TangmereTornado

That's the big thing that bothers me about live-steam 00 gauge models at the moment - the steam, to my mind, just looks too whispy and smokey, rather than being quite thick. Still looks good, I like the light reflecting through the clouds of smoke, nicely atmospheric.

Hmmm. No baseboards or track down yet, and yet what do I spend the first money I actually get in ages on? Erm, a locomotive, a wagon, and a DCC chip. Okay, maybe the third one can be excused - there's no way the stunning Hornby Class 50 I got for Christmas will stay DC on my layout for long, not when it has working lights and fans - but the other two? Well, my excuse is that both of them are excellent prices that couldn't be ignored. The loco is a Bachmann Standard Class 4MT 4-6-0, no. 75024, and it looks a decent model, with good detail. This with a DCC chip fitted, for just £67 is too good to miss IMO. It would just be my luck to hold fire, then go to buy it, and the offer be over/the loco be sold out. Plus it fits in with my planned region (South West/South coast, Devon area), even though until I build my stock collection up, it will remain as a preservation era line, thus allowing my NSE 50 and the 4MT, as well as my BR Blue Class 25, to co-exist peacefully alongside each other The wagon, well I'm not sure you could technically call it a wagon, seeing as it's actually a lovely BR Mark 1 GUV. Again made by Bachmann, and again at a good price of just £18. May as well get something period for the 4MT to haul, right? It's in maroon, and looks nice - parcels will be a key part of the goods traffic on my layout, perhaps the only goods traffic, so if I can start building the collection now, then more power to me As for the baseboards and important stuff, I don't have a timescale on that just yet, so I don't see the point in stockpiling track which will sit around, potentially be kicked about and damaged, whilst it has nowhere to go. Granted, you could say that about the rolling stock, but at least they look good on display on the shelf in the meantime In all seriousness, I do have a plan down, and a vision for it - all that's needed now is for myself and my dad (Who may be joining us soon on RMWeb) to grab some wood and bloomin' well get on with it! Until next time...

Olddudders, I saw that website before, when I was researching a possible future project for my preservation era layout - a Clan class loco renamed to Hengist, in honour of the group who are building that loco from scratch for real, for some reason it didn't cross my mind to go back there to look for 50 nameplates - I guess I assumed they were just steam when I looked first time around. Thanks for the heads up on that. Peter, thanks for that, I'll look those two companies up, and I'll make a note to browse your NSE thread for research purposes - I have a feeling it will come in handy, although my father, being a big fan of the 50s himself, is certainly not lacking in books on the loco

Well well well, give and you shall recieve...and I gave...and I wound up recieving a massive reason to push on with my layout and really get cracking on it in the new year. And they didn't come in the form of the three rather nice Dapol wagons I recieved from my dear nan, oh no. It came in the final present I opened from 'neath the tree...a stunning Hornby Class 50 locomotive, 50 048 'Dauntless' in early Network SouthEast livery. I filmed and posted a review of this gorgeous loco , have a watch yourselves if you have a spare moment. It's a really lovely loco, full of detail and with a superb paint finish, although I have heard mutterings from some quarters about certain errors in the paintscheme (e.g. yellow ends too dark, red stripe too thin, etc), but to be honest, in my eyes, the paintscheme is spot on. It looks fantastic, and theyve captured one of my favourite diesel paintschemes (the all-time favourite being BR Large Logo) brilliantly. The finish of the numbering and nameplates are also good, although I will endevour to search for a set of etched brass nameplates from somewhere, and maybe rename the loco to one that is preserved, as this is the role it will fulfill on my layout, in all likelihood. If anyone could point me in the direction of a site for etched nameplates etc, please do so - I'd be grateful for any links. This has spurred me on to get moving on the layout. I have the dimensions of the baseboards down, the format of the layout - terminus to fiddleyard design with additional freightyard section - and rough trackplan down, now all that's needed is the actual building of the baseboards and laying of the track! Also, if I have some spare wedge kicking around, it might be time to give the 50, as well as my pre-owned Bachmann Class 25, some company in my burgeoning fleet...I'm thinking something steam-powered this time, perhaps a Bulleid Pacific or Merchant Navy, two of my favourite locomotives of all time. But I'm aware that giving locos something to run on is the priority right now, so that's the focus for January onwards. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and I wish everyone a very happy New Year. Hope you are all well, Adam

And a Happy Christmas to you too! Great effort with the poem, and the accompanying photo looks really stunning. I'm amazed with the whole layout, it's right up my street - BR blue, diesel-hydraulics, the Devon/Cornwall countryside, it's all there I'll be watching this one with interest, I'm aware I'm rather late to the party but hey, I'll try to make up for lost time Adam

I can only second what Jamie said above, would love to see a full trackplan of this. I also love the idea of a derelict station left abandoned, there are some fantastic websites to gain research photographs from, and a derelict station can look pretty mournful, but so so atmospheric if pulled off well. Many layouts I suppose just don't have the room to do such a thing without it looking unrealistic, i.e. too close to the new/existing station, although an abandoned platform (like the abandoned third platform at Brixton) could work I suppose... Anyway, great progress so far, and I await further photos/plans with interest. Adam

Wow, what a fantastic layout! Inspiration city for what I have planned. Really looks great, and I love the 'into the sunset' Class 20 picture, looks stunning. Really nice. Look forward to joining the Llanbourne ride for 2011

I'm in a very similar situation to yourself - i.e. in that massed ideas struggling to get them all down stage. I'm gonna keep an eye on your updates here, I await updates And plus...you can't go wrong with Thomas the Tank Engine to get you into it...worked for me when I was five years old

So I've been stuck in a state of limbo over the design and format of my layout since deciding I've dive headfirst back into it a few months back now. I know exactly the size I have to work with, what I need to get going...so what's really stopping me? Well, firstly it was a location and setting, that old chesnut, but now, it's merely a case of what I actually want mixing with what I can realistically run and work with. Essentially my restrictions are that the baseboards can be no wider than 20 inches, with maybe at a very extreme push being 2ft, and my backwall is around 12ft long, and I can run the layout along that length, and also run further boards around the adjoining walls for about 4-5ft for anything else I might require. So firstly I decided I'd have a continuous layout, with the end loops being on each adjoining wall on removable boards for space and storage, but I swiftly decided that this would probably be too intrusive to normal workings in my room, and would require pretty zealous workings of the speed control to slow the speeding express down to take the tight loop curve. So a fiddle-yard to fiddle-yard concept, with a station in the middle, was what I plumped on and set down to....but now I'm pondering, is it worth having 2 fiddle yards at all? Why not just go the Dunmar/Minster route, and the same route I've seen done very effectively multiple times, and go terminus-to-fiddleyard? I'm aware this is probably old hat to many of you on here - the old compromise between your dream layout and what you actually have to work with. All of this would be fine if I wanted to run a decent small branch line...but typically, I don't. I fancy seeing Westerns, Class 50s, and even earlier, Bullied Pacifics and GWR 4-6-0s blasting through on expresses and cross-country trains. The one thing that isn't a problem for me is eras - I have that pretty much covered (For now). At the moment, whatever I run will be split between 3 periods - 50s/60s BR, 70s BR (corporate blue), and modern day with the layout in the hands of preservationists and run as a heritage line. The last one is basically a get-out clause for when I want to run anything that wouldn't fit with the other eras. Or regions, for that matter, as I'm fairly sure on what region I'm going for - Southern and Western, mixed together if at all possible. The main thing I keep coming back to right now is the actual format, toying between the aforementioned terminus-to-fiddleyard or 2 fiddleyards options. My thinking is - I want to see trains running through a station, but with the space I have, the trains I'll be able to run won't be that long or going that fast anyway in a relatively realistic scenario, and if I set them down in a terminus setting, that means I free up some space by not having a 2nd fiddleyard and also have the added attraction of almost having a diorama-type setting of the locos in the station. I also fancy adding a freight angle, and would really like to if possible add a section based on the old Inglenook Sidings shunting puzzle, for additional operating interest. Maybe I'm overthinking this too much, or maybe I just want to have my ol' cake and eat it! I'll keep this up to date when I decide on things and when progress is made

I noticed the name of the layout and thought "hang on, hasn't that been in a Railway Modeller recently...?" Then saw the corrosponding blog post a little while ago, haha! I like your layout and the way it mixes modern mainline rolling stock with the preservation scene - it's something that happens more regularly nowadays but you don't often see it modelled. Really nice job. I like the look of the new extension building too - how does that fit in with the trackplan? If you've already covered it in another post and I've yet to read it, my apologies in advance.

Love the atmosphere of this one. Really nice layout, it's a quaint scene as well, and funnily enough slightly larger diesels and locos look as at home there as the shunters and tank engines! Good stuff, I'll keep my eye on this one. What are the dimensions of the baseboards, by the way? Forgive me if it's been already mentioned and I missed it.

Just found this layout, absolutely fantastic with a great size and variety to it. Particularly love the original BR Blue HST and the Large Logo Class 50 (I might have missed it if it was already mentioned, but who makes that particular model?). Looks like a great variety, and I like the little scrapyard cameo scene.

Don't think it was Pullman coaches, I'll have to ask them again about it. I'll keep that in mind if and when I'm painting in the future.