D869

I thought that was standard practice? Does this mean that my lawn didn't need to have all of these body shaped imprints

We have a paved terrace, not grass and it has a few body shaped dents in it...

Send videos please!

I did notice some other similarities - several teams had issues with keeping their track to the correct gauge. One of them decided that bashing the track gauge with a hammer was the best solution to this problem.

Most of the teams seemed to agree that a liberal sprinkling of swear words was a definite requirement.

On the other hand I have yet to see a 2mm modeller throw himself bodily onto the nearest patch of grass on completion of a length of track.

Hi Pete, good to see your attention is back to the Duchy. Long may it continue.

Just back from there today myself (and somewhat cream crackered), but more of a mining than a railway focus on this occasion. I did manage to pop in to a certain emporium in Camborne yesterday though but managed to avoid buying any more Farish or Dapol offerings and confined myself to buying yet another book of diesel hydraulic pics. You can't have too many of these, I find.

Did anyone notice that the Brunel pier hasn't turned up yet? Should we worry?

Regards, Andy

Nice office. I really must finish mine for South Yard. Dunno about a few hours work - mine has been on the go for about 5 years or so... and that's without an interior.

Your layout looked good at Nottingham, although we spent rather more time looking at the back of it than the front. It certainly didn't look 'unfinished', although I'm sure that you (like us) have a huge list of stuff that still needs to be done.

Regards, Andy

Excellent work Pete, dunno why you were worried really.

Thanks for the idea but have you ever seen this done? I can't really picture something that would be portable enough to transport and strong enough to withstand folks leaning on it

The only thing I can recall having seen was some springy poles mounted on the front edge of a baseboard with some cord strung across their ends, but that was pretty flimsy and didn't look good at all.

Regards, Andy

Enjoyed St. Ruth at Nottingham. Lovely looking layout, but sadly with it being 2mm and curving away like it does, the barriers felt too far away to do it justice.

Ah - I was thinking that some people probably didn't like the barrier distance (others did). This is certainly something that we need to think about, but it's a bit tricky because the station end of the layout is a foot closer to the barriers than the two middle boards. The front edge of the fiddle yard also sticks out, so putting the whole layout on a slant is probably not the answer. We need a balance between not being too far away to see but still being able to see the sweeping curve of the sea wall and the tracks behind it.

One possibility might be to move the barriers closer and put some perspex onto the front of the station board to avoid the finger poking, but perspex is not ideal in itself.

Anyway, glad you enjoyed the layout - albeit at a distance.

Regards, Andy

Do you think if you do a similiar number on your class 25 next, Bachmann might bump that one up the queue for re-release?

Thinks... the old 25 actually sounds like a class 25 without the need for any fancy sound decoders. I bet that a new release won't.

...they look good on South Yard too.

Kinda big for such a backwater, but I did deliberately plan the release crossover to just clear the Farish Western's wheels if the loco is hard up against the buffer stops. The Class 46 has no chance though.

Do you think if you do a similiar number on your class 25 next, Bachmann might bump that one up the queue for re-release?

Oh, I did the repaint and flush glazing job on the 25 yonks ago and it hasn't had that effect yet.

I still need to finish the cab side window glazing on that one though so maybe...

I must admit that for all its remaining faults, I get more pleasure from looking at Western Talisman than I do from looking at Hermes, which rather makes me wonder whether we may be losing something with all of these nice new releases.

Thanks Jerry. It was good to see you again and I'm glad that you enjoyed the show. Obviously I need to get back to building that Castle (joking!).

There was a brief appearance by John's Black 5 in the last hour on Sunday... just after my Virgin Voyager appeared on scene, derailed and beat a hasty retreat but I think you had left before that.

Are you planning to post any of the photos you took on RMWeb or elsewhere?

Regards, Andy

Thanks Andy - the lighting was one items that was in the last minute scramble. I think it was completed on the Sunday before the show, so there has been no time for any fine tuning of this bit... other than taking the odd bulb out. The patchy effect is accidental, but sometimes real sunshine is patchy.

Hi Don and Pete.

Sorry, but I don't have any photos from Nottingham that show the hotel area very well. We should really have taken the time to get some better pics while the layout was up and running with full stock and lighting, but it's easy to be wise after the event. There were several other folks who took some photos with rather more fancy cameras than I have, so hopefully some of these will turn up on RMWeb soon.

The organisers did ask us if we wanted the barriers closer but we felt that the distance was OK in terms of achieving the right line of sight below the lighting... without the top of the backscene intruding into the view or requiring too much bending down on the part of an average height punter. The only comment that we had about the barrier distance was a favourable one, but maybe the disgruntled people just didn't say anything.

Regards, Andy

Thanks for the heads up on the future Farish releases. I'd never know what's going on if I didn't visit here once in a while.Your sleepers have come out very well indeed. Who's maroon paint are you using?David

The paint is Precision maroon, airbrushed over Halfords red primer.

The lining is Humbrol gloss 7 and gloss black done with a Bob Moore pen. The first class stripe is Humbrol gloss 69 painted over gloss 7 because its coverage on maroon is hopeless.

The idea of an overnight motor rail service with sleeping cars raised a smile. Which make snores the loudest? ;)Seriously, very nice modelling!

Plento of opportunity for corny puns on car models there, but I'll restrain myself.

I think I was a bit surprised when I first found out about this, but that's how it was done on the sleeper trains - and not just the Cornish ones. As far as I can gather, there were only 3 cars in a GUV and the train was not strengthened if more traffic was on offer, so it was never exactly large scale.

Regards, Andy

Good stuff as usual Pete. The photos look fine to me, so I don;t know what you are worrying about.

Regards, Andy

They do look rather tasty Andy...especially with the commonwealth bogies and the roof detail.I admire your perseverance with the Fleetline kits...think I binned all my old ones years ago.Wish I could get to Nottingham...

Ah... never chuck anything away, me. Last night I found some dodgy wheels on my milk tanks and after finding that new wheels would not fit I managed to find a 35mm film container full of old Association wheels on 12mm axles. Job done. Would be good to see you, but I'm sure we will get chance some time.

You have made a fabulous job of these. St Ruth is one of the layouts that is going to make me get out of bed at some unearthly hour for a sunday and drive up to Nottingham.Jerry

Thanks Jerry. No pressure on us then!

I hope you enjoy your day and that we get chance for a chat.

Hi Pete,

If you include your track in your photos of the class 26 then you will have a big advantage over the photos of the Mercig locos... now if he would just get some drop-in wheels and Easitrac then his photos would be unbeatable.

Dunno about you but I get a lot of satisfaction from knowing that I did something myself, even if it isn't quite perfect.

Regards, Andy

Thanks for all of the comments. I have added an edit in answer to Pete's question. I'm also glad that the windows are not curved, although these would probably be easier to do than the real things - most double glazing companies seem to just give up when confronted with curved Crittalls windows.

Thanks Nick

Nice innovation Andy.

 

If you don't find anything to recycle and you are looking for something inexpensive you could try these I have 3 and am going to get some more as they do what they say on the tin box...

Thanks Pete. Those boxes look interesting. Do they come with the foam ready cut or do you need to make the cutouts yourself?

I'm thinking that they might be suitable for loco storage - to date I've always kept my locos in their original boxes because being heavier than rolling stock it seems like they are best kept in something that fits snugly to their contours.

photographers flight cases make good boxes for this and can be found quite cheap sometimes.

Good idea, but I guess that something designed for an SLR camera might be a bit big for 2mm stock. Still I guess I could make some tray inserts and go for a double or triple decker arrangement. I don't have quite that many coaches though.

Regards, Andy

Chris - in terms of correct numbering for this loco (should you wish to change what it's been provided with), the 'sub-class' that it corresponds to (with treacherous exceptions!) is D6306 to D6333 inclusive. Anything outside of that number sequence isn't strictly correct....;-))

At the risk of nit-picking (but in my defence, I have actually modelled one of these beasties, so I needed to know)...

... watch out for the 'eyebrows' - the vents over the cab window which were found on locos up to D6312 I think, plus (for some strange reason) D6333. Locos from D6326 onwards have a different boiler which may affect the roof vents at that end.

Locos up to D6333 did not have headcodes from new (which is probably why they ended up with a different front end layout from the later ones), so check photos for dates when they were retro-fitted.

For a relatively small, short lived class of locos, the detail variations are a real minefield.

At the end of the day though I find these locos full of character and perfect for so many jobs on the kind of layouts that most of us build.

Regards, Andy

wot no Lister flying bedstead yet?

Glad to see that you've found an approach that is working for you.

Hmm... so how did you manage to paint all those chairs (and neatly too) without any mojo? I think that job drives most people up the wall.

I'm in two minds on the card vs plastic question for buildings... I think I'm happier working in card and I definitely get more convincing (to me anyway) painted finishes with less angst, but with plastic I can do more fiddly shapes and take advantage of moulded planking, bricks and so on.

There's always Modelstrip if the paint job is really that bad... I have several models where a complete painting disaster has been removed and somehow I usually do much better second time around.