chriscleveland

Good to see you’re finding a way to get stuck back into it. Feel your pain on not being able to work on it all at once plus sometimes it’s nice to model whist watching the trains running. your have to do what I’ve done for Ropley found it works quite well for limited space and easy to swap boards around hopefully not long till your back working on the N gauge chris

Some more photos from the show on Sunday but its a diesel takeover 37901 Mirrless pioneer departs Ropley with a train to Alton. 37324 Clydebridge shunts the wagons from the crane as the 08 shunts 76017 4mt as the boiler has been lifted and being moved onto the boiler wagons to go into the shed. later the 08 shunts a bullied coach into the carriage shed to continue overhaul Clydebridge out on a service train the next day. Just name plates to add to clydebridge then it will be complete thank you Ian another amazing looking diesel my latest project was put in the yard on the Sunday of ivatt 41312 without its boiler. This was a very tricky project to say the least! 50027 lion arrives into Ropley from Alton as the afternoon we ran diesels as we had quite a few back for the show plus we had Stuart who was eager to get the diesels out to play. Now the layout is back in cradle time to do some more bits to the layout

Few photos from having ropley at a show today was nice to have all the lights working at last and the layout got really good feedback even is we were fighting a minor short across the layout something we couldn’t detect as it all ran ok in its sections before the show but we managed to cure it at a quiet point in the show Other than that was nice to have the layout up and running and we all had a chat about how to simplify the layout as we at dc not dcc the jobs list isn’t as big as Alton yet so that’s a plus too but still some bits to do. Another good thing from today is we got together as a group to all add feedback into my biggest hate on the layout which is the roofs so looks like we might now have a solution fingers crossed. I’ll take lots of photos tomorrow and post over the next week

Class 37 takeover at Ropley this evening

Last few days before Ropley is at a show again certainly feeling the pressure building ticking off all those little jobs another one nearly ticked off is finishing the lights will just be the sheds left to go after the show a few photos to set the scene Nelson on shed Bittern returns back from a rail tour this was common back when it was first restored Yeoman 08 awaits repair outside the carriage shed. This area has just had all the poliyfiller scraped back a little more to improve running conditions should have used clay too late now tho. now onto crawling under the layout to tidy up the messy wiring.

The lms saloon last ran in this time frame in the 2011 spring gala think it’s quite a big job but as you say has its opportunities

Operation tidy with less than a week till Ropley goes out the pressure starts. Here we have inside the sheds which are having a dust down and some internal repairs. Be nice to see if we fixed the issue onto the Alton fiddleyard next week fingers crossed

Come on so far in the last month don’t panic I remember my first show the buildings were cardboard but really good eye for detail you don’t wanna rush that

Next projects in full swing Taken the plunge in maker by some of the railways more challenging coaches. First up is the real ale coach secondly is the railways griddle which I’ve decided the make the sides lastly I’ve started to make the railways dining set which is proving challenging now and I haven’t even started lining them yet no pressure who’s idea was it to fully commit to coaches and other less than 2 weeks till a show

You can find a few videos of what’s down there but I assume lots has changed after the running line extension at alresford during Covid

Richard has been helping me on everything. One day we may find out what’s hiding down there but I’m sure they’ve had a clear out at some point. Before long I’ll get asked to do the wagons correctly. 2009 to 2012 I’m afraid is the era but lots still remains on the line the pullmans and griddle are next on my list to attempt

I’ve been using it to help but some are not correct. Luckily someone on the railway has also been helping confirm what they do and don’t have and we have worked out everything that was / wasn’t in use at the time even down to which way each coach should be facing. Makes the work a little more interesting for sure. Plus finding out ones that left has been fun too like eagle the Pullman car

Operation crazy I’ve decided to take the plunge and correctly number the buffet coaches to the mhr fleet but then I found myself taking in operation crazy just weeks before a show just doing the buffet coaches soon turned into a whole rake with many hours of watching videos from 2011 gala’s conversations etc I soon worked out every coach they own 4 rakes later were into our last coach of all the green coach rakes or is it ?

Not long to go now till Ropley goes out again to Slough’s first exhibition. I will make sure we get plenty of videos and photos.

Show flyer for the event if this helps

Locos on shed this morning at Ropley

Jus a few photos of a few other projects going on 37905 having just had a wheel clean parked at the front of the headshunt a view you can’t take photos from anymore as the railway redesigned the top car park. 117 dmu out testing the new over ride system to reduce the need of using x4 controllers with the 4th now being optional. Plus was out trialling being a 2 car as well as 3 car. a project for after slough is boiler 76017 which I plan we may be able to use with the crane and the unusual wagons that hold its boiler

Out of the paint shop first diesel I’ve done to represent the diesel gala the railway held in 2013. Even though it’s out of the time frame as the King’s Cross bridge would have been in I wanted to replicate a diesel gala so using modellers licence to get away with it 33109 captain bill smith out after having a big freshen up and part repaint. Great transformation and use of a 33 I had no real plans for. Just a case of name plates to go now as well as finding some of the other loco types to make the full gala lineup

Another loco project ongoing starting off as tangmere I have taken the plunge to use a Hornby West Country to make out of use locomotive swanage swanage in the time frame would have moved from the headshunt after being stored for years and started overhaul. I wanted to add something a little different plus looking at photos showed how much the paintwork had weathered over time it also seemed a good opportunity to do something a little different so I decided to open one of the roof covers on the loco which can be found on google. I also found swanage is actually numbered after fellow classmate 34102 lapford. I decided it was best to keep it as swanages number to avoid confusion however but interesting what you find when researching. quite happy with the finished look something a bit different than having a very clean engine

Whilst plenty is going on in the loco side of the workshops we pop over to the carriage shed to see what’s going on I have started to respray the darker green Bachmann mk1s to match the earlier versions to be more in keeping with the rakes I already have I have also renumbered the coaches once sprayed to mhr numbers and added the cress something Bachmann don’t seem to add but adds a bit of a different look to the rake the last photo shows the one I have resprayed in between 2 Bachmann painted coaches. one of these has been weathered and one straight out of the box. They are a slightly different green but this isn’t uncommon especially as the railway stores them outside. 3 down 4 to go

Next project to start I’ve decided I want to model one of the diesel galas. Only issue is there isn’t one in the time frame but one either side. I’ve decided to go with the 2013 diesel gala and here’s the first loco progressing starting as D6535 to become 33109 Captain Bill Smith. first challenge was to remove the poor weathering job I did to it years ago as one of my first respray a. Luckily I hadn’t realised I needed to varnish after. Here’s how it’s looking after the first spray of varnish dulling down the blue a little. I have used 33053 as a comparison to show the different final appearances as 33053 will look faded where as 33109 will look relatively new with the odd bit of muck.

As 80150 has finally made it to ropley after many years at alresford having work done to it I thought it was rude not to post it in model form copied from when it first arrived. Needless to say the hard work people are putting into it shows

they look like this currently but I’m worried I block too much out guess once lights are in and working might have an impact? The girders lift out in areas so I can track clean. Originally the whole frames did but this damaged the last set of lights. All a bit of trial and error, but I will check out how they have done theirs thank you for the pointer.

Thank you. I just need to figure out what to do with the shed roofs to allow people to see in but look more finished than they do today

That’s my bad just adding the photos and not putting them into the post as I type them up. will do going forward