Norwenglish

Over here the traditional sweet is hard boiled liquorice covered in salt, with the tougher vikings eating ones with some form of ammonium based powder or pepper in the middle. Definitely an aquired taste designed to repel potential invaders! Stuart

Thanks Johan, Happy New Year to you too! I think the progress is fast because there's two of us, so we can give each other a kick in the backside to get stuff done and we also seem to be each taking on the task of a specific area of the layout, for example the engine shed and station area has turned into my 'baby' and Dad is doing most of the work on and around the farm area. Also I think the excitement of finally building our first layout helps give us an extra boost of energy and enthusiasm. Stuart

Last time I looked the other kits were there, just there was no pictures for them, and I'm sorely tempted to order some once funds permit. Also funny you should mention the cambrian kits with the one-piece underframe as I recieved 2 LSWR 8-planks from Dad for christmas and these were the first time I've not had to go through the trouble of gluing solebars to the underside of floors and making sure they're parallel. They are also built and nearly finished alongside 2 of the 20T Mineral Wagons, so once I have remembered to charge the camera I'll be posting some pictures. Stuart

We have obtained these two recently, although I havn't had a chance to look through them properly yet, so have no idea how much use they could potentially be. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Southern-Infrastructure-1922-Signalling-Trackwork/dp/1909328111 and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Southern-Infrastructure-1922-Photographs-Collection/dp/1909328243 Stuart

Just thought I would pop by to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to anyone following this thread. There also may be an update soon, as I've managed to already get a christmas present built and ready to be painted over the weekend. Stuart

Quite interesting following this thread, especially as me and my father are currently in the process of building our first layout. Lovely work, and I look forward to more updates! It's a shame to hear about the electronic uncouplers. Do you think there's any way to prevent the interference issue? As we have bought one a while ago to put into our layout, so of course are a little concerned after reading of your experiences and if we can, would like to prevent it going haywire. Thanks, Stuart

Really nice following your progress on the layout Phil, keep up the good work and hopefully some form of teleportation device will be invented so we can send trains from our modified Seaton across the North Sea and into the Junction! I find myself in the complete opposite position, as I've never felt any sort of interest in the Radial models and can't say I'm a huge fan of how the real thing looks. Yet to me, for some unknown reason this model looks quite nice and appealing, even with it being in the wrong colours! Stuart

It's not any of the Norwegian lines, it isn't derailed! Stuart

Thanks, quite proud of it being my first foray into the kit building side of the hobby, and also it's what re-ignited my interest which in turn re-ignited Dad's interest. Sorry to hear about yours! I would also be rather pi**ed if that happened to me, some people these days...seem to already be turning me into a cynical old man at the age of 26! Stuart

Hi Phil, It's the resin body kit from Golden Arrow Productions on a Hornby 8f chassis, I think part of the build of it is in our workbench thread. Stuart

Thought I should probably add that the lights aren't as bright in real life as they are in the picture. Stuart

Time for another small (especially in this case!) upate from me. I mentioned a few posts back about building a small sale tank for a friend, well it has now been finished and been tested and collected, and here it is; An N gauge Peckett E class, the livery is completely fictional as my friend chose his own colour scheme and came up with the name after we went through the GWR wagon transfer sheet from HMRS. Have to say it was quite a challenging build for me, but very enjoyable, and it goes together quite well next to his collection of german N gauge stuff. The only downside we found was when testing over points the wheelbase is too short for picking up power over the plastic parts around the frog, so I'm now going to build a wagon with pick ups to be attached to it. We will also hopefully have a big update on the layout thread soon, Dad has taken lots of pictures of our progress, so it's now just a matter of pinning him to the computer until he has posted them Stuart

Unfortunately I don't think our thread would qualify for a visit from ANTB'ers, as being in Norway we have very little in the way of pies, pasties or decent sausages to discuss! Although I'm sure we could trade a few blondes for some decent food, as we seem to have an abundance of them Stuart

Seems I must now be a member of the 'I built a kit and then they announce it in r-t-r form' club now, and I've only been doing this stuff for a year. Finished building one of these for a friend only a few hours ago! Although it is in N gauge, and will hopefully lead him on the path to enlightenent from Norwegian and German to lovely English locomotives Stuart

Looks wonderful Dave! I'll be happy if mine looks half as good as that when I finally finish it. Stuart

To add to the off topicness, rumor has it that the peices of those boats that they dug up were so distorted and out of shape from all those years underwater that they cut and altered the shapes of some of the peices so that they could be put together into nice looking viking boats instead of wobbly old wrecks. Will your trip be taking you to other areas of Norway? Stuart (who has spent the last 2 years studying Norwegian wooden boat building)

Lovely work as always Dave! Really looking forward to the end result. Stuart

Went through Finse in February and it was a lovely place, although waiting for 30mins for an oncoming train to pass did start to become slightly tedious, one downside of the line being that it's single track until you are nearly into Oslo. The whole Bergen-Oslo line is very picturesque though, unfortunately the time of year I travelled meant that I only had enough daylight to see out the windows for about half of the 7 hour journey. Luckily the return journey ended up being at a time which enabled me to see the half of the line that I missed on the way out, which included stopping again at Finse with a very nice starry and clear sky overhead (wish I had taken a photo!). Stuart

A short and not so exciting update from me today, but while waiting for some electrical components to arrive for the layout the other day I threw together this: It's a Diagram 1386 20T Mineral Wagon from Slimrails. Have to say I'm quite impressed with this kit, went together very well, and is probably one of the best wagon kits I've built in my (limited) railway modelling experience, just wish they produced more Southern wagon kits! Stuart

Time for another update on progress! The electrics are all now installed and wired up and have been thoroughly tested, so we are now moving onto the scenic stage. Here we see the results of LED's that have been wired into the engine shed. Most buildings are having LEDs installed to add some more light, and because we feel it add's a bit extra to the layout. Dad spent the weekend building up the station building end of the layout to platform height, this will continue along the back edge of the layout and gradually raise up until it meets the tunnel mouth at the other end. (Sorry for the blurry picture, unfortunately the room isn't the best lit) Here with the top in place. Quite exciting with such progress as it allows us to picture even better how the final result will look and also gives a nice boost of energy to keep us going! Dad also managed to sneak a picture of me working on my weekend project which was the platform, which you can just make out in the above pictures and has come out quite nicely in my opinion. The plan now is to make the last remaining buildings/structures, currently Dad is building the cattle dock and I am building the main station building. Once these are done we can start doing the scenery on the back edge of the board, and when this is finished we can move it from the middle of the room to it's planned position against one of the walls. This will then mean we have alot more space to work and can restart building rolling stock kits etc inbetween building parts of the layout. Stuart

Just finished building one of the Slimrails SR 20T Mineral Wagons myself with a second sitting in the kit box, don't think I have yet built a nicer kit! Just wish there were even more SR wagons produced by them. Stuart

Thanks Dave and Phil. The layout has been made so it can be broken down into smaller parts, so maybe I could put my wooden boat building education to good use and we could sail it over for a meet up Although me and Dad do keep discussing making a trip to an event over there and put some faces to names. The point motors are now installed and just need us to get out and buy some more wire before they can be connected to the control panel. Also I have now taken some pictures a day later than planned, as we got rather carried away with the testing of the layout last night. Here we have the control panel which just needs the switches for the points and associated wires installed. And here is a view from the side, we have a holster for a Gaugemaster Combi at each end, and Dad has made the whole panel so it can be mounted on the front or back of the layout, incase we ever end up taking it somewhere to show it off. The leads on the controllers are also planned to be around 1,5-2m long, so we can move around with them. Next up is the station board, the 3 furthest away lines are the goods yard, and the line containing the Z Class and longest line of wagons will have a cattle dock, and a vehicle unloading ramp at the end. The 2 lines with the Pullman coaches and the Class 25 are the platform lines which will have the main station building at the end forming a T shape, and the nearest line to the camera is the engine shed and run round loop. Here we have the 2nd scenic board with the rise upto the tunnel mouth which will lead into a 90 degree curve and then the fiddle yard. The small wagon is an approximate position that we are considering putting the signal box in, and the pile of tools etc is where the farm will go. Lastly we have the Engine Shed that I completed recently. Which as mentioned in my last post is built from a Scalescenes kit with the doors stained with green paint. Stuart

Well the layout has now been started, and can be read about here; http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/102832-a-slice-of-southern-in-norway/ This unfortunately means it will still be a while until we have any kit building updates, as the layout is taking up most of our time and space in the hobby room at the moment so that we can access it from all sides while we work on it, but we have added quite a few exciting kits to our project boxes over the summer, and a friend has asked me to build him a small saddle tank as his first english engine, which will be an exciting and interesting project. Stuart

Well I'm the other half of the team building the layout and thought I should say Hi and thank you and address your comments. @Bibby Line, we did consider having a river as per Seaton, but in the end decided to put a farm in that area instead. Which will be Dad's department due to his farming background and knowledge, and me not having so much memory of the farms from my younger years. @Torn-on-the-platform, the ballasting was mostly Dad's effort (I just spread the ballast on top of his glueing), although some areas aren't finished being ballasted yet as we have to build platforms and retaining walls that will be blended in by ballasting all the way up to them. As for the track plan, I'm hoping to get a picture up tonight which shows out intentions for the different areas of the layout. It has been designed and wired with playability in mind. The Station area and Goods yard each have seperate controllers so that we can both 'play trains' at the same time, although I can see us fighting over who gets to run the goods yard! To expand on what Dad has written, as he said the layout is a fictional southern region branch terminus, but some days it might have a slightly more preserved slant to it as we (mostly me) have a few non southern items of stock, as well as Southern stock that would never have been seen in the same decade...rule 1 will definitely be in force here. Track is Peco Code 100, which is the only track readily available over here, and all the buildings will be built or modified from scalescenes kits with any doors stained green. As for a progress update, I finished wiring the track power and isolating sections (no DCC for us!) last night, which of course required thorough 'testing' , only 2 minor faults were found, which are now fixed. Next project is fitting the point motors in place, although these can't be wired up until some connectors arrive from the UK. Also I'll be taking a few more pictures to post later today once the camera has charged. Stuart

With all this Southern infiltration I would have suggested Bluebell or Mid-Hants! Although the GWR seems to be expanding into foreign territory now. Of the two 00 engines we spotted at our local exhibition today, there was what seemed to be an old Triang GWR 2-6-0 on a secondhand stall minus tender, for the norwegian equivalent of £20. Quite a bargain when a Norwegian outline HO steam locomotive can cost upto £1000! Stuart