Captain Kernow

Well, the deal's been done - an over-enthusiastic order of these locos by The Model Shop in Exeter resulted in him selling his stock off at a reasonable price, so that was my consolation prize for him not having any 7Fs in stock yet....

Interesting how views change over the years, Mike - current steam operators seem to like using St Blazey a whole lot more - especially as it avoids a long run tender-first to Plymouth to turn - a very important consideration if the train is running to/from Penzance.... This brings to mind the problems we had turning Bittern (I think it was) earlier this summer - the safety railing around the edge of the turntable pit was fouled by the A4 and had to be oxy-acetelyned off before we could complete turning the loco - a small delay ensued to the departing train (which was starting back from Par on that occasion).

Sorry, duplicate posting.

I agree with Ian, these are definitely worthwhile improvements. I often use a bit of Eileens brass strip of the correct width to form new safety straps, and solder a bit of brass rod on the top rear, which is then glued into a hole drilled in the solebar, which should give it a bit more strength. You could go further, of course, and substitute etched brake gear etc., but this is a personal choice and what you've done will certainly improve things, and for 'layout wagons', they'll look fine when painted and weathered up, no doubt.

Stunning! They should market that as a kit (I'd buy one!)

Well, let's move the goalposts slightly and say that they wouldn't have had to have gone all the way to Bristol, just as far as Westerleigh Yard on a favour to the Gloucester shedmaster (in my day at Preston, Saltley men were known as 'Martini Men' - any time, any place, any where...). Once at Westerleigh Yard, a further small favour would have seen them nip up to Callow Lane on a transfer trip, with a local pilot driver, due to the booked Hymek having been purloined for something else....

Thanks for posting that, Mike - if they got as far as Gloucester, I wonder if they might occasionally have gotten as far as Bristol?.... You're giving me ideas, you are!

This is the model of a passenger train of the South Polden Light Railway, seen here visiting Combwich at the High Wycombe show a few weeks ago (photo by Chris Nevard): The moribund coaches and Peckett normally work occasional services between Burrowbridge and Bleakhouse Road... Then, the other day, I found this ensemble at Buckfastleigh: Clearly, someone felt the SPLR was worth preserving!!

I think a suitable description for 'Hursley' could be 'pinnacle of modelling'. Despite having been 20 years ago (and that in itself is no reason for a model not to be of superlative quality), it remains one of my favourites. Apart from the MRJ article, there are a few photos of it and it's stock in Martyn's book 'The Art of Weathering'.

Hi Julia, The walls of the corrugated iron building are built from Wills plastic sheets. The roof features a piece of ordinary 30 thou Slaters plasticard, on to which was glued a piece of Wills transparent corrugated plastic sheeting - but glued with Devcon epoxy to prevent any risk of the plastic sections warping. The roof of the overhanging canopy was done the same way. The brick paper on the main building is from Scalescenes. Will post some more photos soon, as the ironwork and canopy have had their base coat of 'factory blue' - to match the Scalescenes sliding wooden door, but I want to do a bit of weathering first...

Make that the Kernow D600s, and we're practically there!

Superb! Just looked at the link at the bottom of your signature, Rich - is that your modelling - the Swedish narrow gauge? Some mighty fine work being done there, by the looks of it!

Thanks Matt, very nice job you've made of the 'C' class lining as well!

Well done - that's a lovely job you've done there, I enjoyed reading about the project and the video was great fun too - the layout seems to run very well. What is the origin of the SE&CR 0-6-0 tender loco, by the way, please?

If you boys only signed the road north of Abbotswood Jct, you'd no doubt see it regularly!

I do like this one - it has a real 'Titfield Thunderbolt' feel to it! Always a pleasure to see photos of your work, Geoff, and I can only echo what others have said about those superb effects on the milk tankers!

You've been busy, Chris - lovely structures modelling, as ever. What prototype is the beam engine house based on, and was there an example of this kind of structure at somewhere like Kilmersdon or Writhlington?

Hi Doug - the basis for the canopy is some old Slaters valancing that I had. The rest is plasticard, scribed for the outer sides and the top section has some Wills clear corrugated plastic epoxied to the 30 thou sheet - the idea being to give it a bit of stability and to try to stop it warping, had I used a solvent type glue on it. It has been sprayed with grey primer so far. It is attached to the building by three spigots of brass, themselves glued to the inside of the canopy and which fit into small holes drilled into the main building. I will epoxy the canopy to the main building in due course.

I guess this gives you the opportunity to model the station frontage and the full width of the (then) main road bridge, with the station building right on top of it, but in some ways, that bridge made an ideal scenic break, given that it is also quite wide..... As the line is in a cutting at the point you describe, why not have the accommodation bridge there and disguise the other end with the trees (which I don't think is in a cutting, is it??)

Huh! If the problem had only been as simple as that! Essentially, it boiled down to the fact that my wife's website was 'too popular' with the cloth doll fraternity!

I'm very happy to say that we have now sorted out our problems with the size of the various websites that we have been having hosted by our ISP, and that http://www.enginewood.co.uk/ is now back on line! It's been put back up largely in it's original format, and whilst I still plan to change the appearance and update some of the pages, it is at least back. My thanks to CTMK (Captain The Mrs Kernow ) for sorting it all out!

Hopefully both versions are still available, Sir Haydn, please? (for those of us who like to take our time making our minds up!... )

Belated thanks for that answer, Chris. I now have a supplementary if I may, please - what kind of track did you use (the reason for this is wishing to know the depth of the sleepers when using the above ballasting method). Thanks.

This in particular cannot be unexpected, given the presence of a large concrete slab at the station site - I would imagine that a sympathetically architectural style will be used....

Ah - that is very interesting - it certainly looks good.