LNER4479

OK, the first pictures are back from the developers... The sequence starts with a 'statement of intent', namely the 1930s LMS demo train - if Hornby's release date for the full Coronation Scot set of coaches come to pass then by this time next year this will be the full Blue n Silver apparition. Just gotta be done... For the time being, No.6225 'Duchess of Gloucester' crests the summit with a lightweight express. We now move to 1952(-ish) and here our 'new' train, the afternoon Carlisle-Oxenholme stopping train - formed from a NE Region set borrowed off a Newcastle-Carlisle service - heads down the bank. Coming the other way ... One of the 'star' trains (well, I think so), the early 1950s 'Royal Scot', a full MkI 'Festival of Britain' set, seen on the Shap Wells embankment, is headed by Polmadie Duchess 46224 'Princess Alexandra', heading for home. A quick sprint to the summit (ha!) for another view of the train. I must put on record the contribution of the 'hand of Wright' in relation to this train. 46224 has been repeatedly objecting to being asked to work this train (can't think why?), slipping and slithering about on the incline and then mangling her valve gear. Well, a visit to Tony's loco clinic resulted in a stern talking to and she then worked faultlessly all weekend. Thanks Tony! Another classic LMR WCML train, the Midday Scot is the most prestigious 'Up' train and was entrusted over the weekend to none other than 71000 'Duke of Gloucester'. The work of Roy Mears, this loco is on temporary loan and - unlike the prototype in the BR era - acquitted herself (himself?) very well. A more expansive view of the train, another 11 coach formation. Of note is the fifth vehicle, the D.1697 kitchen car, flanked by first and third opens. You might JUST be able to make out that the final vehicle is in a different livery, namely a WR Choc n Cream BCK representing the Glasgow-Plymouth through coaches that were conveyed on this service north of Crewe. Bit of an anomaly - should really be some ex-GWR stock in the standard blood n custard at this time. This set now just needs its roof boards and a headboard for the loco. And now our first banked train, a typical 1950s lengthy express goods train. The loco is - for now - an out-of-the-box Stanier 'crab' 2-6-0, high priority for individualising. Just dropping off the rear however is already personalised Fowler 2-6-4T banker No. 42424, a resident of Tebay shed for 30 years. This and most of these pictures were taken 'live' so this is an action shot, hence the blurred appearance of the wagons nearest the camera. You can just see the target board on the front of the loco - Tebay shed trip working No.92. Within minutes, the loco is freewheeling back down the bank towards Tebay. I panned on this to try and catch the loco in focus ... not displeased with the result. No.42424 now just needs a visit to the weathering shop and all will be well. Next train up the bank is a fully fitted, limited load, entrusted to a Patriot without banking assistance. Another loco in the queue for blinging... 45543 'Home Guard' ends this first set of pictures, taking her leave of us at the summit. Back with another clutch tomorrow, all being well.

Spotted heading south, making a quick getaway...

Decent bit of video of us at approx. 7 mins in, courtesy of DCC125 on YouTube.

Anyhow... Time for some pictures from an exhibition. Here we are, at start of the day yesterday when most of my pictures were taken. With a good complement of operators, I went linesiding for the first hour and there will be a sequence of pictures in subsequent posts with the results. At busy times, we were gratifyingly two or three deep out the front, folks seemed to enjoy the regular procession of trains, following the rolling time period sequence from early 1950s to 1967 (repeat, ad nauseam). Very pleasant to have the company of Madame 'tricoteuse' Wealleans ... ... however, not such a good idea to ask her to provide explanations to the public, who have duly scattered to the four corners of the SEC, save for one young viewer. ONLY JOKING! What this view does show is the running order info for interested viewers (top left) More to follow once I've reluctantly done some 'real' work...

Exactly so (and well spotted). There are one or two locos still awaiting the weathering shop but generally we do indeed try to weather according to era, usually based on a representative photo or two.

Preliminary examination of D400 did not detect any wonky / damaged buffers. EE Type 4 was observed to have a buffer that had popped out of its mounting when setting up on Thursday so may be a case of mistaken identity?

Fantastic!! I shall be making a bee-line and see if we can fit one on Shap's Freightliner train for the weekend! (I love the caramel wafers!)

Last posting before Glasgow, featuring more work on coaches: The Gresley D.115 TK Hornby conversion had its sides affixed and here has had the cream followed by custard (!) spray treatment. Meanwhile... Another vehicle targeted to make its debut is the kitchen car for the Midday Scot. Tis is a Comet kit for a D.1697 LMS Kitchen car (pre-Stanier), which was kindly assembled by Mr. Duck of this parish. He left me to sort out the ventilators so, following careful study of photos, this is what I came up with. The so-called ventilators above the square windows are actually from an etch for a planked wagon end, upon which I have scribed additional lines before fitting as shown. Now with custard and cream treatment. Might as well do the two together. And these are their portraits taken just, as they will appear at Glasgow. I don't think you have to be too eagle-eyed to spot that neither is QUITE finished ... Interiors mainly. I'll get them fully finished for the York show. Hopefully ... See you in Glasgow, if you're going. Otherwise, there'll no doubt be some sort of post-show report.

Seriously Gordon, many congratulations. Looks to be running pretty well to me...

Just to point out that you will lose one stabling point for a train by doing this, as you'll need to leave the front section of road 3 (say) empty to allow the locos to run forward before gaining the reversing loco road through the fiddle yard. And then you'll need to back the replacing loco on (off Crewe North!) to avoid having a rake of coaches stranded in the fiddle yard without a loco on. Yes, I think that's right - only necessary for the up fast roads. Certainly make things quite interesting for the operator of the 'Crewe' end of the fiddle yard.

Remember this? We're aiming to put together a four coach formation for Glasgow show (which will be history in just two weeks' time - yikes!) See that middle coach? Well, here goes: This is - or rather was - a Hornby Teak Sleeping car. To be honest, never really going to find much of a use for that so it has been sacrificed to the cause. And these are some sides from a Bill Bedford D.115 TK which seems to be the correct configuration for the vehicle coach depicted. Droplights and hinges added and donor vehicle now fully prepared for its new sides. Vents above the doors were added last night. Quite a bit of effort to get to this stage. At times it's felt like it would be easier to build the whole kit from the ground up. But, once the sides are affixed then we should be on the home straight as roof, under-gubbins and bogies are all ready to go. Tonight should be the night for sticking the sides on. Meanwhile: On the 'last great project' some more tracklaying has been undertaken. This is the second of the double junction formations, again with a slight curve induced in the long crossing and now the head of steel is proceeding towards the Garsdale boards. And, five yards further on, the link up has been made and the 'first' train makes it on to the Garsdale section. Suddenly, we have a 30 foot run down the length the chapel. Looked at from the other direction, the link into Garsdale can be seen more clearly. And here the two double junctions can be seen together. All trains passing through in this direction are heading for the 'rest of the world'. Next step is to install the point motors so that the attendant frog switching can be installed and bring it all to life.

Arrived back home safely from a visit to Camden, with some fiddle yard progress made. Here, tracklaying work is in full progress with all the usual paraphernalia to hand. this is the north ('country') end and at this stage, the down fast roads are laid, where the two coaches are standing. Having these tracks fixed in position now means that the adjacent scissors crossover can be accurately positioned. Stages in assembling a scissors. Holes are drilled for dropper wires and point motors, then the motors and switches are installed before placing into position. With the length of track to the left connected up and two coaches to run back and forth, the alignment can be fine tuned prior to finally fixing into place. And this is where we got up to when we 'knocked off' at 11pm on Weds evening. The Up fast roads have now been laid, leaving just the central fan of points for the slow roads to be set out. As you can see, the board is widening out at this point so we can't get to the full 15 road width until behind the camera. As well as tracklaying, a not inconsiderable amount of wiring up was done as well. The only apparent evidence of this are the connector blocks mounted on the side of the baseboards (to the right of the seat back) but if you look a bit closer, you can see the trusty Duette standing on its end, soldering station (on the floor) and wires hanging beneath the boards. The idea is to get this all installed and brought back to the connector blocks then there should be no more crawling underneath and the space beneath can be used for storage. Viewed in the other direction, this shows the sizeable area on the right hand side here that has been created by keeping the four mainlines over to the left hand side. This has the obvious benefit of making them of a gentler radius. There is currently a lively debate over the use of this area. Mr 92220 himself thinks it should be used for additional stock storage (despite currently only having about a third of the coaches needed to fill the fiddle yard); yours truly has designs on a miniature Crewe North...

Does Mrs Enodoc know about this?

Yay - the mighty duck is back. The planet once again spins on its axis, calm and serenity return, all is well with the world. It feels like a new dawn

Yes, of the two, the axle ends was the one I noticed immediately. I have done a little bit on the B7 test build recently and will try to give it priority in the first half of this year.

Well, many thanks for that. I do worry at times at the amount of bloopers (some mine!) and glitches when we're at a show and whether that spoils folks' enjoyment. I am however sometimes reminded of my experience of being on stage - just keep facing the audience and smiling; you'd be amazed at what you get away with! Interestingly, when things do go wrong, sometimes you get comments along the lines of 'at least you're human', meaning that folks with layouts of their own can somehow relate to you that little bit more if you appear fallible. Shouldn't stop us from striving for near perfection, mind... Before our appearance at the show recedes too far into history, some pix of mine, from the very agreeable depot operating position: My Quint set featured in the run-in to the show so please forgive me for naturally pointing the camera in its direction, having arrived in Platform 5 from the Nottingham / Derby direction. If nothing else, this view highlights how I need to finish off the inner vehicles in the set. Looks like Tom is doing his nails again whilst Barry converses with Jonathan, fiddling round the back The loco of choice to run with the Quint set is Graeme's peerless Atlantic, this due to the Cawston picture that so inspired me to create the set in the first place. Here, the loco takes a spin on the turntable as close cousin C2 No.3254 awaits departure from the shed as the afternoon southbound pilot. Our Atlantic-fest continues with this view from the roof of the coaling stage. This is in fact another day and No.4413 is at the head of the Quint set, awaiting departure on the 3.0pm to Nottingham / Derby, the very train that Cawston photographed 88 years ago. The two Atlantics awaiting departure are once again the southbound pilot (nearest) and a goods train departure to Peterborough (New England) yard. Behind, the morning King's Cross (Top Shed) pacific turn is the first off shed, to pick up its working back to the capital. Looks like No.4475 'Flying Fox'. Completing the picture, two indigenous 'D' 4-4-0s await their turn out the front of the 'Old Shed'. A slightly more elevated view as the southbound West Riding sweeps by on its way to the capital whilst Tom surveys his empire. A suitably random collection of locos can be seen, including three Grantham pacifics, the C2, a K2, K3 and a J6. An ex-GCR 'Director' is a relatively unusual visitor but the O4 from the same family of locos is more regular fare, being the locos of choice for the pre-war High Dyke workings.

A couple of update items following Grantham's visit to the Southampton show: Well, here she is - looking rather splendiferous in front of Tony Wright's camera lens. I actually picked up the model from Ian Rathbone at the Warley show following his superb paint job. So, in a nutshell, this is what the B3 kit can be made up to look like. Meanwhile, myself and Graeme, met up with the designer of the GC self-trimming tender etch and went through the feedback from Graeme's test build, with the test tender to hand. It was a constructive discussion so, all being well, there should be a finalised etch for one more test build in a few months time.

Thanks for that; glad you enjoyed it. My sub. copy hit the mat today, so nice to see it all in print and photos reproduced in the mag. Last missing piece of the jigsaw is the photo montage I put together on the construction details. Some of this was posted on the first few pages of this thread but you can get at it all in one place at: https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/Techniques/hills-of-the-north-construction-diary Meanwhile, just three-and-a-half weeks to go to Glasgow so, with Grantham safely back home, attention now turns to show preparations and some rolling stock work. Stay tuned.

Hi Tony, Thanks for these lovely portraits of 6165 on the layout. The second one in particular is a very natural viewpoint. Any 'embargo' was just a touch of playfulness as its ultimate owner isn't aware that the loco has been through the paint shop and (virtually) ready for delivery. I hope to present it to him in the near future as a 'ta-daa!' unveiling. But as he isn't on RMWeb then I think our secret is safe. For those not aware, this is how the joint Nicholas-King G-Train Loco works B3 Kit makes up, set off with a top notch paint finish by Ian Rathbone. Just needs cab glass and a couple of handrails refitting.

Hi Gordon. Great to see you and Iain (92220) at the show. Pity I couldn't have spent more time giving you a guided tour of the layout but hope you got something of an appreciation of the thing. Very much looking forward to calling at ET soon and if the whole thing gives you a spur to get things to a certain stage with the layout then so much the better.

For those not aware, Shap features in the March issue of BRM, the digital edition of which is out now (yes, I know it's only January - all to do with 13 issues per year), paper copy out Thursday. I'm normally a traditional paper copy version myself; however I'll highlight the digital edition on this occasion as there's an 8 minute excerpt from my Dad's 1964 cine films of the route, available ONLY via the digital version (ie it's not on the DVD that comes with the mag). In my highly biased opinion, it's worth the purchase price alone for that. https://pocketmags.com/british-railway-modelling-magazine Enjoy!

Five day adventure in total for us but looking forward to bringing Grantham to 'foreign lands'. Re transport / parking, I gather from show blurb that there is a free, heritage shuttle bus operating half hourly twixt venue and Eastleigh & Southampton Airport Parkway railway stations.

Oh, I dunno. You'd still have two out of the three streamliners plus the 'Flying Scotsman'. Add to that the Leeds-Glasgow services (full of interest) and then there was a bewildering array of local routes branching off to the south at Relly Mill junctions. Not to mention all the colliery traffic. I'd build in a heartbeat!

It's obviously the way you take your pictures, Tony To be fair to Tom (Rance), the set was fresh out of shops and some tweaks were still required. My, doesn't the yard look a little bare, prior to the ministrations of the ballastmeister? Do you remember this photo from the same 'shoot'? (Nottingham show)

Serpently is! Highly likely that the photographer took up position there especially to capture the train. By the time it was up that neck of the woods it would be 'after work' time, half seven in the evening so would need to be a nice evening with good light, Judging by the length of the nameplate, it doesn't look like one of the five 'empire' A4s that were intended for use on the service. Here is the train on Grantham (Beaver Tail out of sight) with some not-quite-so-vertigo-inducing signals for the local lampman to attend to. This was the occasion when Tom Rance brought along his Coronation set for photography on the layout, photo courtesy of Tony Wright. Talking of lamps, we've got better at lamping up the trains since this photo (2016).