ParkeNd

For Tony - this is part of the layout prior to any addition.

I have to admit that the planning is done for the new extension but it has been ar too cold in the garage to do the woodwork for the boards. So will do the woodwork when it warms up - and then start the layout work in Autumn. At the moment I am using the skills I learned whilst building the railway layout to refurbish and upgrade a Fender Stratocaster guitar - in the warm on the dining room table.

There were many photos Tony but they were wiped out by Photobucket's new owners who demanded payment for the photos to continue to show. If I can work out how to do it I will post a couple of photos later today. The layout appears in Railway Modeller October 2015, and the Peco Publication 'N Gauge Railway Modelling". Thanks for the kind comments.

The time it takes is most of the fun I find. It’s about the journey for me rather than the arriving. On the original layout I laid the track and then broke the scenic area into sections - built each section virtually to finality before going onto the next - then went back over it and super detailed it. The scratch built buildings can take up to six weeks each.

I’m going to run the track in two gentle curves up the diagonal of the main board to limit the amount of the Works I need to build to the ends of the Works buildings so as to reduce the challenge. Photos of the Works are pretty much limited to this anyway - no point in unnecessary guesswork. The sidings into the Works won’t be replicated either to minimise points - and these vanished a long time ago in Whitecroft history. Again I shall time warp it and pick features that definitely existed but not necessarily at the same time - it worked for Parkend. Mind you the mod to the current layout will enable me to add two more pieces of track to the wood yard side of my token representation of Marsh Sidings. The current layout took 3 winters so the greatest challenge at 70 years old will be living that long.

Timber quantities for baseboards and legs now worked out to match the existing layout so a visit to B&Q is now required. Choice of MDF again or same thickness marine ply for the tops will depend on price when I get there. Transporting the stock 8x4 sheet will be impossible so their cutting service will be required - the larger of the two pieces is 72” by 22”, Track will run on 1/16 cork despite detractors who don’t use it themselves. Track level will need to climb just a little to mimic the way the ground falls away on the “Coleford side” of the track - will use layered and shaped balsa sheet again.

As mentioned on my “old” thread now shorn of photos by Photobucket the layout published in Railway Modeller will keep me entertained on rainy days. After my wife’s sad death at end October 2017 I am going to extend the layout by adding two more baseboards to create an extension to Whitecroft. I shall break into the twin track via an 8” wide board passing under the window and then run down the opposite side of the room on a 21” wide board. This will, via 4 tracks (of which 2 will be hidden, creat a two track end to end layout of about 26 feet. I have rail and tools remaining from the current layout. It will reflect Whitecroft in its heyday with two platforms, runaround to goods shed, the signal box before the change to a ground frame, gates and station buildings including the shelter. Every building will be scratch built. Photos will be posted as I go. First step is obviously base boards followed by removal of track and scenery on a small 18” x 18” section of the existing layout at the top LH corner of it.

I’m starting a new thread to be called “Extension to Whitecroft”. 2017 has been a difficult year, my wife having died from Vascular Dementia at the end of October. The 10 months from first symptoms up to her last four months in hospital were hell. Now it’s time to remake my own life so when I’m not fishing I will be extending the ParkeNd layout into a U shape around the room passing through Whitecroft in its original form. Since Photobucket wrecked this thread I shall start a new one.

All my photos are on iMac and backed up on a separate backup hard drive. Photobucket has effectively discredited itself so I have just deleted my account - having the account continue would have been worthless. I shall continue on this website though and all recent postings are on the Official Dean Forest Railway Facebook page.

Thanks to Photobucket this thread is now destroyed. Thanks for all your support and interest folks but there will be no more posts. Over and out.

All my photos on this website have disappeared. I didn't use Photobucket for backup so Photobucket now valueless to me. App already deleted on iPad and will look at how I can close my account and delete all photos from it first via my main computer.

Posts will be either non-existent or few and far between for quite a while. Wife has been diagnosed with something starting with an A, has a Z in the middle and ends with R. That's the one! So my ability to leave the house for longer than 30 mins is wiped out at the moment until I can get some help on board. Not much fun at all. Chris.

I believe that the object of these atrocities is to create the most unimaginable shock and disgust. This one sure takes the biscuit. The perpetrator must have been in a state of mind that I could never hope to understand. Whatever can be done to stop lone wolves who have been made not to care about their own escape beats me.

And here they are behind a 64xx in the Forest and at Parkend Station. Ain't they grand. Well done Dan.

Last Wednesday 19th April 2017 on DFR when two trains were running - steam and DMU. Limited to using the Fuji X100T APS-C compact only at the moment having been stupid enough to break a finger on my right hand.

Gone With the Wind. We have it on video but who could commit to sitting and watching it for so long?

N gauge seems to generate strange reactions which, from my observation of multi-gauge websites, distill into :- 1. Looks great, I thought it was OO. 2. What's the point of fitting more into a domestic space if you can't see it. 3. Not interested, it's not my gauge. I walk straight past N gauge layouts at exhibitions. I love N gauge because 7ft 6ins x 2ft 6ins gives you a lot of trains in a domestic house. But I have become accustomed (although it took a long time) to recognising it as a minority interest (<20% ?) compared with an 8x 3ft layout running OO trains which are 4ft long themselves. To my mind it arises from looking at OO locos in model shops then getting home and having to tough out "how the heck do I run this"? But probably only an N gauge practitioner would agree with me.

The huge couplings don't seem to notice much on wagons which even in the real world have prominent appendages. But they are killers on locos especially in photos. There is a corner of a window ledge in my train room with a small pile of front couplings I have pulled off N gauge locos. Then in photos even OO fans don't recognise they aren't "proper" model trains. One OO fan on a forum when reviewing Oct 2015 mag which featured my layout actually said he really enjoyed the Parkend layout article - but had to stop reading it halfway through when he suddenly found out it was N gauge.

The newly restored Rennes (WD152 or Mountain Ash No8 as was) at about 20mph on the Dean Forest Railway last weekend.

The newly restored Rennes on test on DFR last weekend.

Corrected. And there will be more photos- after the Easter onslaught though.

Newly restored and shopped out, undergoing test on the DFR Saturday 8th April prior to an official naming ceremony in May. Did service in the forest during WW2 and sporting Longmoor Military Railway livery. It is beautiful to behold. Fabulous job by all concerned.

Anything like these but in OO Gauge ?

I love them as they are with the nos at £11. How do I order 4 please.

DFR continuing early this year although slightly in fits and starts (no steam this weekend - just DMU). These are a few shots I took last weekend commencing with a new friend Aron Stenning taken at Whitecroft.