John Ott’s Old-Time Railroad Models & HO Scale Projects

Posted on October 10, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

HT to a link on the always interesting ‘Prince Street Terminal’ blog.

Just occasionally I come across a model railroad site that just inspires.  John Ott’s site fits all too well into this category.  He models late 19th / early 20th century American railroads and his layouts are sometimes weird (the HP Lovecraft references) but invariably wonderful.  The scenery and especially the buildings are beautifully detailed.  John Ott writes….

THE CITY OF ARKHAM
… Won’t win any civic beauty awards. The model is supposed to represent one of those smoky, dirty, busy American east coast cities at the turn of the twentieth century.  Arkham is a combination of scratchbuilt, kitbashed, and straight kit buildings. Several have been salvaged from my previous layouts. All of Arkham’s streets are kinky—they all have twists and bends, which means the blocks are irregular and the building lots are largely trapezoids— just as in real-life Massachusetts.

The rolling stock is equally interesting, much as early UK stock is, but pride of place must go to the carriages.  John Ott again says….

Until the dreaded Eastlake style simplified everything in the late 1880s-1890s, passenger cars were ostentatiously decorated with gilt, paint, carving, and marquetry in order to show off the host railroad’s financial well-being, attract patrons with superficial luxury and finally, to distract them from the very real discomforts of late 19th century train travel.

I’m not sure I’m interested in this era, but can certainly learn from an expert modeller at work!  I’ve pinched a couple of pictures of the site as a taster below.  But please do go and see for yourself.

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ESNG Exhibition 2016

Posted on October 8, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

The trouble with being an exhibition manager is that as soon as one show is over, you have to start planning for the next.  And as such it is almost impossible to resign from the job, as you are starting the next show even as the dust is settling from the last one!

However, I did have a couple of months off after the 2015 bash, then realised I had better start getting 2016 organised.  A string of emails and phone calls later, we might just have a fully booked show again, and I think it might be one of our better ones.

We’ve fixed the date – April 9th 2016 – and booked St Joseph’s school again, as it has worked so well for the past two years.  And what’s on display?  (Assuming we don’t get the same number of drop-outs as last year – all totally reasonable, but I’m due a little luck.)

The three modular layouts went down very well last year so we’re doing it again.  Our own display will include a mix of N-mod (4 track) and N-club (2 track) modules:

  • ESNG N-mod and N-club modular layout.
  • Berkshire NGS group N-mod modular layout.
  • West Sussex NGS group N-mod modular layout.

Stand alone layouts from the club include:

  • Leonard (modern SR)
  • St Chant (BR/SR)
  • St. Elizabeth Street (modern BR)
  • Kato Racetrack (Japan – bigger and better with more bullet trains)

Visitors include;

  • Azuza Street (USA switching layout)
  • Brighthampton (BR/SR)
  • Southbridge (GWR)

We have the same selection of traders as last year:

  • BH Enterprises (for the bits and pieces you never knew you needed)
  • Invicta Model Rail (for all the latest releases)
  • JB’s Model World (for your blue storage boxes)
  • NScaleCH (for second-hand Swiss and others)
  • Winco (European ‘N’)
  • Ian Grace

And last but not least, we have:

  • The N Gauge Society Stand
  • The ESNG second-hand shop

I think it will be a good show!  I now need to find time to finish my N-club modules (I seem to say this every year!)

2016 flyer single

 

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Dorking MRC Exhibition 3-4 October 2015

Posted on October 6, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

No rest for the wicked!  Another busy weekend, exhibiting at Dorking MRC’s show over in Dorking.  Appropriately, it’s in the Oddfellows Hall, perfect for model railway enthusiasts.  This is a small but friendly venue and show, but sufferers from being on the first floor, so there is no wheelchair access.

As I’ve reported, a lot of the ESNG members were away this weekend, so instead of a modular layout, I just took along all 4′ of Earl’s Wood, and shuffled and shunted a goods train and an RDC all day – or at least when punters were around.  The layout behaved reasonably well, and the foamboard fiddle yard worked fine.  However, it will need some repairs where I leant on it.  Or perhaps I will finally get around to building a train turntable – I got tired of swapping locomotive and caboose in the fiddle yard.  A third train would also give a little more variety.  Still, it was a fun weekend, and I got plenty of complements for the layout.

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Dorking MRC’s layout, Ranmore Junction, is an excellent model of BR/SR days, with mainly green, blue and blue and grey EMUs running.  The layout also features realistic third rail, and this lovely Southern era signal box.  I wish Hornby would shrink their 2-BIL down to N.

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Our friends from the West Sussex Group were there with a room full of N-gauge, centred around their excellent model of the Lyme Regis branch.  Not quite modelled realistically, as I don’t think they’d have got a West Country 4-6-2 around the tight curves the branch was famous for, let alone across Cannington Viaduct.  But once again, rule 1 applies – it’s my railway and I’ll do what I want with it!

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Other layouts included OO, O, and OO9.  Some nice modelling on view.  I was wondering whether I was more tempted by a Dapol O gauge Terrier, a Heljan O gauge 4-wheeled railcar, or an OO Metropolitan Bo-Bo electric.  I bought some N American wagons instead.

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Finally, the Dorking club layout took the opportunity to rival ESNG Paul’s long train award.  A 59 car Southern Region EMU will take some beating.  If running on our local line, it would be stopping simultaneously in Redhill and Earlswood!

 

 

 

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ESNG meeting – 1 October 2015

Posted on October 4, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Well, the meeting was buzzing tonight.  13 members present, and it all got a bit much for the treasurer with so much money to collect, so he took a break to lock up the school.  the chairman didn’t make it due to dodgy knees and an early round.  Is it coincidental that whenever he can’t make it, numbers go up?  Surely not!

Here we see a number of the amusing little ESNG members in their natural habitat….  Whoops, touch of the David Attenboroughs.  Honest John was testing a number of delightful Grey Goose Mouse (or should it be geese mice) units.  I understand these were pioneer overhead electric units, capable of working off four supply voltages, with multiple pantographs to suit.  Paul was running a mix of bullet trains and other Japanese multiple units.  Some of the ‘normal’ commuter units are again good looking trains.

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Derek had an old Graham Farish 4-4-0 and four wheel coaches in Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway livery.  It ran very well for much of the evening without overheating or any other old Farish tricks.  This blue livery always looks very smart, but the real interest in the line was it’s joint ownership between the Midland and LSWR, later LMS and Southern.  This provided an eclectic mix of stock that makes a very good model.  The line was closed, probably unwisely, during the 1960’s.

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Finally, Simon had a large American steamer on show with a long train of oil tankers.

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This will cut you down to size?

Posted on October 2, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

My latest copy of the British NMRA region magazine, Roundhouse, has an interesting article by David McLaughlin…..

Honey, I shrunk the Railroader!

Have you ever dreamed of being trackside or being in the cab of your favourite diesel or steam engine with your hand on the throttle?  And on the layout that you’ve created?

Well, actually no.  I’m not that sad and my dreams are generally far more interesting (but I’m not going there.)  Read on….

Well, now you can – or at least a scanned and 3D printed version of you can…..

Here’s how it works: you dress up how you’d like your scale figure to appear with whatever you’d like your scale figure to be holding, and then Alan does a 360 scan of you using a handheld scanner.  Alan then edits the 3D image to remove the background and any other extraneous bits and the figure is then 3D printed.

I’ve been trying to get rid of my extraneous bits for years.  But it does seem a fun idea and the Modelu website is worth a browse.  This is what they have to say about scanning…..

modelu

Perhaps we could get some 3D prints of the ESNG crown done and put them on the layout?  Allan would be making the tea.  Derek Apps would be in the ticket office counting the money.  You get the idea….  So I’ll stop there before I lose a number of good friends!

If you’re interested, it will be happening at a number of shows later this year.

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‘Le weekend’ en Anduze

Posted on September 30, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Maxine and I have just come back from a very pleasant weekend in the south of France.  Anduze lies in the foothills of the Cevennes, and the Carmague and the Mediterranean is about an hour to the south.  We hadn’t seen our friends for 8 years, and I was hoping to get another ride on the ‘Train a Vapeur des Cevennes’, a very pretty 14km preserved line up the Gardon river valley.

As it worked out, there were no trains on Friday, our free day to travel.  But we walked into town past Anduze station, and I took these photographs.  No train – it is stored in the tunnel.  Perhaps this is a real life fiddle yard prototype?  The tunnel at the end of the station loop is another prototype for everything – the tunnel is about 1km long.

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I did have a bit of a civil engineer’s busman’s holiday.  That afternoon our friends took us over to the Pont du Gard, a beautifully preserved Roman aqueduct dating from the first century AD.  It carried water for 50km from a spring at Uzès to the Roman colony of Nemausus (Nîmes).  It’s also the highest Roman aqueduct, and a superb feat of engineering – not least the levelling required to get water to flow 50km downstream with a fairly even slope all the way.

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The next day we fast-forwarded 2000 years, and went to see the Millau Viaduct.  This cable-stayed suspension bridge dates from 2004 and spans the valley of the River Tarn near Millau in southern France.  It is the tallest bridge in the world with one mast’s summit at 343 metres (1,125 ft) above the base of the structure.  This is higher than the Eiffel Tower (and a lot of other things).  Another fantastic structure, and both show how well designed functional engineering has a natural beauty.

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On the way back to Anduze, we had to pass through a couple of river gorges, and the civil engineer / trainspotter quickly got the binoculars out and turned twitcher.  A flock of 20 Egyptian Vultures (not my picture below) were soaring in formation around the gorge rock faces.  Vultures may be ugly things on the ground, but these ones are quite handsome birds, no larger than a buzzard, and soaring on the thermals are in their natural element.

All in all, an excellent weekend (to say nothing of the good food, wine, and company.)

Egyptian_vulture_in_flight

 

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The green green grass of home?

Posted on September 28, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

From the BBC website, and a possible detail for tram tracks….

Bulgaria’s capital is grassing over some of its tram lines as part of a programme to make the city greener.

An initial 60m (197ft) stretch of the “green rails” has already opened in Sofia’s Ruski Pametnik Square. Architects hope the new turf will muffle traffic noise, improve air quality and cool the often torrid Sofia summer heat, Nova TV reports. A drainage system has been installed to divert rain water off the rails into the soil beneath the grass.

Although other vehicles will use the square for the time being, the authorities want to include it in a car-free zone which will cover three blocks in the city centre by 2020. Other tramways elsewhere in the zone will be grassed over too, according to the plan.

Many social media users like the idea, thinking it will give Sofia a “more European” eco-friendly feel, although some see it as no more than an election stunt by the city’s governing Gerb party. “The rails will stay green only until after the election,” says one person on the Dnevnik newspaper website. Plenty of others worry that the grass will be left to dry out and turn yellow, with one reader on the Vesti website warning: “Nice dry grass needs only one cigarette butt, then we’ll see the spectacle of trams passing through flames.”

Another challenge for the modeller?

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The new grass tram lines are part of a wider scheme which will include a traffic-free zone in the centre (Picture – Nova TV)

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A little toilet humour

Posted on September 26, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Three suitably themed articles from the Daily Telegraph…..

Which London train station toilet made £2.3 million from passengers?

Toilets at stations in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh are flush with cash from desperate rail users – here are the biggest earners

Train station toilets are making a small fortune from passengers desperate to relieve themselves.  London Victoria topped the list of high-earning toilets, raking in £2.3 million from passengers in the past three financial years, while Manchester Piccadilly made £1.1 million.  Euston managed to make £1.8 million, King’s Cross £1.4 million and Edinburgh Waverly and Liverpool Lime Street made a comparably paltry £750,000 and £400,000 respectively.

Data released by National Rail found that in at least one case, more than half the amount was retained in profit by the train station and not used for the upkeep of the toilets.  National Rail still maintains that the charge is there to “prevent vandalism and maintain toilets”. However, in the case of Liverpool Lime Street, more than half of the money was kept for profit, as reported by the Liverpool Echo.

A National Rail spokesman told the paper: “Network Rail operates the biggest and busiest stations in Britain. Toilet facilities are available at all these stations and are open to everyone, not just rail users.  The small charge we make for using the public toilet facilities in our stations helps to maintain them, ensures they are fully staffed and prevents misuse such as vandalism and other anti-social behaviour. Any profit from station toilets is reinvested in the railway and passenger facilities.”

Britain’s highest earning station toilets :

  1. London Victoria: £2,300,511
  2. Euston: £1,828,110
  3. Kings Cross: £1,394,795
  4. Paddington: £1,172,740
  5. Manchester Piccadilly: £1,115,677
  6. London Liverpool St: £1,007,414
  7. Edinburgh Waverley: £7,521,94
  8. Birmingham New Street: £702,533
  9. Charing Cross: £653,721
  10. Glasgow Central: £601,478
  11. Leeds: £544,976
  12. Liverpool Lime Street: £402,680
  13. London Bridge: £358,658

But the pressing question must be, “Where’s Waterloo?”

The next one show a certain amount of initiative…..

Southeastern passenger trapped in train toilet begs for help on Twitter

Company director Steven Staples tweets SOS after becoming trapped in toilet on Southeastern train from London Blackfriars to Orpington

Read all about it here.

Finally, a desperate plea for help…..

Teen trapped without toilet paper on Virgin train Tweets for help

A teenager travelling between Euston and Glasgow suffered every train passenger’s worst nightmare – running out of loo paper at the critical moment, only to be saved by Virgin Trains’ enterprising social media team

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Best quotes (my bold text)….

Stricken Mr Greenwood took a careful step outside the bathroom to check which wagon he was in before again Tweeting the company to alert them to his whereabouts.

Looks like Virgin have upgraded their coaching stock again, and….

Thinking back, if I hadn’t tweeted, I could’ve been in a very sticky situation!

Strictly no comment…..

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Jon’s modules – getting ready for a show

Posted on September 24, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

ESNG have been invited to exhibit at the Dorking and District Model Railway Club 2o15 show on October 3-4.  Unfortunately, I found that a number of key members were away that weekend, so I offered to take Earl’s Wood along for the show.  It will be the first show for a number of years when I have to actually operate the layout.  The last two outings, it has been a static exhibit, as I have been too busy as exhibition manager to run trains.

At the top of the layout was being used as an extra shelf for all my stock, I decided to fit a shelf above it, that would allow me to get Earl’s Wood out without moving too much other stuff.  A visit to the local DIY shop produced some plasterboard fixings.  I had some brackets in stock.  And a cut down hollow door, also in stock, made a quick shelf.  A couple of hours work, and I found I had even more storage space, and I could set up my new storage racks and blue boxes bought at TINGS.

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The other key job was a fiddle yard for Earl’s Wood.  This came together very quickly with a sheet of 5mm foam board.  I used ‘No More Nails’ and a hot glue gun for the joints.  The hot glue gun is excellent for this sort of work.  But one tip – do not smooth the glue with your finger – at least not immediately.  I have a blister as evidence it really is hot glue!

The end result is not very elegant, but surprisingly strong.  Being incredibly light, it can be cantilevered off the main baseboard.  The edges are strengthened with tape, and a two coats of blackboard paint finished it off.  It will hold a couple of short goods trains, or an RDC or two.  All that is needed for the show….

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These two jobs done, I can get back to the N-club modules….

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ESNG meeting – PlayDay 20 September 2015

Posted on September 22, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Well, it’s been an interesting weekend.  Thursday, my son gets engaged.  Saturday our church holds an Autumn Fair and makes £440 for charity, so I am busy all day setting things up and running the ‘hook the duck’ game.  Sunday it’s church and the ESNG PlayDay.  Monday has a difficult funeral to go to.

The PlayDay was a pleasant interlude, with 6 members and Miles in attendance, and brief visits from my better half and Graham’s son-in-law and two children.  We got a respectable 2×2 module circuit up and running in little over half-an-hour.  Dave had brought along one of his pairs of modules and Allan brought the Speedo board, so we had a little more interest than usual in the layout.

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There was a good variety of trains on display.  Two Japanese bullet train and some goods trains.  Two American passenger trains.  I gave my Penn Central train an outing, as I had replaced the old Kato business car bogies with Microtrains ones.  Although I lost the lighting, the running is greatly improved.  A Swiss passenger train.  A number of UK passenger trains from all BR regions (except Scotland).

My photographic record is limited, as my camera battery died at the wrong moment, but I managed these two videos.  The first shows my Midland 4F 0-6-0 heading up some new Maunsell coaches and assorted Southern parcels stock.  The second shows the same train crossing with Allan’s Maunsell N class 2-6-0 and a train of mainly Bullied coaches.

I also managed to spring clean (OK, it’s autumn) the railway storage cupboard and move the 4 N-mod corner sections down a shelf, so they are easier to get out for club nights.

And of course the evening finished with 6 of us enjoying a curry…..

 

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