I'll start so....

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in going through periods where stuff isn't getting finished. There are effectively three physical projects on the desk as well as various writing things to do.

The first is the SR diesel which keeps quietly stalling due to me wanting a bit more detail. This time it's lamps. There are hundreds of them all over the thing in the prototype photos, but alas none in the kit. This means I have to make them and I haven't quite worked out how yet.

Second up is a SR blockhouse signal cabin of which possibly more later. Again another Wills sheet exercise.

Third is the above which is a Wills 'goods yard store'. This is destined for the Art of compromise project. More or less a straight build of the kit, but replacing the girdery base with something more substantial and brick. At the moment I'm on the third coat of cream paint. Why is it that all the standard railway type colours are the ones which have lousy coverage?



Step 2

Back to the milky bar. Although there's a lot of cleaning up to do on all parts the cab steps are a bit grim. The two upper treads were so damaged that I cut my loses and filed them off and super glued some 20 x 10 thou strip on to replace. This is pre- final clean up, but post drilling a 0.5mm hole in the top to add a bit of wire to act as a positive locator. Without it (and possibly despite it) the join will fail the first time the loco is picked up. I did consider that I may have been better off carving the unit from a solid block of plastic.

SNCF Society exhibition

Sunday saw a little French trip taken by self and a trio of Wealden Railway Group bods. Not exactly to France, but some sixty odd miles to the West at Lenham in Kent to the SNCF Society get-together. All very friendly - this isn't really my thing, but like a lot of situations where you step out of the norm, there is much to be gained and new things to interest you. It would have been easy to spend a small fortune on stuff, and I was tempted by some reasonably priced HO diesels, but managed to keep my hands in my pockets. Tricky to pick one thing that stood out, but Peter Smith's 1:32 metre gauge prototypes running on 32mm would be high up. Stunning pieces of work with kit-built O gauge chassis with mostly plasticard bodies, beautifully finished and running to match.

SRI

Back after all the seasonal fun and a week of tidy-up, on now to the serious business of getting a small mag out and some other modelling/writing. Much to my amazement as much as anyone else's the forth number of SRI has gone out as planned and I've just sent No 5 to the printers in Holland. No 4 has earned quite a bit of complementary feedback although I'm pretty critical as always. The mix is more even now than the earlier issues leading off with Peter Bossom's 3mm scale Thunder's Hill.

And as it only been a week since all the fun and games finished a little lip-sync piece has just been released. You have been warned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mno44y18Rro