C&WR

Thanks, Julian. The only thing I'd suggest about the tape contact is that you will need to ensure there is sufficient pressure between the copper and the power supply. Card buildings would not be heavy enough (in my experience) to rely on gravity. If, however, you meant the tape going down the inside of the shed walls and the contacts on the outside of the loading platform that should work very well indeed. You would need to make sure it was a fairly close fit, though!

Like in the old cartoon of the pithead showers was it easy to work out which one went home for his lunch?

Sorry, Julian, missed this question. The key place it derails is a track joint under the front door of the first coach in the rake hauled by the King Class below: I regret to say that I think there has been a little bit of slippage in the track from lifting the thing up onto the wall, and combined with a slight undulation in the baseboard this is enough to cause the issue mentioned in the solution I linked to. This ties up with the length of the train issue - there were no problems with five carriages but seven just kept coming off! Unfortunately with so much else going on I've barely seen Wallington-Super-Mare since August. The time I did have was spent cursing at the derailments and then just running some trains to cheer me up!

Kind of you to say, Jaz, but as you know I tend to jump from project to project as the mood, funds, and materials allow! As this is a pretty vanilla Scalescenes build (less the lighting) I want to keep it as one post as there is little head scratching or adaptation. WIP is available elsewhere...

I am resolved only to post complete build threads as a general rule. However as my current project isn't going to get to sit on my railway for a while that meant I wouldn't have anything to show for weeks. Therefore here's a quick teaser of what I am up to: I'm really enjoying this kit!

Leeds Castle is next on the list to visit after The Small Controller saw loads of posters for it on a recent series of journeys round SE London...

Suspect it could work if you were going for something more like this:

Depends on your vision for the castle. I would suggest that if it is supposed to be a mediaeval leftover probably not. No self-respecting castle builder would have left a weak spot in the outer defences like that. If, however, it is supposed to be something that has been built onto or messed about with or alternatively a folly from a later period that might be aesthetically pleasing. I think this picture gives quite a good idea. There's also a good railway reason for choosing it! Did you see the November BRM? It was suggested that pizza bases are an excellent supply of sculptable, scribable building material. I'm building a collection of them and trying to persuade The Long Haired Controller that the tomato sauce is part of our five-a-day so she lets us have more pzza

You're very kind, but I'm nowhere near the level of these chaps. I am, however, soaking up every little bit of technique I can so I can improve my work and it is thanks to members here and elsewhere that I have managed what I have. I will take credit for having a bit of imagination about what I build (even if the results don't come out as spangly as I dream up) and am pleased I haven't constrained myself with a particular place! Many thanks. Yes, they are the Hachette Jobs - see here where I ran through the detailing and here where I discuss the costs.

The three in #1558 also once discussed what they did with the contents of the collection plate. Fr Flannery said that it was simple. He drew a chalk circle on the floor, threw the plate in the air and what landed in the circle was God's, what landed outside was his. The Rev Billy Bob was astounded. He did almost exactly the same, but what landed outside was Gods & what landed inside was his. The Rabbi said he didn't bother with the circle. He threw the plate in the air and what God could catch he keeps...

Only teasing, freebs! I also had some printer issues (see how the paving on top of my promenade is in different shades) but for what I want Scalescenes has worked very well. I have seen suggestions on here about enhancing these papers by indenting individual bricks and may give this a bash. I've also had a pop at scribing and painting my own brickwork & will be pursuing this. I finally found a supply of watercolour gouache at a sensible price to help in this. Here's my first attempt from a while back, coloured with a childhood paintbox: I also got into the scratchbuilding side of life (albeit using texture papers) and this is the first thing I built, inspired by the main protagonists on this thread and a John Ahern plan: I also had fun turning this: Into the wall in the background here: Everything forward of the back of the promenade here is scratchbuilt, less the Peco Lineside benches: My Railway Civil Engineer father helped me come up with these: Which dropped rather nicely into here: And here's the latest project: Curses, deliberate mistake honest.

As someone who has stuck with the Scalescenes platform & retaining walls not sure how to take that, freebs

What I meant, lightengine, was that Allan's walls look a lot thicker and more robust, indeed more like a castle than mine! His are 8mm thick if I read the description of his sandwich correctly whereas mine are plain vanilla Scalescenes so on a combination of 1.5mm & 2mm mountboard and in places bits of corrugated cardboard to secure them to the side of the layout box. In terms of day-to-day use on my railway mine work fine, though as they are fixed to the afore mentioned layout box. The layout folds up into the wall, hence having the box round it. Perhaps this picture will help: The wall is firmly glued down at the bottom with Evostick (and later held in place with PVA and ballast); you can then see a strip of corrugated card glued to the back of the wall & in turn to the woodwork at the top of the main part of the wall level with the top of the buttresses, again using Evostick; and then the very top edge of the parapet is similarly glued in place. It's all pretty tough and I eventually dispensed with the supports behind the wall su[pplied with the kit as I couldn't be bothered to cut out all the triangles!

Your nippers are very lucky to have such lovely buildings on their railway! The spirit behind it is just what I am trying to do with mine, something that will be entertaining for all to run trains on, but as detailed as my skills allow. I reiterate Jaz's suggestion about the brown paint. I use that under all my grassed areas.

Thanks, Iain. I wanted a scenic break and a wall like this seemed to hit the spot. It was a relatively simple task to adapt the Scalescenes wall kit to make the towers - the round one by using (rather than Chubber's packeto-cornflako) tuba-da-crispa!

Gosh, possibly a bit more robust than my city walls/castle: Luckily I don't need to worry about marauding Scots!

And what do you call the person who hangs around with musicians? The drummer

Do you think he has some Holy Hand Grenades as well?

No, not at all. After all, you've done the research! It's more that in my slightly fantasy model railway world I wouldn't have felt the need to continue dirtying up. It goes very well with the patina over where the the canopy will sit.

I would refer you to the cover art for an album called The Imagined Village - a very good contemporary update of The Willow Pattern. It's really good music, too! Edit to add: Love the donkeys. My Mother would also very much approve

Ye Gods! I would have been happy enough with just the first coat of Black-Green in #836!

ISTR that was the defence in the case of a bloke done for lighting a cigar in a first-class no-smoking carriage...

I took the door comment to refer to the building in #2207. Still, a lovely model anyway!

Still really enjoying this. It's little things like the skip, the signs and that off-licence (which reminds me of a place I've been) that make this layout stand out, hard to elieve how much you cram into such a small space!