Warley and all that

I've been very busy over the last couple of weeks so I haven't actually done very much modelling as it has just been the annual Birmingham curry and trains bash which is Warley. I was not with a layout unless you count the F&WHR as a toy train.

This was our stand before the onslaught on Sunday morning

Before  Warley I had started work on a couple of locos... I know, more locos? The most important one being one of the new Chris ward 3D printed Baldwins. A lovely bit of CAD and printing to match. Chris had sent me this print as it has a slight fault with the print on the rear of the cab but it will be easily remedied with a styrene filet. It is supposed to fit on an old style Farish chassis but looking at the drawings and pictures in Roy Link's superb WDLR Album I reckoned that the closest chassis (and conveniently I had one in my drawer) was an 04. With a bit of judicious filing inside the body it fitted beautifully. The wheelbase isn't quite correct and obviously it needs a pony truck and valve gear but its as close as I can get.

One of things I bought at Warley was a valve gear set from Mr T. I don't have a great history with valve gear but I'll give it a shot as the result could be really nice. While at the RT models stand I also bought a couple of Dinorwig slate wagon kits which look very nice.

The other loco in the works at the moment is still in a state of flux. The chassis is a very good old style Minitrix dock tank 0-6-0 which I bought off evilbay in a moment of madness. It could go one of two ways at the moment: The idea I had initially was to replicate the very first 009 loco I ever made (which ran) which was a dock tank with bigger cab and fittings which actually looked quite nice, long gone now but I did like it. The other possibility is to build a Varikit which I have to hand. Only time will tell.

009 is experiencing a surge in ready to run models like never before and on the Heljan stand were the first concrete evidence of their much vaunted L&B locos which look promising. Delivery looks like being this time next year... so time to save up.

PECO have been the first into the fray of RTR 009 and their coaches and wagons and vans have done very well, this has lead to them adding to the range. First to arrive in the shops will be flat wagons and bolsters. The lovely people at PECO have lent me set of each to put in the shop window but on their way to Porthmadog they've had a stop over on the Isle of Stoner.

Very nice they are to, having shunted them about Underhill to get them into a good place for photographing, I can confirm that they run as nicely as the rest of the stock. I can foresee the flat wagons becoming the underframe of many scratch built vehicles. My grey matter is already churning.

Most of my spending at the exhibition was on bits and bobs like chimneys for houses and so on but I was also tempted by a coach and a van by Technomodel. I believe they are of Dutch prototypes but i just thought that they would look nice with the Minitrains loco. I would have bought another coach but they only had the one.