David41283

Looks like the shop ceased trading at the end of December. Selling off all remaining stock at at least 35% discount. Still a lot of good stock at very low prices.

That depends how far away they are!

Hello, At the old station there were no run round facilities, but there was a small loco shed just outside the station. From my reasearch it looks like when a train had arrived another loco ran down from the stabling point and dropped onto the back of the train. (Class 21/29 then class 27) It wasn’t unusual for all the plaforms to be in use at once. There are photos of class 20s being used as a pilot. When this station was closed in 1975, the new station was built with a run round loop on platform 2. This is the station which is still in use today. There were no carriage sidings, the long siding along the dockside was used to store spare carriages, as were the shorter bay platforms. When we exhibit we recreate the sleeper arriving, the day coaches continuing onto Mallaig and the sleepers being shunted into platform 2 for cleaning ready for the two halves of the train to be reunited at the end of the day for the return journey to Glasgow and London. Thanks for your interest. David

Hello everyone, No, no updates at all really! Since the layouts 5th exhibition in October it has returned to it's home in the corner of the study. I have been working on a Parkwood Models Clayton kit, but this has stalled as I haven't found the appropriate combination of spare time and good weather recently to get out in the garden with the Dremel to mill down the Kato chassis to fit. Noisy and messy modelling activities are hard to arrange when your usual hobby window is in the study while the kids are in bed! I have written and submitted the copy for an article about Invernevis in Railway Modeller magazine, but the photos are yet to arrange. There may be some time before the article appears as there have been a lot of small N guage layouts and several scottish layouts recently published. I don't actually have any more exhibitions booked at the moment. I have completed the paperwork for TINGS 2019, but I suspect the cost of getting me and a helper up to Leamington for 3 days from Plymouth may be an issue. If any exhibition managers are reading this feel free to get in touch! Thanks David

Hi Grahame, Sorry for 4 month delay! I found the BRUTES really fiddly too. In the end I just folded and soldered up the main body and used sections of round plastic rod to represent the wheels. David

Hi everyone, Long time, no posts.. Yesterday saw our 5th exhibition outing with Invernevis, at a small show organised by Plymouth model shop Chris' Crafts and Model Railways (from where I purchased most of the parts of the layout.) The show was only a few minutes from home in the village of Yealmpton just outside of Plymouth. The layout performed really well, and we had loads of nice conversations with interested people - in the way it was built, the water effects and surprisingly many who had visited the real station in Fort William before it was demolished. Here are a couple of photos from the show, with my eldest son in the driving seat. Netx update should be the completion of a Clayton kit which I'm working on. Cheers David

Hi everyone, Just a couple of phone pics from the Plymouth show on Saturday. We had a great day at the exhibition and the layout performed well. The next exhibition for Invernevis (and now the only confirmed booking in the diary) is a small show just outside Plymouth at Yealmpton on 13th October. Cheers David

We had a very enjoyable day on Saturday. We were well looked after, fed and watered. The show definitely felt busy, especially the first few hours, which is an achievement in itself given the glorious weather. Cheers David

Hello, Glad you liked it! Yes - they are Peco concrete platform edges, although I reduced their height by a good couple of mm by cutting off the base at the bottom of each section. I built the platform off the layout, not in situ. I sprayed it Halfords grey primer. The edges were painted Railmatch concrete, and the tops a mix of loads of different greys and browns, everything was then washed with various thinned dark greys. I think the main colour on the surface may even be "executive dark grey" - the colour for the top half of intercity coaches. The rails and sleepers were painted with a mix of Railmatch sleeper grime and Phoenix weathered wood and a bit of Railmatch dark rust, plus other colours splodged on too! Cheers David

Hi everyone, Yep - Invernevis is booked to attend my "home" show on Saturday. I've spent this evening getting this little lot ready... The layout had a good test run earlier this evening, so hopefully should look like this at the weekend. Cheers - see you on Saturday. David

Hi everyone, Long time no posts! Invernevis is off to the Plymouth exhibition on Saturday, so this evening I have been finishing off a few mini-projects and getting a few new items of stock ready. This little lot includes a couple of items I ordered well over a year ago, both of which turned up recently. The stock from the Highlander set has had a bit of light weathering, 37418 has had snowploughs fitted and more weathering. The blue/grey coach is an "almost" BSOT, based on a Farish BCK with a butchered interior. The windows aren't quite in the right place, but it's a better bet than a tiny cut-and-shut conversion in my book. I've also dirtied up my N Gauge society car flats and a couple of Dapol fish vans. Cheers David

Good evening everyone, With Invernevis' third exhibition looming on Saturday I have had the layout set up for a test, clean and dust. Fortunately all worked with no tweaks needed. I have replaced a broken station lamp and filled in a few patches where ground cover had thinned a bit. I have been working on some stock, having thinned down much of my privatisation era stock, I now have room to bring a few more wagons. With FW goods yard just a short distance from the station I hope to have a few more speedlink and trip workings reversing in the station in future. I have added snowploughs to one of my 20's. I have added a few more wagons to the fleet: Finally, one of the first n gauge kits I had a go at, 5 years or so ago, was the Chivers OTA timber wagon. I enjoyed building and painting them, but found them a bit of a pig to run smoothly. I have had another look at them, as they are such an iconic scottish wagon, and have managed to knock together three which have working couplings and stay on the rails from the 6 that have been in my spares pile for the last few years. They're far from perfect, but they may get a run-out at the weekend. Everything is now stacked by the door ready to load in the van and head off to Wiltshire tomorrow for the exhibition on Saturday. Cheers David

I must have missed them! Ha ha. Seriously though, I think small diesels are ideal locos for a manageable layout. My funds have been set aside for the "Highlander" set, with the 37 and Kyle line coaches. However this seems to have been delayed again.

Hi everyone, Just a few weeks now to my next outing with Invernevis. I am exhibiting at the West Wilts Model Railway Circle exhibition in Holt, near Trowbridge on Saturday 7th April. Here is the show leaflet, attached with permission. Cheers David handout.docx

Hello, The scenic section is 130cm x 30cm (about 4ft 3in x 1ft) and the fiddle yard is 120cm x 30cm (4ft x 1ft) so the overall area of the layout is 2.5m x 30cm or around 8ft 3in x 1ft when in use. A couple of things to bear in mind - it looks very small in an exhibition hall, but just over 8ft long feels big enough in your home! You also need to think about what it is going to stand on. At home it can go on an extended dining table without too much hanging off each end. If I use my exhibition trestles then the footprint becomes much bigger as the narrowest trestles you'll find would be 60cm or 2ft wide. I think legs which were much narrower than this may be a little unstable. To give me room to move around in order to operate and uncouple I need a minimum space of 3m x 1m to exhibit the layout. If you're looking for a practical home n gauge layout, you could consider a hinged fold-out fiddle yard, or you can get a surprisingly interesting "roundy" layout into 4ft x 2ft which doesn't need the separate fiddle yard. That's probably a lot more info than you asked for! Hope that helps. David

Thanks everyone. Looks like the next outing for Invernevis is a show in Holt, West Wiltshire in April 2018.

Hi everyone, The Railway Modeller/Peco stand was just next to us at Thorncombe a couple of weeks ago. Andrew Burnham (the editor of Continental Modeller) was manning the stand and spent a bit of time in the afternoon taking photos of Invernevis, a few of which I've posted below with his permission. It was very kind of Andrew to take the photos and send them to me. Cheers David

We had a great day at Thorncombe on Saturday for Invernevis' second outing, it's a lovely show and we were well looked after. Everything went well, and a couple of new items of stock performed OK. Here are a few photos I snapped before the doors opened. And finally a couple with the (rather huge) trophy for "Best in Show", (which I suspect is what Graham is alluding to above!) Thanks Graham. I am pleased with how the layout has turned out, but I do feel that many people's fondness for the prototype certainly makes a difference in these sort of public polls. It looks like I've now got a couple of exhibitions lined up for 2018, details to follow once paperwork is exchanged. Cheers David

I thought I'd misread/misheard the comments about Bath. Wasn't the whole point of the extensive work to the station to extend the platforms so these new trains would fit?

Arriving at Paddington half an hour early today, I got the chance to hop on the 11.45 to Swansea as far as Reading before changing back onto my through train to Plymouth 20 minutes later. I was very impressed. The interior is very light, bright and smart, there is loads of legroom and the seats are firm, but comfortable. The acceleration out of Paddington was impressive on 25kv. Indeed the driver seemed to ease off a bit after making sure he impressed everyone from a standing start. Despite knowing where the switch-over would be and listening carefully I couldn't tell at all when we made the change from electric - diesel. People getting on the train seemed impressed, with several commenting "is this first class?" when entering the standard coach. They seem a very good train, competent, smooth and quick. David

As a regular customer I have found the "Expressway Models" shop at Buckfastleigh station a strange case in the last couple of years. It always used to be my first stop for any purchases, as they had a huge range and their prices were more-or-less the same as the box shifters i.e. the maximum 15% discount permitted. (except Peco/Ratio as they seem to have a gentleman's agreement due to Ratio HQ being in the same town.) I would make a trip to the shop to buy new releases when they came out in preference to ordering online. A couple of years ago, they suddenly switched to full RRP across the board. I have heard "unofficially" that the SDR as a whole had employed the services of business consultants to review the operation across the board, and this was one change made. The shop floor is now proportionately more tourist tat and less model railways than it used to be, however they remain very well stocked. However - and this is worth noting, this seems to have affected their sales as out of the blue there will suddenly be a flash 30% off everything sale, including latest releases. I have picked up a few unexpected bargains this way in the last 2 years. I now visit less frequently on the off-chance I stumble across a huge sale, rather than making a trip to get something I am looking for. I did explain to a member of staff that I would much rather give them my business, rather than ordering online, but couldn't justify their pricing anymore. His reply seemed to imply "tell me about it". I suspect I wasn't the first to mention it. Cheers David

Cheers, my paints and techniques come from painting Games Workshop figures when I want a change from railways. Games Workshop produce several flesh tones and shade washes, the skin on these were: Base coat of "Cadian Felshtone", then a shading wash of "Reikland Fleshshade", initial highlights with Cadian Fleshtone again, and a final highlight on the most prominent features with "Kislev Flesh" which is a much paler skin tone. If you don't want to buy the specific paints you could just use one flesh colour, use thinned tan brown for the wash, then mix in a little white for the final highlight. Hope that helps. David

As I understand it, that was a really "human" moment, as they actually separated the boy from his mother and then reunited them on camera for authenticity!

Thanks for the comments chaps, we had a great day at Minehead. Loads of interest in the layout, so much so I spent most of the day talking to people. Next up for Invernevis is Thorncombe TRAC show in November. Cheers David

Just to echo all the other comments, we had an excellent day on Saturday. It was a really good show, and the visitors seemed to be very happy. It was my first show with Invernevis, and the layout ran better than I'd dared hope. By the afternoon we'd even ironed out the operator issues and I'd nearly mastered manual uncoupling! Nice video above too - very odd seeing yourself on film! Thanks for all the nice comments received while we were there, and thanks again to Dave and the club group for such a great day out. Cheers David