Sasquatch

All there is to show is more weeds I'm afraid. Mike Gardener starting to feel suicidal! After looking at images of "Rosefirebaywillowweedage", I decided that some individual stems might be needed and came up with this idea. Yet another 100 odd weeds in about 15 minutes!! Simple really. Perhaps some trains might help maintain a degree of sanity. Lastly another old-style picture of the station. Squatch.

The two plants (Rose bush and hydrangea) at either end of the broken picket fence are the result of getting carried away with making plants from computer wire1 For those of you viewing in black and white, the next set are in Technicolour.

Burrrrr. I totally understand why you modelled that Manna. Living down under and all that. Great job1 Regards Shaun.

You're right there JZ. It was the same during the seventies! They talk about climate change like it's a new thing but I for one noticed that as the eighties set in, summers seemed to have a nasty wet season that's only got worse. Regards Shaun.

Aha! That's why post steam era layouts look more realistic!! It would be summer setting for me every time, just because I like the greenery and I find winter rather depressing. Regards Shaun

Station masters house, Queensbury.

No worries. Have you ever tried modeling a bare tree! Besides, all that flockage and Laub-age cost a small fortune, I'm not likely to go ripping it all up! But, I have heard Johnson & Johnson baby powder can be obtained in great quantities for next to nothing at present.🤔 Regards Shaun.

Thanks for the encouragement Adrian. I'm beginning to think I'm losing it, the plot that is and that I should have modeled the station in winter. Luckily I find it somewhat enjoyable, even therapeutic at the end of the day. Regards Shaun

Every evening this week I have found a relaxing 45 minutes to put on a cassette tape and make more rosebay willowherb. So much so that Mike Gardener thinks the weed is becoming a real problem. Quite interesting what can be done with 5 inches of ISDN cable and a little patience! Squatch

Hi Jeff. Despite all the smoke from this year's fire season, last night was an exceptional clear sky and what we refer to as a very stary night. Just looking through a pair of binoculars at the center of the milky way was mind boggling. The entire field of view was a pure mass of light. Dim of course but full non-the-less! This morning we've had smoke drift in from California, so I doubt we're gonna be treated to it again tonight. Shame, because I should be getting the truck back after some work that needed doing and could have taken a drive up to the top with the telescope tonight. Regards Shaun.

Fire weed or willowherb production needs ramping up a bit. This afternoon during the 100-degree heat I shut myself in the train shed with the aircon on full wack and tried few methods. The one bristle-at-a-time method is too slow. Sisal string works quite well but is a bit too fiddly and still not quick enough. After a bit of head scratching, I tried various scraps of wire. The one settled upon is sturdy 7 strand internet type. The stuff I use for long runs from the CDU to the SEEPs, so there's a fair few off cuts knocking about. Method is simple. Working with two at a time, the wire is held in pliers and stripped down about 8mm. The copper strands teased into a plant shape and coated with a mix of PVA and burnt orange acrylic. This is dipped sharpish fasion into the tub of fireweed mix. The plastic coating is held with tweezers and cut about 10mm below and poked into a hole made with a small broach. Couple of trains for your enjoyment this evening include... ...J39 hauling a CCT parcels and solitary passenger coach waits for the road before being allowed to continue to Bradford. Just what I've been aiming for. A melange of West Riding grimy architecture and LNER style! GNR atlantic on the curve with an excursion bound for the seaside. Must get back to the weeds. Apparently, willowherb is edible. Squatch

Crikey mate. Just the ticket for a spruce up after you've been out in the bush diggin' through termite mounds for ya tucker I reckon!😊

You would think that after adding 50 odd trees and 2 square feet of brambles etc. there would be some drastic changes to the layout. Queensbury... ...and the news trees on Goathland. Going to need another 40 odd trees and about 4-5 feet of brambles. Not to mention 100s of those flippin' willow herb weeds. Squatch

Very nice PP apparatus cluttering up the front end. It draws the eye away from everything else! Great modeling! Regards Shaun.

Paul. I do believe that you're right!😌 (Grovels for forgiveness etc.) 67762 was built by NBL in 1948/49 by which time apple green would have been dropped by BR. That would make it almost brand spanking in that Photograph! Now I'm going to have to look out for a black one and renumber the green one. Really good-looking locomotive either way. One of my favorites actually and you can understand why I got excited seeing a picture of one at Queensbury. At bit too excited in fact and renumbered my green one before studying the photo carefully. Incidentally, F,J, Roaches' Oct, 1948 drawing of number 9000 depicts simple N E shaded lettering above the 9000. If that's right, it might make for an interesting model. Thanks for pointing that out BTW, I've enjoyed studying the L1 on the internet. It got me out of the sun shoveling dirt!!!🙏 Regards Shaun.

Further to that, I see that the lining style doesn't fit either livery???? Is it possible that the loco was sent out with incomplete lining. Like I said, minefield!

Hi Paul. It is hard to tell. I deduced that it was green because there is only one light coloured line. Standard British Railways mixed traffic livery had 5/8” of Grey, 1/8” of Cream, 1 ½” break of Black and ¼” of Red and I don't see that so thought it must be green! The photo dates from 1949 so I doubt it's black anyway. If you care to download the image and zoom in on the chap in the middle, it's possible to make out the LNER badge on his cap!! Remember, Thompson wanted all his loco fleet painted green. He was quite a modern thinker for his time I believe. Although the L1s were a mixed traffic class (albeit quite wimpy for their size) they were still leaving the shops in apple green under BR! I tread very carefully because LNER livery is a minefield and I have found some people can get very irate about the subject. Even getting banned from RMweb. Thanks for showing interest, I like people getting involved😀 Regards Shaun

A distraction from the Queensbury scenic work had me beavering away all afternoon and evening yesterday. The other day I took this picture but thought twice about posting it after seeing just how shabby the trees have become over the years. It's probably due to the sun pouring in through the old window which dried them to a crisp and bleached out the greenery. Mrs. S. helped me make these back in 2009. This one looks positively drought ridden, even dead! They were made from ornamental bamboo berry sprigs, sisal and scatter. This one actually got binned. (R.I.P.) My biggest problem is that I ran out of light green Noch leaves. After pulling off all that dead looking foliage, I sieved out the sisal and mixed in a bit of light green acrylic paint thinned with isopropyl alcohol. The old dry scatter soaked it up quickly and the alcohol evaporated so fast that it needed second treatment! Some clumps of Woodland Scenics Poly-Fiber were added to the bamboo types. There's one here on the far left. The others are all Woodland Scenics plastic armature/poly-fiber species. All I did to these was give them a blast with Aqua-Net and add more reclaimed scatter. Some have been placed around the castle. After making, finishing and revamping about 50 trees, I'd just started painting the trunks and planting them when Mrs. S. dragged me away by my ear way past bedtime. 🙄 So more later... Squatch.

Might be more prototypical to just remove the vacuum cylinders on the LMS types. I don't ever recall seeing a fitted morton braked LMS cattle wagon. They were mostly 8 shoe clasp braked with some built by BR in 1949-50!

Vacuum braked wagons had a cylinder. All the cylinders would be connected via the vacuum pipes. Before the train could move off all the air was sucked out thus releasing the brakes. If a wagon or portion of a train came loose causing a break in the system, the air would fill the runaway portion of the train and apply the brakes bringing it to a stop. The XP branding allowed wagons to be assembled into such trains. ie; Passenger trains or dedicated XP goods trains. If a freight train had a mix of vacuum braked (fitted) and non-vacuum braked (unfitted) wagons, the Vacuum braked ones would normally be marshalled together behind the engine, thus creating a vacuumed braked portion. During BR days fitted wagons were painted bauxite or brown and unfitted were grey, following LNER practice. Now for the confusing bit. Some unfitted wagons just had a pipe allowing them to be marshalled between vacuum braked wagons. (So you could model a cattle truck without the vacuum cylinder or the tie bars but with the pipes!) Remember that some trucks etc. Had clasp brakes, an 8 shoes design which didn't need tie-bars. But I think that would only apply to LNER, Southern and some LMS cattle wagons. Hope that was helpful. (I'm not known for explaining things in plain English🤨)

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Great Western regarded all livestock traffic as priority later in its existance and thus fitted all it's livestock vehicles. BR adopted the same policy later on too I believe not they they conveyed much livestock, most of which was in the north of Scotland. The only difference between the GWRs diagram and the standard BR dias.1/352 & 1/353 was the top door design.

The LMS types in the second image were not fitted with vacuum brakes. The Dapol types would benefit from the addition of bars across the open portion too! They're actually BR ones in GW livery. Edit: A pair of door bangs under each drop-down lower door are also missing as are the tie bars!! Regards Shaun

Another day another tree. Each time they get a little bit better, I guess that's practice for ya! The evening sunlight helps a lot. Poly fiber and camo brown added. Planted on the layout, the roots came out quite good. Here's a close up of Thompson's L1 67762 and it's crew. This engine visited Queensbury when some of the class were sent to Bradford. They didn't fare well on the Queensbury Lines' steep gradients and ended up on local empty stock workings. It must have caused quite a stir though, being what must have been the first apple green locomotive to be seen at Queensbury since GNR days! Enough for someone to take a photograph at least albeit in black & white! The work at present, mostly trees bushes and ground cover, is being concentrated behind the Halifax-Keighley platform. The two roads that see the most traffic for the time being! Squatch.

Always a delight to see something a bit out of the ordinary. It's just oozing with that old style British ingenuity and charm! I'm not at all familier with any engine types absorbed into the GWR from it's lesser known constituents, can you please enlighten me as to the provenance of number23? Also a link to your thread please Wolfie?? Regards Shaun.

Thanks Graham! It was a toss-up with this one... Regards Shaun.