Barry Ten

Good luck with this build; it does look challenging but the end result should be well worth it. Kenton is right about the soldering tip; I've had one set of frames turn banana shaped due to differential expansion. Fortunately it was fixable but I've learned not to risk it happening again.

Hi Chris - I've seen one or two similar approaches over the years so won't claim any originality but it works well for the room space I have. One thing that struck me last night is that I might even be able to get four seasons in there, if I do a summer to autumn transition along the length of the longest module. Not sure if that will work but I might give it a shot and see.

Late in the day, but just to echo what has been said by others - remarkable modelling!

Exactly, Chris - the model itself is pretty ropey, but it's the feeling of continuing with something I started way back when that is very pleasing. Plus, I'm a tight git who never throws anything away

I built this model house in my teens; it must be about 30 years old now. It was my hamfisted attempt at the Pendon method, ie scribing detail into card and then painting it in with watercolours. It has had a few additional layers of paint in the intervening years, but not much in the way of new or better details. While it's served well on various layouts in the intervening years, the move to a more prominent position on the new module prompted me to take a look at what could be done to improve matters, without getting too far from the original model. Number one area for immediate improvement was the roof, with its unconvincingly large paper tiles. Tonight I ripped the old roof off and then set about replacing it with Wills plastic sheets. I also added chimney pots - about time, really. There's a lot more that could be done, but it's a start.

A little gem of a layout - top stuff!

Medical Acceptance Gate - The Fall

Blood on the rooftops - Genesis

Max - this one is 12x11 which is not too far off 14 x 8 in area terms, is it? Magic: I like your snow scene, very nice! Did you glue the Woodland Scenics snow down, or just let it lie?

Hi Max - it's just one module out of three on the whole layout; I don't think I'd have the guts to do a whole layout with snow as like you I enjoy the variation in the seasons. By dividing the layout into linked dioramas I can have my cake and eat it, so to speak. Kiwinewt - yep, and it'll give me a chance to test my ballasting before tackling the bigger modules. Not only have I not ballasted C+L before, but I'm going to be using dilute Copydex rather than PVA, in the hope of keeping the sound levels down. At the moment the layout is amazingly quiet and I'd like to keep it that way, as much as possible.

Getting there (slowly), I hope. I bought some filler from Focus, and trowelled it over the existing plaster landscape, aiming to get a more smooth surface for the eventual application of some snow-type product. The foreground stuff has been down for 48 hours so I'm assuming that any cracks would have appeared by now. The next job, I think, will be to ballast the track. Is it worth it, though, given that I want to create the effect of the rails almost totally covered by snow? Later will come some hedges, trees and a treatment of the river bank - but I need to look at some photos for rivers in winter before I let loose on that.

Hi Rob - yes it is the Hornby one, and it has no problem with this relatively short rake (just 6 coaches). I'm sure it could easily handle a few more. My Comet conversions are running on the old Hornby/Airfix bogies and while they've ended up being heavier than the RTR versions, due to the white metal bits on the underframe, they're still not particularly heavy.

My only suggestion would be to get rid of the four straight bits between the curves, and then tilt the whole layout at a slight angle to the baseboard edges. That would give you a bit more room around the outside of the track for scenery, and get away from the train set look a bit. But only a suggestion

Peter: pretty much! Although there's a watercolour picture in a book of paintings I have that has been very inspirational - it's a book of railway pictures commissioned for the GWR 150th anniversary, with a lovely depiction of a snowbound Reading - snow on the ground, signals stark against a pink-tinged sky.... superbly evocative. Unfortunately the card sheets I used for the sky are not long enough to do the whole scene without a couple of joins, which I'd hoped would be less obvious once the lighting rig was in place. Perhaps I will investigate finding a longer sheet so I can do the whole thing in one piece.

Cheers, Chris!

Kiwinewt: the bridge is the Wills kit; I'm not sure if they do any N scale kits? Devondynosaur118: ta!

I've sort of finished the restaurant third, so here's a shot of it running in a train next to the restaurant first. They were orientated this way, with the pantry end of the third adjoining the kitchen end of the first. The other cars are bog-standard Hornby and Airfix centenaries, still with "Beclawat" windows. (Beclawat are still in business, by the way). There are (as is always the case with me) a few little jobs to do but for now the coaches look finished enough to sit in a rake, and dare I say it, I'm pretty pleased with them. I was a bit worried that the differences in tone and lining between my painted examples and the RTR versions would be jarring, but in reality, and with a train running around, it's not too bad. I may re-spray the brown on the RTR ones at some point, but there is some obvious variation in the models between batches and doubtless the real things were not perfectly uniform in any case. One obvious still-to-be-done task is the refitting of the roof boards. I have one more donor centenary (a BR maroon example, so with entirely the wrong windows) so I may do another of these Comet overlays at some point. But for now, it's on with the Blue Pullman.

Pic of pub added to original entry.

Over the weekend I took the opportunity to tidy up the fascia of the Spring module. There has been a lighting rig in place for a year or so, but I had not added a drop-down pelmet to screen the tube since I couldn't work out an easy way to attach it in such a way that I would be able to access the light fitting for maintenance/replacement. Eventually the penny dropped (doh!) and I was able to arrange a very simple system. The next task will be to paint it a nice neutral green or grey colour. I am in the process of arranging a similar system for the winter module, and in due course the much larger summer module - encompassing the station area - will get the same treatment.

Thanks again. I've a feeling I ordered the SR brake gear etch last year with a view to using it with this loco; I'll have to have a good rummage in the kit box now though... My S15 was a very old kit, bought second hand with everything in it except motor and gearbox - I assumed at the time that the absence of brake gear was just a reflection of it being an old production run and that if I'd ordered a new one, it would have the parts. The other two DJH kits I've built, a C2X and a GWR 1366 pannier, both had brake gear parts (albeit rudimentary - just a few white metal castings). I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the S15 now...

Have to charge my camera up first! It's the old Superquick "Swan Inn", by the way. I've added a lighting pelmet to the module today so the pics should be a bit less fuzzy from now on.

That does look good. I wonder if there are any issues with long-term usage?