artfull dodger

Time for updates. The diesel has been sent packing, only fire breathing dragons allowed on my railway. So the stable is now as follows, Merlin Major "Hendey", Roundhouse Sammie with full walschaerts valve motion, Accucraft Ruby#5(Christmas gift from my wife), and the soon to arrive Pearse Countess. The Sammie and the Ruby are kind of the odd balls being non UK style. But they run well and one was a gift so they get a pass to stick around. Since the W&L have engines from all over, I can rationalize keeping Hendey as he is very tollerant of uneven and dodgy track. Something my friends Pearse "The Earl" is not! Been trying to fine tune The Earl, valve timing is spot on as Simon over at Anything Narrow Gauge retimed him. But he is weak at self starting, even in a LGB R2 curve. Might have to go thru the cylinders. I did go and replace several parts in the side rods that were badly worn with spares that Simon included. I will compare him with Countess when she arrives later this week. Then decide if I need to tear down the cylinders or seek professional help. Mike Here is a fresh pic of Hendey, hope to get some shots on the garden railway later today if the rain holds off! Here is Super Sammie with his new valve motion, waiting on a second pair of "penguin" brackets from Roundhouse so I can mount the lift link rockshaft, then I can put the gear in reverse. Runs excellent and looks spot on!

Been playing with my friends Pearse "The Earl", changed out a couple of the very worn side rod sections. Still a little weak when trying to self start when stopped, even in a LGB R2 curve. Thinking I may have to go thru the cylinders for him. Valve timing is spot on. I will compare to my Countess when it arrives later this week. Beautiful model, much more sensitive to uneven track work(of which I have plenty at the moment). Trying to decide if I want to keep or sell/trade my Merlin Major. He is named Hendey, lots of extra details, and the previous owner added a steam stop valve, blow down valve and water top up valve. He could care less how rough my track work is! And he was born in Welshpool, thats the main reason I am on the fence. Right now my stable is 4 live steamers. Merlin Major, Roundhouse Sammie w/full walschaerts valve motion, Accucraft Ruby #5(xmas gift from my wife) and the soon to arrive Pearse Countess. I wont hijack his thread, but I will go start one for my railway. Cheers Mike

Haven't built up the mount for my LGB butterfly plow yet. But we get more "dusting" type snow along with brutal cold. So when we get those dustings of snow that looks like a scale snow fall on the railway, out comes the live steam. Cold weather running is magical, the plume just hangs above the train. Of coarse having a live steamer that will run well in the cold helps. My Merlin Major with the gas tank directly above the boiler in the cab does just fine in cold weather. I normally raise steam on the kitchen counter, then carry the engine to the railway and waiting train with oven mitts once ready. Now only if I could tollerate the cold better! Mike

Splendid photos! Thanks for posting! Mike

And those of us in the states thank them for allowing 45mm gauge operation. When it takes most of the budget to afford the beasts, it means track must be found second hand. Finding second hand 32mm track in the states is neary impossible. But 45mm is easy. I do not think I paid more than $4 a foot for all of my LGB 45 mm track that built my railway. New LGB track is nearly $10 a foot these days. But then I am going to base my modeling off the W&L, so the 45mm track is closer to prototype anyways! Even my old Merlin Major looks ok on 45 mm track. My Pearse Countess along with 2 Brandbright bogie coaches should arrive on the line this coming week hopefully. Cheers Mike

The track is chunky, but rock solid dependable. I use the same as its easily available second hand here in the USA. Just bought a Pearse Countess and a couple of Brandbright coaches from an estate. Gong to do a W&L layout with a friend starting this summer. Definatly some excellent ideas from these pics. With the rest of the detail in the scenes, the track just blends in and looks right! Many ways to camoflage the girder rails with LGB/Aristocraft/USA brand sectional track. Mike

I like those shots! I need to stop by the local toy store(they specialize in action figures) and get some proper figures. The Merlin engine is being sent down the road as an engine and 2 coaches from a recently deceased modeler came available. Same engine as in your pics(Pearse Countess). And the W&L is closer to 45mm gauge track wise. In time the ground level line will be reworked to USA style logging, and a new raised 16mm (on 45mm track) will be built along two sides of my wood fence. Single track with return loops at each end so I can run roundy round or I can operate point to point just like the real W&L does. My friend just bought a black Pearse Countess which will get name plate change to "The Earl" and my Countess is green. Next up is to get some of the W&L rolling stock from Accucraft. Gonna merge the W&L into the land of The Shire. Mike

For those of us in the states, 45 mm track is much easier to source. My friend and I hope to do a W&L line, but I need to get my Merlin Major sold ASAP to be able to jump on a deal to buy a Pearse Countess. Its stalled bidding wise on Ebay. Neat to see you here to! Mike

Stunning photographs! gives me lots of ideas for my own railway. Thanks for posting! Mike

Since my earliest days putting a LGB style garden railway in the garden of the neighbor lady that I mowed her yard(mother would not let me near her garden), I always envied the steam powered UK style garden railways. Moss covered tracks, many having the run down, overgrow look that I so wanted to achieve. That was back in my late teens, now I am 44 and have my own place and thankfully a very understanding wife, well understanding after being instructed to be that way by my therapist but more on that later. I am a big fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and have set my light railway in The Shire. Built to haul peat from the Rushock bog back to Hobbiton to supply the farming and gardening activites of the viliage Hobbits. A brewery and a small coal mine is also served and any other traffic the Hobbits need hauled. Trains are run as needed and many times if your looking for train and crew, check the local pub as many times they tie the train down behind the pub to go drink a pint when its really hot outside. The railway owns 4 engines right now. The lines primary engine is a venerable Merlin Major called Hendey. Purchased thru Anything Narrow Gauge and fully gone thru by Mr Whenmouth she sports many upgrades and details added by the previous owner. For days when steam doesn't run, the lines Baguley Drewery diesel from Accucraft handles the duties, fitted with onboard battery power with on/off toggle switch, a battery powered LED strobe light on the roof and named "Lady of Oxford". I tend to flip/flop prototypes and do some USA modeling as well and have 2 live steamers to support this mode of operation. These are a Accucraft Ruby #5 that is custom decaled to pull my Autism Express passenger train, and i just picked up a Roundhouse Sammie in pieces that I will do some modifications as I put him back together, including fitting Roundhouse Walschearts valve gear to replace the slip eccentric. Both of these engines are manual control for now. Only have a pic of the Ruby as the Sammie won't arrive till tomorrows post. Right now my railway has more of a European look to the buildings, but that will change over the coarse of this year and next. A rebuilt to a completely raised line may happen this year as our new Beagle puppy will not keep using my layout details as chew toys. These pictures are from last summers operation, prior to the arrival of my Merlin steamer. He replaced the lines LGB/Aster Frank S that didn't like steaming in the colder weather and was sold to finance the Merlin engine. The track is 45mm gauge LGB and has served me well for 15 years outdoors. Sourcing SM32 track from Peco is difficult and expensive in the USA. I have a local source for good second hand LGB 45mm track at a much cheaper cost. So I go with 16mm modeling on 45mm track. I have just gotten my friend bitten by the 16mm bug and he has gotten himself a Merlin Mayflower and a Pearse Countess. I hope to be able to afford a second hand Lady Anne in red in the near future. My LGB 2073D w/onboard battery power that pulls my Austrian passenger cars(all for sale right now) in the twilight late last summer My custom Autism passenger coach(and yes I am a former G scale Madder!) Hobbiton Station. The Brewery

It is a shame the coaches are not scale length and size, but they are just reusing the Harry Potter set tooling, which is very smart business. The original set was just supposed to be for the Harry Potter and holiday sets, but Lionel found the vendor had done a near scale size Hall class. So, being smart business men, they made more in proper colors. It has sold well state side, just try to find the Kinlet Hall set. The only part I dont like on the new one is only having that lower headlight on the front of the smokebox lighted, whereas Kinlet Hall had its 2 lower lanterns lighted, although a bit to bright IMHO. I will probably get the set, probaby the best value for UK style coarse O gauge in the states. Mike

The Lionel Hall sets are a bargain for UK anything in the states and much easier to find then a large BL or Hornby engine. From the same gentleman that I got the Compound and Duke of York from, he has a LMS BL Royal Scot and 3 coaches in Crimson that he is gonna make me a killer deal on according to him. He is in failing health, goes in for heart surgery in a week and is selling down his collection. Have to wait and see what his price will be, before I can decide if that set is affordable to me. I have gotten both other engines at what a dealer would call "cost" so I am hopeful. Its a pain to have a love of UK railroading and live in the states. Espicaly when it comes to tinplate. Mike P.S., anybody have a source for a O scale TARDIS? Got have the Doctor on my layout!

Thanks for the paint suggestion. I am holding off the urge to buy one of the Lionel Albert Hall sets so that I can get more LMS stuff for my layout. Trying to roust up some decent 4 wheel LMS coaches and some LMS rolling stock for the engines to pull. Also a nice Hornby station would be awsome. MIke

For me, its the smells and sounds. The history that each model has, I wonder who has played with it over the years? Was it set up under the Christmas tree as a gift on that long ago Christmas morning or wrapped up for another occasion? The smell of ozone when I fire up my father's 1949 Lionel set under our Christmas tree each season brings back a flood of childhood memories of days spent with my grandfather who was more of a father to me than my own. Then there are the smells that comes with old trains and toys in general. When I run my old trains, no mater what brand they are, they take me back to a more simple time in life. No computers, no cell phones or the rest of the electrionc stuff. I am 42, I grew up watching all these things come to life, from cable TV to cell phones and home computers. None of which exhisted when I was a child. Then there is the autistic side to me, where these old trains take me away from the stress of dealing with the world in general, to a safe place for me to recover and process the days events. Mike

Not sure whether I will keep the Hall class, was kind of a impulse buy. Still building the bench work right now, if I find enough clockwork track, then it might need a new home. I am always open to trade offers, espicaly of more tinplate LMS stuff, needing coaches for mogul or DoY to pull along with some freight wagons. I keep looking at some of the nice small tinplate station buildings on ebay as well. I have a Marx tinplate Girard station with built in whistle. My wife is from Girard, Pennsylvania and her first job was in the building where the tinplate Marx trains were made, just not for the Marx company. The old factory got subdivided into many small businesses during the 80's. Cheers Mike

They are in the states selling on ebay. I am watching 2 of the coaches as I would like a couple myself for my Hall to pull. Was going to stay with a total LMS look on my layout but the Hall was to good of a deal to pass up. I havent got a chance to run my Duke yet, waiting on a winding key to come in the post, then I will give her a go. Clockwork layouts were all about operation, setting the stations within the distance that a winding or partial winding could cover. I am told some of the better engines came with winding charts giving distances to number of turns with a certain load. I believe the great Crewchester layout was predominatly worked with clockwork locomotives, granted they were the finest available from Bassett Lowke ect. Rules dictated that you were forbade to remove the engine from the track to wind, winding had to be done at scheduled station stops and was to be done in as discrete a manner as possible. Mike

Love the pics guys, keep them coming. I have also came back over to the coarse scale world in the past couple of weeks. I have picked up a super clean Bassett Lowke Duke of York, a Bassett Lowke LMS live steam Stainer Mogul and I am waiting on a Lionel GWR Albert Hall class engine that I got from a hobby shop that was breaking up the sets. Was going to just lay 2 rail track for clockwork and live steam, but decided that my big loop will be 3 rail so I can also run my father's Lionel set from the late '40's. Thus I bought the Hall class to run on that loop. I will have a point to point set up for the clockwork engine to work. Here is a couple of pics of my locomotives I have so far. Mike I did have a slight mishap when reawaking this almost 100 year old live steamer with a bit of a cab fire. Looking for a source that I might find in the states for LMS Crimson Lake red paint to touch up my scorched cab. I already resprayed the roof, this time with heat resistant black paint made for auto exhaust systems. Mike

Hiya guys, beautiful models, hopefully 99 6001-4 will make it to HOm scale in the future. For now I am happy to model the HSB in my garden with LGB trains. Hunting a 2-10-2t right now, although it might be beyond my current means. For now I have an old 2080d version of the little 2-6-2t. It could prove to be very tempting to build a small HOm layout indoors this coming winter! Mike