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  • 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
Clachbeg

Communities

The communities served by the CMER are spread across five principle locations.     Kinlochy   The small settlement of Kinlochy on Loch Tosh is built around the pier, which is the principal connection of the estate with the outside world. Kinlochy boasts a small, licensed public house with accommodation for walkers and other visitors, a boathouse, a general store, the estate workshops, the fuel tanks, a coal bunker, a refrigerated storeroom and a small bottling plant.
Richard T

Richard T in General

0
Clachbeg

Staff

The CMER is in itself an important source of employment on the estate. The timetable necessitates two shifts, six days a week, and one on Sundays. Its permanent staff comprises: The Railway Manager. From the inception of the CMER Alexander Ogilvie was both the General Manager and the Chief Engineer, until in 1895 the roles were separated at his request, allowing him to concentrate on the engineering aspects of the railway Callum McNeil succeeded Ogilvie in 1895 and served as General Mana
Richard T

Richard T

0
Clachbeg

History

Origins of the Estates   The Clach Mhòr Estates trace their origins back to the late eighteenth century, when several smaller properties were amalgamated under the ownership of Frederick McTosh, who was renowned for his benevolent nature—not a common characteristic of landlords at that time, and especially not in the northern highlands of Scotland.   Not much is recorded of this remote estate until about a hundred years later, when Frederick’s great-grandson Angus, who had served the Empir
Richard T

Richard T

1
The Trial of Sir Topham Hatt

Day 1

A big crowd gathered inside the court today for the opening day of the trial of Sir Topham Hatt aka "The Fat Controller". The charges read out related to the negligent running of a public railway and the endangering of human life on many counts.   Mr R.Beeching QC - appearing for the prosecution, began to state his case by showing the jury exhibit A. This was a strange collection of used bricks. Mr Beeching addressed the accused stating he had shown a disregard for public safety as far back a
andyram

andyram

4
The Cuckoo's Blog

Toy Fair Tomorrow

The Toy Fair at Chester Northgate Arena has been brought forward to tomorrow. I'll be going. Will you?   I'm sure I need something... I wonder if the sell "a kick up the backside" ?
TheCuckoo

TheCuckoo

4
Northall

Station Road - Figure placing

After I had designed the basic plan for 'Station Road – Shops under arches' and painted my figures, it is time to find the right place for the figures. On the map I marked the position of the girl and the boy.     So to give the situation some what more personal I made some notes by the figures to create more “living” persons from them. This was an interesting journey. Reading the backgrounds of teenagers in the 1950's and the Teddy Boy culture in London and the UK.   So let me introduc
Job's Modelling

Job's Modelling

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Somewhere in Germany

An outing for Bad Horn- Cheltenham, 5th/6th April

I'd long promised Mike Walker that if he ever needed a layout for his twice-yearly show in Cheltenham, I'd help out. That call came a couple of weeks ago, and so I'm taking Bad Horn. I've been hurriedly weathering a few wagons and checking that everything still works, and so far all is OK- though rushed weathering is never great. Not that any of mine is great, but I hope it's at least presentable.   The exhibition is Saturday and Sunday 5th/6th April at St. Margaret's Hall, Coniston Road, Hath
Taigatrommel

Taigatrommel

1
Up the Line - 1918

Still wiring

Still bogged down with the wiring - am I glad I didn't leave this job to the last moment! I could actually have done this as all the points can be controlled via the DCC handset, this approach is just a bit easier I think and more fun! But having still not finished a whole month later is a bit much. I cannot believe how long it has taken, and how much wire! Again I am my own worst enemy as I have made things double difficult by wanting two identical and interconnected panels at each end, one of
KH1

KH1

0
Barry Ten's Blog

One for Job

Shameless reposting of earlier images, but what the hell.       I still mean to do something with this Roco model one day, altough quite what my plans will be, I'm not too sure. Perhaps a diorama, to begin with - something that can be expanded as time/motivation allows? It's a cracking model, in any case, and really deserves an authentic scenic setting in which to display it. For maximum effect, it just needs some dead flies on the front.
Barry Ten

Barry Ten

8
BRM Blog

Watching trains in the dark

Most of my work for BRM is at the workbench, but sometimes I get out into the big, bad world. A couple of days ago, we needed a photo of a station at night for a feature so I set off to Hatton with a camera and tripod to grab some photos.     While I was shooting the infrastructure, I had to keep stopping as trains were getting in the way. Despite it being after 9pm (guess who should have done this before the clocks went forward) at least 8 trains passed by in the 40 minutes I was ther
Phil Parker

Phil Parker

3
Bw Leipzig Hbf West

Give us today our daily freight...

Afternoon all (again) ...   I seem to be addicted to a certain station these days and I suspect it may have to do with there being so many occasions for spotting freight trains...so once again, here's a cross-section of what you can typically encounter on German tracks today...       It's been only yesterday that I mentioned how I had to let 120 132 escape unphotographed. However, that same loco provided the first high note of my photo round this morning when it returned and headed the w
NGT6 1315

NGT6 1315

3
MikeOxon's Pre-Grouping Blog

On the Victorian Cat-Walk

Having built a Victorian train, I now have to think about providing some passengers. Since I know far less about 19th-century styles of dress than I did about 19th-century railways, when I started, I decided it was time for some reading.   As I pointed out in a previous post, I have found the Internet Archive ( http://archive.org/ ) to be a very useful resource. Old 'out of copyright' books can either be read on-line or downloaded in formats such as PDF. In my current search, I found '
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in general

8
Petes Model workshop (or ramblings from the balcony)

GWR MOGUL

Here we go a start was made again on the tender. A bit slow, mainly because of finishing the PLV, and domestic issues taking up to much time. I decided for ease just to spring the centre axle. I used a Slaters etch horn guide and will be sprung as they are ment to be. It is siting high so there is both up and down movement.   I also decide that the pick ups will be on the tender with a 2 pin plug to the loco. I will be using some plunger type, but have not decided which ones as yet I h
N15class

N15class in GWR 63XX MOGUL

8
Jessy1692's modelling bits and pieces

Spencer, the hacked about WD Hunslet, Now Mashima Powered

Evening all, Since the last update on Spencer i havnt done mush with it, the trackwork for my 009 wa a bit dodgy so i have been slowly sorting that out and also building up some bargain parkside kits for the 00, so Spencer has been sat around for a while waiting for a break in the wether for a coat of satin varnish and somewhere to run.   Now, as payday was last week and a bit of overtime time came through, i decided to take BernardTPM's advice from my last entry and get intouch with Branchli
jessy1692

jessy1692

0
Bw Leipzig Hbf West

Loco portraits and some other assorted stuff

Afternoon all!   Let's keep this prologue brief this time... After the day had begun somewhat hazy, the sun burned through as the morning passed and prompted me to capture another set of photos at my current favourite location, Thekla Station.     First up, I took this portrait of 1442 115 as it idled on Platform 2 standing by to work the S 37433 S 4 line service to Geithain...       ...followed by this overview with the signal box to the left.     Next, 155 244 slowed to a ha
NGT6 1315

NGT6 1315

2
BRM Blog

'Processing' layout images for BRM

Several people have asked me several times in person, at talks or on RMweb to write a bit of a 'how-to' on the 'photoshopping' of images for the magazine.   I've taken a scene from Tim Maddock's excellent 'Engine Wood' layout as featured in the May 2014 issue of BRM to show the whole process but somewhat condensed as an image typically takes a couple of hours to fully work through and gone from this:     To this:     This has been done as a video and narrative tutorial using screen
Andy Y

Andy Y

1
Wenlock's Blog

Track laying part 2

Once happy with the alignment of the paper template, the "flow" of the point work and I'd glued the cork underlay in position, permanent track fixing could begin. The paper template was cut from under the points and then each point was put back in position on top of the cork. When building the points I deliberately left the rail over long, to allow for some fine tuning of the point's relative positions.   Point and Double Slip with over long rail   The rail was trimmed back to the correct
wenlock

wenlock

14
Andy_197011's Blog

Framing the baseboard

Managed to put a frame on the baseboard this morning and add a fiddle yard board.   And the underside with slots cut out for the wiring run. There is a lot of wires because I isolated the point frogs and polarity switching is now through the point motor auxiliary switch. Seep point motors are fitted and will be supplied by a Peco Capacitor discharge unit. There are no isolating sections as I can only ever see one Loco in use at a time.   I am going to make some cassettes for the fiddle y
Andy_197011

Andy_197011

0
Barry Ten's Blog

Wainwright C Class

Totally open the box modelling this, but with products this exquisite, do we really care? The grime is via Lord & Butler's Dirty Boy weathering, no connection other than a satisfied customer, as they say, but the quality of the work really impresses, I think. Yes, it can be regarded as a basis for further improvement, but on the other hand it looks very acceptable as is, from the overall tone to the variation in treatments on the boiler.   And what a cracking model the C class is. Mine run
Barry Ten

Barry Ten

7
The San Miguel Central RR

Part 39: HOn3 Bachmann Shay conversion.

Hello! I 've had a Bachmann three truck 80 ton Shay in HO in quite a few years now. The original:     The Shay has experienced quite a few revisions, among other things, the exchange of the cracked plastic gears with metal gears from NWSL . The largest revision was when I had gotten tired of the lousy tracking of the middle truck. That was when I rebuilt it to a two truck version:   (see http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/638/entry-5254-part-6-shay-conversion/ )   Now
M Graff

M Graff

3
MikeOxon's Pre-Grouping Blog

'Special'- unique photo

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have been trying to track down a photo of the prototype of Sir John's special train.   Today, I have found one but unfortunately, the morning of April 1st 1892 was notable for the famous London 'pea-soup' fog.   Despite the photographer's best efforts he has been unable to capture much detail of the train. He has, however, used sepia toning very effectively to enhance the subject 🙂   Train in London Smog - 1st April '92
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in general

8
petertg's Blog

Another one rewiring

Since my last post I have been renovating elements of infrastructure and reorganizing the wiring under the baseboard. As indicated in previous posts I have had problems with my point motor control. The Hornby passing lever switches worked O.K, but were not suitable for the present state of my fingers. The pushbutton switches used in their place were not designed for working with Hornby motors and both LEDs remained alight, whereby there was no indication of point direction. Finally, as I browse
petertg

petertg

0

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    • 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.    
    • WFPettigrew
      Post Scaleforum 2024

      By WFPettigrew · Posted

      If only you'd brought some crossing timbers, we could have had them down too 🤣. It was a pleasure to be able to help!   All the best   Neil 

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