big jim

some from last night and this morning 3 66s passing through hereford LM 170 175 heading north and this morning, 60096 heading off to baglan LM 150

Here are the buildings i got, all Hornby skaledale And as i say they are somewhat bigger than I anticipated when placed on the layout, the main problem one being the metromart, its a lot deeper than i thought, absolutely no way they will all fit in the space i had intended So a jiggle round gives me this, metromart and corner shop to the left and the estate agents over on the station entrance side Looking closer at the corner shop and metromart i recon i can get away with the layout there by imagining that the buildings used to continue along but were demolished to make way for the bus stop area, similarly the metromart building used to have a building to the right with was demolised to make way for the bus stop exit road A couple of street views On the rear wall i'll move the low relief bank forward to the edge of the estate agent building so it's parallel with the road I can then simply fill in the triangular void with brick card down the side next to the estate agent and add roofing back to the shed wall The only building i will have lost from the original layout will be the bookshop

I'll have to try that However john has very kindly sent me a PDF of just yellow lined roads with the lines continuing to the ends of the print, with any lick i'll have a play with them tomorrow

I never realised that either, the inbound working comes from swansea via the HOW as well

Im glad its a late one, wouldnt be able to do the round trip otherwise

picked up the buildings i had put aside for me at C and M, i think i may have underestimated the sizes somewhat, i can work round it but may have a building left over, pics to follow tomorrow!

indeed, thought it was you as i passed by (going by your avatar) changed it over at Warrington in the end, preston were happy that it was there and lit (if somewhat dimly)

some from today, road learning and assessing, didnt bother with the proper camera passenger to carlisle desiro heading to manchester airport 47826 on the rear of a buxton to carlisle charter pendolinos passing 66302 on 6K05 and my train into platform 1 that was it til hellifield farrington curve Jn and into Warrington Bank Quay hereford-chirk-hereford tomorrow, bit of a killer job but passing out a driver on the route so doing the whole lot!

didnt pay much attention sorry, did spot 28xx, black 5 and a deltic though

Cash generator in carlisle has a load of different models from the series still in the blister packaging but no mags £5.99 a piece!

Better to be safe than sorry, even just a few inches over could result in a please explain! Must admit though, never seen em blue, always been yellow where i experience them

some from crewe while i was en route to cardiff voyager 325 units 175 66041 and pullman coach 153 heading for swansea desiro station view pendolino's 66 departing

Just on my way down to cardiff but in the meantime heres is a 'prototype for everything' picture 66041 and pullman car on a 5Z66 warrington arpley to crewe holding sidings move

Was hoping to have a day in the shed today but ive got to pop down to canton with one of my drivers so i can be assessed instructing him on class 60s and hopefully finally pass my instructors course Made a powerpoint presentation about the basics of class 60's, got to makenit last 15-20 mins which i think i have managed, i can expand on the slides as i go along if i feel its going a bit quick Its important i pass the course as the week after next im needed to instruct for real on a particular class of loco, not one ive done before, im being trained on them next week and with any luck working one the following weekend so they should be fresh in my head if nothing else, cant say what type of loco it is though! Just heading off to the station to get the train to cardiff

Useful pics of the sidings there beast

I noticed that last week while buying something else on there, i think if i do replace the existing building i'll just use the frontage as it will give me a touch more room in the yard, if i did use the add on bit i'd have to cut it down so it is shallower or it wouldnt fit in the corner

some from today, engineers job near tackley looking back towards enslow, im sat wrong line and just outside tackley the train in front which was sitting in tackley station having its load levelled the train was sat on the emergency crossover so as to clear the pedestrian crossing at the south end of the station, frieghtliner 66 on it with one of nidge's rugby work collegues (ian) driving once he was out of the way i crossed over too and after a brake test and getting the paperwork in order i headed off towards the set of next worksite marker boards at heyford to wait for permission to pass through the site once the boards were lifted it was away to aynho to leave that worksite and then exit the possession towards banbury followed the freightliner train all the way from banbury as he was late, we both had similar weights (1890 tons) and lengths of train (1900ft, 76 slu) and it was amazing to see how much more grunt the 70 had over the 66, i cruised along on double yellows at about 35 mph in notch 4 as he climbed gently towards fenny compton where aproaching there i got greens as he had pulled away from me on the downhill gradient and was more than likey up to 60mph before bishops itchington, i didnt catch him again until half way up hatton bank where he was obviously having a struggle, i hit the bottom of the bank at 50mph on greens but got restrictive aspects half way up, i paced it right so i was running on a minimum of double yellows, i breached the top of the bank at 40mph (and still accellerating) at about 1/2 power on greens (again as he had pulled away on the downhill bit), the 70 was barely breaking a sweat an uneventful journey from there, passed earl of mount edgecombe at castle bromwich, i had to wait for him to clear the single line lead round to sutton park, had i been stopped at the signal i'd have got a pic but unfortunatly i was on the move towards the red at the time it passed and into bescot, ready to chop the loco off and over to the reception sidings, looking very lost on its own! and that was that

im hoping to get in there tomorrow and tuesday for a few hours as im rest day, going to crack on with the coping stones around the town, fix the backscene in place and i may well have a look at the road coming down the bridge and around the fast food outlet and low level station entrance, i was wondering how to get an effective base layer for the roads in that area as there are lots of baseboard joins etc, but i recon i'll go for a 1mm thick card base as ive done on the top as it appears to work well also today i bought Hornby mag which very handily has a scalescenes low relief bus depot frontage so i may measure it up to replace the low relief factory, if not i'll certainly be using the door elements from the kit it to add double decker bus height doors to the rear of the existing factory

an afternoon in the shed, carried on with the town area cleared everything off there is a paper supply shop in dagfields who sell all sorts of card etc, popped in there earlier and piced up come 1mm and 1.5mm card in massive sheets as well as a ream of 1mm card for kit building, to start with i glued the 1mm card to the wood and cut it down to suit, next up i placed the roads i printed off from scalescenes where i wanted them and stuck them down then i placed the pavements in place next up i cut the base for the pavements from the 1.5 mm card to which i glued the pavements to then i did the centre bit, part way through, still needed to glue the corner stones down, i also added a few road marking elements then i did the back bit, i was going to pave the lot but ive decided to make the bit around the buildings a different texture , not decided what yet, i'll have a look on scalescenes later picked up some railings at the lichfield show earlier from the topps trains stand which im going to use as pedestrian safety railings (need paining silvaer before fitting also picked up this little set from loughborough model centre in the week, despite it being a dublin bus set it will be adaptable for use on the layout a few taxis waiting at the rank as well, need to add brick paper to the rear of the walls as well as the coping stones and a bit of extra walling on top of the low level station station building i have a couple of extra buildings kept to one side for me at C+M models which will go in front of where the yellow mini is stood hence why ive not paved that area as it will probably be a rear court yard for the shops im going to place there there will be things like traffic lights, road signs, bins etc to add in due course in the other corner of the layout the low relief industrial building is going to be a classic bus workshop (as i have an eclectic collection of buses!)

can i ask for something simple please... can you re-arrange/revise the layout of your roads, bought a set last week and i'm going to have an awful lot of waste (of ink too) pavement 1 - OK pavement 2 - OK Tarmac 1 -remove the city and arrows from the left hand road, that would then give you 2 "normal" roads on one sheet, i've had to adapt the one way to be able to use it as a 2 way street Tarmac 2 - ive not used so can't suggest how to change it Tarmac 3 - again a wasted road for me on it as i've no use for the "red route" but i need yellow lines, so have to print out an unused road (unless i adapt it but i want to avoid real life cut and paste), how about single a sheet of yellow lined road, possibly one side with the lines continuing to the end of the print to be able to join them up with minimal waste Tarmac 4 - used these elements without issue, however (being i dont know road marking protocol that well) would the zebra crossing have any side lines leading up to it, i have had to cut some off the edges of Tarmac 1 Tarmac 5 - yet to use these but will be later this afternoon Tarmac 6, could these have kerbside markings added too Plain Tarmac - OK

Its not as exciting as it seems! Up and down like a wh***es drawers as im on a big loco rather than a shunter, back to it in a min after a well deserved break

Nice morning here in the midlands, just discovered from another thread there is a model railway exhibition on in lichfield so once i finish what im doing here im going to have a drive over there and have a look, only 25 mins from where im working and being as the wife and kids are away this weekend i'm not in a rush to get home Hopefully i may pick up some bargains from the club sales stand Other than that having a morning shunting lots of wagons round ready for various trains later in the week

some from today had to drop a van off in derby and spotted this 57605 couple of marcus37s steeds so it was up to doncaster to collect a couple of 60s, the same ones that were there when i took 60002 up there on monday, problem being i was blocked in by 60002 so i had to move that first before i could get to the other 2, moved it to one side, shut it down and got the other pair ready to roll into the station to change ends in platform 2 before heading south towards up decoy, through the yard and over to St catherines jn where i changed ends again, a proper pain in the bum as the isolation cocks to allow me to drag the rear loco dead were in the middle cabs so every change end involved getting up and down from the loco 4 times! St catherines Jn and round to hexthorpe jn where i sat for 20 mins to wait for my path old and new logos and off to toton, ended up on the fuel plant with them and that was that, off to a hotel for the night as im in early tomorrow and would have gone well over 12 hours if i went home

Noticed that the other week when i was on it, the give away is the extra holes for the side steps

Just one from a workmate today, 37057 in derby en route to the rtc