richard w

Now that's a great idea! It wouldn't be complete without a shopping trolley or two. I'll look into seeing how one could be made. Cheers

Hi Terry The tunnel is scratch built. Took me about a day to get it made, it also has brick sides and a roof once inside the tunnel.

Hi Ray The tunnel is certainly wider than a traditional tunnel. I've just measured it and Its 22ft wide. The widest tunnel I found when doing a bit of research was Nertherton Tunnel which is 27ft wide. Rather than put a canal boat on it when finished I'd like to use a cabin cruiser instead perhaps with some very drunk passengers aboard!!

After much thought on Friday I decided to go for a canal instead of a river. I've been busy working on it over the weekend. This is still very much a work in progress, but i'm very happy with it so far. The tunnel is scratchbuilt and is roughly based on Dudley Tunnel

I'm still playing with ideas at the moment. The river may actually be a canal, bog or outlet pipe coming from a tunnel that goes under the running lines and background scenery. If I do decide to go for a river the background scenery will be changed to justify its existence.

Thanks for all the kind comments guys! It really is appreciated. I uploaded another layout update last night. Most of it is about the leveling of the baseboard and some future plans.

Just spent this afternoon and evening on my back sorting out a warped baseboard! It wasn't very serious, but it had created two small humps in the track. Everything is nice and level now...

Just caught up with this thread and all I can say is WOW! Excellent work once again Terry and a very impressive level of progress. I wish I could work that quickly!!

Fantastic stuff, the warehouse looks great.

Just finished the second 56, really like this one.

Finally finished all the weathering on the first 56. This had all of its weathering redone. I used t-cut to remove all the old weathering and then studied pictures of the real 56049 during the late 80s period. The new effects are done with an airbrush and weathering powders. I'm very happy with it now. It's taken ages, but was worth the effort.

Looks great. Those buffers make a big difference.

Did the transfers and black around the cab last night.

Hi Steve The stand is the Tamiya spray work painting stand set. I got it from modelzone who are no longer with us. I believe the code for it is 74522. Thanks

Just finished the blue on 56047.

Hi Matt I've just run out of Goo Gone. It served me very well for the 4 years and I would happily buy it again.

Hi Terry I've sent you a pm

Work is slowly progressing on the two 56s... 56049 has had its red stripe repainted into the correct shade, I'm still working on the weathering for it. The airbrushing is done, just need to get some paints and powders out to add some other effects. The other 56 which was 56040 is currently being painted in br large logo and will become 56047. As far as I can work out very few 56s of this body style made it into large logo. I could only find about 3 or so. About another week or so and these should be back on the layout.

Fantastic stuff, the wall looks great. What sort of colours do you generally use for this type of work?

Thanks Brent Great to hear that I’ve got the stock right. I must have spent so many hours going through photos and footage from that period. I still do now, only recently I spent many hours trying to work out all the differences in class 56s.

Yes, I've ordered another 3 sections of wall from international models. Those sections will join the wall up to the town scene and have some sort of backscene on top of them. Out of stock at the moment so will have to wait a while.

Here is some of the scenery I've been working on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL0h2GlCh9c

I've used various different methods to create roads on the layout. The road in the new scene is my best effort so far. The method for that is covered in part 1 of the video.

Thanks Terry, that did make me chuckle. Glad you find my videos interesting. With any luck my retaining walls should turn up soon so I can carry on.

Looks great Terry, your scratch building always looks fantastic. The wall looks excellent, gives the layout a real London feel. Reminds me of the lines that head down to the low level platforms at St Pancras. Keep up the good work