Manxcat

Tony, The three coaches in the above picture look very interesting. What are they please? Thanks, Archie

As something slightly different from buildings and rolling stock I offer this picture of a set of points I recently constructed for my new layout. I had always used ready made track for my first 6 or 7 years as a modeller then graduated to SMP point kits. It was then only a matter of time before I discovered I could buy copper clad sleepers and individual yard lengths rail and work the whole lot into a point of the radius and length of my choosing. The first entirely hand built point I made (around 40 years ago) was a double slip. I must have been mad to try that first but to my astonishment it worked perfectly. I have now graduated to using Templot to design several layouts including our current club layout. I particularly like to be able to build configurations one could not possibly make with proprietary points, just like the one in the picture. It is very satisfying to think of how much this would have cost to have professionally made for me when it only cost about £18 for the materials. Archie

Tony, Is there a particular reason why some of the buildings on LB are removable? Was it a conscious decision from the outset? Archie

I know. It certainly beats one bogie wheel off the track in a photo. Or does it?

No problem at all Tony. Here are a couple. She still runs ever so sweetly. Archie

Tony, Where would your house be in relation to LB station on the layout if it were long enough? I presume the house was there in the mid-fifties. Thanks. Archie

Now that the point rodding is complete and we are all confined under lockdown, you could always make a start on the wires between the telegraph poles to while away the time. (That was a joke based on the comic device of irony. Well, very nearly) Archie

Tony, Thank you for the excellent buildings only shots you have posted here. What superb skills your layout team have to produce them to such a standard. When you kindly let me visit LB after the Great Central Railway model event I actually drove past your house without realising it. When I arrived at the Willoughby Arms I recognised it from the model at once and knew I had to turn round and retrace a little bit of the route. I see that the GCR have sadly cancelled the event for this year. Archie

Given the tantalising glimpses of the station building, how about a few shots from track level of a selection of the buildings Tony? No rolling stock of any kind in view, just the buildings. Or is that too close to anathema for you I wonder.

Thank you Tony. That is much appreciated. Archie

Tony, Would it be possible, please, for you to post a photo of the underside of two of your coaches where the hook and bar coupling system you use is installed? I am interested in the dimensions of the hook and bar, their positioning relative to the buffer heads and how they are attached to the coach body. I am thinking about trying it on one of my rakes. Thanks. Hope you and Mo continue to be in good health. Archie

Over the past week I have started my newest layout. It is the 19th which I have either built myself or helped build for our club or other individuals. I attach a few pictures. OK its only bare baseboards at the moment so not terribly exciting but time spent getting them right now will aid good running later. I started with the two at the right hand end then erected the front and back baseboards. At that point I measured the distance between the front and back at the left and then the right. There was only 4mm in it. A gentle nudge in the right direction and a lifting flap for entry into the operating well slipped perfectly into place. You will notice two more baseboards on their side under the front of the layout. Those extend the long sides of the layout by an additional 4 feet front and back and are for use only at exhibitions. I relish the work involved in laying the track and building the scenic side so that the additional boards match at both ends when included but are not missed when not used. I am lucky enough to have a double garage, one half of which has always been given over to a layout. One of my club colleagues has opined that I am also privileged to be one of the few people to have a massive concrete monolith in front of my layout! One day I might have it replaced with a sturdy beam.

Two reasons. Firstly so that I can say "Tony Wright built that for me so I knew it would be unique and would run sweetly straight out of its (non-RTR) box". Secondly, because I have spent so much time over the last three years wiring and making points, signals, buildings and scenery for the club layout that there has been little time left to try loco construction. I did make time to paint the A7 though which I was pleased turned out quite nicely. When you see Phoenix Lane at the show your influence will be clear in as much as every steam loco will have lamps and, where practical, no front tension lock coupling. Now you have me pondering what to do when a loco with fixed lamps needs to run round, the lamps then being at the wrong end. Modeller's Licence for that one move perhaps. I am privileged that my fellow club members have agreed to run the layout with just my rolling stock on the Friday and Saturday. All my steam and diesel locos are weathered. So are all the goods wagons and some of my coaches. I expect a crowd two or three deep at times which, for me at least, is one of the joys of exhibiting. Archie

Here are photos of four structures I have built for my club's newest layout Phoenix Lane, appearing for its first ever outing at Model Rail Scotland later this month. Hope you don't mind a set of photos with no rolling stock in them Tony.

My club, Glasgow & West of Scotland MRC, are exhibiting our new layout Phoenix Lane at this years show, which will be its first ever outing. Here are a few pictures of some of the buildings on it. The station building is a scale replica of the one at North Queensferry. No trains in these shots. To see them you'll have to come to the show.

Tony, For an explanation on the meaning and origin of "nit-picking" follow this link.... www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nit1.htm Archie

I did wonder if it had hitched a ride in Jesse Sim's luggage but there again it didn't have a red back, so I ruled that out! It was far too mummified to be less than a couple of years dead I think.

Tony, Today I opened up "Robert the Bruce" to fit a DCC chip. In an unusual twist of fate, when I lifted off the chassis the boiler space was full of a spider's web. Further investigation revealed a very dead and very sizeable spider. You'll be aware of Robert the Bruce sitting in a cave watching a spider try again and again to make a web which spurred him on to greater things. Spooky, eh? Archie

This is a video showing what not to do when you move your uncoupled loco away from its passenger train. Should you ever see this replicated on a layout then at least you can say there is almost certainly a prototype for everything.

Oh please do Tony. That could be so cathartic for you !!

Tony, I just read your LB article in Railway Modeller and loved how you encapsulated so much of what you have opined on in the past on Wright Writes. Great photos too. Thanks again for letting RM use some of your photos of my Fairhaven Road layout for my article in the same issue. It feels like a rather unusual privilege to grace the same issue as LB. I'm so glad the editorial team credited you with the photography, as I requested. Archie

Tony, I see from the December Railway Modeller that Little Bytham is to feature in the January 2020 edition. By pure coincidence my article on my previous layout Fairhaven Road is also to appear in the same issue. Thank you for the photos which you took and allowed me to send to them along with mine. I hope they credit you, as I asked Steve to do. Archie

Here is a photo of Don McCullin's Nikon F which saved his life. I saw this camera many years ago at the Museum of Photography Film and TV in Bradford. I believe it is now in the Imperial War Museum in Manchester. Don was later badly injured by a shell and continued to take photos on his way to hospital.

Davy, If that woman on the platform leans back any further she is going to get quite a surprise when the next express thunders through!

Here is my version of a smoke effect. Not added with Photoshop or anything of that ilk but rather a Seuthe smoke generator in a hole in the baseboard. The car has a hole drilled through the engine block. It always got a favourable reaction at shows. Are you old enough to remember when AA men saluted you as they arrived? Archie