brylonscamel

The quayside remains a good location for photography ..

Looking far more at home on our steam-era shed is 60532 'Blue Peter' Allocated to Aberdeen Ferryhill in 1951, she moved to Dundee in 1961 for her remaining years in mainline traffic.

I sense an awkward conversation stage left. The steam-era crews are resisting any requests to ditch their shovels in favour of a power handle.

Here are images taken around the engine shed that feature BR Blue locomotives, including a pre-production sample of the marvellous SLW rendition of a boiler-fitted 25/3 I was allowed to weather the loco to aid the realism of photography.

Trip Hazards and F Settings .. My latest trip south was a bit of a mercy mission to help Dad after a sudden trip to A&E. Whilst the poor chap was recovering, I stopped working to cover domestic chores. I also amused myself with dog walks and layout photography. The DSLR camera was in the 'overnight bag' so I used the opportunity improve my photography. I'd been looking at image data on recent photos to work out why the images were often grainy and needed work in Photoshop to spruce them up. The lighting is OK for human eyes but not so brilliantly for photography. I haven't got access to specialist lighting equipment, so I hit on the idea of using the tripod to steady the camera. This allow for longer exposure and finer ISO settings. I've also been playing with focus-stacking software to blend my manual focus images.

Backstreet Boys ..

Meanwhile, on the east coast of Scotland another Sulzer 6LDA fills the quayside with a distinctive rhythm ..

In the dying light of the day ..

Military manoeuvres ..

Gresley on the coaling bench ..

Mariners and locals gather for fishy conversations!

Arrival of the Red T Our Tennents delivery lorry had a brush with the weathering colours before this latest trip.

.. of course, if someone were to ask!

Say hello to our 'Derby Lightweight' DMU. I found this sitting patiently in the cupboard. It was my intention to kit-bash this into 'Sputnik' the famous battery multiple unit that was used on the Deeside line. Sadly, I haven't got time for this project. The chassis on the motor carriage is cast metal and needed more work to remove all the underfloor components than the trailing carriage. In my head, the 'Braeside Line' opted for the diesel unit, to run as a parallel trial. At least it can now be seen whizzing around the layout, rather than sitting on a shelf like the proverbial Victorian spinster.

Oh and thanks for the feedback on the modelling - the whole project has been an attempt at getting some GNSR atmosphere into Dad's layout, so your remarks are much appreciated.

Now that's a great story! The sort of 'carry on' that I thought had died out on the railways. It sounds more like something from a victorian logging railway in the Yukon! You do wonder he he ended up. There's no knowing where the freight train would slow enough to disembark.

My trip to see Dad, allowed me to take fresh photos of locomotives and stock - in their natural 'Braeside habitat". Our newly acquired 'LNER' V2 sits under the coaling bench, whilst a class 26 cools her heels on the service roads of the shed. I've cooked up various scenarios to allow a handful of grouping & pre-grouping locos to share space with our BR stock. Scotland had four specially prepared pre-grouping survivors, providing motive power for enthusiast's specials in the last days of steam. In my imagination, they also outshopped some locos in grouping liveries, for similar outings.

Simple Pleasures .. Since I was visiting, I grabbed some photos of a now-functioning layout. I'm no longer pulling off tension-couplings in the in pursuit of perfect photography. I'm just glad that we are back to enjoying the movement of trains. In this spirit, here's a busy harbour scene ..

Most of the work was to smarten up the nose end and glazing apertures - very clumsy on the original mouldings ..

Turning a wheel .. A glimpse into the 'BR Blue' stock-boxes reveals this Haymarket class 40. 40142 is a mashup of a Hornby body and Bachmann chassis. I made two bodies a few years ago, so I could easily swap them onto the same chassis, using the cheap & chearful Hornby (ex-Lima) models to represent variations of the class. I used some Shawplan etches and bodged them into better looking locos.

Haymarket visitor ..

Post arrives for Dad at the Glentanar Hotel ..

Just the sound of a fresh breeze and coolant dripping onto the ground