Chris_nicole

Trams seem to be a popular subject for card models. Most of the card model publishers seem to include a few trams in their range. Also, I'm very pleased to see you found a use for Underground Ernie. That's a handy chassis unit if you can find a suitable body to go with it! Regards, Chris

I would suggest you try some of the printed card kits before scratchbuilding. Alpahgraphix and Elro both produce kits for card rolling stock, mainly in 7mm or OO scales. Elro are sold via Ebay. They specialise in Manx railway subjects but also have stock from various British and American railways as well as trams. Last time I looked at their range, they had an attractive pair of midlands POW open wagons as a single kit. Alphagraphix are mainly mail order, its well worth getting their catalogue. They stock a great range of building kits as well as locomotive and rolling stock kits: Alphagraphix, 23 Darris Road, Selly Park, Birmingham B29 7QY. Regards, Chris

Whilst I am aboard the card train, I came across the following web site : <http://www.zioprudenzio.it/fok-train.html> This has several small scale paper models of Italian locomotives to download. [click on the red downward pointing arrows to download each model as a pdf file] It may be of interest... I am adapting a Builder Plus GWR station building kit for Jenswell atm. Have fun, Chris Black Hat

Laurence, Your description sounds familiar. I seem to recall seeing a white or cream card model of a steam locomotive. I don't have a photo of it. Searching the NRM website, the only card model locomotive I found was this one: Model steam locomotive, approx. 1/12 scale, Shutt End Colliery 0-4-0 `Agenoria', prototype built by Foster, Raistrick in 1829, cardboard model by Lloyd Thompson, c.1975 <http://www.flickr.co...N04/5946967134/> Regards, Chris

I have been corresponding with a chap named Jack on deviantarts Art and Craft forum. He has produced some very interesting small scale railway models in various materials. His latest offering is a set of N-gauge Bulleid Leaders in card. http://fav.me/d4td4ye He is considering producing these as kits if there is enough interest. Some of my stuff is online there too. On DA I go by the name Cavyman. Regards, Chris

There has been a useful thread in the card structure modelling forum. I have been working on the free Metcalf signal cabin from RM Jan 2012 as a gate box for Jenswell. Source: Free Signal Box from Railway Modeller January- Lets see them.

We are coming back in a couple of weeks time. Hopefully we will catch the train and see the other stations this time. Thanks, Chris & Jenny

The Sticky labels did not stick to the top side at all. I have taken them up and replaced them with masking tape. Which does stick, so far...

A couple of weeks ago we visited the Great Central Railway at Rothley station in Leicestershire. The station is run as it was in 1912 with gas lights and coal fires. The station staff made us very welcome and were happy to answer all our (mainly Jenn's) questions. As I've mentioned before, Jenn is hot on social history and how people actually lived and do things. We were very impressed with the set-up there and spent much of the day just exploring a relatively small station. At some point we'd like to go back and might even take a train to the other stations! Back home and work on Jenswell continues. We have the track fixed down, wired and working nicely. I made a start on placing some of the proposed buildings. We have some already built, like the waiting shelter and scalescenes coal office. This is an Alphagraphics card kit of a NER waiting shelter. This is the Scalescenes coal office/ weighbridge. I bought a ready to plant coal staithe at Doncaster as I was not happy with the card one I built earlier. This has real coal, useful as it's front and centre on the layout. I have a GT Andrews crossing keepers cottage from Alphagraphics. It's made up as a very nice model, except it's too big for the space available and stone where I could really do with a similar design in brick. I also have a Scalescenes arch bridge made up as a scenic break. There are a few little Hornby line side huts from the train set that may yet find a place on the layout too when they've been painted. Trying to fit these all in around the track layout got rather crowded. When I start figuring in the embankment for the bridge it gets even tighter. I started to wonder why I was building the fiddle yard into the layout ? As I planned on using loco lift / fiddle sticks operating outside the carcase via mousehole doors, it suddenly made sense to take out the fiddle yard altogether and use all the space for the scenic layout... With the extra space we could add a small station house and a signal box too, (free with the Railway modeller at Christmas). The station house here is a Super Quick kit and just a place holder until I find something more suitable. I have a Builder Plus kit for a small GWR station that could be adapted to our area. Replace the tiles with slates and paint the woodwork green... Only problem is, it looks best from the back where it won't be seen!

Jim , Very impressed with your wagon body and cattle wagon. What scale are these ? Regards, Chris

Hesperus, These are Elro kits. I have not tried them myself, but I have heard good things said about them. Regards, Chris

Recently I came across web references to the old MicroModels card building kits. I have a couple of these unmade (Thames Barge and Stephenson's Rocket). I had not realised how many Railway sets were in the old MicroModels range, then I found the following web sites: http://www.worldofmicromodels.com/ http://www.zeistbouwplaten.nl/ http://www.zeistbouwplaten.nl/zeistbouwplaten/Diversen/1135219.htm Most of these appear to be available in repro at quite reasonable prices. From what I recall original MicroModels were quite a bit smaller than the usual model railway scales. But if you find an item you like, it may be possible to enlarge it up to suit your preferred scale. Have fun, Chris

Catkins, you need to contact Peter Taft for the Deltic or Class 37 kits: "Peter Taft has recently produced a card model of a Deltic loco in BR Blue finish to OO scale. He also has a Class 37 in large logo BR blue and is about to publish a 37 in coal sector grey. These are available as scaleable pdf downloads or printed to order. If you would like to know more e-mail Peter at peter.taft1@googlemail.com (I have his permission to post his e-mail)"

Jeremy Burrows 'PGN' is reissuing some of the Highfield models. I would suggest you try contacting him through RMWeb for more info. Regards, Chris "The 4-wheeler isn't a prototypically accurate NER model as far as I can see, so I am simply reproducing it as it stands. The clerestory bogie coach is an altogether different story. I have managed to identify it in the diagram book, and I have had my printer change the running number so that you will ALWAYS be able to tell apart an original Highfield from one of mine. I am having coach sides printed with 5 different running numbers, so that people who want more than one can have them. I've also given my printer teh diagram book, and he's been working on overlays fro two different coach designs which will run on teh same body shell - again with 5 different running numbers for each. He told me some time ago that the artwork was ready, but I haven't been able to make time to go and approve it. Must get round to this! As for marketing them ... haven't really given this much thought yet. The potential market is pretty small and tight-knit, so I'm hopign that once i put teh word out, word of mouth will do the rest! Depending upion demand, I might try to improve teh basic Highfield design, and even vary it to produce some other coach designs! We'll have to see how it all goes ..."

This is my Highfield NER 4-wheel coach. I snapped it last night on the Hull Club's new N-gauge layout 'Martini Junction'. The photo is a bit fuzzy as it was snapped on my mobile, but it does give a fair impression of the coach. This one is mounted on a Lima chassis which it fits very neatly. Regards, Chris Black Hat

I have just made up a Highfield models NER four-wheel carriage for N-gauge. This is a re-issue of a card kit originally published in the 1960's. PGN of this parish has acquired the rights and started re-printing some of the carriage kits. They were intended to run on Lima long wheelbase wagon chassis. I acquired one at Doncaster on Sunday, but having tried it I will be looking at alternatives. The body is assembled as a layered card box and is surprisingly strong. The sides and ends are printed on photo quality paper and are very smart. The roof is curved card and needed colouring. In hind sight I made a mess of the roof, but may be able to rescue it. If I can get some decent photos, I will add them too. Chris Black Hat

The 37 and Deltic are both OO scale. However, they are published as pdf files, so you could print them to what ever scale you require. Alphagraphix print a range of card kits including steam locos, trams and industrial/narrow gauge locos. There are other publishers mentioned earlier in this thread. Regards, Chris

Between Christmas and building and decorating work in our house, Jenswell had been put out of the way for a while. Now we've got room to set it up again and do some work. The points are operated using MSE wire-in-tube. The w-i-t's were initially pinned to the slab. I have now stuck them down with self adhesive address labels. These work on the ply deck but came unstuck on the painted foam slab. i willhave to try some PVA to stick the sticky labels down! Strangely they seem to stick pretty well to the unpainted slab beneath... At the moment it's just a matter of pulling or pushing the wires to operate the points. I have a couple of ideas for operating levers... Last night I sorted out the track wiring. I had already soldered dropper wires to each length of track before we laid the track. Initially I used single core bell wire, but after a couple of pieces broke off I replaced the droppers with flex. The dropper wires were punched through the deck and pink slab when we laid the track on doublesided automotive tape. Last night I soldered the dropper wires to copper tape stuck to the slab underside. The self adhesive copper tape is a product intended for wiring dolls houses. It came with fairly comprehensive instructions if I ever need to wire a dolls house. Obviously using a soldering iron on polystyrene needs some care! I have a temperature controlled solder iron. With a little experimentation I found it worked best at 240'C using Carrs solder cream. The foam slab melted a little directly under the copper tape but does not appear to have suffered much ill effect. I have wired all the Yard tracks together regardless of point setting. As I only expect to run one loco at a time this shouldn't cause a problem. After i'd finished soldering I couldn't resist getting out a loco and controller to check if it works. Around about midnight, my Dapol Sentinel shunter was puttering along quite happily and going through the insulfrog points without hesitation. Incidentaly, Hull Model Railway show 2012 will have three layouts (including Jenswell) depicting the North Holderness Railway. Not bad for a line that was never built!

Most of my posts on Jenswell blogged so far actually occurred before we got the Hull Show invite. I still have a fair bit to recap before I get up to date, including buildings built, vehicles acquired and track laying/laid. However, I thought I would take this opportunity to post our latest progress before I forget about it. Between two weekends and four days off work for Christmas/New Year I was hoping we might get rather more done than we achieved. Ha! So much for that idea! But we have made a little more progress... A trip to Lidl for groceries found a LED light bar which looks ideal for lighting the layout, at a very reasonable price too. They had an Ultrasonic cleaner too, but I've already got one. I had chance to test my wire in tube point operating system. I had been worrying that it was too sloppy and would need constant adjustment. Actually trying it out in situ, it works fine. I can stop faffing about with it. Result! Currently, the W-in-t's themselves are just pinned down to the board between the points and the lever. I was looking for a way of fixing them more securely. I have a hot-glue gun as recommended by MSE but have not tried it yet. It occured to me that sticky paper address labels would do the job very neatly and I can paint or glue over them too. Result!! Left to my own devices I can waste a lot of time trying to decide how to solve minor problems. One I was struggling with was how or when to build the rabbit hutch carcase around the layout. At some point over Christmas I had an epiphany. Think outside the Box! Leave the carcase til later. It can wait for better weather whilst I work on the pink slab without havine to fiddle around inside the box. Result!!! Not a lot of practical work done but three more hurdles overcome. I'm a happy bunny. Happy New Year. Black Hat & Jenny

We angled the track layout so it's not running parallel with the board edge. This also helps us get a bit more in and seems to make better use of the space. We have decided to use wire-in-tube for the point control. I have some bits from MSE already. Electrical wiring should be very simple, as I expect to run only one engine 'in steam' . The yard is completely seperate from the through track. If we want to transfer stock, we will have to use a loco-lifter. I intend putting in a two way switch to change control between the yard and the trough track. I have soldered dropper wires to the track joiners so I should have an electical connection to each section of track. Both set track points are insulfrog. I want to run DCC and DC as most of my existing locos are chipped for DCC. I have the Bachman Eazy DCC controller which is usually okay for our needs except it tends to run hot so has to be rested after a while. Jen wants us to use the Hornby controller that came with the set and the unchipped Caledonian pug. We will just plug in whichever controller we need for the loco in use.

A very quick follow up to our last post I started setting out track and points on a slab of pink foam to see what we could fit in. Extruded foam from B&Q packs of four sheets each 1200x500x50 mm. This will be the base board for our layout with a light-ply deck for the track. I was rather pleased to find that the three sidings gave us a classic 5-3-3 Inglenook. This makes the layout more usable as a shunting puzzle. We have photos too !