Mikkel

There's my excuse . Funny about the removed rear part of the coupling rods, I was just reading yesterday about the little Barry Railway 0-6-0Ts, of which two had the rear rods removed to work on improvised "autotrains" (in pre-GWR days, that is). A model of an 0-6-0 converted to a 0-4-2 would be a fairly simple way to do something a bit out of the ordinary.

Sorry to disappoint you mate, but that orange livery is way off. It should be more like Fanta. And I don't know what it is, but there's something about the curve of those wings that just isn't right.

Very nasty! Unfortunately we do not know if P. Quince learnt his lesson, but it is on record that he stayed on at Farthing station and eventually became a ganger, known for his somewhat cynical view of the world. Here he is 20 years later and looking rather shiny (good thing we have matt varnish).

Thankyou Nick for once again helping with the detail info. I lack the RCTS volumes, and that is becoming a real problem when it comes to the details of individual engines and the dates particular features were introduced. I was of the impression that the long tanks were introduced in 1876, but did not realize the three courses came so much later. A basic issue of course is that most of my stock is really intended for the 1900s (although I'm sure there are one or two inconsistencies there too!).

Great to see such a nice Inglenook layout. I know some people think they've gone out of fashion but I never tire of seeing or operating them. The loft insulation foam is an interesting idea. Is it messy to work with/cut?

Hi Chris. Argh, that is one of the most annoying aspects of our hobby, fault-finding on trackwork! I hope you get it sorted soon. Just had a look at the 2mm Locomotive website. Not being a 2mm modeller I had not seen their website before but they've chosen some lovely prototypes for their kits. Which of the two O-4-4s versions will you be doing?

Hi Robin, yes some are from Dickens: There are people with hobbies even stranger than ours, who keep extensive lists of characters, eg: http://charlesdickenspage.com/characters.html. But as far as I remember P. Quince is a Shakespeare name, and I've forgotten where "Appledore" is from. Chris, with a certain stretch of the imagination maybe, but it's quite a stretch!

Cheers gents. I do realize that this is stretching things to the limit. Basically it's just a flat baseboard and a handful of stock . But there's something about flat uncluttered spaces that I really like on a layout. Gives a sense of space, I think. Having said that, it's time to get building again!

Farthing, 1887. The Great Western is a sleeping giant. The system is plagued by gauge inconsistencies and circuitous routes, and the Churchward revolution is yet to come. In the bay platform at Farthing, a Buffalo tank sleepily knocks a few wagons about. For the past ten years the world has suffered from a global economic depression, but Workman P. Quince has never read a newspaper and is more concerned with the stinging pain when he urinates. Perhaps he should find a better way to spend his meagre wages. The Buffalo tank shunts the empty Open and brake van into the storage siding.The locos and rolling stock carry the features of a vanishing age. The livery follows Atkins, Beard and Tourret when they state: Before about 1898, a light red colour had been adopted for the wagon stock with white lettering, but the goods brakes were grey. A bird's eye view of the scene. The timber sheds are a bit crude and don't feature in the normal 1907 set-up of the layout, but I thought they suited the slightly Wild West atmosphere of the early days. They were loosely inspired by similar sheds at the old Newbury station. As if rebelling against the slumbering nature of his railway, Driver P. Appledore demonstrates his uncanny ability to make even the slowest shunt look like a mainline express. "It's not what we do" he would tell new firemen, "It's how we carry ourselves. Look sharp!". The shunt brings the wagons up against the buffers. This is a 3-plank Open of 1881 vintage, and a pre-diagram brake van of 1882. The former was built from the David Geen kit, and the latter was restored from an old van originally scratchbuilt by Chris Edge. The brake van is left in the storage siding while the Open is propelled to the loading dock. Certain aspects of the loco are not, I fear, entirely correct for the period. Eg I am unsure whether the curve of the cabside is right for 1887. The otherwise appealing number 1234 is also problematic, as I am not sure that this particular loco had yet been converted to narrow gauge by this time. The loco has left and brought the brake van with it. The bay has gone quiet, and Porter C. Walker appears to be lost in thought. Or is he secretely savouring the whisky fumes from the load he carries?

Hi Pete, Cheer up: Snow is notoriously difficult to model Sorry, only joking! Your posts on both the good and bad days set an example for all of us to follow. We all learn from this, so thanks for sharing.

Apologies for a "me too" post, but surely that is one of the most convincing shots we've had on here. And not a loco in sight either! Brilliant!

Hi Chris. Yes, the David Geen kits are pretty good on detail. I have another couple on the go and after building a number of plastic kits it's quite satisfying to be working with the "mass" of whitemetal again. The baby talc thing is an Ian Rice trick. It does raise some eyebrows when people see it on the workbench

Hi Jon, thanks. I hope we'll see some of your fantastic work over there soon! "The Old Yard" was prompted by reading an article in the GWR Journal about Gloucester Old Yard, which had some notes about shunting loco coal wagons - a type of wagon that I have a "thing" for. (Not sure why some particular styles of wagon tend to capture our imagination?). Must remember to finish "The depot" first though .

So far there are five layouts in the Farthing series, each depicting a section of the same overall station. The trackplans are simple affairs, but when linked to fiddle yards all contain a certain operational scope. The layouts so far are: 1. The Branch Bay. This was the first of the layouts and is complete. It shows the bay platform at Farthing ca. 1904-1908, and draws on features from the bays at Newbury station. 2. The Goods Depot. This layout is also complete. It shows part of a large goods depot, seen from the inside and looking out. It mixes features from the old goods depots at Windsor, Reading and Hockley. 3. The Old Yard is complete. It focuses on the remains of the old N&SJR station at Farthing, long since swallowed up by the GWR and converted to a secondary good yard. The layout was inspired by the history and goods operations of Stratford on Avon, Witney Goods and Gloucester Old Yard. 4. The Stables is complete. It provides a roadside view of the stable block and surrounding sidings at Farthing during the early 1900s. It is inspired by the stable blocks at Park Royal and Slough, and the tree-lined perimeters of Vastern Road Yard in Reading. 5. The Station is underway. This is a scenic module that will later be joined by three other modules and fiddle yards to make up the main station building, platforms and running lines at Farthing. The main structure is a model of the station building at Newbury.

The Hornby 2721 has it, as seen here: http://www.gwr.org.uk/pro2721.html (not a modification by the modeller).

Here's a start: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/showcase/?category_name=galleries

Lovely scenes. The structures are impressive, especially the water tank and footbridge - nice to see some GWR stuctures with real mass.

Hi Pete, many thanks for sharing these experiments. Very interesting to see the differences between the wet and dry approach. I can see the advantages of both, but the texture you are getting with the clay looks really good. Was the "other" air-dried clay a particular Spanish brand or something that might be available elsewhere too?

I thought of fixing the table but decided to leave it as it is, for future wagon testing purpose. This is how railway modellers move through the world, isn't it: Everything has a possible alternative use!

Hi ngaugekid, and once again thanks for providing the horseboxes on the Sketchup site. I'm amazed at the level of detail some of the stuff on there has. Sadly I haven't had a chance to improve my own Sketchup skills any further, so am still dependent on people like you generously making their work available.

In case anyone drops by here later, the discussion on GWR wagon red continued on David's blog here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/blog/748/entry-6053-unfinished-gwr-red-wagons-in-2mm-fs

David, those are interesting experiments. It's interesting to note that while the cattle van furthest to the left and the mink in the middle appear to have a similar-ish shade in red, they come out differently in the monochrome version (well, to my eyes at least). That may also have something to do with the bracing influencing the visual impression. Which just goes to show how tricky it all is. But as Nick says: as long as we get to see some red wagons, I'm happy Perhaps the safest approach is to apply weathering as an excuse to vary the shades. That seems to have been the approach applied rather smartly in the top photo on Raymond's site here: http://www.raymondwalley.com/reviews/wagon/gwr_4plank-opens.html

Just a follow-up video clip here to illutrate that good old whitemetal still has its advantages...

David, would love to see the GWR red on a 2mm wagon. Yes it's very convenient that the sources speak variously of dark and light shades . BTW, the version of the Tourret book I have is the combined volume. Ian; I've always assumed that it was just a single wagon (if any at all) from each new design that was photographed in works grey for later reference (ie like the locos) ? Perhaps, if there is even the slightest difference in the shade of a red and a grey wagon in a black and white photo (not visible to the human eye), it would be possible to generate some kind of result by scanning a few hundred wagon photos from the 1870s - 1910s, and then have a programme analyse and sort them by date, thereby giving a clearer picture? Or is that science fiction?

Very appealing building Al. To me it looks decidedly like the Church of Persevering Modellers Worldwide