Carl

In the first of many you'll-never-see-it-at-Manchester-Victoria-let-alone-at-Manchester-Victoria-in-the-eighties posts, here are some Dapol Inter-City mk3s with added "Wrexham & Shropshire" branding. The decals are from Precision Labels and come in a pack with eight logos, which is ideal for a prototypical rake of three coaches. I've only applied the decals to one side of the coaches, so I can still run them in a chronologically correct livery for the layout. The coaches themselves are quite an improvement over the older Farish models, although what's with the Inter-City branding being so low on the sides? From normal viewing distance, it's more noticeable than all the nice things that the Dapol version has over the Farish ones. I suppose it'll have to be fixed at some point. Rake of Wrexham & Shropshire Blue/Grey Mk3s - Two SOs and one FO. Wrexham & Shropshire Blue/Grey Mk3 FO. The bowing is due to my camera.

Hi Beast, Unfortunately not, but I do have several hundred pictures of the area and images of the signal box panels at Deal Street, West Junction and East Junction. The confusion with the light blue track in the image above is that it appears in some images and not others, so presumably was removed somewhere during the period my photos cover. I'll need to narrow down the year and decide to go with or without it accordingly. What year was Quail 1st edition published? I thought they were a fairly recent thing? (IIRC, the earliest I've seen is 2002.) Regards, Carl.

Hi Jim, Gooooooood question. I would guess they are something like 6kg with the MDF end plates, but that's really just an estimate taken by comparing it's weight with a couple of things I know the weight of! Regards, Carl.

Yeah, very pleased. I have an unpainted and unglazed, but otherwise working, Worsley Works 142. You can see the powered car running here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE-95NwnK0s. I was watching that thread closely, and probably was the thing that sealed in my mind to model Victoria! I think I downloaded all of the images, and even bugged the author (DerekEm8, IIRC) for high-res versions of some! I thought I had more books than I did, but I still think it looks OK!

Hey Missy, I've just posted (an incomplete) one! Regards, Carl.

Missy has asked if I had a track plan for what I'd be building. Well, sorta! The background is a combination of a scan from "Manchester Victoria Station" by Tom Wray and screen shots of Google Maps. The scan represents Manchester Victoria in the 1930's, and Google Maps show the area post-Arena. The yellow lines are track I've worked out from photos etc were around in the 1980's, the light blue line I'm not 100% sure about. The green area is the approximate non-scenic area of the baseboards. As it stands with the 20' x 4' of baseboards I currently have, there will need to be some modification of the track-plan, especially at the western end to enable the track to get into the fiddle yard while maintaining a decent minimum radius. I do have room to extend each end by a foot or two, so I will probably end up doing that instead. I have traced most of the yellow into Templot, ready for the track to be built, but I thought that this version was easier to follow. I'll post the Templot .box file for the layout when I've tidied it up a little.

Hi Grahame, The plan is to convert them all, yes, although the 2mmSA have low stocks of a few types of wheels, so the conversion will have to happen in stages. I do have quite a lot of stock which doesn't belong at Manchester Victoria, let alone Manchester Victoria in the late eighties, but I will want to run them all the same. I saw your "The Next Big 'Un" post, and the fact that it really requires you to move house to dedicate a room for it - That's exactly what I did to get the room you see in the photos, and is part of the reason it's taken 9 months to get where I am! Regards, Carl.

Hi Peter, Yes, they are. They're quite expensive, but I don't think I would have been able to build 20' x 4' of baseboards myself in any kind of reasonable timeframe, and have them as accurate. I'm using 6mm ply on top of them, so each individual baseboard is still really light. Regards, Carl.

After 9 months in the deciding, the deliberating, the procrastination and the planning, the first cuts into the baseboards were made today ready for my model of Manchester Victoria. I intend to model Manchester Victoria as it was in the late eighties, covering platform 11 through 17, from Cheetham Hill Road to the far end of where Manchester Exchange was, not too far from Deal Street signal box. The layout will be modelled in 2mm using Easitrac for the track, and although I'll be running N stock, it will be re-wheeled to 2FS standards. The bay platforms aren't in the current plan. What you see below are 8 of 10 4??? x 2??? baseboards, organised to make a total area of 20??? x 4???. There are two of the 4??? x 2??? boards still to be assembled. Very roughly, the back 2??? of the layout will be used for the fiddle yard, narrowing to about 10 inches behind the station. The cut-out areas represent parts of the landscape which are above or below track level. A view of the freshly assembled baseboards, taken from the east of the station. A view of the freshly assembled baseboards, taken from the west of the station, roughly where Deal Street signal box used to be. There isn??™t much more to see yet, but I??™ll post some close-ups of the area where the River Irwell flows under the line once it's at the point where it's easier to see what's going on. I need some timber to support the track, rather than the pile of DVDs I'm currently using! I've favoured modelling Manchester Victoria over Manchester Oxford Road and Wilmslow, I hope I've made the right decision!