C&WR

Particularly impressed with the brick arches. Great stuff!

In a mug or teapot with hot water, I would suspect

"Not the best paint job"? Never!

I am after a Class 166 in FGW livery and had an email from Bachmann Customer Services to say exactly that. They currently have no plans to produce one. I managed to track down one of the original FGW 166s brand new at a model chop in Christchurch, NZ, where The Long Haired Controller's family live. Her brother offered to buy it and bring it over, but I was having a cash flow problem at the time having bought a new house and couldn't afford the £160 it would have cost me. Blasted thing now sold... Silly thing is the idea of buying one was to amuse my boy, as he loves the Cross Country 220 I bought for us (even though he's never traveled on one) and these are, along with HSTs the trains he used to see most often. However he is happy running a great mish-mash of locomotives and stock, so really it's me who has the desire for one now!

Good to see you back at the bench, Al. Almost completely lost the mojo for various reasons myself, but making a start at getting back to it too!

Thank you, Tom D. That was a genuine snorting laugh in the office moment, & I've shared it on...

Much what TSC was doing, Julian! Last night he was asked to take a picture of TLHC to Cubs as they were painting portraits for Mothering Sunday. I handed his picture over and gave a brief on what was going to happen and he announced, "good, I shall draw a hat on Mummy, and a moustache..." Luckily Akela scotched that one and he produced a far better picture which I hope she will treasure...

Thanks, Julian. I was rather pleased with it myself! TSC has been learning about cloning tools in ICT so I may get him to show me how to take out the lamp post that covers the rainbow. I've pinched this pic from elsewhere: This sign is still there, although the smaller lettering is now missing and just shadow outlines of where it was remain. It's the one frustrating thing about living in this area - if I want to go home by train I have to make my way up to London then back out or down to Banbury then up again via Oxford. The most usual option is Bourne End-Maidenhead-Reading-Home, but with infrequent buses this means using a cab or getting TLHC to drop me. How much more civilised if the Maidenhead line was still there from Wycombe, or even better that Loudwater still had a station! When we were looking for a house here our Locksmith at work, who had become a friend, offered to show us round the area and give advice on what certain areas are like. His bigest tip was to forget using public transport for pretty much all but very local journeys into town or up to London - this is a real car society!

Jaz and Kal have moved on. They can be found on Facebook if you are a user (search for Arboretum Valley) or Google+ and YouTube as mentioned above.

Thought I might do a quick update with regard to the Shed at High Wycombe. This is just outside my favourite local pub with a really rather splendid range of real ales, craft beers and about 3-400 international bottled beers, so I see a far bit of it but not as much as I would like as they have only recently started admitting nippers, so I can't take TSC. Strangely enough TLHC, who doesn't drink beer, goes there pretty regularly as her knitting group meets in the place. Ho-hum! You might remember the shed looked like this: I rendered it like this: Imagine my surprise when in the pub last summer when I saw the shed had been transformed thus: I got back to take a quick close up early this year: There's a sign board to explain what had gone on: I think they've done a really good job. My only nit pick is why they insist on referring to a "train" terminus

I love the Sharks! We are lucky enough to get the occasional tickets to steaming days at Sir William McAlpine's Fawley Hill Railway & Museum, and the train rides include the chance to be conveyed about in one of these.

Those look great! Mine are done with evergreen rod (shaped in hot water where appropriate) and the wire from bag ties. I give them a double twist to represent the support brrackets as I see them in my mind's eye. Hope you don't mind me posting pics here: I carve the hoppers out of Evergreen strip.

This morning's work was fitted in round a game of "Escape From Colditz" with TSC. I went fairly gently on him, and each of his teams managed one escape so he was happy & so was I as I'd dragged him away from games on his Kindle! A slightly better shot to show the rusty metal effect: With the first coat of the main colour: And finally, hoping the Plasti-kote protected the card from the water, I took a damp toothbrush to it: Shortly time to take TSC out for an additional Rugby practice, and then watch the First XV where he will be ball boy...

Many thanks! Anyway,it's been too long so back to the cutting board. As you know I am rather keen on dilapidation and tired old buildings. Just off the road from Central Reading to the Madjeski Stadium where we go to watch London Irish is a disused warehouse (I think it was formerly to do with Porcelanosa) for rent. To stop squatters the large vehicle access has been closed up with big black blocks. I'm making an impression of this in low relief. To work, first scribing some polystyrene pizza base for the blocks: I'm glad I did the experiment at the top. I had hoped the paint would go into the mortar courses and I could then wipe off the excess leaving the blocks grey/black. Sadly not as they are textured, so back to the drawing board! I then cut out the shape of the cladding. The material is cut from the boxa Christmas present came in a couple of years ago - the Handyman at work who gave me this finds it most amusing his gift keeps on giving! This was given a coat of primer, then a coat of Tamiya Iron Grey acrylic, and when dry a dry brush of Humbrol Rust enamel. I overdid it a bit on the left hand side of the access door and the photo hasn't picked up the colour well,but in the flesh it looks good: This has now had a coat of Plasti-kote. I will then do hairspray weathering on the thing with a suitable top coat.

Like the Irishman asked by the foreman if he knows the difference between girder & joist. "Why yes, Sorr," came the answer. "Goethe wrote 'Faust' and Joyce wrote 'Ulysses'".

That concrete is just the ticket. Good work!

This is cracking stuff as ever! I am just about to scratchbuild something (purely for fun, probably no space on any current railway) and have been investigating using bits & pieces from round the house as well as or even instead of texture papers. That pulp board is a great idea!

Managed another quick trip home. No modelling done, apart from sticking a few of the figures I'd painted to the railway, but there will be some as it seems while shunting I managed to knock a few of my ground pint lever off. Ho-hum. Did however run some trains: Only had phone camera with me so not the best, but here goes a rake past the rather busy parcels yard... Edit to add: The Small Controller had some fun driving the Class 220 about, but I am astonished he sees the Railroad Car Transporter as more a source of cars to play with than something to run round the layout. The Pt Way Dept is quite impressed by the amount of BR Blue stuff that has appeared, even if it is old Hornby & Lima stuff & his true love is when I get the GWR stock out. He has been known to crawl underneath and have a play hmself when The Long Haired Controller, The Small Controller & I are out & the railway down. A couple of slight disappointments are that the BR Blue Coaches have a massive derailing problem. It's not just at the usual dodgy spot but all over. It's not just the Mk2 at the end of the rake which has slightly tight bogies which causes the problem, nor a stretched coupling issue like with the Hachette Jobs. I also discovered that a coupling on my Class 166 has snapped off, so was limited on running that...

There are only 10 kinds of people on the world who understand binary. Those who do and those who don't...

Been out of things for a bit and read your post a while back with some alarm. Glad to see the long dark teatime of the soul seems to have passed and you're back entertaining

Afternoon, all. Finally back from weekend of celebrations. Thanks for best wishes & hope Duncan gets a rest - many happy returns to you too. TLHC has taken TSC off to a bash for two of his classmates, so I'm relaxing with the laptop and some of my late Uncle's record collection which I ripped to the iPod over the weekend. Just had Big Bill Broonzy on, currently Alexis Korner, then there will be some Woody Guthrie. I'm saving a 5-CD collection of Pogues rarities I downloaded on my own account until later, perhaps to make herself and TSC go to bed Anyway, as promised a bit of work done: The base for the yard crane is a fairly simple card box with the usual brick papers over it. Still needs a bit of work, including adding a small ladder that's in the spares box. I've also been adding lamps to the locomotives as you can see on the Pannier Tank here. The Sheps wagon was a little present to myself. It came from the Erith Model Railway society to go in my beer van rake. The significance of this one is that the late Uncle who's music I am enjoying now lived all his life just up the road from Erith and was the first, along with my Dad to teach me to enjoy real ale, good pubs, grown-up pub conversation, jazz and blues. I'm raising a nostalgic glass of St Austell Proper Job to him now...

No work to report. However in honour of my birthday today I have taken tomorrow off to allow some time at Wallington-Super-Mare (the rest of the weekend being a bit busy for railways) and with luck may have a small construction to show tonight, if I pull my finger out!

Have you tried Humbrol Maskol? I used it on this truck cab, first with mask on: And then with it off: I find it works really well as it's easier to paint inside the raised lines than to do so on them. Wish I'd known about it in my childhood aeroplane building days!

Thanks for those. Having been on the TranzAlpine when in NZ visiting The Long Haired Controller's family a couple of years back I was fascinated by Arthur's Pass station. With the remains of some king of yard, a turntable, the bridge and river etc. it looked like a good plan for a layout. I would be tempted to do it with all the old infrastructure still in place but the new buildings and running modern trains, just to make it look more interesting track-wise!