Gloucester Road

With the warmer days and nice weather my other hobby has taken over. During the spring, summer and fall seasons I try and get 200 miles in a month on the bike, it is a Jamis Ventura....a nice ride. Just got back from 47 miles in preporation for a planned 120 miles on Thursday. Here is the bike The railway has not been neglected as there has been much playing....errr operating of the trains, but no modelling to speak off so enjoy the bike picture. Will see how things go on Thusday. Im going south from New hampshire to Connecticut so it should be downhill right!!!!! The map doesnt seem to think so. Oh well

Took some time to trainspotting today and caught 56074 out earning revenue. Will be interesting to see the Dapol class 56 compares to the old Farish one. 56074 in Brimsley, with what looks like Thomas lurking in the background 56074 passing the the signals which need wiring in passing through Upper Brimsley heading into the tunnel arriving into Gloucester Road Though I did some modelling, see Scalescenes thread, it is nice to sit back and watch the trains run sometimes.

I have decided to start building the Scalscenes Small Corner shops; at first it will be just the shop fronts finished in low relief and will then move onto the corner shop full size. Progress can be followed in a new thread under the Scalescenes tab in the skills and knowledge section. Stephen

Its been awhile since I have made any updates, and here is one reason: Chloe an Australian Cattle dog, texas heeler mix, she is nine months old and taking to training well, our three cats are less certain of the latest addition The other reason is spring has sprung so work in the garden and cycling has started up, but purchased the "small corner shops" and started putting those together. It will be low relief on the backscene at Brimsley (shops only) and full size with pub in Gloucester Road, replacing some off the old farish buildings. and finally some gratuitous train/layout pictures Stephen

So the missus is out at the school board (bored ) meeting and I put the boys to bed. Then off to the train room. Here are some quick snaps off the phone of tonights progress. Hopefully some proper pics tomorrow Stephen

Had some time to myself today and did more work on the Flats. Things left to finish, maybe tonight, complete elevator shaft, curtains and bed into New Street. laying flat standing on there own Stephen

Decided to go with the Scalescenes Low Relief Flats to fill in the hole above New Street. Feels more urban altready The empty hole streets and flats Cut windows and pavement Roughed in walls and elevators compare these two pictures and it does seem a bit more urban vs

Have been building some more of the Scalescene low relief houses, ran out of glue so the roofs will have to wait. Also test fitted some above the retaining wall on New Street, I think they will look good here too, but maybe as store fronts at the end of a road. Might also put the new low relief flats here instead, havent made up my mind yet. With the new corner shop and shop fronts some of the old Farish store fronts on Gloucester Road will also be replaced Ran out of glue workers have gone for the day from station platform looking up these ones still to go test fit for potential shop fronts or flats on New Street, not sure which.

So managed to spend some time yesterday weathering a YGA per the pics in my lasr post, then today took some photos on "New Street". Happy with how it turned out. Here it is being shunted. This side was made to look like the upper picture on previous post Here it is from the other side, tried to replicate the lower picture from previous post I think they turned out pretty close to those in the pictures, three more to go. Finally here is an overall photo, really should put grass in the front right

Thanks to some links posted in the weathering section found these two images i hope to use. Hopefully the wagon will be a reasonable copy when finished.

Spent some time this afternoon sticking the last of the backscene parts to the Brimsley boards Then here are the pictures of 159007 with the new gears, valance attached and some weathering. Then out for a test run. Leaving Brimsley Passing the signal box Passing through the station with 156xx waiting for a clear line

Feeling fairly pleased with myself tonight. My Farish (not Bachman) 159 has been in bad shape for some time, poor running and noisy with lots of cliking sounds. I have suspected split gears, as Farish was (?) prone too. Tonight I took the wheel sets off and took apart the gear stacks and to my surprise found not one but two split gears; one on each gear stack. So off to the parts bin (you never know what will come in handy) found two wheels sets with correct gears on them. Reasembled the gear stacks with new gears put the power car back together and onto the tracks. Blue sparks and a puff of smoke later it all came to a dramatic end. Or so I thought. The springs that take power from the wheels to the motor had shorted through, new wire and solder later it runs a treat. Took the additional step of cutting the big coupling off the outer ends and taking the skirting off. After cutting the coupler connection the skirting was reattached to the body not the bogie. Now when the bogies turn the lower skirt stays in place, it looks so much. Tomorrow will do some weathering and post some pictures.

Happy New Year to all. A big thanks to Andy and his efforts to get (and keep) rmweb up and running. Progress on Gloucester Road has been slow over the Holidays, but as things start to settle back down into routine work is picking up. Have done some more work on the backscene behind Brimsley and purchaed the Station Structures from Scalscenes. YGA and YGH wagons arrived for Christmas; these are great wagons and I have started to add all of the details. Also 47474 arrived, this is a vast improvement on any class 47 that has been put out before. Details will be added and both the loco and wagons will be weathered in due time. Sky and fence behind Brimsley Bright sunny day New fencing YGA and YGH 47474

Thats brilliant, very Christmassy. Whats the music?

Thank you for the above comment. With Farish having really upped their game and Dapol producing newer models (need to work on reliability) the future of N looks great

Not sure about the weld lines, it looks ok and might try it on the others. Thanks for the comments.

The Missus had a Ladies Christmas party last night so I disapeared to the train room for several hours last night. My rake of four Farish HHAs need to be weathered so out came the powders and some transfers of grafiti. Then this morning my yougest said "Dad lets play trains", who can pass that up!!!! 2 pics of the HHA the rake was then seen passing the unfinished portion passing out of Upper Brimsley then several pics in Gloucester Road And finally the happy driver The next thing on the list of things to do; there is a lack of housing above the station in Brimsley. Have completed one set of low relief buildings from Scalscenes (see earlier entries) and so last night set to and started on two more sets.

Having passed my annual checkride and with six months to relax before my next one I decided to do some weathering. 67027 was the victim, as the pictures hopefully show I added the buffer detail and added the front valance. I seperated the valance from the bogies and reattached it, now when the bogies turn the valance doesnt go with it. Found a picture of 67027 online and went to work with my powders. I am fairly happy with how it turned out. Before mod Buffer details Valance not attached to bogies before weathering weathered arriving from the works light weathering close up stabled for the night welders at work

So the postman delivered a package from Osborns today that contained a bulldozer and an exteneded crane. They are both very convincing models , though the crane is much taller than i thought it would be. Anyway they have been weathered and added to the housing site, I think they finish off the scene nicely. Any thoughts? Had to add muddy tracks for the heavy equipment Here is a picture of the bulldozer with driver The workers getting to it Two views of the work site Some closeups of the crane

That is well done, any plans for roof in the middle? Should it angled in the middle or some sort of drainage system so "rain water" wouldnt collect there?

The weekend after Thanksgiving there is an event in Southern NH and Eastern Massachusetts that this year involved 23 open houses/layouts that you can visit. This year on Saturday there were 11 open in MA and on Sunday 12 in Southern NH the event runs from 9-4 on both days and allows one to visit layouts that are not open to the public. It is rather fun to sit down and plans one attack, then with mobile, camera, map and two excited boys we left mum (who looked rather pleased at our leaving) to enjoy driving and visiting layouts. The highlight this year was seeing Tom Oxnard's Boston & Maine layout which was featured in the December issue of Model Railroader. There was also an n guage layout set on three levels and completely controlled via computer. We managed to see 5 houses in six hours, and returned home about 6pm tired and happy. Pictures will follow here and in the Gallery section. Joel Ditrolio HO layout Tom Oxnards HO layout John Newick N Dave Kotsonis HO Bobby Babrera HO

Very interesting and ambitious. No doubt that it will be very well done... House move in order to get a dedicate train room, hmmmmm.

Got around to lightly weathering the 08 this afternoon.

So finished rakeing the leaves off the lawn today. Many people come to New Hampshire to the view the leaves as they change change colours, however they leave when it comes to cleaning them off the lawn. Decided to have a go at my shunter 08921. Had thought about taking off the couplers on one end, like on my other locos, but figured that might effect how usefull it would be as a shunter. Was going to put the included pipes onto, but they got in the way of said couplers so. I weathered it lightly instead, there are some before and after pictures here and in a new gallery.

This morning 57003 was held at Brimsley, sort of unusual to catch a picture of it as it passes through at night. Managed to remove grass while taking the above pic. So why the hold up, off to find out. From the vantage point of the air we could see an engineers possesion at Gloucester Road We landed and headed back to investigate. 08921 was shunting the wagons and 67027 had been called in to cover for the failed class 37