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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
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Sixties Snapshots - 00 scale

So what’s brewing?

A view of the Bachmann Scenecraft Brewery with the local ‘pick up’ goods setting back to pick up some empty coal wagons from the boiler house. Note the trailing connection with the ‘main line’, much safer than facing points? Bachmann Scenecraft Brewery It is summer and rather than completing the scenery effort has gone into brewing real beer and making wine. Is there time to look behind the scenes? Maturing Wine (Rhubarb and Parsnip) We have been making our own ‘country wines’ for over f
Silver Sidelines

Silver Sidelines

7
coombe junction - moorswater

you have been watching...

Good evening all,   Readers of a nervous disposition may wish to advert their eyes now...no rolling stock has been harmed in the coming update but layouts have been   Since the BH 2013 exhibition I have been relatively quiet on the forum for a number of reasons: post exhibition blues (is it just me?) stupid hours at work, general loss of interest in the hobby (could be the hot weather) and oh, planning an international family relocation from BCN to LDN...   In a previous post I had hinte
bcnPete

bcnPete

28
Swiss Travel(bl)og - Gotthard 2013

5. Mind your language - Bellinzona

Enough with all these trains: time for a bit of history and a change of language. South through the Gotthard Tunnel to Bellinzona in Ticino, the main Italian-speaking area of Switzerland, where the three castles guarding the valley are a World Heritage Site. By happy coincidence, you can see the railway from them too. The obvious entrance when walking from the station, appears less and less inviting the closer you get to it. An odd concrete slit in the corner of a modern piazza, with a sign mou
eastwestdivide

eastwestdivide

2
Ffarquhar: A Thomas Themed Layout

The Ffarquhar Extension... Nearly Open to Traffic

Hello, two updates in as many weeks? This blog is like waiting for a bus! Anyway I digress, this update is to show you the extension to Ffarquhar thus far...   This was the state of play on Tuesday:   and here is what it looks like at the end of this week:     all that is left to do is the wiring and she is useable! in the meanwhile I couldn't resist placing Thomas and Percy on the bridge area!       Next time I shall cover some of the scenery! Until then, farewell
Flyingscotsmanfan

Flyingscotsmanfan

0
The Grime Street Blog

Festival of Model Tramways, Croydon 20th July

Grime Street made the long journey south to Croydon Friday evening (ah the joys of the M25 at teatime....) to attend the Festival of Tramway Modelling this year held in the air conditioned comfort of Fairfield Halls, Kew bridge is a nice venue, but sometimes the heat can be a bit oppressive.   Usual story of PPP (you know what I mean) but in my defense I've managed 4 days of since early April, all exhibiting at shows.....anyway we were up and running before the punters arrived, we being me, Mr
Red Devil

Red Devil

0
Swiss Travel(bl)og - Gotthard 2013

4. Hmm, what does Aussichtspunkt mean? Wassen

There's a leaflet in Göschenen station showing the Gotthard rail path, which runs down the valley, close to the track at some points, past the three levels of track at Wassen, and onwards. There's also a detour to an Aussichstspunkt (viewpoint) marked. Looks like a plan for the day. Load up the rucksack, and we're off for a day's linesiding. Apologies in advance to the Swiss train experts, but I'm no expert on identification, so some of the descriptions may be a bit vague.   First, in a little
eastwestdivide

eastwestdivide

3
Swiss Travel(bl)og - Gotthard 2013

3. Down the valley and up the hill - Rigi

After a strenuous day yesterday, something a bit more touristy. On board the stopping train down the valley, here coming out of the Gotthard tunnel at Göschenen. A lot of these trains carried extra, older-type coaches (like the first one here), which were mostly reserved for group travel, such as school parties. They also carry a first-class observation car with the high windows, as well as the super-comfortable standard SBB air-con opens. That's the MGB line to Andermatt top right.   Change
eastwestdivide

eastwestdivide

2
SRman's Workbench Blog

Two more pics of the LCDR brake van

Two more pics of the LCDR brake van going into SECR livery - the second coat of Humbrol 79 has been applied. I have posed it with the as yet crewless Bachmann 'C' 0-6-0 in magnificent full SECR lined green.       Also visible in the upper photo is the recently repainted Dapol track cleaner which was in Hatton's dark grey and white livery but is now in simplified BR blue and grey livery.
SRman

SRman

0
SRman's Workbench Blog

Roxey LCDR brake van progress

As I am recovering from the back problems of the last week or so, I have now been able to start a few simple modelling projects - or continue with existing ones. I can only spend short times sitting at the workbench for now but things are improving rapidly.   Besides the class 350 conversion to class 450 mentioned elsewhere, I have finally, after much thought, come up with a way to level the LCDR brake van - it was previously sitting a little high at the compensated end. The solution was actua
SRman

SRman

3
SRman's Workbench Blog

Preliminary work on converting a Bachmann class 350/1 to a 450 unit

The vinyls to convert a Bachmann class 350/1 into a SouthWest Trains liveried class 450 arrived last week, while I was unable to do anything due to a back injury! I have now healed sufficiently to allow short (very short!) spells at the workbench, so I did a little preliminary painting on the first driving coach of the Bachmann class 350.   I have also removed the pantograph and associated insulators and conduits/bus bars from the appropriate coach, Some holes will require a small amount of fi
SRman

SRman

0
shanks522's Blog

Building a layout to sell at a later date.

Hello all,   I'm working on several different projects at the moment and almost all of them are at a standstill either due to the hot weather or awaiting materials so today whilst feeling a little bored i got on with something that has been put aside for months. A few years ago i purchased a selection of Kato unitrack to see what it was like and possibly build some kind of test track, at first i would set it up on the kitchen workbench (sorry table) and would run in new locos and just have
shanks522

shanks522

0
Up the Line - 1918

It might not seem much

Probably because it isn't much! But it is a start on the Dick Kerr chassis. Personally I love this bit, a couple of bits of soldered together brass (to make two identical frames), and a new innovation. Yes, another good idea, two in as many days! Previously I have just gone straight for cutting the brass, tried making card formers but never quite right. This time I used a bit of foam board which is ridged but squishy enough to form to the body to get the right shape for the frames to fit the bod
KH1

KH1

0
The GC and Met in OO

Two steps forward and all that....

I thought progress was going too well with my Met electric, and then everything started to go wrong....   It turned out I'd managed, somehow, to get even the basic colour wrong! What looks like choclate brown in some photos looks deep red or even almost purple in others.... researching (which I should have done before I started painting) I found that the colour is actually a very deep red. Out with the brushes again   It was a simple job to rectify.... I broke out some burgundy paint and
James Harrison

James Harrison

7
Cowes & Newport in 4mm scale

Hidden loops under construction

From amidst the usual detritus of modelling, the hidden loops are emerging....... There are several cross baseboard track joints to be engineered in these parts. This will be the most intensive part of the construction for that reason, as well as the wiring.
ChrisG

ChrisG

0
Atso's Blog

Slowly getting back into the swing of things...

It seems that periods between modelling anything are getting longer and longer as of late. Between work and the ongoing personal issues there just hasn't been much time for a great deal else. When time has been available I have experienced a distinct lack of motivation present.   However, the last couple of days have seen a bit of a break in the recent routine and I dragged myself to the computer to get some CAD work done. After a bit of a slow start, I got into the swing of things and as of t
Atso

Atso

2
Swiss Travel(bl)og - Gotthard 2013

2. Climbing... and then some more climbing

So, first day proper, the sun's shining, and the forecast is warm to hot. After muesli, tea, bread and an attempted conversation with an enormous Austrian, whose German was nearly unintelligible to me, it was time to gather up the necessary equipment - general map, cameras, three water bottles, hat, sturdy shoes and waterproof+umbrella (unused):   Göschenen sits at almost the same altitude (1111m, 3645ft asl) as the summit of Snowdon (1085m, 3560ft), and today's "stroll" just goes up and up,
eastwestdivide

eastwestdivide

4
Swiss Travel(bl)og - Gotthard 2013

1. Getting there is half the fun: the slow route to Switzerland

Since there are a few Swiss fans on here, I thought I might put up a travelogue, travelblog, or perhaps trog, of a week's holiday in June 2013. Rather than spend all the time travelling, I decided to stick mostly to one area, around the Gotthard pass, and based myself in Göschenen.     Every journey begins somewhere, and mine began with a small hop from S Yorkshire:   ...followed by a bigger hop up to London. Taking a photo at Kings Cross, the guard, who I'd spoken with earlier, trying to
eastwestdivide

eastwestdivide

3
Heworth Sidings

Heworth Siding - Update - 19/07/2013

Hi,   We made good progress on Wednesday night and have managed to complete the basic scenic terrain closest to the public. This will now need a light coating of plaster just to remove any lasting signs of the 'modroc' and then we can start thinking about the finish we want. Roughly though, we are planning to paint base colours, then use static grass and scatter material.   Here are some pics of the finished modules                 Now we can start thinking about the s
Vonzack

Vonzack

0
Up the Line - 1918

A stroke of genius!

Well it does happen sometimes! Was having huge amounts of trouble getting the Dick Kerr to sit straight and square while I soldered it up but then found the solution. I was looking for a big sheet of copper clad stuff but found this sheet of nickel silver instead. Then proceeded to tack one side of the body to it, get out the square,then the other. suddenly I had a really solid, square and easy to work on shell.     And a little outing to the garden,     All soldered up and ready to ha
KH1

KH1

0
Fen End Pit's Blog

Framed - or why I prefer a laser to a saw

A lot of brain work and a few hours in TurboCad resulted in a design for a baseboard frame cut from 6mm ply on the laser cutter. I've had to make the longest lengths by jointing two bits together but with a suitable joint and a glued plate I don't see it is going to move. Lots of clever joints should make it nice and strong and lots of holes in the cross braces should mean I can feed wires around.   I have some hardware, alignment dowels and bits coming from Station Road baseboards.   Plan i
Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit

5
greslet's Blog

Return to Roy Jackson’s Retford

Last night Bassetlaw (North Notts) Railway Society had their annual outing to Roy Jackson’s Home t0 see the progress on Roy’s Retford layout. I must say. on behalf of my fellow club members, it was a very enjoyable trip. This layout simply gets better and better. Roy Jackson was in great form to entertain us [...]   Source
greslet

greslet

6
Murder on the Tracks!

A Change of Plan!

There’s been a slight change in how the baseboards are going to be constructed! It became quickly evident that using a full size paper plan glued to the baseboard as a template wasn’t an ideal solution. Unfortunately the paper just wasn’t robust enough at the edges. Although the glue used to hold the paper down was easily strong enough, the paper itself wasn’t. The layers of the paper actually started to come apart.   If this was happening now, with just the sleepers glued down, would this pr
iamjamie

iamjamie

0
Redgate's Modelling

Camping Coach #5 - Buffers

The GWR coach cream was airbrushed on last night, so while that hardens in readiness for the brown (yes, I know camping coaches were green and cream, but the SK that www.railholiday.co.uk have is brown and cream) I thought that some form of rudimentary buffers needed to be sourced.   The coaches bought from Blackrat of this parish both came without the standard Lima offerings, so from my bit box we have some 8mm lengths of Chuppa Chups lolly stick (kids are useful after all!) and common all ga
RedgateModels

RedgateModels

0

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