All sorts of odds and ends have been happening up in the railway room, with not a lot of room to move around!

Michael has nearly finished his module.  Almost all his own work, with advice from dad.  Hopefully it will still work after ballast and scenery and be ready for the ESNG open day.

Where I did help was the tree making.  The trees I had in the scenery box were pretty nasty.  Rather than buy some new ones, I thought it was time to learn how to make trees.  A twist of masking tape around the trunk, and a lot of foliage material and they look amazingly better.  I couldn’t tell you the species, but that’s a step too far.  They are now planted in a small wood on one corner of the module.

 Next job, a little rewiring of my end loops, to allow two trains to be held on a loop.  The switches are half-hidden by the existing small hill.  I tested them today, linked to another module, and something seems a bit wrong.  I shall have to have another go at the wiring when my brain is working!  I did also replace the tunnel mouth that was damaged coming home from Stuttgart last year.

I have been distracted again by a couple of aircraft kits in 1/48 scale.  There are one of my favourite aircraft, a bf-108 from Eduard, in 1936 air race colours, and an Airfix Sea Fury, in Australian navy colours.  Both are excellent kits, fitting together with little trouble and little filler needed.  

Finally, I am completing a project started under covid lockdown.  I half built two N Gauge Society Gresley full brake coaches, but was very unhappy with the results.  Recently, Isinglass have started to make LNER coaches in N, 3D printed in resin.  I bought a wooded and a steel brake coach, and the end results are pretty good – much better than the NGS one.  These kits can have their own chassis, or clip onto Dapol Gresley underframes.  The Dapol bogie centres are wrong, but only by a couple of millimetres – frankly you can’t see difference.  I still have to finish the decals (from the NGS kit) and glaze them and add the roof.

Next job – some NCI loops (once I get the NClub loops working!)