Dave777

Useful to show just how rust free they were in the early 60s. I thought the body was wonky on the chassis in the first pic, but I think it's actually the end door slightly ajar that gives the impression. Question is, when is Mr Fleming going to finally sit down and author 'The Definitive Modellers Guide to the 16t Mineral Wagon'...? (Santona, full colour, £18.99)

I seem to recall one of the RTR manufacturers doing minerals in ICI branding that were green - was that prototypical?

(and the next photo along too - cracking weathering reference photo ) You're doing well finding these. The more I view ones showing the internal detail around the doors the more I'm thinking that something can be done to improve RTR models in that respect. Has anyone tackled that?

Some fancy chalk writing on that first one.

Are there any issues with loco mechanisms and magnets like this? I assume leaving a loco parked over one wouldn't be a good move...?

One could also say that given the model it's sitting on, the livery on the Minitrix model is the least thing to worry about Bomb-proof mechanism though.

Neat job on the cut & shut - maybe tone down the gloss finish a bit...? (constructive feedback) Love that green minibus!

Has anyone avoided a cliché since reading this thread? I confess I've decided to leave off a rather smart London double decker from my bridge...

Yes, I think we're broadly saying the same thing here My ' if I get to 80% of where I want to be' comment I can see wasn't the perfect choice of words - what I meant was 100% would be my perfect layout, so if I get 80% of the way there then I'm happy. My 'N gauge girder bridge sides' example I think is a fair representation - I want a perfect looking plate girder bridge, so I'll build it. But it needs rivets, and in N gauge I think 'that is going to be one fiddly job and likely to muck up the work I've done'. So at that point - when I'm 80% of the way there - I think 'good enough', especially when I consider that I'm going to have to get my eyes pretty close to see the error (and at which point a train clatters into my conk).

Not far off my approach to the whole hobby really. I consider myself an 'about right' or 'near enough' modeller - if I get to 80% of where I want to be then I'm happy. I appreciate that for many that's not good enough and they want to go further (and I'm appreciative of their efforts too), it's just that for me it's that last 20% where 'enjoyment' goes into 'punishment'. I may have scratchbuilt my N gauge girder bridge sides from plasticard, but I didn't add the individual rivets. Near enough I think... near enough.

Oooh now, that sounds interesting. If you're thinking of widening the sleepers you may end up with just a pile of component parts! What have you got in mind?

Stick a backscene behind the bridge for the fiddleyard entrance and away we go I think you and I have have this discussion before Jim (regarding graffiti I believe). I do find that particular aspect of your (outstanding) modelling curious - it seems to be based on what you have personally witnessed...?

You can also bung a brake second onto TPO trains as (from what I have read/seen) sorters would go and have a sit down or swap shifts.

Rust free for 1979 (although some lovely rust colour on that water tower behind!) Cracking 21ton a few photos along: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roger_sutcliffe/6165910479/in/pool-cfas/ Interesting colour too, almost a purple sheen to it.

Okay, I've trawled the Layouts forum up to my own layout (useful as a marker), so I'll carry on from there tomorrow. This will take some time to build up the resource, so please bear with me. After layouts I'll start trawling the Prototype Questions and Help forums for suitable topics. Edit: is the banner too big on people's PC? It's exactly the right size here on my lappie but on my work PC it's too big and requires scrolling across. However, that's on creakly old IE6 so I'm not too fussed - just wondered what everyone else could see.

Agreed. Sorry to be harsh, but that's a 'reject' for me for this thread. Realistic model... but not a realistic photograph

I'm liking that rust colour on the corrogated sheets.

Fair point, and since 'BR blue' refers to the colour of the locos then a layout with blue locos does indeed qualify. I'm not being strict about it though, if someone provided a link to, say, an industrial layout with no BR blue but it was set in 1975, then I'd probably include the link as an example of modelling of the era. It's all useful.

Post links up folks, I'll create a master list in this first post. The only criteria (apart from it having a prominence of BR blue stock) is that the layout must have at least a baseboard and some track down. List of Layouts (by scale): Blue with Yellow Faces - OO gauge Doncaster - OO gauge Glasburgh TMD - OO gauge Nell's Bridge - OO gauge Llanbourne North Wales - OO gauge Lock Dour - OO gauge Marton Central (enjoy the pics, layout now backdated to 1960s) - OO gauge Orchard Road - OO gauge Pallet Lane - OO gauge Penmouth - OO gauge Rodents' Vale - OO gauge Crossfields - N gauge Elwood East - N gauge Hare's Run - N gauge Shawbury - N gauge Deadwater Burn - EM Foundry Lane - EM Roundtree Sidings - EM Tarring Neville - EM

Welcome to the ‘Modelling BR Blue' group Originally I had intended to create a ‘Modelling the 1970s’ group, but since so much of the things that defined that period overlapped into the 1980s as well, why not expand the range to a more general ‘corporate blue’ group? So what will we be covering? Well I’m not looking to move anything from elsewhere into this group – I don’t want to split RMWeb by having some layout threads in here and others in the ‘Layout topics’ forum for example, but I would like to have links to threads and articles elsewhere on RMWeb that are relevant to this era. And it’s that ‘reference’ aspect that I’m really hoping to create & develop. My own interest in a 1970s group was based around the need for reference materials and information to improve the accuracy of my own modelling, so that will be the primary focus of what we’re trying to do here – links, references, and discussions on how to go about modelling the BR blue period. Thanks for joining, and let’s see where we go from here.

May I just raise a question at this, the planning stage - speaking from experience, that's a pretty big single board to lug about, especially with delicate buildings on it. Might it be prudent to build the fiddle yard section as a complete unit and then have the scenic section as a drop in that sits on that? If you bash the fiddle yard when moving it, it doesn't matter as much. Or, now I look at the plan again, split the board down the middle? Electrical connections would be simple.

I fear I may have errored with my photos - was this meant to be a 'realistic 16t wagon' or 'a realistic photo of a 16t mineral' thread? (in a similar style to the 'how realistic are your models?' thread). If so, I have committed the No. 1 sin of that thread

You'll have to excuse the 'work in progress' setting. Here's a rake I recently did - this is the N gauge Bachmann/Farish version in mid-to-late 1970s guise (ie, heavily weathered and pretty knackered). I did have links to the exact photos on Paul Bartlett's site that each one was based on, but since the website changed I've not had a need/inclination to try and match them up again. I confess that some were 'hybrids' too - a bit of weathering from one wagon combined with another aspect from another (oh dear, that should have Jim SW shuddering!). Here's what we started with Not sure about the replates, I think they may stick out a bit too much (I used paper, perhaps I'll try some thin plasticard). The ad hoc markings are too thick really, they seem to be chalk on the real thing, but even though I used a pin to apply them the markings would still work out at several inches wide if they were scaled up. Hmmm, I can see one that one on the left in the last photo hasn't had the weathering worked into the corners enough - adjustment required!

I’ve been pondering on this for some weeks now, trying to decide if I should say anything or not, but I’m going to take the risk of copping some flak. To quote the very first post in this thread, ‘So the challenge is to post up your pictures of your models, dioramas or layouts that look so lifelike you have to look twice or more to decide'. Now I took that to mean that this was as much a photographic competition as it was a modelling one, and increasingly there’s been an increase in the number of photos of realistic models as opposed to realistic photographs of models. There’s a key difference there, I feel. As I see it, there’s plenty of existing sub-forums and threads where you can post up pictures of your realistic modelling, whereas this thread was always a little bit different to that. Clearly there’s still plenty of pressing of the ‘+’ button to these photos so I may be very wide of the mark with my comments – it does make for an interesting comparison though to go back to Page 1 and see what was posted and then immediately jump to some of the images on pages 47, 48, etc (try it and see for yourself). Realistic models, sure. But are they realistic photographs…? This was the original intention of this thread. Perhaps that’s changed, perhaps that’s not a problem for anyone, I just felt it worthwhile putting a hand up and saying ‘Are we starting to lose the key focus of this thread?.’ Edit (years later!): Please note that anyone trawling through this thread, reading the above, and then thinking that the pages I refer to don't seem to make much sense - there was some editing & pruning performed that removed a lot of posts.

If someone had shown me the completed shops I would have guessed it was a kit from one of the European manufacturers like Faller or Kibri. Very nice indeed.