young37215

Surprising that Bachmann appear to have no new blue and grey coaching stock on the immediate horizon. Mind you with an rrp of nearly £70 that is perhaps a blessing in disguise. 37022 approaches Garelochead as it heads for Oban with 1B11, 12.54 ex Glasgow.

Some while ago I added in north and south paths into the WTT to enable the running of additional services such as engineering trains. I am working on extending the paths to enable the operation of additionals to either Oban or Mallaig. With only 2 passing points on the Mallaig extension it is challenging to make this work and I am not sure that I have cracked it yet. 37012 is seen running round at Fort William with the Sealink rake on an additional from Ayr before heading to Mallaig. I want to add a 5th, possibly a 6th coach to the rake to create a more complicated run round at Mallaig where the loop can only handle a maximum of 4 coaches.

Eastfield were never shy at borrowing locos for their own requirements. 37104 was a VO HM beast until 1983, then XO HM until transfer to SF in the late 80's and repainting into grey which meets my definition of big. The fact that it was cut up nearly 30 years ago is what I find scary. I spent a few hours running and generally doing some tidying up of the loft. Amongst the movements 37112 was allocated to the Alcan hoppers transporting bulk alumina to the Fort William smelter and is seen running along the banks of Loch Lomond.

Not a lot going on at present with spring threatening to take hold I am spending more time outside although I did get a little excited recently and won another class 37 on Ebay at what I thought was a good price. 37104 in railfreight grey may surprise some but my thinking is it is perfect for repainting in blue (of course) and renumbering to 37108. I am not going to do anything for now but this gives me options when I get around to making some decisions on the fleet. The class 37 loco group have details of several trips along the WHL for 37104 in 1985 but the loco was still in BR blue at this time with the railfeight livery being applied some time in the late 1980's. For now a few outings on WHL4 is something a little different, if not prototypical for the 1981 WTT I have been running. 37104's first WHL4 working was 8B13, 13.15 Sighthill to Corpach seen arriving at Garelochead.

I'd suggest that the answer is determined by the style of a layout and how it works optimally for the individual. Personally I model real locations with trains following the working timetable which I find essential otherwise I end up with trains facing each other on a single track line! As Chris M says, there is purpose to the trains and an operating session for a single day can last several hours to complete. Mandatory trains require 2/3 rds of my fleet of locos allocating to services leaving several idle or available for conditional or additional services. I also like the fact that the WTT determines which train to move next rather than leaving me to decide.

Bachmann have announced they will produce a new BSO in their Mk1 range with a BSOT included in the variants to be made.

Having converted 5 Hornby BSO's to BSOT's in the last 6 months, fellow RM Webbers will probably understand my quandery. Do I grin and bare it with the lower standard, poorly coloured paint Hornby versions or bite the bullet and upgrade to Bachmann BSO's and another programme of conversion work?

Looks a nice job, I am interested in class 20 speaker options because I am not happy with the current ones in mine. The Road & Rails video sounds pretty good, I would appreciate your feedback on the sound quality after a week or two of running.

1988 video has quite a bit of Glenfinnan around 16 minutes.

Some wonderful scenery in the video below which is filmed in a much higher resolution than was available back in the 1980's. I find video like this fascinating and very helpful in planning how I attempt to model the WHL.

No but I am some way away from undertaking the work and I remain uncertain about the optimal way of fitting wire loops. I agree, my understanding it was a mandatory thing required by the authorities to make coupling and uncoupling easier. I recently acquired a Scottish Region Sectional Appendix for 1977 which I am working through, it will be interesting to see if the snow plough removal requirement is in here. Accurascale provide 2 styles of snow plough, the second one is in 3 parts where it may be possible to fit the outer ploughs and retain the tension lock. I'll have a look at this set up on 37027 because it would free up a set of ploughs which might work on a Bachmann loco. Although 37027 only wore the white stripe for a few months, it was photographed both with and without the centre section of the plough.

37027 and 2B13, 08.45 Fort William to Mallaig, begin the climb up to the mountaineous section summit with 37027 wearing its new snow ploughs. I am not certain about these but given the tension lock coupling, they are the best solution I have seen to date. To be truly authentic most of the WHL4 37's should be snow plough fitted but this is something I have not found a solution to. I have a number of Bachmann snow ploughs and am wondering if I can create a similar fixing to attach these to a loco bufferbeam.

Having created a new version of 37022 for WHL4, the old version need a different guise. Bought professionally weathered some years ago from Grimy Times as 37085, renumbered by them from the original 37049, I renumbered this to 37022 because it had the incorrect cantrail grill arrangement for 37085. A further renumbering to 37037 was straightforward although the round buffers at number 2 end need changing to oval ones. The original model of 37049 has round buffers which need pulling out which I find usually destroys the sheath of the buffer. The Accurascale buffers removed from the new 37022 would have been an obvious replacement but these do not fit the Bachmann loco; fortunately I have a few sets of Hornby class 50 buffers which do a nice job on the Bachmann 37. The new numbers will be weathered and sealed at some stage to finish the loco off. WHL4 now has a version of all of the main steam heat, split box 37's that worked the WHL in the early 1980's. What I really want now is a manufacturer to produce a BR blue liveried centre headcode, RSH built version with the correct cantrail grill arrangement so that I can recreate the handful of ex South Wales steam heat 37's in the 3718x to 3719x range. The old 37022, perhaps I should call this 37022 before works visit Buffers removed Hornby class 50 oval buffers fitted and loco renumbered

I have renumbered 1 of my 2 Accurascale 37027's to 37022. This involved the removal of the old number and name, a change of buffers from oval to round ones and the painting over of the red bufferbeam. Nothing too taxing although the removal of the old nameplate shows up which I hope will be cured by a pass with the airbrush filled with matt varnish. In addition I added the loco crew at both ends and fitted the Accurascale snow plough for use with tension locks which I shall trial for a while to see how they function. Finally I changed the 4 Ohm Accurathrash speaker for an 8 Ohm one courtesy of Accurascale which makes me feel happier that my loco is now compliant with ESU's 4 Ohm minimum for a Loksound chip. Transfers removed Crew fitted Bufferbeam repainted The finished loco Accurascale snow plough

I use PVA extensively with Woodland Scenics products with no ill effects. It works fine for me. Scenic Cement is a WS in house product, effective but expensive.

My version of Word is an antique but I am fairly confident that the functionality can be found in more recent versions. The box shown below is opened by selecting Format and then Font.

The repainted signal box looks good. I agree the character spacing on the sign could be widened, you can usually do this in Word by altering it through the Font tab where you will find a character spacing option. John Upton (RM Web John M Upton) did some custom signs similar to what you seek for me a while back. I was pleased with his work and service and happily recommend you speak to him about your requirements.

I have ordered more supplies of coarse turf which should have arrived by the time we return home from a short break. Before leaving I managed to prepare the smaller lochan in anticipation of trialing epoxy resin as water. Having read that epoxy resin is good at escaping I have attempted to make the lochan a securely sealed environment. As a base layer on the polystyrene landscape is cling film on top of which I laid more plaster cloth and painted it using several coats of Woodland Scenics water undercoat of differing colours. I hope that the colour scheme will create the murky water effect that I seek, by the time we are back home the paint should be dry and ready to receive the epoxy. Cling film and extra plaster cloth added First coat of Woodland Scenics yellow silt applied. After several coats of Yellow Silt, Hunter Green undercoat was added liberally to the base of the lochan.

The Mallaig run round was very informative as well, having seen a number of pictures of the BLS tour I am now regretting that I did not book on it. Interesting to see the dog box on the back of the 2 car unit crossing Glenfinnan, I thought these were intended for Oban trains only.

Ever onwards with the scenic work at Arrochar which occupied most of yesterday. By the end of the day I had laid so much scenic material that I ran out of coarse turf, the upside is I now have scenic material covering two thirds of the area. Only the central section remains largely untouched where I want to make some minor changes to the landscape before adding material. More scenic material was added at the southern end of Arrochar and the lane leading up from the car park was painted. The wing walls to the undepass were fixed in place. Lower level looking north Upper level looking north Arrochar headshunt

The platform was extended in the late 1980's, the signal box is in its correct place for my early 1980's era although the platform is not as wide as it should be. A second imitation signal box used as a waiting room was built when the station building was pulled down, I am not sure when but think it was into the 2000's.

Not much done yesterday with glue drying. I did run a couple of engineering trains by way of a test and everything appeared fine. 27041 and the Eastfield breakdown train head south passing 20085 and empty Grampus heading north.

Another day of progress at Arrochar with a further 1000mm of the upper area landscape tweaked, plaster clothed and painted. Scenic materials were added to the 2000mm of finished landscape which is always the point where the final appearance takes shape. Trees and bushes need adding along with alot of detailing and tidying up but the station area and surrounds at Arrochar have taken a big step forward.

I returned to the outstanding scenic work yesterday making a start on the area around Arrochar. Whilst waiting for plaster cloth to dry I added cable trunking and point rodding and removed 100mm of the 2 sidings which were cut using a razor saw, cleaned up and painted to blend in with their surrounds. I was not happy with the approach that leads to the yard from the station car park and added more Scultpamold until I was satisfied that this looked more prototypical. Approach road before work approach road after work, the lane needs sanding before painting By the end of the day I had added and painted about 1000mm of the landscape above Arrochar. If the paint is all dry then I should be able to dress the area today and add more plaster cloth heading south to the natural break at the end of the station platform.

Some weathering of late, 37027 had Railmatch weathered black airbrushed onto its roof as exhaust. 37178 had its chassis lightly weathered using Railmatch frame dirt and the roof was misted with light coat of Railmatch roof dirt. Thinned weathered black was applied to the radiator grills on both 37111 and 37178 which helps break up the solid blue. I have'nt tried the roof dirt before and really like the addition which softens the new paint look that a model typically comes with. If I can summon up the confidence I shall do the same to several other locos including 37027 which still look too 'out of the box' for my liking. The contrast of 37178 against 37111 is subtle but very noticeable.