey before settling on ... yet more Sleeper grime (with random bits of Dark Rust). The spring cover things are back on the points. I've added clay to bring the cess up to the crossing level, so hopefully it looks like that's the walking route. Paint etc needed when it dries. Some more 'bushes' are in place, I add these with long periods of (supposedly) looking at it, otherwise I tend to just pile them on and be unhappy with the outcome. Next I'm going to have to fix the trees properly, after adding some different shades of leaves (finally got some!). The bigger ones, and certainly the Ridiculously Big Oak, are going to have till roll middles let into the papier mache to take the weight while the 'roots' provide stability. That's the plan anyway. When done the telegraph wires (more old guitar strings) go on, followed by wiring up the lights, signal lamps etc. There will be two huts, lampman and P-Way, by the signal box. Kits are available, but somewhat pricey (c. £20) so I'm pondering making them. Other bits and bobs, like the point heater gas bottles and cabinet I'll do after the fencing has gone in, as the fence is going to have to divert a bit but I've not decided quite how yet. Then a lot of tidying up stray ballast etc. So far so good. I got this set of pallet knives from The Works for £5, working with DAS clay using these is so much easier than fingers and screwdrivers.

A bit of fun in the garden today trying to find an area that had a bit of natural light, not too shady, and with a bit of sky in the background. Not easy, and I was a bit concerned at one point the diorama was going to blow away! However, a few photos taken on my phone (since I don’t have a fancy camera) which seemed to have come out ok. Really must leave this lit alone now and move on to completing the bridge and making the stables.

About twenty years ago I was faced with the problem of how to try and model the West Coast Main Line in N, but with only the Farish 87, and the Lima 86 available? The only solution was to try and fill the gaps by scratch building all the missing items. This had started as a project to run them on the exhibition layout 'Kings Park'. The first three attempts were at class 85s built round some secondhand Fleischmann continental AC locos. However these were a bit overscale in width, topping out at a scale twelve feet. Something had to be done to produce a more true to size model. This was the first attempt to produce an early 81 built around an Arnold continental chassis. The basic construction was made up from 1mm plasticard, with the cab front and side windows made from 0.5mm plasticard. The bodyshell was made as a solid box first, with the windows and grill apertures drilled out and filed. (As I had done with the EMUs and Underground stock.) The grills were made from P & D Marsh whitemetal corrugated sheeting. Cut to size and inset into the bodyside. The following couple of pictures show the first few production locos under construction. Unfortunately the original images have been lost, and these are reproductions from my remaining hard copy. The cab roof was made with a small off cut of carriage roof, with space at the front to insert a lot of body filler which could be sanded down to shape. After about five locos were completed on a mixed bag of motorised chassis the next step was to build some locos with some leftover Farish 87 bodyshells, leftover from pinching the chassis to power some Multiple units. After talking to Richard Dockerill at an exhibition he told me he had started building some AC Locos using a Minitrix Class 27 chassis, but with Minitrix Class 42 bogies. I found this to be extremely useful, as I had hoarded my own Minitrix locos and they were still available. In fact I then went around the exhibitions picking up more bargain secondhand Minitrix locos to convert. As the Farish 87 body was too long for the 81-5s I removed a section of the original body, so that it would fit the Minitrix 27/42 combo chassis. The Minitix 42 bogies had no side frames, so sticking some other ones (from my leftovers box) on the side was quite easy after filing off a bit of surplus metal to the Coupler pockets. Bit of a fuzzy picture in early digital camera days, showing how the Farish 87 body was shortened. I used a small saw at first, but as I got more proficient with a slitting disc, I started using that. The shortened body put together with liquid poly glue and allowed to harden, then sanded off. Cab front and windows removed. Finished bodyshell with a slightly thicker end of plasticard to allow profiling, and thinner plasticard for the front windows drilled and filed out. Route Indicator box also drilled and filed. The original bodyside detail was infilled with filler and sanded flush. The bodyside windows and grills were then done in the same was as the early scratchbuilt version. To produce some class 86s, this was before the Dapol 86 was introduced, a simple expedient was to modify the Farish 87 by just altering the front end, with some replacement plasticard windows, and removing the 87 front detail and drilling out the Route Indicator Box. At this time I also had some old Lima 86 bodyshells, which were too short to be an 86. So I lengthened the body by cutting it into three bits, and inserting odd bits of plasticard to pad it out. Next photo shows roughly where the body was cut, and the pieces inserted. The length was made to fit a standard Farish 87 chassis, freeing up more 87 bodyshells for conversion to class 81-5s. One more item to add was the converted gas turbine loco which became E1000/E2001. This started out as just an Ultima coach roof, with shaped plasticard sides and ends in the same way as the early scratchbuilt locos, but with some etched brass grills. The loco was built around a standard Farish Class 47 chassis. Note the buffers have had the outer edges filed down. This was done on the actual loco to fit the London Midland Loading Gauge requirements. That about wraps up this little story. Next episode to include building the Mark 2 Manchester/Liverpool Pullman stock. Andy.

One of the jobs I have been meaning to do for ages was to add some castellated ornaments above my representation of Linslade Tunnels. As I didn't have enough space to recreate the gap between the Up and Down Fast Lines at the real location I had to settle on a slightly different arrangement, and my Tunnel has four instead of three towers. Hopefully the end result looks something like the real thing? Making up the castle towers using leftover bits of cardboard and embossed plasticard. Adding some thin plasticard strips on the completed towers, and the joining curtain walls Completed sections painted, just requiring some weathering powder to tone down the paint. Centre section added over the Up Fast/Down Slow Line portal Completed towers and walls added, some extra weathering added to the Tunnels to try and blend the new additions together. Some 'clump' foliage added to hide the gaps with the original scenery All finished ! It took about seven hours work spread over four days to complete.