Captain Kernow

Don't go giving him ideas, Neil...! No, on second thoughts, do!!

I think it's time he built Quai:87A - an organically grown and quite natural extension to his masterpiece....

Yes, it means that what I get up to in my own time is nothing to do with you. Cosi fan tutte.

Mmm, donne delle pulizie puo essere divertente...

E pericoloso sporgersi. Mezzo chilo di salsicce. Il mio postiglione e stato colpito da un fulmine. Cosi che cosa si usa un 'scartomento' per?

Ah yes, the as-yet unnumbered 56XX. Just worked through on a goods train from Severn Tunnel Jct...!

The track was first sprayed all-over with a Halfords red oxide primer. It was then sprayed from the airbrush with Humbrol track colour. The sleepers were then individually painted with a mix of Humbrol enamels to represent wooden sleepers at various stages of weathering. It's not actually finished yet, I need to vary the hue of the rails and chairs on most of the layout, to show the difference between fairly well used track and less well used track. Also, when the air-dry clay 'gunge' is added between the sleepers in the sidings, further weathering will be requried...

Hi - the track is mostly from the P4 Track Co (later Exactoscale, and now part of C&L), with separate plastic chairs glued to plastic sleepers and with steel rail. It's painted with various shades of Humbrol enamels. The ballast is mostly 2mm Carrs stuff, with some fine 'Solent sand' mixed in (kindly donated to me by a friend who had visited a beach in the Solent area!).

I've not had a lot of time for much modelling since late summer, but have finally got round to doing a few conversions etc. to P4. I've also built a couple of Ratio clay opens (non-hood fitted), as a kind of experiment to look at what kind of standards we want for the new DRAG layout project, although these will certainly see use on 'Callow Lane'. Here are a few photos. First up is D7042, which I bought second-hand a few years ago, and finally got round to converting a couple of weeks ago. It's had screw couplings and pipework fitted, plus the main front handrails at either end have had the two missing inner stanchions added. Weathering will follow at some stage... This Hymek is one of the 'BR blue' era locos, the layout will mainly operate in early 1960s mode, so here is D7042 with an unlikely bedfellow: Last night, I finally tested some newly-converted wagons on the layout, plus the two china clay wagons (although the two Presflos have appeared on my blog before). Apart from the two clay wagons, none of the other wagons have any compensation or springing at all... I find that provided the wagon concerned has a nice, square chassis and sufficient weight (the three opens all weigh 42g), then that is sufficient to avoid any derailments. One clay wagon is sprung, with Bill Bedford 'W' irons but solid (Lanarkshire) buffers, the other has internal rocker compensation, and sprung (Lanarkshire) buffers. The Class 20 (another one in the weathering queue) was used to haul and propel this rake at pretty high scale speeds through all the pointwork and curves. Fortunately this was accomplished without any derailments or other 'operating incidents'... These two Bachmann ex-LNER 'high bars' will acquire some of Dave Franks' buffers in due course: The buffer shanks on the china clay wagons scale down to 3mm, and with the overall buffer diameter not much more than that, the ever-helpful Mr Franks was not able to drill them out to that diameter. However, he did kindly suggest drilling them out for 2.5mm, which he duly did, and I think that the result, when fitted with sprung heads, isn't too bad: Next up for 'Callow Lane' is to produce a part-relief/part-'backscene' factory building, using the new Scalescenes 'northlight' loco shed kit as a basis...

I like this, nice work on the Lima van. I converted one to P4 a couple of years ago, and revamped the body, with flush glazing (home-made from Cobex) etc. There were some photos on an earlier version of the forum. I also did a similar job on an OO one, although for that used the SE Finecast flush glazing, as the Laserglaze product wasn't available at the time and I didn't fancy cutting out a load of Cobex again (might replace with Laserglaze in due course).

Common as muck, mate!

Nice work, DJH were a good choice for BR standards before Bachmann and Hornby produced their respective versions. Kemilway did a lovely BR Standard Class 3 2-6-2T, as well. I also did the DJH Standard 4 tank just before the Bachmann one was announced, and then I did the Standard Class 5, again before the Bachmann one was announced, although in the latter case I had the 'wrong' tender in the kit, so ended up using a Hornby Britannia tender as the basis...

Lots of things may (or may not) have happened in my S&D universe...!!

Quite right, Mike. Pete Waterman probably didn't help by using language like that, but he's seen by many as a 'man of the people', so no doubt it was felt that, overall, he would be a net benefit to the cause of HS2. At a time when NR is shaping up to meet the financial challenges of CP5, which include ensuring that the organisation is the right size and with the right level of competencies and experience etc., the last thing we need is a huge additional possession burden, going forward into future control periods as well. The philosophy of 'a little and often' may seem to offer the least disruption to passengers, but in reality, the more disruptive engineering possessions you have, the greater the risk to train service delivery and the greater the cost.

Looks like the author of this article has had her attempt at clever, cheap jibes rebound on her, judging by some of the comments attached to the article.. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/02/hs2-big-boys-toy Apologies if this has been aired already, was circulated around DRAG members this evening.

Useful to know, didn't realise it would be so soon, hopefully they will also do the 72XX (although probably the same basic kit).

Very nice, Jack, got a definite look of St Erth about it, in that photo!

Do you mean Ultrascales for the 38XX? At

Any photos of this one, please Rich?

Looking forward to seeing a photo, Rich! Are these etches now hard to get (you said you got one via the Classified - can't you get them direct any longer?). Certainly beats glueing them in individually, using 5 amp fuse wire!

Exeter Riverside is (mostly) NR infrastructure, as is Truro Yard, and have both been tidied up in recent times. Tavistock Jct is a DB Schenker Yard, with the exception of four 'Networked' sidings (ie. NR infrastructure) at the back of the office block, which are currently used for on-track plant, rail grinding train stabling etc.