MrWolf

Why thank you, that's most encouraging! I do sometimes wonder if what I'm doing is plausible enough, given that I'm pinching bits from here and there around the Shropshire / Herefordshire / Welsh borders. As you probably know, all there is at this point at the real Aston on Clun is a twitch in the road and a few ridges in the field where a platform and other structures might have been. When I started this, I wasn't even aware that the original plans, such as they were, for a light railway down the Clun Valley had even survived, or carried so much detail. PS, I do know that you are having a laugh!

Or "How to alienate the vast majority of people from your cause, however worthy you may think it is". If someone comes up with a clean alternative for ordinary people to put in their tanks and keep their old cars going so that they can keep putting bread on the table, they'd get my full support, until then?

That's looking rather good, I would even say that the subtle changes of tone give both weight and solidity to the built environment daaahlings... A bit of wire, bent up as though the GWR had made a handrail from a bit of salvaged gas pipe would complete the scene.

As long as we don't have an interminable debate on whether or not it is art daaahling...

There's nothing so relaxing as ballasting points is there? But there's a sense of achievement when the things still work afterwards!

I do like the scruffy wagons, especially the mineral nearest the buffer stops.

Some crossing ramp grot added, but I'm trying to keep the colours light. The fence around the crossing house and trespass notice have also appeared.

We approached the same destination from a different direction by not being able to get up until about two o'clock.

That all looks very neat and businesslike. Apologies for the slightly sloshed thread bump this morning, but I was thinking it was a little quiet, response wise., Hopefully you found some help or another way around the problem.

I would if I knew what I was doing, it would be a great day but it's 03:47am and we're both totally messed up.

That sounds ominous...

A little too much perhaps, the Snowdrops might just put him on a charge of conduct unbecoming...

Some quality items here for the price... Or perhaps not. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/364014663142?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dUl0TI1oQ1m&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=3qkTzGg7QRS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

And every other idiot with a rusted out pile of scrap in the garden will believe that they're sitting on a fortune. It's probably worth £200 for parts as it was most likely laid up due to rust. Learn to weld! Buy a Transit!

I do indeed get your drift, shall we settle for "less like a workbench"? I'm looking forward to it too.

Likewise, and references to Iain always remind me of passing the downtime making my own design sketches on hotel notepaper in sunny Smolensk.

Literally waiting for paint to dry.

Thanks, I have quite a few plans for detailing the crossing house garden, which I will be trying out before fixing things down because somebody set the bar pretty high. 😀 I suspect that the garage yard will be the kind of automotive wasteland that I remember from country garages when I was very young too.

I've got the beginnings of the public foot crossing installed, split coffee stirrers attached to thin card as per the road crossing. The rest up to the gate will be compacted ash.. I'm pleased with how the grass and weeds have come out by the walls, I thought I would end up with fibres stuck everywhere. The wall between the back road to the hall and the garage forecourt. The big rock protects the corner of the wall from cart axles. The corner of the crossing house garden wall, thoughtfully whitewashed.

I collected some ex WD axles complete with wheels for a friend, along with panels and odd boxes of bits. The axles were ratchet strapped onto the back of the Bedford TA5 and everything else packed around them and roped, A sheet was put over the whole lot and roped down. Even though I wasn't running for hire and reward and the lorry was obviously an antique (1955) I was still responsible for the load. I've seen plenty of loads bulging out of curtain siders, especially when pallets have collapsed.

Mine still run well, sounding like a washing machine full of nails, but they always did. I think that I will invest in new chassis for them though, as the bodies have stood the test of time. Is it really forty years?!

Probably lap welded rather than butt welded, (basically a shaped patch) a quick, simple, cheap and strong repair on a locomotive that was nearing the end of it's service life where the finish was of less importance. It was probably brought in for one leak and when the platers started banging around at it they found that the bottom of the tank was peppered and plated up to sound metal.

Looks good, simple, sturdy and practical. I think that makes it suitably Victorian.

Allegro's weren't all bad, all of the problems could be laid at the door of BL cheapening up the original design, slapdash and indifferent assembly and the engine block, which was originally 948cc, being bored out too far, so that there wasn't enough metal between the cylinders, fitted with a cheaper head gasket. BL also stuffed up the old Triumph 4 and 6 by creating a set of common parts that weren't as good as the originals, so they ran bottom end bearings. The biggest problem being that few at any level gave a monkeys, BL was state owned, the belief was that the government couldn't afford to let it fall, so would keep pumping money in. I got that much from several ex Longbridge men. If proof were needed, the only volume British manufacturers left are American owned.

The Talbot was only about seven or eight years old and in good condition, they were just a cheaply built hurriedly designed piece of junk. The engine block was virtually suspended from the mount at the timing end, something to do with sharing parent company Peugeot parts, despite being assembled at the old Ryton plant in Coventry to avoid import duties. Not a patch on the old Hillman Avenger that they technically replaced, which were typical of their Rootes Group ancestry, heavily built and engineered, if a little rust prone, but then, everything in the seventies rusted, even Volvos.