Douglas G

Hi Coachman, I am really sorry - I never meant to break your copyright, and I was only trying to be helpful. I have deleted the post. I was getting mixed up between some photos I took at Didcot and your ones which I found ages ago on the web (on RM Web I think) and which I kept for my own reference only for some 2mm models of these coaches I was building. It was so long ago that I forgot the source, so please accept my apologies. The ones I have from Didcot are on film negatives that I realise I have never scanned in as JPEGs. Douglas

Hmm, the flangeway gaps do look very large when seem from above like this. I seem to remember that there was a survey on the N Gauge Forum and that people voted for this size so that older stock could be run. Perhaps not a good idea... Alternative cast frogs with a narrower gap would improve things and reduce the chance of wheel drop as well as making the turnots look a lot better. Another concern I have is how effectively the webbing between the sleepers can be disguised with ballast, without the ballast being too high. I think there is a big gulf between assembling plain track and making turnouts that many people—me included—find difficult to cross. Many N gauge modellers who like soldering and making turnouts moved over to 2mm Finescale a long time ago. I do wonder if there would be a market for RTR turnouts to the standards of FiNetrax. Providing the corssing ready soldered and the chairs already in place does seem to be a step in this direction. Douglas

Hi Ian, Thanks for the report - very interesting. I personally would find it very useful to go to a workshop on building FiNetrax points, similar to the ones that the 2mm Association has run for 2mm finescale in the past. I think it is the points that are most people's stumbling block and the fear of making a mess of them.

Things seem to have gone very quiet here on the FiNetrax front. Has anyone more experiences to share of this product or photos of the track in place and ballasted on a layout? There doesn't seem to be much promotion of FiNetrax. The discussion forum on the British Finescale website seems to have become pretty much dormant in the last year and some queries have remained unanswered. I did not realise until I searched the British Finescale website that large radius C10 turnouts are now available - something that can't be done with Peco track. The only news I have seen recently was on the N Gauge forum, where it was announced that in future turnout bases may come with the chairs already in place, and that for an extra charge pre-filed switch plates already soldered to the chair plates can be provided.

You're doing a great job with the Journal, Graham. Another very interesting and professional issue! Douglas

I think those are some of the best 2mm scale broad leaved trees I have seen. The openness of the branches so you can see through is very realistic and also the leaves are very convincing. Great job!

I haven't posted for a while as I have been working away on the area around the hotel and the clock-tower complex. I have been rebuilding and painting them in the light of the new information I have found on the prototype in the year I am modelling, 1962, as well as my survey of the garden when I visited Dulverton in June. I am nearing the point where I can start on the grass and soil in the hotel around the garden. Here are some pics of the current state - this section will be at the back left of the layout with the backscene curving round the back. The big brown area to the right of the clock tower complex is where the Carnarvon Arms Hotel goes. I have very few photos of the clock tower complex at the time I am building. As noticed earlier in the thread, there was a wall and outbuilding (a laundry for the hotel I believe) that was later demolished to build some garages for the hotel. I then realised that this had actually been done by 1962, from the cropped sections of two photographs below, and an Aerofilms close up photo that I can't post for copyright reasons. The colour photos shows that the bargeboards were actually read while the guttering was black, so this is what I have modelled. Probably next I will start on the lawn at the back of the hotel.

I have been trying stitching together my background panorama photos I took at Dulverton in June with Microsoft ICE. I used the intelligent auto on my camera one day and then did photos on manual setting the second day, as they say that the panoramic images work better with the same exposures for all the individual images. For the manual images I used a range of exposures for a series of panoramas. This is one of the best versions (I have had to reduce the file size and resolution to bring it into RMWeb) I will need to edit out some of the station buildings which appear towards the bottom to represent the fields behind the station - I will use the clone feature in GIMP for this. It is hard to judge where to crop the image at the bottom of the panorama and at the ends - I think some trial and error is required. The backscene will be about 13 feet long, and I think its height will be 40 cm high.

Quite right - Rule 1 (it's my railway) always applies. There is a general tendency to want to have any hill or high ground at the back of a layout or station, including in many published plans, to facilitate the disguising of the backscene. I had a similar issue with designing my model of Dulverton. To get a curve through the station that came to the front at both ends, I had to have the highest ground at the front and the lowest at the back. Whether the join with the background will look OK, I have yet to see.

What if the front of the model was the other side of the station so the main station building was to the rear - couldn't you keep the prototype curves?

I meant to say that in the third photograph I have put in place a print off of one of the pictures I took for the background. The hotel outbuildings will be in the back left of the layout and the backscene will curve round behind them. This photo shows the actual landscape that is behind the buildings when viewed from this angle, but it will need to be quite a bit enlarged in the final version, I think.

Thanks for the comments, guys - I have heard from the two forum members I was expecting and hoping to hear from :-) I found that thumbnail of the Colour Rail slide when I was searching in Google Images, Matt, and was frustrated that it was such a tiny and indistinct image. I wonder why colour Rail have not made all the slides they used to sell available as digital images. In the black and white one of the loco in August 1962 at Chard Junction, the GWR letters are quite visible and clear, suggesting the paint colour might also still be apparent through the dirt. I have noticed that in many photos locos of the 1950s and 1960s that locos I know were green can appear black, especially if a bit grimy. I may just go for a GWR green loco as a base for a weathering job. Thanks, Douglas

Can anyone advise me please on the livery for pannier tank 8783, which came to Taunton in the summer of 1962 after being at Swindon, and then went to Llanelly early in 1963. There has been discussion on the forum recently about those locomotives that retained Great Western Livery right through well into British Railways days, and this loco was one of them. It is shown in "The Last Days of Steam in Bristol and Somerset" by Colin Maggs with "GWR" on the tanks at Chard Junction on 25-08-62, and it is also shown in "Great Western Railway Pannier Tanks" by Robin Jones at Andover in 1962 with GWR clearly visible. But they are both black and white photos. My question is: would the paint be black or green? I understand the GWR letters were used in the period 1942-1947, and black paint was applied to all but some express locomotives from 1942 to 1945, before a return was made to green up to nationalisation. I haven't seen any RTR N gauge panniers with the GWR letters on black paint, just green ones. A Google search suggests a Colour Rail slide of this loco has been sold on ebay, but I can't see anything listed when I search the Colour Rail site. Thanks, Douglas

I have just realised that three of the links don't link above - must be some restriction on the West Somerset planning website. Sorry. Douglas

I haven't posted anything for a while as I have been busy recreating the prototype by doing a bit of demolition and rebuilding. In modelling the outbuildings to the left of the Carnarvon Arms Hotel (known in recent years as the Clock Tower Complex), I was aware that by 1965 the wing across the back, and the wall and small buildings at the front, as seen in my model above, had been demolished to make way for some garages for the hotel. However, I did not know when this had happened, and I assumed that it had not yet been done by the date of 1962 for my model. I have now learned you should always put a date on prints of your photographs. I had one print of a photo I was given by a source in Dulverton showing the back of the hotel with the demolition clearly done in the outbuildings but no date on my print. But browsing the digital versions of my photos I have realised from the file name that this photo was taken 1962. So my model as built was wrong. So once more a step backwards, as I proceeded to demolish part of what I had built and copied the real builders (I must be mad!). I have now built the garages and added the distinctive clock tower on the roof of the main building, as shown here: This has meant some alterations to the level of the road verge in front, meaning surgery to the plasticard and a lot of sanding to smooth out the joins. The ground surface still needs respraying with primer and then the tarmac adding with enamels. I have been trying to get the bargeboards right at the end of the front gables - these were a complicated type with a circular projection and central hole at the bottom end, which are taking several attempts to get right. There are similar bargeboards on the hotel, which an equal pain to make. I am quite chuffed with how the clock tower has come out - bits of Ratio N gauge signal gantry cut and shunted were involved. At the time of the model this clock tower had an open aperture under the pointed roof, but it was closed in later. (More recently, when the buildings where converted to houses, the clock tower was moved over to the left over an access archway and gate - it just shows how buildings can change over time). Below are links of pictures of the real thing when the complex was up for sale (EDITED TO REMOVE NON-WORKING LINKS): http://media.rightmove.co.uk/22k/21695/35512514/21695_DUL100087_IMG_00_0001.JPG I don't have any picture of the front of these buildings in 1962, just in the mid-1950s before demolition (on the Francis Frith website) and ones taken in the last 10 or 15 years. I have assumed that at the time of my model the window at the end of the large building had not yet been added and it was still a door to the upstairs loft. I believe the window came later when the outbuildings were converted as an annex for functions in the hotel. I do know from two distant shots that in the 1960s the barge boards were red, not black, so will reproduce this. One advantage of this model of Dulverton is that I can have a lot of cars parked outside the station and the hotel, including now this part of the outbuildings. Next job is painting, once the bargeboards are done, then add the doors and attach the roof. The clock faces to be attached to the tower are ones I found from a Google search and sized to fit in Word before printing. Onwards and upwards....

It's probably a blessing that Ixion didn't release this loco when they were originally planning, as it would have been like the Manor, with the motor in the tender and a drive shaft to the loco. With the very open style of cab that there was in the Churchward Moguls, the drive shaft would have been very conspicuous. Hopefully the motor won't protrude into the cab in the DJ Models version - this is an issue with the P&D Marsh kit using a Farish large prairie chassis. Douglas

Great work! I find it interesting how you mix plastic sheet and brick and slate papers to great effect in your models. It can be a long job of painting trying to get a realistic effect with plastic brick sheet. Douglas

Wow, wow, wow! I have been waiting for this loco in N for years, and was very disappointed when Ixion pulled out of doing theirs. I had thought this and a retooled GWR large prairie would have been in Farish's line up this year, given they often do medium sized mixed traffic locos and the fact that their OO mogul is very long in the tooth and has an old chassis design. I can't wait for this model as these were the distinctive locos on the Taunton-Barnstaple line and I will want several for Dulverton. Hopefully the later Collett version with revised cab and extended front frames is a long-term possibility? Douglas

Lovely stuff. This layout is going to be a classic once finished! Douglas

It's a shame FiNetrax isn't available for sale in shops or at least at exhibitions. I think ti has to be seen "in the flesh" to appreciate how good it looks and the contrast in appearance with other N gauge track. The high postage cost (a single track length is sent in a great big cardboard box) must be putting people off sending for a sample.

Here are some pictures of the other part of the layout I have been working on recently, the outbuildings behind the Carnarvon Arms Hotel, which will be in the back left of the layout with the backscene curving around just behind them: The walls are Ratio random stone and the roofs Ratio slate, apart from the far left roof which is Kibri Z gauge pantile roof sheet. As it is at the back of the layout, the rear walls are left plain. I only have very limited photos of these buildings, as shown in the link to the Frith site earlier in the thread, plus some photos I took a few years back. Unfortunately the wing going to the right towards the hotel was demolished by the time of later aerial photos in the mid-1960s that would have helped with some of the details, and I have had to guess some of the layout inside the right-hand courtyard area. I have been told that the chimney was for the hotel laundry and assume it came through a sloping roof, although it is not visible behind the front wall in any of the photos I have, that were taken from the road in front at a relatively low angle. The photos above show some of the techniques I have used for my buildings for Dulverton. By scraping with a strong knife and filing smooth, I chamfer the corners of the walls to get a neat join. I also scrape and file the edges of the slate roofs to give a realistic thin profile. The roofs have triangular gussets to strengthen them where necessary, but also rest on internal partitions put in to strengthen the structure of the walls and support the roof. Today I have been working on the clock tower that was on the apex of the roof of the wing runs that runs from the back to the front. This has used sections of the support from a Ratio concrete foot bridge that give a structure just about the right size and shape. I haven't worked out how to do the pointed and curved four sided spire/roof yet. After all the effort of redoing things, I feel encouraged that progress is now being made. Douglas

I have been working away redoing the base for the Carnarvon Arms Hotel using the photos and information I got from my recent visit to Dulverton. This has involved redoing the path down to the garden at a sharper angle so it reaches the lawn further down the garden, increasing the drop of the side embankment down to the garden from the area station, and adding the rough stone retaining wall on the side embankment. This stone wall was not visible in the photographs I took previously and I had wrongly positioned it at the top of the embankment. The change in the angle of the path was particularly important for the bend in the path to be positioned correctly in relation to the path that runs across to the hotel, and to allow me to get the trees in the correct positions. The ground surface has now been sanded and given a spray of Halfords grey primer ready for further painting and addition of scattering. This is how it looks at present: Here are some of the pictures I took of the real thing: I am satisfied that I have now got things pretty close to the real thing and I can carry on with the landscaping around the hotel.

Thanks, Don. I am sitting here at the PC with a dusting of plastic scrapings and filings where I have been working on the hotel garden, getting it right to match my new photos. Also getting a headache from Plastic Weld and Squadron Green putty, despite the window being open... I take your point about doing the grass before the fences. As an alternative, the wire post fences made with brass section could be covered with masking tape while adding the grass, as they are very strong, unlike the etched and plastic fences elsewhere on the layout. I do indeed have the Exe Valley Book, assuming you mean the one published by Kingfisher with a blue cover. I paid a lot for one of these second hand just before a reprint came out with an extra colour photo section - I think it is still available new. There were other diversions, I believe, through Dulverton due to flooding in the late 1950s. If you get a chance, do go and see the Heritage Centre layout - it is very impressive! cheers, Douglas

I have just come back from a very productive couple of days down in Dulverton, taking photos and doing some local research. The Dulverton Heritage Centre has a 4mm model of Dulverton Station produced by local volunteers that is nearing completion and is now open to the public: http://www.dulvertonheritagecentre.org.uk/model-railway-exhibition.html On Thursday Chris Nelder of Dulverton and District Civic Society gave a very interesting illustrated talk about the history of the station at the Heritage Centre and there is also a temporary exhibition of railway artefacts on at present. So this gave me a good reason to pay a visit. The model railway is very impressive and much larger in scale than most layouts at exhibitions. It is run on DCC with a computerised programme of trains running automaticallly. It is well worth a look - opening times are at the link above. I managed to get some pictures of the sunken water tank, which has now been uncovered having being covered with vegetation, detailed photographs of the Carnarvon Arms Hotel garden and a set of images looking over the station site for a printed panoramic background. Some changes to my model in progress of the hotel garden are now required in the light of my new photographs. I can also go ahead and make the sunken water tank - I know its dimensions from a plan but did not know how high it was and what the covering looked like (a curved corrugated roof). That will keep me busy! Douglas

It's looking very good, Ben, especially the test moulding. I can't wait to get the maroon one I have ordered. Douglas