thegreenhowards

I do like a baby Deltic! As for those DMU things, I hated them when I was growing up and I still hate them. Real trains have locos on the front!

Nice to see the Gresley and Thompson SKs in the Leeds rake. Is that exactly as per WTT, or a bit of artistic licence? Andy

The tree does look unusual Gilbert. Both halves look like sycamore or possibly Norway Maple but for it to have a gap in the middle like that it must have suffered some kind of trauma. I’d say it was possible, but if it’s possible that there is second tree behind, I’d say that was more likely explanation.

Thanks, it is the highlight of the layout and really sets trains off as they cross the bridge. Big credit for the river must go to club member, Rob (@woko). There were some lessons learnt along the way including nearly setting it on fire when the resin was poured as we tried to get bubbles out with a hair dryer! Here’s one I took of the river at the Astolat show. Andy

Nice photos Andy. I didn't find time to take any this time.

I agree, particularly with outside cylinders. Also brake gear touching wheels on a live chassis.

Intermittent short circuits is another common problem in my experience .

Thanks Tony, As for my branding, it was based on a photo in, I think, the Carter Kitchen car article in Backtrack. The photo is dated 1957 and I took it to be unlined maroon. But I now think it’s more likely to have been in teak. Andy

Tony, As John says it’s all planned into the process. I did several cut and shuts so had lots of odd bits of Kirk sides lying around. It did take a lot of filler though to smooth out all the joints! And then a fair bit of plastic strip to remake the beading. Andy

That’s certainly plausible although I haven’t found any evidence in the CWNs.

That’s a remarkably uniform livery by your normal standards!

When I wanted one of those kitchen cars, I decided that there were no kits and built mine from cut ‘n’ shutting Kirk sides. There were more details on my workbench thread but the photos seem to have been lost. So here is one photo showing the bits of Kirk side cut up to give an idea of how it was done.

Hi Rob, Were the FTW-MLG tanks TTV or TTG (vacuum braked with through air pipe/AFI brake)? If they were vac only, how did they work with the FTW- Mossend freights which, I understand, were air braked? Andy

10 is my understanding. I use mine on the Norseman. I think this was on instruction from Andrew Neale (Headstock) who spun some story about the Norwegian pole vault team and the 1948 Olympics. But I now rather suspect he was winding me up! Does anyone actually know what these coaches worked as they don’t seem to appear in the diagrams or in photos. Andy

Fair point Tony, I think I did put some of the later Hornby bogies on some of my earlier Pullmans. I’m in Spain this week but will check when I’m home. If so that would be a quicker fix for this one. Andy

Great video Andy, good to see a split box 37 make an appearance at the end.

I’d echo Keith’s comments about the Precision Labels Pullman labels. I’ve used them for some simple renaming and to shift Hornby Pullmans into a 1950s look. They also are useful for cut n shuts. Many of the Pullmans had different window arrangements and I wanted a Car 107, which was a ECML regular in the 1950s. So I chopped up an older Hornby car, and put it back together in the correct window arrangement resulting in this mess. I turned this into a respectable looking coach in 10 minutes with the labels. …and here is the final coach. More details are on my workbench thread. Andy

I’m using the fishplate approach on my O gauge garden railway which gets packed away in the garage when not in use. I thought that if it’s good enough for Grantham then it’s good enough for me! And the extra robustness of the O gauge track base helps.

It’s interesting that those trains seem to have the tankers behind the engine with a barrier wagon. Whereas the 37 era photos seem to have the tankers on the back with no barrier. Does anyone know when this practice changed?

The thumper arrived today.

I went with ‘Redgate Models’ suggestion of the right hand version which suited me as it was much cheaper and I had no other use for it! I’ve given each platform two layers and I think it looks OK. I may tone it down a little with a dirt wash when the weather’s warm enough to fire up my airbrush. Here you can see the result with my new toy from Heljan setting the scene off. The kink on the left is for the waiting shelter which I haven’t yet built. As for the 27, I think she looks lovely. Heljan have omitted the sandboxes, but they are promised as a separate delivery once the factory reopens from Chinese New Year. Other than that, I think it’s a very good model. Does anyone know what the light coloured panel on the roof represents. Looking at prototype photos, it’s sometime evident but not nearly so bright. I imagine it only lasted a couple of days looking like this. Andy

A bit more progress over the last few days. I’ve now got the next board mostly laid using the same method. I’m leaving the last foot to check the alignment leading onto the third board. I’ve also started having a go at the platforms. I’m trying to recreate the brown/red stone clippings look as shown in this photo. On my version, the one on the right uses fine sand found for £1 at a Bluebell toy Fabre. The one on the left is loose laid with legacy ballast (4mm). I’d be grateful on views as to which is better and any other ideas. Regards Andy

The video looks pretty good to me and I wouldn’t have noticed any issues if you hadn’t pointed them out. I think you could achieve a lot my adding foliage on top of your base as Rob says. Shouldn’t there be heather and gorse over much of the grass? Andy

Kier, That video is awe inspiring! I’m particularly impressed with the sound which really brings it to life. I’m guessing that this is dubbed on as the sound of the coaching stock passing and clickety clack of the rail joints is sadly missing from DCC sound. Is that correct? Also, where did you get the recoding of the BTH type 1s from? It sounds like an HST, which is plausible given the Valenta engine. Regards Andy

No real progress in December as the weather was too cold for working outside and my wife didn’t want anything inside before Christmas. But now Christmas is over, I am using the space vacated by the Christmas tree to work on the baseboards one or two at a time. Yesterday, I laid the track on one of the station boards. I’ve decided to glue the track down rather than pin it hoping for quieter running and because the Hornby track pins which I normally use seem to rust outdoors. I’d airbrushed over the track with ‘sleeper grime’ before the cold snap, so it was ready to lay although I had a bit of a jigsaw puzzle working out which bit went where! Here it is laid and loosely held down with pins before glue. I then applied a thin layer of water resistant PVA all over and put the track back down checking again for clearances with two coaches. I drilled the holes for the dropper wires and put them through before any ballasting, then removed the pins and applied ballast. After an initial application with a commercial ballast spreader, I filled in to the edge of the platform and between the tracks and then evened it off where necessary. As it seemed loose on top in places I then applied some dilute PVA on top and let it dry overnight. It all seems to have stuck and looks quite even. The track is securely held. I used woodland scenics brown ballast to give it a West Highland feel. I dithered for a while between coarse and medium, but decided on coarse in the end and I think it looks about the right size compared with photos, but I’d welcome views on this - too late for this board, but I could change for the others. Andy