MikeOxon

Unless you really went wild with your cutting, your photos suggest that the holes might still be visible when reduced to the minimum for trains to pass through. It looks a nice location for a factory owner to build a mansion overlooking the view

Hi Job, You might find a book such as this one to be useful: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victorian-Explained-Englands-Living-History/dp/1853069434/ We gave a copy to our son when he bought an old Victorian terraced house. I'm sure there are many others in a similar vein.

I like your method very much. A map like this will give consistency to your modelling and, by considering the social structure of the district, you can provide a credible balance of different buildings. I look forward to watching this community develop

Another nice picture but I think it could be improved! If you had shot a second or so earlier, the nearer passenger would not have had a pillar growing out of his head and could have provided a 'lead-in' to the picture, as well as 'balancing' the composition better. A bit like this (courtesy of Photoshop):

Since Reading has a station that was originally LSWR, as well as the GWR station, it seems very likely that wagons from the Southern railways would arrive at the biscuit factory.

Fascinating - you'll need a large machete to get a clear view, then As you say, a telephoto lens certainly changes ones perception of the view. You deserve many more 'creative' points for spotting the opportunity from here.

Good job its flexitrack or that train would never have got round the curve It must put quite a strain on the flanges, I suspect.

Sometimes, you have to suffer for your art The various responses show how many different things can be extracted from one image. For me, that is part of the fascination of photography. Mike ps I quite like wiggly rails

This is looking really good! You are very lucky that your pests only rampage over the scenery. When my back is turned, they rampage over my work-bench and move all the tools to strange places. I seem to spend all my modelling time hunting for tools that I was using just a moment ago! Try this one on your friends: Start by asking them to think of a number : 1 to 9. Then, ask them to multiply it by 9 and, if the result has two digits, to add these together. Then subtract 5 from the result. Now, ask them to convert the number to a letter using 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, etc. Then, think of a Country beginning with that letter. Take the second letter of the name of the country and think of an animal starting with that letter and, finally, think of a colour related to that animal. You will find that most of them are thinking of Danish grey elephants Mike

I'm inclined to agree with Ian.J - if you could have moved to get more of the washing shed, without the foliage, it might have helped. I'd be inclined to crop differently and then emphasise the lighting, by increasing contrast - this, to me, helps to bring out what the pic is 'about'.

I've modified a few locomotives (though not these classes). My method is to overlay drawings of the different types, to show where the differences lie. Here's an example, where I have overlaid outline drawings of a 'City' (short smokebox) and a 'Bird' over my Dapol model of City of Truro. I aligned the drawings at the driving wheel centres and this is the only way they are scaled. Of course, the 'Bird' would sit much lower, because of the smaller wheels, but this method shows how the boilers compare. The pitches of the boilers above the rails may be different but the heights above the footplates are similar. The Dapol boiler appears to be a little smaller in diameter than a No.4 but not as small as a No.2. Depending on your outlook, you could accept it as a fair compromise to represent either.

Carry on like this and someone will suggest a diesel engine

You will recall that 'Novelty' had a vertical section to the boiler, through which fuel was dropped to the grate below. The fuel bunkers are in the roof, loaded from overhead gantries. A simple gravity-feed automatic stoker dispenses with the need for a 'fireman'. The driver controls output by regulating both air-blast and fuel feed.

Once 'Novelty' had won the Rainhill trials, with its impressive dashes of speed that intoxicated the watching crowd, a network of high-speed railcars soon spread to cover the whole country. The forced draft system of combustion proved very controllable, especially when the original bellows system was replaced by powerful fans, initially steam-powered and then by electricity, in accordance with the far-sighted outlook of the inventors. The high efficiency of this system allowed rapid steam-raising from a relatively small horizontal boiler, mounted under the floor of the passenger coach. In addition, the fans could also be used to re-condense the exhaust steam, so further increasing efficiency and allowing long range,high-speed transport, without the need to carry a huge quantity (and weight) of water. The illustration below shows a typical rail-car, with a grille covering the fans at the front and condenser panels along the sides of the vehicle, below the coach floor. Two slanting exhaust stacks,placed either side of the vehicle remove waste products of combustion and any residual steam from the condensers. The horizontal engine, with cylinders to the sides of the boiler, drive the power bogies through Cardan shafts. Novelty Class Rail-car

I think your videos are great fun and give a much more realistic perspective of the railway than the usual 'birds-eye' view. I have played with some miniature video cameras, built into car key-fobs and, as well as being fun, they also have useful purposes - such as finding things that have fallen off in inaccessible stretches of track! There's more about these mini-cameras in my blog at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12761-search-and-rescue/ The smaller cameras sit nearer track level and give an even more realistic perspective. Mike

Amazing comparison. Very hard to believe the model is 2mm. They need to straighten that handrail (or is it a pipe) a bit in the left hand pic Mike

I suspect that there are actually only two types since, if it has just finished raining, then it is also about to rain Mike

Many thanks for finding this! I've corrected my earlier post, which said it can't be done - I no longer need my work-arounds Mike ps It was there in the earlier version of the software, too - I just never found it.

Thank you Mikkel: yes, the NG line is behind and above the station sidings, with a chute to transfer stone to standard gauge wagons. There is also a derrick for timber. I've still got some work to do on the timber yard but I hope to be able to show more before too long. You get a glimpse of the back of an NG loco between the cottages and the barn in the last pic, as well. I made some small circuit boards to attach the fine wires from the lamps to screw connectors. While i was drilling one, it skidded out of my hand and completely vanished! I think there's a thread on here about clumsy modellers. I think I shall try some of the much cheaper LED lamps sold by http://www.layouts4u.net/ I feel sure that they will be fine for less conspicuous areas. For those interested in such matters, I took these photos with a Lumix FZ200 camera, carrying my venerable Vivitar 283 flashgun to provide 'bounced' light from the (white) ceiling. The small-sensor camera has provided good depth of field, while the light is very even across the whole scene. Mike

and what happened to all those smoke generators?

When I started this blog, a year ago, I wrote that my aim was to follow the conversion of my existing layout to an earlier time-frame. In practice, I seem to have spent most of my time designing and constructing new stock, while I have done relatively little to the basic framework of the layout itself. So, for this post, I decided to make a start on some 'backdating' of the layout scenery. Fortunately, static features of the landscape tend to change much more slowly than vehicles: I often notice how old railway photographs show 'antique' locomotives and carriages in front of buildings that are still in place, with little major change. Nevertheless, a lot of details have changed, partly arising from the use of electricity as a major source of power, heating, and lighting. Some time ago, I bought a set of oil lamps from DCC Concepts, so I decided that the time had come to install these along my station platform. These are attractively finished and well-made lamps, which are supplied in sets of three, packaged together with a controller on a small circuit-board. The lamp heads contain filament bulbs, rather than LEDs, since the manufacturer claims that incandescent lamps provide a more authentic 'glow'. I feel that the price is rather high at around £40 for the three lamps, especially since, although the controller is said to be capable of powering up to 6 lamps, additional lamps are not sold separately. (It's worth shopping around, as they can be found for about £30 a set) Each lamp is provided with two optional extension bases. For platform use, these extensions are not required but they would be needed for yard lamps, placed at ground level. The instructions call for a 2.75 mm drill, to make a single mounting hole for holding the cylindrical base of the lamp securely. The nearest size I had was 2.5 mm, so I used this, thinking that I could open out the hole a little, if necessary, for a firm fit. In fact, my lamps were just a little sloppy in the holes I drilled, so I am glad that I used nothing larger! The very fine wires from the bulbs protrude a few centimetres below my baseboard, so I soldered the ends to short length of stranded, insulated wires, connected to screw terminal connectors below the baseboard. There is sufficient slack in the fine wires to allow the lamp posts to be removed from their sockets and laid flat, during layout cleaning operations. In response to a question from Mikkel, I have previously explained that my layout represents North Leigh station on the Witney Branch, which is shown on the following map: 1849 Map of the Witney area reproduced from http://www.fairfordbranch.co.uk/ , with permission from Martin Loader The map shows the line diverging from the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway near Stonesfield and then heading southwards, towards Witney. At that time, there were numerous proposals for branch lines to Witney and this particular route encountered hilly terrain in the North Leigh area. North Leigh itself mainly handled local traffic to Oxford, including agricultural produce from the surrounding Cotswold farms, timber from local estates, and stone from the quarries along the ridge above Holly Court Farm. To assist with the transport of stone, it had been proposed to build a branch to the quarries but the hilly terrain proved too difficult for a standard gauge railway (even more so, broad gauge!). A group of local entrepreneurs then built a narrow gauge (2' 3" gauge) line to serve the quarries, with a loop to collect timber from a local saw-mill. The route prospered such that, soon after the original line was built, it was realised that the trailing junction towards Oxford was inconvenient, when bringing wool supplies from the Cotswolds via the Worcester line. A triangle was therefore added, to meet the Cotswold main line near Wilcote, where Sir John and Lady Wilcote held the Manor. My layout represents the junction just outside North Leigh station, where the line from Witney emerges from one of several short tunnels along this hilly route, with the route towards Worcester diverging through a narrow cutting, while the original Oxford line enters the station, where there is also a passing loop. Two sidings serve the local creamery and a cattle dock, and also provide an interchange to the narrow gauge system, serving the quarries and saw mill. North Leigh station, looking towards Witney I've not yet completed the connections to the platform lamps and realise that I have opened a whole new area for development, since the three platform lights will inevitably lead to yard lighting, building lighting, carriage lighting, etc., etc ..... Of course, Sir John's younger daughter, Blanche, is not at all impressed by oil lamps. Her mind is full of the gas lamps of London, turning night into day. She recalls looking from the windows of the train, after the family's last visit to London, and seeing the blaze of lights following the Great West Road, all the way to the military exercise ground at Hounslow Heath. "Oh, why must we be stuck out here in the country - will we ever see such a spectacle in Wilcote?" Mike

Set me thinking indeed! I think we should each do detailing to the extent that we ourselves find satisfying. I'm still at the 'general impression' stage and get a lot of pleasure from that but, as I learn more, so I want to get more things right. I think some details become 'fashionable' while other things, which necessarily arise from using an electrically-driven model to represent a steam-driven prototype, are quietly ignored! Mike

Having followed this development from the beginning, it's great to see everything brought together! How about some flickering orange lighting on the background to simulate distant battle? Now, just the little matter of seeing everything working Mike

Unfortunately, the guys with the narrow-gauge hand-trolleys obscure the sides. The ends are clearly planked, with wooden frames and a cross-member, level with the tops of the sides. The ends look similar to the 3mm SER kit mentioned previously in this thread

Now I realise - that's the MI6 man