Leicester Thumper

That's a fair point, but I doubt there will be passengers standing on the tour.... then again, knowing unit veg, I wouldn't be surprised!!

Minor update, sorry its not exciting. More gluing, cutting and sticking tonight. The restarting walls are fiddly to do, and I was starting to find that trying to glue all the flaps down on the B sections all in one go a bit of a hassle m so I have enacted a new system. These are freshly glued sections drying out I then glue half the flaps down, that being the smaller flaps. (Top one was done in one go and it got messy with the Pritt Stick) I will leave these to cure overnight so that I can glue the other flaps down and combine the backs and front together in one go. When that was done, I made a start on the pillars which hide the joints in the wall sections. The card, left, gets glued to the back of the brick paper, right, centrally. When this is done and dry, I then need to score the sides, fold and glue them down. It's a fiddly job that requires patience and slow speed to make sure the flaps get glued neatly. And to finish off today's post, here's 3 wall sections that I have completed. One of these has been touched up on the white parts with a brown felt to pen, and I think it improves it. In the next post, I will offer you com posted wall sections, and will then put minor focus on the pillars and the coping stones. Sorry its a bit boring!

A two car pacer tour at 49quid a pop.... Let's work this out. Now, I'm not sure on the total seats available here, so let's say that the number is 102, minimum according to wiki. 49 x102 = 4,998. Surely, by the time you've paid for the path, driver & guard (and associated route conductors if needed) any stewards and the fuel/ maintenance, there's naff all commercial benefit to running the tour?? Or ami being far too logical here?

Self adhesive paper might be the best option. But since I've started I'll stick it out with the card kit and see how it goes. I might need another kit, as I need more than the 30 inches that the kit gives me. We shall see. I might be able to get away with not using more walls, depends on what elements I can find and utilise.

Now that's a grand idea! Might be worth me looking into that. Thanks Ben. Also some of Revolution's class A/B tankers will hopefully feature on this layout when done. Lovely wagons they are! Cheers, Bruce

OK, managed to squeeze in a few hours today building the retaining wall kit. Good god, you need patience for that. As photos will illustrate, it's a step by step thing this. So the base parts dried curved. Seems to be a persistent issue that I'm having. So some wedding under a heavy pile of books may be needed. The next part was to cut out the second layer, which has middle bits cut out, to give a wrapped texture illusion of depth. The texture wraps needed for this bit have a black X which needs cutting to create 4 flaps to "wrap" round the back. Part of these lines were hard to see, due to the black not showing well on a red brick texture. With the parts cut out, the crosses cut, and then glue to the card, the parts looked like this And it was then time to glue these flaps at the back. This was a right pain to do on the two I did today. The first one I tried to glue the flaps down with Hobbycraft tacky glue, but this seemed messy and was encouraging the card to bend. As I happened to be out this afternoon, I bought a couple of Pritt stick glues to aid in building. This sorta worked? I had to put on a bit more glue than first thought, but the flaps stuck better. After, I had done that, I mated the two out of six completed with their back parts. They came out something like this: So, over the next week, until my next day off, I'll do an hour or two here and the to build the wall sections. And also, if doesn't look much, but I blunted the point of my scalpel blade. New blade on the bottom. May not seem a big difference, but I certainly felt the difference with the cutting. Lastly, I saved all the excess squares from the cutting progress. These measure 10mm x 5mm each, which is a scale 5 foot x 2.5 foot. Not sure how I could use them, but perhaps pavement flagstones? Waste not, want not and all that! Until next time,

N scale ideas: GCR D11 Director, GCR 9N Ready to run Barnums Midland Compounds and 4-4-0s Midland P1 stock LNWR super D, LNWR improved precedent. L&Y class 5 2-4-2 GWR County Tanks GWR birdcage tanks LBSCR D1 tanks I know some of these have been made in the past by differing manufacturers, but as GF haven't redone the Compounds, and setting as Union Mills have sadly stopped production now, its fair they are on the list. Based the list on a mix of ideas between what I would like to see, what is now feasible due to smaller mechanisms, and some cause it would pique interest from various quarters. Pre grouping stock is very limited in RTR N, some of these ideas may get juices flowing.

Gents (and ladies) I come here to get an escape from life. Please, more jokes less politics. I sometimes enjoy political debate but here isn't the place, this is our humourous safe haven, to bring a little smile and a laugh. Best wishes to everyone.

There was a train that always ran on a Saturday morning, 6F56 comes to mind, sometimes it was a class 7, that went from croft to Humberstone Road sidings. The wagons being deposited there until collection at some unearthly hour a few days later.

Depends how bad it is? If its not in a rescuable state, I'd scour a well known online auction site for spare bodies and see if a replacement can be found. Any pictures?

Hello, I'm in need of a Midland railway, or LMS style station building that's low relief. Whilst I know there are Metcalfe kits of S&C structures, they aren't exactly what I am looking for. I keep searching for low relief 3D prints, but I haven't found much. Likewise, scenecraft stations are costly, especially for the sake of chopping a building in half! Narborough station is in my county and whilst I have no need for a full station, using images of the station, I think I might be able to come up with a concept to use certain elements to create my own Midland inspired, brick built station building. Now, by all accounts, I'm no Picasso with modelling, so I'm wondering if I'd be better off getting a 3D cad and print done, or kit bash something together? What I'm concerned about is that if I kit bash or scratchbuild, how do I find window frame components etc? I see metcalfe kits and think "I could use their brick paper" but then think how on earth would I do the windows? Any guidance is appreciated cause this is perplexing me at the moment. Many thanks.

Another day, more cutting out. Whilst a flat ish back scene is saving on space and cost, on this relatively small layout, it's causing me to learn a great deal of patience doing all the cutting and trimming necessary. I'm also thinking of taking shares in Swann & Morton Scalpel blades, as more than a couple will probably be necessary!! Throughout the course of cutting around chimneys we did have only one accident, which is pretty good. I was half expecting that the cutting would be more akin to a budget crossed with a chainsaw massacre, but as it turns out, my skills do surpass my expectations!!! All the housing parts have now been cut out, using cutting, slicing and various other -ings used in the wider English lexicon. The pieces also included these: These parts I thought I had no use for but I might have use yet. With clever splicing, I could use the odd house or two to gap fill, providing that I cut dead straight down the middle of the chimney stacks, as illustrated with the ruler position. With the majority of the parts cut out, I loosely placed these onto the board, whilst laying the board on it's back. Obviously, I have plenty of chance to move things before deciding on a final design, which is already giving me a headache. Example of what I have are the following photo. The next task I started doing was cutting out various parts of a kit to build 7 foot Victorian walls. The kit is from modelrailwayscenary(dot)com. I got a far as the 6 foundation steps before I stopped for the day, as I need a break from severe concentration. EDIT: building positions will be determined and then I can plan my embankment. So that's how far I am today. Thoughts now turn to finalising the back scene elements, as well as station design. This is because how my station building will end up, however that is, the background scene on that left side end will have to fit in with the design of station I choose. At the moment I'm having a hard time visualising what j would like. Trying to find 3D printed low relief Midland stations is difficult, and unless I want to scratch build or kit bash, I don't have many options. I have thought of getting a metcalfe country station kit and just adapting the design to how I want it. On the other hand I'm tempted to commission someone to design me a building that I can get printed. Updates will slow down now, as I'm occupied for tomorrow but I then go into a 7 day stretch of late turns..... In the meantime j will continue to look for inspiration and any advice or wisdom will be well received. Many thanks.

Hello folks, Been reading through the thread, it's very good to see new freight flows, no matter what the cargo is. Freight expansion on the railways should always be seen as a positive thing, the more freight services there are the less lorries are on the road for the bulk of a distance. Good for many differing reasons. Leicestershire was mentioned for it's aggregates output. We have two main places where this happens with a rail interface, that being Stud Farm and Mountsorrel. We also, until last year (perhaps 2021, cannot remember), had croft quarry which was located between Narborough and Hinckley on the Leicester to Birmingham line. With that now shut down, I do often wonder what impact that closure had on the availability of aggregates output from Leicestershire?

One for me to throw in the ring. When I was based at Leicester (07/14 - 08/20) there was many an occasion where Leicester City chartered a coach, rather than a train, to take the team and manager to London bound games. They usually travelled the day before the match. It was always a HST service as it was easier to lock a coach out from the rest of the train. Schmeichel and fuchs always said hello and had a brief chat with me. If I was on the right turn I always offered my superiors my services to help get them to the train unhindered. Bless the lads, they werent always fast at boarding! One of them bought me a Costa once which was nice! Other modern day examples include Chelsea (it might have been spurs) chartered a 7 car class 222 to take fans to Leicester, it wasn't an additional foot ex it was paid for by the club, which I had the pleasure of clearing the stock before sending it ECS to etches Park. I nearly went with it! Not exactly related, but cross country stopped a HST in Leicester circa 2016 on a Sunday morning to take fans to Birmingham for an Aston Villa game. There was engineering works on this Sunday, which closed the line through Tamworth HL and Burton-upon-Trent, so all XC stuff was coming through Leicester. As the first train on a Sunday to Birmingham was at 10.20ish, and usually only a 3 car 170 if lucky, they decided to stop a southbound penzance HST at Leicester. Odd thing about it, it was the first time since circa 2002 timetable where a SW to NE service stopped at Leicester in revenue service! I got giddy with excitement and decided to announce the train on the station PA, was about exhausted after as I had about 20odd stations to announce!

I don't know why they call it a Pot Noodle, I've never found any terracotta in mine.

A man goes to the opticians, he says "I need anew set of glasses, I've lost my set" "Sir, you are wearing them" And with that, the man had made a spectacle of himself....

Going to bump this cause I can't even find out how to tag my threads

The terraced backs were trickier to cut out, well they were for me, as the chimneys are rather fiddly. I only got half of one sheet done as I was making mistakes so I knew it was time to put down the scalpel for the day. The Sankey terraced backs have been well made, in terms of offering a variety of window frames, curtains, chimneys and back walls, truly reflecting the nature of terraced housing over the years. One thing that I have noticed before, is that some people have terraced backs but they look too uniform, if that remotely makes sense. I feel these backs overcome that problem. Like the factories, the housing comes on one A4 sheet, with the notes on the same page. I do find this product more confusing though, asthe notes mention there's additional bridging and roofing prints..... I'm trying to find where they are! It's no bother though, as I have more than enough with 2 sheets. Now this took longer to do, because of a forced interlude to walk and play with my fluffy white nightmare, whom I love so much. The photos below are of some of the cut out bits laid out together, to see what they are like and so far, I'm impressed! The second image is with my ruler showing height, I know the ruler isn't straight,I just noticed!! So it's not overly exciting..... but it is progress. So the plan is this. Blue sky on the back board is painted, the factories and mill will be applied first. I will glue them to mounting board and set them a touch higher than the houses. The house will then go on top of the factories and mills, also on mounting card. In front of the houses will be a scale 7ft brick wall kit, in Victorian style. Obviously I have realised my landscape is fairly flat and square..... so I'm thinking of making a small embankment with modelling clay to give a further depth to the scene. However, I'm not sold on it just yet. That's all for now, but more will be done over the weekend.

An update on minor progress today. Today I got most of the way to cutting out the backscene elements. For my backscene scenics, I will be using some Urban Scenics (by Sankey Scenics) 2mm flat relief buildings. For this I bought a set of factory buildings, one set mill buildings and two sets terraced backs. They are printed onto decent quality paper, with the buildings and notes typically on the same sheet. They are then packaged further in a plastic sleeve, before being delivered in a protective envolope. I ordered these last year. To commence the cutting process I set up on the dining table with my cutting sheet, scalpel, spare blades and a metal ruler. My mother was in today and she let me borrow a magnifying stand which helped save me hunching my shoulders over the workspace. Today's session started with the factory buildings. The mills have already been done. as you can see, the vast majority of this one is cutting straight lines, with some precision work required for the chimney. Using the metal rule and a scalpel, icut all the straight sides with the bestprecision I could muster. For smaller details,I used a very steady hand and did it freehand, a bit at a time. By and large this method works. It is fiddly, but with concentration you can succeed. This image above shows just how precise it needs to be to stop the white paper being exposed beyond the printed edge. Below, one of the cut out factory products. The next post will detail the terraced backs.

Hello, As the title says, I take photos of what I need on my Samsung phone. I port these across to me tablet, which I currently use to access RMWeb. When I port across the photos I make sure I rotate the images correctly so that they always display landscape (I also take all the photos in landscape form). However, even though I save the orientation correctly on android, when I upload the images they orient themselves in portrait format. For an example please see the second post on my layout thread, link in description. I know this mostlikely a simple thing I might have overlooked, but it's frustrating and detracts from the viewers experiences on the site. Very much something I don't want to cause. Any help, guidance etc will be gratefully recieved. Many thanks

The signalman had a trainee. A cheery lad, but had some distants to go before getting home.... Being a Box for a station with a curved platform, the signalman tried explaining "off" indicators. ".... so you see, me lad, the off indicator lights up when the signal is clear. That way, the guard and driver know they have the road. Make sense?" "Why is it called an off indicator? The signal won't go out of date...."

I was baffled to visit my granddad whom I found shoving a paracetamol into the telephone socket. Turns out he was trying to get his tablet online....

This week will be a bit quiet, at least until the weekend, as 4.30am alarm clocks and 06.30 starts beckon until Friday. In the meantime, a bit of thinking is taking place (oh no!), especially surrounding track layouts. Now, nearly 2 years ago, I asked for some suggestions and feedback on potential designs. Mine was far too adventurous, however, a very nice gent from Australia called Rich Ferraro drew up some ideas for me. Now obviously, it not fastidious that one if these suggestions would be "the one", but my line of thinking is a combination of plans 3 and 4. Anyone who can give further sage advice is most welcome to do so. Please note, I am very aware that there is a watermark on the images, these seem to have appeared by default from my Canon printer scanner unit. It's the first time I've scanned directly to mobile/ tablet. **I know they are the wrong orientation, yet despite correcting and saving the change on my tablet, when I upload its no good, sorry** So whilst I mull over suggestions, I'm going hunting for backscene buildings of flat relief.

Thanks both, I shall look into that further I shall also consider these thoughts. The distance between lever and signal won't be that great, however your point of omega loops and contraction are definitely considerations I had not thought of. Many thanks

If Richard Deeley was a cowboy, he'd have a Flatiron on his hip....