Loxborough

Thank you, Clive, you are very kind! Next project is an ECML express which will be wholly done with Hornby RTR stock. I have got myself a full rake of the Gresley 61'6" stock and need to do something about getting them acceptable for the layout. Big question is colouring; Hornby made great strides with their Teak effect, and what they have done is great, but it still doesn't look much like any prototype photo I have seen of an LNER teak coach so, armed with some prototype photos (largely from Steve Bank's excellent website) I took my bits in my hand and set to vandalising an expensive RTR product; Frist, using Vallejo mahogany, I have darkened a number of panels to produce what Steve Banks refers to as the 'checkerboard' pattern that was the norm (I have sat the vandalised version on top of one just out of the box, for comparison); Next, to darken overall and make some of the yellow a bit redder I have the whole thing a variable waft of burnt umber; Then cleaned the widows and tried to sort out the far right end, where my finger slipped on the airbrush trigger when doing the mahogany. Up to this point, I was trying just to modify the colours, rather than weather as such. Finally generally muckied up the underparts, darkened the roof and gave the teak and the windows a wafting of general muck ; Very keen to have feedback (negative as well as positive!) because I have got another seven to do, and although I'm going to do them all slightly differently (because one thing that comes very clearly out of the prototype photos is that any one rake of these things would have wildly differeing colours and states of dirtiness), I would appreciate any little directional nudges...

I don't really have the words for this. I read all through the thread thinking 'Nice, well executed O gauge layout', started to read through it again and realised it is OO. Incredible; in the literal meaning of the word. This is not the sort of layout that inspires; it more inclines me to give up, knowing that I will never reach this standard! Brilliant work; many congratulations. George

So, this is a little project I have been wanting to do for a while now; crane on a train. Langley's aging but still delightful whitemetal model of the Ruston Bucyrus 19RB crane and the surprising amount of hardware required to move it around on the railway. In my little world this has recently been outshopped from the Ruston's plant in Lincoln, and is on its way to Bristol docks for export, thus allowing the LNER to get some GWR non common user stock back to home metals on revenue traffic. Don't know exactly where it is going, but looks a lot like a military customer... First, the buckets on a Bachmann RTR match truck; Next the running gear, which has had to be separated from the boidy of the crane to keep the thing within gauge. Shown here on a Parkside LNER lowfit. It was, at one stage, the right bauxite colour; might have been a little over weathered... Then the crane body and a couple of beam extenders on the really super Bachmann RTR Crocodile. Interestingly, the Atkins, Beard and Tourret bible of GWR wagons shows an earlier RB crane on pretty much exactly this wagon, but with runnning gear and cab on one piece, as an example of an 'exceptional out of gauge load'. I did a quick check and this wouldn't have worked on my layout. NB glazing removed for shipping. The main boom and a box of spare parts, pulleys, glazing, cables etc that will all be needed for commissioning. Again, Bachmann RTR. The whole thing in its natural environment; And finally, for those of you who like your pictures to move (it's a generation thing...);

So, as we move on down the wagon repair yard, we get to another slightly sily cameo. I'm subtitiling it "Yes... I am sure the job sheet says it's empty." Open to better suggestions... (Brake van behind is on the 'awaiting weathering' sidings; can you tell?

Seriously? Two years since I posted... Well, wonderful thing about this hobby, you can drop it when other stuff takes you life over, and it sits there waiting for you to come back... Anyway, continuing the tour of the yard, we get to a grounded coach... A very cruel close up from the end that has had to be patched up with canvas and a few wood offcuts fixed brutally into the coach body... And from the other end. Helicon focus here again doing wonders for the depth of field, even if there is some slight oddness around the adapted door... I feel a little bad about having ruined a perfectly good RTR coach (slamm prize for the first to identify the source model!) but I do like celestories, and important to have something that could realistically have been condemned already in 1937.

Firstly, lovely layout; lots of detail, without it looking cluttered. Just well observed and thought out. Bravo! On backscenes, I am with Rambling Rich; if the viewing angles are shallow then things can look very odd. But, I do find that photo backscenes, if you plan the transition into the design of the landscape (ie there is a modelled 'horizon' behind which the backscene is seen) and viewing is nearer perpendicular, can add a lot. George

Steve, I think you're probably right about Mrs Davies. Also, even seen from the back, she doesn't look like someone you would want to argue with! Seriously, though, your comment means a lot, thank you. I do enjoy the tains (and there will be more showing on here shortly) but what I really enjoy is creating the little details of the world in which they exist. Gets my imagination going, allows a bit of escapism and also ties in my teenage daughters (who are deeply uninterested in the trains themselves!). George

So, I thought to myself that it was about time to post on here again. 9 months since the last one? Seriously? Are we sure there isn't a software issue there somewhere? Or am I just getting that old??!! Anyway... The management team in action in front of the office. On the left Mr Jeremiah Meakin, one of the foundng brothers, who never much cared for office work (but likes a nice car!). On the right, young Mr Meakin, sone of Mr Jeremiah's late brother; likes to look dapper but is content with his Austin 7. And in the centre Mrs Davies, who has done the books and manned the telephone since the old king died, and whose relationship with the late Mr Meakin we DO NOT talk about... Just a little further on we come across a delivery waiting to be unloaded. And waiting. Beacuse that's what he does (blistering pace of life in this litte piece of heaven I am creating). Driver Ahab? Truck waiting for number plate, wingmirrors etc. Beautiful model from Langley, looking a lot like it was put together by a five year old with no thumbs. Must do better next time. Ho hum... Experimenting with the camera. Helicon Focus image stacking (which I really can't recommend enough) being pushed to the limit here. I wondered whether it would be able to cope with the cars just seen through the fence, while keeping the fence in focus, and it can, clearly. And finally the helicopter shot. Next update in less than nine months... I promise!

Robert, OK, so I am feeling realy properly stupid now... I hadn't clocked that the programming track had to be wired to the P&Q; I had wired it to J&K, and had a switch which just disconnected the rest of the layout when I wanted to programme something. All rewired now, and (re)coding of CVs proceeding perfectly. Thank you so much for your rapid answer (and sorry for wasting your time with what was in fact a very stupid question!) G

I've resurrected this thread because I am having a simiar issue, and am mystified. I use a V3.6 LZV100, an LH90 and Lenz gold decoders. Everything is running fine, including quite a complicated block management system on the layout, but I want to change some CVs. So, I plonk a loco on the programming track and try to write a CV. Error02. So I try to read the address, as a test. Error 02. I try to read a few more CVs, Error 02 each time. I check the connections and the cleanliness of the programming track, no apparant issues. Loco drives up and down the programming track cheefully, so the decoder is clearly in touch with the rest of the world, but still any attempt to read or write gives Error 02. Change the loco and the same happens. (I should point out that this is a new issue because I have never previously used the LZV100 for programming on the layout; that has always been done using an old Dynamis on my workbench, which recently died altogather, causing me to have to try to do things 'properly'. And yes, I have organised myself with a siding on the layout which is isolated from the rest as a programming track. Any suggestions VERY gratefully received! Thanks, and happy Christmas all, G

So, today we will step briefly over the lines from the repair yard, to visit Mrs Appleby's cottage... There she is, waving to us! This is, err, backdrop modelling, so don't loook too closely... The house was done in a couple of hours with offcut ply for the walls, talc in the paint for render effect and wood dust for the thatch. I want to do some more thatched houses elsewhere on the layout and need to find a method that will stand up to close range photography... Anyway, notwithstanding her slightly shoddy house, Mrs Appleby seems to be pretty self sufficient, between hens, bees, veg garden... ...a little orchard some sheep... and a goat (why do people keep goats? My experience is that they go everywhere except where they are supposed to go, and eat everything except what they are supposed to eat...) There is some disagreement about Mrs Appleby's status. I think she lost her husband during the great war and, like so many women of her generation, made her own life as an independent widow. My daughter, though, insists that this is too sad, and that she is married to one of the carpenters in the wagon repair yard. Now I'm not sure about this, but if there is a Mr Appleby, and if he does have to cross the ECML to go to work every day, it might explain this slightly unorthodox arrangement... Happy and safe Christmas all.

A quiet moment, looking from a wagon repair yard over the ECML...

Absolutely lovely layout; you have captured the atmosphere of the out of the way station beautifully. And by the way, I get totally why you renumbered the coach (your post from Sept 26). One of the reasons the hobby is important to me is that I can go at my own speed, to the level of detail that I want to go to and (unlike the rest of life) there is no pressure to cut corners to get it done...

So, today we get to the MPD. Now, I would love to be showing you a grungy little engine shed, probably built as a lean to against a more substantial building, with a half falling down coal stage, a rickety rusty old water tank and a dreadful old, many times patched and repaied 0-4-0 steam shunter. Trouble is, though, that a yard on this scale would never have been able to justify the purchase, or operation, of a shunter, so we will have to rely on horse power... Which means stabling and a hay barn... The inevitable random agricultural rubbish that was once useful... I really must sort out that wagon with the flying tarpaulin; it seems to bomb just about every photo I take... And the much loved power unit itself...

Kind comments, as always, thank you. I did rather enjoy doing the wagon frame and I have plans for a couple of partly dismantled wagons, which will require me to build them from the frame up board by board. Not this week, though...