tractionman

Wow! That roof is absolutely amazing - what a thing of beauty.

Great to see this.

cheers,

Keith

Here's another one still in the making, my 00 plank, 'Spencer Park SP', set somewhere in the Midlands c.1979.

Once I've a bit more time I'll create a layout topic thread on this, but some pics of the current state of play are inserted below.

I've just completed the ballasting - first time ever I have done this - it needs more toning down. The brick retaining wall sections shown here have since been stuck together (and so now a bit more complete than in the pics). A backscene will go behind this whole length in due course, possibly a Gaugemaster N-gauge Into the Town one to force some perspective. There's a single-road Bachmann shed to go onto the hard-standing area at one end too, and two fiddle yards (with scenic breaks) should help towards getting a bit of operational variety to run those locos (and a few wagons)!

The printed out track plan visible on the table was the original draft I came up with but I didn't like the 2 by 4 size of the board - the proportions didn't seem right to me - so I used a 4 by 1 piece of chipboard left over from my son's roundy-roundy instead. Really the whole thing is a bit of a test-bed for me to try out a few new skills, and hopefully one day it will slot into a (planned...) larger layout upstairs in the loft-room. Meanwhile, as can be seen, Spencer Park sits on my dining room table and consequently sees more regular day-to-day modelling, even so it's taken me over a year to get this far so don't hold your breath folks...

cheers,

Keith

Yes, groups specialising in particular lines or companies are a great resource - for example the Midland Railway Society has a library - details on their web-site. Then there's the NRM of course!

For online searches I would recommend using British History Online which has historic large-scale Ordnance Survey maps and plans to access (not great resolution but they're ok for free!), as well as all sorts of other materials, such as the Victoria County Histories that in some cases are very useful for aspects of transport history.

My main recommendation though is to use your local/county/city archives, or record office as they used to be called - it's free to do so, and they'll have loads of books, maps, and photographs to help do your research, plus staff who know their stuff and who'll guide you through what you need. You can also get photocopies or scans of photos and maps, to take home. Good luck!

all the best,

Keith