George Woodcock

Hello The 'Cloud Lady' has now finished painting the clouds on the final scenic board and a jolly wonderful job she has made of it. Ballasting continues. Cheers George

Hello Ballasting is now underway, a fairly long track possession but nobody has objected yet. Also the last unit , the 101 is now in works for re-numbering and detailing and weathering. Might make the first deadline OK. Cheers George

Hello John and I finished the construction of the final scenic board for Fenchurch at his house at !900 tonight. It is now at my house ready to be attached to the rest of the layout and then start work on the scenic side of it. This board features a bridge crossing the Middle Drain which after 50 years is still in situ and is used as a farm crossing nowadays. The landscape is also mainly rough grass and scrub compared to the arable land on the rest of the layout. At least that is how we hope it will turn out. Cheers George

Hello So am I Mick. Rolling stock is nearly all done now, just another couple of units to detail. renumber etc. We hope to start on the third board in a couple of weeks time. Should all be done in time for Glasgow next year. Love the control panel John, very sexy. Cheers George

Hello No need for apologies Scott, I am just flattered when people take an interest in my humble little projects and all suggestions are always valued. Hopefully in the next week or so we should start to make more progress with Fenchurch when holidays and such-like are out of the way. Take care Cheers George

Hello Scott I don't know about the locking bolts but the targets are definitely correct for Middle Drove which is the station the layout is based on. I have spent a lot of time over the last three years looking at as many available pictures I can find as well as my main info source on the TVP DVD 'Branch Lines Across East Anglia. You are not the first to mention it and I doubt you will be the last The other curious thing about the gates is that, as far as I know, they were the only ones on the branch that had six panels. Even the other ones on double tracks had five. It just meant I had to use two Wills kits to make them. If you want to see a picture of the original gates look at the Andrew Ingram photos on the Bramley Line Website and there is a picture there of a Cl31 passing through the crossing. Anyway glad you like the layout and I hope you come to see it sometime if I ever get it finished. It will be at Peterborough next year which is fairly close to you and Bury St Edmunds the following year. Thanks for the support. Cheers George

Hello The cloud lady is Petra, my younger son's girlfriend, who flies into the country to do my skies for me among other things. I just gave her a couple of photos of those big Fenland skies and left her to it. She is in the Caribbean at the moment but I am sure she will be thrilled to know that people like her efforts. Clive you have nothing to be humble about; your knowledge of railways, particularly of the era I am modelling, is far greater than mine. Cheers George

Hello As a break from building the layout I have been working on the rolling stock. As can be seen in the photos I have re-numbered and weathered the Bachmann 20T grain wagons and the BRT grain wagons. Also I have been updating and altering an Airfix LMS brake van that I was given as well as a limited edition Bachmann 12T van that also was passed on to me. I have also dealt with the two Derby lightweights by fitting in passengers and a driver, fitting the buffer beam detail and fitting DC kits corridor connection to hide the gap between the vehicles caused by the long buffers they were fitted with. The blue one has also bee re-numbered and new destination boards fitted. I have done the same with the other green 31 and am now in the process of re-painting another green into BR Blue as this period of the late 60s was a period of transition for liveries. We shall run the Derby Lightweights in half and half livery from time to time. The final thing to fit is a lamp on the rear of the unit as they did not have rear lights on them. This means that they will always be running in the same direction. I shan't weather them till I have done the other two units,(a 101 and a 105), and a Class 37 and a Class 24 as well as building a Parkside LNER long CCT. Cheers George

Hello Collectors may be more interested in these more specialized categories but I don't understand why. What is the difference between an Escort and a Ferrari apart from the obvious which doesn't apply to the model. Then I don't understand collecting anyway. Cheers George

Hello Apparently the rear tyres are the wrong way round. I imagine you can just turn them round , they seem fairly movable on previous tractor models. But otherwise it looks a pretty decent little model to me. Oh for a Ford 5000 though and perhaps a few more implements such as a 3 furrow reversible plough and a cultivator or disc harrows. Cheers George

Hello If it worked for Sepp Blatter it can work for me Pete. Cheers George

Hello Took delivery of eight new Bachmann 21 ton grain hoppers yesterday which are now sitting on the layout ready to be renumbered and weathered at some point in the future. I have done some more ballasting since John took the pictures but as we have to do some more wiring under the layout I haven't fixed all the buildings in place so they don't get damaged while this work is going on. Also as John said he has to complete the building of the station house, goods shed and pub, plus the remaining three baseboards, one scenic and two fiddle boards.. But we are getting there, slowly but surely. Also the lady who paints the clouds has arrived today so hopefully the sky should become it more real soon. Cheers George

Hello I have eight of them now sitting on my new layout 'Fenchurch St Peter' this evening. Got a lot of re-numbering and weathering to do on them but they will do for me despite the previously mentioned imperfections. . Cheers George

Hello Thank-you , I'm glad it brings back memories. That is the desired effect I'm aiming for. The grain store buildings are, as I mentioned earlier, based on Ketton and North Elmham in Norfolk they could indeed be any-where. I will be getting my new Bachmann 21ton BR grain hoppers later this week so there will ,hopefully, be plenty of shunting in there in the years to come. For any-one who is interested in seeing the places the layout is based on in the 1960s try and lookout the Eastern Region DVDs published by TVP, particularly Branches across East Anglia and Pick-up Freight. Without them I probably couldn't have built this layout. Nostalgia just oozes from the screen, not a dry eye in the house. Cheers George

Hello Sadly not Clive. The original plan was for them to work but we considered that they would be too fragile for use in exhibition conditions or rather the operating parts would be. I had this vision of them ceasing to operate after ten minutes at a show and being unable to fix them. So they will have to remain in the closed to road traffic position. I hope people will not be too dis-appointed though I am sure there those who will mutter about lack of accuracy. Cheers George

Hello So glad you approve Michael, it was a difficult decision. The snow effect on the latest ballast has now gone as it has dried through properly , I shall carry on with that later after I have installed the token exchange apparatus. Hopefully the sky will be painted properly later this week when the 'cloud lady' flies in. Cheers George

Hello Three days to go now. Countdown to ecstasy. Cheers George

Hello I was told at the weekend that these had arrived at Barwell last Thursday and should be going out to dealers this week. Cheers George

Hello Now a mere five days to go. Be still my beating heart. Cheers George

Hello Eight days to go. The tension builds. Cheers George

Hello A little north of south and a tad east of west, give or take a yard or so. Just follow the rainbow Clive. Cheers George

Hello There are not many people who would admit to that sort of inspiration Steve. Cheers George

Hello Only nine days to go. Cheers George

Hello Yes one in Lands End, one in John O' Groats with a vintage train running between the two. The details won't concern me very much as I shall be long gone by then. I will leave all that to my much younger compatriots. Only eleven days to go. Cheers George

Hello He only had one point to operate on Warren Lane at the weekend but at least the trains had farther to travel. Only twelve days to go. cheers George