37114

Reminders time, Peafore Yard's next outing is in 2 weeks at the BMRG Chippenham show at Sheldon school, as usual the Bentley crew have provided a good line up of layouts and trade: http://www.chippenhammrs.org.uk/

That catenary looks the business, very impressed

Thanks Alan. Re the Western, I have just finished weathering it and it is not as grubby as you might think, looking at photos from the time D1023 was kept reasonably clean (above the solebar at least) in 1977, so I haven't gone too mad. The photo below probably under plays the end result in terms of dirtiness but I am happy with how it has turned out:

The garage won't be that tidy for long Alan as Julie keeps eyeing it up for garden clutter.... Likewise I am looking forward to the "Ale and Modelling" on Wednesday, I was hoping to finish weathering the 08 as well, the colours sound fine, Dave and I have a good cross section of colours so we can fill any gaps in your colours.

I am definitely up for one of the 121's, fingers crossed that an all Blue one will be announced next year. I am hoping that the fact the ground work was underway by Kernow/DJM this will accelerate their arrival.

Peafore Yard has a new home... No I haven't sold it but as part of the weekend garage clearout/floor painting it has taken up occupancy in the corner of the garage where Pallet Lane used to live. I am about to embark on the rebuild of my Land Rover over the winter so need as much space as I can get and kept tripping over the legs which were in the way so decided to wall mount them when not required.

More work on the bench this morning, some 21t Hoppers that have been in the work in progress box for years. The parkside kit is very well detailed but is somewhat involved in it's construction but the light appears to be at the end of the tunnel and I look forward to ticking them off the list. D1023 is finished except the weathering so with 15 minutes spare before the grand prix coverage I had a go at another shunting puzzle to give it a test run. The polarity on the loco is wrong which I need to fix and it has a lot of slack in the drive train so I will have to have the body off at some point.

Thanks Richard, the 08 wasn't too bad to do, the 37's are the hardest as I changed the frames as well but it makes such a massive difference.

Hi Andy, I agree about the puzzle, you need to think at least 3 moves in front and it is very dependant on which is due to be first wagon in the 3rd siding.

I had to empty the garage to allow me to finally paint the floor today in readiness for the rebuild of the Land Rover so while the layout was in the house I took the opportunity to set it up, more anon. With a lot of the focus since Feb 2014 being on getting the layout finished for pre booked show commitments, I deliberately didn't do much work on Rolling Stock. Consequently I currently have at least a 12 month backlog of projects either in progress or waiting in the wings, some of which date back from 2012. 3 of those projects are locomotives and as I like to have at least one new bit of rolling stock at each show I thought I would look to complete one of them in readiness for Chippenham. The 3 locos concerned are 08950, 25185 and D1023: D1023 is a standard Dapol model that I finally got round to getting the nameplates for earlier this week. Dapol have done an impressive job with the Western but putting the detail bits on is fiddly and time consuming, but the roof lifting rings have beaten me so have been left off 25185 is undergoing similar work as 25191, this should be straightforward for me to finish as I have already made the glazing. 08950 was intended as a quick renumber of a Bachmann 08 but I should have guessed things wouldn't be so simple. My donor loco had the arrow logo in the wrong place, while 08950 had every hand rail painted white. Further more the donor loco has the early chassis so it required new pickups: I also decided while the loco was in bits I would paint the cab interior and fit Laserglaze. I am a big fan of Laserglaze and eventually the whole fleet will be done where possible. Here is a before and after comparison with 08949: I recently weighed in some scrap at the local metal recyclers and took the time to take a look around to see if there is anything else I should be looking to add in the scrap yard. Key things I noted were: - Better security on the office. I will add some window bars and grilles, especially as Scrappies used to deal in large amounts of crash - A snall weighbridge for high value metals. I have assumed my main weighbridge is off to the left of the layout but the small weighbridge would be near the office - A loading shovel/fork lift truck - The yard I saw had some pallet sized bins for more valuable metals which are moved about by forklift. I also needed a way to load wagons as my magnet fitted crane would be no use for non magnetic metals. I have a Knightwing fork lift which needs some more weathering before adding to the layout. I have also adapted an old Airfix JCB which I made when I was 11 and had suffered in the intervening 25 years but was salvageable and just needed weathering: I always envisaged and designed Peafore Yard for home use as much as show use. To date most of the time I have set the layout up I have either been doing test runs in readiness for shows or operated as I would do at a show. Having watched the recent BRM freebie DVD which had a feature on Inglenook sidings and Shunting puzzles,and as the track plan was not that different to Peafore Yard I decided to have a go. Essentially you have 3 sidings, 2 of which have 4 wagons and the third is empty: Each wagons is different and has a card with its description on. The 8 cards are shuffled and 4 pulled out at random. The idea is to make the train in the order the cards have come out in the third siding by moving a maximum of 2 wagons at a time and having no more than 5 wagons in any siding at one time. It sounds simple but requires some thinking. 37240 provided the motive power, 30 minutes and a pint later the train was in the right order. All in all something a bit different and quite fun:

I really love the last picture Adrian, full of atmosphere.

Great News, I need a couple of 121's.

Looking really good, can't wait to see the finished item

Thanks Darrel, that portion of track is not live but thanks for the heads up.

I wasn't really aware of this series but noticed the 47 in Smiths in Exmouth and initially dismissed it but ended up buying one. As I have a static train at the back of Peafore Yard as part of the backscene and the 47 could fulfil the role of train engine rather than one of my working locos so it will be secured permanently to the layout reusing the plinth screws and holes. It will get a respray and light detailing to bring it up to a reasonable standard so I am v happy with my find.

Thanks Richard, will do.

Hi Peter, Will do, I think it is pencilled in for January but not 100% confirmed.

Hi Richard, The loco arrived today and is one of the earlier batch so will need to do the mod, I know when I did my original 08 the improvement in performance was very marked. Laserglaze is planned, I popped by Howes today on the way home alas they only had the packs for the Hornby one so that will have to wait for a few weeks.

Yes it is another Bachmann one. In addition to renumbering to 08950, I need to fit some 3 links but the original Bachmann 08s had a poor design of pick up so I fitted new pick ups (with some difficulty) so I am not msure if the new purchase needs the same work. If it does it will wait till after Chippenham and I will fit Laserglaze windows as well.

Hi Alan Andy and I were chatting about Ruston Quays, a lovely little project. I am tempted to have an evening playing shunting puzzles with the layout having watched the latest BRM DVD. No major planned changes to the layout, I am hoping to get the second rake of mineral wagons finished with the scrap loads and add a bit more detail to the scrap yard. I have also just purchased another class 08 so that may make it's debut depending on how much work it needs when it arrives.

No problem Tony will do, thanks for the comments.

Thanks Armin, I am definitely glad I resisted the temptation to have added another siding or a building where the derelict land is.

Hi Rich, Closest to you will be Minehead 6th August next year, otherwise it is a trip into Wiltshire or South Gloucestershire I am afraid: Chippenham this October Yate in January 16 Trainwest (Corsham) April 16 Thornbury in November 16

I had one of my drivers hit Whitby Road Bridge some years ago, he wrote of a 4 week old trailer..... It will take a lot more than photoshop to sort out the photo he took of me, there are too many blemishes!

Todays visitor was none other than Andy York: Andy came to photograph the layout in readiness for a future BRM article, Andy's skill with the camera being in a different league to my own, even on the camera the pictures I saw looked great. It was great to catch up and talk trains for a few hours and hear Andy's thoughts for a slightly different approach to the article which I am really excited about. Andy had a handy mini tripod which are useful for some of the close up's. It was at this point that I wished I had detailed the back of the retaining walls! I took the opportunity to take a high level shot of the proceedings.