Geep7

Being a bit of a sci-fi fan, I really should have some triffids... :-D But seriously, they probably be old toothbrush bristle's painted green, with a colourful (red / yellow / blue) bit of flock stuck on the end. Might not look too great up close, but should look fine from normal viewing distance.....

So a small progress report from the Easter weekend. Ticked off one issue that has been pending since the Exhibition last year, and that was to resolve an intermittent pickup issue on one of the points. Turned out to be a dry joint on the wire bonding one of the stock rails to the switch rail. I've also made a raised flower bed to go where the water column usually is, as i'm not entirely convinced a water column would have survived into 1969. Here is a photo, although I still need to add some colourful flowers. Other than that, i've been "Laserglazing" my DMU, a rather fiddly, and at times tedious job, hope to have this finished by the end of the month.....

Oh, that's done it..... I thought I was safe from the lure of a Wickhams.... must resist. Mind you, sticking a decoder in one looks rather tricky. That'll be for the next layout.....

I haven't quite given up on the oil depot idea just yet. I have a idea to build an additional board between the road bridge and the fiddle yard which will feature the oil depot at the back of the layout, allowing for some low relief tanks on the backscene. Regarding the engineers siding, i'm thinking of modelling it as a part of the goods yard with a loading dock, that just so happens to be being used for engineers and p-way trains removing the line from beyond Blackhurst (across the level crossing). Should really make apologies for the bus on the bridge.... now where can I put the TARDIS?

I'm leaning towards the engineers siding too. However, i'm not sure what would be beside such a siding. As mentioned, I was thinking of having an old loading dock, now used to store old sleepers etc. As regards Wickhams on the Southern, i'm not sure.

Thanks leopardml, I did think about putting a fuel point in, but the station is only meant to be about 40 miles or so from Redhill, so I imagined that most locos wouldn't need fueling when arriving at Blackhurst. The only loco that might do, would be the 08, but I assume this would trip back to Redhill every couple of days. The main reason for thinking of changing, is I wanted to increase the potential for goods traffic. Also, I have a siding which I use for the engineer's stock, but this is intended to be a stabling siding (and will be juiced at some point). However, the fueling point idea has got me thinking..... *edited for double post.

OK, so i'm in a little bit of a quandary at the moment. As shown quite a few posts back, i've started to rebuild the fuel oil depot, however i've not gotten much further with it, and my thoughts have started to think whether I should have a fuel oil depot there at all. The oil tanker train I have could appear on the layout by arriving too or from the fuel depot off-scene, run-round, and the depart. So I have a few ideas and options: A. Leave the oil depot where it is, and finish off what's there. B. Convert the siding to have an unloading dock, and then have it be used for engineers stock. C. Convert the siding to have a goods shed, with the unloading dock on the coal siding. So any thoughts from the RMWebbers out there? Any advice gladly taken. Many thanks.

So the Class 08 is finished, except the ladders, and a bit of weathering. There is also a new visitor to Blackhurst. This is a much worked on Lima Class 117. The DMS has been recreated by cutting and shutting sides from about donor coach. The first window behind each cab has also been altered to be the correct size. It's just awaiting transfers, laserglaze and a bit of weathering on the bodies. The mechanics have been upgraded slightly with an ex-CD tray motor replacing the original. It has been wired up with an NCE DCC decoder, and it runs much smoother now, although does shift like a scalded cat, but a bit of CV adjustment should solve that. A couple more photos below. I've also been working on the 3/4-TC set, which i've updated in it's thread in the Modifying RTR section. *edited for autocorrect misspellings

For those of us who have scratchbuilt or are scratch-building one of these units, trying to find definitive photos of the underframe equipment is nigh on impossible. That said, I would imagine, that as they are on the other 3 and not on the TFK, then that it's just missing off the samples, or its prototypically correct. Should also add, whilst I am building my own TC set in Blue (elsewhere on this forum), I am working on SWMBO so I can order a Blue & Grey one.

Just noticed Kernow have posted painted samples of the TC in Blue/Grey and the all Blue charter livery on their Facebook page.

I notice it's been a while since I last updated this thread, so thought I should at least show a bit of progress. The imminent arrival of the Kernow version has spured me on a bit. So my last update said the coaches had been painted. Well, I wasn't too happy with how well i'd painted it, so a week or so ago, I decided to rub back the paint and respray it. But before repainting it, i've decided to add more detail. So first on the list is the beading by each door and at the bottom of the cabs on the driving coaches. So far i've managed to finish both of the Driving coaches off, just the Brake coach to do. Whilst having a quick look on Dart Castings website, i've noticed that they now do an etch that includes the lifting hooks for EMUS, so I have ordered a set, which hopefully should arrive next week. And lastly, here is a view of the cab ends. I've increased the height of the gangways by about 3mm. It seems to now look right to me. Next job is to finish the beading on the BSK, so photos to follow for that. Cheers, Chris

I think the reason it looks wrong is due to the angle of the photograph. Taken head on I think it will look right. It still looks better than the Hornby attempt, and lightyears ahead of the MJT ends on my scratchbuilt 4-TC

So stage 1 of renumbering the 08 is complete. I've removed the logos and numbers, as the BR logo should be on the cab-side for D3045. The coupling rods have been painted red (although looks like the could do with a bit of a touch up in places) and some of the handrails painted rail blue. I'm debating about moving the overhead warning flashes, as the tampo printing is a pain to remove. All that's left is to add the numbers and logos, source some nose end ladder's and give it a bit of weathering.

I think an MSE kit will be the way to go. I've seen some made up by one of the chaps at the REC, and they are incredibly finely detailed. My biggest problem which i've only recently discovered is that the signal is right over a board crossmember, so if I wanted it to operate, i'll have to think of an ingenious solution......

Thanks for the link to the video, some great shots there. The station building I built was based on an LSWR North Cornwall plan I found. I didn't realise quite how appropriate the design was for a station located in Sussex, although West Sussex for mine. I grew up not far from the Waterloo to Reading line near Feltham. Some of my earliest memories are of Blue/Grey Vep's, Haps (probably just about still in Blue), and I would imagine Subs, going across the level crossing at Feltham station. I then spent the best part of 20 years living right next to the Reading to Guildford line, so no surprises I have a soft spot for EMU's, 73's, Cromptons and pretty much all things Southern.

Ah, I see what you mean. It wouldn't surprise me if i've seen a similar looking photo on the Newhaven Harbour thread. Btw, moving slighty OT, purely by coincidence, Newhaven Harbour appeared in Railway Modeller the same month as my previous HO American layout appeared in Continental Modeller. Iirc, I think both were on the front cover. I seem to remember you were going to sell NH? If so, do you know if it's still around?

Many thanks Colin. I will freely admit that Newhaven Harbour was one of my influences when designing Blackhurst. I didn't think that it would look that similar though.

Something I have realised looking at that last photo, is the 08 needs renumbering from TOPS back to a D series number. I've been scouring the Internet for an 08 based or pictured at Redhill in 1969, and stumbled across a couple of photos of D3045 in this RMWeb thread here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/37894-a-shunter-for-elm-park/ I hope the guys who built Elm Park / Burntwood Lane don't mind be borrowing the loco number, as it's a Feltham based 08, and I come from that area, so it would be a nice connection to have. Just need to get hold of some number transfers now, as i'm not sure I have enough in stock.

I've also done something today that i've been meaning to do since the Exhibition in September. My Bachmann Class 08 has been out of action pretty much, as it wasn't running properly, which I traced to those awful pickups Bachmann have insisted on using (this is the "improved" version as well). So i've added new pickups underneath the loco. It will run through my double-slip at a nice crawl, without a hint of stalling. That's another task off the list.

It's three magnets together, so you get the North Pole on one rail and the South Pole on the other. Each magnet is 4mm long, so that means 12mm of magnet and ensures that the Kadee pin gets pulled right across for delayed uncoupling. I'll see if I can do a video of them in action.

So I spent some time on Friday evening and yesterday modifying the uncoupling magnets. The original method was to have a single 3mm round neodymium magnet beside each rail to attract the Kadee coupler. However, this was less than successful, as already mentioned earlier in the thread. The main issue was with the poles of the magnets vertical to the rails, so rather than pull the Kadee pin across, it was pulling them down. Having done a bit of looking around the net at other people's experiences with them, i've experimented with placing the magnets between the rails as in the picture below. This seems to have done the trick, and works really positively, so i've started modifying the rest of the magnet positions. I may at a later date add a 3rd row of magnets to make uncoupling easier.

Thank you for sharing this on the thread, I had noticed it on Youtube, and very good it is too, just a pity my layout wasn't performing 100%. Hopefully you will get another chance to see it out on the exhibition circuit at some point.

So it's been a while since I last did anything really meaningful with Blackhurst, bar the odd operating session. But now with Christmas well and truly out of the way, and the house back in order, i've been able to start getting a new oil depot made. As previously said, i'be never been 100% happy with the original, especially as it seemed to block the view across the layout, something that is especially noticeable in Crackers video. So first things first, i've removed the old oil depot and clean the area up. The area to the right of the board join will be where the tanks are located, and the area the left of the join will be the lorry loading area (where the lorry is in the photo) I'd already made the tanks up back in the autumn, and here they are. The smaller horizontal tanks are from an old Ratio kit that had been used on a previous layout many moons ago, and the tall tanks are from a Knightwing kit. So today I made a start on the bund for the tanks, the surface of the bund is slightly sloped, hence the cut-outs for the tanks. Finally a couple of shots of the bund with the tanks located, the last couple of shots in position on the layout. I think it looks a lot better and allows an uninterrupted view across to the platform ends and the signal box, especially for photographs.

Not really much to update on since the Woking show. I've not had any more invites so far, so decided to take a bit if a break from Blackhurst, having spent rather a large amount of the previous 6 months trying to finish the layout for the show. However I have made a start of replacing the oil depot. I wasn't really satisfied with the one i'd originally made, and the more i've looked, I felt it dominated the front of the layout too much, so out go the 2 big storage tanks to be replaced with a couple of smaller tanks further to the left-hand side. I'm hoping to make a start on finishing this in the new year. Other than that, i've done a quick project to convert a Lima 117 DMBS to the correct DMS. Will try and add a few more updates and pics in the next few days. And lastly, Merry Christmas to you all.