LNER4479

Not had a travelogue for some time. Been lucky enough to encounter some near perfect sunshine last week to showcase the snow in some of Europe's most famous mountain scenery so, as some seem to appreciate such piccies, here goes: Any ideas? (no points for guessing 'Switzerland'!). This was arrival day last Tuesday, when we had a chance to have a quick look round the town where we based ourselves. Switzerland's most iconic mountain was within easy reach so, with the weather perfect, it was a no-brainer to head out there. Aha - a train! A service on the Gornergrat Railway negotiates the penultimate corner before the summit station at 10,000ft a.s.l. (give or take) Time to put the camera in panoramic mode. On the terrace, beer and chips were consumed whilst taking in the crystal clear conditions. No gloves, scarf or woolly hat required. It doesn't get much better than that. More gorgeous weather on Thursday for a trip to find an iconic figure by the lake. Who wants to live forever, anyway? Champion. The town's station is of course the terminus of the Golden Pass route through Gstaad and Zweisimmen to Spiez. Gone all arty-f$rty at the water front. The weather held for our last jaunt out on Friday to Grindelwald, the ski resort overlooked by the North face of the Eiger. On the rack - the Wengeralpbahn train makes a dramatic entry into Grindelwald station. Our train back awaits (sigh!) Last pic and we can reveal the identity of our base for the trip. Away into the left distance lies the route through the Rhone valley, overlooked by the BLS Lotschberg pass route climbing up the north side of the valley. Bottom right lies the mainline route to Italy through the Simplon tunnel, whilst the route of the Glacier Express heads eastwards toward Andermatt. Yes, from a viewpoint on a footpath into the foothills, we overlook the railway centre of .... Brig! But you'd worked that out by now ... hadn't you?

Working on stock as well For the 1950s 'Royal Scot', we need a dining triplet featuring the original 1951 'Festival of Britain' anthracite all kitchen vehicles - Dia.700. Only a few built but we can of course legitimately run the 'Royal Scot' train on Shap. Wizard (ex-Comet) parts duly acquired and a suitable Lima donor body awaits treatment (one of them ridiculous 64ft 'stretched' full brakes - should be 57ft vehicle ... but you knew that!) And after the plastic mice have been at it! Also need to do the Restaurant Third; Bachmann did the Rest First and we have one of those available. The 1950s Royal Scot will be a full blood n custard rake, compressed slightly to 11 bogies (should be 13), with a blue Duchess lined up to be the staple motive power. Should be quite a sight on Shap Fell.

There we go - a new page! Anyhow ... Carrying on with the new fiddle yard construction Here is a new board with the legs being fitted, together with hinged bracing piece. This shows how this works - three 'back flap' hinges are used, to allow it all to fold away without any need for detachment. To try and simplify set up and strip down, I'm hinging the boards together in two pairs. I needed a pasting table hinge, an item that the big orange DIY store doesn't seem to stock in the hardware section. An hour or so's messing about with some 30mm ally strip and a nut n bolt resulted in this. This should give a better idea of the hinged assembly. The reason why the rear one is a conventional flap hinge will become clear in due course. Hinging in action.

Hey - what happened the post numbers in the top right hand corner?! I can't tell whether a new page is about to start or not ...

Well, it's been over a month since my last update but work has been inching along, nonetheless. Front end detail. Always satisfying to bring the thing to life. Rest of boiler detail, some cab detail ... and I think we're about done.

Layout not fully dressed - normally there's a sky (albeit a clear blue one - an anomaly for any time period on Shap) That would be an anomaly for 1967, never mind 1937!

Yep - pretty much. I was actually thinking of the concrete sleepers (route re-laid 1965-1967). It had flat bottomed prior to that but probably bullhead pre-war. Intermediate colour light signals were installed during the war to increase line capacity. Sounds like I need to swot up on the finer LMS details!

To celebrate the all new bells n whistles, whizz bang version of RMWeb, a purely gratuitous additional shot of that Claughton-hauled train, just to prove that I've worked out how to post piccies. Let's have a quiz! Aside from the highly unlikely congregation of quite so many photographers, can you spot the obvious three anomalies with this 1930s scene? (one VERY obvious; they then get more difficult)

Love track plans. Got all the Peco track plan books. Pored over them for the last 40years. Never built any of them ... Love doing track plans and am currently involved in three layout projects which are based on track plans of mine - but they were all 'to order'.

Way to go, Dr G-F Coaches look fine to me ... as 'layout coaches', creating an overall expression. What it does need though (in addition to removing that 'orrible loco front coupling) is some super smashing great Pecoboo bullhead track to set it off - away with yer 36 ties to the length, spiked US track, you...

Hello, me dear-ios, With Grantham stored to one side after its recent burst of activity, time for Shap to take centre stage once again; the pic below was taken yesterday. But hang on a cotton-pickin' minute - that doesn't look like an 'end of steam' train? Looks like one from a somewhat earlier era ... Here is a close up. What a lovely sight in the sunshine (even if it doesn't bear close detail examination). Said loco has happily come into my possession. It is a Jidenco build from at least 30 years ago, complete with single stage X04 motor. I suspect that it will require a bit of encouragement before it will run satisfactorily, but that isn't going to stop me trying. I like a challenge. What this does indicate is the start of the expanding of the timescale being depicted. In the immediate future, starting with Hartlepool this year, we will be running 1950s/1960s for which the build up of stock is already well underway; the 1930s LMS stock will follow on in a few years time. On that theme, there's a few coaching stock items not available RTR so a bit of coach bashing beckons. As you can make out, these are the ex-Comet etches for a 1951 full kitchen car, Dia.700 for the so called 'Festival of Britain' sets. Not many built but the LMR's 'The Royal Scot' was one set thus equipped, so far too good an opportunity to pass by. This will be the core of a full blood n custard representation of the train, with a blue, sloping smokebox Duchess at the business end. Should be quite a sight. But by far the biggest job on hand is a brand new fiddle yard! Using Grantham's fiddle yard was never really a long terms option and the two shows we have done with it has cruelly exposed its unsuitability for the role. So an 0rgy of carpentry, track-laying and electrics beckons. Anybody got a box (or two) of Peco Code 100 or a few rolls of cork they don't know what to do with? Ah well - worth a shout! More soon.

New avatar, perhaps?

Ooh - a bronze-y! Must have been on the sun bed too long (fat chance) Thanks Andy for that - and thanks to all who voted. Not sure that we did anything different or 'special' in 2018 (although there have been some undoubted highlights), just a case of gradual 'onwards and upwards' but maybe we are (finally) getting to the stage of a layout that, if not exactly 'complete', is at least achieving what it set out to do. Thanks (obviously) to all who have contributed so readily and - although I've said it before - I shall be ever grateful to this fantastic forum for all the support and help received; it really has been the making of the layout. Graham ... Grant ... Red Leader ... 'Robert' (delete as appropriate)

Like this, you mean? (taken in August last year) Not quite the same viewpoint but clearly a very different track layout these days. The safety elves have intervened over the years... Great thread. Looking forward to more photos.

Sacked the layout planning consultant

A good day chez Barry O. It's often the way that a few sessions where not a lot appears to happen is then rewarded by a 'surge' of progress. Even if the track isn't fixed down (yet), just having the first board in position so some track can be loosely put in place is a big motivator. So far the plan is working out ok; looking forward to the next session already

Hi Paul, Thanks for your post; that's a lovely connection with your Dad's memories of pre-war LNER. Makes it all worthwhile when we get comments like that. Next shows at Spalding (Nov 2019) and Southampton (Jan 2020). Not quite 'south east', but within striking distance perhaps? I'll PM you re DVD. Graham

Fandabidozi!!!!! Toot! Toot!

Great post. Here's my little homage to your grand day out:

My Dad was on that railtour! He still talks about it to this day. Thought he was on for the 'ton' descending Stoke Bank. Dad's copy of the Colin Walker book has been on long term loan to me ever since the start of the Grantham project. An idea for the next time out with Grantham Tony as we could indeed try recreating the Colin Walker picture with the Grantham town scene in the background? Just need an 'elephants ears' version of 60106...

You mean when he needs to lift his head up a shade? (ka-tish boom!)

Love the lamp stand! Now, where can we put that round the depot ... ?

Before we all get too much older, a few of mine, albeit only relatively crummy camfone snaps: The usual Sunday morning 'before the crowds arrive' photo opportunity. Barry and Roy limber up on the main control panel, whilst Jonathan checks all is in place backstage in the fiddle yard. It's mid afternoon on the schedule and, following the arrival of the 3.30pm service from Peterborough (Grantham arrive 4.11pm) - ably depicted in Tony's views down the station platforms - the train loco has shunted its stock into the west side bay platform (plat.4) and retired to shed. This was a working for a Grantham-based pacific no less, but was otherwise just for operational convenience to get it back to home depot, to save a separate LE move. Looking the other way, this view of the south end was really designed to show the road system, including the already highlighted traffic light. This apparently innocuous view hides some ingenious electronics - far beyond my comprehension but only a mildly brain stretching exercise for our electronics whiz, Andrew. There are three IRDOTS (if you look closely, you can just see one of them just above the heads of the horses on the beer cart) and three stop magnets (one of these is holding the LNER Harrington horsebox, seen hiding beneath the cover for the turning circle top right; these and the traffic light are controlled by a bespoke electronic sequencer Andrew built, tucked away out of sight beneath the road. As designed, it can cope with four road vehicles at once in this section of road; we only have three operational vehicles at the moment and the experience of the two days is that the rechargeable Faller batteries are only good for half a day's use at an exhibition with the amount of running they do. If you saw all three running at once you were quite lucky! I've added the piece of video again at the bottom of this post seeing as we are on a new page and I've remembered how to do it so that it plays directly from the thread! So, in addition to lists like the above, we have some work to do to increase the number of vehicles. I don't claim to be any sort of expert but we will try and ensure the vehicles are typical of pre-war. Things to have a go at are a Foden steam wagon, a mechanical horse and - possibly - even a horse and cart (or two). Lastly, especially for one of our Antipodean viewers, a certain A3 was captured working a southbound Leeds express in the early evening. Remarkably, as well as all the A4s, we do have access to all the Gresley A1/A3s for use on the layout. It's always a bit of fun before the show to have a look through the list and make a few special requests; conversely, literally any of them can turn up. Also spotted running during the weekend were No.2743 Felstead (the first production A3) and No.2553. Those who are aware of the layout's connection with the fortunes of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust will appreciate the relevance of the latter one...

Thanks for those Tony (previous page). As usual, the camera takes no prisoners. Must get round to: - weathering station canopies (well, non-stock weathering in general really) - ladders and last signal arm on south end of signals (although it was something of a minor mircale that the new south end signal - the concrete one - was up and running at all for the show) - snip the pips off that south end trap point - proper girder representation on Springfield Road bridge, plus suitable fencing above - general shed detritus - not to mention a proper version of the 'new' shed building

Ahem: