James Hilton

Good question. I've not found an answer to when the majority were stored - and I suspect that from the photos and videos I've seen they weren't mixed with other types.

Is the traverser only big enough for one coach or am I mis-understanding the first set of photos? Anyway - looks a nice little concept, and well executed so far I'd suggest perhaps using a lighter sky background behind the station - the sky behind the warehouses (I know are being replaced - although they look great!) is probably more realistic then that behind the station. When will it be set?

I've had two of the Bachmann PNA wagons (a 5 and a 7 rib) for nearly 18 months and they've never before appeared on my workbench! These are good quality, value for money models of a nice mundane prototype. Perfect for Paxton Road - which is endeavouring to permeate averageness and mundane in it's environs, scenery and rolling stock (if not in quality of finish and modelling!). The Bachmann model uses their TTA underframe, as did a batch of the prototype wagons. Unfortunately it does not accurately portray the brunninghaus spring arrangement - and when I discovered this the models took a back seat on my project list! The prototype are all currently stored, but were in regular use during the timeframe of Paxton Road, usually in block trains - and often for material and spoil removal. I needed a work stained and weathered wagon to be left in one of the sidings on Paxton Road, so a PNA was hastily pulled out and weathered, along with the interior being rusted up and some ballast remains added to the interior. Despite this the underframe still bugged me. I bought a copy of Nigel Burkin's excellent book, 'Making the best of ready to run models: Modern Wagons in 4mm Scale', which covers the type in some detail. I realised the springs were available from S-kits as an aftermarket white metal casting and splashed out on enough sets for my fleet of 4 PNAs. The chassis modification is actually really simple. Chassis Modification - Step by Step 1. Carefully remove the brake lever from each side, and store safely out of the way. 2. Using a sharp blade slice through the existing spring moulding where it meets the hanger, leaving the hanger in place. 3. Slice out the spring moulding a section at a time, being careful to avoid nicking the body of the wagon (or your fingers). 4. Remove the spring hangers and axle boxes from the S-kits mouldings. 5. Superglue the new springs into position. Note there is a small gap between the spring and the hanger. This is un-avoidable but is not noticeable at normal viewing distances. 6. Re-attach the brake levers with superglue. This should leave you with a model that reflects the correct chassis for the prototype, and ready for weathering. On one of my models I also replaced the moulded lamp brackets with thin stainless steel (etch off-cuts) but didn't think this added enough visually to carry over to the other wagons. Weathering starts with the chassis, then interior, then body sides and then an overall wash if required. Chassis Weathering - Step by Step 1. Starting with a medium brush, apply a quick wash of thinners to the chassis frame - avoiding the axle blocks. 2. Use Humbrol 98 (matt chocolate) and apply liberally, occassionally cleaning your brush and adding a little thinners. This should give a dirty but translucent effect so you can still make out the works plate. 3. Use Humbrol 98 neat on the new spring assemblys and axle blocks. Apply neat to the buffer beams, and buffers. 4. Use Humbrol 98 with some thinners on the brake rigging, so that the white remains visible, but dirty. 5. Use Humbrol 98 neat on the chassis brake rigging. 6. Use Humbrol 98 neat and paint the front face, back face and axle of both wheelsets. Avoid getting paint on the wheel tread, and if you do carefully remove with another brush moistened in thinners. 7. When dry you can apply a very delicate touch of Mig weathering powders. I use Europe Dust on the brake shoes to represent brake dust, and then use Black Smoke on some of the chassis frame to add some shadow. 8. Apply some silver to the buffer shanks. 9. Mix some Humbrol 53 (Gunmetal) with Humbrol 98 about 25/75%. Paint the buffer heads. Whilst these are still wet stipple on Black Smoke weathering powder. At this stage your model should have started to look more realistic and certainly less toy like - we're well beyond the point of no-return yet with such a cheap model to start with this should not be of concern, and hopefully you're confidence has grown. We're now ready to tackle the interior of the wagon. If you study prototype shots you'll see that the interior quickly gets rusty, dusty and in generally unkempt condition. The sides are often quite rusty and scuffed, with some 'tide' marks where a load has been present. The base often appears lighter as it's more dusty with some remnants of it's previous load - these wagons were loaded and unloaded by mechanical grab. Some useful photos were posted by Mark and Brian on my original request for help thread here on the old forum. Interior Weathering - Step by Step 1. The base of the interior is a good enough base for weathering but the inside sides and ends need painting. I use Humbrol 98 (Matt Chocolate) and some Humbrol 60 (Matt Red), and a spot of Humbrol 33 (Matt Black) to mix up a rusty dirty colour. This is then applied to the insides adjusting the tone slightly by varying the proportions of the mix as you go. 2. The floor will also need weathering. Study photographs and determine the type of ballast or spoil previously carried as this dry dusty load will have deposited a film on top of the rust. I decided on a light grey (Humbrol 64) and a little orange (Humbrol 82), mixed with a small amount of thinners and varied across the floor. 3. The remnants of it's last load are produced by applying some neat PVA glue in the corners, and in roughly the position where a mechanical grab would miss, and then applying ballast of your choice. I chose granite. Now the chassis and interior are suitably distressed the final piece in the jigsaw is tacking the body. If you study photographs of the prototype (either in Nigel's book - or online on Gareth Bayer or Martyn Read's sites) you'll find that they appear to be generally dirty, but the info panels have been cleaned up - and also that the dirt is quite uniform, something that a beginner and an airbrush might struggle to achieve. I use a really simple basic technique that is surprisingly effective. This works on this type of wagon because the base colour is quite similar to the weathered colour, and would not give such a good effect on a lighter or brighter wagon. Bodywork weathering - Step by Step 1. This really is a two step process. Apply some thinners to one or two body panels at a time. Add a little Humbrol 98 (Matt Chocolate) to the brush and 'mix' on the panel until uniform. Don't worry if this appears slightly uneven and transparent. I find this adds to the effect. Use Humbrol 98 neat along the top sides. 2. Whilst this is still damp use a dry clean cotton bud and clean up the data panel and the blue works stencil, and the min curve and loose shunting signs. I know this photo shows the model with the incorrect springs - but as is life my PNAs are a work in progress and I've not finished the body on the wagons that have a finished chassis! You should now have a PNA that definitely looks the part, and with a little work a short rake could be assembled, happy to be towed behind your EWS 66 (or similar) or just stashed in a siding full of debris awaiting collection after a weekend occupation and track renewal work elsewhere.

"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!

Pete fast progress as usual! I like the idea for the hard standing. What's the theme of the layout, what is it portraying?

Lovely piece of work Andy - these 'faux' history pieces are great fun aren't they! I do intend to do something further with Paxton Road one day!

It seems there are a few of us trying to figure out how to use the new blog versus posting in old forum threads! Lovely layouts - I look forward to seeing more about them and any future projects? on here!

Thanks for the kind words Andy - brown ballast seems to be typical of the Southern region, it seems to weather quite quickly to this colour when you look at prototype photos, and it makes a difference from the usual greeny grey granite chippings. The track is weathered with Humbrol 98 applied liberally to the sleepers. Once dry and ballasted, I've picked out the rails in a light rust for the main running line, and a darker gungier rust on the sidings. As for the nipples, I've started removing one from each point. They're currently un-motorised and there is no other easy way of setting them! (is there?) The nipples at least mean you don't damage surrounding scenery and weathering so much but I'm open to suggestions. I have toyed with the idea of drilling through from underneath to fit point motors, but I've a suspicion that when I finish the layout I'll end up starting another with all the things I've learnt about this one factored in from day one!

Well the old stuff is still live and available on the old forum, CLICKY CLICKY, but I thought to start off the blog it would be good to recap a little, so here we are - the history and development of a small scenic shunting plank... Paxton Road started life back in September 2007, my return to modelling spurred on by the arrival of my first child and a realisation that the track day car project was a non-starter! I should explain that Paxton Road is actually a childhood memory adaptation - and I'm not a Spurs fan! With the realisation that I didn't have much space I shopped around for minimum space ideas - and a 6'x1' grew to 7' x 18" plus! I used brown wrapping paper and cardboard models plus some old track to work out if it would work and spent an enjoyable evening pushing stock around on the floor! You may notice the distinct lack of a layout fiddleyard - at either end - the layout was originally conceived as a shunting plank to fit in with the rules of the 2007 challenge. The size increased but the fiddleyards were never added to the design. The layout can be operated by anything from an 08/09 up to a Class 58 and still be 'shuntable'. The initial scribblings were based on a industrial estate railway - similar to Trafford Park, with the excuses of van traffic and short trains in a gritty location. However things quickly headed Southern with my new found love of the Heljan Class 33. Research showed MOD workings also used short trains with small vans - perfect for a space starved modeller - so the layout concept was set as a small MOD establishment receiving explosives and general merchandise in largely van traffic but potentially the odd open. Paxton Road had just been 'somewhere in the Southern region' until I was browsing a book on the Didcot Newbury and Southampton railway. I read about Worthy Down, just north of Winchester and it's part in WW2. I summised it's importance continued after the war and when the rest of the line was abandoned the chord built during the war for access from the GWR to the Southern, just north of Winchester, remained open as far as Sutton Scotney - although abandoned any further north than Worthy Down. Paxton Road is the ficticious name of the road that crosses the line on an overbridge (the centre of the layout). The baseboards were built using some foam insulation board after reading about in Pugsley's 2007 challenge layout thread. This proved lightweight and fairly stiff, but does have drawbacks - being hard to fit wiring and point motors. This foamboard was framed with 9mm plywood - cheap stuff from a DIY place - I'd use decent marine ply next time. Underside was strengthened, and the sides cut deeper than the foam board to allow wiring to be tucked out of harms way. Trackwork is Peco Code 75 (with short radius electrofrog points - another thing I'd not do next time - definitely worth medium or large radius if you can afford the space) which was laid on some grey foam I had from work - about 4mm deep deep this would give a realistic height for the road bed above the surrounding landscape and give a nice ballast shoulder - something missing on a lot of layouts which does impact the realism in my opinion. I really wanted to do a good job on the scenics of this one - and although I'd inherited a large quantity of Woodscenics scatter I was drawn to static grass - which I'd see in Model Railway Journal and on layouts like Cement Quay and Chittle. Not wanting to splash out on a static applicator I took the plunge and ordered some ready made 'grass mat' and 'static grass tufts' from International Models (Silflor is the brand) - which led me to the Noch puffer bottle at a later date. Which brings us bang up to date with my last update on the old RMWeb. A major milestone - 2 years on and first half, all 3' of it, is 'about' finished! It's been an interesting two years. In the same time I've churned out a fair number of models on my workbench, some of which have been moved on and others still prized possesions. I do enjoy the layout and scenics, but I find myself split between that and modifying ready to run stock and weathering - so one day I'll get there with Paxton Road - and probably with too much stock! Thanks for reading! I hope you'll visit again to see how we go from here on this, my new layout blog!

Well here we are - a new RM web and a new era. This will make keeping projects easier to organise, but as the end of an old era it seems apt to review where I've come from and my progress on the old forum. Read on for the index to my existing rolling stock projects... 33207 (now sold) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p188025" http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25#p227636 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25#p232141 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=250#p614427 08683 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p221113 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p222084 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25#p239758 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=125#p472612 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=125#p474051 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=125#p484903 08543 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25#p249686 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&p=661713#p661713 33108 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p222084 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25#p224264 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25#p232141 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50#p264799 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p600288 57008 (now sold) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50#p282599 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50#p284341 37013 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50#p308793 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=50#p318188 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75#p319972 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75#p322300 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p586457 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p598203 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p600291 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=275#p685597 47744 (now sold) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75#p342147 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75#p354020 37411 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&p=532922#p508922 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&p=532922#p532922 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&p=539046#p539046 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=175#p539960 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&p=540792#p540792 33019 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=200#p567665 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=200#p570183 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=200#p570615 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=200#p570768 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=225#p582523 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=225#p583504 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p600288 58009 - coming soon! VAA/VBA/VDA vans http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75#p345553 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p598203 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p600288 Seacows http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=100#p378605 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=100#p379368 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=225#p598203 BDA http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=150#p503990 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&p=532922#p508922 OCA http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12152&start=200#p559068