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  • SouthernRegionSteam

    Coastguard Creek - 15 months of planning!

    By SouthernRegionSteam

    Hold on to your socks - this is going to be a lengthy one! (In fact it's so long, I've now split it into 2 separate posts - the next will be up soon...)   I think it's fair to say that you are all long overdue an update on Coastguard Creek. Due to other commitments, no real progress has been made since the last post way back in March 2021; almost 15 months ago! If anything, things went backwards for quite a while, as I kept finding more and more inspiring locations that I really wanted
    • 8 comments
    • 2,799 views
What happened next? A blog by Keith Addenbrooke

Episode 8: Am I 'brave' enough?

May 2024 marks the fourth anniversary of when I used a free day to being planning the model railway layout I hoped to build.  Inspired by the writings of Frank Ellison and Al Kalmbach from 1940's America, I set out on my great adventure:   But so far the great layout hasn't happened (yet).  I've written extensively, elsewhere and in earlier blog posts, about how plans and space around me have changed regularly, hopefully commenting informatively (I've learned a lot) and reasonably ent
Keith Addenbrooke

Keith Addenbrooke in 2024

2
Erudhalion's Blog

GRC&W 10T End Door Wagons - A Typology

Background   As those few of you who have read some of my previous posts know, over the past few years I have been building stock appropriate for the Forest of Dean in the early '20s. As mining was traditionally the largest industry of the area, a huge proportion of the rolling stock in period photos are PO mineral wagons, generally built by the Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company. Broadly speaking, the wagons owned by the collieries themselves were 10t or 12t end door types,
Erudhalion

Erudhalion in Rolling stock

0
Up the Line - 1918

Bourneville MRC Industrial & Narrow Gauge Exhibition - TODAY!

This week certainly didn't go as planned at work so consequently my to-do list suffered accordingly. On that list was to announce that the Kinver Trams embryo layout display is making an appearance at the Bourneville MRC Industrial & Narrow Gauge Exhibition at Longbridge Social Club B31 2SF - hopefully not haunted by those tortured souls that were responsible for the Austin Princess.   While I have not managed to even dent the to-do list I have got some significant advances to unle
KH1

KH1 in Up the Line

1
DBC90024's Blog

Making Tracks Four - Key Model World Live - Bachmann Class 90s featuring prominently

27th and 28th April 2024 - Birmingham NEC   An incredible weekend was had at this weekend's Key Model World Live where the Railnuts managed to set a World Record for the Longest Portable Model Railway at 649.9 metres in length and a pair of Freightliner Class 90s were used to haul the measurement train - Congratulations Pete and the Railnuts team.   My DB90s came along for the event as well, with the Malcolm train.    There were lots of other cool trainsets on show
Rospeath Lane - BR(WR) Engine Shed

Trial build of a trestle

To fit Rospeath Lane into my current car I've calculated the trestles need to be less than 3" (75mm) thick when folded flat. On paper it looked achievable, but before this project progresses too far, I thought it wise to test the theory.   Jake the peg trestle   Using a three leg design allows the single leg to be interleaved within the two main legs. It needs a chain or rope attached to stop the legs splaying out. I'm also considering whether the trestles need some lev
Yan

Yan in Baseboards

5
Netherport - GWR 1908 7mm (mostly wagons for now!)

GWR Ballast wagon (diagram P4)

This diagram P4 ballast wagon was an eBay purchase, cheaply bought as a 'fixer-upper'. It's built from the PECO (ex Websters) kit, and the original builder had made a reasonable job of construction. The paint finish wasn't great, with a fair amount of dust in it, and the brake gear was smashed:     The first job was a good clean up, and remove the broken brake gear and couplings - the buffer rams had to stay in place, as the retaining parts on the rear of the rams were very
magmouse

magmouse in Wagons

12
Kelvinbank, a Caledonian Railway project.

A North Staffordshire Railway D9 van.

This is a 51 L whitemetal kit which I bought very cheaply from Pastimes in Glasgow as it was closing down. I am busy with a lot of non railway stuff at the moment but I do need to have something on the bench so I thought I would have a go at this as a simple relaxing build.   And so it proved to be. Sharp whitemetal castings with minimal flash, steel head buffers and etched brass frets for the W irons and brakegear. Even includes styrene for the floor and roof and wire for the horse sh
Dave John

Dave John in General

9
Dogtown and Points West

OO Gauge MR 700 Class

Just received this lug in the mail from TMC.  If anyone remembers, I have a penchant for ugly locos.    I lucked out, though.   Built, running, painted not only in the right color for my collection, but numbered correctly as well.   About the only disappointment is the builder made absolutely zero provision for a rear coupling.   I have ideas.     Main problem is that there is no substructure behind the rear tender axle.   Nothing to drill into, nothing really to glue t
AlfaZagato

AlfaZagato in Kitbuilt

9
The Strawberry Line

Cheddar P4 - April 2024 photo update

With all the running repairs completed for now, I couldn’t resist putting a few items of stock on the layout before putting it away for the time being. I’ve a list of jobs to do before Wells, including finishing off stock items so I’ve filled my display case with items requiring attention, just to remind me. Some just need lamps, crews and coaling. Some need motors! Next up will be the fiddle yards.  photos attached The prairie is heavily reworked Lima with Comet chassis 
ullypug

ullypug in P4 layout

5
Netherport - GWR 1908 7mm (mostly wagons for now!)

Norway poles

There is a photograph in Jim Russell's book 'GWR Wagons Appendix' that shows a wagon loaded with long, thin conifer tree-trunks, of the kind referred to as 'Norway poles'. For some time I have wanted to model a similar load.   The wagon itself has been described in this blog before, and has a rather chequered history. Amongst other issues, I put washer plates on the inside, corresponding to the attachment points for the sheet supporter mechanism at each end. I was following the RCH dra
magmouse

magmouse in Wagons

11
Ullypug's tales from the tinking table

GWR WR Diagram E116 B set

I have finally finished the first B set for Cheddar. Little did I know that this was going to be quite so involved when I started, what now seems a very long time ago. The origin was a set of sides, roofs and ends from the Ks kit, kindly given to me by Tim Venton. These coaches were prevalent in the Bristol division after nationalisation so I was always going to have a set on Cheddar.   When it came to start, I’d lost one of the ends so ended up making a blank from plasticard. The
ullypug

ullypug in Coaches

3
Broad Gauge Workshop

Great Western

Here I am again, with the freelanced locomotives on the Broad Gauge.   Starting from the beginning how I came to this point, I'd have to tell you about @Annie's 4-2-4T freelance which started it all, and I'm glad for that because it just looked really good that I wanted to build something like it.   Seeing how good it looked and it also being in a wheel arrangement I really like, I just had to build something like it. But when I did so, the results were quite.
Rospeath Lane - BR(WR) Engine Shed

Fitting Rospeath Lane v.2 in my car

At the outset, the primary concern of mine was fitting Rospeath Lane v.2 in my car. Rule 1d of the Scalefour Jubilee Challenge stipulates "The layout has to be portable and capable of being transported by a single car or similar size vehicle and exhibited by two people". I'm surprised it dosen't state that both operators have to be transported in the same car as the layout. As a cost saving exercise for exhibition managers, I feel it would be prudent for both operators to travel with the layout.
Yan

Yan in Planning

0
MikeOxon's Pre-Grouping Blog

William Dean’s Express Tank Revisited

Almost 10 years ago, I wrote a post about Dean’s experimental 4-2-4 tank engine , which made a brief appearance in 1882 before being hurriedly rebuilt as a more conventional 2-2-2 tender engine. Very little information has survived about the original engine, except that it had a chronic inability to stay on the track.   With so little prototype information available – and even less that could be considered reliable – I felt justified in taking considerable liberties in the design of my
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in general

2
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

Pearson’s ‘small’ 4-2-4T

After dissecting the workings of the extraordinary 9ft. Pearson 4-2-4T engines in my previous four posts , I was interested to examine how these engines compared with William Dean’s later attempt to create something similar for the standard gauge.   To make the comparison on as level a playing field as possible, I looked up information on the slightly later Pearson engines fitted with smaller 7’ 6” driving wheels – similar to those on Dean’s standard gauge engine. I have previously mod
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
Blacklade Artamon Square

Bits and Scraps

This should have been a posting about ballasting, that being the next logical step with Mercia Wagon Repair. Ballasting began last autumn and quite a bit of work was done, even though it has proved a slow and painful process. There was also the little matter of swapping out four solenoid point motors and replacing them with MTB motor drives after I was warned that continued use of solenoids would ultimately lead to the breakup of the Peco switch blades. Given all the trouble caused by havin
Sixties Snapshots - 00 scale

The Long Haul

It would be January 2021 when Bachmann introduced their 94xx models.  I bought the basic version.  It had a lovely copper cap to its chimney and it ran perfectly without any trace of a wobble.  Three years later and I have just purchased a sound fitted version. Bachmann 9479 – 32-27SF   I have titled this Post ‘The Long Haul’ in recognition of the time that I have spent in recent weeks changing CVs to enable the engine to run on analogue.  It would help if I knew what I w
Rospeath Lane - BR(WR) Engine Shed

Goodbye to Rospeath Lane version 1

I’ve eventually been able to get my new hobby room organised. I have eventually organised my new hobby room, transforming it from a storage room, filled with furniture and boxes, to a space where I can begin building a layout. First task was to take a proper look at the original Rospeath Lane baseboards. The damage was not as bad as I originally thought… Hmm…it would have been an excellent layout with potential for expansion in the future. Despite building it in two baseboards, it would be very
Yan

Yan in Baseboards

1
western viscount's Blog

Ratio Toad 2

I recently finished the ratio Toad kit.    The whole thing was sprayed halfords white primer then humbrol 64 light grey. The solebar and below are revell matt black and handrails etc painted white.  I wanted to have the van allocated to Croesnewydd although I have no photos of a BR era van with this legend. The areas for black were masked and sprayed.  As @Mikkel suggested I used an HMRS sheet to construct the croesnewydd but only had the general wagon sheet
46444's Blog

London Transport Sentinel Tender by CDC Designs

Recently Hornby have released their 6 wheeled Sentinel in the guise of L81 which represents the first of three Sentinel's acquired second hand to replace the venerable LT Pannier tanks.     Unfortunately with the prototypes their wheelbase was insufficient to operate track circuits on the main line. To address this a tender was attached fitted with a trip cock.      The tenders were manufactured from 'Q' stock bogies. The tender and Sentinel carried co
46444

46444 in 46444 Blog

0
0.87

UK FREMO Spring 2024 meeting

Last weekend we held another FREMO meeting in our habitual venue -- should you have seen my posts on earlier meetings tehn you may recognise the various doodads that are usually found on the walls of school gyms in many of the photos. But that doesn't detract from some really good modelling. We agreed it was a good weekend. As a newish group and because we're quite isolated from the more expert groups in mainland Europe, we're putting a lot of effort into getting the planning right since it is o
readingtype

readingtype in FREMO

0
The Strawberry Line

Cheddar P4 - April 2024 update

With the layout up, I have been able to assess and make a series of repairs required after its prolonged period in storage. First up was to fix and rectify all of the point mechanisms and prove the wiring such that I could get trains to run from one end to the other and back into the up and down yards. There's still a lit of errant ballast to deal with but I'm happy with progress. Most of the turnout droppers' soldered joints had failed and it took a while to sort out.   I also fixed d
ullypug

ullypug in P4

2
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

Pearson 4-2-4T – Part Four

I ended Part Three with the prospect of modelling the many rods and brackets on the underside looming over me. I had intended to write more at that time but found myself struggling to understand how various parts of the engine fitted together. I think all the ‘easy’ bits have now been done, so I could no longer avoid the complex underpinnings.   To gain an overview, I ‘mirrored’ one half of the split plan-view from ‘The Engineer’ and then colour-coded various elements – blue for frames
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

4

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  • Blog Comments

    • MAP66
      Episode 8: Am I 'brave' enough?

      By MAP66 · Posted

      Hi Keith,   Well done for persevering over the past few years with your ideas and above all keeping your dreams alive and I’m glad that my thread has kept you entertained along the way. The very best of luck with your upcoming house move and hopefully once settled in, the creative thinking processes will kick in, swiftly followed by some modelling magnificence.   Best regards, Mark
    • LMSfan72
      Class 73/9 - development of a body shell or kit......

      By LMSfan72 · Posted

      Taken a while to get here with this one as I decided to go full function lighting which meant a complete rewire of the chassis and the body. This has day, night, tails on both ends which can be also switched on and off on end at a time. I also added an EOT lamp.   Ready for decals and bogie paint:  
    • ian
      Episode 8: Am I 'brave' enough?

      By ian · Posted

      Small has a number of advantages when you are plagued by the usual problems of space, time, funds, deciding on a prototype/layout style/theme.   You can build and get to a 'sufficiently complete' stage to scratch that particular itch fairly quickly and if you decide it isn't what you want - or you have taken it as far as you want to go - you can move on to something else.   I look forward to seeing what develops.
    • Keith Addenbrooke
      Bourneville MRC Industrial & Narrow Gauge Exhibition - TODAY!

      By Keith Addenbrooke · Posted

      Hope it goes well: definitely an exhibition I’d be interested in if I was still in the area.  Many, many years ago now I did my School work experience placement at the Longbridge works - it was a very different world in those days, Keith.
    • Dave John
      A North Staffordshire Railway D9 van.

      By Dave John · Posted

      I have tried to discover why the later vans may have had black solebars.   Looking carefully at the 51 L model I note that the W irons do not have crown plates or side washers on the legs. The excellent model by Airnimal of an earlier version does have them.    Perhaps I am totally wrong but a theory. If the later D9 lacked crown plates that would suggest a wagon with flitched frames.  If so it would be metalwork not woodwork and painted black.    My researches have

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