C&WR

Crikey, I know these things are supposed to be very good & very rare, but this would be my starting point for buying a car!

And there was I thinking it was something to do with DCC...

Crikey Moses, I scratchbuilt this in a couple of hours: OK it's a bit rough, but it's used bits from a couple of sheets of Scalescenes papers at a couple of pounds each, some Evergreen strip that I had anyway, scrap electrics, some bits of tea packet and an offcut from a laminating pouch so total outlay is minimal!

This little beauty for £25, including postage: And to think I was going to put a brand new one on the Christmas list!

Some lovely stuff here. I barely dare put my efforts up for comparison, but I have been seduced by the BR Blue era as that was my childhood and some decidedly anachronistic workings have crept into what is supposed to be a slightly non-specific but probably GWR set up! Still, everyone has to start somewhere: May I just say that the first pic in #13 on this thread caused me to do a double take until I saw the coupling on the locomotive. I normally think that as soon as figures are added a picture immediately screams "model" but this one did not. Everyone here has really given me something to aspire to. I especially like the idea of making a plank which can be incorporated into something bigger - a forthcoming house move means I will not be able to work on the incomplete layout above as it lives at my parents' place!

Please remember, chaps, that I'm relatively new back on the model railway scene so don't know all the full background to pricing and so on. I certainly would't argue against the knowledge on this forum. I am mainly rebuilding my childhood trainset for my little lad & because there are more decent products about & thanks to the internet advice in how to use them turning what was a completely bare (although very much loved) roundy-roundy baseboard into something a bit more pleasing to a grown-up eye. I suspect he wouldn't care if I had just left it! Unfortunately I am both time and relatively cash poor and therefore have been using eBay to fill some gaps. From my childhood I had a stable of GWR King class, and Prairie and Pannier tanks allowing three types of operation. I also had a HST and Western class, so with a degree of willing suspension of disbelief those could go together, but I wanted the 08 to fill the Pannier Tank role. I had my heart set on a BR Blue one but never saw one of those go for under £50, which I feel is outside my budget, so was pleased to find this for what I paid: It's a step up from many that had been available & good enough for me!

I've been keeping an eye out for a Class 08 at a sensible price for some time, 84A, and believe me if Bachmann ones (in BR Blue with wasp stripes) had been going for £30 I would have had one ages ago. They might start there, but the times I've tried to bid on any of the 08s they go up to way beyond what I am prepared to spend, especially as I am a DC wallah. That's why I'm so pleased to have got my Lima one this morning for £25 including postage. One eejit was selling a slightly battered early model Hornby variant with no glazing and a missing buffer. I thought it might be worth a tenner as a project to try detailing /weathering yet it went for a fair bit more. Funny thing was it reappeared at the same starting price a week or so later - I knew because I recognised the damage!

Almost as if he plays railways until his mum/other half goes out then dresses up as a woman to play violent computer games ;-)

Have just picked up a rather lovely looking Lima 08 Shunter for £25, including postage, on a BIN deal. It looks really rather lovely, with some well-applied weathering & buffer-beam detail. Only sad side is that the layout is now full of locomotives & stock for GWR, BR Blue & current eras, whichever I decide to run on the day. I was going to ask for the 08 as a Christmas present, but when an item I want can be had now for that amount rather than three to four times that I'd be mad not to strike while the iron's hot!

I was desperate to get hold of a FGW Class 166 for my Boy - I can run my railway as GWR for my Father's era, BR Blue for mine, and had recently bought a Cross Country Class 220 at £70* brand new from a well known box-shifter on special offer, so wanted a "stopping train" to complete the look. I was not prepared to pay more than £150, even brand new, though, so resigned myself to never getting one. I was then very excited to see the 166s were being re-released, but with no FGW option. I contacted Bachmann to ask if they were going to bring one out & got this response: Looks like what you have has rarity value if you're trying to get rid of it. I settled for a Notwork SE version for £70-ish. The Boy recognises the shape if not the livery & both of us are happy! *At the time the Class 220s were going for in excess of £150 on eBay - I was tempted to buy a load of them & sell them on!

Thanks for all the tips. Here's how it all ended up:

The way the Sultan/Samaritan/other vehicles starting with "S" moved made anyone unlucky enough to be in the back feel seasick!

Also this little chap, another sub-£30 win: Very pleased with this, although I got stuck in a bidding war for the centre carriage which cost more than the set of powered and unpowered ends: The van in that picture is another ebay number, again about £7.

Thanks, Grampus! Must admit I couldn't see the extended turret ring, so I think you're right about them being Scimitars. The only time I got less than 100% in a recognition test was a similar confusion caused by the angle of a photo... I'm afraid the Chieftain off the side of the flat was a year or so before I arrived at the Regiment. I bet it cost a few slabs as well!

All this stock. Only £5 or £7 each for the vans/wagons & £22 for the 47: After failing repeatedly to get a FGW Class 166 as I won't pay £150 for a train, let alone a second hand one was very pleased with this for £70: Sometimes I love ebay!

Thank you, Jonathan. Tempting as it might be to get a BSK or one of the rather lovely Thompson 63' full brakes made by Bachmann I'm running out of layout space & trying to conserve money. I hope these will do to represent POT vehicles. I was reminded elsewhere that one of these vehicles is actually condemned, and also that it is LMS. The latter would please my late Great-Uncle who was a sorter on the LMS mail trains when he came back from service with the RN during the Second War.

Fascinating thread. I was particularly interested in the pictures round Reading & Didcot having been brought up in that area, but can't believe Siphons were still in use in my lifetime, even if I would have been too little to remember them! Please forgive a question from someone at the trainset end of the market but I am seeking advice about a couple of vans/coaches I have been building into a rake to use as a parcels/mail train. What I currently have looks like this & is soon to be joined by a Bachmann Blue/Grey Post Office Sorting wagon: The rake includes two 4-wheel and one bogie 8-wheel blue GUVs (one of the former was in my first train set & inspired me to build this rake when I got the railway out again for my boy) and then two other coaches which you can see at the front and rear of the pic above. One of them is one of these: And one one of these: My query is whether either of these coaches is a brake? Both have "GUARD" on a door so I'm guessing they are. I'm not too concerned about era or being "prototypical" (although I have invested in & applied some Railtec transfers for caution overhead wires for the rake & my old Hornby HST) but I gather from the various threads on here a brake is needed so it would be interesting to know if I already have one!

Latecomer to this thread, but here are some pics from my personal album. Sorry about the poor quality, in some cases from phone camera from moving train & in one from a scan from the Regimental Journal: Warrior on well wagon: Scimitar/Sabre CVR(T) on flats: Chieftain & FV 432 series on flats in BAOR, 1991: When it goes wrong! Edit to add: Just to clarify, the first three pictures are from 2009 & 2010 when I used to commute through Didcot. Someone on another forum said where the vehicles were destined, but it forget exactly. CVR(T) and AFV were sometimes there, but most of what was on the flats was Ladrovers of various variants and the new vehicles for Afghanistan. Afraid I had retired by the time these came into service so I'm not sure what they were, but Bulldog, Mastiff & Jackal ring bells. The Sabre/Scimitar confusion is because while I used to be a Recognition Ninja the little details have slipped my mind. Besides when I joined up at the end of the Cold War we were supposed to know the differences between BMP, BRDM, BTR and variants of the like rahter than friendly forces kit in detail! I'm told the rather fetching red Warrior is a safety vehicle from the British Army Training Unit Suffield in Canada. Again in my day this job was done by Ferret Scout Cars (known as "Red Tops" because their turret was painted thus) and Gazelle helicopters with a red panel. The Chieftain pictures were taken at the railhead closest to Paderborn or to the Bergen/Hohne ranges & Soltau/Luneberg Training Area. I would have tried to get more, but was being kept hard at work. Oh to have had digital in those days to get lots of pics!

A separate pack of the newspapers from the station structures kit. I hesitate to buy the whole kit just to get the newspapers as I don't need or want the rest of it currently, but need to dress up the news stands I do have. I could always copy over & over again the papers in the furniture & lineside junk set, but that also seems a horrible waste...

Aha, seen. Looking very good if I may say. Scalescenes was one of the reasons I got back into the hobby when I found how much fun building these was & how reasonably priced. It's also given me many ideas about how to scratchbuild stuff!

That's very nice. Forgive me if I'm being dim, but which station will go in there?

Glad to see someone who models so beautifully has had the same problems as I did getting the brick piles straight on the free model hut/store In seriousness, though, the kind of blend of urban & rural you have achieved is what I am aiming for. I think I'm becoming a bit handy at the kits (albeit in OO) and have been scratchbuilding using a combination of John Ahern's methods & Scalescenes techniques, but it will take a very long time until I can get close to your scenery which I have been enjoying on the other thread. Thanks for sharing. You've given me some great ideas of how to fill some gaps on my layout!

I'm a recent returnee to modelling thanks to my six-year-old's suspicion that there was a railway hidden about my parents' house & his delight when I revealed it. I'd started this renaissance with a few Scalescenes, Railway Scenics & Wordsworth card kits but had got to the stage of thinking of how to build models of real things near me. Thanks to this thread I bought a copy of Ahern's Buldings for £4.07 from eBay. As a young-(ish) fogey I love his prose as well as the instructions & look forward to some fun, although I'm going to run out of layout space! One noticeable thing is when I started on my scratchbuilt model of my local pub for things like chimneystacks I used the John Whiffen approach of building up solidity by layering thick card & wrapping it in brick paper. John Ahern's approach is, of course, to use wood for these parts. One thing I think JA's book might do for me is make me less lazy. When I built houses & so on for Wargaming figures in my teens (about when I put the railway away 25-odd years ago for lack of time) I used to scratchbuild absolutely everything including mixing up some kind of polyfilla concoction to do rendered walls, cutting & painting individual roof tiles or etching my own window frames into plasticard!

I have spent waaaay too much time here after London Irish matches & events! In honesty having built a fair number of John's kits now I would attempt a scratchbuild of anything like that. I'm just putting the finishing touches to a trial build of my favourite country pub (The Bell Inn at Aldworth, Berks): I got to this stage in about eight hours using Scalescenes techniques & brick/tile papers, a few pictures from a phone camera, some basic pacing out & my memory: OK it's a bit rough & ready, but it is my first bash & as yet incomplete!

First post here having just joined & I stumbled over this thread while looking for something else. Just thought I'd say I love this model having commuted to Banbury every day for about six months in 2011/12. Brings back some memories...