Brass0four

I haven't got or seen Darvill's Yard. Any chance of starting with that one, Iain? I'd love a collection, too. One of my favourites is the 3D rendering of your potential layout. I can't seem to upload it on a reply? Tony. (Thanks for the *respect* BTW. My Fire Service period was the best of times and the worst of times, to quote from *A Tale of Two Cities.* I met and worked with some of the finest blokes on the planet, and too many of the biggest macho dickheads you would not wish to meet! ;-) )

This my first post on this thread but I've been watching it for quite a while. My own layout has been stalled for sometime due to health issues, but it allows me to run an A with ten coaches around gentle bends, a sight I never tire of. Aim for that! ;-) Tony.] PS: I don't know why the hell I'm getting multi-same-quotes when I post! I'll delete the content but I can't delete the box, I don't think. PPS. Oh, I did delete the box this time.

<Brassmasters.co.uk> In conjunction with Scalescenes do a good range of etched frames. Scalescenes used to do a free pdf of all the frames but I can't seem to find it. Contact Bill Wiffen on RMweb - where he has a card-construction thread. (Your fine art is cool, as are your comics!) Tony. PS: Since writing the above I've found the scalescenes windows on the *Scratch-builders yard* page. Click on the TX00 arches and windows and there is a pdf of some of the patterns. There's also a free download of grimey glazing. Nice stuff!

I get your drift, Stubby, but I can't see Allan leaving an unsightly join in any model, ("Budget" as he says later/earlier depending when you read this late response) I think that the sooty weathering, using the window as an application angle, has sullied the joins. The contrast with the light stone makes it worse with an optical 3D effect, "throwing" the window out. Just my two-penny worth ;-) Tony.

I tried the reverse idea - it was horrible! I thought it was a eureka moment at the time but the chamfer is such that a very thin wall seems to be floating way from the window-frame! I can talk a good game but this is no bloody good without images... (grumble-mumble)

First of all the CC loader. A lovely little model packed with detail, that I can't recall seeing in isolation elsewhere. Excellent! But it's your drawings I love. So informative (even decorative. I'd frame it on my studio wall) Any magazine should jump at the chance of an article supported by such a diagram. Unless, of course, the magazine has an overall image profile that excludes out-of-house illustrations, etc.* I know of which I speak. Tony. *Here I used the phrase: "Which is bull-ox" using the proper word. Family friendly RMweb deleted it.

Sorry for the delay responding to this - heavy couple of days at the Neurological Care Centre that used to be my house! (see my profile) Anyway, at the start of the chaos I took a quick look at the new posts and saw the top shed image but not the one below. If it had been all North-light it would indeed have been typical Great Central, but as it is it is symptomatic of the LNER when shed-roofs needed repair - they cut them off, brutally. I haven't seen a picture of the roofs after surgery, you understand, only fronts such as Copley Hill, Leeds. Otherwise, it was probably an Eastern Region book you read as there is only one North-light shed in the North Eastern. I can't recall the name but it was a Hull and Barnsley shed. The thing is, the LNER did this to any roof - including hipped - that was suspect, so it is the extension that looks GC. I know this is precisely the sort of farting about information that you don't care for, Alan ;-) but there you go. For myself, I already have the profiles of the shed and I love North-lights with a passion. More work, but with a large shed on a moderate room-sized layout, the North-lights are interesting to look at. Typical North Eastern sheds were monolithic with massive hipped roofs. Boring, visually, to be honest. I grossly over-simplify the latter sheds with this judgement! . PS: I edited this 'cos for some reason the *quote" did it three times - you can still see the empty boxes. Must have been me. (???) lol But thanks again. The way you've handled the extension is exactly what I'm after. Tony. PPS: I should have used the initial post with the image-links. I'm just not functioning properly! LOL

Wow! The shed, at least, is pure Great Central, a North-light unit with those nice cosy offices attached. You're spoiling me rotten!

They are excellent, thanks a lot. I was considering Metcalf as carcasses, windows already cut, but the disadvantage with these is the curvature of the die-cutter, made worse by adding paper and losing sharp edges. A picture-framing friend of mine has dropped of a shed load of mounting-board offcuts, and these take a nice crisp line. So, I think its scratch; better in the long run, particularly as I want to have staggered houses on hills. Thanks again. Tony.

In one of the American mags I read of someone who used a steel caboose as a layout room. Cool or what! Jaz, Kal, I admire your work greatly, even though - heck, because - it is at the opposite extreme to my own. Saying that, funds permitting (it is an issue with Care Givers as we are called in the States, you don't lose one salary but two) I've a fancy for a fantasy section of some sort, perhaps in the Smallbrook Studio vein - (Time, time Time!) LOL! I must lighten up, though.

Pipers Mead! I confess I'd forgotten it. Not that it is forgettable, more that... yes it is in the traditional *mainline through station with all-the-facilities* genre - more railway than buildings. Its funny you should mention your latter approach 'cos that is exactly what I've started to do. Because of the quantity involved I'm using Metcalfe plus Scalescene papers, etc, to find a method of mass-producing middle ground terraces without too much time involved. Also, major buildings. eg: six-road shed, are to be finished for the emotional "lift" of it. I'll add another quality of yours: you give out your time, experience and personality to one and all. Some don't, unless you're at their level/clique... I appreciate that more than you can know.

Yes, I've always thought you enjoyed a free canvas most of all. More power to your elbow! As for me, I'm so very limited time wise that I simply must get some order into my work rather than pottering here and there. My layout is specific only in so far that - like many others - I'm thinking of my boyhood in the late fifties/early sixties (before adolescence and The Sixties! ) a time which I view through rose-colour specs. My main issue is acre upon acre of squalid terraced housing without resorting to Metcalf. Hell, one day I might have some pictures to show for it. Don't hold your breath, though. Tony.

Thank you! That's it. I was a Leading Fireman at a North East Fire Station at the time. A fellow enthusiast came out the closet when I found him reading that copy of the 'Modeller. Sadly, there were some in the job who'd give you a life of misery for being involved in such a hobby. Otherwise, while I know you can and do model after the prototype with accuracy, especially when commissioned to do so, it is the creative flare I admire in your larger pieces. As someone who is so pathetically hidebound to the rivet, that I actually get very little done, this failing of mine is just plain stupid. It's meant to be fun after all.

Allan, I first came across your work many years ago in the 'Modeller - a huge brewery that utilised a number of party-poppers. Good to see you are still enjoying the unique freedom that is so prevalent in your models. Tony aka Brass0four.

Just to add to the overall in-awe-ness, my chin is wedded to my chest whenever I view your work. (Must get physio... ) Tony.

It is Tynemouth which is wonderfully restored - apart from the wrong colour paint! I should really start a layout thread, but - signs of age - health issues now dominate. My work has been stuck for months! lol!

That's a wonderful set of pictures, Fat Controller. I've been seeking photos of Heaton for a ages, but all I have are the usual Station building/platform awnings shots, from middle-distance. Your pics really brought back memories. The detail will be very useful in my Heaton-inspired layout which is in very early days. Thanks again. Tony.

Thanks, Neil. I tried to do a multi-quote reply to everyone but got in such a mess I gave up. Regarding the area, Heaton Junction (just called Heaton) station is interesting. Four-track mainline with a handy over-track wooden station-building. Busy with EMUs or DMUs for the coastal loop, plus all ECML, light-locos from Heaton Sheds, V1s running carriages to Central, plus mixed goods and domestic coal (in Heaton yard) etc. Thanks for the welcome gents. Tony.

Although I've been a lurker for some time, this is my first post on RMweb. At 65, from Tynemouth, NE UK, I went school in Newcastle and so was privileged to witness ECML steam towards the end. Having said that, I'm new to the hobby and profoundly ignorant of so much. This excellent layout has been a joy and a tuition. These sorts of layout: Peterborough North, Little Bythem and Retford (I'm sure there are others) models Tony Wright describes as *prototype* layouts, are becoming of real Historical value, IMHO. Anthony aka Brass0four.

Having just visited Barking Bill's you are right - an excellent resource. Tony.

PS: The photo on flickr, with the sky behind, is just plain magic!

The hemp looks very useful, although my layout "Scotsward Bridge" is in the wood-butchering phase, so I must contain myself. Otherwise, your post had me over to your website, refreshing my memory of 'Catgot, where I found an image I've somehow missed: the one(s) with the green Morris Traveller. I passed my test in the same type and colour, in 1965, age seventeen, when all things are possible in the life to come. I rather think both black-and-white and colour will alternate fairly permanently on my desktop. Mind, alongside a B1, K3, J37 or something of that ilk' would be beyond bliss. (At my age you take your bliss where ever you can get it... All the best for the New Year. Tony.

Ditto all above.

Wonderful! Brasso.