checkrail

I paint toplight (and clerestory) bolections, and droplights, with Railmatch SR Venetian red, which is similar to the colour Bachmann used on their late 1930s Collett stock. I use a fine brush, binning it in favour of another as soon as it starts shedding loose hairs. There are inevitable smudges which I wipe off with a cotton bud as best I can, touching up with cream when dry. Of course, I make more smudges then with the cream, so have to wait for that to dry before touching up with red again. In the end it all looks acceptable (I think) from NVD, but it can take a couple of days or more. Well worth it I think, as the painted bolections are for me as much a hallmark of these carriages as the toplight windows.

Er ... not so I'm afraid. AFAIK bolections were painted (mahogany/Indian red/ Venetian red - or similar) right up to 1947.

... and the droplight and bolections? Probably best before glazing?

By the picture it's obviously a trunk route rather than just a branch.

Those toplights are coming along nicely Neal. Look forward to seeing them in action.

The wagon or the contents?

Lovely pics of the Hall Robin. As you no doubt know, there's a very nice 1936 photo of Marrington Hall (still with small tender) coming into Kingswear with an E-set in tow, in Beck & Copsey, 'GWR in S Devon', p117.

Had a similar problem with the 'Brian Kirby' modification to tension locks. Solved it by fitting 'shuntable' wagons with brass axles, obtained AFAIR from a source in California! Even then some of the axles needed a bit of friction applied to prevent unwanted uncoupling. Your solution to your Kadee issue seems a good one.

I think this bit is from an earlier version of your plans, now superseded, but it's worth noting that many junctions were laid out like that, to minimise the number of facing points on the mainline. (The advent of efficient facing point locks eased this requirement somewhat but it's probably still the case that steam era layouts in general have more facing points than the prototype ever did.) Stoke Courtenay has a rather 19th century track layout in that regard and trains bound for the branch, and goods trains bound for the yard from either direction, need to set back into the branch platform or its loop. It all adds to operational interest as well as realism.

I used Carr's ash ballast from C & L for the goods yard. Worked out well.

Wow! Seems like a significant development. Thanks for info.

Sorry, have I missed something here, or lost the plot entirely? They look painted to me.

Been away for a few days son only just caught up with this and subsequent posts. Nice to hear positive comments re Stoke Courtenay's trackwork! Yes, the plain track is C & L, chosen precisely for that daylight between the rail and the sleepers as per the prototype. I did look at SMP track but soon realised that it didn't have this feature, being designed to go with soldered pointwork on copper-clad strip where the bottom of the rail actually rests on the sleepers. I wanted to have fully chaired paintwork anyway, so it was an obvious choice. The points were hand built on Timber Tracks sleepering using C & L parts and templates - a learning curve but an enjoyable one, and a manageable workload for a smallish layout. At first I did cut away quite a bit of the webbing on the plain track before ballasting but soon realised that the inherent 'daylight' made this unnecessary. (Btw, I didn't need a jig for this - I glued the track down and cut the webs out afterwards, prising them up from the cork base with a small screwdriver or pair of tweezers!). John C.

Lovely vehicles as ever Mike. Not much 'straight out of the box' in your world is there!

Yes. Latest post on my layout thread (re Accurascale siphon G) chimes in with this thought!

A welcome arrival two days ago has now been unpacked. First thoughts were that this is a very nice model indeed. I think the axle box covers are a bit too 'sky blue' but they'll get covered in a layer of dirt anyway (if I keep it). Second thoughts: I've already got one, and comparison makes me realise just how good the age-old Lima offering actually was. Once the BR Mk 1 bogies and their preposterous 'pizza cutter' wheels had been exchanged for Bachmann GWR 9 foot bogies with Gibson wheels, and the buffers changed for sprung GWR ones from MRD, the major issues had been resolved. Yes, the Accurascale one has a bit more under frame detail, and the little handrails on the ends are separate items. But with my eyesight I can't tell the difference even from less than NVD. So it's either bite the bullet, paint the roof dirty grey, add flexible corridor connections, change (or shorten) the couplings, and give it a good weathering, or sell it on. I'm certainly not ditching my Lima one and I have rather too many brown vehicles as it is. But it is rather nice. Think I'll put it away for a week or two and see how I feel. John C.

Thanks for this Nick - sounds promising. Will be away for a few days but will investigate on my return mid-week.

Good bit of research on your part @kitpw. 'Kiln Lane' eh? Fascinating stuff. Thank you for digging it out.

Nice idea! A lot of 'the old stuff' was pretty good stuff.

Looks excellent. Only you will ever notice any residual scarring from topfeed removal, and even you won't notice it after a fortnight! (Btw, I have just the same problems with getting the optimum mix for the airbrush.)

Last month my wife and I spent five glorious spring days walking across Dartmoor from south to north, staying at some nice pubs on the way. On day 1, high up on Harford Moor above Ivybridge we stopped for elevenses and I stumbled across this: So - did the GWR have its own brickworks? John C.

While I was at it I did the other one, on the up platform. Those Ratio kits make up into quite a nice model, though the three legged arrangement on the brazier is a bit tricky to get right. I've seen prototype photos where there are four legs, which would have been a bit easier to get stable. If I take any more pics with the iPhone they'd probably benefit from a smidgen of auxiliary lighting. It's a great camera for landscapes, not so good for this kind of work. John C.

Rather than add that broken water crane strut to the ever-growing 'round tuit' list I sized the moment and replaced the struts with handrail wire, cut to exact length and offered up with tweezers after both ends had been dipped in cyano. I'd always thought that the Ratio plastic struts were a bit too hefty, so should have done it years ago. Pending resolution of my Mac/photo processing difficulties these shots were taken with my iPhone. John C.

Thanks all for replies and suggestions re Mac. I've been very happily using Affinity for a few years - the problem's not there, it's splitting the MP4 video file into its component still frames in the first place (before loading them onto Affinity one at a time and then focus merging them). I could do this easily in Windows Media Player but haven't yet learned to do it with Mac, even though I've spent days trying to do it with QuickTime. One thing about the 24" at full screen is the way it shows up blemishes I might otherwise have missed. So the broken bracing strut on the water crane in the first pic is due for some treatment. John C.

First post for a while. I've recently gone over to the dark side, got rid of my Windows laptop, and acquired an iMac. It fits well with my iPad and iPhone. My wife has a MacBook too, and her son is quite an IT whizz and an Apple devotee. Bit of a culture shock for me at first but I'm getting used to the Mac way of doing things. However, so far I've been unable to find out how to focus merge photos. I've installed Affinity Photo 2 onto the Mac but I've not yet found a away to break the MP4 files (created by taking a shot with my Panasonic TZ100 in 'post-focus' mode) into individual names and putting them, one by one, onto Affinity for focus merging. Every time I think I'm on the verge of a breakthrough the trail goes cold. It was all so easy with Windows Media Player. (Just select 'Save photo from video') But somehow, only heaven knows, I got these two stills out of two MP4 files: Winslow Hall on a down stopper and King Henry V on an up express. John C.