Ravenser

Can you advise the number of the loco affected ?

As far as I'm aware the Bure Valley is the only 15" gauge line to operate tank locos, though I stand open to correction

You may have noticed in these postings occasional mutters that "I must build the screen walls for the station" . In most postings in this blog , in fact. Well, with the electrics more or less done (only the Kadee electromagnets and a couple of signals remain to nag at my conscience) I've finally attacked what is the last big scenic job on the layout. Quite a bit of tidying up, fettling and detail work remains but this is the last big block of new construction Here we have the back screen wall - the remains of a former trainshed - under construction. Main materials are mounting board and Howard Scenics brickpaper, treated with pastel crayon (Terracotta) to redden it And here is the vaguely ecclesiatic end elevation of the old trainshed, facing out towards Artamon Square, under construction The lancet windows (echoes of Liverpool St) were worrying me a little , but a peek in Observer Book of cathedrals revealed that the real things are based on an equallateral triangle. Place your compass point at the top of the vertical on one side of the window, and strike an arc upwards from the top of the vertical on the other side of the window. Turn the compasses round, repeat the process from the top of the other side. Where the two arcs intersect is the top of your arch. Cut carefully along the drawn arcs - bingo, a lancet . Phew The door is a spare from the Scalescenes Retaining wall/archway kit Only two sides are finished , but the improvement is dramatic: In the second view you can see the unfinished section of the wall - this still needs external brick pilasters adding , plus the brickpaper to represent the bricked up former windows . For this I have used Superquick red brick , toned down with pastels (Burnt Sienna, Terracotta) and the arches are from the Prototype models brickpaper sheets (red again, with pastel weathering). It is assumed the LMR Architects Dept vandalised the original station in the late 50s/early 60s. The gap will be taken up by the surviving station building, which is supposed to act as a "viewblocker" at this edge of the layout (I'm not entirely certain about the concept , now I come to execute it, but I hope it adds rather than detracts from the visual impression.) Just how all this has transformed the station and made it gel can be seen by comparison with an earlier show of the same area: Although width is desperately restricted , I have managed to space the rear wall off the backscene slightly - very slightly where it passes in front of the brown brick office - but enough for there to be a small gap between the wall and the backscene , meaning that the backscene is visibly somewhere behind it Giving a station this small a trainshed is not in fact implausible . Lincoln St Marks (ex Midland) - which could only take 3 Mk3s on the platform - clearly originally had one , and in its later days had it removed: and this seems to have been a pretty standard scenario for medium sized stations built in Lincolnshire during the late 1840s: New Holland Town (MSLR - opened 1848) Market Rasen (MSLR opened 1848): (Gainsborough Central follows the same pattern) Louth (GNR opened 1848 - here , as typically on the GNR , the roof was a two pitched affair , supported by cast iron pillars between the tracks ) with Boston being similar Firsby retained its overall roof until closure in 1970 , and possibly Alford Town may have done the same (all GNR 1848) In fact the only surviving overall roof is Grimsby Town (again MSLR 1848) which was renewed in 1976 I've leant more to MSLR practice as those are the examples I'm most familiar with, although lacklade is supposed to be an ex MR station

Turning up a bit late to this: - Diesel shunter : I think the Ruston 0-6-0 departmental units might be worth a shout, as they were long lived and used in a reasonably widespread set of locations - and I think were effectively a standard industrial type anyway. I'd vote against doing the 05. Firstly there is or recently has been a very decent Silver Fox resin body to fit the Bachmann 03 -04 chassis. I've done one myself , and frankly it was pretty easy . Secondly it's a very obvious thing for Bachmann to do as a newbody to the 03 chassis - in fact I recall dibber25 mentioning that he and Grahame Hubbard had discussed the idea at the launch of the 03 project . Thirdly , the 05s fell into 3 sub types - Batch 1(as represnted by the Ipswich locos, the IoW survivor ,and the Silver Fox body ) with small wheels and low cab profile , and a real primeval look, Batch 2a with larger wheels /high arc roof cab , and batch 2b with variations on the windows Other candidates remaining would be the 01 Barclay (Stratford and Holyhead) the 06 Barclay (Scotland) and er not much else . Things like the NBL shunters and the 6 wheel Barclays used at Immingham (another creature from the Triassic swamps) were too shortlived and too localised to sell widely (Consider that Nodding Donkeys have been with us nearly 30 years, not the dozen years some of the shunters managed) For what it's worth , if you did either the Barclay 01 or the Brush prototype machine shunter I'd have it for my boxfile as ideal - but I don't think that's indicative of the market in general - 144 WY livery - strong vote for the narrow band , with RR markings . That I can use for an early 1985-90 period and a later period starting 2000 . This time I suspect I may be reflecting the wider market - the early livery will not sell to those modelling the 1990s and onward, the Arriva branding will not sell to those modelling pre1995. - New DMU . I forget who's doing a 128 parcels unit (Bachmann?) , but the other options break down as a) cross country unit, b.) high density suburban c) less common low density unit . Under a) the 120 is the obvious candidate but . c) is what the mainstream manufacturers have targetted RTR , and b.) might seem logical , on the grounds that the big boys seem to be shying away - in which case class 116 wouldbe both widespread and novel (there ares till afewLima 117s out there)

Minor detail but in a boxfile diorama I'd have the tension lock bar off that coach double quick as you're not actually going to use it for coupling. Also I'd line at least 2 of the walls with brickpaper. The front wall might be painted black as a "not there/not part of the universe" neutral effect , rather than leave the bare file wall . Or as that wall has a mine head gointg into it - practice your rock making technique and do a rock face along that wall

With DCC Installing the point motors and decoder isn't necessarily the end of the story. Yes, it gets the points working , but more than just that is possible, and yesterday I took the final steps in commissioning the installation Working the points one by one through the handset is a little slow and clunky . Probably no slower than flicking a set of switches on a DC panel, but just as liable to operator error. I suspect that one of the major causes of derailment and intermittant running on the average layout is the operator having failed to set some point in the route somewhere, and I'm no better at it than anyone else Much more sophisticated automated approaches are possible with DCC, and most of them cost a lot of money. In fact I believe several small building societies are now offering mortgages of up to 80% LTV for first time buyers of Railroad & Co software... Having been born in Yorkshire I'm not going down any route that involves several hundred euros and the installation of lots of special electronic devices sourced from someone unpronounciable in the Black Forest. Fortunately that's not necessary. The NCE Powercab - which is what I have - offers a feature called "macros" . These allow you to store instructions to up to 8 accessory decoder addresses , and send them as a single operation. There's even a nice prominent button labelled "macros" between "select loco" and select accessory". Just press it. type in the number of the macro and press return - and instructions to up to 8 accessory addresses can be sent at once (I'm being very careful in my wording here - both the MERG point decoder and the DS64 accessory decoder have 4 outputs and therefore 4 addresses . The Lenz LS150 has 6. And one output/address can work two points , typically as a cross-over. ) The PowerCab supports 16 of these macros , numbered 0-15 (I presume the Procab does the same) Blacklade has 9 points (2 of which form a single slip), two point decoders, and 7 addresses in use - there are 2 crossovers, wired as pairs. There are 3 platforms in the station , one of which (Pl 2) can be reached by either front or back routes , 3 roads in the fiddle yard and the fuelling point. That gives 4 x 4 = 16 possible route options , though in reality it's only 14 , as you can't reach the fuelling point from platform 3 (the back platform) or from the back exit from Platform 2 So each possible route on the layout can be given it's own macro which will fire all the points necessary to set it up with a single instruction. Full entrance/exit route setting - for nowt. 'Cos it comes as a standard feature on the Powercab.... The first step was to check each point address and work out which way was Normal and which Reverse (these are the 2 options in NCE - Digitrax prefer Closed and Thrown). I drew a very crude panel diagram in pencil to record this - the standard convention being that Normal is a thick continuous line, and Reverse is a break in the line . Then I started programming the macros starting with macro 1 (Platform 1 to fuelling point) , programming the correct setting for each point in the route with reference to the pencil diagram. When route started to involve the slip it seemed like a good idea to run something through to test it and make sure I had the polarity right through the slip, so out came a153. Program macro , press button, enter macro number, hear points throw, run train. And so on steadily down the list of possible permutations After about an hour and a half I had a layout where I could set up any possible route in one go , just by pressing a button and entering a number . And the appropriate signals came off as well.. The 153 ran slowly and reliably back and forth across the layout. For ease of operation, I've written out all the macro numbers as a table on the back of an old business card and stuck it on the backscene at the station end. I've also drawn out the panel diagram neatly on two business cards , with point numbers, so that if I have to change points "manually" I do at least know which way to select on the menu . It doesn't really matter which way is Normal for a point so long as you know which option to select to set the point in the direction you want. The amount of time wasted trying each option in turn until the point moved was embarrassing, and trying to work out the number of a given point without aclear memory aid is very difficult - which is why the real railways put a block diagram with all the lever numbers marked in every signal box. I'd strongly recommend drawing out a panel diagram whatever your system, for these reasons alone. I don't usually do DCC techno- posts and this posting may leave folk with a different DCC system cold. However the PowerCab is quite a popular DCC system and I don't think I've seen any comment on using this particular feature before. Obviously 16 route macros will only go so far on a large layout, where there are more than 16 possible routes and some involve a lot more than 8 points; though I gather from another thread that great northern has been experimenting with macros on Peterborough North. However you wouldn't use a PowerCab to run a large layout anyway, and for the average small terminus 16 macros should be more than enough, especially if the fiddle yard is a sector plate or traverser. It really is a powerful feature to be able to set up any route completely and reliabilily just with a single entry , and the improvement in speed and ease of operation is dramatic Something similar should be possible on an number of other systems. The Digitrax DS64 accessory decoder supports "routes" at the level of the decoder itself. Unfortunately you can only set up routes involving points controlled by two different DS64s if they are linked by Loconet, the Digitrax cab bus, which means that you can only get comprehensive route setting thisway if you have a Digitrax system. I think Lenz support route setting , though I don't know any details and I have a suspicion it may even be available with the Multimaus

The MRC's S scale layout was Thame ,l surely?

On the tram side there is Kingsway Subway and Dogkennel Hill, both in OO And I think L49 may have built something with trams and underground - I'm sure I remember it at a show

Scalescenes downloadable kit. A little fiddly but very effective

Things are a bit heavy at work at the moment which is probably why this posting's three weeks late, but the wiring is finally done. Well, sort of just about. The new DS64 decoder is in , the NCE switch it is disconnected, the last two motors (Cobalt and Tortoise) are in , they're all wired up , and they work. I admit that one half of the slip is only about 98% reliable, but this was clearly the stiffest tie bar on the layout and always going to be the place where any intermittant incomplete throw was going to appear The whole lot is very tightly packed , as you can see - which was always the issue and why it took so long: The Cobart Blue seems slightly more positive in its operation than the Tortoises, even though I've now replaced the wire supplied by Circuitron with something thicker. Also very useful is the solder free connector block - if you have to disconnect or swap over wirews to reverse the direction of throw it's dead easy A minor benefit is that theboard is potentially self sustaining. Although the DS64 is powered by an independent 12V DC supply from the stabilised converter, and this requires the 16V AC feed from the other board, , in its absence it defaults to drawing power through the DCC data connection. This means the decoder works even without being connected to the other board. The Hoffman motor controlling half the crossover doesn't work (since this draws 16V AC) but the other 4 motors do The next stage, when things calm down a bit and I can have another play with the layout, is to draw up a panel diagram, showing which way is normal and reverse for each point and their numbers, to stick on the back or end of the layout. And once that's done, I can program Route Macros (a feature provided by the NCE system) for each possible route. So in future all I need do is key in the correct macro and an entire route through the layout comes off, complete with signals. The PowerCab supports 16 macros - there are a total of 14 possible routes on the layout . (For the curious - Platform 1 to fuelling point, FY branch, FY main 1, FY main 2; Platform 2 via crossover to pl 1, to fuelling point, FY branch, FY main 1 & FY main 2; Platform 2 straight ahead to FY branch, FY main 1 and FY main 2; Platform 3 to the three FY roads). Full entrance/exit route control with no extra wiring or cost, and no control panel at all I've also noted the wiring colour code on the back of a business card and stuck it in a suitable spot under the boards What hasn't been done is to install the ground signal under the bridge controlling exit from the fuelling point - it will be on the left of the track in this view, taken from the chair in front of the computer looking to my left...: This is because I've run out of contracts on the relevant point motors (the Hoffmann has only one, for the frog, and the spare contacts on the Tortoise at the other end of the crossover are used to switch the 16V AC supply to power the Hoffmann) . The only way to work the ground signal is as an opposed pair of LEDs inserted into one of the power feeds to the Tortoise: one LED will light if current passes in one direction, and the other if current is reversed.... I also intend to install a spare Erkon 3 aspect signal + feather in the fiddle yard as a visible indicator of what routes are set, in an effort to minimise the risk of driving into a point set against the train, and I have to sort out the electromagnet I wired (and which doesn't work) and wire up the other two. I suspect the issue is that I didn't scrape the lacquer off the wires throughly enough to get good electrical joints- afriend suggested using avery large iron (I have a 70W in the workbench) to burn off the lacquer But I'm leaving thisfinal round of wiring for the moment - the next major task is going to be building the screen walls round the station , the last big scenic job outstanding. Then it's down to detailing, stock, and operation It should now be possible to use the layout as a programming track while in situ in the study - meaning I don't have to set the whole thing up in the sitting room first. I just need to get at a suitable power socket...

Not a link I'm afraid, but acouple of pictures - hope it's not out of order posting them: and a link to where it fits into my modelling as a whole: layout(s) blog

Needs a full scale rework, I'm afraid , but an excellent place to start dabbling in detailing and modifying wagons. You need - a replacement etched ladder/walkway - the A1 Models etches for single or double walkway are still apparently available from MG Sharp , and I'm sure someone like Shawplan must do an even better version, though I can';t find anything quickly on Sawplan's website - A tub of Modelstrip paint stripper putty , (and a pair or rubber gloves for when you apply it) This will remove the teenage muck - Model filler. Remove the tank mouldings from the chassis, join carefilly and accurately with solvent, when dry use a little filler to fill in the joints /cracks sand down the filler with fine emery paper, and perhaps fine emery paper wetted , to a good smooth finish. And while you're about it fare away the edges of the mouldling base with a file to a fine edge. The base of the tank meets the chassis as a thin edge - not as a 6" thick slab sitting on top - A suitable coat of black paint. The easiest approach is going to be a spray can of Games Workshop Chaos Black. Apply new transfers (Fox though it's seemingly endless series of packs to get all the elements and you'll need to do half a dozen wagons to get the cost per wagon down to something sensible). Weather over the lot very lightly with dilute washes working vertically up and down ('cos that's how gravity makes the rain run) . Coat of matt varnish over the lot to seal and protect the transfers , and tone down the finish Improvements can be made to the chassis , but if you're committed to tension locks the biggest - remove the wretched things with the Xuron cutters, filing flat and filling the buffer beams - isn't possible . Replacement brass Olleo wagon buffers improve things no end As they say "here's 3 I made earlier". Several started out pretty much in the condition of your Shell tank (The back right one was Railroad , but Iended up repainting most of the barrel in the process of weathering - I think Fox would have charged as much for the pack with Shell stripes and logos as Hornby charged for the wagon) The two black stars were to indicate that the wagon was fit for higher speeds (ie up to 60 mph compared with the 15-25 mph of steam era tank wagons - some of which , when they were replaced with TTAs in the mid 1960s, were very vintage indeed - Edwardian tanks with wooden underframes were still to be found in oil company fleets in the early sixties. On black class B wagons , the stars were white, and I think they vanished some time after 1990

Progress on the wiring continues, though more slowly than I'd wish. The three station signals were finished and duly installed. . Wiring has proved a rather lengthy and tedious process with 8 fine short wires and two resistors needing to be soldered under the boards for each one. Resistors have been fitted to scraps of veroboard and the various wires soldered to these small boards in situ: the job's done now , but it's taken an evening's work per signal. They are driven off the spare contacts on the Tortoise point motors , and while this isn't perfect it gets a reasonably prototypical set of aspects. The only real anomaly is that if the roads are set out of platforms 1 and 3, you get a yellow out of platform 2, even though the next point is against you. To achieve a proper aspect here would have required a third set of contacts on the point at the entry to the back platform, 3 , to select between red and yellow. As it is. using the contacts I've got, BL 22 displays either green for route out via crossover /platform 1 or yellow/feather indicating route via the diverging road down the middle. It's almost certain that any route out via Platform 1 must be clear right through - hence the green , - but not certain that the middle road is clear right through - hence it gets the yellow . BL 20, the starter from Platform 1 does all the tricks, as in this case a second point motor on the same board is available for switching. Red shows the crossover is set against it, then switching by the next point gives either yellow ("main" roads in the fiddle yard via the slip on the second board) or green + feather- branch or fuelling point. Since the crossover on the second board is wired as such, there is no possibility of an incompletely set route in this case, hence the green. And BL 23, the Platform 3 starter at the back, gives either red or yellow. The feather has been wired to two of the pins on the bulgin plug, so that it can be switched by the motor for half of the slip, which is on the other board.The said motor has not yet been installed All should be a little clearer from the pictures and especially the signalling diagram in the thread I posted on how to wire the Hoffmann motor: Hoffmann point motor The only catch is that to see the signal aspects you need to stand at the far end of the layout. Unfortunately I tend to operate from the other end - the NCE socket panel is on the fiddle yard board , since this has the fuelling point road / programming track. Thus the signals don't really help check whether I've set the road. At least I know they're there.... The Hoffmann motor is now in place: in fact it's the only new point motor I've installed. The 16V AC is taken directly off the auxilary power bus, with one side switched by the spare contacts on the Tortoise . It is not 100% reliable in throwing and cutting off - ithe motor's shown a tendency to stick and stall in one direction . though the point itself is fully thrown. A quick reach under the board sorts this , and since there isn't space for a Tortoise in this area I didn't really have much alternative. One complication is that there is only one set of switch contacts on the Hoffmann. With the spare contacts on the Tortoise at the other end of the crossover in use for switching the 16V AC supply to the Hoffmann , this leaves me with nothing to switch the ground signal at the exit from the fuelling point . However NCE suggest that a pair of opposed LEDs can be wired into the power supply between the decoder and Tortoise on one side and the Tortoise will act as a suitable current limiter so that no resister is necessary. As the direction of the current changes with the throwing of the motor, the current will flow via one or other LED. They envisage this as a panel indicator - I don't see why it can't work a ground signal instead Other jobs finished include connecting up the Express Models lightting kit I installed in the Portakabin to the 12V DC stablised converter unit on this board. I found an old rocker switch in my electrical bag that came from I know not where and wired this in. In daylight you hardly notice that the Portakabin's lit : in poor light it's horribly apparent I didn't fit an interior... I also wired up one of the Kadee electromagnets as an encore, having found a substantial push to make switch in the electrical bag. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work - there's no buzzing noise when you push the button. I suspect I haven't scraped the protective coating sufficiently effectively off one of the wires on the electromagnet. Power supply for this is a variable transforfmer from Maplins , set to 15V (the max) to deliver up to 4A . I presume this is adequete. I then gave the layout a test running session , which had mixed results. Slow speed running is good . But there were derailments , seemingly caused by the unrestrained slip and dead patches , allied to the board joint , which is not ideal. Coupling issues probably played a part too - the Bachmann GUV has it's NEM pockets set too high , and one Kadee on the PMV needs the spring replacing . And I think the 3link on the Hornby 31 may foul the Kadee slightly. Added to which 31 + GUV + 50 van just fouls crossover 1 at the end of the centre platform - replace the GUV with another 50' van and all would be well. Another reason to finish the Van B. The 101is a little suspect too - almost certainly where there wasapatched repair to the chassis unit after accident damage. I have a replacement chassis in stock, so this could be a priority And an attempt to fit a replacement TCS decoder in the150 failed because I couldn't break inside - the two end screws just wouldn't shift

Some practical comments: Blacklade uses an NCE Powercab, with the supplied US 1.2amp transformer operated via an adaptor plug (I had to carve bits of the top projections away so the transformer would fit on - no innards were exposed please note) The main DCC traction buses are made from what was sold in the DIY place as mains cable , containing 2 insulated cables of solid copper about 2mm diameter, and a thrid uninsulated copper wire for the earth , enclosed inside an external plastic insulated sheath . The outer plastic insulation was removed , to extract the two wires meant as live/neutral: these were then used as the 2 bus wires, and sections stripped to the bare metal to allow dropper wires to be soldered on to the solid copper Where possible 16/0.2 wire was used as droppers , eked out in places by 7/0.2 wire . Connections from the NCE panel to the traction bus via the program track switch , and from traction bus to the interboard socket are 24/0.2 wire nominally rated at 5A. I think the wire in the interboard connector is similar - it's 7 core cable with chunky wires. 7/0.2 wire is more or less confined to the 12V DC feeds from the stabliised converters to power signals and lighting, and from decoder outputs to Tortoises . The auxilary 16V AC supply which powers the 12 V converters, the MERG decoder and the Hoffmann motor is 24/0.2 wire. The wires to the frogs off the Tortoise swtiches are 7/0.2mm beige, cos that was all I had. I believe 16/0.2 wire is nominally "3A wire" This may be overkill, but that's better than underdoing it. Some folk may remember an exchange on MREMag a few years back where an anti DCC poster claimed that DCC layouts would go up in flames because of uncontrolled short circuits of 10A current or more - well I was on the other side of that exchange , and as the then leader for a club project, having been given the Health and Safety pep talk to the effect that "you are legally responsible under the Act for all safety", and being well away our usual show venue was twichy about fire , having had 2 fires in 30 years, I tend to want to bombproof the wiring On the club project similar solid copper mains wire was used for the traction buses but droppers were "1 amp layout wire" (I think 7/0.2 but can't be quite certain). On one board where droppers were 3' long or more in places, this resulted in noticeable voltage drop , and the board was subsequently rewired to shorten the droppers as a result. Overheating is only one (less likely) issue. The finer the wire , the higher the resistance at a given current , and the longer the run the greater the resistance... Hence heavier wire helps beat voltage drop. With only 1.2A to play with, I can't afford transmission losses . Similarly , if I ever upgrade to a more powerful DCC system, I want to be sure the layout wiring can handle it easily After the MREMag spat I did have a discussion with someone in the club , which concluded that 1A wire would be ok for droppers because under normal conditions the total current draw would be spread over many locations and many droppers , and no single dropper even with a sound locoi, should exceed 1A current flow . Under short circuit conditions the protection on the command station would trip, and any high current flow would only be momentary and therefore would not overload the wiring (This by the way is the source of my aversion to the "car light bulb trick" - it was suggested by the other party on MREMag that this meant DCC layouts would be subject to short circuit currents of 10A for extended periods as car light bulbs kept the current flowing. That's a good argument against fitting car light bulbs, but a bad one against DCC . Use a circuit breaker. To quote Crosland above )

The trouble with lists is that they show you up. So how far have I actually got with my ambitious list of jobs? Well..... 5 out of 6 points have had their drive wire replaced with 0.9mm wire . The other seems to work ok anyway. This has pretty well cured the problem of point blades not closing fully. One point , where the commercially available offset drive Tortoise mounting has been used (possibly from Exactoscale?) is still slightly uncertain , perhaps because I've not replaced the final link from the subterranean plastic tie bar to the actual copper clad tie bar. Another point, which I couldn't quite get to close reliably, resulted in so much fiddling, filing, and tweaking that the blade came loose. I then resoldered it , slightly further out, and that fixed the problem of reliable closure . 0.9mm wire does Xurons no good at all by the way: I used the cutters in a large pair of pliers instead, and these survived largely unscathed On the wiring front, I've installed a 0.5A 12 V dc stabilised power supply unit , from All Components, on one board. That, er , is the sum of it. Very frustratingly I haven't been able to install the Hoffmann point motor , for want of two eightpenny diodes..... One of the consequences of having changed my job is that I no longer walk past a branch of Maplins in the lunch hour, and I can't simply buy a Bumper Bag of Diodes for £1-60. The nearest branch is now 15 miles' drive away. So I've had to order some diodes from Squires, and after a murderous week at work , I only got round to doing so on Friday afternoon. At which point I forgot about the large illuminated push switch I was going to buy to isolate the programming track . So I'm going to have to improvise that bit using the toggle switch and mounting I already have Being blocked in that direction , I've attacked on another front and built three Erkon signal kits for the station board,. I'd seen these used on afriend's layout and they looked quite effective. Unfortuately the type with a feather - and all three for the station have feathers - have a pair of fine wires coming out of the side of the feather , which is not quite so good. I've painted them black, along with the solder joints onto the diode, which makes the intrusion much less obtrusive , and in 2 out of 3 cases , the offending wires will end up facing the backscene and therefore should largely be hidden. A further complication is that one of the signal heads is rather smaller than the other two.Clearly they've changed/upgraded the kit at some point. I suspect that variations between signal heads aren't unknown on the prototype - after all colour lights have been with us for 80 years, and I would be surprised if signal heads have remained exactly the same size and style throughout that time - and therefore I'm afraid I've just ploughed on. I couldn't really have shuffled the kits around to avoid having one head different, and they aren't the easiest kits to find. It's assumed the area have been changed from semaphore to colour light through slow piecemeal replacement I also painted the signals. My friend didn't - they looked ok but slightly toylike. Normally I'm sceptical about the idea that prototype info is easy for modern image , but I had only to look up from the bench and look out the window - and there is a colour- light signal. This quickly showed me that posts are grey, and not silver , and that only the signal head itself is actually black. And all the colours are weathered. A hasty coat of Humbrol 183 grey resulted in a much better colouration and also improved the proportions of the signal, as the grey goes further up and down the post, making it look taller, and the ladder is also now grey, and not black . The signal head, phone box, and one or two other bits have been painted with Citadel Charadon Granite, mixed with some matt black . This improved the look of the signals considerably - never use pure black or pure white . All I have to do now is add the signal numbers and install....

I don't have a Heljan Lion , but their 47s in particular have a reputation for drawing large amounts of current and the Hornby decoder isn't rated to stand more than 0.5A on a sustained basis. That doesn't explain a dead Bachmann decoder though

That will be Proto - Type .....

Having chickened out on fitting 4 small etched brass stips as hinges to every door of the Van B, I've decided to tackle finishing the point motors and associated wiring under the layout. This posting is largely to draw the attention of non-DCC users to the query I've just posted on wiring one of the motors here : Hoffmann query, since the solution I've come up with - hardwiring and switching through the spare contacts on another point motor - isn't really a DCC method at all However this fits into the bigger package of stuff I'm hoping to tackle this weekend (and no doubt next week as well): - Sort out the unreliable throw of the existing point motors. This is because the wire supplied with the Tortoise is too springy and flexes rather than moving the point blades. Where possible the old wire will be taken out and replaced- where not possible, I aim to stiffen the wire using a tip from an Iain Rice book. There looks to be one point motor I can't get at at all - Remove the NCE Autoswitch - which doesn't actually work - and fit a DPDT switch to isolate the bulk of the layout when programming - Install the remaining 3 point motors . I now have a new Cobalt Blue motor (bought at Ally Pally after seeing jim s-w's recent review in DEMU Update) and aHoffmann - these , with a Tortoise , will fit where 3 x Tortoises wouldn't. I'll make sure the wires are stiff enough.... - Install the 16V AC auxiliary bus onto the second board, so it can power the Hoffmann motor, and an Express Models 12V DC 1 amp stabilised power supply -Install 12V DC stabilised power supplies on each board to power signals, Digitrax decoder, and lighting circuits - Install Digitrax DS64 decoder to fiddle yard board , to power all points , and replace current NCE Switch It - Connect up the lighting circuit in the portakabin and hope it works - Built one or two Erkon signal kits and install - connect up to 12V supply and point switching I think I've actually got all the bits now , so this lot should keep me quiet for a while....... Items trial positioned on the boards: And before I started:

Tramway des Zones Humides or Tramway de la Zone Humide.... Actually Chemin de fer du Marais would probably an equivalent

Thanks for the comments - as Donw says it's not just the model railway projects that add up.... I've not posted anything on the boxfile before, but I'll try to add a posting on it to this blog

I said in a posting on my workbench blog that layouts required seperate comment, and I've remarked a couple of times that I got myself hopelessly overcommitted on far too many fronts , even before work matters absorbed all my energy in the first half of last year. The two things are linked..... so perhaps a survey of my layout commitments is over due, at least to show where I'm coming from For quite a number of years I was extremely heavily committed to a layout project in my club . It wasn't without it's frustrations and difficulties, but I suspect a good many clubs have housed a struggling project with large ambitions and limited numbers of people and experience actually behind it. Eventually it all got too much, especially when coupled with administrative responsibilities, active membership of a society, long working and commuting hours, and the household chores arising from being single. Something had to give and late in 2009 I dropped out of the project, in the hope of getting my life back - only to be hit by a train coming the other way. Changed personal circumstances now largely rule out my becoming involved with a club layout group again , even if I wished to. I no longer work near my club, and just getting there costs almost £20 and involves an hour and a half of travelling each way. I've managed it only once in the last 6 months, and while I certainly hope to do better in 2011, those aren't conditions which allow you to be actively involved with a project. And the project itself has been taken on by new people and gone in other directions. There is a club nearer to me where I have one or two contacts, which has a couple of layout projects each of which might connect with some of my interests - but to be honest I'm rather enjoying my freedom and I'm really not sure I want to get involved with layout groups and the Exhibition Circuit in that way again. Quite a bit of my life had to be put on hold in the years when I was spending 2 nights a week at the club and getting home at gone 11 o'clock, and it's nice to have the chance to pursue other interests inside and outside the hobby again. So that's one bale of straw - a big one - out of the way.... Plenty still to go. First and foremost there's Blacklade, which is nominally the subject of this layout blog. Unfortunately the lack of postings in the last year would suggest - quite correctly - that nothing has been happening on it. The job is 85% done - I just haven't been in a position to focus on the layout and carry out the few remaining major jobs. For those who haven't been living in these parts since the last century, a bit of background may be in order. About 4 years, and 2 iterations of RMWeb, ago , there was the Layout Building Challenge. The rules for this were build a layout in 12 months, with a maximum footprint of just 6 square feet, including fiddle yards. Andy Y's Keyhaven started as part of the Challenge and so did a couple of other rather fine layouts . My initial thoughts and a photo of the layout as it stood 14 months ago (and still stands) are in the first posting in this blog , not very far down the list. One of the major reasons for building it was that I'd started to acquire - almost involuntarily, as you do - stock for use on the club project. I wasn't really supposed to be a stock provider but I'd started picking up a few brightly coloured DMUs that were being discounted and would fit the project perfectly. It was only really backup stock so I didn't work on it, but when we ran the club project there were inevitably gaps to stop up, and you get sucked in. I tucked the boxes in the gap between the bookshelves and the wall and before I'd realised what was happening the pile was 3' high and climbing. Whoops. The project I was involved with was DCC, so I needed a test track and DCC programming track at home to enable me to do my own installations. I didn't want to be dependant on others to chip locos , especially if that was going to mean paying for a topline decoder every time (My normal fleet decoder is a TCS T1 , which at one point was available for £11.50 sans plug. Prices have climbed a bit since then, I'm afraid) . It occured to me that if I had a layout at home on which I could run this stock , it would give me an incentive to do something with it, and would at least ensure that it all ran properly. And if I could also use the various bits of stock that I had for what was supposed to be my real modelling interest (1980s ER secondary) that would be even better. There were enough gaps to require a bit of retail therapy, plus some kit building, which was better still... If the club project ever fell through or my stock wasn't actually required on it I'd have a Plan B (If this seems a bit dour, somewhere at the bottom of that pile is an elderly Hornby 155 in Provincial, bought to be converted into 153s in support of a previous proposed club project. That dropped through without anything actually being built, and I don't think the 155 has ever run. I suppose one day I'll tweak the wheels, stick in a Macoder which lurks at the bottom of the decoder bag - it's all it deserves - and there'll be another early period DMU. Yes , I know they were all allocated to Canton. It's running trials after visiting Derby for overhaul. It's nil cost - and quite as far down my list of jobs as it is down the pile of stock...) As it happens, I've ended up there by a different route . However, although I'm now out of the club layout game, with a couple of exceptions, all my stock fits Blacklade very nicely.... Blacklade gets erected in the sitting room when I need to program a decoder, and I even managed one short running session about 2 months ago I need to motorise the last three points, finish off the wiring, and build the station structure (largely surrounding walls) . I also need to sort out the one major problem to date - the Marcway points are very stiff and the wire supplied with the Tortoises is too flexible, resulting in points not throwing completely. I bought some suitable steel wire for replacements at Warley just over a year ago, but haven't got round to fitting them. If - a very big if - I can get this all done by the middle of the year , there are two modest group events I might just take Blacklade to . Although I originally intended that it wouldn't be exhibited - which is why the boards are 4'3" long - I now have a car, and a bit of measuring suggests I might just get them in with the back seats folded down, and without having to fold back the passenger seat - so a second operator could travel in the car. We shall see. This is very much my main layout now, and while I'm not really sure if I would want to be on the circuit, I would at least like to finish it and if possible take it out in public a couple of times, just to show that I can actually build something that looks ok and runs ok. At which stage, point made, I might bow and retire Then there's the Boxfile, which I've referred to from time to time as my shunting plank. It does have a proper name and it's actually two boxfiles, linked, but it's the Boxfile . It was built for the DOGA competition some years ago, and represents a smoky hole in East London which handles a few wagons: the track plan is a loop and two sidings(sort of) and it functions as a shunting puzzle, with a loco and 7 wagons. Period is post war - ranging from the early 50s when the Y3 is running/slipping to the mid 60s, and if I manage to build the Y5 in the cupboard it may even run as early as 1948 One of the attractions of the exercise was that it allowed me to build all those interesting wagon kits which are strictly out of period for 1980s Lincolnshire - but which had somehow found their way into my cupboard nonetheless. Suddenly I was free to go out and buy all those kits I really fancied but which were normally strictly off-limits for me; not surprisingly I've ended up with way more wagons than are needed to operate the boxfile. About 4 times as many, to be precise - I'm now slowly reaching the latter part of Tranche 4 - and four times as many locos as well (05, Hunslet tram, Y3 and Knightwing shunter to be precise). I've got a part built Branchlines chassis for an 04 sitting on the bookcase, and a second hand Stephen Poole kit for one of these lurks in the cupboard : I believe North Woolwich museum has closed: does anyone know where the Y5 is and whether it's in good keeping? Quite a few of these wagons have passed through my workbench thread ORBC- the Boxfile is where my steam-age wagons end up. It may seem excessive producing decent kitbuilt wagons just for a boxfile, but turn it the other way round - the Boxfile does at least give me something to run my wagons on. I 've also salvaged and recycled a few of my early teenage efforts, and got decent wagons for the 'file out of them. I originally posted these shots at the start of the very first incarnation of ORBC on RMWeb. The Conflat is "scratchbuilt" to match the Bachmann container (the old Red Panda clasp braked chassis kit, with a spare Parkside floor and side/chain pockets added in styrene) and the Mogo was stripped down , patched up and reworked from a teenage effort The finished wagon is seen here alone with a Ratio Mink built at much the same age, and also recycled and refurbished: This was one of the reasons behind the whole exercise - get things out of the cupboard, get them sorted out , and get them into use so I have something to show for myself. Both wagons have seen a bit of service since they were done and I'm quite pleased with them I'd hoped that the boxfile would give me a layout I could run quickly easily, and potentially a lot at home, and it was designed to be set up and run on the dining table. But the sheer pressure of other commitments and stuff needing to be built has meant that this has only happened occasionally. Now I have a bit of time again, I hope that will change. But at least this is one layout I finished (which is more than can be said for the COV B kit, which is supposed to run on it..) Then there's the little layout which a small informal group I'm involved with are nominally building. We meet up every 6 weeks or so, and it was suggested that we build a small layout as a focus for our activities. So far two baseboards have been built (not by me) and a third is required, for the fiddle yard. That's as far as matters have got. The other members of the group are a bit older than me, so this layout was only ever going to be steam or steam/diesel. Since anumber of group members would be running stock they've had for some years, it will be DC - in any case there's very little advantage to DCC on a small steam layout of this kind. Track will be Peco code 75, and the track plan is an Iain Rice design , Broadwell Green, which appeared in the fifth issue of the late lamented MORILL. Although based on Fairford, we decided to do it as a minor Great Eastern branch line terminus. My wagons off the boxfile would be ideal, and so would be the Dublo 20 I detailed up a couple of years ago. I've got a second hand whitemetal N5 in a box somewhere... I can't quite recall whether the headshunt was long enough to take an ROD on the pickup goods or not. I remember a B12 would go , but a Sandringham definitely wouldn't. A Hornby L1 would certainly be easier than a kit built Gobbler My potential contribution includes a couple of Ratio ex LNWR coach kits, as handed down via the M&GN, one of which has got as far as a preliminary undercoat of brown on the sides before construction starts, and a GE station - one of StreetLevel Models' kits sits in the pile. But I'm not the prime mover on this one, and, until it starts to develop, this one is on the backburner as far as my own modelling is concerned. Then there's my light rail project, Tramlink. I had seen the Alphagraphix kits for light rail, and a book on Croydon Tramlink, then newly opened . I thought a model light rail unit could be made via that route, at modest cost - at that time Mark Hughes was offering a whitemetal kit which would cost at least £100 all up when motorised, and I reckoned that this way I could do it for about £35, with flushglazing and livery ready applied. There's no point building models if you've nowhere to run them, and I rapidly decided a little diorama layout based on scenes from Croydon Tramlink could be done. The unique selling point was that it would be entirely card, even the stock I was younger then, and innocent, and my life was a great deal less encumbered. I was also a great deal less experienced , and several errors were made. The layout was making good progress until I found my second LRV , a Croydon unit , wouldn't take any kiind of curve , and the first (Metrolink) didn't like a reverse curve through a Setrack point in one direction, so it derailed every time it reversed out of the cripple siding. And at that point I was shanghai'd into the club project and the whole thing came to a grinding halt. It got a little further than the photos show, but not that much Tramlink sits, boxed up , in the study, under a pile of magazines, and gets dragged out occasionally when I need a DC test track. A wire's broken underneath so only one board is currently live. And I look at the buildings and think they scrubbed up well (and that the photostat mockup of the warehouse needs to be replaced with the actual kit), and then it goes back in its box again. Two boards , 3' long by 11" wide with integral plywood backscenes, opposable and forming a case , small enough to take on public transport and get through the automatic ticket gates Then we come to the shadowy realm inhabited by the Ghosts of Layouts Past and Yet To Come (complete with Prieser figure of Bob Cratchitt carrying a 30lb goose) The first spirits to visit us are those of Ravenser Mk1 and Mk2. Ravenser was a minimum space (in theory) freight only layout set at an imaginary small port in N. Lincolnshire. Think Boston Dock (or Gunness) transported to the banks of the Humber and the top end of the N.Lincs Light Railway from Scunthorpe and you have the scenario. It used a plan published in the June 1988 RM , entitled White Swan Yard, which incorporated a fierce curve, but I enlarged the board a bit and added a fiddle yard. I made lots of mistakes with this layout. The curve proved unworkably sharp - derailments due to coupling issues were frequent. An elderly Wrenn 20 and Lima 08 proved hopeless for reliable running. Initially I thought only a low standard would be practical on such a portable layout, a decision I rapidly regretted, and could not wholly reverse.Setrack points were another very bad decision: I learned a lot about wheel and track standards as a result. A Lima 20 upgraded with Ultrascales and all wheel pickup could not be got to stay on the track round the loop: I never had the heart to tackle the body as a result. Ravenser Mk1 resulted in my first serious successful attempts at kit built and upgraded RTR wagons, through the fleet was ultimately limited because I ran out of space in the stock box (a converted cassette case) Ravenser Mk2 was to be built around two walls of the study in my new flat. A design was prepared , this time incorporating a small passenger station. I was going to have 20s, 31s, 114s , maybe a 105. It was never started, because I got involved in a club project. However Ravenser the layout has its place in this story because the stock is slowly being recycled into other projects. The 20s, 31s, and DMU kits can be used by Blacklade running early period. The 03 could be reused for the oil tank on Blacklade, as ultimately could the Bachmann 08. The Knightwing shunter is an interloper on the boxfile, and some of the wagons have gone the same way. Most of the Crane Train I was buil;ding is being recycled for the early period CE train on Blacklade. I still have the buildings , including a scratchbuilt 18th century warehouse from Louth and a freelance 1950s office block. And the baseboard, after cluttering the study for many years, went to the tip a fortnight ago. Then , older and fainter, come the spirits of the trams - the other Blacklade Artamon Square, and the possible London tram layout. Long, long, ago, in a far-away galaxy, sorry continent, a teenage boy built a OO tramway in his bedroom. I would very much have liked it to be a model based on the Sydney tramways, but kits were not readily available. I only ever saw such things once - someone was selling home made kits done with glassfibre resin (like wot you use to make surfboards) at Sydney exhibition one year . He had some of them on his layout, built up and they looked good. I only had enough money on me to buy one kit, and no motorising units - so I passed . I'm still kicking myself.Scratchbuilding wasn't an option for me then - Sydney was into crossbench cars big time (and a K-class is still fairly high up my list of Things I Don't Want to Scratchbuild). Anyone got a kit for a Sydney corridor car? What was available was a Mehano US outline model which I bashed into a British single decker, vaguely resembling the LCC's single decker cars for the Kingsway Subway (guess whose references comprised a couple of magazine articles, a booklet on the Kingsway Subway, and NSW Tramcar Handbook Parts1+2). There were also BEC whitemetal kits available, and I built two - an LCC B , and a balcony car. Both were modified to fully enclosed with 20 thou plasticard and painted for the fictitious Blacklade Corporation Tramways in a simplified version of Sydney's new Mercedes Benz bus livery which I rather liked. One of the minor mysteries of transport history is why Regional Railways then adopted a Sydney bus livery... I've got two photos of how Artamon Square looked when I dismantled it - annoyingly the scanner refuses to scan them, so you'll have to make do with a blurred shot at a very early stage of proceedings: This does at least show - very badly - the Mehano car, the BEC LCC car (almost certainly still under construction) and the general arrangement. More buildings - the Builder Plus terraces and detached Victorian houses- and some scratchbuilt buildings as well - followed. Builder Plus even did - briefly - a big shop based on Hamleys. I had that, and cut it down to fit the tapering site. This was the first Blacklade Artamon Square..... I reckon the railway station I'm now building must sit in the cut-out. The stock and buildings came back with us when we returned from Australia and have been sitting in boxes ever since. I collected the remaining buildings from Mum's loft at Christmas and brought them home - most of the Superquick and some of the BuilderPlus were too far gone to keep, but the terraces, Hamley's and the scratchbuild stuff is ok. The trams are stored in the cupboard, though my efforts with the 20 thou had shed too many window pillars and had to be removed. Thorough refurbishment will be needed. Track was OO , of course , and the back story said this was a 4' gauge system, like Derby and Bradford. Nice little get out clause Over the years since I've picked up 2 of the Keilcraft Birmingham kits (one for 50p of the DEMU second hand stall) and one of their West Ham kit , a Tower Models Feltham and E/1 (all plastic) another LCC B (ABS/BEC) an LCC stores van (ABS/BEC) and an LCC single deck subway car. You can see where this is going... I keep picking subjects with overhead, and keep not building the said overhead. The LCC was a conduit system - so no wires. I've got plenty of reference material. I'd definitely want North London not South London , but all the North London routes bar those through the Subway went by 1940. I want a Subway route. I want something more than a straight length of track (Blacklade had a dogbone loop double track route, with a single track branch, and a depot) Highgate Archway in the mid 30s has distinct possibilities.... I'm definitely not committed to this of course. Or do I build the Keilcraft Birmingham cars and revive Blacklade? If I see a cheap Corgi Feltham around I really should grab it. The Festival of Tramway Modelling is back at Kew Bridge this year.... Maybe if I have time on my hands I build the Keilkraft kit for this: Last and faintest ghosts are the other scales. Someone gave me a low emission Dapol 66. I've subsequently acquired another one, a Farish 57, and 04, some modern wagons - the large ones that are such a problem to fit onto a layout in 4mm. Maybe I should build a freight distribution park they can run to? Then there's the large padded envelope of wagon kits left from my flirtation with 3mm, not to mention the small collection of Traing TT, the Brush 2 and the unfitted new armature, the BEC/2SMR J11kit. I was thinking of an urban goods station, but maybe the boxfile's got that out of my system. Then after I'd built two wagon kits and bought some 12mm Peco points I got heavily involved with a society and the whole thing wasdropped... Not to mention the HO - a NSWGR 422 class and two NSW coaches in Tuscan. But Currawong Heights, a small terminus in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, is scarcely even a ghost Projects, projects, projects. All too remininscent of the story of the donkey surrounded by bales of straw, which died of starvation because it couldn't decide which bale to eat first.... No. Blacklade , the railway, comes first. Followed by tidying up stock and bits for the boxfile. Everything else can wait - and some of it, I suspect, will be waiting avery long time

It's about time I posted some stuff I've actually done, rather than grumbling that I've not got much done. These wagons were done in September , but I've not got round to posting them till now. A mixed bag of elderly wagons on their last legs... Exhibit A , as they say in court, is a down at heel Walrus, unaccompanied by a Carpenter: I have to confess that I've tweaked the photo very slightly in Microsoft Digital Image 2006, to compensate for the effects of flash , though the adjustments to colour balance and contrast are only a couple of notches. I feel a bit guilty but the contrast/border between different weathering washes always seems to leap out and hit you on a photo in a way that it doesn't viewed in natural light by the eye. Here the jarring note is the boundary between the track dirt on the wagon (Railmatch brake dirt/track dirt mix) and the general browny muck on the sides (wash Precision LNER coach teak - I'm not likely to paint many LNER coaches, and somehow I've ended up with two tins...) It's quite subtle viewed with the naked eye, and I'm fairly pleased with the overall result. This wagon has finished up much better than I'd dared to hope at one time. It's now been fitted with Kadees - I'd no hope of getting S+W couplings under those platforms. - and is destined for the early period (1985-90) engineers train on Blacklade. The SReg off-loaded them on an unsuspecting LMR at the start of the 80s. Not sure I'm up for building another of these though... Next in this collection of clapped out opens is a Cambrian coke wagon, a kit of very elderly vintage bought off the club second hand stall. I discarded the moulding for the underframe members after using it to set up the solebars - I want to put lead sheet under the floor, not stick a large injection moulded obstacle in the way. Construction is very conventional, and much as it comes. Painting and weathering is according to the recipes given by craigwelsh in his MRJ article, using Games Design Workshop -although I'm certainly not in his league I'm very pleased with the result. This type of wagon with the coke raves is a pig to get into all the nooks and crannies and the photo really shows any spots I missed. I think I've got most of them since then. Transfers are Modelmasters Next come two LMS opens: The first, bought at St Albans last year, started off looking like this : and now looks like this - a D1892 open retrofitted with vacuum brakes by BR once again any imperfections are cruelly exposed by the enlargement, such as the tie rod... A glass fibre pencil was used to cut back the weathering, and transfers are a patchwork of Modelmaster bits to give a plausible seeming number Finally there's a more or less as-it-came-in-the-packet Cambrian kit for the wooden chassis D1666, possibly the most numerous open wagon ever built in Britain and arguably second only to the 1/108 16T mineral as the most numerous wagon diagram ever Much of the effort has gone into an attempt to represent an unfitted wagon showing the remains of late 1930s LMS bauxite, which is a bit more washed out than the photo shows - again the greater contrast under flash is a factor . I've either missed the base of the hook , or the thing's come out and been glued back in...

It's a sign of something - not a good something - that I find myself doing my New Year stock take /resolutions in the middle of January Twelve months ago I set myself a fairly ambitious programme of catch up and finish. This was tempting fate, I suppose, and Fate duly obliged, wielding a large blunt instrument. At the end of that January, my then employer embarked on a third major round of redundancies . The redundancy process and jobhunting took up most of my time and energy in the first half of the year, and railway modelling didn't happen. Nor did a lot of other things. I then decided, as a preliminary, to try to get on top of the piles of debris and the backlogs which had built up on various fronts. Since I had been seriously overcommitted anyway for several years this has taken a lot longer than I'd hoped, and I haven't been around here very much in recent months. Come to that, I've been to my club twice in the last 6 months It's still not done. A trip to IKEA after Christmas produced a small bookcase, what is billed as a DVD tower but which can also serve as a narrow bookcase (good for society magazines, Oakwood branch line monographs and old combined volumes) and two magazine boxes - that wasn't sufficient to clear up the piles of books and it will be back to IKEA for another DVD tower and a lower DVD case (for use as a book shelf) to finish the job. The clear up went as far as removing the long defunct board from Ravenser Mk1 which has been cluttering up the study for an appalling numvber of years. I still have a few shelves with books jammed sideways in the top for want of space but I can see and find things and the study looks like a habitable room not the scene of an explosion. A trip to my Mum's at Christmas removed the last salvagable bits of my teenage efforts at buildings from the Blacklade Corporation Tramways, and the BRMs have disappeared into a box. So what's been cleared and what's to be done for the new year? Wagons: There's little or nothing outstanding on the air-braked front. As I said last year, I don't really have much use for airbraked wagons these days . I duly bought a Dapol KQA to support the cause and handle the couple of 40'HCs I'd acquired. Although the container train has no immediate use at present, it's one thing I'm definitely keeping regardless, and (in a very desultry, unurgent way) I may quite possibly acquire a Realtrack FLA set at some point to complete a train from my own resources. Otherwise this front's been closed down for the foreseeable future I made further progress with the steam era wagons in the autumn - I really must post the results and fit them with Sprat and Winkles. This leaves those stubborn perennials the ex WD road van and the DOGA COV B on the bookcase. The road van will have to wait till the spring because resin has to be worked outside on safety grounds- for that reason I never seem to get on with the kit , and the awkwardness of using this material puts me off exploring it further. A Cambrian Dogfish and Shark for early period Engineers trains might be on the cards, and perhaps one or two more wagons to round off the collection for the boxfile. I need to fit Kadees or Sprat and Winkles to a few more of my older models to get them back in service. And that, essentially is all that needs doing on the wagon front So this year really needs to be the one where I finally move on beyond wagons into achieving things in other areas . Starting with - Coaches: The Ratio Van B needs finishing , top priority . The sticking point was that the roof needs shortening at both ends. And 2 of the brake blocks have disappeared along the way. An upgraded Lima CCT might be a sensible follow up. Then there's the question of sorting out some loco-hauled coaches from Blacklade as a DMU replacement/steam special set. This is not urgent , and given the complications of fitting Kadees to Bachmann Mk1s, and the fact that DMUs are much more important, it may quite possibly not happen this year The Ratio ex LNWR BCK got as far as one teak undercoat on the sides and stalled. Unless the group BLT shows signs of progress , there seems no point diverting my efforts in this direction. I shall probably get rid of the rake of Mk3s I acquired: I can't see I'll ever have the space or need for an HST, and it would reduce the clutter in the study DMUs: Now we get serious. Immediately behind the Van B comes finishing the Provincial Pacer I started and which I haven't touched in over a year. This one's needed for the layout, so must take priority. Behind this comes finishing the Bratchill 150/2. Now I have laser cut windows, the last major stumbling block to further progress is removed. A "quick and dirty" rewheel of the Skipper + DCC installation + Kadees may not be not far behind About the one thing I did get done on this front last year was to buy a Provincial 150/2 from Trains 4U. Retail therapy is quick and easy..... I fitted a Bachmann ESU decoder , and added Pete Harvey's sillhoutte seat etches which look a treat. Unfortunately the Bachmann decoder doesn't seem to support consisting - awkward when the whole point of the 150/2 is to work in multiple with a 153 joining and splitting. So I've got to take it out , replace with the rather pricy TCS 21 pin decoder I bought at Warley, and weather the underframe. The recovered Bachmann decoder can go in the ROD. As I don't propose modelling Worsborough bank before electrification I can't see I'll ever need to consist my O4 Other modest jobs in this area include populating and weathering the 108, and sorting out the 101 - the replacement underframe mouldings are to hand. And if I've got time on my hands, a DC Kits Cravens needs building On the RTR front, a Wagon und Maschinbau railbus would be ideal for the group BLT , and a Realtrack 144 in the earlier W.Yorks red and white would be ideal for me. However as that livery won't appear before 2012 , it can be parked until then. As can the railbus unless a) the BLT makes progress and B) no-one else in the group gets one Plenty to keep me busy on this front Locos: The one bit of "progress" on thisfront is that I bought a discounted 63601 at Warley. A Frodingham O4 withdrawn in 1966 is as good as I'll get. Its a bit over the top for the group BLT , and if that doesn't make progress it's way over the top for Blacklade , but it's a very fine loco and I've redeemed my pledge on the LNER Consensus thread. I now have 2 kettles in need of chipping. And if I succumb to a discounted L1 (Hornby have done one from one of the local sheds.. perfect for the BLT and suitably compact for a steam special - yes I klnow none are preserved but Blacklade doesn't exist either - we're talking alternative realities) that'll be 3... The Baby Deltic kit has gone to a good home - someone brave enough to build one The 57 seems best candidate for aType 5 to trip one TTA, so that ought to be a priority for weathering, followed by repairs to the hapless 60 Beyond that, DCCing and upgrading the old 03, and trying to finish the Drewry 04 for the boxfile are the obvious targets, followed by a detailed bodyshell for the Airfix 31 if I get ambitious That should keep me busy Layouts require aseperate posting

D605Eagle Ian Allan abc combined volume for 1972, p39 top has a picture of one of the last 29s, 6119, and although the photo is black and white, the area just above the cab windows definitely seems much lighter than the rail blue sides or the roof above. The loco has double arrows and no D prefix. My detailed Hornby model was finished accordingly....

If direct access onto the existing high speed route is provided , without reversal at St Pancras, there is of course already a London station available to call, with full international facilities, and extensive heavy duty Tube , surface rail light rail and bus connections. This would include very good access into a major Central London commercial district (or even 2 ) Stratford Intl Commercially there should be no difficulty calling at Stratford with a through Birmingham/Paris train and letting Crossrail, Javelin, the Central Line, the GE, the Jubilee Line and the DLR take passengers into the City, West End and Docklands. The difficulty/cost is providing full international facilities a la Ashford and Ebbsfleet at stations nothe of London