Jump to content
 

Blogs

Featured Entries

  • SouthernRegionSteam

    Coastguard Creek - 15 months of planning!

    By SouthernRegionSteam

    Hold on to your socks - this is going to be a lengthy one! (In fact it's so long, I've now split it into 2 separate posts - the next will be up soon...)   I think it's fair to say that you are all long overdue an update on Coastguard Creek. Due to other commitments, no real progress has been made since the last post way back in March 2021; almost 15 months ago! If anything, things went backwards for quite a while, as I kept finding more and more inspiring locations that I really wanted
    • 8 comments
    • 3,310 views
ZwieselDave's L&Y

From Small Room to Mega Space

This entry needs to be read with the Hovis Theme Tune blasting away in the background.   I started my Model Railway days back in 1967/8, my grand parents lived in London, while I lived in Manchester well Rochdale really, and every school holidays I was put on the train at Manchester Pic and sent down to Euston where Grandma picked me up for the holidays, I used to wait till the weekends when Granddad would get out this Hornby Royal Mail set, I wasn't allowed to use it on my own, We would play
MunichDave

MunichDave

3
Ambridge - the rolling stock.

The Hudswell gets a new role

The Hudswell Clarke is currently destined as the 'quarry loco' for 'Ambridge'. However, Hudswell Clarkes directors have had a request for the supply of a loco to the 'Tannery Lane Sewage Works'. Not wishing to drop anyone in the 'poo' Hudswell Clarkes management got the agreement from the 'BBC' (the Borsetshire Broadstone Company - owners of the quarry) to delay their order - on receipt of a suitable discount of course...   Right, 'history' over - the little loco will be ideal motive power f
scanman

scanman

0
What have I let myself in for??

The Longest of longest days!

I suppose it is fitting that the 50th post in this blog marks the end of another show! The third Weston on Trent show is now behind us. In the previous two years I have followed up the event by posting a blog entry that suggested that the day of the show felt like the longest day. Without doubt this year's event can claim to be the longest of longest days. Here is the true story of Weston 2014!   The final preparation for the event did not go well. A hectic week at school with leadership cour
andyram

andyram

3
N-Gauge LMS Layout

Foster Street - The Exhibition Aftermath

Well its Sunday, and I'm relaxing with a nice coffee, slowly getting over the exploits of Saturday, and Foster Street's exhibition debut at the Weston on Trent exhibition.   Despite having a many, many outstanding jobs left to do, the layout was packed into the car on Friday night, god knows what the neighbours think and it just about fit, so with my six foot seven frame scrunched up behind the wheel of the car the Domestic overlord and I set off into the early morning darkness.   Having arr
paulprice

paulprice

4
Barry Ten's Blog

Highflier flies again

If you've been around the hobby for a few decades you'll remember the coincidence of Lima and Mainline both bringing their Warship models to market at around the same time. Concensus at the time was that the Mainline model was the better model, with the Lima having some crude areas. In terms of performance, both were standard pancake-motor jobs with traction tires. I got my Mainline one around the time they came out - 1981 or thereabouts - and recollection says that it came from a model shop in
Barry Ten

Barry Ten

5
The Legge Lane MPD Blog

Baseboard Joins

One of the negatives about portable layouts is the fact that they come in separate boards which must be joined and unjoined from time to time. Damage to the ends of the boards is easy to do during transportation as well, so this problem is both practical and aesthetic.   Legge Lane consists of two small baseboards, 93 cm by 40 cm. They easily fit into the boot of my car so have been transported between France and England and are due to be taken back to France later this year. While in Engla
Focalplane

Focalplane

1
Shipston-on-Stour Branch

A quick stroll around Stratford upon Avon

Stratford has wisely invested its tourist wealth to include many facilities that benefit locals as well as tourists, and at this time of year, on a gloomy Sunday morning, a surprising number of people were out and about along the river side, walking or cycling the Greenway, even kayaking over the weir by Holy Trinity Church. We had chosen a three mile walk from the Greenway carpark to the town, visiting the Tramway Bridge, then taking the Tramway Walk south, then back to the starting point for
Focalplane

Focalplane

3
kyle of lochalsh

Kyle 2014 - I can see clearly...

Afternoon all - 6 months since the last update   Work has been relentless and it will continue as that well into the new year...but I have since committed myself to take Kyle to the Burgess Hill MRC one day show in May 2015 as it made its original debut there as a boxfile layout in 2010 flown in as part of my handluggage from BCN and its had a couple of makeovers since then.   Nothing like a deadline to get you focussed Here's the crack - Get new FY and tidy up scenics by 1 Jan 2015 leavin
bcnPete

bcnPete

21
Turin 60's Blog

Building work at Wherewithial Quay

Wherewithial Quay is going to the Wessex Group do at Colehill at the end of the month so this has given me the impetus to complete some work on the Layout. Firstly the warehouse at the center of the layout has never had it's down pipes for the guttering fitted (not my favourite job I will confess), well this task is now complete. Some flaps have been fitted in front of the inward opening doors to aid the workers on the first & second floors to retieve sacks and so on from the hoist (these fl
Turin 60

Turin 60

0
The GC and Met in OO

Revisiting the Clerestories

On to the next project then.   Rebuilding some old clerestory carriages....   I built these late last year/ early this year and ended up with a set of five carriages, all looking like this:   Typically, no sooner had I finished them then I found a better way of representing the teak finish. I was also more than a little annoyed by the massive couplings on each carriage; leaving a 1.5-inch gap between each coach (put another way, this was a scale 8 feet. Put differently, it added six
James Harrison

James Harrison

2
Coketown WCML in N

Introduction to Coketown

Coketown is a medium sized town in Lancashire on the West Coast Mainline. It's set in the modern era but wth a lot of old buildings still around. I wanted to have lots of red brick and grey stone, some chimneys and rolling hills in the background. I also wanted to have a viaduct somewhere on the layout similar to that in Accrington or Burnley.   Accrington Viaduct   Burnley Viaduct   Canal at Nelson   Another requirement was gently curvin
davepallant

davepallant in Building Coketown

0
Up the Line - 1918

Best in Show!

Second show done. Was wondering, at 5 o'clock this morning as I got up and after spending pretty much all day yesterday packing the layout and cleaning track and wheels est. , if any of the punters paying their £3 to get into the show would appreciate it. Well, it looks like they did and I have a trophy to prove it! A huge amount of work and absolutely knackered now but worthwhile and what it is all about really.   Big Thank You to Andy for putting together a surprisingly extensive show and al
KH1

KH1

8
Three Shire's Head

Introducing the rolling stock – 1: Representing the LNWR

I’ll present the current status of the rolling stock in groups of three, as for some bizarre reason, this just seems to work.   First the LNWR, as this is their line the plan is to have the Premier line (would a modern company get away with such conceit? Probably……) most numerically represented. All these wagons are in the process of having the paintwork finished and being weathered.     So, from Left to right, we have a D1 9” sided 1 plank open wagon constructed from a Gladiator kit, a D
Argos

Argos

7
The Farthing layouts

Barrels, baskets, bales

I’m still working on the goods items for my goods depot. Here’s a selection of various items I've been working on recently. Apologies for getting a bit long-winded with this, but I enjoy learning a bit about goods items as I go along – it’s all part of the scene, after all.       H0 and 0 casks from Frenchman River Works. Great texture and six hoops, which is rare on model casks despite being very common in reality.         The FRW barrels
Mikkel

Mikkel in Goods

37
The GC and Met in OO

LNER D6 Part VIII

Finished!     The cruel camera aside, I'm quite pleased with it.   What I am doing at the moment, aside from drawing up a list of projects for next year, is slowly buying up the more expensive bits of trackwrok required for a small shed scene diorama and (and this I think is quite exciting) gradually going about removing the trainset couplings from my passenger locos and carriages and replacing them with closer-to-scale Buckeye couplers. So far my rake of clerestory stock (5 carriages)
James Harrison

James Harrison

2
The EMpire Project

MRC Open Day 16/11/14 11-4

The Model Railway Club's Autumn Open Day is Tomorrow 16/11/14. Empire Mills will be operating along with Copenhagen Fields, Lacey Dale and a visiting 3mm layout.   11 to 4 at Keen House, Kings Cross, London. £3 for non-members.   http://themodelrailwayclub.org/   Come by and say hello.
garethashenden

garethashenden

0
SRman's Workbench Blog

What to do with a Hornby N15 missing its dome

Last weekend I bought a cheap Hornby N15 at our local swap meeting. It was missing its dome but it ran sweetly and all other bits were present, including the Hornby bag of bits. It was the NRM model of 30777 Sir Lamiel, in BR late crest livery. I have memories of a ride behind Sir Lamiel on the Scarborough Spa Express back in 1984, when it was in SR green as 777.   After scouring eBay and the spares suppliers like Peters Spares (and others) and not finding any spare domes or even spare or dama
SRman

SRman

6
GraemeWatson's Blog

Making a China Clay Dry for ~£35

Having purchased a single China Clay hood several years ago, in a North East Model Shop, I knew naff all about China Clay workings never mind what it was. Having a penchant for Western Region diesels, I wanted to build a small playground end to end layout to accommodate them. An eleven foot potential space across IKEA billy bookcases was the starting point. Being a fan of scratchbuilding I wanted to tackle a Clay dry to allow the effective display and operation of WR stock. It also dawned on
GraemeWatson

GraemeWatson

2
Modbury - 2mm Finescale (Brunel's Baulk Road)

GWR Small Metro Tank (7) - Ready for Warley Exhibition!

After a few trials and tribulations, I've done it!!! I've finally managed to scratch build a working locomotive in 2mm Finescale   Since the last instalment, the sub assemblies have been primed with Halfords No 8 Self Etch Primer, the footplate sprayed with Precision Paints Indian Red. Before the buffer beams and footplate top were brush painted the pre-turned spring cups were super-glued in place behind the valances (the bond made more secure with 24 hour epoxy), and the assembly sprayed
Ian Smith

Ian Smith

8
Jubilee Point

Progress.

Things have been coming on quite nicely of late;   The Baby Deltic bogies have had the white-metal sideframes grafted on to the nylon/plastic cradles with Araldite and are now ready to go back into the chassis. The chassis frame has been fettled to fit snugly into the body, which has been receiving the first round of panel/vent/louvre details: Unfortunately there have been a couple of “grrr” moments along the way. Going back and re-checking the reference materials proves that the cent
TT-Pete

TT-Pete

0
MikeOxon's Pre-Grouping Blog

Midnight on the Great Western

Time flies! Back in August, I wrote about the 'DCC Concepts' oil lamps that I had installed on the platform at North Leigh. Various events have conspired to limit my modelling activities of late, but I have finally got around to wiring up these lamps.   The enamelled copper wires attached to the lamps are extremely fine, so I mounted small printed circuit boards carrying block connectors, onto which I soldered these wires. This proved a rather cruel test of my eyesight since, although
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in general

6
Shipston-on-Stour Branch

S.M.J.R. research raises a question

Without intending to do so, my research into how the GWR might have made an agreement with the LMS to connect Shipston to the Stratford and Midland Joint Railway cross country line has raised some interesting issues.   These don't relate to the Shipston Branch as such, but do have some bearing on my fictitious parallel project, the Legge Lane MPD. This is based on a small MPD "somewhere in the Midlands" with a strong LMS flavor but set in the BR era. Many of the locos I have purchased or wil
Focalplane

Focalplane

4

  • Blog Statistics

    2,575
    Total Blogs
    22,153
    Total Entries

  • Blog Comments

    • Yan
      Post Scaleforum 2024

      By Yan · Posted

      Thank you for leaving the comments and thoughts guys, much appreciated.   Both Butley Mills and Ditchling Green are with new owners that are currently refurbishing them. Even the modelling skill and composition still shine through, so they were both well worth seeing in the flesh. One of Iain Rice's layouts I'd like to get the opportunity to see is Trerice.
    • BarryP
      Post Scaleforum 2024

      By BarryP · Posted

      It's good to see so many positive reviews of a model railway exhibition. I did dabble in S4/P4 way back and Iain Rice's writings were inspirational. I saw Butley Mills when it was first shown at Scaleforum in 1987 and I loved it. Gordon Gravett's models are fabulous and I would love to see them in the flesh, as it were. I did visit two shows specifically to see the magnificent "Pempoul" layout that the Gravetts built, that was the finest I've ever seen. I'm dabbling in "O" Gauge and an opportuni
    • Keith Addenbrooke
      Post Scaleforum 2024

      By Keith Addenbrooke · Posted

      Good to see it was a positive experience - and really nice to see a couple of photos of Ditchling Green (I didn’t realise it was still around).  Always struck me as a lovely layout: an early example perhaps of the ‘less is (so much) more’ approach to railway modelling that is now widely appreciated.  Keep up the good work, Keith.
    • Mikkel
      Post Scaleforum 2024

      By Mikkel · Posted

      The layout and info display looks very good. Thanks for posting photos of the other layouts, always a gift for those of us abroad - especially when they are this good.   Imposter syndrome is common I think, it can hold us back but on the hand I'll take that over bragging anytime.  
    • Mikkel
      Netherport and Basuto Quay Chronology

      By Mikkel · Posted

      That sounds like a good approach Nick, thank you for clarifying. A sense of space is so important, less is more and all that.   The Penzance photo shows unloading of flower traffic from the Scilly Isles (no date). It features on the front page of this volume by Tony Atkins. The book is perhaps not unexpendable and a tad dry, but it is informative and some of the photos are lovely.    

  • Blogs

×
×
  • Create New...