Barry Ten

That (the model in Dr Al's post) looks better than any 00 Brit that we had until Hornby's final tender-drive version, and is probably superior to that in a number of areas.

Lots of right angle bends of varying diameters in the Knightwing pipe set (including the sprue it all comes on) but you knew that, right?

I used it for the platform surfaces on Paynestown and wish I hadn't! It looks terrible and I now have to rectify it. I'm sure there are niche applications for this stuff but my own experience has not been very successful, with similar problems to those mentioned above.

Anyone watching this blog could be forgiven for thinking that I've given up on Shillingstone as a project, but in truth it's just been relegated to second fiddle while I spent half of this year cracking on with other projects. Along the way I've continued to add some details to the first module and think about where I'm going with the other elements of the layout. My original plan had been to tackle the large station module next, but I've put that on hold for now, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I need to think carefully about the whole concept, and how far I allow it to deviate from Shillingstone itself before I decide to just accept the fact that it's a representation of the S&D, not even an impressionistic portrait of one of the stations. Secondly, a busy year has meant that I'm unwilling to tackle any big modeling projects right now - I'm far more in the mood for small, bite-sized projects that have some chance of being seen through to completion in a reasonable time, the kind of thing where you can put in a half hour here and there and not feel that the end result is years away. Hence, I decided to tackle the winter module next as I didn't envisage that this would take more than a couple of months to bring to an acceptable starting point for further detailing and finishing. The winter module, then, isn't based on anywhere in particular on the S&D, and if I'm going to be honest it's little more than a shameless excuse for a pub scene. I make no apologies for basing a diorama around that old-stager, the Superquick Swan Inn. This particular model has been on every layout I've had since I was child; it was made by my mother and despite suffering some wear and tear over the years, it was refurbished about 15 years ago for use on my old layout Wyvant. Although there will be very few buildings on the S&D layout as a whole I was keen to find a spot for this one, and the idea of modeling another river crossing appealed to me. That and the impulse purchase of a Wills bridge. I'm quite pleased with the small river/brook on the first module, but photographically it's slightly restrictive in the range of angles that allow for good shots of trains. In this case, I decided to flare out the river into a kind of delta in the foreground, allowing a variety of shooting angles. I've also taken care with the slope of the landforms so as not to block the trains from low viewing angles. The backscene is my usual low-tech method of card, curved into the corners - fine for home layout use, but probably not sturdy enough for exhibition use. I've toned down the blue with a misting of white, and next I want to add a haze of rose to the horizon level. The joins in the card are quite conspicuous at the moment, but I wouldn't know where to look for larger sheets. Fortunately these don't attract the eye anywhere near as much once proper lighting is installed. The overbridge is another Wills product, and the road is a piece of card, cut and bent to shape before being glued down. I've begun building up the landforms with scrap polystyrene. Next up is to add plaster sheets to the landforms, and then think about the type of winter scene I want to end up with - whether it's going to be entirely snow covered, or just a sprinkling of snow on pale winter grass, suggestive of worse weather to come...

Woke up this morning, decided I couldn't live with it - so out with the knives and the plastikard! Rather than attempt to fill the window recess, I'm simply fixing a rectangle of thin sheeting over the entire door area. Once this is blended with the existing profile, and painted and lined, it should look of a piece with the rest of the model. Some lining came adrift with handling, so that's another thing to fix... Ah well, I'm getting there and this was always going to be a slow one. I can't wait to see it finished and running in a rake - and then I'll crack on with the diner.

Hmmm... had a bit of shock tonight. I've been gradually readying the Centenary for its varnish coat, before final finishing and installation of glazing, when I decided I needed to refer back to the reference photos to check for the correct treatment of the drop window frames. I spent last week doing the interior (tedious! I One thing I learned, if I didn't already know it after doing some Slaters kits, is that I didn't get into this hobby to do coach interiors!). Anyway, tonight I looked at the prototype photos again and had a bit of a facepalm moment: there shouldn't be a door on the left side of the coach as seen in the top picture - just a plain panel where the body tapers back to the ends. Eek! How I didn't spot this before I don't know, but now I'm unsure what to do. It's no fault of the Comet parts, of course, just my failure to pay due attention when applying them to the Airfix mouldings. I think I can correct the error without damaging the rest of the paintwork, only requiring local repainting, but I'm going to sleep on it first. It's not the first time I've referred back to a photo only to see something I'd missed a million times before, but it's always a bit of a shocker when it happens, especially this late in a modelling project.

I'm working on a much older one right now - a 1970s Duchess - watch this space!

That's very nice...

Cheers, Mikkel - the weathering dates back to when it was painted in BR black, which went horribly wrong, hence the respray back into the original GWR green. As for the coach, must be a summer saturday special!

Way back, when the likelihood of a new, super-detail 28xx from Hornby seemed slim, I set about detailing the existing, Chinese-era model. My version dated from 2000 and was (and is) a nice, smooth running model, so I didn't see any need to change the chassis - not that I'd have been all that confident about doing so, anyway, as to date I've never built anything with more than three axles. I showed some pics of the detailed 28 on the old forum, but the arrival of the new model in the shops prompted me to take it out the box and finish a few bits I'd not got around to - replacing the pony truck wheel, adding a smokebox dart, and lamp irons. Along the way I touched up some areas of damaged paint. The main work on the model was cosmetic, with the addition of various pipes and gubbins to the underside of the footplate, aided by the photos in Brian Haresnape's book. Some of the details are a tad overscale or guesstimated but I'm happy with the general look of the thing, which at least appears "busier" around the wheels than it used to. I also replaced the cab steps with etched ones; I didn't touch the tender steps as they are cast into the frames. The big visual improvement, in my view, lies in moving the pony truck forward a smidge - it's set back a bit too far on the Hornby model for some reason, perhaps because it used common components with the 8F? Anyway, I removed the existing pony truck, hack-sawed it down the middle and inserted a splice piece. I'll certainly be looking to obtain one of the new models, but for now I'm glad that my old 28xx can still hold its own. The tender drive will always be obvious - that big coal load, which there's not much can be done about - but performance is good, and the loco has more daylight under the boiler than the new one...

Not too much to report here, as I've been away from the layout a fair bit, and when I've been here, I've been quite happy just playing trains . Plus, I've been neglecting my S&D stuff, so there's been some snail-like progress on the 4mm side of things, keeping me away from matters North American. One thing I have been tinkering with is static grass, using the Noch Grassmaster. I had some trepidation, fearing that the grass might end up looking overscale in N, but my feeling at the moment is that it's fine - little more than waist-high to one of the N scale figures, which doesn't seem unreasonable for long, unkempt grass such as one might find in the vicinity of an industrial area. I've also been building up the scenery on the left side of the layout. Here's progress to date, showing the terrain rising steeply behind the tracks. This hill - or part of a hill - is a removable module, as per the earlier work on the layout. It sits over the hidden rear track, and (once more modules have been completed) will serve as a view-block concealing not only the storage yard throat, but also the wireless monitor camera. Finally, one of the things I slightly miss in N is the potential for hands-on modelling of locomotives and rolling stock, but there is certainly scope for improving older models. These box cars were all cheapo models of indeterminate accuracy picked up at various points over the last eight or so years. Apart from the replacement of the original trucks with Micro-Trains versions, these have had their interior weights swapped for something non-magnetic, new roofboards (MTL mouldings) in place of the chunky originals, and etched stirrups and steps (BLMA) instead of the overscale cast-on versions. With some weathering, these no longer look out of place amid newer, higher-spec models. Quick and easy - one boxcar can be brought up to spec in half an hour - and very satisfying.

Nice article, too - cracking pictures and a very approachable style to the text.

KT Tunstall's new album.