Nyeti

I've another question for the knowledgeable. What did the factory/works entrances look like? I presume they were gated but I'd be interested to know more, and how for instance the oblique Hartford Old Works entrance would have worked.

Superb work!

That's a bit more than I expected! But you know what, it's still a yes please from me. Drop me a PM to let me know how you'd like to sort delivery and payment

Hello @irishmail, are these still available? I'm interested and can cover postage.

Thanks all for the useful information! The photos are especially valuable here - they've already provided answers to questions like "what did the p-way look like" (inset in setts) and "did the locos have skirts" (many didn't). I also like the look of that little Peckett as a candidate for micro motive power, though I'm considering an inside cylinder Black Hawthorn for a first scratchbuild.

Having modelled 7mm narrow gauge for a few years I'm developing the urge to build a little something in standard gauge again. My space is strictly limited to 150x60cm so I can fit it into the car and move it up and down the stairs if need be. That means a pretty compact layout, short stock, and probably tight curves - and @JimRead of this parish is a particular inspiration with his O gauge micro creations. I was looking through the old OS maps for a possible prototype and just up the road from me in Oldham there was a very extensive network serving the mills and factories. No surprise there. But it seems that in Edwardian times at least there was a significant amount of street running track on sidings from the LYR and LNWR lines. One section caught my eye in particular: Gould Street. There are two tracks running down the street in parallel, one of which serves Fountain Mill and the other of which branches into several sidings serving the various parts of Platt Bros' Hartford Old Works. This could make a nice shunting layout viewed from the factory yard to the NE, with traversers hidden behind walls and buildings. Some of the other works (Hartford New Works for example) even had narrow gauge internal systems that I could shoehorn in with a bit of modeller's licence. So before I begin building anything, do other modellers have any knowledge of these street running operations in, say, the 20s and 30s? What kind of stock was used and how? And are there any things I shouldn't miss, or that I should avoid? Thanks!

Thank you @Dava! As time went on - and encouraged by the 7mmNGA and the low cost of mechanisms - I decided to branch out into O16.5. My first locomotive: "Eleine", a Smallbrook Odin on a slightly modified Hornby chassis. I'm rather satisfied with the motion covers as a way of hiding the chassis' deficiencies. Work in progress: "Falconer", an chimaera of Lima Plymouth bonnet, Smallbrook cab, and a lot of plasticard and wire built to fit on a stock Hornby chassis. It's still awaiting a driver and roof. Here's the most recent finished loco, "Wind Rose", a scale resin print of a China Coal CTY8/7 running on yet another Hornby chassis. I researched, designed, and printed this model as a solo project. (And yes, I have fixed the glazing since taking this photo!)

As a novice scratchbuilder and 7mm modeller, I'd certainly love to see a guide. Can't offer much in the way of advice for publishing although a blog would be easily accessible to most.

Thanks Eric! I don't know how I hadn't come across the webcams before. I also hadn't seen the railcar as we joined the winter train at Zittau Haltepunkt rather than the main station. Stolpersteine are little brass plaques set into the pavement marking the last freely chosen residences of victims of Nazi persecution. I first saw them in Emden when I was there for a work trip. There's now a set of three for my family in front of their flat in Zittau, and a space for my great-grandfather that will hopefully get its inscription when we find out what happened to him; as far as we know he was working in forced labour in Berlin in 1940, but later disappears from the records. It's hard to avoid the role that the railways had during the Holocaust and how that's been impressed on the minds of survivors and descendants. My aunt was born in the 50s but still has trouble travelling by train because of her associating them with Holocaust transports. Fortunately enjoying the Zittauer Bahn as my granddad (her father) did seems to have done her good - bonding over a love of railways can be a healing experience too!

As well as what others have said I think there's a genuine appeal to building "your own railway". In standard gauge it makes more sense to model with real stock even if the location is fictitious, but in narrow gauge it's much more easy to justify having everything all your own, locos, rolling stock and all. I chose O9 when I came back to modelling partly because of the appeal of freelance engines and carriages as built by enthusiasts in a shed somewhere, inspired by real examples but unashamedly individual.

Always nice to see some interest in the Zittauer Bahn and its sister lines. My late grandfather was born and raised in Zittau and was a regular passenger on the railway there until he was forced to flee increasing Nazi persecution. I went to visit Zittau for the first time in December 2019 when Stolpersteine were laid for him and for my great-uncle and great-grandmother. Naturally we took the train up to the Oybin in his memory! As it was Advent, festive decorations and hot drinks were very much in evidence. DR 99.731 pulls into Oybin with the afternoon train, complete with candles on the smokebox door. Oybin station decked out with a drinks stall and Moravian star. Note the derailer, ground signals, and what I suspect are fouling point markers; there were also engineering and transporter wagons behind that carriage in the goods siding. Full photo set is here.

Hello denizens! I thought it's about time I started posting here after a while lurking in the background. Like many modellers I started out as a schoolboy building an OO gauge roundy-roundy (a GWR branch line of course) with my dad. Time passed, family crises happened, I went to college and university, and after a few years found myself working on the big railway as a design engineer. Old instincts stirred and I felt the urge to get back into modelling. With the OO stock out of reach I might as well start completely from scratch and decided on O9 for heft, charm, detail, freedom to scratch- and kit-build, and minimum use of space. I was living in a one-bed flat after all. What started with an Arnold starter set and a secondhand Amstrad computer case turned into my first micro, Townshend Gardens. It's a pleasure railway set somewhere in an English town circa 2000, a compact tribute to my love of the Ratty, BVR, and MVR, and named after my friend Jess. The entire layout. Fully functional and scenicked, but I've not yet added much detail... just to keep it portable, honest. "Peridot", an MG Models body on an Arnold chassis, and "Pumpkin", an A1 Models body on a Tomytec chassis, sit at the platform with their simple scratchbuilt trains. A new addition to the O9 loco roster is "Connie", an Egger-Bahn steam loco modified with a mostly 3D printed cab and bunkers. More on that later

Very characterful @33C! That front bunker is a nice feature that you don't see often on conversions.

Curses! I suspect that was Google Photos trying to limit bandwidth. @john new, @alastairq, I've uploaded the images here instead so they should be visible. Thank you! All done with Citadel acrylics from their Age of Sigmar starter set, and I think the figure is Invertrain.

I'm modelling in O9 and O-16.5 and this thread is a longtime inspiration to me. Here're some photos of my current diesel project on a Hornby 0-4-0 chassis. The donor parts: a Hornby 0-4-0 chassis, a Lima Plymouth body, a Smallbrook Troy JL cab, and some plasticard. Not bad for a dry run. Although maybe cutting the back off the Plymouth body was a bad idea...? At any rate I had to cut down the Smallbrook cab so as to allow enough room for the couplings. The really fiddly bit: building up the body so it clips onto the chassis and can be removed again for maintenance. The plasticard under the front of the cab was concerningly thin and flimsy at first, but it got better once the cab and false frames got added. Box section at the corners also helped to reinforce the whole affair and locate the chassis snugly. And here it is, detailed and ready for painting! It's not a match for any particular prototype, but it could just about be a Plymouth variant for 2'6"ish, like a smaller variant of the LK&P No. 45 Oahu. And something on the fringes of relevance for this thread: a Smallbrook Odin resin kit with scratchbuilt motion brackets and covers to hide the lack of piston rods on its Smokey Joe chassis.

This is brilliant, not to mention charming! It looks just right with the 28mm figures and chunky stock and I'm looking forward to seeing the engine build. Truth be told I've had thoughts of making a China Miéville layout in the same 'scale' and if that comes to fruition I'll be shamelessly cribbing ideas from this. What are (or were) the coaches you're using?