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Now that would have looked very nice at Demfest today - top stuff! nead to read back through your blog again and find out what that lovely ballast is tfn Jon

Interesting stuff Jo - I think Powerhaul livery suits the class 47 better than class 70s, 86 or 90 - possibly because the Duff has much more rounded cabs than the others - that work with the wavy livery. Yet again - amazing how 67s just seem to look quite comfortable in any livery tfn Jon

Nice job! , and you've got a result sourcing the chain there aswell - They're a small detail to add , but once youve fitted them , 37s/50s/55s will always look incomplete without them tfn Jon

Interesting how china clay brings out the best in manufacturers - the Clayhood , and CDA must be two of the best wagons Skytrex produce - Infact the CDAs seem to have been very popular as they're hard to get now. Both excellent value for money too - I can see why you've given in to temptation . A 7mm Heljan 37 , done up as William Cookworthy would go very nicely with those hoods... TFN Jon

Morning - Further to Petes suggestion - have you looked at Xtrkcad - it's a brilliant free layout planning program that you can download - it'll allow you to build your trackplan - (it has all peco point templates included on it) and view/print it to scale - you can even print it out full size to work straight from it - better to make any mistakes 'virtually' on your screen where its much easier to correct things with a few clicks of the mouse. I'd also agree with Bill - if you skew the plan slightly , it may be at the cost of a siding - but you'll see all that lovely bufferbeam detail to better effect Again, you can easily rotate your trackplan on Xtrkcad and see how it fits your board size, and modify if required. tfn Jon

Hello At the DEMU exhibition a few weeks back I joined the 2mm society and have now received my membership goodies plus an order of Easitrac. As I've not done much scenery I decided to make a small 'sampler' board to try everything out- doing water , buildings , landscaping etc - I've looked at a fairly topical location for inspiration, so I have somewhere to pose my Peco CDAs - which are my favorite models Im pretty sure you can guess the place in question! The little layout is built on a single sheet of pink insulation board - which is light , stable and can still be glued painted etc easily. The bridge is a modified Peco girder bridge - with its 'odd' supports based from a Ratio viaduct kit - based loosely on the bridge at G****t. I plan to use a handfull of Hornby buldings - all modified - they do a little garage that will be turned into a small boathouse, plus a loco shed that will become a rowing club and a few other - I have some "lyddle end" drystone walling which I think when painted up properly , should look very good. The Hornby redymade 'N' scale buildings are perfect for a numpty like me whos never scratchbuilt structures - I'm happy to kitbash etc - and I think for the money the Hornby stuff has potential with a few mods here and there. At the moment ive just finsihed the landscaping - this is all polystyrene - covered in a mis of shredded paper(put through an old blender) and patching plaster. The fibres in the paper stop everything cracking - so you dont need to add pva to the mix- This makes it much easier to sand to shape when its set. Once the plaster/paper mix was on and just still wet - I use the leftover plaser/paper mix add some water and acrylic paint to make a thick colored slurry , then work this into the surface - 'fresco' style to get a base color down. Here's some quick pics so far - the white building shown will be used elsewhere - I have to try and include it somewhere on the layout , as its Hornbys 'Lock Keepers Cottage' and I work as a lock keeper It'll need need a major repaint first though! Also in the background is some bits of card showing the intended boathouse and slipway. There will also be 2 slipways next to the bridge for the 'Rowing Club' back to plaster and painting

Evening - James - Nice to bump into you at showcase - have fun with the elastic - it has millions of uses! Do you mean the ETH fitting on the bufferbeam on the drivers side? that was scratchbuilt too - theres isnt really any off the shelf part ive found thats correct for it. The ETH bits that come on the Hornby 50 should be suitable- ie the same pattern - they look underscale to me. Pete - I think the only way to get a new 2mm 50 is to do the tried and tested extensive rebuilt/superdetail job on the old farish model - someones bound to announce a new one as soon as its done . I'm afriad my layout drafting/planning isnt as elegant as yours - anyone who knows thier 'clay should be able to guess where im looking at - basically the opposite of your layout - in particular the board youve most recently shown. Evening Jon - the brake chains are from A-line but i had to order it from the states - its nice if you can get hold of it - they do a blackened version too. Backwoods also do a very fine chain ready blackened - i think , like A-line its about 40 links per inch. Ive changed all the brake cylinders on my 37s for class 50 parts - unfortunately you can only get a complete class 50 bogie as a spare - not the cylinders on thier own - You can sell on the remaining bits to recover some cost - of of course use the rest fo the bogie to remotor something else. Another american detailing parts manufacturer - Details West make brake cylinders that are similar - but dont look quite as good as the Hornby 50 parts. Fitting the parking brake brackets/chains does reduce the bogie swing , but only by a small amount - as , in the case of the 37s , I have narrowed the bogies - Im not sure if the deltic bogies are too wide or not? Your ETH bits do look much nicer than Bachys! I work with boats and weve had a few classic vessels come to us with thier original napier engines - so ive probably heard the origins of the deltic sounds without realising it- very similar to your clip , but much lower revs, and water cooled, with 'wet' exhaust - plus they cant really open the throttle right up in our marina! Some of the modern powerboats do sound remarkably like class 20s/37s , which makes for a very unusual sight/sound combination tfn Jon

Evening - yes - Bachmann have done a handfull of plain grey PCAs over the last few years , but theyre hard to find now- in particular the straight barrel PCAs, which seemed to be slightly more common at Moorswater - Moorswater is a very versatile little place - wind the clock back a little from Freighliner and you'd see EWS 66s with VGAs and cargowaggons - although its not as well photographed as Freightliners operations, Its nice that pretty much all the stock you need , for whatever period is available off the shelf - or will be in the future , with the Dapol 121/122 . I dont think there is a definative clayhood RTR in any scale yet though.. Thanks for the advice on couplings - very helpful tfn Jon

You'll have to get some nice Dapol Blue Circle Cement Cargowaggons to go with that 66 now Nice to see moorswater dries taking shape - the bit I've been looking forward to . Im going back to rmweb3 to read the layout history from the start as I begin my little 2mm plan. I hope somone does 2mm scale instanters tfn Jon

Goodafternoon - the 'spares' come from never throwing anything away - and its handy to have a friend who also never throws anything away. The Heljan spares from howes have been OOS for ages - im not sure if we'll see them again?? The Bachmann 37 ETH moulding is nice - but you can only buy it attached to a loco Luckily i made one of my 37/5s using a 37/4 body - and made a point of keeping the eth fittings in a safe place when i removed them!

Hello - This afternoon I done a little bit more to the second of the pair of Rail Express Colas class 47s '727 "Rebecca" Ive finished adding all the standard vitrains 'bits' - the handrails , bogie guard irons and bufferbeam steps , areals and lamp irons. Vitrains have also noted the little steps at the bottom of the cabfront are painted yellow on these particular locos - and so have supplied the separate metal steps painted yellow - on other models they come painted black - nice little attention to detail. If you follow the vitrains instructions to the letter, they tell you to fit a rather strange looking lamp iron above the cab handrail (its a leftover cl37 part) like this - I dont like to waste bits that come with the locos - so instead take one of the brackets from the right hand side of the sprue , shown below one cut with a sharp knife - to reduce it to this: and fit - (I use pva) - it'll be a little loose in the mounting hole - the pva will sort that out. I think it looks much better than the original As per the other Colas model - Ive changed a few of the detailing bits - the MU on the cabfront socket is again from Heljan, windscreen wipers are A1 etches - ETH parts are Bachmann - Unlike the other loco, 47727 has its ETH fittings mounted under the bufferbeam - with the jumper on the cabfront - Noted by Vitrains who have provied a hole in the cabfront to fit the jumper - plus moutning points on the lower edge of the bufferbeam - handy! The orange pipes running down the side of the bufferbem should connect up with the ETH fittings - but the way the vitrains body/chassis/bufferbeam separates doesn't allow this to be modelled fully - the compromise doesnt look too bad. more soon tfn Jon

Hello Thanks Pete - Ive been meaning to join for a long time - I really fancy a bash at the association class 08 kit - Already have a layout plan scribbled on a knapkin so to speak (involves lots of CDA hoppers)- Hopefully someone will do an all new N gauge 50 - the old Farish one has definately had its day. It doesn't look great - CJM had one on his website , all done up with separate handrails, new bogies etc - but its hard to look past the dated farish bodyshell - even with the CJM treatment. Jon020 - Ive never seen or heard a Deltic in action myself - other than on tv or computer - but I guess thats not the same. If we had taken a more convoluted route to the DEMU show , we could have bumped into the deltic on the way It would have been good to combine the two. I've modelled 403 roughly as it was in late '94 early 95 - fairly clean - I haven't got the heart to weather it - theres a few painted details that i havent managed to figure out dates for - It had silver buffers at some point - and also yellow axleboxes. Nice to see the real thing is now being restored - I think its got its original name back aswell

Goodmorning I had a nie day out to DEMU showcase Yesterday - and got 37403 done just in time - It spent the day on the DEMU class 37 display - and the fuel tanks didnt fall off once! - theyre just a push fit at the moment - they fell off once it got back home I found some numbers for the '403' on the noses , after carefully cheking all my transfers I used some RES numbers - the font isn't quite right but they look a far match for the size. The last jobs were to paint the handrails white , and paint the kick silver kick plates below the cab doors . Just before boxing the loco up for the show , I noticed it was sitting slightly higher at one end - (One of the first jobs I done on the model was to lower it - but modifying the bogie towers) I took the loco to bits to see what was cuaing it - It turns out one of the cab interier mouldings- which are glued into the chassis casting, was push down further than the other - the underside of this was touching part of the bogie tower. 30 seconds with a file cured this. and it was job done! After all this , I've still not run the loco , ever, so will have to test it at some point Heres some quick piccies taken yesterday before we set off on the 330mile round trip to Showcase a close up of the working hand-brake 'on' - stops it rolling off my desk This year was my second visit to Showcase - 'Diesels In the Dutchy' would have to be my all time favorite - Castle Cary was interesting too - Its somewhere I've always thought would make a nice model. The sum total of my shopping at the show : any book with a '50 on the front - ill buy it tfn Jon

Lovely layout - Its not often you see a 'stabled' HST in model form Would love to see this in the flesh. The bowed MK3s are unusual - I have lima ones which are fine - the Hornby ones are indeed banane shaped - except when you take to roof/glazing off - I think its something to do with Hornby retooling the glazing? tfn Jon

Goodafternoon - Yes the middle axle is a little shorter - checking the tips of the extended axles all three are slightly different lengths - The wheels were all set at different gauges too - these have all been regauged to NMRA standards so theyre all the same . The new micrometer i picked up at Railex has come in very handy! TFN jon

and some new handrails on the front steps I think too

Well , this little project has gone a bit quicker than I expected - so much so - that I got stuck in forgot to take any photos - I wasnt expecting to have it almost finished tonight But heres the loco as it stands now - quite a transformation cranks have been fitted closer in , new crank pins fitted and the rods popped on for a photo - Im rather pleased with it - I'll have to take it all apart again one more time to put the pickups in - so i can test it properly - so Ill take some close ups of the various modifications then. Most of the work is on the cranks- modified in order to fit them further along the extended axles, so they sit closer to the chassis frames . The crank pins are .75 Nickel silver wire - a thin slice of insulation from some fine wire will be pushed onto the pins to retain the rods. In the second photo you can see the Extended axles - on the outer two axles need a trim now - as they stick out - which shows how far in the cranks have been moved in Ill post more comprehensive details next time tfn Jon

Goodevening - and now for something very small , that isnt a class 37 , or a 50. I really like the Farish 08 - it looks and runs great - but Ive always wanted to do something about the con rods - which are overscale , and the cranks stick out too far - These are the only snags which would make the little 08 model much harder to distinguish from its bigger brother. Pete Harvey Kindly produced some new rods for me - shown here sitting on top of the cranks getting these to work properly has taken a while - the etched rods ae perfect - petes done a great job - a bit too perfect for the Bachmann mechanism , which has a lot of slop in it - so ive had to ease everything - I streached the rods a little buy cutting and resoldering them together (they are layered) which has done the trick. Now I want to move the cranks in towards the frames a little , and chage the crank pins that retain the rods to something more discrete The quatering needs attention too - the slop in the drive probably helps the model to run if the quatering isnt quite spot on - but I want to fix this. Hopefully my next post should show a class 08 in bits - hopefully with the wheelsets extracted and the fun can begin. tfn Jon

Goodevening - the elastic does indeed come from a fabric shop - (my workbench isnt covered in chopped up lingerie ) my ladyfriend makes clothes and she got me a large roll with many strands across it - ill bring a sample to showcase! I need to make myself a new RMWeb Hoover Speed badge before I set off Enjoy the Deltic tour Jon - are you going to stay on the train for the mini tour to Oxford aswell? tfn Jon

Hello thanks for all the kind comments so far - So , I'm now up to the underframe and bogies. The Bachmann bogie sideframes have been cut off with a hacksaw and glued back on - the thickness of the saw cut narrows the bogies when they are glued back together. I use slo-zap and accellerator to re attack the sideframes. The bogies have the missing speedo details added , from brass wire - the fittings on the actual axleboxes are turned from brass rod. The path that the cable takes along the bogie varies between locos - as always check the prototype. On the bogie sideframes I have replaced the separate brake cylinder mouldings with Hornby class 50 parts - Bachmann have beefed up the brake cylinders , after initially fitting some very odd 'skinny' versions to thier retooled 37s - I still think the Hornby 50 parts are the best looking. Interestingly , the vitrains class 37 bogies dont have the brake cylinders as separate parts - they're all moulded on , but they look just the right size. As mentioned earlier I have added Shawplan brake chain brackets - with A-Line brass chain . By far the easiest way to attach the chain to the bracket is to tie it using a very fine stand of wire. One the bogie , I make a little 'hook' from brass wire, drill a little hole and glue this into the bogie sideframe just ahead of the steps then the other end of the chain hangs from this - so the bogies/chassis chan still be separated. now some cruel closeups of the fuel tanks im afraid - I tried, for about 30 seconds , to try doing this detailing/hacking with them still attached to the main plastic chassis moulding - but of course its just much easier to cut them off. Everything such as inspection plates - the triangular mountings on the ends of the tanks is plasticard - all the little taps or small details (im afraid i dont actually know what they are on the real things) on the ends of the tanks are scraps from vitrains sprues - in several cases ive chopped up the vitrains plastic scew coupling , to make little drain taps. The sanding pipes are knicker elastic again , mounted on the end of the brake rigging - I had some nickel silver strip,left over from a fret of O gauge detailing parts , approx 0.75mm wide - carefully drilled at one end , to thread the pipe though - the other end was superglued into a hole drilled into the underside of the brake rigging. You need a good sharp drill for this - as the brake rigging is moulded in quite rubbery plastic. The pipes are a good push fit into the nickel silver mounts , but ive secured then with a tiny smear of PVA just incase.. The 'cut-outs' in the top outer corners of the tanks are for the pipes running from the sandboxes - the filler points being above them in the bodyside. These pipes are quite a distinctive complex shape - hard to model - iave made a rough approximation with some thick brass wire - they dont quite line up with the sandbox fillers as they should in the photo - but the tanks are still loose at the moment. (thats what the scrunched up bit of blue paper is there fore ) Theres quite a lot of pipework between the two tanks - and prototypes vary - the route of the sanding pipes also varies - but some good prototype photos 37 underframes can be found here: http://eastmoor.blogspot.com/2010/05/class-37-details.html http://www.brianhanson.fotopic.net/c1481786.html I could not quite fit in all the details in the underframe area - it might not necessarily make the finished result look better -- but the model does - I hope show theres alot of 'stuff' going on below the body of a 37 - alot of which is missing from the Bachmann model . In this area its starting to look a bit crude and dated compared with newer models, particularly from the same manufacturer. So , I still have to paint the tanks , and the roof grille and finally fit the ploughs and buffers - but the loco is now pretty much complete - On this occasion I didnt add shawplan windscreens as i didnt want to spoil the factory finish - If i made mess of it , it would be expensive to get another one of these locos as its a collectors club models. A couple more shots - you can see the top end of one of the sanding pipes has 'escaped' - it tucks in to a hole up in the chassis . Thats all for now - looking forward to Showcase on Saturday Tfn Jon

Ive placed backorders with MG sharp several times, and although sometimes theres been quite a wait , everything I've ordered has turned up - so im happy- I do try and factor in the sometimes long delivery periods every time i order OOS stuff from MGshap - tfn jon

Goodevening Nick - the mounting plate for the ETH would look better being " [ " shaped - ans not a solid block like Bachmann have moulded - looking through my piccies the real things seem to be bodged out of whatever was lying around - no two are quite the same The Bachmann ETH mouldings are sometimes covered with such a thick layour of orance paint , that they just look like orange blobs - its well worth dunking them in superstrip , as what lies underneath is a very nice detailed little moulding. Well worth stripping it and painting it properly. Unfortunatelty the ones on '403 wont budge - i dont want to damage anything trying to get em off. Perhaps a certain extreme etcher may be able to do us a nice little etched mounting plate ... tfn jon