Neither Port Lucy nor Rome were built in a day

Since the last post most of my modelling time has been spent progressing the buildings for Port Lucy.

The loco shed is finished with just painting to do, the machine tools for inside are also waiting for the paint brush to visit before they are fixed inside. The water tower is also complete and primed.

The house is also just in need of painting.

One bedroom is furnished and illuminated.

The signal box awaits the attention of the paintbrush too, then glazing and the roof fixing on.

This flight of stairs will join the station level to the street ascending at the rear.

Last weekend was the Warley MRC show at the NEC in Birmingham where we had a publicity and sales stand from work. This means two nights and two days away from home. This has plusses and minuses, plusses are meeting up with loads of folk that I hardly ever see and having long chats. 

I got myself scanned by Modelu as did Dave Malton, hopefully I'll be driving a Bachmann 'Alice' before long.

On the PECO stand an early (and wrong) green England was spotted, A darker shade will be used for the finished item; confirmed by Hiroshi Kato himself.

One of my longer chats, with the lovely chaps at Dundas Models resulted in me buying a Minitrains Schneider diesel home. I thought I'd missed the boat with these, it fits right in with the other two maroon diesels.

 

The final bonus of a weekend in Birmingham is the availability of excellent and plentiful curry.

 

Building some buildings

 Well, I said I'd carry on updating this so here comes the next splurge. The next section goes here covering the area of the fiddle yard and the toolbox on the left. I've started gathering timber to start the baseboard but I'm still a bit in two minds how to approach this as the track plan will be reasonably complex. 

The basic shape of the new bit will be town at the back then railway and harbour at the front, to that end I've started assembling the buildings, I want to achieve that jumbled and unplanned look which real places have. It's tricky to plan the unplanned. These are the complete buildings, some have been in store since StRuth was dismantled and some are new.

I've also started construction of some new structures like this signal box and water tower.

The signal box is a laser cut kit designed to be a ground level structure but I've given it a brick plinth to stand on and have added a fully featured interior and will install interior lighting.

Here it is with a roof. The tiles are from Scale Model scenery and are laser cut. A first for me and I'm very impressed with the ease of making realistic slate roofs.

The other new build is an engine shed, I already had the left hand corrugated iron part from previous layouts but the right hand part is new. It is a laser cut mdf kit from Fair Price Models as used previously. I've now got a small stash of their kits to add to the town too. The roof is laser cut tiles again.

 Inside the new shed I've finally found a place for these rather nice 3d printed machine tools, again interior lighting will hopefully make them more visible.

On another subject and on the other layout I've had a visit from the new Bachmann Hunslets, Blanche and Britomart. Both are lovely models and I'm looking forward to adding a Linda and a cabless quarry loco as and when they appear. Rewind a few years and these would have seemed like science fiction and yet here they are.

A year later…

 Well then, time passes when you’re having fun and what with one thing and another I haven’t posted anything on here in just about a year. Sorry about that team. 

It hasn’t been hugely busy in The Island in this time but there have been a few developments; the quarry has a loco shelter and there are lots more trees. 

The layout featured in Model Rail magazine which is very flattering as were the excellent photos taken by Chris Nevard. 

Arnold Lane Wharf has left me and been passed onto a young modeller of my acquaintance as I needed room to build my new exhibition layout called Bont. Bont is Welsh for bridge and the layout features a big bridge. 

I have temporarily changed to modelling a Welsh slate railway again because apart from anything else I have acquired a fair amount of appropriate rolling stock which isn’t at home on the Isle of Stoner Railway. It’s pretty much finished with only a couple of bits left to do and I’m quite pleased with the result. It’s supposed to be set on a November day in the mid 1930s which makes a nice change from the eternal summer of the Island. Hopefully this will get out and about to the odd show as it’s nice to meet up with fellow modellers and have a good old natter. 

So what’s next for me and 009? Well I have a stack of part finished models that need my attention but also I’ve decided that the final instalment of the Isle of Stoner needs to be built. This is the other terminus of the Underhill branch, namely Port Lucy where the branch line meets the main line to StRuth. A recent family holiday to Staithes in Yorkshire rekindled the idea; it was the original inspiration for Underhill and indeed the backscene features it. However Underhill didn’t come out quite how I intended so I’ll have another go. I’m in the early planning stages really but have started to assemble the buildings which will be a combination of kit built and modified ready to plant ones from Skaledale and Scenecraft. 

Just some of the assembled buildings 

I shall keep the blog up to date while this build continues, it maybe a while before construction of baseboards commences though as it’s a bit chilly in the garage and I can’t afford to heat it now for reasons I don’t need to go into here. Anyway, lots more buildings to make etc. 

Trying to get locos to run properly

This week I've been endeavouring to sort out a couple of locos that don't run as well as I'd like. The first one being the Narrow Planet/Minitrains 0-6-0 Bagnall. Mine is named 'Jim' after our cat, here the similarities end.

The chassis has always been rather hesitant so I decided to dismantle it and get it going, I thought the problem lay with the pickups as it seemed to run freely enough without the worm gear engaged. I duly took it apart and bent the pickups out slightly to ensure better contact with the wheels. Then came the nightmare of fiddlieness of reassembling it. There was a lot of swearing and giving up and having another go before I finally had a chassis with all the pickups behind the wheels and the quartering looking right... The bloody thing still barely drags itself along the track so something is wrong somewhere. I'll pluck up the courage to look again soon. It is gear driven all through so maybe taking the pins out of the middle wheels will help?

While I was at it I decided that it deserved a better paint job and a few extra details adding, so I took it apart as best as I could without causing any extra work and cleaned it up with needle files and fine emery. 

I'd made a reasonable job in the first place but the colour was too dark for such a tiny loco, here it is ready for some paint.

Here is is refinished in the maroon colour that I use for diesels and carriages usually. Much nicer.

I also added brass port hole surrounds from RT Models and glazed it with Glue n Glaze. I also pained the motor and flywheel in matt black to make it less visible as I seemed to have missed that in the initial build.

I used the slotted port hole covers for the rear of the cab, adds a touch of something. I just need to get the blooming thing to run properly now.

The other engine I've had a poke at is my Bachmann 'Dolgoch' which has always had a rather lumpy gait as though something was rubbing somewhere on each rotation of the motor. It runs but lacks control because of this. I suspect it is my fault from when i did the conversion, when I stripped the paint I misunderstood the instructions and melted the plastic footplate part so it has always been a bit of a bodge. 

I've fiddled around but am no nearer curing the problem.

It is a shame as I'm very pleased with the look of the loco, 'Dolgoch' being one of my favourite prototypes. I shan't give up on it.

Also this week I've had a visit from three double Fairlies... 

These are the Bachmann models which I've been biting my tongue about since they were measured up some years ago. I'm very happy to say that they are lovely models of prototypes which I have no desire to own, therefore protecting my wallet.

Having said that, I have rather been taken by the original build condition 'Merddin Emrys'...

Something which I could afford and have been waiting for for an almost equally long time is an L&B bogie brake van from PECO. Dave Malton has made an absolutely cracking job of it, test runs suggest it will be very useful on passenger trains. It needs a few little modifications to make it belong to the IoSR, like a less white roof and less L&B logos. Will be an enjoyable evenings work.