Chris Nevard

nevard_110903_BQ_IMG_1087pete_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. This morning's rose tinted load of old tosh...... This colour publicity shot was taken around 1964 of Sentinel 'Mendip' involved in a major cask movement during the change over from wood to metal casks at the Marriott, Dent & Foster Brewery in Bath. The gentleman posing behind one the casks is thought to be Lord Marriott de Shenley, one the leading lights at the brewery. A note on the transleeve says 'Ektachrome X, Mamiya C3, 55mm Sekor.' Bigger version: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/6107287719/sizes/o/in/photostream/

When Pendon first kicked off it was looking back hostorically only 20-30 years. Keeping the ethos correct, doing the same thing now would be looking at the 1980's. My thoughts are just for a silly half hour to run nicely tweeked modern stuff. I did actually suggest this last year when there and there and it wasn't totally dismissed "that would be great, but some of the older boys wouldn't go for it". Just imagine how good a Hanson liveried Class 59 would look with a long load of stone hoppers.......

nevard_110831_BQ_IMG_1073_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Here's a view of Brewhouse Quay which has only been possible for a day or two since the exit to the extra fiddle yard was created. A short telephoto effect makes an interesting slightly compressed view showing off the lightweight track and various ground textures between the rails and around the yard. As soon as one views 90 degrees to the light source, all sorts of interesting things start to happen texture-wise - the lighting here simply being the built in fluorescent tube that runs along the front. Finding new angles is one of the aspects that interests me most about photographing model railways, and particularly so if it's a layout that has been well photographed for the popular press many times - finding that new angle that's never been captured before gives huge satisfaction. Digressing slightly; I look forward to returning to Pendon at some stage to get some new and exciting angles. The various layouts there have hardly been touched in this respect, especially that the dinkiest of cameras can now give outstanding results that will blow up to double page spread, the small camera size allowing new vistas from all sorts of snug places. Really digressing - I'd love to shoot an HST in blue and grey blasting across the Vale Scene - it would be a sure hit and introduce a whole new generation to the delights of model railways! Bigger version of the above http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

Here's the clean version

If you look at my YouTube profile 'Nevardmedia' there's a clean version too with nice clean colour and no scratches

The crew are always on the other of the cab smartypants;-) the crappy 'film effect' is a filter in iMovie (Mac). '

[media=''] [/media] I have just found an old 50ft spool of standard 8mm Agfachrome of Sentinel 'Mendip' arriving and shunting a brake van along the Marriott, Dent & Foster Brewery sidings at Brewhouse Quay around 1956. I'm currently suffering audio problems with this clip - select 240p if you cannot hear anything! Edit: Here's the clean version

Ta! Layout's own built in flu in this case.

nevard_110823_BQ_IMG_0960_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Part bull: 40564 was one of the very last of the elegant ex-Midland Class 2P 4-4-0 locomotives to run on the 'The Dorset', it being finally withdrawn in 1962. In latter years, it would be frequently used on the 11.30 'Beer Express' from the Marriott, Dent and Foster Brewery in Bath down to Bournemouth West. On a bright morning in 1960, the train is captured departing Brewhouse Quay for its holiday resort destination freshly loaded with bottled 'Bright Bath Bitter Ale' for thirsty holiday makers. The train would initially trip the mile or so into Bath Green Park goods, where it would be run around in preparation for its journey south over the Mendips. Truth: I've had this Hornby loco for around 10 years, it being a nice Christmas pressie from the trouble and strife. The only work on it has been a blast with Halfords matt black, a renumber and light weathering. It sadly has a tender drive unit, which is fine on a roundy-roundy layout, but quite inadequate for any operation that requires slow controlled smooth running. It doesn't help that the tender drive wobbles and that more often than not, the loco wheels stop going around or rotate at a slower speed than the engine! I gather this ex-Mainline model from the 1980's is to be re-released in due course from Hornby with LOCO-DRIVE - if that does come to fruition buying a new one for the chassis and tender could be a cheaper option than fitting a Comet chassis. So, for the meantime the loco only sees use in front of the camera for static shots like this that require nothing to actually move! Oh yes, and it's raining outside again!

The Dapol Sentinel has a fly-wheel (they do quieten with age - mine just hums after approx 100 hours) so it would be unfair to compare it to the little pug, but with good level spotless track, regular maint' and clean wheels can be pretty impressive. Much under rated though and always appeals to viewers at shows especially the little ones. This one has new lamp irons, paint, identity, but in hindsight I wish I'd replaced the smokebox door handles and other valve type stuff with something better.

Too kind! The boat isn't that great, but it's a conversion from an Artitec sailing barge. I did quite a bit of research to ensure the gaff rig was correct coming from a sailing family. It lacks all the proper rigging fittings but looks OK from a quick glance. I was thrilled the other day to find a pic in one of the recent mags showing a sailing barge with full rig moored up at Whitstable Quay in the early 1950's. By the 1960's most had been converted to motor power. The one here; my excuse is that it's been converted but the rig hasn't been removed. If ever I refurbish it, I'll use magician's invisible thread for the rigging (as used for the telegraph wires on Catcott), the thread (sewing cotton) has stretched a little and attracted dust. It has survived being played with by the cat on more than one occasion though! http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/4630957930/in/set-72157612036668465 http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/3162845990/in/set-72157612021478403 http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/5638501679/in/set-72157625418433737

nevard_110822_BQ_IMG_0942_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Looking across the Avon towards the Marriott, Dent & Foster Brewery in Bath, Johnson 1P 0-4-4 No. 58086 is spotted shunting on what would appear to be a lovely summer's day. Note in the distance the little privately owned Sentinel 'Mendip' which can be seen resting in front of the grainstore. Reality; in the UK today it's the height of summer supposedly, but as most are aware, it's a dull, wet old day and more like something we would expect in the middle of November! To slightly balance reality, here is a rose-tinted reminder of how all summers used to be - well, as we like to remember them anyway! Model; the quayside has been embellished with a little more undergrowth after seeing something similar week before last during a waterside afternoon walk on one of the few sunny days we've enjoyed this summer. The bright-ish green is more of a feature of my RAW conversion than the actual colour - it was rather late in the day when I sorted out this photo! And (yawn) again for all those skeptics who think that all photography these days is 'Photoshop', they will be disappointed to know that the only 'addition' is the light waft of steam as 58086 blows off. 58086 photographs really well from this angle, its elegant lines suiting side profile views. This is my oldest loco in regular use, it being the first 'proper kit' I built as a teenager. Interestingly, although it's from brass, quite a bit of superglue was used in its construction, and surprisingly almost 30 years on none of those bits have failed which very much bucks what the heavy-rimmed bespectacled tweed clad 'experts' with yellow flux-stained fingers told me all those year ago! See Brewhouse Quay at Model Rail Live, 17 & 18 September 2011 A BIGGER version of the above photo can be seen HERE!

The bit of veg coming out the top of the chimney is after looking at old photos of real chimneys that have such sprouting. I quite fancy adding some birdlife next. These posts with pics are direct cut and paste jobs of my proper blog at http://nevardmedia.blogspot.com/ The pics are hosted on my Flickr site http://www.flickr.co...os/nevardmedia/ Flickr allows one to post a photo to my Blogger account direct with just the click of a button. A doddle!

It's the layout's own built in flu-lighting. The shadow isn't really a problem when viewing from the front. I tried moving the chimney away from the backscene but it didn't work visually.

nevard_110821_BQ_IMG_0923_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Here's an angle you won't normally be able to see unless you peer over the end of Brewhouse Quay behind the lighting rig. From this angle, the track layout can be observed to full effect including the wagon turntable which links to a siding that runs out right through the backscene to the other side to allow a little fun swapping wagons around. Very shortly, the line in the centre foreground will be extended towards the photographer's groin, between 2 buildings out of shot and through the backscene to another small fiddle yard which has yet to be constructed. The 2 lines that disappear behind the brewery buildings run through to a hidden sector plate which links to further sidings behind the backscene. Hopefully all the above will provide a margin of excitement and entertainment that will keep the poor operator amused for maybe 4 or 5 minutes before going terminally mad from the shear boredom of pushing wagons to and fro in a random manner. Clever people would think of some kind of shunting puzzle to make some purpose, but with most viewers only watching a layout for a couple of minutes maximum (the gold fish bowl theory), and operational-apathy on behalf of muggins here, such excessive organisational indulgence could be wasted?

I private source says that there was a Sentinel there a bit like the Dapol one, was was painted up like a milk float in orange and white....

nevard_110821_BQ_IMG_0878, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. The Bull: It's brew up time at Brewhouse Quay for Sentinel 'Mendip', ex-L&YR 'Pug' 51202, Planet 4WD 'Fleur' and 'Radstock' an Austerity tank recently purchased from the National Coal Board. The Ford Popular wasn't parked that well from a photographic point of view, but now 55 years on it adds to the scene. The Model: The Sentinel is a Model Rail/Dapol Sentinel which has had a change of identity, having been detailed up and is now in private ownership. The Pug a detailed, renumbered and repainted Hornby model - it runs a dream too which is much to my surprise - widening out the back to backs to 14.7mm may have helped here. The Ford Popular in the forground is from Oxford Diecast and has been reglazed with Krystal Kleer liquid glazing, muckied up and finished off with Testor's Dullcote. The little green diesel is a Planet from a Roxey Mouldings kit, and finally the Austerity a fiddled with Hornby 'Harry'. The photo: Taken on a little canon G9 shooting RAW under the layout's built in flu-lighting, 7 exposures were stacked and processed with Helicon Focus to increase the depth of field to match what the eye sees. The only CGI is the faint puff of smoke from the engines - which I like so there! The backscene is nice and high so, no need to mess about there. Brewhouse Quay will be at Model Rail Live for its very first outing on 17 & 18 September 2011

I'm with Jim here - a wagon moving on its own would look nothing short of silly without an animated miniature figure/milktankerwagonshunterperson. Though I guess if you do have a to do it, use a magnet under the baseboard with a suitable lump of ferrous metal between the solebars of the tank wagon could work. Of if you run with 3 links hand of god is already in the house there so one might as well prod the wagon too.

Bath still had various 9Fs in the autumn of '63, with Evening Star apppearing on 3 coach trains. We have still to see actual photographic proof of a 9F on a freight though.

I'm up against it with time getting it ready for Model Rail Live 17/18 Sept, and to get them to work I'd need the swan neck to be thicker to get the wires inside. The problem about night time would mean all the buildings would need to be lit and need interiors. And anyway that involves elektriks which I don't really understand. Pics - oh yes - but with modern sodium heads - actually I might do one of these with the more ornate swan neck and later (mid-1960's) timer box. Gosh I am super-nerdy this evening! External LINK

Working; It had crossed my mind - but I don't think I'd be able to keep the fine swan neck because I doubt that I'd be able to find 0.75mm tube and actually get wire through it.

nevard_110819_BQ_IMG_0868_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr I'm really getting into building streetlights; with this 'Lucy Large Swan Neck Bracket taking about an hour from start to finish and was scratch-built from bits of wire, brass tube and plastic rod as with my Mk1 version here http://nevardmedia.b...reet-light.html It depicts one of the later electric designs with a less ornate swan neck from the 1950's with a rotary timer from a design dating back to the 1920's. To get really in to street-light-nerdism, the lantern is my rather crude interpretation of an 'ESLA Bi-Multi Group "AL" Two-Way 165°' made from some brass tube filed in half and mangled a bit with some small pliers. The faded mid-green, after painting with Humbrol 101 I then dust over a little Halfords grey primer from a couple of feet away to get the effect of faded paint. The light is seen here freshly planted on a corner of Brewhouse Quay and could do with a few weeds around the base. Betty Stoggs of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise as usual was keen to pose for the camera. What you see here is probably a little bigger than in real life. I'm now waiting now for some one tell me that a kit is available and no it doesn't work.