Gallows Close

Hi Carl, I'm pleased this one made it over to the new site - it is one I've been watching. It is amazing how big even small ships are when shown alongside model locomotives. Years ago I made a scale model of the trawler Gaul ( on an oil rig - from scarp card ) and I couldn't believe how large it seemed when I got it home. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this one comes along. Cheers, Chris.

Thanks Keith, The OLE will fix fairly easily. It is a case of de-wiring and cleaning up all the masts, before installing new wires. To be honest I'm viewing it as an opportunity rather than a setback, and this time I'll be trying out my MkII tensioning system. Cheers, Chris

Hi Jim, Nice to see you in here. The damage looks far worse than it is, we had to move house relatively quickly as we did not expect to sell up so quickly. Alas the wiring is worse than it looks. Cheers, Chris.

Hi All, I have made good progress today opening the box. As I had feared, the model had not travelled without some minor damage, but overall it looks like it should run again soon The Box - as delivered The first peep inside shows how the two halves were mounted one above the other. The upside down headspan is seen in proximity to the signal box roof. This is the underside of one of the boards with the protective sheet of ply removed. It doesn't look pretty, but that is one of the pitfalls of working on the wiring from below. In future I intend to follow my practice on Gallows Close and work on each board upside down to get the wiring really neat. Here with the top half of the layout separated from the bottom. The urge to get a loco on it was strong at this time. Some of the worst damage was to the portal and headspan structures. I will take this as an opportunity to try scale span wires on these masts as suggested by Jim S-W. And finally - all together. I will get it electrically tested next. The OLE will need to be sorted out, as before the move it was un-tensioned and simply cut. Then I'll be back on the scenics. Thanks for looking in, Chris

Hi All, Its great to see so many familiar names over here, and all of us busy creating blogs! Some of you may know that I have recently moved house to The Netherlands, and as a result all model rail activities had to take a back seat. Before we left the UK Diggle Junction was looking OK with the elctrics and OLE all functioning, and some scenic work going on. That all stopped when the layout was split in to two halves and made in to a box for transit. Tomorrow I'm finally allowed to open the box. Work should then begin again at Diggle. Amongst the other items of treasure in the garage will be my ongoing project to model the class 210 DEMU prototype, and that too is high on my list for early reactivation. I hope to show some photos in due course as the lid comes off the layout, and hopefully I might get a train running tomorrow! Thanks for looking in, Chris.