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I spent the weekend in Birmingham for the Warley MRC show at the NEC. Generally speaking I'd rather not be there as I have to spend three days for work; setting up and then supervising the F&WHR stand. On the plus side I get to see what's new, have a look for any good layouts and have very good curry two nights in a row. It is also nice to meet up with loads of old friends and have a good natter.

This is Heljan's Lyn. Looks great but will all the motion fall off?

PECO bug boxes... one day they will be available

Afore mentioned curry in the Polash, Coleshill. Highly recommended. Dave's face seems to have melted

Inside the NEC... ugh.

However, the upside of spending the weekend working is that I had today off and so I started work on my new project on the layout. This is to change the section of dodgy track and in the process add a bridge over a stream.

The section of dodgy track has been isolated with the trusty Dremmel.

Track out

Modifying the baseboard with a jigsaw

The riverbed hole

I've also added another strip of scenery at the front of the quarry board

Once the gap in the baseboard was cut I glued a piece of wood under it

Glued and clamped in place so I then dug into the plaster scenery to create a streambed and added pieces of foam board to form the riverbank. The idea of the new bridge is to give somewhere to photograph trains where the scenery is lower than the track. Watch this space for progress.

Van debter

This week I have been mostly building some wagons and a nice little brake van. The van was a kit I ordered from evilbay on a bit of a whim; I've mentioned my brake van addiction before and this helps feed my problem. I didn't realise that it was a Tom Bell design although it looked familiar. It turns out to be part of a new range of kits designed by him and printed by a partner.

When it arrived it came with no instructions in a little bag, neither thing a problem. The parts needed a little cleaning up on their edges with a needle file but otherwise all was well. 

It fitted together nicely, the only part not printed was the roof which was a piece of styrene sheet which needed cutting to size and banding to shape, not too onerous. On reflection I should have painted and glazed it before attaching the roof. In the end I used Glue n Glaze to do the plain end and left the balcony ones unglazed as you can't really see them.

I added a few details such as vac pipes and a chimney for the stove and the job was done, I really like the proportions of it and it suits the smaller rolling stock very well.

At the same time as building the van I decided to complete the rake of 009 Society kits I bought at ExpoNG and to add a little variety I added a tarpaulin support to one.

With a squirt of primer

and then painted

The first wagon has the tarpaulin fitted over the support. A sheet of printer paper folded and stuck with superglue and then painted to look like mucky tarpaulin.

The Germans are coming...

Having been busy in the so called, real world recently I haven't had a lot of time to progress the dozens of things I'd like to get on with on the layout. The biggest and probably most obvious one of these is the sorting out of a backscene for the new bit. I have a tame printer who will be able to print it for me but I still need to find an image, basically just sky.

 

 

One weekend was occupied with a trip down South to Swanley to visit ExpoNG with the F&WHR marketing stand. It was a cracking good show with many inspirational layouts. As ever at events such as these it is also good to meet up with lots of people that you only meet in real life at shows. Much nattering was done and the wallet got a little bit frightened when it was required to purchase a couple of the lovely Technomodelle coaches. The nicest of which is this articulated pair; I also bought a single 4 wheeler.

 

I spent a happy evening adding a little paint detail and weathering to the new stock and also finally glazed the third of the TR coaches. Each one is painted slightly differently as each time I thought I remembered what I'd done before and was too lazy to check. Each one and the van have come out nicely but it's just as well that I'm not OCD about carriage liveries matching.

The articulated pair looks rather good with the Minitrains Decauville

But then again the Brigadelok is probably more suitable

It seems to be a time for black locos as the Barclyfied Krauss also seems rather at home

Another black loco paid a brief visit this week too; it's the lined black version of Lyd from Heljan. I have to say it is a very fetching finish and completely suited my maroon PECO L&B coaches. However, I had to give this one back so someone can make a purchase from the shop.

 

One non-modelling but related project that I've been working on is the extended history of the Isle of Stoner. It now contains details of island life all the way back to the stone age. I still have a little more work to do on it but I will eventually add it this blog. The map has had a few subtle tweeks too and this is now displayed at the head of the blog.