Andrew Young

The Planet and her wagons have come out very nicely. Looking quite clean for an industrial, so must have a proud driver who keeps it well polished. Cheers, Andrew

Simon, the layout you're thinking of is 'Cromer'. Simple in design but right down to the finest detail. Saw it once at a show where my friend who also works on the railways and I were very impressed with the working SPAD indicators when the operator made a mess of things! Cheers, Andrew

Very Vivarais-esque! What you've probably seen on the stand is Frank Sharp's version. Having seen mine, Frank made himself one with longer tanks on and he often flies the Association flag at exhibitions. Cheers, Andrew

Thank you. What you see is my Hunslet Mallet which was described over on NGRM-online and also written up in Narrow Lines the 7mmNG Association's Journal. Inspired by Hunslet's solitary Single Fairlie 'Gowrie', I decided that in 1912, Hunslet also built a one off Mallet as I rather like mallet locos having ridden behind a couple in France. It's a Bemo HO Mallet chassis with the main components for the body coming from the Chivers WD Hunslet 4-6-0 kit along with a few other bits and pieces I had to hand. Not the best photo as taken on my phone, but should give uou a good enough idea. Cheers, Andrew

Hi John, The plates come from Narrow Planet. They produce a set for Townsend Hook, I just asked them to change the name and the works number and they duly arrived. Have no connection with Narrow Planet other than as a customer and I use them for all my plates now. Cheers, Andrew

The layout is set up in the spare room and an order of electrickery materials has arrived so a start will very shortly be made on wiring the layout up at last! Though, having been reading Iain Rice's new book on 'Cameo Layouts' has given me some food for thought. Treating the MVR as one grand plan, generally results in too much thinking and not enough doing. However, if it is built as a series of modules or cameos, each an end in itself, with scenic breaks between each one, I can concentrate on each element at a time, rather than seeing how it fits in with the next piece. The result of this is that I suspect that the MVR will initially become slightly smaller, but which hopefully will result in the MVR expanding quicker in the long term, whilst also being operable as a layout as I do so. More will be written as it happens. There has been some feverish activity on the modelling bench this last couple of weeks and my modelling mojo is well and truly back. Though the recent activity has seen my FJ loco project finished. Think it's probably taken near enough two years to get from the original idea to this stage, but has definitely been worth it and the 3D printed body should soon be available from CWRailway should anyone else want one. One pleasing personal achievement with this loco has been to overcome the chassis demons and make a chassis work well at last! Even down to using and quartering Gibson wheels. A couple of photos to wet the appetite, but the saga can be found here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115647-7mm-scale-townsend-hook/?p=2583938 The narrow gauge locos are outnumbering the finished standard gauge ones... Once the layout is up and running, expect to see the balance restored. It does make me think that phase two of the MVR will have to incorporate the Upper Melyn Tramway in some way! Cheers, Andrew

After a couple of weeks of feverish activity, I'm pleased to report that the FJ loco is now finished and rather pleased with how it's come out. For me, building chassis' has always been my stumbling block, they'd look good, but run terribly! (My Wrightlines Skylark is still dismantled part way through its second rebuild with a better motor/gearbox and to sort the outside cranks out.) This one runs rather sweetly with a Flywheel filling the firebox attached to a decent sized motor driving through a Branchlines 50:1 multibox. Have also succeeded (thanks to a GW Models wheel press) in fitting and quartering Gibson wheels to this one. There's more play in the crossheads than I would ideally like, but having had to attack the motion bracket to allow sufficient space for the overscale coupling and connecting rods room to flail, I can live with that. The loco is brush painted over a Halfords rattle can primer base, topped off with a whisp of Dulcote followed by my usual dry brushed weathering. Just need to finish writing up how I've done it and get the photos together into a document and then all being well, the body will be available to purchase from CWRailway for others to have a go. With this I'm satisfied that I've expelled the painful memories of my teenage dalliance with a Peco Talyllyn kit and its atrocious Wrightlines chassis kit. However, there is a Stephen Poole version of the kit, a second Branchlines chassis kit and also a Dolgoch kit stashed away in the cupboard, so maybe I'm not finished with Fletcher Jennings locos just yet... First, I have several locos and nowhere to run them, think that needs rectifying first, before too much other temptation takes over! And finally, the name. The loco is named after 'Sir Jasper', an early significant shareholder in the company whose money helped develop the quarries. It is said that he was a nefarious rogue when it came to the ladies, his exploits still being talked about in the hills of mid-Wales to this day. Well... Alternatively, he's a character from one of the many songs sung (if you can call it singing) in the train on the way back down the TR on Members BBQs, well oiled by the contents of whichever barrel we'd been drinking that night. Cheers, Andrew

Steve, The drawing was a copy and paste job on the computer. Taking a 4mm drawing of the bottom half of the Adams Radial and another in 7mm scale of Hunslet's proposal for the L&B and seeing whether they'd work together. Cheers, Andrew

Care to put a link to your Shapeways shop? Ta Andrew

The Medium spikes from Micro Engineering, sold by EDM. http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Track2/track2.html Post 109 on my Melyn Valley thread shows how I laid the track. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/81878-melyn-valley-railway/page-5 Cheers, Andrew

Chris, When laying the track on my MVR project I laid the main running lines in bullhead rail and the sidings in Flat Bottom rail, I found that Karlgarin 100/7 rail on the thicker sleepers from C&L was a good match height wise with their bullhead laid on the thinner sleepers. Cheers, Andrew

That's a cracking photo, bet he could hear that rattling along the coast for miles as it approached! Class 24s & 25s and 101 and 108 DMUs, very much late 70s Cambrian Coast. Cheers, Andrew

Looks great, going back in time and moving to South Wales will make it suitably different to your 7mm Modelling. Have one of these Pecketts and they're the only thing in the last decade that's made me consider modelling in 4mm scale again. So far I'm resisting as I could do without the distraction from my 7mm modelling and there's the fear of repetition as there's only so many different permutations of layouts using a blue and a green Peckett that one can do. Shall watch this with interest though. Cheers, Andrew

Glad to see the silly idea turning into styrene :-) For mounting points, have either usually tried to use the ones the donor chassis uses or see if there are any suitable holes to put bolts through fixing into nuts secured to the body. Cheers, Andrew

Have faith in Hornby, so far they've brought out three locos with fully prototypical liveries so there's no reason to think this will continue, at least for now. Both the Sentinel and in the longer term, the Terrier have been produced in a multitude of prototype liveries. The most obvious one with the popularity of Dodo would be another one in Peckett Green. Having had a few years in the wilderness, their more recent products that I've seen from my Dad's collection, notably the Pullman carriages, B1 and Q6 have all been top notch. Give them chance and get back to the Modelling bench... Cheers, Andrew

As previously said, it's a displacement lubricator for the regulator. Cheers, Andrew

Thanks Dave. Agreed there are signs of fairly recent tracked clearance, think there are a couple of groups working towards opening parts of the old TVLR, but can't find anything much on the web about them. Cheers, Andrew

Some I've used are no longer available, but will try and think of some suitable alternatives for these when I do. Cheers, Andrew

Thanks Dirk, Hopefully it won't be long before the 3D print is available from CWRailway for people to buy. Before painting mine, I'll be writing down what work I've done, what bits I've used and the photos I took of the locos when they visited Tywyn to be available for others to use if they wish. CheerS, Andrew

Over a month since an update, but slow progress has been made with the carriages. Have come to the conclusion that a) building four carriages at once wasn't the best idea- there's a heck of a lot of work involved! And b) I prefer building locos and wagons to coaches! Having said that, all the coaches have had all the fiddly detail bits added, plus couplings buffers etc and all have been chemically blackened before fitting. Have also sorted out a few figures to populate the carriages. Next stage is weathering, however this week, I've taken some time to catch up on my other project that's on the go in tandem, my Fletcher Jennings loco. My OCD certainly took over with the detail! More details can be found on its own thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115647-7mm-scale-townsend-hook/?p=2545968 However, as photos of carriages with some detail added is hardly thrilling, here's a photo of the loco with a comparison shot of William Finlay. Cheers, Andrew

Been a while since the last update. Spent some time recently getting on with this and now have the loco ready for the paintshop in time to tidy up the desk in time for the festive season. Ended up building a second chassis for this one, hence some of the time taken, a lot of the other time taken up when my OCD took over with the cab detail, in particular the injector pipe work. As it's the most enjoyable part of the build for me, this is no hardship. Over the years I've amassed a good bits box for loco building from Gibson, Wrightlines, Branchlines, Ron Chaplin and Lawrie Griffin, most of which came out for this model. Seeing as my loco is a typical Fletcher Jennings loco rather than an exact copy of one of the Betchworth pair, quite a few of the parts came as spare parts sold by Wrightlines when Kay Butler had the business and are from the Dolgoch kit, modellers licence has extended to putting the cylinder lubricators above the running plate as per Dolgoch. If I build another one, think I'd use more of the Branchlines parts and ring the changes with the lubricators, safety valves and injectors, reflecting some of the differences that exist between Townsend Hook and William Finlay. I'd not realised about the hole in the back of the cab until I saw the locos in the flesh in July, I can live with the omission though, the TR FJ locos don't have this, and suspect it may well be a Betchworth modification as Captain Baxter has the same iirc. Cheers, Andrew

Suspect that a liquid fuel would be more suitable for s 48DS and a Simplex... Great plans Neil, going to be a cracker of a layout! Cheers, Andrew

Gordon, unless you're seeing something that I'm not, both plans have a run round loop... Cheers, Andrew

Steady on Mike, if you plan a layout whilst Neil drove the minibus, we might think you were about to build one... Neil, think its a case of get the baseboard, or a piece of ply / table / desk at work, Mark it up for the size of board you'll have, get out the point templates and some wagons and see which looks best. Andrew :-)

I liked the previous plan and I like this one too. Depends on whether you want to build a single slip or not... :-) Cheers, Andrew