BoD

The branch line was originally going to return to the fiddle yard too but I decided to run it to a terminus station along the lines of Ian Futer's Lochside layouts. It would sit in front of the fiddle yard separated by a backscene. It would of course need a distillery - well it is Scotland. Unfortunately the first expression is due in 12 years - and will, of course, only available as miniatures Of course there will have to be a fishery And if you have a fishery there has to be a quayside to land fish and take out some the whisky in the early years. I have yet to pluck up the courage to finish it off and do the water. Something I'm not looking forward to. There are various facilities to fit Totally following rule 1 now, the railway buildings are based on those on the Mallaig extension. When I lose the plot I don't do it half measure!! Like I said earlier I feel I've enough to be working with and no need to start again

To progress things a little bit I took all of the buildings I have been working on over the winter and plonked them on the layout with some random stock. It showed me just how much there is to be done but I was quite pleased with it and I think there is potential and reinforces my decision to change expectations and continue. Whilst there I photographed things to help make a to do list. Excuse the eclectic mix of, mostly unweathered, stock.

Thanks Gordon. Yes, each time the layout and the work I was doing moved further from the original prototype and my ideal I become a bit more, not down, that would be going too far, but certainly dispirited. It was a choice - change the layout completely or change the ideal. Given there was quite a bit that is good about what I have done so far it was the ideal that suffered. I feel much more positive about the whole thing. It has suddenly become rule 1 applies - but within the constraint of being recognisably West Highland Line. I'm quite happy to stick to that constraint.

Yet

Given that we are railway modellers I would expect quite a few here aren’t.

Morning all Bright and sunny on the Costa del Durham. There is no snow forecast here and, unlike yesterday, no frost either. I have just been given one of the new plastic £20 notes*. Upon it is quite a good picture of ‘The Fighting Temaraire’ but the artist portrayed looks nothing like Timothy Spall who painted it. * it’s next month’s pocket money since you ask.

I hadn't thought of that as an explanation as to why I'm not seeing the ads. Has it been specifically stated that that is the case?

Interesting that - and food for thought.

Thanks for that Mark - and your encouragement. It was good to see Rannoch again. A beautiful layout. I may well be picking your brains about the viaduct before long, if I may. I was quite pleased the way the signal box turned out. Re the fading of the white - up to now I have tried to work from photographs. However, I have just noticed that I've painted the supporting bricks green. Now how on earth did that happen?

I don't get any adverts on my iPad. On my desktop the page is opening with a blank space to the right where the adverts are in Ian's post above. However the adverts don't appear and after a very short time the content frame extends to fill the full page width.

Life’s too short to wait for it to load let alone read it.

Try taking them with...….. erm…….. two sugars.

That’s because you’re reading it upside down.

Thanks for the supportive posts. After some deepish thought, some discussions here and elsewhere, and a visit to Model Rail Scotland I have decided that I quite like what I have even though it will never now be an accurate model of Crianlarich. I have already built some other buildings and certainly don’t want to waste the work done so far. So, I will go along with some of the thoughts here and move to something that is Crianlarich like but fictitious and most certainly West Highland based. It’s not a layout that is ever going to leave my loft and I think it will please me and keep me interested. If others like it, well that’s a bonus but not important. Hopefully the similarity to Crianlarich will still be very noticeable. Did you know that the West Highland originally built another junction station north of the snow shed above Rannoch with a branch line along the north side of Black Water to Kinlochleven. It was originally built to service the building of the dam and the aluminium smelter but also led to the building of a distillery and to other traffic. You didn’t? Well you heard it here first.

I saw this layout at Glasgow on Saturday and have to agree. It is superb.

Good morning all Yes, it was something like that, whithout which the whole post (and your follow up comment) is rather meaningless. The whole business was strange. I made the post and got an error page saying the site had timed out. When the site was viewable again there were three copies of the post so I edited two of them and reported them. Andy Y, or another moderator, deleted the two extra posts and the original remained. A couple of hours later I looked back and the original image had disappeared too. It had also gone from my ‘gallery’ so I couldn’t replace it. Obviously some others had seen it and quoted it before this happened. Ah the joys of I.T. Have a good day.

Can others see my image? It seems to have disappeared.

It blew me right past the Wedding show and into the Railway exhibition.

For the first time ever I have brought something back from a model railway exhibition to which Valerie has said "Oh, that's nice".

Good Morning all. Congratulations to the TophamHatt clan. White stuff is falling from the sky here. Gridlock will no doubt ensue. Today will be spent sorting and in some cases testing purchases made in Glasgow. Have a good day peoples.

I saw the Primo stand today and agree about the quality of the trees. i just wouldn’t like to fund even a small forest of them.

I have just landed back from Glasgow and had a most enjoyable time. I even managed to grab a a chat with Mick (NewBryford) although that did involve an exchange of coinage of the realm. There were some great layouts. However, for the first time I can remember I was hit twice. Once by a rucksack and once by a smell. Perhaps I’ve just been lucky up to now. There does seem to be two new types of punter that I have noticed of late too. Firstly the ones who just take a photo with a mobile phone, often thrusting it into other’s line of sight, and then quickly disappear without really looking at or watching the layout. They can’t all be there for just a short while or on their lunch break. Then there’s the ones with the video camera who insist on doing a pan shot of the full layout except they haven’t looked first and their lens ends up stuck up your left nostril by the time they’ve finished panning. Grumpy? Moi? I’m rather tired and so to bed. Goodnight all.

We've all been guilty of that. Especially after choir practice. Ah, those were the days.

Evening all. I'm happily (eh?) ensconced in a Premier Inn in Glasgow. I visited some friends today and will 'do' Model Rail Scotland tomorrow. I usually try to do it all in a day but this year I thought I would fit it over two. Much more civilised and relaxing. Book far enough in advance and Premier Inns arent too bad a price and they are more than adequate for somewhere to kip overnight. Weather is pretty bleak up here so I don't think I'll be hitting the town tonight.

Do as others here seem to be doing. Blame the dog.