Chris Nevard

Contact Pete Harvey for more info http://www.phd-design.co.uk/ , these are just some beta ones he kindly gave me to try out. Normally one would mess about chopping the plastic chairs in half and messing about with them to fit around the soldered join. This is so much easier. I'm actually tempted to do a whole point with them, whist you can see a slight difference in the close up photos, in real life they look the same as the plastic ones to the eye. The sleepers here are 'thin' copper clad.

These scrub up well with a bit of extra work, one can also replace the moulded handrail on the ends with wire and replace the prism like glasing with Gem Flushglaze. The final outcome is that you have a set of unique carriages that are not like every body else's down the club.

Polbrock is a real place - one cannot do better than that. It's a cpuple of miled south of Wadebridge on the river Camel near 'Grogley Halt' (which has already been bagged by another layout builder). Badger set? No, I'd rather have a penguin pool!

Will, lots more yet, I'll be adjusting everything later on in the contruction to get it to blend in. It could do with a little moss too from all the water down west! I have yet to add the colour washes to softenm the dry brushing. I find that weathng and colouring is best not all done in one go because it's very easy to over do things. It's the same with rolling stock.

Thanks - the catchpoint is rather pointless (sorrry for the pun) - but fun will be had with free wheeling wagons running down under gravity! Try and spot the Pete Harvey Design etched chairs on the point, they are a great asset to help blend strengthening copper clad sleepers with the C&L plastic ones. They lift the rail as gnat's willy above the sleepers too to match the C&L chairs. This photo is slightly telephoto so the siding looks a little steeper than it is. I'm very pleased with the GWRbob fibreglass bridge now it's had a bit of drybrushing using a mix of greys and beige matt Humbrol. I'll tweek it further once the scenery is in place. Actually, it's not a 100 miles different to the real one at Polbrock (though that wasn't planned).

I've had a rather busy week out snapping other people's model railways and taking care of the airwaves for a minority satellite TV sports channel. I have however shoe-horned a little time to carry on with the 'Cornish Project' which now has a name in the form of 'Polbrock' which is one of the places the Bodmin to Wadebridge line passed through. I'm not going to be too specific on the history, that way I'll hopefully avoid being nobbled by all the 'model railway experts' who've never even pinned a length of set track to an old door. As you can see from the snap, the track is now down and wired up. The scenic basics are now taking shape, the not too obvious curved perimeter will allow for the curved backscene to fit between the edge of the layout and the diorama box the tiny little layout will sit inside when finished. The backscene has been created, well electronically anyway from various bits of West Country photographic imagery, and is now a 4ft x 1ft 300 dots per inch PDF ready for the local printers to print off onto a suitable material as with Catcottt Burtle. No Peco-Disneyesque 3 inch high backscene here, time really has moved on with the advent of the home computer, high street repro houses and commercial printers that will print anything on to anything for a few sovs. Since the above snap was taken the siding has been ballasted and the scenic sub base built up with tissue paper dipped in PVA coated in coloured plaster. Jobs still to do... Ballast the though line Complete the fiddle/staging yards Finish the diorama box with backscene and lighting Ground colour Scratch-build 2 buildings for the scenic break behind the camera (pub/old barn) Scenics

Like this CK last time you went for lunch on Enginewood?

There are plenty of shots of the odd wagon or two in the goods yard just north of the station (it handled general goods and occasional loads of fullers earth from nearby), it's the little siding just south of the viaduct I've never seen any wagons in. It was removed around 1960 along with the little ground frame hut I believe.

nevard_111016_catcott_IMG_1527_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. The excellent Wycrail in High Wycombe is in just under 3 weeks on Saturday 5 November, and this year I've been invited to take Catcott Burtle along for the day. 'CB' is all ready to go, so there's no midnight oil to burn, which will make a nice break fom the norm, but I do need to finish repairing an ex-LSWR lattice signal post that one of the cats chewed the top off. I don't know why, white metal and brass hardly makes a tasty snack even for cats I wouldn't have thought, but I'm no cat so what do I know? Still, I've managed to get the signal into the right shape again and it now works, it just needs the replacement finial fitting in place, ably supplied by the excellent Wizard Models at the recent Scaleforum. 'What's with the class 121 bubble car?' you might ask, well I imagine most are fed up seeing the usual steam trains in photos of the layout, so I dug out this conversion of a Lima 2 car unit I performed back in the early 1980's when the real thing was still running (actually it still is on the Colne Valley Railway). W55033 portrayed, was a regular on the Bridport branch in the line's latter years and was probably my reason for choosing that number seeing we lived in the area for a short time in the 1970's. It actually looks the part, but of course the Highbridge - Evercreech line shut in March 1966, but imagine if the line had remained open to Glastonbury to serve the Clarks shoe factory and to transport revellers to Glastonbury Festival in June? Find out more about Wycrail Find out more about Catcott Burtle

On 'the branch' LMS Subs (steel panelled) from mid 1950's until about 1962 (?) B sets were seen from the late 1950's through to the early 1960's. Single Hawksworth brake compos from about 1964 to end, often coupled to a SR van Also spotted in the early 1960's; BR non-corridor sub ex LNER sub (steel panelled maybe ex Hemyock?) Bulleid 59ft something or other

You'll have to join your local funny hand shake brigade to find out

nevard_111011_CatcottB_IMG_1462_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. It's not generally known, but following on the success of the Ealing Comedy, 'The Titfield Thunderbolt', the iconic Ealing Studios shot a sequel called 'The Return of the Titfield Thunderbolt' in the summer of 1956. The film was released the following summer, but was a complete flop due to the total Americanization of the cast, so sadly the movie has been lost in the mists of time but does occasionally make a secret appearance as a projected 16mm colour print at Lodge meetings in the area. The film which was shot on the Highbridge Branch of the former S&DJR and used a Sentinel vertical boilered engine borrowed from the Marriott, Foster & Dent Brewery in Bath. The ex GWR 4 wheeled passenger carriage was loaned from British Railways Pontypridd Permanent Way Department and was hastily repainted in BR Carmine for the film. Sadly the carriage caught fire during a take when the on-board still producing 'Mallingford Magical Moonshine' blew up near West Pennard a couple of weeks after this shot was taken. Ivan Locksmith, as always was around to capture unusual workings on the former S&DJR, and as usual he has posed his latest car in shot, much like his good friend Ivo peters. If you believe any of the above, you'll believe anything! Catcott Burtle will be at Wycrail on Saturday the 5th of November, so though it best to dig the old girl out for an up and under. And for people that think photography is all Photoshop these days, only the puff of exhaust blowing in the strong south-westerly is. Here is a bigger version of the above photo http://www.flickr.co...57612020895249/

One at a time in a random fashion.

Colours will depend on the area you're modelling. I tend to look for photos or visit the area I want to depict, then pop into my local model shop to select similar colours. I also select brighter and darker shades but avoid anything too garish,

111008_cornish_int_IMG_1410_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. A very kind Mr Sweet mailed me this rather nice bridge casting for the Cornish project last week. I'm sure you'll agree that it is a wonderful piece of work, with nice deep rendering which would be quite tricky to achieve by scratchbuilding. When it arrived, I expected it to be resin or plaster, but much to my surprise it is fibreglass! The stone being moulded into the gel coat. The joy being that it is very tough and very light - ideal for a portable layout. The shot above shows it in primer in preparation for dry brushed top coats of various pale greys, beige, browns, creams and so on. Real stone is a fascinating mix of subtle different colours and shades, and certainly nothing like the painting-by-numbers approach often used which feature large blocks of solid colour - that approach suits engines and carriages just fine, but not hacked up materials straight from the ground which will have been exposed to the elements for decades. I'd be very interested to know more about this stone effect beauty, because fibreglass is not a material we normally associate with toy chuff chuffs, it being more a material of yachts, dingies, kit-cars and the aeroplane industry.

That's classy work - and a great eye catching feature! 4x1 is HUGE!

That's what I meant to say (I wan't too clear as usual) - the difference is far too different to ignore even for me.

I look really forward to seeing this! I'm a long standing OO modeller for UK prototypes, but Irish 5ft is too far out to replicate with 16.5 (even for me and I'm boss-eyed). Will it be flatbottomed or bullhead? Chris

111007_cornish_int_IMG_1430_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Track laying on the Cornish thing using C+L components; note the folded etched brass chairs where strengthening copper clad sleepers are required. They are a test product from Pete Harvey Designs www.phd-design.co.uk/ of this 'ere parish. Normally one would simply solder the rail to the sleeper top, then have to cut in half the C+L plastic chairs and glue - quite a fiddly task. All that's needed here will be a good splosh of liquid flux and a dab with a loaded soldering iron. The brass also takes care of the gap between the sleeper top and the bottom of the rail. Once painted, ballasted and weathered, they'll blend in just fine - especially seeing in real life they're a lot smaller than seen here.