Rolling progress

I had the visit from Werner and his friends from Germany which was a good excuse to play trains for the evening. They visited Underhill and St Ruth and said nice things about both bits which was nice. They also left me a bag full of presents including some Preiser people which are always splendid, a Lilliput beer wagon which needs converting to a more local ale and a kit for a very small pedal powered track inspection trolley. This has parts so tiny that I am frightened to set about it, it is definitely not a job for the lap tray so I'll wait till my workbench is less cluttered and make it there. Very nice of them, they also brought calendars and books and magazines too.

Since then I've progressed with the new loco somewhat, having done some filling and added handrails. I've also had a fiddle with the chassis but not had time to test it yet.

I had the urge to build something simple yesterday so I built a Ninelines W&L cattle wagon to add to the livestock train. I haven't built a kit as nature intended for ages and it was a very pleasant experience.

Also moved from the started but not finished pile is the Neil Rushby resin coach that I've been building all year. I decided that the previous approach with bogies looked wrong so I removed them and added the spare chassis from a VoR brake van and the spare running boards from the cattle wagon kit, it looks much better and runs better too. Needs a couple of things adding and then some paint.

While I was in the mood to fettle chassis I took the Tomix Percy bash chassis apart and had a jiggle with some bits so I need to test that too. I hope that I've un broken it as the loco looks nice but so far doesn't run very well.

No pics to post but I've a day off on Tuesday so hope to make some progress and add some then. Have a happy Easter.

Next step

I removed the toolbox and like it. I've also had a crack with the filler.

I'm growing attached to Nancy

A tender behind?

I'm still snowed in so have had a small fiddle with the new loco. I've also tried out what it would look like with a tender borrowed from Prince for the pictures.

I quite like it but is a little bit too big, slightly too wide and little too long. Anyway I was trying to build a little loco.

I've done the handrails and the smokebox handle which I made from a large handrail knob and a short bit of wire. The handrails for the cab are fine but it was only after I'd finished doing it that I noticed the knobs were different designs on each side but it will never notice.

Originally I liked the toolbox on the buffer beam but I might remove it and see how I feel then.

Snowed in again

I was supposed to be at work today but the arctic blizzard outside put paid to that. The snow was shooting past the house at about 900mph... maybe a slight exaggeration; whatever the speed it had turned out well for me as all I could do was light the fire and set up the layout in preparation for a visit from the chief engineer of the WEKbahn later in the week.

The view from our kitchen window between snowy blasts

Once I'd had good operating session I decided that now I should be allowed to get back to making something. I started a Varikit bash some time ago which turned into Staithes and used virtually none of the kit so the rest of the kit was lurking about as was a Graham Farish 03 chassis.

Staithes at Underhill

I had a dry run the other night to see if something could be done to combine the two and it looked promising. Having spent so much time looking at Englands at work recently I've involuntarily come up with a sort of six wheeled mid period England type thing.

Plenty still left to do, filling and cleaning up the file marks for a starter. Then a fixing to join chassis to body, I think a small hole in the chassis and a small screw up into the smokebox should do it. It also needs some more weight adding as low down as possible as it is a bit top heavy. Hand rails for the cab and filler for the front indentations as I only want them at the cab end, might be a bit tricky fitting them to the back sheet.

I've got rid of the the jackshaft from the chassis and added a pair of cylinders but I haven't had the nerve to go to the garage to find some Minitrix piston rods which I think will be about the right size.

I quite like the chunky little thing, I decided to put an earlier version of this... thirty years earlier... on eBay this week as I never run it but I liked the general arrangement of that which is quite similar. It continues my 'one in, one out' policy with locos.

Continuing the England look I might see how a tender looks behind it. I've got a spare Langley one somewhere. I should be at work tomorrow, weather permitting but otherwise I might crack on with this. Name is to be Nancy.

Grace Alice with the new Parkside Dundas VoR coach and van bash 

A PECO r-t-r L&B wagon in action

Grim up north

Actually, once we got out of the 2 hour traffic jam on the M62 it wasn't at all grim up north. I've just got back from Leeds via Porthmadog so I thought I'd put up a couple of pics of the layout in action.

One of the nicest things was meeting up with old friends and meeting the people my wife call my 'imaginary friends'; ie people I know from the NGRM forum and the 009 society.

One exciting guest to the island was one of the new PECO L&B coaches as seen above. It was slightly too long for this part of the IoSR and the platforms were too near the track so the running boards didn't quite fit, however a rake of them will be marvelous for the mainline. It ran very well and looks brilliant I also had a close look at the saloon which also looks very fine. Many thanks to Vulcan for the visit, I'm sure PECO will do very well with these and the wagons.

A couple more general views during a quiet moment. I was fortunate to be able to hand over the controls to Paul Windle for a while so I could get lunch and have a wander, so many thanks to him and to Peter Kirkby for inviting me along. Time for bed, said Zebedee... boing.

Some more pics

The new PECO wagons arrived at work today so I bought some home to test. They are great, I can't wait for the coaches and the unliveried wagons. Anyway, I put some new batteries in the camera and took some more pics.

Next job is to pack it all up ready for the trip to Leeds at the weekend...  See you there.

Sky V3

I've been dashing about the country for work in the last couple of weeks so i haven't had much time for modelling but this weekend I've snatched a few hours with the result that I've added some coping stones to the top of the big wall behind the nursery and applied another new sky.

I remembered that I had still got the remains of the Auhagen sky paper that I bought for St Ruth and which I used for the 'Underhill' end of this layout. It is printed on much thicker paper than the Gaugemaster stuff I've had so little joy with. Anyway, looks better and it is a more saturated blue which works better with the rest of my colour palette.

I'm pretty happy all round now, except that the main point at 'Underhill' makes most things stall on it but only heading right to left as you look at it. I had some bother with the point a while ago and I had to rebuild it in-situ so I'm guessing it has something to do with that... still got a few days to fiddle around.