Johnson044

I went to the Terrier weekend at Horsted Keynes yesterday and picked this little 00 Schools up for a fiver. Seems to be tinplate with commercial smokebox door, buffers and boiler mountings. Really lovely paint job. 30396 was "Cranleigh". Difficult to date but maybe late fifties? The boiler's been made from a tin which has a chequer pattern of red and gold with cats in the opposite colour. A coffee tin maybe?

This is so inspiring Annie. I've been trying to work out what your townscape reminds me of and it finally connected. In Louth, Lincolnshire, my wife's home town, there is a real gem - it's a huge series of paintings, all done from the tower of St James' church in the 1840's and showing the life of the town in minute detail. The arrival of the railway is shown amongst many other details. https://www.louthtowncouncil.gov.uk/browns-panorama/ I really love your work. Very best wishes John

This is so, so inspiring Annie. I really love the developing townscape. Keep up the excellent work! J.

Witch and the saloon together.

The Nidd Valley Railway had themselves a rather nifty little saloon as well - by Hurst Nelson- again, with some etched glass. The brake van is pretty inspirational.

Thanks RedGem- and I've a post for your excellent Wild Kitbash thread for later today!

I hadn't come across this- what a wonderful survivor. I love the blue and gold etched glass top lights.

I've seen many conversions from this kit over the years but "Richard" convinces me the most. That's truly delightful. Something of the Cavan and Leitrim definitely - and also shades of "Caledonia" of the Manx Northern Railway. Very inspiring.

And here is the inspiration for the inspection saloon- a fine product of the Gloucester Carriage and Wagon Company for the Severn & Wye & Severn Bridge Railway. Obvious significant differences are the tumblehome and upper foot plates rather than a continuous foot board - and, of course, mine's only got the one verandah.

Being a bit thick yesterday - I didn't say which kit the cornucopia was! ...but it's pretty well known. Worth getting hold of if you can.

Some of the interior (mirrors & things) came from the rather useful Connoisseur Models cardboard interior kit that has provided all sorts of parts for my carriages. The lamp shades are pencil erasers. Grab rails and lamp brackets etc are brass strip and wire. the roof was built up plank-by-plank from Plastikard and felted with fine wet and dry paper painted white. I think the seats may have been maybe Slater's mouldings. A bit wonky in the end compartment but not noticeable when the body is assembled.

The interior was a very long time in gestation and I eventually made up some very simple seating, which for some reason I fixed in place to the body, which has the roof integral with the sides. The floor as a Persian carpet – just googled that object and printed one of the images that came up. The body is held to the underframe by the stove chimney, which is a length of brass tube with a section of 10BA bolt at one end and a shortened Slater’s axle bearing for the top. Humbrol Nr 73 has become the flavour of choice for L&H coaching stock and the lettering was home-generated using Autocad and, after various unsuccessful attempts at printing onto decal paper I had the transfers printed up commercially from a pdf of my artwork. Lots of bits left over, some of which made a brake third and went under a horse box, of which more anon. I still have many of the loco parts which I cogitate over from time to time.

Another project which hung around for many years, largely complete but with no interior and in white primer was the inspection saloon that trundled around with Witch. Sometime in the late ‘90’s a chum of mine who worked at East Kent Models in Whitstable alerted me to a plastic kit which was in stock- £14 changed hands (wish I could get another for that price now) and this amazing cornucopia of useful bits became mine. The kit is an absolute boon to the freelance builder in 7mm scale. In fact it’s slightly small for 7mm and narrow gauge to boot, but nevertheless… I used some of the carriage sides, the axleboxes and a few other bits as a starting point for a small inspection saloon, on an underframe from hardwood strip with peco 0 gauge GWR buffers, some IKB models etched brake gear parts and plastikard for the remainder. I made up some compensated inside bearings for the wheels, which are turned steel with whitemetal Mansell inserts- so plenty of weight to start off with.

All Neil's recent work on Ffarqhar Road has encouraged me to start to think about getting my finger out and putting some thoughts together on the railway itself. I haven't dome any platelaying for many years and the L&H has existed for far too long as a few scrappy bits of paper. I took Iain Rice's advice from "An Approach to model railway layout design - Fine scale in small spaces" and have tried to set out what I'd like to achieve - and my thoughts are: Setting Herefordshire / Gloucestershire Period 1880’s – 1890’s Railways: 1. Ledsham and Herefordshire Railway - an independent company with a cross-country, secondary main line route and a couple of branches, similar in nature to the Maryport and Carlisle. Not light railway. Everything clean and well maintained but slightly penurious. 2. GWR- maybe one day. Just the odd visiting loco- a 517 or small 2-4-0 maybe – or something really obscure from a minor absorbed railway- or just the odd wagon or coach. 3. LNWR- as GWR- maybe a Webb 0-4-0 saddle tank or Allan Crewe type 2-4-0. Type of subject: Riverside town terminus- Severnside or Wyeside Layout type: Cameo layout- minimum space with off-stage traverser 3 dimensional – lots of changes in level. Height makes up for small area and adds interest. Proscenium arch with stage lighting Features: Overall roof – small but commodious train shed (Banff Station, Haslem’s Creek Cemetery Station, Corris Station, Louth Market Hall, Zetland Hotel, Saltburn). Maybe low relief forming part of scenic break. Victorian High Gothick architecture- polychrome brick and decorative stone / ironwork (again, Louth Market Hall). Stone town walls with arches – York old station. Segment turntable (saves huge amounts of space!) (Birmingham Snow Hill, Kerry station – relatively common in Germany) Bridge rail on segment turntable McKenzie and Holland slotted post signals- have some Scale Signal Supply ones. Quayside Inset trackwork Wagon turntable and capstan Fishbelly rail on stone blocks on one siding- surviving relic from original Georgian early tramroad? Maybe inside building (Cromford and High Peak)- have some Ambis rail. Possibly upper reaches of tidal river- lots of mud Trees and foliage- semi- urban Ornate water crane Cranes / coal chute (Bullo Pill) Edge of major river bridge as scenic break Standards: 7mm “fine” scale 32mm gauge Trackwork to be authentic- 2 bolt chairs, sleepers of scale 9’ x 9” at slightly wider spacing Ruling radius of 7’ (where 4-4-0’s likely to go but tighter radii where track is inset) Ballast to be convincing Great care taken to conceal any baseboard or backscene joints. Inset trackwork – cobbles, check rails etc to be convincing Signals properly located and working A lot to try to squeeze in to a small space. Some hopefully less scrappy bits of paper soon!

Now that I really like!

This has given me a livery, the H being, of course, Hereford, County Town for a county that I’ve grown to love over the years, and I’ve generated some lettering on Autocad and had some transfers made. Here’s a typical L&H open wagon, which is from a resin casting of unknown parentage with brake gear from the other Jubilee wagon plus the usual Ambis parts.

I suspect “L & H” refers maybe to Lambton & Hetton? However, the only Lambton & Hetton ones I’ve ever seen any photos of are lettered “L H & J C” for Lambton, Hetton & Joicey (presumably) Company. The wagoon has extra baulks of timber which look like they are intended to suit chaldron waggons so it does point to the north east. Anyone got any ideas? Whatever the prototype it’s really beautifully made. Reduced Kirtley plates again.

Well – that’s the Ledsham bit. The L&H came with what must have been my first ever Ebay win- this rather beautifully made 3 planker, from hardwood. All of the metal parts except the wheels seem to have been made from raw materials – the W irons are cut out, the axleboxes filed from the solid and the springs built up leaf upon leaf. I replaced the missing brake lever and ratchet with Ambis ones and added some couplings. I’ve absolutely no idea of the builder, or indeed the prototype.

So – why the Ledsham and Hereford Railway? Where on earth does that come from? Well – Ledsham is the small town in Penelope Liveley’s “The ghost of Thomas Kempe” which tells the story of the mischievous Seventeenth Century sorcerer, shut up in a bottle for his misdemeanours and accidentally released to cause mayhem in the 1970’s. A long while back, when I had no fixed geographical location in mind, I bought and made up a Parkside NBR Jubilee wagon, then later picked up a very rough pre-assembled one and repaired it. They were very obviously Scottish and I decided to Anglicise one of them by losing the end door and using the fixed end and part of the sides of the other to make a PO wagon, reasoning that Thomas Kempe’s descendants might have liked to start a bottle manufactuary, glassware being in the family history. I used the tarpaulin rail fittings from amongst the Coopercraft bits that were in the box of bits from Canterbury dog track boot fair and had a go at a colourful livery using a white gel pen and a fine black one. The spare underframe has gone beneath another wagon. The worksplates are printed card from Kirtley Models, although these are closer to gauge 1 as supplied so I reduced them on the photocopier.

Thank you Neil!

Couldn't get off to sleep last night with heat. Had a bit of a breakthrough with scheme for Severnbury (Riverside) and come up with a cunning plan to squeeze a lot of conflicting design aspirations into a compact layout. Will try to draw up some sketches over the next week and I'll post them on the L&H thread. All the best. John

Exactly. This is exemplified in The Titfield Thunderbolt where a corrugated metal barn is lifted bodily into place to fulfil that very purpose.

What a wonderful link! Thanks Neil - the interior views are really interesting. The other item I really like is the very typical American 4-4-0 which has conventional buffers. I've often considered getting a Rivarossi Genoa 4-4-0 and anglicising it - we had some American 2-6-0's after all and a 4-4-0 doesn't stretch history too far. Too many projects!

Only in my head I'm afraid, Neil - well - and a solitary scrap of A3 paper - I want to do an A3 size cardboard mock-up soon. Lots of ideas but struggling to get them to gel without seeming hackneyed or contrived. Area is about 2'6" x 5/6" plus fiddle yard. It's high time I drew something up properly and I will do soon. Far too hot to go out to the shed and make anything (it's full of bits of wood and sawdust at the mo anyway). This is another really delightful one - on the other side of the world, unfortunately.

The station looks like it has an overall roof - very appropriate - I really like these often tiny termini that somehow feel very airy and commodious and I'm exploring the idea of something very similar for Severnbury (Riverside). There are lots of examples - Wantage, obviously, plus (through station) Corris, Edenham, Banff, Whittingham asylum, and - my favourite - the Zetland Hotel, Saltburn. The rationale behind your scheme convinces, the layout looks really promising and I'm really looking forward to seeing it develop.