James Hilton

Hi Peter,

 

Yeh, it would be good to see some Scottish stock on Llanbourne sometime. And that idea of a couple of 33s on a railtour doesn't sound bad either! A couple of namers perhaps.

 

I have no justification for Kestrel whatsoever though. It generally only went as far as Newcastle on its East Coast runs I believe and that was back in the 60s too of course. I just love the look of the loco. It looks so powerful and sleek. Of course, with 40 years of advances in loco design, we now have the Class 70. Ahem.

 

Cheers,

Dave

Sorry Peter - but Dave's message was too good to resist...

http://www.sulzer.fotopic.net/p59419176.html

Skirl of the Bagpipes, 1996!

I recommend getting some mini-natur static grass and applying this over and between your existing weeds. Get the short (4.5mm length) in a green-ish colour (summer perhaps) and then the medium (6mm) in brown-ish colour (winter).

You can spray on a little hair-spray where you want to add the grass, then use a Noch puffer bottle (also available from Gaugemaster - about a fiver) to gently start adding some more texture. This can be built up in layers. I tend to use the short first, then a little bit of the medium on top. Keep applying a little hair spray between coats. It's quite hard wearing but probably wouldn't survice a full on brush with a vacuum! Fine if you just need to clear your tracks though - the hairspray will also stop the fibres getting into your locomotives.

Remember to mask the track area (and rail heads in particular) when using the hair spray!

If you then want some bushes I tend to use Woodland Scenics foliage. Sometimes the clusters (but these are quite dense) otherwise the foliage just teased out. I use the medium grade - and use med-green mostly. With your colour pallete I'd try 'burnt grass'.

That one of the 20 is superb - in fact they all are Jon - lovely lighting. The reflection of light in the 60's windscreen just looks right

It's a while since I've posted anything in this thread. I've taken a few snaps that would probably be worthy, but I'll stick to the latest...

More details in my blog - really had better get around to weathering the container in the fore-ground!

The black 08 is looking really nice now and the greasy rods are really nicely captured. I think the underframe itself could do with being a bit more gungy - I find adding powders to wet paint works well

That really does look lovely Brian - when is the weathering gear coming out?!!

I'm really hoping Heljan mess up the 33 otherwise I feel an 0 gauge distraction becoming a bit more of a reality - and I really really don't need any more modelling distractions!

Dave this looks wonderful. I remember having a lovely big roundy roundy that I built with my Dad as a kid. Although I don't have the space for something like this (or the money!) I love looking at other peoples, and I'm very jealous. Despite growing organically it's slowly getting more and more realistic and the steel works looks another great fun location.

The first photo of the HST is superb and a testament to your photography and subtle weathering - and Hornby's excellent tool makers and paint application - awesome!

That's lovely - some fantastic detail and well observed colour balance in the scenery

Some lovely atmospheric shots now Leon - good work. I've an EWS 66 on my 'must do' list as well, and was planning on getting one until Hattons inconveniently sold out. If you see any let me know!

Fantastic layout.

 

A quick question, I notice you've fitted a NEM pocket to your Hornby Class 142 Pacer. How easy was this and to the point how did you do it?

 

Thanks.

Rob

I suspect Peter has added a Kadee no.5 (kadee in a draft box) rather than an NEM pocket and a Kadee no.18 (I might be wrong). In which case I suspect having done it myself that he chopped a slot in the valance and slid the assembled Kadee through, and mounted to underframe with some packing made up from plasticard to get the correct height.

Dave - just read the article in Model Rail (bit late here in Macclesfield! - I struggled to find one between Christmas and New Year!) Congratulations!! Great article and lovely photos - plus a good plug for the forum

Hi Stu, I've posted a question on your ballasting blog...

Is that Pugsley's 09?

Peter I think I would keep the layout as a terminus. I can definitely see the attraction of watching trains round and round, but it would really drastically change the feel of Llanbourne, something which I think would result in you loosing your way a little. Focus on getting the extension finished and see how you feel then

Lovely looking layout I too like the MOD trains. Can I ask are the vans kits, and what kit are the flats? Are the tanks 1:72 kits?

That's a huge improvement Peter - awesome. Shows how restrained weathering can really lift an out of the box model.

Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone,

It seems James has made a good point, I am quite happy with the finish on the model though as 37114 said a bit of weathering around the exhust ports would improve things,I think if I sprayed the model to a Matt that would also look wrong, as would gloss which as Bernard said ex-works locos are painted in. See the pic of the real loco on my brothers 'class 37 nose ends' thread page 2.

As Dave said any thoughts are welcome.

 

Anyway here are a couple more pics.

 

Cheers Peter,

 

 

 

Peter - consider spraying the model in satin varnish, and then a little exhaust weathering - with just a touch of dust on the brake pads I'd suggest would make the world of difference

Great to see Llanbourne on the new forum Peter! A lovely layout - and nicely observed. The 37 could do with toning down a touch to my eye - shiny models just don't look right to me!

Narrowing the 37 bogies is quite straight forward. You'll need a little bottle and a slitting disc fitted to a mini drill. Basically you cut off the frame (flush with the back side of the frames) very carefully. I left the wheelsets in and went slowly but I guess best practice would be to strip the frame off the bogie to do this modification!

The amount of material the disc removes is about 1mm - perfect! Just clean up with a knife or file and re-attach - I just used a quick setting household superglue. Job done. I also moved the frames marginally up to make the gap between body and bogie slightly less.

I hope you do come over to the blog format - it's a really nice way of documenting a layout or modelling workbench progress - keeping comments in line with original posts, and to new readers just showing the authors ramblings.

Posting is no different to creating a thread - and I wouldn't worry about blog etiquette or anything - creating blog posts like this thread is more than acceptable. I try and keep new blog topics to new subject matters but you could add a blog entry for each new update - just as you do with a thread. Job done. Worth a play for an hour to see what you think!

I seemed to of ended up with a number of bits and pieces in the "Dutch" livery. I have no idea what this means but focus on BR Blue. So can I mix these two liveries up? In my mind my trains are based around 1985 -90.

 

Cheers, Jerry

 

PS I am no rivet counter

Hi Jerry. I remember roughly when Dutch livery (named after the Dutch railways livery to which it bore a striking resemblance) was introduced either late 1990 or 1991. I have the Platform 5 spotter books for those years and it doesn't appear in the 1990 book. Basically the livery was the application of a yellow stripe to the BR General livery which was introduced at the back end of the sector liveries (Railfreight triple grey with all the different logos, Intercity, NSE etc - and then there was Mainline (which was like Intercity) for mixed traffic, and general for anything else).

So... in short - yes you can - just - as blue stretched well into the 1990s on most classes anyway! Just the 25s and 45s disappeared.

"33019 crawls into Paxton Road to run round some seacows for a weekend occupation of the line south of Winchester - these will be stabled here until Sunday.

The un-identified Mainline 09 in the back ground has tripped the MOD vans up from Eastleigh, dropped off from the feeder from the hub at Didcot. I heard it was 09007 which had been seen in the area earlier in the week but couldn't get a clear shot from the boundary fence."

Taken on a Panasonic Lumix - under one filament, one energy saver - with no Photoshop trickery. Backscene is currently just white paper but will be painted one of these days!

I've not had chance to take any more recent photos I'm afraid - more soon enough - workbench projects queuing up first though!