Booking Hall

Thanks Mikkel, let's hope the final version looks as good!

Brierley Canal Road at its first exhibition. Operationally, it went OK and the Caley Pug was a star performer. The railbus not so good, needing a helping finger on several of its short journeys. Luckily, a lot of visitors wanted to talk about the layout and its construction, but even so, operational boredom set in quite quickly. It reinforced to me the need to build some more boxes on the other end of the fiddle yard to give the trains somewhere to go. I have the idea for the first box mapped out (a derelict northlight factory, possibly partly demolished) which should be reasonably quick to knock up. After that, I'm not sure yet . . .

I hope this is OK to post? If you want to see Brierley Canal Road at its first public outing, it will be at Padiham Unitarian Church's 17th annual model railway event tomorrow, Saturday 4th November. Padiham is near Burnley in East Lancashire. All the details are here http://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/events/13945-Event?utm_source=UKMS-Newsletter&utm_campaign=692a2fa277-my_google_analytics_key&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5793ec7d3f-692a2fa277-121095117 If you can make it, I'd love to say 'hello'! (strange how the camera makes the totem look green on my monitor! I hope it looks maroon on yours!)

Railbus finished, at least in its pristine state. I won't have time to weather it before the exhibition on Saturday. There are a few things I'm not entirely happy with (and I'm not going to admit what they are, I'm sure you will be able to spot them for yourselves!!), but overall I'm pleased with the result. Also, some pallets made for the factory loading platform. Last job to do is finish the tender for the Caley 'Pug'.

Yes, PB would have been better, unfortunately, I didn't have any and couldn't wait to get some!

We (Pendle Forest Model Railway Society) have this cameo on one of our exhibition layouts (doesn't fit in a cake box though!☺)

Colours of seat trim and lots more info here http://www.railcar.co.uk/type/park-royal-railbus/description

Seats now made and fitted. Unfortunately, I've made the seat squabs too deep, so there's no legroom! This won't really be visible when the roof goes on.

Having repainted the best of the already assembled railbus bodies, and glazed it, I've set about detailing the interior. So far I've made the drivers cabin and control desk. Next job is to cut out and assemble the seating I've drawn in Autocad.

I've been giving this challenge a lot of thought, perhaps too much, as I've come up with five ideas so far, but then, I'm in good company as I think Stubby is ahead of me on this. Ideas which may yet see the light of day include a partially sectioned railway goods warehouse, and construction of Nottingham Victoria station!. This last idea got club members excited when I mentioned that a steam shovel would be a necessary part of the diorama, and they envisaged giant size fireman's breakfasts cooked on it! But the one I'm going with is distinctly conventional, compared to some of the inventiveness being shown by others. Quite simply, I'm going to make a model of Boscarne Exchange Platform with its two sleeper built halts, two tracks and associated signal(s), fencing and lights. A quick assembly of bits and pieces to hand proved that it is feasible in 4mm scale. And so to work (but not before I've knocked up a 'quickie' for our club's intended display of cakebox challenge ideas at our exhibition in four weeks time!).

I'm not surprised it was well received Chris, it's lovely. Beautifully built and presented, it captures so much atmosphere in a small space. I particularly like the picture of the 25 going under the bridge. Well done!

Attempt no. 3 to get working pickups was also unsuccessful, but no. 4 worked! This time I used 0.45mm brass handrail wire gently curved the full length of the chassis middle section, and bearing gently on top of the wheel treads. Previous attempts has tried to pick up off the back of the wheels, but I could not get the pressure right, so the wheel either skidded along, or the wire lost contact. This way the wire gives a bit of springing load to the compensated rear axle as well - a bonus. On one side I just soldered the wire to the whitemetal chassis, and used some thin copperclad for the other side. Painted black, and eventually weathered with track colour, they should be inconspicuous enough. Unfortunately, the old X04 motor and gears are a bit growly, but they'll have to do for the time being.

I'm currently building and motorising one of these using an EAMES chassis I won on Ebay. For the window frames I used a Sharpie (Silver metallic). I went off the line a couple of times, but I have plenty of spares. Dries in seconds.

I agree Jerry, more understated.

This is really coming along nicely Jerry.

Thanks Steve, glad you like it. Get going with yours, and let us see it develop!

Another job ticked off - chimney pot made and fitted. Bottom section and ring is a piece of plastic tube, body of pot is a straw, flaunching is plasticine.

This is another job I'd like to finish in time for Brierley Canal Road's first exhibition, motorizing a Dapol Park Royal railbus. As these worked on the London Midland Region initially, it's much more suitable for a layout set in the West Midlands, and the fact that this EAMES motorizing unit has built in compensation will be a bonus. As you can see, I've plenty railbuses to choose from, and that doesn't include the two unmade kits! Shades of Vic Berry! The body at bottom right is one I made when I was eight, and it shows! I only keep it for its sentimental value. As bought on Ebay, the chassis unit is missing the pick-up's, and having had a couple of goes re-making them as they were designed (unsuccessfully, I might add) I'm going to fix a couple of small pieces of copperclad board on top of the chassis and solder pick up wires to them, taking leads to the motor from there. Of course, the recent offering from Heljan will have a lot more detail on it, if my model of the AC Cars railbus is anything to go by, but I've always wanted to do this.

The thought had crossed my mind Martyn, I've fitted it with metal wheels already!

It's become clear that I wouldn't have my DJH 02 shunter built in time for the layout's first exhibition in a fortnight or so's time (Padiham Unitarian Church, 4th November), so I had a look at a Hornby 'Smokey Joe' I picked up cheaply earlier in the year. They are certainly built for speed, not exactly an asset on a box file layout! The controller I built did tame it considerably, but running was still jerky and performance over the insulfrog points was hit and miss, so I decided to see if I could improve it. The loss of power over the points seemed to be more to do with loss of connection between a wheel and the rail, rather than the plastic 'frog', so I decided to compensate the rear (non-powered) axle, but try as I might, I could not get the crank pins to come out. they would move so far, but no amount of twisting and turning would persuade them to come out. Fearing that I might cause serious damage if I tried any harder, I gave up, but not before noting that there was already some up and down movement in the axle 'boxes'. I then thought that if I added ballast, this might help to maintain contact, so I filled up all the available spaces in the chassis with pieces of lead, and put a roll of it in the smokebox, above the worm gear. While I was about it, I replaced the large Hornby tension lock couplings with smaller, neater Dapol ones. This all helped, but motion was still jerky, so I decided to make a flywheel to fit onto the back end of the motor, where a small part of the armature shaft sticks out. There is room within the firebox area for a flywheel, so I set to on my lathe. It took three attempts to get one that would fit and slipped tightly onto the shaft, but this did the trick, and now the loco moves along at a smooth crawl, just what I need. Now to finish making a coal tender from an old wagon, and weather the whole ensemble.

That looks great Andy, hope your family outing goes well (have you done the necessary risk assessments?)

Thanks Jerry, I've really enjoyed building it, but it's obvious that operating it for a whole exhibition is going to drive me mad with boredom! I only hope that I have lots of conversations with visitors (until I build boxes 4 to . . .?)

Thanks for asking DanielB, I think they appreciated it, and whilst I don't think I've converted any of them to micro layout modelling, they said kind things about it. When I opened the boxes (with a flourish!) they were kind of surprised (in a good way).

Pickaway Andy! I didn't actually see the Padiham branch being lifted, but I do have somewhere a photo of the demolition contractors JCB on the Colne-Skipton line. The Dapol model would do nicely

Great value Jim, especially as you've included locos and stock in your costs, which I haven't, as they also serve on my other layout.