Two projects on the go

Two model kit projects are currently on the go. Project #076 is an ancient Airfix kit of a British Railways Park Royal Railbus (OO scale). Building is pretty much complete and painting has begun though is currently on hold as i need specific railway colours for it. Another project is #077 which is a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and painting can soon begin of that.

Ballasting and OO

I was going to do it next year but i have decided to do some ballasting, mostly under the new bridge. It will be difficult to ballast when the bridge is completed so i decided to ballast it now. I've extended the ballast to cover the approach roads to the station and MPD. It all looks reasonably good... so far.

The bridge will be a railway bridge by the way. I will get some HO scale stock for it one day but for the moment a couple of carriages from my stored OO scale fleet are being used!

Railbus

A few years ago i did a series of Airfix railway kits, building up a little OO scale train. I've bought another Airfix railway kit, this one a railbus. Building has commenced and it is Project #076.

Board #2 in place

Board #2 has been finished and is now in place, though it wasn't plain sailing. Although i measured everything up beforehand i forgot to take into account how un-straight all the walls are in my house! The gap between the opposing walls is slightly narrower next to the window than it is a few centimetres away. The board just fits, and indeed is such a tight fit my original plan to put in wall brackets has changed as it doesn't really need them, resting nicely atop too bookcases and wedged in tight!

I've put down some OO track for clearance and testing though i am thinking than plan A which was for HOe is more realistic. I need more track for that though... and a new controller however pretty much everything else i already have. If i did go for OO it would need to be a tiny MPD or engineering siding layout and all of my OO stock (if it still works) would be a bit incongruous. So i think HOe is a more affordable option. The beauty of my new board construction is though that the layout sits atop a foam board layer stapled to the hardboard below. So in theory it would be pretty easy to reuse the board at some stage.

Layout #2

I built the board for the second layout today, it is an end-to-end board which will fit under the window. Construction was similar to Knell Lane, a wood frame but i used hardboard instead of MDF for the top (mostly because i had some available which was the right width). I'm thinking of having a layer of foam board on top of this which will be what the layout will sit on.

Now for the big surprise, i think i might go OO with this new layout. I quite fancy an MPD or engineering yard layout with the back line being behind a screen and being the fiddle yard. I still have some work to do on the board anyway but we might be able to start developing something pretty soon. Here my Class 73 and a NSE coach have been used for size testing. I'm not sure if any of my legacy OO fleet will actually run anymore though i guess we'll just have to see.

NSE30

It is 30 years since the creation of Network South East, so i thought i would give my OO gauge NSE coaches an airing. One day maybe my OO stock can have a new layout to run on, but not just yet. I need a bigger room, and a bigger house!

OO gets an airing

Some home improvements have meant that Eskalon hasn't been very easy to operate lately (unless i've wanted to move a dozen boxes out of the way!) However it did mean my boxed up OO scale railways were out of their usual hiding place so i took the opportunity to take a few photos. One day i may build another OO scale railway, so these locos may yet run again though they haven't run now for over 20 years!

A dream train

The discovery of the Hornby Guide website and the class 77 model has made me a daydream a bit of the kind of trains i could have run in the early 70s (if i was an adult of course and not a baby as i was). Maybe it would have been a bit like this?

A Hornby treasure trove

This is a lovely website i came across today, the Hornby Railways Collector Guide features all Hornby and Triang rolling stock from the year dot. There are some fascinating models in here, i never knew Hornby did a Class 77 model but indeed they did! It was discontinued in the year i was born which probably explains why i've never seen it before.

The Class 81 model looks very interesting too (see right). It also was discontinued in 1971 (obviously a bad year for electric modellers).

One electric loco i did know about (and once owned) was Hornby's Class 86 model. I remember the fiasco the first time my excited teenage self got the new loco running, i forgot the pantograph was raised and took out my layout's bridge!

Legacy audit

Many years ago i had a series of OO gauge layouts but in my early 20s i put everything away in boxes ready for when i had my own house so could start again. "Starting again" took me nearly 13 years and in the end i have gone for a Continental HOe gauge layout anyway! My legacy OO stock, track and what-not has been stored away in the loft all of these years. They are thus in reasonable condition though haven't run for probably around 20 years! I am conducting an audit of what i have got, to see what can be reused (to be honest not a great deal though i found a box full of OO/HO scale people!) Its nice to compare the OO gauge to HOe in any case. I may try and sell some of this old stuff...

More old photos

The drawback about the pre-digital camera and cameraphone past is that often many things were not recorded and so now you have to rely on fading memories. Of course being able to record everything now is not always a good thing! Here are a few more photos of my old OO gauge layouts anyway. The first two are of the final phase in the garage when the board had been extended and i had my first go at end-to-end layouts.

The strange shape of the photo is because half the photo is black due to a fault with the camera flash, not because of any censoring! Here we can see two of my old locos a class 47 and a class 86 in the shed.

Looking in the other direction we see the goods shed and a class 08 in War Department colours!

Photos of my later layouts in my bedroom are even rarer (and no photos exist of my brief N gauge experiment). Here we can see my class 25, 73 and an American loco. I still have all of this stuff though whether they all work after being in boxes for nearly 20 years is another question.

The old railway in the garage

My first model railway was a great train set bought for me one Christmas as a boy. It was a Hornby Royal Mail set with working mail despatch system and a Class 37 hauled train of coaches. This formed the basis of my first permanent railway set in my parents' garage. You can see a couple of photographs below. It was not up to much and the garage was not a good site for the layout being rather draughty and slowly rotting away. I did keep a layout here into my teens. I must see if i can find a few more photos.

Return to rail?

One of my major hobbies when i was a child was my model railway. I had one from about the age of 5 or 6 when i was bought a trainset for the first time (Hornby Royal Mail set with a BR blue class 37 locomotive). Until my late teens i continued with the hobby with layouts first in my parent's garage and later in my bedroom. You can see a photo of the early garage layout here.

I stuck with OO gauge most of the time though did experiment with N gauge at one stage. I lost interest in my late teens and needed the space for other things anyway. My rolling stock, buildings and track were packed away in boxes... and remain there to this day! When i got my own house i did start thinking of restarting the hobby though never quite got around to it. Well now i am thinking about it again!

While my later layouts focussed on contemporary British Rail i am now thinking of going back in time and travelling the popular track of an interwar GWR branch line. I might even do a small layout based on the line down to Stratford. I got an excellent book on this line a few weeks ago and its given me a bit of inspiration to consider recreating Wilmcote station circa 1934 for example.

In the meantime the Perry Barr turntable is still in existance, hidden away behind a fence. This is one of the last remnants of a live steam layout that once ran on the sports field next to where i worked. I've never actually seen the trains running on there but they did up until the mid-2000s i think. The track indeed was only lifted in around 2006 or 2007. I don't have any photos of the track in existence but these photos from 2008 clearly show the trackbed (this photo i took in 2004 for a Quicktime VR does show the track - just about). You can compare the turntable with the photo below (one of the two turntables was destroyed of the layout was destroyed).

Adding a crew

Apart from my OO gauge train all of my other Airfix kits are 1:72 scale... apart from my Bloodhound SAM kit which was in 1:76 scale (in other words OO scale). As i had a few spare people from that kit i decided to use them on the train. A quick and free way to get a bit of a crew. I added a crew to the locomotive and a guard to the brake van. I also gave the guard a trusty dog to help him keep watch!

Tank engine

Project 037, an 0-4-0 Saddle Tank locomotive is now being finished. A tough little kit, i dropped it on the floor by mistake when i was varnishing it but all that happened was that it gained a few hairs and a dead spider! Although i do have another of these kits i will leave it in my backlog for now and complete my train side project. Maybe i will do another side project later on when i get some more wagons.

Train building up

My Airfix railway sub-project is starting to build up nicely now with 4 wagons and a brake van. In fact all we need now is a locomotive... so the latest kit Project 037 is a 0-4-0 Saddle Tank engine! I actually have 2 kits of this engine but i am only going to do one of them for now. I aim to get some more Airfix railway kits and create a second train.

Ready for cows

My latest pair of railway wagon kits, Projects 035 and 036, have been completed so now i have a couple of cattle wagons. I need some OO scale cows too perhaps. Not sure what the next kit will be, i do have quite a few in my backlog but might leave it a few days before deciding.

Brake Van

Project 033, a BR Brake Van, is the latest kit under construction and is now in its final stages. Most of the painting has been done, all that remains is some touching up (oo-er), the decals, and then a varnish. It can then join the 2 Mineral Wagons i have already completed in my railway model sub-project.

End of the line

Despite being fairly simple kits both basic construction and painting skills required Projects 030 and 031, a pair of BR 16 ton mineral wagons have taken a while to complete. Most of that time however has been spent waiting for paint to arrive. Unfortunately when the paint did arrive i found the grey i ordered seemed too light so i had to buy some more...

That paint seems a little bit too dark. No worries, maybe the wagons are just dirty. They have now received final painting and had their decals applied. All they need is a spot of varnish and my train sub-project is off to a start. The green flag has been waved so to speak...

On right track?

I have just begun a sub-project in this year's model making season, i procured a number of old Airfix railway rolling stock kits (2 locomotives and 5 wagons) and will build a little train. The first two kits Projects 030 and 031 are in production at the same time as they are the same kit (just one is in an even older box) though i only have the instructions for one so i thought it prudent to build both at the same time. Building was fairly simple but painting has come to a halt because i did not have the right grey colour so i am waiting for that to be delivered now.