Leaderboard

This was the progress I have made on the first loco 'No.1 Southwold'. Albeit not finished. The other locos, 'No.2 Blyth' and 'No.3 Halesworth' were of a 2-4-0 wheel arrangement. 'No.4 Wenhaston' was an 0-6-2 wheel arrangement. The loco kits are white metal and are sourced from Golden Arrow Models. I first built this when I was around 16, but have recently stripped it back to the metal, and rebuilt it. I also went down the route of adding 3D rivet transfers, as I felt it gave the model a bit more of a prototypical look.

My build of the Moebius Models 1/350th Scale USS Franklin NX-326 from Star Trek Beyond. Aftermarket: Aztec Dummy Masking Set Paints & Primers: Mr Surfacing Primer, Vallejo Model Air & Tamiya Acrylics, Vallejo Metal Color & MRP Have Glass Varnish. Weathering: Flory Washes (Dark Dirt & Brown) & a HB Pencil. Box and contents: The Build. Goes together quite well, just plan your build with regards to painting. Glazing is fun - not! The vinyl mask set arrives from across the pond.. A capture from the film for reference purposes.. In primer.. The base Adding some colour and more masking. Decalling up and final assembly Weathering Final Reveal Overall it was a straight forward build and I 'm pleased with the results - it was my first Starship in over 25 years. Till next time James

The Railway had a a wide variety of goods wagons. There where multiple 4 wheeled Dropside open wagons with curved ends, Two 4 wheel goods vans, and an endless supply of 6 wheel cleminson wagons. Ive started building up kits of the 4 wheel open wagons that I have acquired from the nine lines range. The 6 wheel cleminson wagons are resin cast from Golden Arrow, and the 6 wheel coaches are Brass etches that arr from Worsley Works. The wheels are Parkside Dundas 00n3.

Slow progress on the construction of the first baseboard. Hopefully the pictures will help to explain my thoughts on how I’m building the boards. At the moment nothing is fixed in place the books are helping to keep everything in place. All profiles have been cut to reflect the different ground levels, with additional sections cut out for the turntable and inspection pits. The baseboard top is at the bottom with the track plan on so I can position the infill sections to miss any possible conflicts with turnout wiring and TOUs. Fingers crossed I’ll get them all positioned correctly. There are just the last three sections to cut and position this will be done when all others are fixed in place this is in case I have miscalculated some dimensions. Looking from turntable end Middle baseboard joint Think it all might work out OK A good start the shed area being flat Mainline gradient (1:103)+ Hoping to get started on fixing it all together tomorrow.

Swan Hill is the terminus of a short, double track commuter branch off the GWR in the vicinity of Langley, imagined/modelled in 7mm. The last mile or so of the branch, including Swan Hill station, is carried on viaduct – Windsor comes to mind. The track plan owes something to Uxbridge Vine Street but with only a down siding for reversing into a goods yard (as per Windsor but off scene) and an up siding, shunting spur and dock. There is a single passenger platform serving arrival and departure roads. As at Uxbridge, there is no engine release crossover, so trains reverse and run round outside the station and in doing so, move from part 1 of the model - the station - to part 2 which will be in an adjacent covered area and may never consist of more than a sector table. As there is little room for much width to the model (it's basically 600mm wide), height has been used instead, thus the viaduct. The dotted lines on the drawing show roads and lanes under the viaduct based pretty closely on Fenchurch Street/Crutched Friars (wrong company but never mind) with pubs and other enterprises waiting to be installed underneath. It is not intended to develop goods facilites at ground level – these are “off scene” allowing goods trains to appear and reverse into part 2. It is planned that there will be sufficient building appearing above the viaduct formation level to give the impression of a very constrained town centre site where the road and building layout pre-existed the GWR's intervention in providing the citizens of Swan Hill with a railway station. edited 15/02/22 to restore photos and plan of the layout.

Back in mid August I posted an entry in the blog about the construction of the GWR 2 plank wagon. Well since those balmy days Autumn has hit with a vengeance in South Wales, we're back in full lockdown and it hasn't stopped raining! Still the upside of this is that there's not much else to do other than a bit of modelling The model was more or less completed and ready for painting , but I struggled to find a prototype photograph of a 2 planker in my admittedly fairly small book collection. Fortunately Mikkel came to the rescue and pointed me in the right direction and so my model is based on number 19451 as running in 1902. Model waiting for paint The first thing that struck me upon looking at the prototype photograph were that the buffers were off a completely different pattern to the ones that I had used from Slater's The one's in the photograph had a round base and "fins" leading down towards the buffer heads. I couldn't find anything suitable after a search online and as I rather like the brass shanks on Slater's buffers decided to modify some from this manufacturer. Slaters do some round based buffers ostensibly for Midland wagons, but with a bit of modification I thought they would pass muster Small sections of plastic card were glued to the buffer base and shank at 90 degree angles using cyanoacrylate glue, once this had set they were then shaped using a fine cut bur in a rotary handpiece. Buffer housing modification Assembled buffers There do appear to be subtle differences between the photograph of number 19451 that I'm modelling as shown in Atkins and the lovely 4mm wagon that Stephen is building. The vertical strapping on the solebars is not present on the photograph that I'm working from and the corner plates exhibit far fewer rivets. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/113035-more-pre-grouping-wagons-in-4mm-the-d299-appreciation-thread/page/118/ Gratuitous picture of the wagon on the layout checking that all is well before applying paint! The wagon was primed with acid etch primer https://www.advancedpaints.co.uk/product/aerosol-1k-etch-primer-400ml/ and then painted using Humbrol Enamel paints. I've tried to achieve a well weathered appearance, the wagon would have been built in the 1870s and so would be approaching 30 years old in the period that I am modelling. Finished Wagon Upon looking at the photos I think the wheels need a bit of toning down with some rust coloured paint! Some maybe wondering what happened to the "Pickfords" container that I planed on the wagon carrying. Well either the container is a millimeter too wide, or my wagon is a millimeter too narrow, but either way it wouldn't fit! In some respects I'm relieved because the writing at the bottom of the container was obscured by the height of the sides and I think it will look better on a one plank wagon! Until next time.... Best wishes Dave

Just kidding! I've had this "Monopoly" hotel kicking around for ages in my box of scraps - I think I picked it up off the pavement years ago... Today I set about converting it into something useful for the layout - a newsagent kiosk. Step one was to drill a hole in the side of the hotel and then square the circle using a file. Next, I sanded down the surface of the building - prior to gluing on corrugated styrene sheet, to represent wood panelling, and a door from spares. I left the hotel roof as it was, and then primed the whole thing with grey aerosol spray. Once dry - I painted the sides green and dry-brushed the roof black. This was followed by white dry-brushing over the whole model. A counter for the service hatch was made from card, some guttering from styrene rod, and I printed off some signage and newspaper headlines - these were mounted on thin card and fixed to the building.

The Southwold Railway was a British 3ft Narrow Gauge Railway. Built in 1879 and closed in 1929. The main line was 8 miles (14.15 km) long, running from Southwold to Halesworth, stopping at three intermediate stations, Walberswick, Blythburgh and Wenhaston. The was a link to Blackshore Quay, between Southwold and Walberswick, which was to be 0.25 miles long. The railway had with three locomotives for the opening, but a total of four by closure, built by Sharp, Stewart Company. They had a 2-4-0/2-4-2 wheel arrangement, and the design was similar to others that the company had supplied for light passenger work. Sharp Stewart also supplied rolling stock. Construction of the railway had cost £90,000, (equivalent to £9,220,000 in 2020). A maximum speed of 16 miles per hour (26 km/h) was specified, and it was worked by one engine in steam. At Halesworth, the single platform had a shelter for the passengers, and was connected to the Great Eastern Mainline station by a footbridge. There was a raised timber platform between one of the sidings and a standard gauge siding, where goods were transhipped. Many of the trains were mixed goods and passenger workings, with the shunting at intermediate stations adding to the journey time for the passengers. The stock did not have a continuous brake, and although the Board of Trade raised the issue at regular intervals, the railway was always able to point to its clean record for transporting passengers, and somehow managed to avoid having to fit one. In 1906 it was announced that the line would be widened from its present narrow gauge to allow carriages and wagons to come direct through from Halesworth. This was not carried out, and sadly the railway closed on 11 April 1929. After that the Railway lay dormant for a number of years, until the outbreak of World War Two, when the remnants of the Railway were broken up for scrap to help aid the war effort.

With increased woodworking activity on the baseboards now that the door to the railway parlour has been replaced my enthusiastic sawing, sanding & rasping has caused me to develop tennis elbow. So all that industry has ground to a halt. So I’ve been working on Parsnip Cottage – one of Petite Properties products and I’ve now started making a 1/4 scale model of the layout to mock up the scenery. Of course conventional wisdom decrees that this is the first thing you do. But we dew diff’runt in Narfolk! Here’s some pics. View the full article

First project having made sure the whole 18 Roads fit (albeit condensed!) was to get the 'extra' 8' 6" where Roads 9 - 9a - 10a - 10 continue the beyond the blocks of 1-8 & 11-18 up to the front of the Great Eastern Hotel. Having taken my sizes from the 1898 OS Map (via the NLS) I printed the templates and got laying. Here we see the bulk of the Hotel End as of 10.15, with a touch of 9a to extend and the side of the other board to cut - when weather permits. Once finished that'll be this section finished for the time being, then back to Platforms 1-8.