big jim

Had a think about the way forward again, I’m going to ditch the hidden sidings idea as it will be hard to gain access to them incase of a derailment etc and the entrance would look odd! im going to keep complete trains in trays in the cupboards below the layout and locos in display cabinets on the wall back to the town area, again only using scraps of wood, if I shorten the high level board the sides can come down to rail level at the end of the platform the wood across the bottom could be the board edge, a level crossing can go across at that point (again on the platform end) and stay on the level running along the roackface before turning out of town, another road rises up past the station building The retaining walls would be where the rockface would be on both the outer edge and platform side As the platform doesn’t have to be massively wide the rockface/wall can come forward giving the street a wider roadway Wider platform on the other side to accommodate the station building over all view, I may well put the retaining walls along the front of the high level bit (below where the bridge will start) to make a quay side (and also somewhere for the heritage line to run behind hidden away) and of course the town will still rise up on a couple more levels, quite taken by the scalescenes castle/folly as a centrepiece

Had a play on the mini SNES earlier, fired up starfox which back in 1993 was the pinnacle of gaming sophistication with its amazing graphics and 3D polygon graphics, looking back 25 odd years later is quite frankly not aged well at all! cant fault the old mario games on it though speaking of which I got mario bros deluxe for the switch today as well which is a great game, not that I’ve seen it much as the youngest has taken it for his switch!

no problems here but rmweb did have an outage around the time of your problems

The cooper S is now sat on black alloys, also changed the scuttle vents on the wings from chrome to black cant decide on black headlight surrounds yet though? recreated the Italian job in the BMW garage by hiding in amongst the showroom cars

Just a few from last night/this morning, possession train back from ruislip a proper multi company job! the train parked in the higher level up line, the line I took the photo from is the start of the old flying junction at ruislip where the original secondary line to Marylebone joined the main line to Paddington, the ‘evergreen 2’ remodelling changed it all so the primary route was to Marylebone and the Paddington route was just a branch line, behind me is also a new bit of track built back in about 2013 that sent the down fast line alongside the slow at 100mph line speed to avoid the 50mph duck under the Paddington line and into bescot at 04:00

funnily enough my trainee said he saw 4 cortinas in convoy on the A1 this morning, must have been a show on somewhere

A sneaky look in the topics in the gold lounge (from behind a velvet rope with a bouncer holding you back!) NO SPECIAL DCC CONTENT

Gold membership = free DIGITAL (electronic edition) of BRM magazine + access to all forums (and other benefits) Normal membership = access to all forums (same as gold) NO special DCC section with gold Anders, what is your main language, maybe someone can post in his in his native tongue to clear things up?

Some from Friday and this morning bescot shunt again Another 60 to fuel, 60100 this time If you weathered a wagon like this you would be laughed at! Don’t worry about mixing your weathered and un weathered wagons, it happens in real life One from last night, ready to leave bescot And into South Ruislip to enter the possession left it at Harrow Sudbury Hill station and off to a hotel in Ealing before I reman it later this evening back to bescot

Just one from yesterday, 60100

If you modelled that place in Rotherham you would probably be laughed at without prototypical pics as it handles, as you say, containers but the steel traffic is coils, loose scrap, bundled scrap as well as another part of the yard handling aggregates/sand traffic! It’s certainly somewhere I’ve been considering basing one side of the new layout on anyway

Worried about mixing your weathered and non weathered stock, fear not......

as i did to some old lima coaches, 2 years in the making and still nowhere near finished (TBH i’m tempted to start again with some oxford coaches)

I agree with Richard, I should imagine the vast majority of buyers will be happy with them straight out of the box and sandwiched between their NMT powercars, blanked off windows aren’t the perfect solution to real life “blanking” with metal but the sheer number of differences on the NMT coaches compared to a standard MK3 are huge, to re-tool a model would pretty much mean 5 new tools completely (ok maybe 4 as the 2 outer generator coaches are identical) and lets not not start on the interiors! had I not been lucky enough to have inside knowledge and access to the NMT as I used to drive it then I’d probably be happy to run a rake of off the shelf Hornby coaches with my powercars as they do look very smart (even though the livery is already out of date!) it needs a website address adding to each coach

Some from yesterday, bescot shunt again fuelled 66126 66748 on the ballast siding 66737 ready to depart for toton Then fuelled a DB 66, first one I’ve driven and back on the train maritime 66 last bit of the old down tower building was demolished yesterday too 37419 and 37059 waiting departure time to toton same again today and tomorrow

The 3 “missing” coaches to make up the NMT are a nice addition tempted to get them, blank the windows properly (not just printed on the glazing) and put the custom interiors i made for my Lima conversion into them

This should be fun for a retro game night, mini SNES with 21 classic games pre loaded, stuff like Mario kart and star wing, street fighter etc also anyone in the midlands looking for a Nintendo switch, clearance bargains (official Argos outlet) in Walsall have them in stock, 12 months warranty, as new for an amazing £149, that’s a saving over over £100 on the Argos catalog price

Bescot shunt this morning Lots of detail on the bogies and side of the GBRf 66 Getting to drive a lot of non GBRf locos on this turn! Then after 6 hours of that job it was over to Landor st to work a train to Leicester! one of freightliner’s ‘wasps’ in the container terminal And into Leicester with 66755 a walk back to the station past the depot Panorama shot bescot shunt tomorrow again, and for the rest of the week

If you want to model small writing then try this for size when the hattons 66s arrive

The mini is back on it’s bigger white alloys with 4 new tyres, looking nice combined with the lowering springs Also swapped the blain black 1/2 leather interior for a red/black set, just needs a damn good valet!

typically forgot my phone and ipad today so no piccies used both 08s, royal 67 in the yard and had one of the new ‘maritime’ blue 66s as a shunt loco! back on it tomorrow morning (just found out) and then a trip to leicester in the afternoon and i will remember my camera this time

Some from today, iport again 66 powering past saltley HST heading to new st that was it photo wise until I parked the loco up in decoy worried about having too many ‘celeb’ liveries, then fear not.... biffa large logo Cemex also there was 66782 in “GBRf railtour” livery then to the station and a panorama of a 331 unit bescot shunt on Monday, get to play 08s!!

Drool!! Wouldnt fancy the fuel bill in the uk but that’s a beast!

Plenty of pics of my minis in the new ‘modern classics’ thread!

Couple from yesterday, iport job Coleshill awaiting time in chesterfield and running round in iport same today but only one way