Back to the past

A Liliput equipment van has been bought which is an older version of the second wagon bought for Eskalon way back in 2014.

Coaching stock upgrade

The HOe fleet has seen a lot of expansion over the last couple of years including 2 new locos this year alone, however the coaching stock fleet has remained at 3... until now. Three new coaches have arrived, in lovely brown livery with a bear face on them (really!) Here Falcon takes the coaches on their first test run. It was Falcon's final duty before going into storage for a few months as part of the new fleet rotation plan.

Locomotive #6

Its time for a new loco! Maria is another Liliput shunter, this time in blue. Running in went fine and now Maria can join Percy and the others working on Mäusestadt. Having the new loco means Falcon can have a break as i'm only going to run 2 mainline engines and 2 shunters at any one time. Yes its time for fleet rotation...

Adding load

Two of Mäusestadt's open wagons are currently in the workshop having loads fitted and also i'm trying a bit of weathering. It doesn't look too bad, its always very easy to go a bit OTT but i think i've just managed to avoid that. They'll return to the layout soon.

New wagon

Mäusestadt received a new wagon today and its a beauty (in wagon terms anyway!) A Roco DR stake wagon.

Major Falcon surgery

Last night i had to open up the Falcon after the LED headlights stopped working in one direction. I found the reason was a wire from the main PCB to the lights PCB had become detached (maybe poorly soldered in the first place). So an easy thing to fix... Apart from the fact to get where i needed to re-solder the wire on the PCB was only possible by taking most of Falcon's internals apart!

I've never done this amount of disassembly of a locomotive's internals before so was nervous about it and hoping i wouldn't turn my flagship loco into a pretty paperweight... Luckily it all came back together and runs fine... and the lights are fixed of course!

Well the Falcon is the Falcon, thats why i love that loco so much. It can even survive me and a soldering iron... Lets just hope i never need to do this again.

Fleet catch-up

Just some photos of the 4 active locomotives on the slowly developing new layout. What of Plymouth 17? Well that might be coming onto the layout soon too...

Servicing

Now we have a new craft table all of the locomotive fleet will be properly serviced over the next few weeks. A photo of the first loco to be serviced is below, as it is in a state of undress we have taken measures to hide its identity...

New loco

A new loco has arrived at Knell Lane and it is the first of the new "expanded period" stock. A Class 86 electric locomotive in Rail Express livery in fact so this puts it at the end of the British Rail period. The intention is for this loco to become the "flagship" of the fleet alongside the CEP. It certainly looks the part.

Pullman

More new arrivals which came today. Now this is a little odd but its a Pullman coach (it was a bargain!) It may look a bit incongruous on the layout but we'll find a use for it, special ECS workings perhaps. It adds a bit of colour and variety to the coaching stock fleet too.

As we said in the previous post we loved the Railfreight tube wagon so much we bought another! Also bought today was another lorry and a signal box kit.

New arrivals

While planning continues for Project #1004 we still have #1002 and #1003 to look after too! A few weeks ago a new wagon for Knell Lane arrived. A Railfreight open wagon. I love this wagon so much i've ordered another one...

Also arriving at Knell Lane a couple of British Rail vehicles. A crew van and a flatbed lorry.

Finally for Mausstadt a new platform shelter. This replaces the station building i was trying to repurpose as it was just too big for the space available.

Project #1004

Next year i am going to remake the Knell Lane N gauge layout with a new board, a new concept and new track (the existing layout re-used the track from Eskalon and its getting a bit worn). This will be Project #1004 and will be Knell Lane 2.0. I'm thinking of moving away from loops and having a "U" shaped layout with a back scene and a terminus station. Until then the existing Knell Lane (Project #1002) is running fine. The Lima 31 looks good on the storage siding though its a shame it doesn't seem to be able to get it running well enough to use. I am thinking of removing the engine from one of the Lima 31s and using it as a "dummy" loco for double headers.

Coach and bread

Some new arrivals at Knell Lane, a new coach so the loco hauled service can now be 3 carriages long and also a bread van. We've also got a little tractor. Not much is happening on the layout apart from some running.

New loco!

Right time for Knell Lane to return to the spotlight! A new loco has arrived and its another Class 22. The one i bought earlier in the year is the best runner on the layout so hopefully this one (which is in BR blue this time) will turn out just as good. There will probably be another new piece of powered rolling stock at Christmas, maybe a Class 121 DMU or another loco... not sure yet.

Bill and Ben

We've delved into eBay for the latest locomotive purchases and bought 2 old Lima Class 31s. Now they are very crude compared to modern locos though they do both work however they wheel spin like crazy and some new traction tyres are needed. Hopefully one can become a regular loco on the layout or at the very least give me some experience in modifying and improving rolling stock. Something i don't really want to do to my new stuff, especially the locos, as they are just too nice straight out of the box. The 2 31s are identical (so one will need renumbering at some stage) and i call them Bill and Ben!

New DMU!

We welcomed some new rolling stock to the layout today, a Class 122 DMU. However there was something different about this DMU, although the lights came on there was no movement. Its an unpowered dummy in other words! The 122 DMU will be used as hauled stock to augment the (powered) DMU and also to re-enact stock transfers. The 122 looks great though has a problem with derailments but that looks like being caused by the coupler snagging on the buffers. By bending the coupling downwards slightly it seems to fix the problem though i still have more tests to perform.

Fish van

Latest piece of rolling stock to arrive is this SPV Fish Van, although our one depicts it in its later years when it was used for parcels traffic especially in the Southern Region.

New loco

Its time we had a new loco, and here it is! The Class 22 has always been a type i have liked (though i've never seen a real one - none exist now!) even back in the Hornby OO days of my childhood. Now i finally have one, in Dapol N gauge.

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!

New arrivals

Some new arrivals at Knell Lane yesterday, principally a new coach (a BCK) which has now formed a loco-hauled coaching stock train with one of the CEP's coaches (it can have it back in a few months when we get another coach) and the CCV. The Class 25 now has a passenger train to haul... though to be honest we probably do need a new locomotive now. Also arriving a "gents" for the platform and a bus, as well as a couple of building kits.