ikcdab

Ive got a full set of drawings of the station buildings, goods shed etc etc. If you want copies, pm me.

Great exhibition - well done and thank you to Tim and everybody else involved. Excellent. See you again next year!

Just came across this thread and have read the whole lot. Great layout and excellent progress. Well done.

South barrow, in glorious south Somerset.

Hereford and were not allowed to say who has their heaquaters there.

Exeter. The town known by Romans as isca.

A Western in less glamorous surroundings.  Some lovely detail in this photo.

 

You can run, but you can't hide! by Deadmans Handle, on Flickr

 

And to answer Jim's question, there are lots of pictures of "Western Queen" after the date of the accident, so looks like she was rebuilt, as alluded to here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geoffsimages/7896655232/

Just in case anyone was wondering and I apologise if it's obvious but this pic was taken at castle Cary. My train spotting home when I spent many hours in the 1970s watching westerns and in fact getting quite bored with them. Oh no not another western! I remember quite a lot of shunting there in the goods shed siding, one particular occasion was a school special which put the brake into the old cattle dock to load the school children's baggage.

Am i missing something- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bachmann-32-703-Class-46-D186-in-weathered-blue-MINT-BOXED-/221193412668?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item338027a03c

£644 when Hattons seem to have the exact same thing in stock for £55???

Also there shouldn't be two doors to the locking room; the problem of following a plan of another 'box to get scale dimensions & looking at pictures of a real 'box (Goonbarrow Junction) but building it as a mirror image.

I wouldnt worry about that. The box at Bishops Lydeard (which appears to be identical to Goonbarrow) also has a door each end - one is for the locking room the other (i think) is for the battery room.

There is some first-rate advice in this thread. As others have commented, don't underestimate the amount of time required for this. I researched and wrote the book on the Minehead Branch (pub by Lightmoor in 2006 with 2nd edn in 2011) and spent more than 20 years researching. I think there are a couple of things to be borne in mind:

1. if you are *just* researching for a model then it can be done quite quickly. To be honest, if you make a couple of mistakes its not that important and could be put right if required. Large scale OS maps and a visit to the local records office, the line society or local museum would give you almost everything you need to get started.

2. HOWEVER if you are intending to publish your research then you must be more careful. Once a work is published it will be regarded as fact and if not careful you can seriously mislead future researchers who will look at what you have done. In these cases you own it to others to get it right. With the Minehead Branch book I spent quite a lot of time debunking facts in previous books that turned out to be fanciful.

Notwithstanding that it is an absolutely facinating task. Just to be touching the very same documents that were written and signed by those who were instrumental in building our railway heritage is a humbling experience. My best moment was coming across a piece of paper hand-signed by Brunel in his capacity as engineer to the West Somerset Railway in 1857. This was in the House of Lords records Office (a source i dont think is mentioned above) where you can consult all the parliamentary evidence submitted when a railway was planned. Not normally massively useful for modelers but great for historians.

I believe the Axminster loop is right-hand running, extremely unusual in the UK.

 

JE

why the right-hand running here? is it platform issues, signal sighting, economy in minimising signal renewals when new line was laid or something more insiduous?

Not Bachmann....but an old tri-ang wagon....Bachmann??? Really??