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Thanks! I do like Phoenix Precision but it's bloomin' expensive to get it delivered and I don't have a local stockist - so good to know that the more widely available Humbrol does the job. Marcus.

This might mean that the replica transfers I have been putting off doing for ages stay in their packet for ever! Are those R3sprays DRS transfers and Precision DRS blue? I went past Crewe yesterday and on seeing those coaches inevitably quite fancy a short rake... Marcus.

Those are some crisp straight lines! Very nice work (as always) Mick. Marcus.

Yup that makes sense! I'm using the ratio 419 concrete fence posts and gates packs for Buckden. How are you painting them? I'm using raw umber and titanium white acrylic over a grey primer but yours look better! Marcus

Thanks Brian! I asked because Brampton is (also?) a village in Cambridgeshire next to Buckden, the village whose station I'm currently modelling. I like the concrete posts in that most recent picture! Marcus.

Hi Brian, This is looking really good! What's the origin of the name please? Marcus.

Uh-oh, should I be expecting to wake up next to a horse's head? Yup you mentioned you like it at Taunton, I like it too! Although it was enormously fiddly and I haven't been able to bring myself to finish the second (smaller) one, which is all I really need to do on the Station building before I paint it. Marcus.

So a little expansion a around the room has given me a neat fiddle yard, which will be a "through" yard once I drawbridge the door, and will have an extra road when I change to streamline points. 46444 and Wiggoforgold may be slightly upset at the yard contents today as I've been playing with modern image. No fear though- Buckden is still being built firmly in steam era and that stock will be back out of the boxes soon. I'm going to ballast and ground cover the fiddle yard so it will be semi-scenic. At the end you can spot a slightly naughty 1st radius curve - but most of my stock seems to get around it ok. On the scenic boards proper I've been putting in the slight embankment. For this I've started with polystyrene sheet, pva-d to the boards with plenty of weight (Railway Modeller is very handy as you can see!) and a few track pins where the glue was a bit wobbly. I've then skimmed the surface with polyfilla. At the rear I've planned out where the boundary fences and other fencing are going, and drilled 1.6 mm holes at 8ft (32 mm) spacing for the Ratio 419 concrete fence posts. I think I'll only wire up two or three of the six holes in these - originally I was going to scratch build the posts (even buying the plastic strip) but life's too short! I'm going to use either elastic which has been suggested if I can track down some thin stuff, or stainless fine guage wire which I can source from work. The loading guage is in too - another Ratio product which goes together very nicely (this is the 411 GWR/LMS joint design). It's the other side of the goods shed from in the prototype, neccersary because the compression I've used in the yard would otherwise put it over a point. A wee accident flattened one of my one of my yard lights, but I decided to make the best of a bad thing and salvaged the lamp head for the goods shed. All the lamps got a coating of phoenix dirty black to take the shine off. Marcus.

Hi Alex, Was really great to meet you at the members day, and a delight to see Diddington, hopefully this means it will be out and about more often so I can stare at it wistfully? I had to shoot off far to early from Taunton because, oddly (given the reason for 46444's absence) I had to get a train to Leeds. Marcus.

From the network rail statement: Someone should perhaps mention that the site is quite convenient from a railway too....

I think they have two locos only when there's something in the flask, so maybe this was an empty move/route training?

One thing to be careful with with the point rodding is the terminal piece at the point. I installed the last piece of the rodding so that it was close to the tie-bar but (I thought) not close enough to fowl the action. However even the slight touch from the rodding was enough to overcome the point motor and stop the frog being energised.

Thanks CK, It's a very heavily kit bashed Ratio 536 Midland Signal Box kit, painted in phoenix precision P93 SR Middle Chrome green and P95 SR Buildings cream. Needs a little bit of weathering to tone it down a bit. The real box was originally at Buckden, but now resides, extended vertically, at the Spa Valley Railway: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/11907-%7B?%7D/ Marcus.

It's a fairly regular combination, it used to be a nice oddity going past my house when we backed on to Bedminster station. Saw it on it's own at Temple Meads the other day too.

Yesterday me and K went on a cycle ride down the Avon to Portishead, which gave the opportunity to visit my not-quite-closest model shop (Model Railways direct). The recent release of the Bachmann Midland 20T break van is perfect for Buckden, so I'd been planning to slowly build up a collection over a few model shop visits. However, the lovely people at Model Railways direct were out of stock, and also let me know that Bachmann have completely sold out of all of them - which is impressive as they only went on sale a few weeks ago.... Not wanting to wait until next year at the earliest for them to restock, an EMERGENCY TRAIN SHOP VISIT was called for, and we cycled back double quick back to Bristol to get to Modelmania before they closed. Fortunately they still had a couple left (And still do actually if anyone local needs one) which resulted in the little line up below: Going away from the camera these are catalogue numbers 38-553 in LMS Bauxite, 38-550 in BR grey (without duckets), a Parkside Dundas PC49 diag. 1657 in Phoenix Precision LMS grey (my first kit built over a year ago) and 38-551 in BR Grey (without duckets). These should grace my goods trains very nicely as I build them up. Given how fast Bachmann sold out of these, it doesn't look like Parkside is at risk of going bust anytime soon, as shortly they be the the only available option in the UK for a while as all the shops run out of stock. Last week also gave me the opportunity (and impetus as we were having our housewarming party) to afix Buckden it's more permanent position: Extensions down both sides of the room will soon give some fiddle space and return Buckden to through running, and once I've built a drawbridge past the door, give me a roundy-roundy so I can watch the trains go by. I'm looking forward to a different type of brake van special in a couple of weeks for the RMWeb driver experience.

I'm actually quite fond of the whole of the Sprinter family, there's something about the smaller lines and stations that they work that usually means I'm off on an adventure when I get on one. Marcus.

There are people standing next to the Webcam - I can hear camera shutters......

The live (video) webcam is here: http://www.dawlishbeach.com/live/ I think the signal diagrams are subscription/one off payment and through here: http://www.railcam.org.uk/ The ever excellent Real Time Trains has the timings for 1Z32 here: http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U53078/2014/04/10/advanced And if you click on Dawlish Warren (it's greyed but is a link) on that page you'll get the timings for the nearest station to the cam. Marcus

From a quick guestimate from RTT and the webcam it looks to take a little under 3 minutes for a train to get from Dawlish Warren to the camera position. That sound about right? Marcus.

The Wills point rodding is good. It is incredibly fiddly, and I had to learn things I never imagined I'd need to know in order to get it close to right - but I suppose that is the nature of the hobby! I can imagine that for some larger layouts it could be very expensive.

Things have been slowly progressing at Buckden, but I've been very bad at finishing anything! So here are a few work in progress shots. I've got the station building just about ready for painting, which I think will be done with acrylics once it gets a blast of car undecoat. I've used plasticard, faced with Wills textured plastic cladding. For the main brickwork I actually used flexible brick arch sheets, as I like that the mortar isn't so deep as their normal sheets. Windows were done in microstrip and the roofing is plain tiles, slates and battern roofing (with extra microstrip added), I'll glaze it all once painted, and I'm aiming to rig it up so all the windows can be individually lit. The chimney's were both a joy and a faff, and need chimney pots, along with some more barge boards, guttering etc which again, I'll add once the painting is done. For the station platform (and yard) I followed wiggoforgold's advice and used fine ash (after finding a friend with a wood burning stove willing to post me ash!) - a second coat of dilute pva was sprayed on after the first application, which helped to harden it all up - I'm very please with the results. Midland style fencing went in tonight too. At the other end, the signal box has had a coat of paint into cream and green (which I'll take a picture of in natural light - otherwise it just looks garish!) and after more rmweb advice (here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82496-buckden-station-mr/ ) I made a start on the point rodding using the new Wills kits - which was REALLY fiddly but I think looks pretty good. One pack really didn't go very far, so I need an extension pack to get to the ground frame at the other end of the loop.

There's a nice writeup of the efforts to date in the Guardian today: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/10/rush-repair-hole-dawlish-train-line-network-rail Fantastic work by all involved! And thanks to Captain Kernow for the fascinating and detailed updates. Marcus.

There one specifically on the wagons here too:

I think that sounds like a good idea - my only issue is sourcing the ash!