Chris Chewter

When you have a Modelu figure of yourself, it would seem rude not to have one on your own layout! 1474 on shed (and me drinking tea!)

One of the things I’ve been putting off is this: At the top of the access road was an advertisement hoarding. Page 100 of Randolph indicates it has GWR 545 on the end plate, but try as I can, I can find no drawings to get a size. Does anyone have any ideas, otherwise I’ll have to fashion something approximate and try to get it to look about right.

I think this is as good as the patch in front of the engine shed is going to get. The chinchilla dust has been painted grey, and dusted with Humbrol black and smoke grey weathering powder. Other than a slight adjustment to the point rodding to remove the kink, hopefully that looks better than before. And a close up of the scene in front of the shed.

Just finishing off the patch by the loco shed, when I realised I put the 14xx in an unfortunate location. Not quite Titfield.,, More like Tetbury Thunderbolt. Can’t go yet, squires not here!

Ha. Just that one fella watching. He’s been stood there watching for months!

Whilst hoovering the layout last night, the hoover hose decided to attach itself to the roadway and suck a chunk off. Great! Fast drying plaster mixed, lightly sanded, and painted over. Let’s hope it looks ok when it’s dried.

Whilst trying to set up a small cameo scene by the engine shed, I decided that the point rodding is just too high! There’s nothing for it, that ballast needs to come up! The point rodding has now been sunk down. I’ve also relaid the middle section with chinchilla dust to give it a smoother appearance. Looks promising. Just need to decide how to colour it...

I felt the collett pair was a bit flat post weathering, so a very thin coat of gloss cote has been applied. And a close up for comparison Unfortunately one of the coach numbers rubbed off, so that’ll need reapplying. I now have to find the correct fox decal set and do something about it.

A few photos of the adjusted coupling bars to the 14xx The bar is just bent brass wire from Albion alloys glued into position and painted Railmatch roof grey.

Whilst testing the magnetic uncoupler today, I found that the self centering couplings on the 14xx were not working well. So I’ve taken the plunge to remove the tension locks for a pair of wire goal posts. It seems to improve the locos appearance quite nicely! I also grabbed a video to show both the wire goal posts on the 14xx and the uncoupler in action.

Automatic uncoupling attempt 2 - Neodymium magnets. Whilst having a rummage in my model box, turned out that I had already purchased 25 small neodymium magnets to hide between the sleepers, ordered from spider magnets on eBay. I’ve dotted a line of them to accommodate different length of coaches but no matter how I tried to persevere with the staples on the couplings, I couldn’t get it to work reliably. I was about to order a bigger magnet to go under the track, when I tried to fit a magnet mounted on the staple to repel each other. That seemed to work a lot better! With the two magnets repelling each other, it seems to work great with the auto coach, and it’s certainly a lot less visible than an uncoupling ramp! It’s also a lot quieter! I just need to fit the same arrangement of magnets on the end coach of each set. The only worry is knocking them off, and I’m hoping they’ll still work when painted black. However the glue needs to cure before I give that a go!

Whilst the ramp does look a bit more inconspicuous once it’s been painted black and weathered, the idea of hidden magnets really does appeal on so many levels. They’ll be significantly quieter for a start, and a lot more unobtrusive. I’ll have to put an order in for a few and give it a go.

It did indeed. I think I disturbed the track by fitting the ramp. I’ll sort that out once I’ve got a solution I’m happy with.

In an attempt to give a more hands free operation, I’ve been thinking about uncoupling locos from the service train to run around and couple onto the other end. Ive been trialling A few ideas, non of which really work satisfactorily at the moment. The first attempt was a Peco uncoupling ramp, which was awkward to install, so it was quickly removed. I’ve moved onto the Gaugemaster GMC-TLU, which sort of works, but is honestly extremely noisy as the video below shows. I’m going to swap the noisy seep electromagnet and fit a servo to operate the ramp to see how that goes. I also have to decide if I’m happy with that massive uncoupling ramp which looks a bit unsightly. I have a horrible feeling that I might just have to change across to kadees!

I’ve been giving the manor a bit of running on and off over Christmas, as well as a bit of an oil. The mechanism got stuck earlier today. I put it in reverse, it gave a click, and now is running as good as gold!

Pretty much. It was converted to DCC by its previous owner, but that affected its running ability, so instead it just sits on the shelf, waiting to take the express.

Another nevawazza photo. How about a manor at Tetbury? In reality, Lechlade Manor is a shelf queen, but I decided to redo its weathering and wanted to take a test shot to see if it looked right.

I’ve had another go at 6417 this morning. The weathering just looked too heavy, so it’s had a bit of a buff with some t-cut.

Running video from the other week. Its supposed to represent a typical day, with first train, mid-day passenger with freight, and last train of the day.

One of the problems of modelling a real location is running the same locomotives can get a bit repetitive. Just imagine if Tetbury had been visited by larger locomotives such as the Grange class.

Trying out the weathered Railroad Mk1 coaches for effect, 9759 prepares to depart.

6417 is in charge of the service train today, as it rounds the corner by the goods shed. Next stop Culkerton. (I've had to photoshop in a sky again for this one, as the backscene isn't high enough)

The pannier bringing the service train back from Kemble. As for the 14xx, I presume its in the shed being attended to by a fitter.

Currently experimenting with focus stacking using iphone images to get the lens closer to the ground, and a spot of image editing. The 14xx has failed and a pannier has been called up from Swindon.

9759 awaits the guards signal before departing towards Culkerton and Kemble.