A few links of interest (perhaps).
Holborn Viaduct – doomed but my favourite. My father
Wapping….
The best train driver announcement?
Two O gauge branch lines….
And to close, Denmark in HO.
And the rest (well, at least most of them.)
The always wonderful Kensington Addison Road (O).
Swillybegs (7mm scale 3ft gauge).
Always a favourite – Rossiter Rise (OO).
Great Bardfield (P4) captures a bucolic East Anglian cross-country line to perfection.
Fairwood Junction (OO) compresses a real location near Westbury. A good place to watch the stone trains go through.
The pretty station at Garreg Wen (OO9).
Watching the trains go by at Hatch End (N).
And finally, pre-grouping finery (and an interesting fiddle yard) at Hope-under-Dinsmore (OO).
Another year gone, and back to Tolworth for the Hampton Court MRS show. And I thought this was one of their best. Allan, a brace of Derek’s and myself went early, pinched the last parking space at the show, and ambled around the corner to the cafe for a bracing breakfast. Looking down from the balcony…
Having got into the show there were two N gauge layouts by the main hall entrance. The Royal Albert Bridge gets new detail every time I see it….
Kinlochlaggen captures Scotland in the diesel era.
Next door, the Launceston Steam Railway in OO9.
Copper Wort (OO) is an old favourite – every time I catch new angles through the buildings. But it’s for sale – and the owners are giving up railways (!!!!)
The rather lovely Bergeller Bahn (HOm).
Yard No.2, pre-grouping goods….
A favourite was Friedrichstrasse (HO) as it models the part of Berlin where my daughter lives. There’s a steady flow of trains through typical East German Berlin scenery.
And last for today, the little Express Daisy Sidings (EM).
I came across this rather idyllic photo of the newly opened Morden underground station, probably in 1926. Those were the days when Morden and the end of the Northern line were just undeveloped fields. It’s changed a bit!
The whole scene is so clean. If you modelled it like this, people would say, ‘where’s the weathering.’ Sure, the building is new, but apart from a few stains around the garage, the road surfaces are pristine.
Some nice touches to the garage in the foreground. The ‘station garage sign’. The little bushes – so much a verge detail in past years. And that period petrol pump.
And finally, the buses and car. Somehow, I expected something more modern in 1926. But open topped and with solid tyres. I suppose these were country routes deep in rural Surrey, so perhaps the buses weren’t the latest?
All in all, a lovely shot with some good modelling potential.
A few weeks ago Allan, Chris and a brace of Derek’s visited the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. A few photos of the day out….
And more recently, Dave visited the Heatherslaw Light Railway, a 15 in (381 mm) gauge passenger carrying railway near Ford, Northumberland, England, close to the border with Scotland. Founded by Neville Smith and Sid Ford, the railway opened in 1989 on the Ford and Etal estate.
A quiet afternoon, as just the five members turned up. Nevertheless we put up the layout and ran some trains. Here are the trains…
And here are the club members, having retreated to the comfy chairs….
Having sorted out the club items going to Stuttgart, we packed up early, as we’d all run our trains, and hence the Cha(i)rman missed his curry. The Bartlett’s didn’t, as they picked up a very tasty take-away!
Last meeting for a week or two – we’ve had to cancel one and move another as six club members are off to the NCI Stuttgart meet. But for now, here’s Brian’s video of the afternoon.
Last Saturday, hitched a lift with Allan and a brace of Derek’s to the 50th Gravesend show. We arrived, got into the show, and immediately headed for the cafe for coffee and bacon rolls. We then went to look at the trains. Exhibits sprawled over several halls, classrooms and corridors, and provided an interesting visit. A few highlights follow….
We immediately found Richard’s THW display, complete with a couple of N-Club modules.
Newchapel Junction (O) is an old favourite, but they do keep upgrading and extending it. Some lovely O gauge stock on view.
Columbia Wharf (EM) is set in a breakers yard near Grays, in the Thames Estuary. Some battered ship modelling, and piles of scrap metal make and interesting model.
And I can never resist taking more ship photos on Jane’s Creek (EM).
Part of a fine display of Gauge 1 models.
Ran into my old friend ‘Bill’ Bishop exhibiting his Blindheim (O). (Actually, it took two or more visits to run into him, as he was off collecting coffee and bacon rolls.)
The attractive Gare St Christophe (HOe), a micro layout full of detail.
Rocky Mountain Rails (N) – a looped eight, lots of track and fun to watch.
Some interesting Southern electrics on Folly Lane (OO).
Coming home was interesting! To avoid traffic on the M2 Allan took us on a mystery tour of Northfleet, finally returning to the motorway to find that the traffic had eased.
An auspicious day that probably caused the heated political discussion over fish and chips. Six members came along to the working party, and a seventh joined us for the running night.
Allan was working on ERIC and repairing the roof.
Derek solved the problem with the fiddle yard and I cut up an old sheet of ply to be the cover for my NCI loops.
Good to see ERIC at a club night again.
Neil had the usual selection of new models.
And Derek ran a standard tank.
After the ESNG show, I turned my mind to Stuttgart. First, a little maintenance was needed – reversing the wiring on one end of Allan’s bridge, where I’d got the standard NCI colours confused. Then a slight rewire of my N-mod loops. I think they’re OK now, after some problems at the show.
With the space we have allocated at Stuttgart NCI, I needed to build a new ‘joker’ board – a module that moves the track from one side of the module to the other. As shown with my ‘monster’ module below….
Unfortunately, I needed the opposite ‘hand’ of board for the show. I didn’t want to build a large module, so came up with this 400mm long idea – a parallelogram of a module that changed sides in a straight line…
I quickly knocked up the baseboard – only to find that I’d built it up-side-down with the wrong hand again. So I built another one. A little scenery followed. The tunnel mouth could be German, but also reminds one of structures on the Brighton line. The tunnel was very narrow, and I had to widen it at the bottom to fit an O8 diesel’s outside cranks. Anyhow, job done.
Before the ESNG show, I had looked at Aldersford, Martin Micklewright’s NCI modules, that had been in my loft for some 10 years. The track bed had warped, and despite an earlier attempt to strengthen the boards and straighten them, there was still a large dip in the track. It’s a lovely model of Ford station, and I thought it worth another attempt to correct this before assigning it to the tip.
So I took the nuclear option and carefully cut out the old track bed, and replaced the cork with a new ply base, packed up to be (almost) level along the 1200mm board.
I had demolished the level crossing whilst removing the track, so I’ve replaced it with a Ratio one. Not quite like Martin’s original or like Ford, but it will do.
We’ll see how it works at Stuttgart. If all is OK, I’ll freshen up the scenery and replace the signal that I demolished.
Flintfield (P4) is a delightful Great Eastern Railway branch terminus. Built in the Netherlands, it now resides in Uckfield. There are some fun animations to look out for, including the swimming swan and the circling seagull (not animated to swoop on any passing chips…)
A little finescale TT on Linfield.
Devil’s Bridge (009), with multiple versions of the same locomotives!
St Oswalds (O-16.5).
Moving upstairs, there were the Scalefour and 2mm finescale rooms. First, two tiny 2mm layouts. Ley Hill, a giant 4′ x 1′ was built in the 1980’s.
Mick Simpson’s Callaton is even smaller….
The Caledonian Goods and Coal Yard has escaped from Copenhagen Fields. Great to see a distant part of that layout close up.
And some fine 2mm locomotives.
And the Scalefour layouts. Laxfield….
And Fryers Lane….
And finally, an American interloper, Broken Creek (HO).
I had been disappointed not to be able to take breakfast with the other ESNG members at the show, but was delighted to find that it was an All Day Breakfast. It would have been rude not to, and a good thing I did, as Maxine had gone out to lunch and there was nothing waiting for me when I got home!
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