87 101

Very enjoyable weekend away with Wemblesden. Met some new people and and caught up with some I have known for a while. The layout performed well and received quite a lot of positive feedback from the public. We did have a few issues with one of the main lines and an electrical short developed on one of the points in the depot on sun afternoon. Our next outing will be Stevenage in Jan so plenty of time for more improvements before then. Big thank you to organisers for the invite and I wish them well for next years show.

Hi everyone first my apoligies for the lack of updates recently since returning to full time work there just is'nt enough hours in the day. Right well since the last blog entry Bletchford is no more. I had issues with the baseboards and to cut a long story short I moved up into the loft and started again. The replacement layout is on 3 levels and will be a long term project work concentrating at the moment on the building of a new show layout. AC lines is also no more as this has also been scrapped. The layouts last outing was Hornby live back in the summer but after not getting any pics of it in the mag I lost intrest with it and it was axed !! My new show layout is Wemblesden and is my take on the WCML in north London. The layout is16'x8' and will eventualy be automated so will make showing it a lot easer. Currently awaiting my membership of MERG to be activated so I can get on and plan the layouts control electronics although im getting a bit worried as I paid the membership fee+joining fee nearly 2 weeks ago but still hav'nt herd anything back. Fingers crossed is due to christmas and not they have done a runner with my money .....

Thanks Mark. The loco needed tweeking slightly to enable it to run on my layouts as all my other AC's have fixed pans. The pan head on the 85 was angled anyway so the pan mods corrected this. The springs have been removed and put in a safe place. The corridoor lights were too bright so I gave them a thin coat of black acrylic paint to tone them down a bit. As I prefer my locos running pan first I swapped the cab interiors over so that the driver was at the right end. He also had a touch of paint to his head as he looked like a ninja in a hoodie! The loco now looks much better when running on the layout. Well done Bachmann for producing a first class AC loco. Hopfully by the time I get round to building Kidsgrove in N gauge the 85 will be in the farish range.

A few pics of the new arrival Being modified

26 looks stunning from that pic. Had an email from Hattons saying my order has been processed so hopefully mine should arrive soon.

Is it as good as all the mags are saying ?

Thanks guys for uploading all the pics I've just spent an enjoyable half an hour going through them. Good to hear that the models are on their way. I now have my fingers crossed that they will be here soon as I would love to run my pre ordered one on my layout at next months show at Shildon. Going right back to the beginning of the thread there was mention of using an 85 to build an 83. The 83's were the shortest of the early locos so its proberly easer to cut and shut a Hornby 86 shell. I realy must finish mine........

For me its about reliving my youth. Born in 68 about 3 weeks before the end of steam by the time I got intrested in railways in the mid 70's almost everything was blue. My spotting days started about 82 when a few of us used to cycle down to an overbridge on the ECML every night after school. If I had to narrow my modelling down to a couple of years it would proberly be 83-84 although I actualy model 80-88 WCML. Looking back the blue livery might have been dull but the memories definatly wern't.

Last nights running session enjoy.

Hi all first my apoilgies for not posting much recently as I have been realy busy with a few projects. As well as working on Manchester Piccadilly I have also been working on a huge 00/N gauge layout located in a very big shed up in weardale! Anyway back to Bletchford this is the name for my new home layout that replaces the Heatherburn garden railway. Bletchford as the name suggests will be a blend of Bletchley and Stafford and im hoping that I can mix the buildings and features to create a convincing WCML station in a similar way to when I built the Potters lane module a couple of years back. I might even push the boat out and start a layout thread ! Other current projects include a couple of lima 87's , my class 83 (now motorised), class 325 royal mail unit (kit of parts available hopfully in the next few months) and the 323 project. The 323 is still in the devlopment stage as I have very limited funds at present but I have done a basic cab end mold and also a mold of a pair of the aborted 323 kit brass bodysides that I aquired a couple of months ago. With the forthcoming class 85 from Bachmann next year hopfully 2012 will see an increese of uk 25kv layouts emerging onto the scene. Merry Christmas everyone.

Aa bit late in responding to this one but im struggeling with similar things. For me I think that doing models for others has made modelling a bit of a chore and my own projects have suffered. Hang in there John it will come back at some point.

The new layout will be 00 gauge and will be the garden railways replacement. After clearing out the existing layouts from the garage I have had a rethink about the plan. I want to eventualy move my workbench into the garage so to give myself more space I have moved the return loop and split the storage sidings so now I have up trains on one side wall and down trains on the other. For some reason I carn't copy and paste the img code ?

Ok here is current masterplan for the new WCML layout... The layout will be built with 3 levels. The top level is the red track and will consist of the station and depot. The blue and green lines are the up and down main lines. With this layout I want to recreate a 4 track section of the WCML. The slow lines feed into hidden storage sidings whilst the fast lines go straight through. As with my previous layouts I want to incorprate different scenic areas of the WCML rather than model one particular place. At the left will be the Linslade tunnels whilst the flyover off my Trent Valley module will be reused for the flying junction. The feeder station relay room will also be relocated here. The right hand side the railway will be on a curved viaduct with the lines to the station on a higher viaduct. With this section I want to recreate the canal scene from the old heatherburn layout ( now sadly demolished ). The main lines will then dissapear into twin tunnels. The yellow line is the bottom level. This is the return loop for out and back working from the station.

Well its offical the Heatherburn is no more. As mentioned elsewhere I am starting a new layout soon but to make way for it something has to go. Had things been different the Heatherburn would have now been finished and giving me the enjoyment of opperating my stock instead of being mothballed and overgrown for the past couple of years. The outside section is still intact and will be for a while yet but inside the garage is a different story. Thankfully I have managed to reclaim the pointwork by pouring boiling water over the points then easing them up gently once the balast had softened. I have taken pics of the distruction but I think that it would be better to remember the Heatherburn for its good bits like the canal area. So after almost 5 years its time to sign off with this project and move on to the new layout.