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Hi Rob, when you say IC rakes, the HSTs were stored at St Phillips Marsh, the Weymouth and Portsmouth trains had gone over to Sprinters. Towards the end it was only really Parcel stock.

Great story, glad to see it back running again.

Just noticed I need to remove the red dot...

I got mine last week, weathered it this morning: Only joking....

I have done a few more bits on the scenic of late, with the exception of the ground cover in a couple of the rear houses and the areas near the yard lamp, all ground is covered now. A couple of recent additions is fencing at the front of the layout with a lamp by the entrance gate: Also new are the ETH control boxes, I have yet to add the cabling under the walkway, this is based on the installation at Malago Vale, As can be seen in the above shot, the barrow crossings have gone in but have yet to be weathered A general shot of the layout from end to end.

Thanks Mark, look forward to seeing this develop, The advent of some of the Bachmann/ Peck stock makes things so much easier for a newbie like me. Quick question, how do the Bachmann loco's run? Being a fan of shunting layouts, good slow running is very import to me.

Lovely little layout, what are the key dimensions please? I have long considered dabbling in 009 and this sort of layout looks right up my street. Really nicely executed.

Pretty amazing to think they will be gone from Paddington within 4 weeks bearing in mind as recently as 6 months ago HSTs were my staple commute. Hope the final day is enjoyed by the HST fans, I presume the Blue Grey and Intercity power cars will appear

I get the comments about other loco's of the same class being in working order, but I do find it sad a number of the loco's will not be repaired for the foreseeable future. I do have an issue with the bullet train being in the museum, it has nothing to do with the UK railway scene and takes up valuable resource. I also think it is a shame that the opportunity to use volunteer groups more as in the case with 41001 and 55002 in the past is not being more actively pursued, it seemed a good way to keep exhibits operational.

It is a lovely town Andy, I often joke that my preferred watering hole (The Flemish Weaver) is the only pub they had to modernise for a period drama. Did you see any of the Peacocks that roam the town? Doubt it would fit but would be great if Heaton Lodge Junction could attend in future years!!

Use Wills corrugated glazing and paint it, the sheets are very thin and easy to rust etc

Really enjoyed my few hours today, great to catch up with a few familiar faces. Highlights for me was Denton Brook (the crane and radio controlled lorries are a work of art, while the presence of a split box class 37 is always welcome), Bakewell street and Roundtree sidings. Sorry to hear that Fenchurch st Peter had to pull out as I was looking forward to seeing it.

Those Windscreens make a world of difference, I was looking at a Heljan 37 at Trainwest today and the standard widows really are poor.

I would recommend using the wills clear corrugated glazing and painting it. Unlike their corrugated iron sheets it is very thin and can look very realistic when weathered properly

I built a small scrap yard on Peafore Yard, I would strongly recommend making a small cardboard pyramid as the basis for any scrap pile. Even with the pyramid I needed a lot of bits to make a convincing mountain of scrap. Also weather each piece before sticking it on the pile, it looks so much better than painting when the pile is complete.

When I was waiting for my train yesterday at Chippenham the station announcement went on forever with the various zones being announced, must have taken nearly 1 minute.....

33021 shunts some parcel stock at Parsons Vale:

A few more from this morning, I left the layout up on the table last night as I was wide awake at 4.30 this morning so had plenty of time to do some work/play with the layout. I found a rather nice PD Marsh model of a window cleaner in the bottom of the spares box so he has appeared in the garden of one of the semi's:

Not much visible progress but a significant milestone none the less, I wired up the controller to it's DIN plug (not without some frustrations but got there in the end) so I could do a proper test session. Although a couple of locos have moved on the layout before, this has been through temporary wiring, now I can use both controllers as intended. Other than a dead section the test session was a success and both controllers work as planned, none of the locos have been used for at least 18 months and need a wheel clean so running wasn't as smooth as I would like but that is easily fixed. The point motors haven't been fitted yet so I had to change the points manually and the frog's of the points are there isolated as they are the Peco Unifrog type. 25185 was the main test loco: 33021 also saw a test run, being a recent second-hand acquisition. The siding where it is parked will usually have an 08 stabled here as clearance is tight to the crossing in front. I decided to try some shunting. I am out of practice so was a bit of a challenge but I managed to do some moves without too much hassle. 25191 also got a run out but for some reason the snow ploughs kept catching on the track which is a new problem as it was fine on Peafore Yard I have never had particularly great experience of Heljan loco's with some early class 47's being eratic but this class 33 ran well.

Surprised that ONE have repainted so many trucks and containers already, shipping containers is a low margin business. They are technically a collaboration of a number of previous shipping lines, including K Line and Mitsui OSK.

Hence my mention that "On Paper" it is road legal... My land rover is fully insured, Taxed (at £0 cost) and is MOT exempt so according to the DVLA computer it is road legal. In reality it is physically not road legal as it has no bodywork, lights etc so would not dream of driving it on the road.

Or tax.... Insure it and it is on paper road legal.

I am with you in that respect, love it but the sodding thing won't stop leaking oil...

One for the mini fans, a friend of mine last week asked for some muscle to recover a mini van shell that he had bought from a local house. Expecting it to requiring a push to get it on a trailer I volunteered to help. What I hadn't appreciated was when he said shell, he meant shell i.e. no wheels!: Apparently Mini Van's are getting scares so it is worth him doing this one up (all the bits were in the garage and he has those as well). We lifted it on to a trailer for transport and even his friend who loaned the trailer asked him which scrap yard to take it to as it is extremely rotten but my friend is a mechanic and likes welding. Apparently some of the floor panels are the same as the car version and can be obtained new which is a good job as part of the floor dropped out while being lifted. The back floor isn't much better: Rather him than me....

I used Bachmann bogies albeit B4s on my Xp64 coach build (There is a thread with some pics) and used the SP plastic bushes glued to the Bogie.