Oldddudders

A splendid model. DC electrics are becoming more popular as a prototype, and models like this can only help to encourage that. All the commode handles look the same, which is very tricky to get right, I suspect. Very fine indeed.

I do feel that a chap from Guildford mocking Tunbridge (not Tonbridge!) Wells is something a trifle "pot & kettle". Speaking of kettles, the 7F does look lovely in the CB setting!

One of my former bosses had been station master at Bailey Gate. The day the tablet catcher malfunctioned and sent the tablet off into space was a favourite story. The Area Signalling Inspector arrived and found pilot working in operation, so indignantly demanded to know what had been done to find the missing tablet? He was told that everyone knew just where the errant tablet had landed - in the adjoining sewage farm! Suitable arrangements were made for another tablet to be issued at once!

You are hereby absolved of any need to model the grass shown sprouting from the bridge in that image. The engineer wishes it weren't there, I'm sure!

Given the enormous scope of your project, I am also very pleased that something so "easy" has fallen into your laps. You have quite enough to do without scratchbuilding all the trains, too!

Hopefully this is going to be one of 2011's most exciting Works In Progress.

Merry Xmas and a Gratifying New Year to your brave team!

Looks somewhat - ok, so a very great deal - better than the Airfix one I made as my first plastic kit more than 50 years ago!

When we lived in Kent, there was a local garage owner who had a Spitfire, and he made regular use of it over our part of the Weald, where it had probably done such good work 60 years before. One year he took it across the Channel to an air-fair at Rouen. The plane developed an engine fault, and when he tried to land he found people on the grass-strip, so elected just to hit the trees instead, knowing the inevitable outcome.......

Taffson? You'll have the Welsh purists down on you! I just Googled the name, and the most coherent entry was 2009 on RMWeb....

Fleur has cattitude! Ooh, would love to cuddle her - much better than human kids any day!

Julian

Templecombe originally contained 60 levers, so if your total count is anywhere near that - don't forget FPLs and distants - then it's fine. I don't know whether there were any sidings behind T'combe box, but it certainly has windows all round. I'd stick with that one because it is SR and could well have been built in your location.

All the best

Ian

Dare I say that's a very fine finial you have re-made there?

Is this a GP40-2? I think so from the extended dynamic brake vent, Dash2 electrical cabinet behind the fireman's side cab, and the water level sight gauge on the long hood (above the 'h' of Chessie) behind the driver's side. In which case its use of Blomberg B trucks, with 4 brake cylinders per truck, suggests these were from traded-in diesels of yore. Blomberg M - two brake cylinders plus external damper - would be more typical for this era (post 1972) of GM production. No matter - your model matches the prototype exactly!

What you guys are doing remains off the end of the plausible modelling scale. The fact that money has already been poured in to York, and time and effort into Templot etc, and the domestic authorities have seen fit to permit an initial laying out of components on the posh broadloom carpet, merely tells us this is serious! The pavilions look very promising. How do you intend to capture the brick facing of the arches? Please don't say you're gonna scribe every one!

The layout of Lewes Main Junction looks awesome, as the US contingent might say.

Your long Winter evenings are going to be the subject of continuing interest to some of us out here!

Looks a dead ringer for the Redhill-Reigate shuttles I saw as a very young child in the early '50s. Smashing.

Really glad to see the coach is properly equipped with a tail lamp! This is gonna be the 8th wonder of the model railway world, surely!

Wot? No Hardham Junction - the last of the LBSCR high signalboxes? A T-scale M7 and pull-push set could be very fetching, you know!

I haven't done a BLT either, but my original 2010 Challenge idea has become far too big to fit the prescribed area, so a BLT I will have to build PDQ, too! It will be quite different from yours in protoype - and indeed Continent - but I can still learn rather a lot from your example, not least the opportunities for the railway to blend into the community it serves, vide your chapel etc. I also admire you attitude about the "good enough effect" of Code 100, which has enabled you to make substantial progress in a short time - the opposite of the perpetual procrastination that can arise from having high standards & limited energy or motivation. Your layout is another one to watch closely!

There are two distinct skools of thought on wheel - and rail - cleaning. Those who swear by mechanical abrasive methods, and those who decry them, and use chemical methods instead. The alleged problem with the grit and metal bristle methods is that they can introduce microscopic scratches in your wheels or rails. These than act as repositories for further dirt, which takes rather more removing, being in a pit. The chemical methods, typically using denatured alcohol, also known as isopropyl alcohol, leave the wheels and rails very clean indeed - the same product is used as a medical aid in cleaning skin, which indicates a high level of effectiveness. Alcohol prep pads are freely available on ebay, and you might find plenty of other modelling uses for them, too.

No Julian, by no means a waste of time! The wires are visible - and anyway, even if no-one ever visits, you know they're there! A box ticked on the to-do list is always time well-spent!

I'd be more than happy with that appearance in OO, so getting that fine detail in N is quite an achievement.

Thanks Ian - I have asked on SEmG but no response. I didn't know the pavilions had been reconstructed though, presumably at the same time as the main restoration by the Railway Heritage Trust (been in touch with them too, no reply so far).

 

But I have been able to do some pretty good dimensioning and drawing from my own photos and others.

 

No doubt a full set of drawings will materialise when it's finished!

Hmm! My recollection is that when I was at South Central Sub-Sector in the late '80s, an Initial Proposal came forward from the RCE, proposing the renewal of the pavilions - and probably balustrades too - in re-constituted stone. I would have endorsed it forward for NSE approval, which should have meant budget provision was made. Sadly I then moved upstairs to NSE HQ, so lost touch with progress. Your pics appear to show the pavilions to be in apple-pie order, which convinces me the work must have been done. I do hope so!

The chap I was thinking of on SEmG is John Divine, who seems very much in touch with civils matters on the Brighton line.

Not every exhibition visitor is from the same drawer. A percentage are dads and lads, for whom the big roundy will always be attractive, since it is the ultimate expression of the "trainset" dad had and lad would like. "Something different" is always a winner with those whose palate has become a bit jaded - in my era it was GWR BLTs which packed the exhibition programme, so an LMS BLT seemed novel! For me, at exhibitions, in magazines or on RMWeb, the atmosphere & detail are the clinchers. As three RMWeb examples off the top of my head, Torrington, Kylescu & The Mound, and Newhaven Harbour all have that certain something that grabs my attention when I see them listed in Active Content. If there are new pics in the fresh contribution, I am always impressed. Size does matter to some extent, because micro-layouts often lack operating variety, even if they hit the spot with the atmosphere and exquisite detail.

Rod

I think there is at least one serving civil engineer from this patch on SEmG, where you and I periodically lurk. Given my belief that the pavilions were reconstructed - using reconstituted stone, rather than the vrai chose from Caen - in the last 20 years, he may be able to talk to contacts who hold drawings etc.

Just a thought!

I think Nick's right. Streamline OO/HO track was designed with the international market in mind, and it has been quite successful in some overseas marekts, e.g. USA. It does look poor in comparison with scale OO track, but remains the only choice for those of us with too little time/skill/patience to do the job ourselves.

A superb, scopy, imaginative concept for a less-than-commonly-modelled prototype. We know you have the collective skills, but the magnitude is enormous. Assuredly one to watch!

All good romantic stuff! A pullman mid-set does indeed remind me of the 6-PUL, of course. Just a thought, though - if you're not going to use red blinds, it needs a tail-lamp!