Neal Ball

Whilst waiting for the SRM to arrive, I fished the cylinders; soldered the axle pins and fitted the decoder and stay-alive. At speed step 10, it runs very slowly. It's only a short video - the decoder etc. has now been squeezed inside.

Its arrived! Steam Railmotor no 97 arrived courtesy of DHL today - don't ask about the duty and charges payable. I carefully unpacked it; held onto the chimney; watched the motion, carefully put it onto the track and set it to work as loco ID 03 Gorgeous model - although I am surprised that the sound is so low. Blimey that search light on the front / rear is bright!

Thanks for this. I certainly know what you mean… I’ve just looked at my stash of carriage kits - there are six I have yet to start on!

Adding weight? Is it the sort of thing I could buy in a car repair shop? aka Halfords or the equivalent here in Spain. I need extra weights for the County tank loco and the 5g or 10g weights look to be ideal. Thanks.

No I hadn't tried there, but thank you. Excellent thanks for the Rails comment. I'm placing an order with Rails....

Lots of comments about window grills and corridor rails thank you. I too saw the Brassmasters min charge of £20 but I couldn’t actually find the window grills themselves. I think on the show list they say they are going to be at Scaleforum South in May. The list of the corridor Toplights appears on Robins @gwrrob ANTB thread from time to time. The last I heard, Dapol wanted to evaluate the sales of the mainline and city carriages first before pressing ahead. That might have changed given how delayed the current carriages are. That’ll be interesting Pete - on both counts, I was looking for Dean style carriage buffers yesterday and came across some Slaters ones at Peters Spares. I guess any micro rod would do, it’s doesn’t have to be Slaters. I would split the cost with you John - if you had to buy a quantity of etches I would take a couple off your hands. Does anyone know what’s the score with 14mm dia OO wheels? They’ve been out of stock at Wizard for ages… at least since November - due in stock in January, which went passed… everyone seems to be out of stock. Together with Dean buffers at Dart castings, hence Googling yesterday.

Those glazing bars do look good John. I also seem to remember a pip inside the window on the Slaters Toplights. I wonder if Slaters will ever release those kits again? Thanks, Neal.

Thanks for this Mike. Thanks John Thanks Graham, I will give it a go with the 70ft carriages. I agree they would look better with them fitted.

Thanks for the comments. I don't bother with them - although I did think I had seen them in the Comet range, but a search of the Wizard website https://www.wizardmodels.ltd and they don't come up. Would they have been bare metal? Steel perhaps?. Similarly, I don't bother with corridor handrails - don't tell anyone! There must be an easy way to fix them, but I can imagine having a nightmare getting them all on the same level where droplights are set into the corridor. My secrets are out - I will never be able to model for Pendon 🤣

Lovely scenes John, thank you.

thats always the story thats been given - but if the ships Insurance is paying for it, then it gets re-built.... Unless BR took the money and did nothing with it?

Fascinating story... It begs the question about why the various boats Insurance didn't pay for the bridge to be repaired. Different times?

i remember that - sloppy practices by Townsend Torreson I seem to recall. ☹️

Call of nature won the day - Hurrah!

Cant beat a knot of Toads - although lets hope they get moved soon; days spent on an Autocoach with no loo.... I know they were made of hardy stuff in the 1930's... but I am sure someone might need to pay a visit 🤣

I am getting close to finishing 4 projects - what will I go onto next? Today the C23 clerestory carriage came out of the spray cloche, had a small amount of touching up, after which it was ready for a run round the layout with the Metro tank. It now needs all the bolections painted (by hand), then glazing followed by passengers. (I need to buy more passengers - trying to avoid eBay, I am trawling through the Prieser catalogue!) The 2 x 70ft carriages have had their roofs sprayed today and so far have had two coats - Vallejo London Grey 70.836 I am hoping to increase the variety of colours across the roofs of my carriages. Avoiding white! The County tank 4-4-2T is also getting to its final stages and is looking pretty good.... I have taken the blog down for the time being as I am adding extra photos.... It will go back up, once the loco is finished. Have a good evening.

Who doesn't like a nice 4-4-0? The 3D printed curve framed Bulldog that we are starting to see being produced looks very nice / tempting. In other news: my SRM left the DHL facility at East Midlands airport this morning at 02:41 and arrived into the Madrid facility at Vitoria just after 5am - the same plane has just left Vitoria for Alicante with a scheduled arrival time of 08:55 Tracking courtesy of Flight radar - amazing what you can find these days.

Good luck with the move @Graham T. My first version of Henley-on-Thames was in an insulated garden shed. (Walls, roof and the floor) had sheets of polystyrene insulation, which together with a small oil filled radiator kept it very warm in the winter. I don’t remember the cost of laying in the power cable, but it was in the required armour cabling. Good luck, it’ll be great whatever you do with CR2.

A-maz-ing. How times change, I’m enjoying my etched carriage and loco building, but 3D printing takes it all to a completely different level.

2 hours apparently - we’ve been out for a Karaoke evening 🎶🎵🍺🍻 SE Finecast do a chassis kit, but I think it’s still a whitemetal one, not an etched one….. A 3D printed Saint would be very nice 😎

These carriages have had 3 coats of cream - hopefully I will be happy with it tomorrow so I can move onto the chocolate.

Todays progress: The Clerestory all third has had its final coat of cream - this photo was taken just before. I have used Railmatch GWR cream and will move onto the chelate next. To be continued!

I have also stopped… although for me it’s the other way round! My kits are of course carriages. Much as I like all the different wagons that are coming out at the moment, Henley was predominately a passenger station, that during the Regatta was cleared of all goods traffic. I have enough carriage kits to see my building continue to probably the end of 2024! Your cattle wagons look good Mike, interesting that they are all variations on the same kit.

Fascinating story William, welcome to RMWeb. I like the look of the curved framed Bulldog, they have an old world charm about them. Good luck with your printing and setting up an e-commerce site. Keep us informed. Regards, Neal.

Spraying continues: The three carriages - seen before their next spray. One 70ft carriage seen after the second coat and the loco's first coat.