HillsideDepot

Thanks Rob. No nothing lined up at the moment, and actually it's not operational at the moment. When it was last set up I realised that the original design meant that the fiddle yard traverser was wider than the scenic section, and free of the competition restriction I could add a few inches on the front to make it flush with the fiddle yard. While I have exhibited it in that format I decided it needed a bit more work, not least power points rather than wire in tube which worked on the original point, but was unreliable on the newer one, but also some new scenic to blend it all together. At some point I swapped Central for Mortimore's Yard on the layout room (I've only room for one set up at a time) and have been taking a long detour around the world of vac fitted freight. But, Central will return, possibly even to the exhibition circuit. In the meantime, on a warm summer's evening, as the sun begins to dip a class 47 arrives at Westonmouth Central light engine from Hillside Depot to pick up some parcel vans and head off into the night.

A class 35 Hymek ticks over in the platform having arrived with a short passenger train from Taunton. The Ticket Collector at the barrier passes the time of day with a colleague.

Thanks for the compliments Paul, I'm glad it says "Western" so loudly. I think the location cabinets are from the Knightwing range, they're definitely not scratch built. As for placing, far more luck than judgement in that, but maybe just immersing myself in so much "Western" works subliminally. The C&W building is inspired by one at Westbury (Wilts) which is rather larger and houses infrastructure people rather than rolling stock, but with digital photos being "free" I'm always keen to record things and file them away in the "ideas" file. Although so much has been swept away now I am rather fascinated by the abundance of huts and buildings which used to be found all over the railway. Whilst not the same style, those formerly at the west end of Reading General were the inspiration for the ones on Westonmouth Central. Who 'lived' in all these little buildings, dotted around? Some no doubt would be trades long gone, others probably now roam around in Transit vans, but whoever they were, their huts need replicating. The parcels depot is just generic, but if it looks familiar, I'm more than happy with that!

Westonmouth Central is the 3rd layout that I have set in the fictional city of Westonmouth. Situated on the Bristol Channel coast the city has a large modern docks complex to the north, and a popular holiday beach to the south. The loco stabling point for the area, Westonmouth Hillside, Mortimore's Yard (which has its own topic) is a small set of exchange sidings serving what remains of the city's historic dock industries, whilst the project here represents a small part of the city's main passenger station. The layout is set in the mid-1970s, when the distinctive Western Region hydraulics were in decline, and the newer class 50s were making the depot fitters lives a nightmare! Mark 1 coaches dominate the passenger rakes, whilst parcels trains still feature some pre-Nationalisation vehicles. Plain blue, suburban style D.M.U.s ply their trade on local services. In the mid-1970s the railways still had a distinct regional atmosphere; it was very much the traditional railway, in this case the Great Western, but with diesels. The buildings of the station reflect that lack of change, although the new Power Signal Box is a rude intrusion on the scene and is a harbinger to things to come. The layout was initially built as an entry for the 2007 Diesel & Electric Modellers United competition marking the 50th anniversary of Cyril Freezers’ classic “Minories” track plan. The rules of the competition - specifically "3 platform faces" have been interpreted to allow the representation of 3 platforms of a larger station, rather than a whole station, yet at the same time rather less than the maximum permitted space has been used. In this way the long platform at the front of the layout is actually a bay platform, and where the viewer stands the main through platforms would lie. The shorter middle "dock" platform comes into its own in the evening for the loading of mails and parcels traffic but during the day is more likely to be "home" for a large mainline locomotive waiting to take over an Inter-Regional train. Similarly the station pilot loco may be found there between duties or perhaps a defective coach that has been removed from a passing train (or, more likely, a disgraced class 50!). As well as meeting the rules of the competition one aim of the layout is to act as a photographic background, where stock projects can be recorded in a natural setting. The opportunity was also taken to move to finer scale track (C&L) and a first attempt at building a turnout. A class 46 rests between duties in on of the bay platforms, overshadowed by the huge parcels depot. A DMU rattles under the new signal gantry and covers the last few yards of its journey - the expected Bachmann 117 DMUs can't come soon enough to banish less appropriate LMR stock back to its native Region. These offices are the base of the station's C&W team, ready to make running repairs to any vehicle in need of their intention. Their offices are now rather dwarfed by the new power signal box which will soon take over control of the area as the Western prepares for introduction of the new High Speed Diesel Train fleet.

I asked a member of GWR staff yesterday if he knew the significance of the big W, and he said he'd been told it was to emphasise the importance of the west to the franchise. I was also talking to a former railway woman (BR through to Wessex Trains) and she mentioned the new GWR image, obviously having seen it somewhere and she said, without prompting, that "it looks like the old round GWR logo" (meaning the shirt button). GWR named 43172 "Harry Patch The last survivor of the trenches" at Bristol Temple Meads yesterday as part of the remembrance events and while the power car is in a black based livery it fades to blue at the van end, and has "First f Great Western" branding under the nameplate. The silver radiator grilles are unusual! Unfortunately the only photos I've seen so far aren't on the net, but certainly one to look out for.

I'm sure I speak for many when I say that I am glad you clarified these points.

Whilst I don't know what work they are doing (it could be routine track maintenance rather than electrification related) there is often single line working in place west of Didcot in the late evening. I sometimes look at the on-line feed from the signalling system, and whilst there are clearly some problems with the data, I have seen trains using the reversible road in a number of different places.

If you would be so good as to build the Duck a Swindon Cross Country/120 please Clive, there are many here who would appreciate the RTR one which would be sure to follow

Very nice! "Ducks", with that corner dent, is on my list of Westerns to do. And if mine ends up half as good looking as that (even with the bent hand rail) I'll be very pleased.

Very much my sort of thing this, Brian. Run down, hidden away, on its last legs - wonderful stuff! Make sure you keep hold of these 'Private and Not for Publication' documents, in 30 or 40 years time modellers will find them invaluable.

Some involved in other parts of the distribution industry would say that ten lines in stock is ten lines too many! They might even ask "what is a warehouse?"

Had the chance to quickly snap both versions this lunch time. Both are straight out of their respective boxes. Hope these answer your query, Paul.

I was working at Western National in Plymouth in 1992, and before replying that it was Exeter St David's I checked my photos on the off chance that I might have photographed that train as I was guessing at a 1992 date. Nothing in the files though. I remember that the Down Line over the river bridge was closed in 1992 for maintenance, so it probably dates from that time. I probably have photos with the bridge works in the background, but would have to look through many photos to find them as I file by loco number rather than in date order. The bridge was certainly closed in the summer of 1992 as the though of the GWR main line to the West could be reduced to a single line seemed incredible, and a sad comparison to the volumes of decades before. Original Railfreight 47s weren't unknown on Waterloos, I had 47142 Up from Plymouth on such a working. They made for a colourful combination.

Bristol's came from London Country when they weren't that old. They were registered PPH_R, Series 3 buses with Leyland engines when they arrived. They were allocated to Bristol Marlborough Street and Bath depots so passed to Badgerline at de-regulation and many were converted to Gardner 6LXB power.

I don't know what the name of the church is, but the train is arriving at Exeter St David's.

I'd especially not be a fan of flashing lights on model road vehicles, die-cast or otherwise. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the yellow Dennis and subsequent turquoise green Leyland bin lorries of my youth even had rotating beacons. I respect your opinion Ian, but the road vehicles of my youth are probably more important than the trains. With Bristol FLFs passing the door every half an hour until 1975 when Leyland Nationals (HEU120N, usually) took on half the 297 car-workings I saw far more of Bristol Omnibus' buses than I did of BR's trains. Likewise George Flower's dark green Leyland Ergo tipper, complete with orange grab which parked up overnight in the cul-de-sac next to our house, the green Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company Ford D Series which Mr Hopkins sometimes brought home at lunch time, the Southern Electricity Leyland FG "light mender", the aforementioned dust carts, and the purple Ford D Series sweeper and more were all very much part of my childhood. And it is creating an impression of that which was the spark which developed into Mortimore's Yard. Trains, back then, were usually only seen in the distance, and then you had to be lucky to see one, hoping that one would come along when you had a brief glimpse of the line. Yes, many of the die-cast offerings don't match the finesse and detail of many of our railway models, and indeed there have been some real oddities along the way like the "caricature" ECW bodied Olympian which Corgi did in their OOC range. But my Britbus "Red Arrow" AEC Swift is very different to my much played with (although it was a Bristol RE in my young mind) Dinky Toys version of the same type of vehicle; the Britbus one doesn't have a bell to ping, nor opening doors for starters!

Thanks Rob. It is taking time as ideas are still developing as structures appear in 3-dimensions and don't necessarily "work" with each other as I want. I'll certainly take some photos of the stop blocks when they are done. I'm not building them as intended, though. As cast the running rails extend some distance from the block itself, but there are places where I need the full length of the siding, on occasion. Yes, I know stock would usually be left short of the blocks, but such are the problems of modelling in a limited space. So I am removing the running rail from the casting and using Peco (yes, I know, horrible stuff, but consistently "wrong" is probably better than it suddenly changing to more realistic C&L at the end of each siding) as an integral part of the stop. The first two will be for the extension, so will be built around new track, but the other 4 will hopefully be built around the existing track, although time will tell. That complication aside, I'd say go for it, they look superb as a kit of parts, almost a shame to cover in the grot, grime, rust and muck found at the end of the line.

Time for another small update. I'm certainly not a prolific builder, unlike a number on here, so don't expect too much to have changed. But things have been moving along gently; it is supposed to be fun after all. Firstly an overview Comparison with the previous update will show that the factory has grown. Originally it was too similar in size to the railway "cabin" for my liking, so I enlarged to be as big as possible in the space available. The structure to the right is a wood dust extractor tower, which was a challenge to locate photos of. It is based on photos from Google Steetview of the timber merchant's next to the railway in Hereford. It was reading Big Jim's Colas topic which had a distant shot of it in the background and after bit of a search around on Streetview a few angles were saved and enough information gained. Yes, that is a pot of table salt in the framework, I think it will be just the right size for the cylindrical part of the cyclone! The corner is coming together nicely, although the base of the water tower was quite complex and took a couple of attempts. It's not 100% accurate for the tower in Chippenham goods yard, but should be pretty close and hopefully more interesting and believable than anything I could have designed myself. The coal staithes here are more like the ones used by Mortimore's, although only roughly placed at the moment. I'm unsure what I'll do with the existing wooden staiths on the layout, the whole area probably needs a rethink, but I have considerably less width across the yard to work with than in reality. The stack of coal sacks is destined for a second lorry, and now I know a bit more about the subject the original lorry needs some reworking. Finally the cabin is ready for painting and detailing although the exact size and shape of the retaining wall on the right won't be decide until the landscaping starts coming together. Although not in any of the photos I am also working on some Lanarkshire Model Supplies GWR stop blocks to upgrade from the Peco ones currently in use. So that's it for now, and with a nice day forecast for tomorrow I'll be out walking on the Wiltshire Downs. I expect there will be plenty of wet and cold days in the coming months which will be ideal for hiding away at the work bench, so if the Met Office is correct the countryside takes priority while summer clings on.

Which makes it all the more challenging to model them! I've not started work yet, but have collected lots of photos of my chosen three, worked out which side/end is which (not easy in itself) and marked up the various dents, scrapes, paint fades and so on, on a series of diagrams from Carter's book (yes, I know the detail on those drawings needs to be treated with care, but they are fine for this). Whether I can get the models to be recognisable in the same way that the experts are identifying these wonderful photos remains to be seen, but generic wafts of "under frame dirt" and "exhaust black" won't cut it with the 1000s.

Re the blue painted chairs there was a photo on the Class 52 Diesel Hydraulics Facebook group a while back of a marker at Botley, which appears to be a piece of slate, with III 26 III CLASS 52 DRIVERS CAB WINDOW written on. The 26 refers to the maximum 26 wagons used on the Botley trains and this marker either meant that the rear of the train was clear of the point blades when drawing forward on the mainline before reversing into the discharge siding, or it was on the headshunt and used when unloading (comments to the photo suggest both reasons, but the photo is nearly 40 years old, and memories fade). In the subsequent comments someone added "this sort of [unofficial] sign was once prevalent".

In respect of the capacity issues at Cardiff, regardless of how much rolling stock is available, I wonder what the capacity of Cardiff General Central actually is. Not in terms of train paths, although that is of course relevant, but in terms of passenger flow. It's not as if Great Western have the station to themselves. I'm sure Arriva Trains Wales were at capacity too, with extra units in multiple on scheduled trains and possibly additional services too. Maybe FGW should have made all trains reservation only - but no doubt that would have been wrong in the eyes of the travelling public (although I don't suppose any turned up at the stadium expecting to get a ticket on the day). Still, back to the new GWR livery, anyone seen any pictures from the launch today? Local media seems to only have a man polishing a GWR sign outside a factory unit and an artist's impression of a green SET so far.

Two photos of today's "bin-bag express" on the Devon Diesels topic which are relevant here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97748-devon-diesel-era-photo-record/?p=2026503

I'd suggest that this is the perfect time to rebrand. The incoming Thames EMU fleet isn't in First Great Western livery, so will need a repaint, the new High Speed fleet doesn't exist yet, but will need a coat of paint of one colour or another, the Turbo fleet is already undergoing overhaul, including a repaint (as the plain blue ones show). I doubt we'll see many of the HSTs painted green, (although looking at a few sets last weekend, they are looking tired and in need of some attention) as the SETs approach and the 125s head north of the border. With uniforms there is probably a full issue every two years (I think that's what we had on the buses, at least), so if it is the appropriate year, that is probably nil cost. Likewise publicity gets revised frequently, so once the templates are done it's business as usual for the designers albeit picking green elements rather than blue. Sure the hardened, fed-up commuter probably won't see it that way, (I sometimes wonder if personal magic carpets running free of charge would please them!) but for a good proportion of travellers the new image will be a sign that things are changing. Having said all that, I'll wait until I see the new livery for real before I decide if I like it, I'm definitely in the "not sure" category after looking at the various photos.

Finally a little progress, but the emphasis needs to be on "little"! There's no rush though, and this sunny weather has encouraged me outside this week rather than doing work in the model room. The evening walks around the local countryside have been really enjoyable, as was kayaking on the Avon during a morning off work, but swimming in the river, even in a dry suit, was surprisingly chilly! Anyway, the plan is becoming slightly more three dimensional now. The extension is the area beyond the red line, and the edge of the new board is the purple line. The water tower (photo from the Calne Branch book just visible) is an approximation of the one which once stood between Mortimore's building and the lorry sheds. I will have the structures in the wrong order, and I thought long and hard whether I was happy with this or not, but the spacing didn't really work out with the board join, I was unsure if I'd be able to lift and move the lorry sheds, and anyway, this is Mortimore's Yard and not Chippenham yard. The height of the tower where it is now planned will also help to hide the corner which is an advantage, and it seems to all "work".There will be some more coal staiths between the board join and the water tower, built in Mortimore's breeze block style. The yard office/mess building is much as has been shown before, although the roof is actually cut now. The building itself keeps getting moved around the plan, a centimetre this way and that, angled a bit, then straightened again. I really need to fix the roof as I think part of my indecision stems from the retaining wall at the right hand side which currently gives the impression the building is longer than it is. Behind that, and Blutac'd to a box of wood screws is the end of Downing Rudman & Bent's joinery factory. This will be at a higher level than the railway, hence it's current position stuck on a box. The space at the right hand side will be filled by cyclone dust extractor, something which was surprisingly hard to find any photos of on the web. I remember the real one burning down one Friday night in the mid 1980s as we saw its remains on the following morning as we walked to the station. The extra length on the head shunt now gives me space to stable a Pilot there (that will annoy the Gaffer, being right outside his office), and means that a Western can use the run round without having to compress its leading buffers on the stop blocks to clear the point blade with its trailing wheel set! The extra length of coal siding could allow space for more wagons, but I'm still having thoughts about what I want to do in that area.

I'm not sure why people are getting so worked up about the 116 & 118, sure I'd prefer them to the 117, but in model production terms the differences are probably akin to those found across the numerous types of class 37. And those have all been covered over time, so I'm sure the 117's siblings will get similar treatment too. I could say "nothing for me", but we were never quite sure what Kernow/DJM were going to produce, and nor were they until the pre-orders were totted up. Now I know that a plain blue suburban DMU is (I guess as its not in the first batch) at least a few years away, which is more than I knew on Friday. And if Mr Bachmann chooses to announce a blue 117, or indeed a blue 116 or 118 next spring, happy days. And if anyone is still not satisfied, make me an offer on my box of assorted Lima "117s", most are already dismantled ready for you to convert/detail!