Chris M

Once again, nice weathering on the wagons but the loco is straight out of the box. That is just so wrong.

Good weathering on the parcels stock but why oh why do people not weather their locos as a well?

Just a few photos for no good reason. The first two show my newly added "Walls Ice Cream" signs.

I'm taking everything apart and packing it up ready for the Swindon Steam museum exhibition this coming weekend. Swindon Steam museum show is always a good standard show in a great location. I'll be taking three layouts down in one van which might well be interesting in itself. I have ordered a long wheelbase van which I will be driving - a bit different to my automatic car. As only I know how to assemble and disassemble two of the layouts I'm in for a very busy weekend. After that I have the Warley NEC show in November which I am looking forward to. Dawlish Warren is also possibly going to a show in October. This is not planned but one of the layouts due to go has quite an electrical problem. I have agreed with the owner that we will offer Dawlish Warren as a substitute layout if the electrical problem can't be solved by mid September. I expect the show organiser will be OK with that but we will need to see what happens.

Incidentally, fritters are still available on the Warren.

That could be done very convincingly in 0. I see N and 0 as two quite different possible directions for our wonderful hobby. Obviously 0 is about highly detailed locos that look 100% real when photographed well but unless you have a Pete Waterman size budget you aren't going to do a railway forged through the scenery layout in 0. N stock is inevitably less detailed but N is ideal for ordinary folk like me to be able to create a convincing main line scene in an ordinary sized room. Neither direction is right or wrong and one is not better than the other, its whatever floats your boat. I understand the 0 gauge thing as I regularly see my mates 7mm stock and I have my own G scale stock. For me though I just love seeing an 10 or 11 coach train running along a railway that has been forged through the scenery.

I went to the railway to try to get a shot as close as I could to this one. Not quite right but it’s the best I can get. The original photo must have been taken from the long gone footbridge.

I believe our bat was a common pipistrelle, the most common bat in the UK. As it was about 10:30pm when he (or maybe she) appeared it was a bit late to phone anyone. I guess we were lucky in that I found him easily in the morning and it was before the little ones had got up. My main concern was that he would be very low on energy after a night without food. I very carefully held in my tee shirt from the day before to get him outside. I was so relieved when he managed to fly off as it would have been a shame if he hadn't made it. Although Devon is almost certainly safe I do realise that you need a rabies jab before getting close to a bat just in case it is infected and decides to bite you. The wife was all for going home as soon as she saw it. And she woke me up in the middle of the night for protection when she went to the loo.

Looking forward to the show, its always worth a visit.

And its Burford by Peter Howells or more correctly Warley MRC not Burford Peter. This is unusual in that it is a HO scale GWR branch line terminus.

I don't know whether the Motorail train or the Sprinter will be running at Cradley Heath show. I know advance tickets for the Warley NEC show in November will be on sale at the Cradely Heath show so its worth going for that. 😉

I feel I should point out that Broadwater Junction is by Warley Model Railway Club. Ed Purcell is merely the N gauge layout co-ordinator. Its been around a bit but its still a nice little layout.

I wish I had seen that photo back in 2020. I’m fairly happy with the Dawlish Warren stores on the right but the ice cream store on the left is all wrong. That flippin ice cream shack on the left looks different on every photo I see. Looks like I need to brighten mine up a bit.

As usual there will be over 80 layouts at the Warley NEC show this year and over 100 trade exhibitors. There will also be a lot of demonstrators, modelling associations and preservation societies. The real loco will be 5164, a large prairie kindly loaned to the club for the weekend by the Severn Valley railway. This will be nice to see as I have a Sonic large prairie on pre-order. There will plenty of N gauge / 2mm layouts at the NEC show as follows:- Crossharbour D4/5 - A wartime harbour layout Copenhagen Fields - Brilliant modelling! Freshwater - A charming an beautifully modelled southern area branch line. Hawes Junction - A Warley club layout which is a close to scale replica of Hawes Junction (later renamed Garsdale) on the Settle & Carlisle Barnwood - West coast main line set in the 1990s Exe Halt - Featured in the September 2020 Railway Modeller. A well presented GWR branch line. Bregenbach im Schwarzwald - A wayside halt in the Black Forest. The Viaduct - A lockdown project representing current practice on the WCML. It features a rather brilliant viaduct. Westwick - A large modern image layout. Was at TINGS in 2019. Monument Lane - I know nothing about this layout. Kinlochlaggan - Scottish based layout. Can be run in various eras. Great scenics. This layout has been featured in Model Rail. Moors View - A lovely view of the moors. Railway Modeller January 2022. Won best layout in show at Taunton and Exeter last year. Cucknoe - Mostly steam with an LM/LNE flavour. Solent Summit - A modular US layout Dawlish Warren - No need to comment! Whartson Hall - Built by the West Midlands N gauge group. Represents a busy through station in the West Midlands carrying cross country traffic. Obertonburg - I have no information Tuerland - And another I know nothing about I will post listings for other scales over the next week or so. Maybe a few photos as well.

We had a bat accidentally fly in through the window while on holiday in Devon. We couldn't find him that evening so we had to leave him in the house. Early next morning I found him and by then he was quite docile. I guess that's because he had missed out on a night's feeding. I gently caught him in a cloth and took him outside. I took these photos as it was too good an opportunity to miss. Poor thing was shaking a bit. I put a saucer of water in front of him. He seemed to jump in it and then managed to fly off. I hope he was alright following his misadventure.

There is a double whammy regarding exhibitions. First, the average age of members for most clubs is steadily rising. Secondly it is increasingly difficult to find a good location for an exhibition at a reasonable price.

Ok I'm missing the point but I'm not going to pass such an invitation.

The Bachmann product announcement scheme seems to be working well. They announced a new batch of Farish Mk1s and these coaches arrived as stated. I am a happy customer who has filled a small gap in my fleet.

The effect of the injections builds over about 6 months and takes a lot longer to fade away. I hope its ok to say this here but I have just completed 100 miles in August "cycle the month" to raise funds for Prostate Cancer UK. If anyone feels like making a donation the link is https://cyclethemonth.prostatecanceruk.org/fundraising/chriss-cycle-the-month-august-2023

That's an MTK kit!

Ah, but now we all know about this. I could view the layout at Warley NEC and say "that poster is wrong!" I wouldn't do that of course, I'll just quietly enjoy your layout.

A Metcalfe brewery is an important cliche for many layouts. Extra cliche for putting the layout builders name on the brewery. Of course I wouldn't do anything like that......well not now. 😉

Whoops! The "e" was errant. Ridgacre is correct. The Ridgacre branch was fully closed as per the notice (but not until 2019), the track lifted, some items rescued for preservation or use on other layouts and the rest was binned.

Oh, sorry. I used to put my exhibition plaques on the pelmet when I had a pelmet because the baseboard facia is the mount for the layout to floor curtain and any plaques would be either in the way or hidden. For my current layout my plaques are kept on the wall in my railway room along with the pelmets from previous layouts complete with plaques.

I like the plaque and where it is. At busy exhibitions it is useful if the layout name is high up as it helps visitors to find the layouts they want to see. Once a visitor is close they will be looking down at the layout not up at the pelmet. If anything the writing is too small but that doesn't matter as it is a distinctive plaque which will make the layout easy to find.