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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
    • 2,719 views
Brunel Gauge Workshop/Showcase

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

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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

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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

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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
Ravenser

Ravenser in Reflections

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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
Silver Sidelines

Silver Sidelines in Blog Post

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Rospeath Lane - BR(WR) Engine Shed

Pushing it to the limits

My intended period for the model will eventually be March to July 1959.This will allow the majority of locomotives seen on shed to be steam but also allow me to run a few of the early Diesel shunters and Hydraulics.   This made me wonder about how they would have refuelled the diesels. Penzance didn't receive its first allocation of diesels until Sept 1958 when they allocated three Class 08s for training. In November of the same year, they reallocated two of the three, leaving one (D35
Yan

Yan in Planning

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Liddy's Blog

Getting distracted by DCC sound

It's too easy, isn't it? Still, I find it fascinating; a smooth, quiet running Dapol Class 50 was a pre-owned bargain and another piece of luck enabled a body-swap to pre-TOPS Blue, just like I remember tearing past the swings and slides at our Rec'. I'm now in the habit of using Digitrains sound files, but they didn't have a Zimo Next18 small enough at the time. I nearly went with Legomanbiffo as his projects are sublime, but didn't want to confuse myself with ESU and Zimo protocols! Luckily Yo
Liddy

Liddy in Lack

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MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

Pearson 4-2-4T – Part Three

By the end of Part Two , I had modelled all the most visible parts of the engine and felt tempted to stop there but many of the peculiarities of these engines were below the platform, so I had to keep going ‘down there’.   Photo by Snell of B&ER 4-2-4T No.42   Although I have collected quite a number of drawings and photos, there are still some difficulties in determining the layout of all the parts, especially since some drawings omit features and others show some
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

1
pheaton's Blog

Keeping 26043 alive.....fiddly bits...

Dave the welder has run out of big bits to weld.....   We are now at the stage of where we now have lots and lots and lots of fiddly small parts that need to be sorted out, and if you watch something like car SOS this is where the time gets eaten up.....     The drivers side window getting much attention after more rot was found in the corner, the lower window frame and shelf have been replaced with metal.       Another view of the shelf, some q
richierich's Blog / D&E WIP Workbench . . .

Sunday 31st March 2024 - York Model Railway Show

It’s that time of year for the annual visit to the York Model Railway Show, which is the local show to visit. The show was ok, but personally disappointing at the lack of BR sector period layout representation.  The most interesting layout was O gauge set in the BR blue period.    However there was two key forthcoming products of interest in the Bachmann Class 31 and Realtrack Class 142.  Bachmann Class 31    Bachmann had their stand and I was particularly interested to
western viscount's Blog

Ratio Toad kit

Before moving northward I picked up a bargain couple of kits from John Dutfield in Chelmsford. The subject of this blog is the Ratio toad kit bought for £3.    It is showing its age and 'requires' some uplifting procedures. I was inspired by Geoff Kent's upgrade of this kit in his 3rd book on the 4mm wagon.  The kit has a nice shape to it but the handrails along the body side aare moulded and are fairly thick. Again, this is a matter for taste and their is little value in cr
Playing with 1/50 scale

The 1/50 project, making tracks.

I decided to have a think about making track. I have a number of reference photos, including the excellent one of Corsican track kindly uploaded by  5&9 models earlier in the blog. So, timber sleepers, medium weight flat bottom rail held down with track screws.   Firstly sleepers. These are cut from some old mahogany, pretty hard but it saws well.  A scale 2.1 m long which seems like a reasonable average from the info I can find.     Track screws next. Sometime
MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog

Pearson 4-2-4T – Part Two

In Part One , I wrote that “this engine had several very unusual features” and, in regard to building a model, “I had to start somewhere and, with so many peculiarities, it was hard to choose. As a ‘gentle introduction’, I decided to start with the two bogies.”   I intend to continue, as far as possible, to follow a line of ‘least resistance’ but before going any further, I collected as much potentially useful information , photos, and drawings as I could.   In his book
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

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46444's Blog

Dapol/Airfix BR Prestwin Wagon Build. The Raunds Apprection Society....

'Hello. Welcome and Good Evening' as a well known TV presenter who once lived in Raunds, Northamptonshire might have said.   Sat on my workbench for a number of years have been two partially completed Dapol/Airfix Prestwin wagon kits.   These kits stem from Airfix, being released in 1964. However, Rosebud/Kitmaster originating from Raunds had been taken over by Airfix in the early 1960's.   From memory the current incarnation of this kit from Dapol has soft recycled
46444

46444 in 46444 Blog

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What happened next? A blog by Keith Addenbrooke

Episode 7: Loose Ends, Last Orders and a Fresh Challenge

Our planned house move is now likely to happen in the Summer.  With more time to get ready, an Easter update makes sense.  There's a new challenge to report on, as well as some modelling progress.  I'll start with loose ends being tidied up:   Loose Ends:   Left over from my American HO project last year was my incomplete Walthers' Grain Elevator Kit.  I've been keen to build this for a good while, so even though my plans have changed it was nice to get it finished.  
A Breath of Sea Air

3. More Station Progress

Just a few more photos of progress on the station buildings.   The roof will have to be removable to allow for track cleaning and dealing with derailments etc. Amongst other things I have added 10mm wide horizontal beams for the roof to sit on - not prototypical but necessary, I think, for the rigidity of the model.   There's a bit of a gap to fill in yet between the roof and the underlying superstructure.     I have tried to make the facilities at the st
Curlew

Curlew in Progress

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