Danny Vanstraelen

HI, thanks Adrian, for your answer, I bought that book you mentioned yesterday. I will get it in my hands by mid March as I visit family in the UK and going to the London show. Hopefully I get a better idee of it and it's surroundings when I have the book. On sand installations there seems to be a very scarce information on. And not much layouts I've seen have integrated structures like this at all.

Being a Belgian international train driver whole my career, sand was an important issue to look at when you prepared a loco, specially during Autumn as faling leaves leave a slippery film on the tracks. My modeling intrest though are British trains for more than 20 years, mainly Era 1-3. Now I finely have time sinds my retirement to work out a layout. I'm in the planning stage at the moment for a fictive GWR loco yard. I found information on most facilities, water crane, water tower, coaling stage, engine sheds etc. But where I don't find information on is the sanding installation/ shed. What I did find and bought is a lazer cut GWR Sand House at Didcot. It would be interesting to see photos of this building when it was in use or any other GWR sand installation for that matter? I assume that the main purpose is to dry or keeping dry the sand, and that the filling of loco's was a complete manual labor? so all information, photos is welcome and would help me out a lot in my quest? regards, Danny

As my previous projects, this time it's the flatbeds era 1. Improving them and adding some loads…

Same as the sheep wagons, the Hornby era1 horse wagons could use a bit more detailing to look interesting. This is not about weathering, you could do that, if you want after this proces, but for me it's more about a realistic basis. I don't weather my rolling stock, but I imagine that if you are into that, you first need to go trough this proces. I hope you enjoy this video, even if you're not into era 1, I'm sure you get some tips out of this…

Hi, I know that these era 1 wagons got a lot of critique, and there very big big question marks about authenticity. But I don't won't to go down that road. Next to that it's all a bit of sad quality, Hornby has the skills to print wood structure, the teak coaches are a good example for this. But they choose for a cheap flat paint job, and for the price these sets cost, it's a crying shame. But I want era 1 rolling stock so had no other choice…

-Then comes the most time consuming work, with a very thin brush imitate wood grains with a puur umber acrylic ink. -And then comes the magic, a black very diluted acrylic ink, also some flowing agent from Winsor & Newton added. The black will show the cut lines very well giving it the perfect finish… If you find the floor to glossy you always can put a Matt varnish over it, I would advice to go for a Tamiya spray can Matt. Hope you find my tutorial of any intrest… Cheers, Danny

-next step is a primer, for wooden floors I always use a gold ochre -With a waterproof very thin sharp I imitate the nails holes -Then I brush on a diluted brown umber acrylic ink, I also put a flow improver from Winsor and Newton into the mixture…

This is how I make wooden flooring… -I start with a cut to size 1.5 acid free framing cardboard -Next step is, I mark ever 2mm for the planks, and give it a cut (only surface cut) Than with a stump steel I go over the cuts to press them in a bit, notice that I also make random vertical cuts to create seems where planks meet each other, so you don't have te effect of wall to wall planks, that looks unnatural.

OK a little update. The brickwork and wood work got their prime color. I don't use special model paint, I always use art acrylics from Talens (the Dutch equivalent of Winsor & Newton) Their Amsterdam range comes in spray cans, and in tubes, also in the range, are acrylic inks. The nice thing is that color coding for all products whit in the range is for every product the same . The advantage of art materials although they are still expensive, but less than modelbuilding colors, and they come in bigger quantities. As far, as I also work with specific special modelbuilding acrylic colors, the quality is the same, and these art colors can be combined with any modelbuilding acrylics.

Thanks very much for providing the correct English word for this sign "fouling point marker" I found a photo online, saying this was taken somewhere in the neighborhood of Sheffield: So I was not far of, that now in modern times this is also a variant white sign with the letters FP. But for my layout I want to go back in time, so If anyone has a photo of preferably A GWR 1920's version of this, it wold be very helpful for my quest? Of course all variations are welcome to see, but please give as much info when where what era, who was running the sene? I think this question got many modelers back to work again, perfecting their layout 😉 Thanks and hopefully we see some more examples…

Hi, I got a question, and not a lot of railway personal outsiders know about this. I've been an international train driver al my career. Belgium, Germany and the Netherland, and all these countries have this. With a little difference of form, but all do have this sign. It's a concert bar placed in the ground, painted white, that sits a few meters before a point, mostly to be found in a stations railway bundle, where wagons and coaches are placed. Free translated it's called a "fog beken for shielding free space profile". This means no rolling stock may be placed beyond that beken towards the point. It stands lose from, if there is a signal controlling opening or closing the track towards the point. Most of the time it will be found between signal an point, but that's not a guarantee, there are exceptions. The meaning of this simpel signal is there, because the tracks narrow down towards the point, the space between the tracks becomes to narrow,. If a wagon finds it self in the area beyond this signal, the passing vehicles going to the track, next to the track of the same connected point, would collide with each other. So my question is, is this also used in the uk, and/or does it perhaps exist in an other way or form? If possible, having a photo of a UK version of this signals would be great? Please answer if you 100% sure if it exist or not. Regards, Danny