MrWolf

Also a lot of RTR models suffer with being proportioned to fit on a standard chassis that is a generic representation. The Cambrian wagons won't be, they're all from surviving drawings or actual wagons.

Next you'll be telling me it's a model...

At least the track from the gate in the corner of the sheep meadow will go somewhere now. It's one of my favourite minor scenes on Little Muddle and I never realised that it's right on the edge of the baseboard, I always thought that pictures of it were taken from an adjoining road.

I remember Keresley well, as I had relatives living there and in neighbouring Holbrooks, Penny Park Lane if memory serves me right.

Have we gone backwards from the days of the likes of Airfix using pale blue backing paper where white transfers are involved?

I do like Pembrokeshire, I have been there quite a few times, especially when I lived out in West Wales for a while. Some great scenery, great biking roads as well as an attempt at surfing. I've also tried walking a fair bit of the Cardigan Branch. I think that I am going to be delving into my absorbed locomotives books. The most recent conversion only took around thirty five years to come to fruition and I've yet to finish that!

Back to railways: The seam down the boiler of the Mainline 22XX has been cleaned up, a couple of minor repairs done and a coat of GWR green applied. It's a very good match for the original Mainline colour, I'll brush paint the safety valves, as I'm not that confident with a rattle can. Whilst that was drying, I made the first bit of untidy hedge, at least I've got from the bench to near the level crossing!

Whilst I am perfectly happy to admit that modern cars are in most respects superior, I don't subscribe to them being better, either for the owner or the environment. The over complications and planned obsolescence of what is supposed to be a simple concept let them down. The scrapyards are full of cars that should be repairable, but one obsolete or disproportionately expensive component has rendered what should have been a reliable £1000 runabout to about £50 worth of junk. If of course you can drive it to the yard, if not, they'll collect it for free. Very few people go to a breakers for more than body and trim parts now, I've had some enlightening conversations with yard owners. The running gear is removed and the baled bodies and cast iron shipped to the other side of the world. So much of it is not recovered, it ends up being foundry slag. All the time, energy and a lot of the materials that go into making a car from primary industries upwards are lost forever. At some point all vehicles made in the last thirty years will develop a fault that cannot be economically repaired because the design won't allow it, such as a sealed piece of electronics, ie a chip. If a Tesla is written off in an accident, the factory can send out a kill message to all of the components, rendering them useless. At least for previous generations of vehicles, someone with basic engineering skills and a bit of determination could repair things at home, which is where car restoration started. This is the ignition management system from the BSA in my previous photo. Rendered obsolete in 1963 by alternator and coil ignition, but easy to fix and parts are still available.

Impressive stuff! I could spend a lot of money there... In fact, I may just have to!

Good point. A scruffy bit of hedge has sprung up. At least it's near the level crossing... Rubberised horsehair, two different shades of woodland scenics foliage and some leaf litter from I know not where.

It's looking very natural now Graham and I am fighting the urge to go off on another modelling diversion and adding greenery before I get the l*v*l cro**ing finished.

In which case, you only need ask yourself one question: "Whose train set is this?" 🤔

Most of the time....

A7 on the left, B33 on the right. Both fitted with the obligatory Butlins Motor Cycle Club badges.

It looks much better already, but I don't imagine that you're done yet are you? I've always liked industrial and military narrow and more than once I have thought of putting a simple quarry feeder line into a layout, but the price of stock, let alone locomotives, has always put me off.

Today's trip to the car boot resulted in quite a few goodies. The only one relevant to here and the only 00 railway item other than a busted Hornby IC125, was this. It runs but needs a service and is missing one tank filler and one vent. It was very cheap indeed and I'm sure that I read somewhere about converting them into one of the GWR absorbed engines.

I like that, you could build a panoramic layout in bedroom three, plus that scruffy lawn would benefit from a large traditional style corrugated iron shed. Plant some trees and it would be perfect.

That works, it looks like a relic from the 1916 Mesopotamia campaign, rather like Gulf war surplus land rovers a century later.

Despite the supposed lack of health and safety in the past, I noticed the white painted hook and the white band on the Jib at head height that also has the SWL data painted on.

War Department green with plenty of coal dust on the insides? Bought cheaply after 1918 and as Johnathan says, a lot of the inside would be scraped to a dull steel colour, think fireman's shovel.

The crane looks spot on, this one stands by the canal only a few hundred yards from our house. It's since been repainted when waterfront property was built around it. Photo: Joan Martin.

I have a B33, that's October '49, the ZA7ST Star Twin is the eldest. A bit of a fire breather back in its day, with a bit much power for the frame, they detuned it in 1950 and fitted a much bigger front brake that actually works above 30mph.

That's very nice and really looks the part. I drew up plans a while ago to build a timber scotch derrick for loading tree trunks but there's no room on the layout even for a 16ft version. Perhaps I can build another layout?

That makes our oldest a spring chicken at 73 years old. It was built on the 22nd August 1949 in Small Heath, Birmingham. It was then put on a train to Lancaster, registered on the 26th and taxed on the 27th.

That sounds like a proper job that will outlive us all. I have always believed that it's far greener (and more stylish) to keep an old car going forever than buying something new with a design life of about eight years.