Pete Thorpe

During the final I was being interviewed about the item I was building which was scratch built apart from a Peco part. When I referenced this I was asked not to, even though Steve was one of those conducting the interview.

A case in point is the black pipes on one of my 2mm tanktainers, which are whiskers kindly donated by my cat (and no, I didn't pluck them from him, he sheds them naturally). Another is also going to be used as an angler's fishing rod on one of our club's 4mm layouts.

I intend getting round that by having a Whirlwind Helicopter on the layout as it can just hover as doesn't need to "go" anywhere!

Hopefully this is something that this series will lead to.

Even as one of the Basingstoke team I would tend to agree, and it wouldn't normally be the type of layout I would even consider building, but given the theme we were given, the format and who the target audience is it obviously fitted the bill and did what was required. If you go to Warley this year you will have your opportunity to walk past it as it will be on display as part of Peco's stand , but it would be great if any of you would like to stop by and have a chat about it!

Animations also included working signals and points and opening doors, flashing lights and smoke from the chimney for the toy factory, We also had sound for each section which unfortunate didn't come across in the programme, these being Egyptian music and camels, a cricket match, and the elves making the toys in the factory. Both of the 00 locos had sound too.

Despite being brought up on the Henley branch my allegiances tend towards LMS and Southern, so I had no qualms about repainting a brand new GWR loco into a fictional livery (twice!). Numbered 7038 Rudolph Castle as as special order from Santa after the final Castle 7037 Swindon was built, and likewise for the 08 which was numbered 08959 Gronk (complete with Camford Junction depot plaque). I did proper research even for this layout!

Our club's Open Day saw running on all 4 boards for the first time, and on all 4 lines. The baseboard legs were finished around 9 this morning with the fitting of the last pair of adjustable feet, though it has become apparent after today that the design of some of the legs will need a bit of alteration. There were a few niggles with occasional derailments due to the baseboards and points requiring a bit of adjustment, a short dead section of track on the Up Main line, and an anomoly in the control system appeared when running trains on the Down Slow and Up Main lines at the same time, but overall running was good. Following Graham's comment regarding boiling kettles and making tea, we sent a train from one end to the other at a crawl and timed it at 2 minutes and 58 seconds, though I am sure we will be able to slow this down with practice! Thanks to Robin, Clive, Graham and Ian for their time and effort over the last few weeks to get the layout to this stage in time for today.

Hi Martin, Very impressed with this layout, I just hope we in the Basingstoke Area Group can reach the same standards with our Camford Junction layout currently under construction. We also have a cement train of Metalair and dropped centre wagons that will feature on Westbury-Exeter workings. Congratulations on the 3rd place too. Pete

We now have our main depot buildings! These are bespoke buildings constructed to our designs by Weston Models at a very competitive price and we are very pleased with them. The loco shed is based on Knottingley and includes an additional building for stores and workshops, and the DMU shed is in a similar style to Reading Upper Triangle Turbo Maintenance Depot. They will of course be detailed, with lighting, roof walkways, ventilators, guttering, internal pipework and various miscellaneous items.

The only downside to the weekend was that some thieving twunt stole one of my locos from the layout between late Saturday afternoon and early Sunday morning before 09:10. It was a Class 37/0 in Civil Engineer's 'Dutch' livery that had been renumbered from 37035 and the etched arrows and depot plaques had been applied, so if anyone sees it anywhere please let me know.

It's up for sale if you'd like it. Pete

Not on the SWML to Exeter. We did the 3rd rail thing with Bognor Regis, but the Class 442 Wessex unit was bought for our planned Battledown Flyover project that never happened. Pete