C&WR

Just heard we now have £870,000. This is physical cash counted and the Barclaycard terminal receipts...

We're through the £750,000 barrier, with more cash to be counted and other sources not in used

Not only do we have a station, we have almost exactly the correct spot. I did laugh when a smug & very poorly informed jorunalist (in Metro) talked about the new Paddington layout and said words to the effect of, "which deluded marketing committee came up with the name 'The Lawn' for the enclosed concrete shopping mall inside the station?" Anyway, as at the close of counting today we had made £604,891. There was also a rather touching story from King's Cross:

We have an early winner! Must admit I'd never made the connection with fire buckets, but full of cash they are blooming heavy which is why my left shoulder and bicep and right carpal tunnel are aching like blazes this morning from shifting it from hand to hand and lifting it to allow donors to put the cash in. When they stopped counting the physical cash at 20:00 last night we had made £393,040 across London. The target is a million, so hoping there are lots more buckets and corporate donations out there...

Completely OT, but I thought how about a game of "Guess That Station". Here I am at the end of 12 1/4 hours selling just shy of 500 poppies (counted by the empty pin holders in my pocket) & goodness knows however much of the other things, filling three of the buckets, & in need of a sit down & a beer: Wonderful day, thanks to all the serving and retired people who joined us to collect and to all the passers by who were incredibly generous. Now waiting to see what we made - last year was £1m in 12 hours*, so hoping we can be close this year... *We cheated at my station. We are supposed to start at 07:00 & finish at 19:00. However I tend to get in at 06:30 to set up, and commuters have been known to buy poppies as I rip the boxes open. The missing 15 minutes from the 12 1/2 in my 12 1/4 are because I sat down to have a bite at about 14:30.

Absolutely fascinating to see how you do that, Lee. Oh, and who said playing darts was the sign of a mis-spent youth?

Good luck with it! I'm also a bit stalled at the moment, but working on a little project...

Pop in to catch up, and:

Just realised I hadn't commented for a while, Neil. All looking good, the workshop items really add to the scene!

As always great stuff, but the willow hurdles are inspired!

Thanks for all the likes, and thanks to Jaz re the seaside. The latter was just happenstance, but I like how it turned out. What also turned out is that TLHC and TSC were invited, at short notice and all paid for, to go to Dubai. I've been left here on my tod looking after TLHC's glam 24 year old cousin who has also had a change of plan and is with us. She's been well fed, taken to the crypt of St Paul's for a memorial service, and today introduced to the Rugby Club - even though TSC wasn't around I thought it right I coached and refereed anyway. Anyway, I am a long way away from Wallington. However inspired by the Black Cat HST lighting I thought I'd have a bash at doing ,my 117. Sadly the lighting is out of stock at the moment, but I had a go at sticking the Craftsman detailing set on the front: Rotten picture, even though I had to repair to the kitchen to get some light! I am so sadly & childishly excited about getting this running...

Perhaps it's been raining

Truly impressive, Allan! On the slide rule front my Father still has his from his A levels and then as a Civil Engineer on BR Western Region. I swear he was almost as quick working out my prep with me at School as I was with the calculator!

Good stuff, Al. Really nice weathering

That's where i have been going wrong, I think. The surfaces I've been using the powder on were either gloss or in gloss varnish ready to take decals - I was going to put the protective coat over the lot! Interesting idea, Jaz. I use the hairspray for weathering as it will dissolve and flake away a top coat of acrylic when I apply water. Not sure it would be robust enough to be handled even when dry, although a top coat would help.

And to follow up from Al, how to get them on the blasted models? I bought the Tamiya set with rust in, and I'm dashed if I can make the powder stick!

Still love this layout. Slightly off topic, but nice to see Thomas Ivor still "on the circuit". He was such a charming young man on Drew's trip round the GWS

Thanks very much, John. I'd love longer platforms so I could run 2+7 High Speed Trains, but this isn't practical with the current baseboard so I will have to stick with what I have. As you can see from the video the full-length trains look silly when viewed from many positions on the layout, real tail chasers! I can just about fit 2+5 into the station so will run them as TF, TRFB TS, TS, TGS or TF, TF, TRFB, TS, TGS as a compromise. I must admit the incredibly shallow depth of field on the video function of my camera meant that a lot of the video was out of focus. I had to go back and look - you are right that the interiors are pretty evident! I'm not sure I want to go down the line of coach lighting, but they do come to bits easily (as I found when I dropped one of the eBay specials, so painting the seas and adding people could be a pleasant diversion later in the year! Thanks, Al. I think the blue light is a combination of both the way I had to edit the photo to make things visible and the LEDs I was given. Bit too late to change it all now! The ground levers come from Model Signal Engineering and were a bargain. The only downside was they were a little difficult to cut from the fret with the tools I had available and they don't seem to give enough clearance when mounted on set track points. I am really pleased with the HST. As I said it's way too big for the layout but I had fun running something close to how I remember them in my childhood!

Finally home after the weekend away. Parents very well & please to see us, Jaz! As I mentioned I got the buildings all wired up. Hallelujah, it worked so thanks to the CDT master at school and Richard Johnson for their help with resistors. Only one relatively useful shot to share: The MSE ground frame levers went in rather nicely. I couldn't put them on the sleepers as should happen as there wasn't enough clearance, but stuck to the ballast next to the points works for me. My mother found the MGB as it's just like my father's: I also added some population to the beach. The Professor will be pleased he has an audience at last: And the little family are having fun on the bit of beach near the halt: Hope the trains don't drown out the show: Speaking of trains there were a few more than before: And finally something I've wanted to be able to do for a while:

For the first time in ages I am back at Wallington, having taken a day off. I am childishly pleased with having wired up my lit buildings into a bus so I can power them from the auxiliary output on my Duette (so no scrabbling around under the baseboard with pegs and watch batteries any more); my ground-mounted point levers look just the ticket; and running a full HST set has worked, the power car from Julian the most efficient. Only down side is that the station lights are a bit dim, so I may need to go down a resistor, and my camera is with TLHC to be delivered later...

Sorry, OT. This was TSC's set, on my railway at an early stage of its rebuild: I wanted the brake van (and was pleased with the other bits) to make some little amendments: A year on, and having got hold of better camera, it went in to make up this: Oh, ad that is a Nativity scene on the Crocodile, which nearly was eBay madness (phew, back OT-ish) when searching for one: Ooops, I'm one of those dreadful people who model to have fun

In order to get a brake van at very short notice (long gstory) I had to buy a pack with the van, a vent van, and open wagon amd one of these little locomotives. I handed the lot over to The Small Contoller as part of his main Christmas present in 2012 and he loved the loco the most. Along with a class 220 his absolute favourite is "Number 104" and he says he loves it, occasionally drawing pictures! I think the significance is that it is his own first locomotive even though I now say I share all mine with him...

Fair one, but do you remember Saddam's collection of gold-plated firearms at the end of Gulf War 2?

I mainly get lynched when I get home if The Long Haired Controller sees my bags before I have transferred the contents to the stock pile, and especialy if I haven't removed the price tags and/or replaced them with raffle tickets...

Isn't this the plot of Synecdoche, New York?