Martin S-C

Great to see another pre-grouping project under way, and as others have said, a very unusual prototype. I shall watch with interest.

This strikes me (as it no doubt struck you) as an account from bitter personal experience. EDIT: Diana Rigg. Mm. Diana Rigg and JA in the same thread. This is proper railway modelling. Long may the off-topicness continue, I say.

I suspect, if the original was designed to protect the skull while out riding, that they had skull cap inserts, possibly metal, possibly hardened leather, so the hats of today may well not follow the original recipe. I am unashamedly going to steal the name 'Feral Gamekeeper' for a character on my railway.

I call fake. Those jackboots are not being lifted up anywhere high enough.

Good God. Telly Savalas as a WWI German officer. What was the casting director thinking? Which film is this, I must watch it just to try to understand the thought process!

Better than being called Tax. EDIT: Kevin - wow! What a difference in those last two shots. The building on the far right remains the same though, I think? What is the function of the big brick industrial looking structure centre stage? I might steal some ideas from that for my wood distillation works which had a similar big brick block.

These seem to offer some prototype potential. Though scaling them down to something more like this kind of thing.

Is that tank loco body sitting correctly on its chassis? It looks low at the front and raised at the back. Not criticising, just curious.

I think the style of headwear defines the character. Bowler = silent move baddie; German WW2 Officers Cap = something else entirely.

Those photos of track level on the main platforms are fantastic. My only suggestion would be to edit out the fishplates if you can.

I've ordered D604 in plain green. I have always liked HMS Cossack ever since I built the Airfix kit around 1967 or so...

I was unaware of the... timespan of this model's development.

Really? That long? That's 8 1/2 years!

Hi Cam. Good thinking... I had wondered how a 6" high retaining wall would appear and I agree with you it would look weird. I hadn't yet come to terms with how to make it seem more believeable. There is scope both above and below that inclined track to have some grassy embankment as well, though I worry that then it would look like the Union Pacific railroad through the rockies in 1870 or some such. There's space below for some earthen bank but your idea of partly raw rock above has given me something (good) to consider. At the right hand end the inclined track dives into a tunnel so I do have a fair excuse for a decent slab of rock for it to be negotiating the lower recesses of! The scene makes me think of the Ffestiniog so I shall scoot off to look at pics of that line where it's carried on a mountainside shelf. I'll also check out any rock outcrop or railway cutting examples in west Gloucestershire or Herefordshire as well.

I could stare at that double slip all day.

Today was a tale of two gradients. We worked on the grade that drops down from Puddlebrook to the MVR Exchange Sidings which is a 180deg sweep around the west end of the layout, a 2" fall at about 1 in 60. Next was the "cliffhanger" section of the main line rising from the colliery at +2" to Green Soudley station at +5", which clings to a retaining wall below the C&WW and above the Exchange Sidings. We played about using some apps on Neil's phone - a spirit level and a scaling tool. Neither was really accurate enough to be more than a diversion. The technology is impressive though. We tried a builder's string line around a series of supports to get the gradient on the 180deg curve but this didn't work. Simple measurement and maths between the support points won the day. Gradient complete from +2" (at right) down to +0" at left. The builders string level concept worked very well for the other gradient which, while it gently reverse-curves about a little, is overall effectively straight. We screwed level "semaphore arm" timbers at each support point so that their ends just brushed the taut line. Then on top of these arms we screwed the shelf, making sure at all times that the line was sitll taut under its own tension and never held down or lifted up. We found this a really quick method for a long straight-ish incline. The gradient frame starts to look like the Chernobyl Hilton. A quick clearances check. Testing retaining wall samples. These commercial products might work okay for the upper part of the grade but lower down the height change is too great. Here it will have to be some other solution. I haven't yet drummed up the courage to suggest Das clay and scribing... An alternative is resin and a rubber mould. Gradient complete. Compared to the curved one this was a doddle. Clearance check at the summit of the climb where the track dives into a second tunnel under the carriage sidings approach line (served from Nether Madder). A general view. I still think it looks like a river canyon. The bottom of both gradients. Where one ends, the other starts, more or less. About a yard of overlap and during this overlap both lines are in tunnels. The hill above will be decorated with railway workers cottages and a farm. The branch line will run in front. The MVR Exchange line climbing up to Puddlebrook Station. The left-most curved board carries the branch line from Ryehope (at far left) down to Witts End (behind camera). Its all about slopes at this end of the layout. Once again apologies for the diesel shunter, but its tall outline is perfect for loading gauge checks. Next Tuesday we'll tackle the main line gradient along the north layout edge from Puddlebrook via its tunnel to Snarling and the twin gradient tunnels of the branch from Catspaw Quarry around to Coggles Causeway and the hidden circuit line from Green Soudley down and underneath the eastern end of the layout where (below Armisford Mill) there will be an up and a down storage loop as well as a centre through line.

At the end of yesterday I was shattered and I didn't feel like we'd achieved that much. But after today, even though again I didn't think we'd pushed on that much, I realised that with the two days combined we really had something to show for it. Today Neil and I kept working clockwise on the station boards and dealt with the west end, NW corner and N side, meeting up with the boards we started on about three weeks back at Puddlebrook and Witts End to the right of the door. Today we got the rest of the colliery boards installed and the Puddlebrook boards where they cross the lifting flap. We then tackled the awkward west end with all the gradients, getting the +0 datum to +2" datum grade from Witts End to Ryehope Wood Distillation Works installed and beginning work on the Puddlebrook to MVR Exchange sidings gradient (+2" to 0"). This was our first go at any of the gradoents and they revealed themselves to be easier to do than I'd expected. Tomorrow we have two major grades to construct - finishing from Puddlebrook down to the MVR Exchange sidings and from the main line +2" level at the colliery up to the +5" height of Green Soudley. This last one is going to be fun. 1) Laying the main colliery board in the NW corner. 2) Putting the Puddlebrook (+2") level in across the lifting flap. 3) Laying the gradient across the lifting flap that runs west out of Witts End. 4) More of the gradient as the track curves towards the SW, still climbing. This is the start of the western tramway section. Gradient is about 1 in 35 on a 4ft radius curve. 5) Another view of the same from a higher level. Neil is in his usual troglodyte pose. 6) End of the day and an overall view of two day's work with paper plans and tools tidied away - first Catspaw Quarry left foreground, C&WW at far left, colliery under the far window and around to Puddlebrook across the door and under the right window. 7) And lastly, shifting the view a bit to the right showing the doorway lift flap, Puddlebrook and Witts End under the light switch and thermometer. We had lovely spring-like weather today. Even with the door wide open all day the temperature inside was 15 degrees C. Extremely pleasant tee-shirt weather.

I am still ruminating on the coaches. After a bit of a break to attend to a job "darn sarf", Neil returned today and together we pushed on with the raised boards to support various stations and industrial areas. Neil chose to work on the south side and south-west corner of the layout and we'll work clockwise around the room. My suggested plan of action is to get all the basic flat areas boarded over, all round the layout, except for those that cover tunneled tracks. This mainly means the central pair of main boards for the two termini, which are the highest and which go on last. We'll then link all these boards with gradients so that we can get a better idea of what the grades will be. Track will then be laid, electrified and tested on the gradients and finally, roof those gradients that are in tunnels over before the highest boards go on. As Cyril Freezer frequently said, "start at the bottom and work upwards". Here are some pics of the south side and south-west corner and a plan of where we worked today. Numbered arrows reference the photos. The blue area is a proposed (small) bank of lime kilns. Photo 2. My latest build, the tiny W&U luggage van (wheelbase is only 6 feet) came out to play. More on this build later. Photo 1, looking towards the carriage shed and carriage & wagon works raised area (datum +8"). In the foreground is Catspaw Halt with Catspaw Quarry where the drill is (datum +2") with between these two raised areas the fiddle yard/exchange sidings at datum +0". Photo 3. C&W Works raised area at the back, Catspaw Quarry in left foreground, first board for Green Soudley station in the left rear (datum +5"). Photo 4. Same view looking the other way. Green Soudley entry board at left, quarry under the drill, C&W Works at the rear. Photo 5. A view same as 3 but a bit further back showing the area under the drill where the Wood Distillation Works will be. This view gives a better idea of the relationship between Catspaw Halt at the front, the exchange sidings down in a shallow valley and the C&W sidings very high up at the back. A running line will be in front of the C&W Works on a 1 in 66 grade climbing away from camera from low down under this end of the yellow spirit level all the way to the Green Soudley board at extreme left rear. This is going to cling to a high retaining wall and should look a bit like parts of the Ffestiniog if it works as I hope. Photo 6. The SW corner showing the raised board going in for the end of the colliery reception and departure roads. Green spirit level front left is in same location as for photo 5. The foreground area is going to involve some complex arrangements of tracks on gradients and rising and falling ground. I'm very much looking forward to getting this area to work how I envisage it in my mind. Photo 7. The Catspaw, Exchange Sidings and C&WW boards with all the plans and clutter removed. Compare with photo 5. Photo 8. And from the other direction. Compare with photo 4. Photo 9. Looking west. Another raised board added under the colliery area. This will support all the reception/departure roads and the stabling siding. The "guts" of the colliery are just off-camera to the right. Wood Distillation Works are on the raised board at left front. Photo 10. Apologies for the Class 08 diesel but as its a very tall loco, we used it for loading gauge tests on the gradients and tunnel entrances. The bit of paper it's standing on represents the running line on a gradient from the SW colliery corner towards Green Soudley that'll hug a shelf above the exchange sidings and below the C&WW. You just need to imagine it's about 3" up in the air at this point. And a teaser:

Did you say working? I'm not sure much of that has happened for quite some while.

I saw this and thought of one of those slightly-bonkers teachers from Hogwarts. "That's right, Miss Granger - swish and... flick! Swish and... flick!"

I think from there we get "enthralled" which today means "fascinated" or "amazed/enchanted".

Better with, IMHO, though they are a bit wide.

Some neat carpentry work. I like the use of ply frame members as its easier to cut holes for the wiring looms - keeps all the cabling within the depth of the baseboard and reduces risk of damage to it.

The woodland in that last pic is simply beautiful. Something for the rest of us to aspire to. I have a couple of wooded areas planned on my layout and these pics are a real motivation to push my efforts beyond what I think I am capable of.

When you refer to the "Wells stub line" do you mean the harbour branch? I have visited Wells often on me hols and have liked the terminal station there and its double-reversal access to the harbour line. Something that is on my bucket-list of things to model (one day).