HSB

As Rod mentioned a few posts ago we had a get-together with a few friends this afternoon with a little operation and a lot of yapping! We also had a couple of visitors on the layout which seem to have taken a wrong turn at Chester! (See Re6/6's post above) This GWR railmotor was built by Vic Burles:- Baron Harrap has a shunt with the 04:- Finally, I thought I'd take a pic of this rather suspicious looking group which included four RMWebbers:- Clockwise from front left:- Brian Tape (hiding behind the control panel), Rod (railwayrod), Vic Burles, John Farmer (re 6//6), Brian Harrap, John Day, Peter Gray (well-known railway photographer and author) and yours truly. Five of us (the two Brians, John Day, Rod and myself) have now known each other for over 45 years from when we were all early members of the South Devon MRS and we have also known Peter for quite a few years. Vic and John F we have got to know more recently (relatively speaking) but both are now firmly established as regular members of the gang.

Whoops! Those steam kettles all look alike to me!

It bankrupted it's then owner!!!

We couldn't see a split in any of the gears but the bogie will need to be disassembled to be examined more thoroughly. I have now got all the gutters in place on the station building:-

It's not a question of being 'superdetailed' I think many people would be happy with a fairly basic model which could be detailed to choice if the basic model was reasonably accurate. By making a generic bodge-up they have lost out on a lot of potential sales!

We did a bit of work on the layout this afternoon with Rod spending a lot of time trying to sort out a problem with his Heljan 47 while I have now got most of the guttering in place on the station building. The electrical problems we experienced on Tuesday seem to have mysteriously disappeared again - the gremlins are probably in hiding until they have an audience!

I've only just discovered this thread. Superb piece of modelling!

This morning we got to play on the real railway. We both took advantage of the 'Driver for a Fiver' at Kingswear. While attempting to take some pics of Rod at the controls of an 03 I discovered by accident that my little cheapo camera can take video:- We also managed to get a bit of modelling done this afternoon. I made a liitle more progress on the station building:-

I have now got the second layer of card cut out and stuck on the station roof. Rod took a couple of shots of his new DB locos which he'll probably post later.

Brian's built two proto-220 layouts and the second one was a lot more than a demo! I'm waiting for him to build a proto-T layout but I think I'll be waiting a long time!

Rod's post may have given you a small clue to what we are thinking about for our next project - but you didn't hear it from me! Actually we still have a lot of work to do on Ramchester which will take us awhile yet but we are beginning to see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

I want to know who has insulted our space so we can go and sort them out!

Today I painted the chimney stacks.

We had our first session of the week this afternoon and while Rod has been working on his EasyBuild BG I have made a little bit of progress on the station building with the chimney pots now all in place and ready for painting. I have also fitted curtains to the upstairs windows above the booking office along with some interior walls and floors although these will be hard to see when the roof is on.

I actually spent a few minutes working on the station building this afternoon but spent most of my time fiddling with couplers. I've shot a little bit more video but had to scrap some of it due to a lot of flickering which I suspect is probably caused by the flourescent lighting.

The fiddleyard is now fully wired up with all the tracks now usable. Hopefully I will now be able to get back to working on the station building! I will shoot some more video in the near future.

The track is now down in the fiddleyard. We have just put in two kick-back sidings for now but there is room to add more at a later date if we decide we need them and also, possibly, a turntable. Hopefully, at our next session we shall have it all wired up and working. I have also experimented with taking a video clip of the layout

CME, Glad you enjoyed your visit. It was nice to put a face to a name after exchanging ideas on here a few times!

You haven't seen Rod's garden. Most of it is on a very steep slope and the shed door is in the wrong place to bring the track back into that end of the shed. In any case, Ramchester is supposed to be a seaside terminus. I visualise it as a sort of mini-Morecambe with holiday traffic from Lancashire, the West Riding and the industrial North-East.

Rod wanted a triangle so I put one in. I agree it is unlikely but he didn't like the idea of trains having to reverse to reach Carlisle.

We now have the eighth track in place but not yet wired in. Hopefully next week we can start laying the kick-back sidings.

The pic I took looks very much like the last one I posted so I will wait until the progress we have made is a bit more obvious before posting another one of the fiddleyard. As Rod said, we now have seven tracks pinned down.

Further consideration on the supposed layout of lines at Maryport has now lead me to put the branch junction back on the main line instead of the harbour branch. This was where it was in the original Mk2 plan and there was no real advantage in moving it. In fact, when dreaming up the present concept for Ramchester, I rejected this route initially because I got the impression from the maps I looked at that there were high cliffs north of Maryport harbour jutting out into the sea. Only later, after looking at Google Earth, did I realise that a route along the coast was actually perfectly plausable and would be shorter and more level than the alternatives. Instead of having to run over sections of the S&C to reach the Ramchester branch the LNWR line simply carries on along the coast to Ramchester. Anyway these are my final updates to the Ramchester route map (I promise!)

While superficially similar the smaller wheels, lower running boards and differently shaped cab roof gave the TOPS Class 11 a slightly squatter appearance than the 08. Also, from a purely personal perspective, I spotted several of the 1945 twin-motored class but none of the earlier jack-shaft ones.

While the jack-shaft drive shunters were very distinctive I think I would go for the twin-motored LMS shunters introduced in 1945 and which continued in production under BR until the introduction of the 08. These were more numerous than the single-engine jack-shaft versions and some later passed into industrial use.