Nearholmer Posted March 31, 2017 Author Share Posted March 31, 2017 It seems possible that one of the troubles with JM was that he believed all the nonsense; here, I hope we can indulge in it, consciously suspend our knowledge of the harsher truths, if you like, without actually falling over the brink. To tweak the words of another JM: While playing trains, and only while playing trains, we believe in fairies. K 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Donw Posted March 31, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 31, 2017 I liked the music on the video. I can remember making up a lot of those Airfix kits. I think the way to go would be Peco SM32 settrack available in 30 and 38 inch radii the only trouble is the price, however you can get some pretty cheap kits from here to run on it http://www.ipengineering.co.uk/page3.html Don Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted March 31, 2017 Author Share Posted March 31, 2017 (edited) Don PM me if you would like some background on IP loco kits. His rolling stock kits are excellent value - great fun to build, and yields a very nice outcome. K Edited March 31, 2017 by Nearholmer 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidB Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 Don PM me if you would like some background on IP loco kits. His rolling stock kits are excellent value - great fun to build, and yields a very nice outcome. K Another vote from me for Ivan's 16mm rolling stock kits (there are some photos of one of his Welsh Highland Railway coaches on my WHR Garden Railway rolling stock thread elsewhere on the forum). David 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted March 31, 2017 Author Share Posted March 31, 2017 Can I just warn everybody not to look at this page http://img.chem.ucl.ac.uk/dublo/catalog.htm because it is likely to lead to all sorts of retro-layouts being planned. K 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen 28 Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 I hope Nearholmer will allow a small hijack from me. This thread has been nagging away at me as I have had a half baked idea in the back of my head for a while now ( I even started collecting a few kits - any excuse eh ? ) .The images here only make me more encouraged to think more seriously about the idea. My day job has me striving more and more for realism and increased detail and while I enjoy that I can't help feeling that something so much simpler might be more enjoyable for my own 'layout' - really more of a moving diorama / No, a moving collection I guess. The last few pictures here have tipped me over the edge, so I wanted to prove to myself it just would not work! So I grabbed some cork and some OO setrack - and of course it just looked like what it was. So I roughly sanded the edge of the cork, flooded it with a thin dark umber wash followed by a pink ( yes pink ) drybrush - hmmm. Then I painted the track a dark flat brown and polished the rail top .... track1.jpg track2.jpg My half baked idea is to collect and build Airfix and Rosebud / Kitmaster kits ( make a few Ratio items too ) , motorise a few locos , paint ( simply ) some airfix figures complete with their bases. Moving version of scenes inspired by these box tops ... airfix.jpg airfix2.jpg Sorry again for the hijack - I won't make a habit of it I promise. I'm glad it's not just me that, having lost my direction in terms of what to model, has found a respite in building these old airfix railway kits (albeit the current Dapol iteration for economy reasons). There is something very satisfying in tackling again a kit which you had in childhood but with your fully developed modelling skills, and they make up into pretty good models too. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Donw Posted March 31, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 31, 2017 Another vote from me for Ivan's 16mm rolling stock kits (there are some photos of one of his Welsh Highland Railway coaches on my WHR Garden Railway rolling stock thread elsewhere on the forum). David Why not add a link to it on your signature. It would interest me for one. K thanks for the offer I do know Ivan slightly and use his wheels and bits for my scratchbuilds plus have some coaches in the to do pile. I got to know some excellent modellers when being part of the Help and Advice team at the 16mmNG show. I am more into the Live steam myself. Don 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southernboy Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 (edited) Loved the video - a great eye for angles / framing. Delightful and completely entrancing. Edited March 31, 2017 by Southernboy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianusa Posted March 31, 2017 Share Posted March 31, 2017 Sadly one of the main differences between tinplate collectors and our scale brethren is that we are prone to 'collecting' as opposed to operating or as we might say, playing with trains. At least that was on my mind when my fancy turned to tinplate trains. It had always lain dormant ever since my first Hornby train set too many years ago. Being warned of the collecting habit, the availability of stock and the cost, I decided on the LMS. Not only did they have a lot to acquire but as it turned out they were the cheapest. It really started when I found some Hornby trains at a second hand store in Berkeley, California. I came away with a lot of trucks and some accessories which provided the impetus along with a 1931 M3 acquired at a TCA meet for $10 and so it all began. Just about this time E Bay came on the scene as up till then I had to rely on trips back home in the hope of Hornby purchases. I did quite well this way but how many transatlantic trips can you make! I did however find a Royal Scot in Bristol one time, various trucks and odds and ends at each likely antique store we saw. David Salisbury's old shop in Seaton or Sidmouth, can't remember which, and a shop on Honiton main drag which sold used Meccano products. My first O gauge layout was on a table underneath the OO layout which was about 12' x 5', and could be pulled out to play with. Not the best situation but then with my wife's retirement, a house move to near Seattle, with the stipulation that any new house had to have a train room, a deal was done! They layout is now about 16' x 12' and occupies most of the room and it has served me well for over twenty years now The track is the same but the locos and rolling stock grew to where most rest on shelves on the walls when not in operation. The layout itself is a double over and under track in an E configuration with the middle E being the yard, station area, with the two mains on the scenicked outside. Over the years, I have bought one of each of Hornby LMS locos, all except the PE which may not like my 54" curves or the even smaller Lionel 31" variety. For old times sake and coming from Plymouth where I did my train spotting, I recently bought a Hornby County of Bedford and a rake of carriages. The usual rolling stock has found a place on he layout filling up the sidings and ending up adding more on the shelves. Lionel trains are still run along side their Hornby cousins; not for serious runners but after all these are toy trains so that's a moot point! Brian 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted April 1, 2017 Author Share Posted April 1, 2017 Beautiful loco Brian. That's what I mean by 80/20. Nobody could be in the slightest doubt what it represents, it is 80% a scale model. But, somehow, it has more character than some 100% (well, 99%, really) models. We'll overlook the big light-bulb! It's school Easter holidays now, so I don't expect there will be much news about toy trains in the near future ...... we'll be busy keeping offsprings entertained. Kevin 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted April 1, 2017 Author Share Posted April 1, 2017 PS: I don't know if anyone else spotted two narrow gAuge outdoor lines making their RMWeb debuts, but they are both brilliant examples of the art of evocative approximation. Here is a link to one, although the other is just as atmospheric http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/121432-the-mcmullen-coal-company-light-railway/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianusa Posted April 1, 2017 Share Posted April 1, 2017 "We'll overlook the big light-bulb!" To me, Kev, light bulbs on toy trains go together like fish and chips! John Betjeman's description of trains before tea in front of the fire, etc, were a turn on and have been ever since. I have since replaced the bulb with the more appropriate flat front. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatB Posted April 4, 2017 Share Posted April 4, 2017 HD outdoors? Even with climate significantly drier than the U.K., isn't that going to become a rust-fest very quickly? Anyway, enjoy the 80/20 trains. K I'm less concerned about the rust, which I think I can avoid, than I am about the WA sun eating the sleeper base of my planned Streamline track And my proposed Airfix (sorry, Dapol) buildings. Buildings can be stored indoors but the track may need a good slap of paint over everything but the running surfaces. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 Nothing to do with old-fashioned 0 gauge, and almost certainly a diversion from progress thereon, but my small nephew and I had a steam-up this afternoon. There is something very special about playing trains in the garden on a sunny day, even when you should have grown out of it! 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Donw Posted April 19, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 19, 2017 Why on earth would one want to grow out of running an engine in the garden. Looks very nice. Don 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold phil_sutters Posted April 22, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 22, 2017 (edited) Nothing to do with old-fashioned 0 gauge, and almost certainly a diversion from progress thereon, but my small nephew and I had a steam-up this afternoon. There is something very special about playing trains in the garden on a sunny day, even when you should have grown out of it! I see he's appropriately dressed - for track in a field! Not that I would suggest that your garden is a field. Edited April 22, 2017 by phil_sutters 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simond Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 I refer to mine as "a patch of grass". Not big enough to be a field, not groomed enough to be a lawn... 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted April 22, 2017 Author Share Posted April 22, 2017 Yes, most of ours looks like exactly what is is: a small, heavily trampled football pitch, with several bald patches, and a blooming great trampoline onpart of it. I've given up on my two small beds, and have just seeded them, so that they too become part of the sports zone. I try to maintain a little patch of civilisation, in the form of the raised bed with railway, but that is under continual bombardment, so I can only grow exceedingly hardy things in it. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianusa Posted April 22, 2017 Share Posted April 22, 2017 Not exactly old fashioned but getting on, a post war Hornby 502. Nor common either as a lot of production was exported and attrition has taken care of a lot of the rest. Rather bland livery compared with the pre war equivalent No.1 especially in a matte finish. No headlight either! But it goes well especially with a set of No.1 Pullmans which are about the right size for this loco. Brian. 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted April 24, 2017 Author Share Posted April 24, 2017 (edited) Another Monday, another diversion ....... This afternoon and evening it was "Southern Railway Theme" at the Northants and Rutland 0 gauge group, and an absolutely huge turn-out of SR coarse scale. I was deputed to be PIC the smaller running circuit, which was visited by some very interesting motive power, including this 1930s Mills generic 4-4-2T still wearing, where it hadn't yet flaked away, lovely patinated original paintwork. It looks almost black in this picture, but is actually olive green. Home through sunset to Surrey hearths ...... Edited April 24, 2017 by Nearholmer 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted May 16, 2017 Author Share Posted May 16, 2017 (edited) Well ........ my small terminus, Paltry Circus, is booked for a show in July, and the turntable fiddleyard has been a bit problematic since I built it, so I started remedial work. The fiddleyard is now completely dismantled! I found that not only had the turntable warped slightly, which I knew about, but that the frame has gone very wivvery indeed. Photo below shows a good straightedge clamped to one end of the frame, which seems to have warped by nearly 10mm in a metre, heavily primed, indoors, in the dry, in about eight months. Seems incredible, so maybe I used a dodgy bit of wood from the start, but I really don't think that even I could overlook 10mm! Emergency measure is likely to be something very simple, a plank with a point and two tracks on it, because there are too many other things to be done before July to permit time to build a new turntable yard. Oh, b*gger! Edited May 16, 2017 by Nearholmer Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simond Posted May 16, 2017 Share Posted May 16, 2017 Kevin, The diy sheds sell ally angle, maybe up to 2"x2". It's light, but quite stiff (a box section would be MUCH stiffer - you'd get this on eBay) and cuts well with a normal hacksaw, if you're not into metal bashing, and might offer a quick, bolt-on solution, allowing you to pull the frame straight again. Might be a quick & relatively easy solution? Best Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted May 16, 2017 Author Share Posted May 16, 2017 (edited) Good suggestion, but no. Given that the turntable has warped (slightly) too, it would be what our US colleagues term "polishing a t*rd". I'll get through the coming show with a plank and two tracks, then start all over again. I'm actually pondering making the whole thing from aluminium, although that would probably be a bit OTT, and, whatever I make it from, I want to get it utterly right, because I'm planning a small finescale layout, and it struck me the other day that one, well made, FY could serve both coarse and fine. Maybe I could make the FY from spirit levels; they have surprisingly cheap ones at the local market! Kevin Edited May 16, 2017 by Nearholmer 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold ChrisN Posted May 17, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 17, 2017 Where is the show? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted May 17, 2017 Author Share Posted May 17, 2017 (edited) This one, Chris http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/121031-milton-keynes-15-july-all-trains-great-and-small/ If you like retro things, you would enjoy it, because there will be all sorts, from c1900 onwards. It's an annual show, which outgrew the previous venue; the new venue is big, so lots to see, and plenty of room to move around. K Edited May 17, 2017 by Nearholmer 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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