Jon Gwinnett

A well deserved award Ian!

Great to see the project has reached 25% tonight. Now the tough business of keeping the momentum going begins, good luck everyone!

Glad to hear it went well and that the next generation operating crew had fun. Looking forward to photos...

I would probably (need to think how I would fund it!) commit for second set if I knew it would be the poppy one. As a distinctly "rule 1" purchase anyway, the topicality (especially if delivery is 2016), means I would be very very tempted.

I'm probably sharing a stand, or on the one next door, so that's cool! I'll continue to tweet and share elsewhere anyway.

Ben, Appreciate you'll be busy with Warley, but any chance you can send me some marketing stuff (leaflets) before next Weekend's Falkirk show? Be delighted to try and encourage folk up here. Let me know and I'll PM an address

Ordered mine this morning

Great to finally see the layout in the flesh,and nice to chat with Ian. Santa Barbara by jongwinnett, on Flickr Santa Barbara by jongwinnett, on Flickr Santa Barbara by jongwinnett, on Flickr Santa Barbara by jongwinnett, on Flickr

Ooh, tunnel motors. Looking forward to it. :-)

Hope you had a good journey north. Looking forward to seeing SB on Sunday.

Ah 26004. The first (and only) loco I ever drove for real...

Lovely Alan, lovely...

Lovely! The reflections work particularly well in that last shot.

Hope the open day went well, any photographic record of the trams today?

Local big orange shed had some surprisingly decent 5.5mm nominal ply in stock, and have cut it into 400mm strips for me, two 1200 long for the main board, four 900mm for two extension/fiddle yard boards, the off cuts will also allow for a 335mm extension for use with the main board at home, enabling runaround at both ends. My thoughts so far are to form each board from a giant L girder formed by two sheets of 400mm ply, giving an integral backscene, with the track bed raised up on 50mm Knauf foam boards. These will give rigidity without the need for cross bracing, and raise the track to enable a dockside feel. At the moment these might stay at 300 mm deep, leaving a lip to be sceniced as the water in the dock. Still to be resolved before construction begins- How to join boards (split pins, sprung latches, clamps?) Do I need a subframe to enable underboard wiring, or do I bury it in the foam board. Legs - do I attempt to incorporate integral sockets at the rear of each board. It's probable that I will drill lightening/access holes in the bottom board. Do I do these cookie cutter or one single picture frame style? I'd like to keep the line of the backscene at the rear of each board - how then do I access the staging tracks? Electrical connections between boards can be by way of banana plugs on the bus wires. What else do I need to consider? And what have I completely forgotten?

That's got me thinking! I had thought to physically model the coal loader as a view blocker in front of the fiddle yard, but if it was "assumed" then I could work loads/empties as you suggest. My thought had been to contrive some sort of chute/hopper arrangement through the backscene so that the loader "worked", but if that could be hidden it might be easier.

I've tried mocking up "son of Cogirep". For orientation, the fiddle yard board would be to the right. Still undecided if the coal loader should be on the rear road on this board, or on the extension of the bottom right line in front of the fiddle yard. The other main industry would be a pair of Bud's trucking kits kitbashed together to give one long industrial unit, for receiving incognito shipmnets (possibly a steel stockholder, or white goods distribution centre, or something). The left hand two roads would give scope for a longer run round if a further board could be added in future. Possible new Dutch layout design, main board. by jongwinnett, on Flickri Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

http://www.tl-modellbau.de/en/Colour-Serie/Zahlen/ Might be of use?

Andreas Nothaft: http://www.modellbahndecals.de/index.php Cool!

I had the pleasure of letting one of my colleague's son help operate Haston at Glasgow back in February, thanks to Chris's kindness. Any risk was worth it for the expression on his face as the loco blew its horn, revved up and moved off (at a sensible speed) all under his control. When he was younger (he's lost interest now) Kieran was the same, he shunted very calmly and realistically. There's no doubt kids can bring a level of maturity beyond their years when given the opportunity. Bravo to Ian for making it happen in this case.