Barry Ten

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?

I have one of the DJH S15 kits to build and have been dithering about how best to tackle the brake gear; this thread is just what I need. And the loco looks fantastic, too.

Today I spent an enjoyable afternoon progressing with the winter module. After applying plaster I gave the whole lot a coat of white acrylic in the hope that this would look sufficiently snow-like in its own right, but it's clear that there's more to be done; the texture of the plaster still shows through so I guess I will have to apply another layer of polyfilla or something similar. In time there will be some hedges and undergrowth, suitably snow-covered, and a few wintery trees. No shortage of inspiration in recent weeks! I'm chuffed to bits with Bachmann's 7F - it's a total winner, in my book. I got the weathered edition for Christmas; in time I'll apply some weathering of my own over the factory finish but for now I'm more than happy with the look of the thing. Runs very nicely too - trundling round quietly with 20 12T vans, and the movement of the valve gear is fascinating. Here's a fuzzy close-up of the pub: I must admit to a great fondness for some of the old Superquick kits, especially this one, which has a basic rightness to it which is not always the case even with more modern kits. As mentioned elsewhere this model was made by my mother, at least 30 years ago, and has been on most of the layouts I've owned since I was a kid. It would have been on my very first layout, except that my recollection is that this model was built to replace an earlier one that got squashed. It has had some basic detailing but my intention is to add a bit more when time allows.

I've been playing around with some Centenary coaches recently and it's surprising how well Airfix were able to achieve close-coupling with these models, thirty-odd years ago. They were obviously designed to cope with train set curves but the corridor connections sit pleasingly close to each other and there's no faffing around with over-complicated drawbar mechanisms that don't work very well anyway. In terms of detail and the representation of a range of vehicle types the Hawksworths are clearly superior, and I'm very pleased with my set of three, but it's perplexing to see how little progress has been made with the couplings. Actually I'd say it's the opposite of progress - something that was simple and effective has been replaced with something complicated that doesn't work.

Mikkel: thanks again! The Revell model did not have much in the way of historical information (although I was missing the box) so this is very welcome. I am ashamed to say that I did not realise the Danish connection until you noted it.