grahame

Has the date for the Winter quarter announcements been published. I've not seen anything but presumably it's in early November, which is just a week away.

As a break from loco gearboxes and a change of scale (to N/2mm), here's a scratch-built project I've just almost finished that might be of interest. It's based roughly on a recent Metcalfe kit of a ramshackle workshop that I quite liked the look of and some photos I found online of small factories/workshops. I didn't actually convert a Metcalfe kit as I'm not keen on them, finding them to exude a distinctive corporate style of flat, slightly shiny surfaces, open corners, heavily outlined printed roofing and missing relief details. Consequently, I wondered whether it would be possible to knock up a more convincing model based on one of them.

A few snaps (of mainly N/2mm layouts) taken today at the show:

Some progress on the ramshackle workshop. It's got the roof on, windows in and some colour on it but there still details to make and add (gutters, downpipes, flue, etc.,). The background buildings are some I've made for the layout and just used to block out the view of the household mess behind:

Nice job with the windscreen.

Basic blocks of colour are now on, but they need modifying and weathering, as well as still a lot of details to make and add:

Or box inflation.

For a bit more modelling fun I've starting to make a 'ramshackle workshop', roughly based on the recent new Metcalfe kit which I quite liked the look of. However, I find that Metcalfe kits exude that distinctive Metcalfe corporate style of flat, slightly shiny surfaces, open corners, heavily outlined printed roofing and missing relief details. Consequently, I wondered whether it would be possible to knock up a more convincing model based on one of them. Here's progress to date (but still a lot to do):

You're lucky. I didn't get any with my subscription copy of MR.

It's only a smidge over a month until the next Farish quarterly update and announcement on new products. Probably best to be little patient and keep fingers crossed for news on what has become a regular and universal coaches wishlist.

I very much doubt it. Dapol have only relatively recently produced a class 50, which while not perfect, is still high fidelity to modern standards and is massively better than the old Poole Farish version.

And not a cat.

Oddly enough having legs also means you can walk back to where you were first waiting. I really wonder how these people survive and how people arranged meeting before mobile phones. A sad indictment on many today.

That's why you have legs; so you can walk around the corner to check where they are. And to walk to someone's house and knock on the door to meet. Or they can go home and use the landline to make calls (or use a phone box if they can find one) or the internet and use email to communicate. I'm sure one night without a mobile phone won't cause a breakdown in society or be too stressful. ;-)

That wouldn't be a problem, you'd simply go back to the staff office the following day and pick it up. It'd be relatively safe while on the track (no-one would likely pinch it) and you wouldn't get hurt by a coaster train.

By way of a bit of kit building fun I've recently put together a Ratio goods shed kit. The pic below is just a temporary mock-up setting: And I've had a bash at a laser cut kit of a SR shark brake van. They're not particularly straightforward and it needs some decals and couplers added. I'm not sure about the 'wooden' finish of these type of kits although this van is actually made of wood back in 1949.

That's a very nice layout and impressive undertaking. I like the consistency of modeling and level of detail. The photos a very good. It must be time for some more.

Super out of control vegetation. The trees are great. But they've obviously not suffered the heatwave and drought we've just had. 😁

Millbrook yesterday (7th Sept 2022):

The bo-bo-bo class 9's (also known as class 9000) are the most powerful loco in the UK. The class 92s, at 6760bhp, aren't far behind and have same maximum tractive effort at 90,000 lb/f.

Is that really a 7 page obituary from page 151?

A smidgeon of progress on my Poclain/Lowmac ZYR, mainly making one digger attachment and bashing the other Tomytec one:

Issue #1 is sold out but there are still copies of issue #2 available on eBay (new, not secondhand) to order. Type 'N gauge magazine' in the eBay 'search for anything' box to find.

Progress is now underway for a third (and possibly last) issue of the magazine, hopefully for publication at the end of the year/early 2023. It'll take a while to put together as I need to complete some started but half finished modelling projects for some article content. But it'll probably be a 52 page issue (similar to the first).

Yep. N'Tastic have a couple of buses in their range from that era.