vac_basher

Tractor bursts into life! 50031 Hood A fine selection of motive power. 59005 heads back to Merehead....

My goodness, it's been a while since I last posted in this topic. Anyway, here are a few photos I reccently took. The lighting wasn't satisfactory, hence the quality isn't great. Here we see the now compleated breakdown train pictured on my other layout, Smugglers Lane, as Bath Road is too small to accomodate the compleat formation. All that needs doing to really finish the breakdown train off is the weathering.... Here's a close up of the wonderful decals manufactored by Preccession Lables. It's winter in Bristol too! This is something else I've been working on reccently. It's my take on a HST barrier coach, and it cost me significantly less than the ready to run available one. Those seats do look rather comfy Honestly, Class 50s next time!

33 recieves attention to an axle box what's that yellow coach? And still not a Class 50 in sight. I bet you all must be getting worried now

Very observant Steve, the dates are infact quite random. Well spotted! I quite like this photo

Steve, you requested some Hydraulic power, so this one's for you! As I've reccently bought some rather odd stock, I'd originally planned to save the Hydraulics for an "open day" scenario. However just this morning I had the idea of doing some retro photos. I would have taken more but the batteries in my camera died. So I hope you enjoy them. Class 50s next time, promise!

And not a Class 50 in sight!

Thanks ees1uk B) And now a photo teaser to proove I haven't been skyving! This is QPX ADB 975472 (The prototype for this is visable in #63 on Page 3) Although it's nowhere near perfect I'm quite happy with how this is coming along. I'd never done such an involved conversion before. Now I've seen the ammount of work involved I'm not surprised these bad boys go for allot of money on eBay! I'm also quite happy with the paint application. I gave it 4 coats of aerosol paint, but after the 3rd I found a can of the correct Railmatch yellow. But as I didn't want to risk there being some sort of possible reaction between the paints, I just continued with stuff I was useing, even though it is slightly too lemoney, it'll just have to do.... I'm hoping that some subtle weathering may tone it down slightly. Fingers crossed! Now all that's left is to paint the underframe; add the windows; add the strip lights, and finally the chevrons and numbers, ect. One thing I think I'm going to have to modify are the roller doors. I made them from .25mm plasticard which must have been too thin as they've warped (probably also because I might not have glued them on perfectly straight), so I might replace them with some 2mm plasticard. So we're getting there.... (I haven't photographed the other too coaches that go with this one as they're still in need of another coat of paint).

47805 is the one on the right in my signature photo! (Edit: Signature photo has since been changed)

No idea Paul. But I'd immagine it was likely to be either a 47 or an 08

Thank you gentlemen. Your support, encouragement, suggestions, and kind words all mean allot me. Thank's so much! D1059 i may be able to do something similar with the photo softwear I have. When I have a bit of time I'll need to check it out. About those hydraulics.... I'll see what I can do. Bath Road open day perhaps? Stay tuned! Now, let me try and get that breakdown train finished....

C'est finite! Well, more or less. There are still a few refinments that I need to make, but I don't think the apperance is going to change much more after this. That chap in the VW camper van must've been in a hurry. He's practically gone through the doors! By total chance the stock I just happened to have out on the diorama today was slightly more recent than what my main interests are. The locos visable during these next few photos sets the diorama well into the 1990s. Although generally my time frame is 1988 - 1991ish. I'll have to go a bit more retro when I have my next photo session Vac power!! That's quite a good photo, I think. I like this one too. It remins me of many many summers ago when my only concearn was chasing trains. Shame about my banana 47. I recieved a new chassis for it from Howes but the body had warped too These Oxford Dicast cars are smashing! Quite colourful, isn't it. Horrible how the paint has run on the front of the depot building. Through the window.... This isn't exactly what I had in mind. Well it is, except that it's much more difficult to photograph from whithin the office as I thought it would be. I think I need to experiment a bit with angles/compositions to get a good shot.

Last couple of photos from me for tonight. I'm actually quite pleased with this. I think I should be able to get some very good shots when it's all just right.

Thanks, Leon, hopefully if all goes to plan mine might look something a bit like that.... I've actually seen that photo elsewhere, not that there are very many photos of the rerailing train available out there, and that is infact the coach I'm having problems with the chassis with. The coaches in the rake seem to have been repainted around 1990/91ish and this latter version is the livery I hope to do mine in.

Going to kill two birds with one stone here: What's that I see outside my office window? My goodness, if it isn't the rerailing train. I'd better go out and take a look.... And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the side project I've been working on for the past couple of weeks. Of course it's far from being finished yet. As you can see it's only being held together provisionaly, and the bogies don't have any wheels fitted at the moment. I also need to sand off the (last?) layer of filler, and naturally it needs painting yellow. But I think this photo gives an idea of what it's supposed to be. Even though there's no room on the diorama for it, I have also done the third coach that was typically used in formation with these two, although I was unable to photograph it at the present moment as it has a chassis problem which won't permit it to sit to the rails at the moment. It was quite a challange for me to create the rerailing train, so in due course I would like to explain in detail, in a seperate topic, how this was achieved (let's see if it turns out alright first! ) Here we can see how far off my stripes are. This is another side project I've been working on reccently. It's my take on a HST barrier coach (I still need to get the decals for it). I quite like this photo, I think it gives quite a good sense of depth. Bit of a cra poor photo this one is. I think I must have left my camera on manual focus. Sorry about that. And that's the last one for today. Still lots of work to do, but I think this set of photos gives quite a good overall feel of the diorama so far. Although I must admit the quality of the photos isn't great. I'm not too happy with the composition of the "through the office window" ones, I would have liked to have experimented a bit more with that, but for today I didn't have time. I'll be back soon with some better photos.... Running total:- Cost: £260 (aprox. as i've actually lost count) Labour: 101 hours (inc time spent on the breakdown train)

Thank you for your kind words Kenny. Hopefully tomorrow, after I've removed the excess ballast (I only ballasted 2 tracks yesteday, but did the rest today), I'll be able to have a play around with photographing something (any guesses? )through the window.... Stay tuned!

Rails were painted rust colour (right) and then sleepers were painted with frame dirt. PVA was then put between the sleepers (middle track) and covered with ballast (left) That was left for 24 hours and then the excess ballast was removed with a 1inch paintbrush. I'm a bit dubious about the colour of this ballast. This is Woodland Scenics "Fine, Light Grey". Although to my eyes it looks more like light brown. When it's all 100% dry I think I might paint over it to give it a darker colour. So, we might just have something that might begin to look a bit like Bath Road very soon. Which means, I think it's time to get the Class 50s out....

sshhh, don't go giving them suggestions Peppergroyne, otherwise they probably really will make me pay! Seriously, I'll try out some through the office window shots during the next few days.

I was messing around in photoshop, so it's no big deal. But very observant of you. Thank you for taking the time to follow what I've been up to.

At last a bit of progress! Well, sort of.... After putting it off for some weeks, today I have finally smoothered the concreat apron and even painted it! I must admit though, I sandpapered it in a bit of a hurry, so it didn't really come out too well - Also because there were allot of cracks in the plaster. In the past I've discovered that if I sandpaper it before the plaster dries complety then it's ok. Whereas if I let it dry and than sandpaper it the cracks show up. I'm not sure why that is. Then while I was painting it (aerosol) I made a right mess . I'd forgotten that the buildings were only masked to protect them from dust, because at the time I didn't think I'd be painting the surface just yet. Then today I happened to have a can of paint at hand so I went ahead and sprayed it.... Only later did I realize that I painted over the lower front of the depot! Disaster! And at the moment I've run out of 3mm masking tape so won't be able to paint it again untill I go shopping. I should really of have masked the tracks too. And then later this evening when I pealed of the masking tape around the "mystery apparatus" (have a look on page 2 if you missed what that was about) the railings broke off. So I'll need to make them again. So a bit of a major cockadoddledoo up that was. But anyway, cracks and all, it will have to do as there's no way I'm going to have another go at it. Plus, I think perhaps with a bit of very fine ballast sprinked on top to represent grit and debris it might just be presentable. And I wonder, as it was only a very light coat, if I might be able to get the paint of the front of the depot with some turps. From this photo it looks almost finsihed but it's far from it. I have a list of dozens of things that still need attention, but I think we're slowly getting there....

Just a quick photo of how things are looking so far. My side project is coming along nicely. I will reveal that soon. In the meantime I hope to get the depot surface smoothed....