Farnham show 2025

 Let's start at the very beginning. There were known parking issues due to on-site works. There was an alternative car park with a mini bus service to the door. We didn't do this and adopted a gig approach. Perfect parking spot 50 yards from the gate. There were no toe-to-toe punch ups at the door like last week. One desk for cash, one for card. No queue. Sensible. A high end £12. Pretty much as expected, so here's what I wrote three years ago with a couple of tweaks in parenthesis 

There wasn't a bad layout in the entire show; the exhibition hits a middle audience, perhaps leaning toward the finescale, and was spread out over five rooms. (This year with a 2mm F/S dedicated room. They really are very clever.) This meant that the place didn't feel crowded. There were a lot of people to talk to and  a hook up with the chap that bought Unnycoombe and Dury's Gap, which are still going strong. The catering was friendly, well-stocked and slickly-served and there was a generally happy buzz around the place.(There were no target layouts, but Terry Tew's Scottish piece was probably the stand out and the revived O-16.5 really caught my imagination. Good to see NG layouts displayed a sensible table height). The day was very enjoyable. This really is the one to beat.

Only names have been changed which proves that consistency wins. 

Show: 9

Rucksacks: 2   I know people love this measure!

Parking 10 The club seemed to be making every effort to mitigate the problem.

Trade 7

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Scottish OO gauge layout in Railway Modeller

 And we're off! Regulars will have noted that there has been an RM layout based in the Highlands ticking away in the background which hasn't had much mention here for obvious reasons. This month the series commences with some baseboard butchering and my fight with some bullhead points. The whole project was not without its problems and there were endless supply issues, meaning that the construction window went from nearly a year, to about four and a half months. I'm hard to avoid in Smiths (or whatever it's called this week) with the Superquick goods shed build mentioned in earlier posts running in BRM. The Scottish (Caol) is destined for the Glasgow SEC show, though I doubt that I will be anywhere near it. As far as I know, this will be it's only public showing. With the baseboard kits shifting to a 9 and 10mm MDF construction, she's a weighty beast.

Note that though I've had bits of the cover before, this is a first. This will now be a regular occurrence and my next cover shot will be in 2050.

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A corner section in OO gauge

Ahh the Project 70. I mentioned this a year ago here the result was Drovers Brook which has has scant coverage here it seems despite being the current favourite and permanently set up. I mooted back then that there would be a round the room extension and there now exists the first part of this which has recently had track laid and a basic backscene fitted. The next section is going to be all sorts of fun to get in place due to the more than 90 degree angle of the walls my pre-war house. No matter. 

The board for this could politely be described as sub-offcut, and consists of a motley crew of MFD bits roughly fixed together at a size of a little over 3' x 18" . TBH it's carpentry at a high quality level. The track is Devon bullhead consisting of one offcut and a bit that I had to buy. That was a shock; I was still expecting to pay three shillings a yard. Instead I got asked for an amount that I feel would feed a family of four in one of the better bits of St Leonards (pause while all the Hastings and Bexhill bods make comments about St. Leonards).

Anyway, this is romping along at a fair old pace now with one board every 12 months and only falls to number four in the layout building register of the current time. Once I can get hold of some points from you know who, I can get cracking with the first in the queue. 

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Fareham Exhibition

Oh dear. There was a little niggle about this and I can't remember what. However after a bit of an exhibition visit dessert and a tie up with some other business, a trip was taken. Lets start with the positives: Good spread of layouts with only the European box left unticked. My stand out for obvious reasons was the above. This has been problematic in previous viewings, but yesterday was running very smoothly and felt like a busy urban station. I also wanted to take a look at Elbow Lane (below) which is a bit of an internet star. Everything else was mid-to-high quality and trade was the expected good mix.

The negatives: Appalling entry system done via very unpredictable computer and churning out festival-style wristbands. Total overkill for a single price arrangement and a queue to match. This mostly made up of gentlemen of the expected age holding the right amount of cash. Not a great start. Then the door guards to a single basketball court with one way in/out doors and, even fairly early in the weekend, a poor customer attitude. The price for all this was a high end £12. For that I want something fairly special on a regional local club show. 

Show: 4   Mostly down to the doors 

Rucksacks 1

Catering 2

Parking 9

 

Stalling: Designing an urban layout in OO

Things took a rapid turn for the worse yesterday.

Mr. Hill rocked up yesterday with the overall intention to attack some O gauge planning for his layout. This has become so successful, despite being hardly begun, that he was inundated by phone calls enquiring about it as an exhibit for shows next year. Such is the price of stardom.

In addition, attention turned to the card layout and possible development of, as there were several recently built applicable items lying around. The general thrust of this was to rebuild Hopwood (see tab above) but in reverse plan, with purely Superquick kits and with a more generous FY.

From a direct flipped plan, things were moved about on 6 x 1' of area, then it dawned that with the mainly pull-push Southern stock envisaged, the release pointwork at the platform end became largely redundant and the whole thing started leaning towards the bastard child of a Futer's Fork and Minories.

This would only require three points as above. The scenics would be a 1960s style card building base with a couple of vintage Airfix items tossed in where needed, i.e. the butchered footbridge. The one or two figures on the platform are cast items from Dinky thus completing the vibe. The feel of it in my head would appeal to 'gentlemen of a certain age' and would definitely be the anti-DCC/sound approach.

Early days, but this has got definite legs on it. The O gauge, well that's todays workload and don't even mention the TT.....

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Building a Superquick platform

 So there I was bowling along the South Coast as one does, and almost by accident found myself in Gaugemaster or The Engine Shed. Only it's not called that now and now goes by a name that is so memorable that I'd forgotten what it was by the time I'd got past the till. But I digress. 

There was a box of Superquick. Between you and me I don't think they are interested in selling this sort of thing now, but as I'm on a bit of a roll with things card this week I picked up the above and the signal box. The platform, I worked out, may well be an older version of the kit, which is a problem on one level, but a boon on another. It took me an hour and I was distracted at the same time by other stuff, so a good modeller would have taken half that. Goes together really easily with no glitches, the only mod' may be some extra support in the underside and I touched in the edges with some white paint. 

Still works for me and the card layout is one step nearer.

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Building copper clad O gauge points

  Not done one of these for a while, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Essentially complete here save the gapping of the copper. This is a pretty basic design that most people could get their heads around. Even the filing of the switch rails is not too onerous with this weight of rail. In this case 125 FB which was what was in stock. The length is a tad shorter than the standard Peco product at 16.5" and has a 1:5 angle.

I need two more of these for Mr. Hills layout and a possible one for the FY as it stands now. This is without name or final plan, though will probably be the usual four-point Gammon End design that is well worn on these pages.

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Painting O gauge figures

 Somebody gave me these - can't remember who. 

Anyway...

Slaters O gauge figures. Note not 7mm scale. Theses are famously underscale and closer to 6mm. Not only that, but compared to the worst whitemetal figures they are lousy and even more so compared to the latest 3D print offerings from Modelu et al. That notwithstanding they are fine to be seated in the gloom of a coach interior. So with a few days away, I loaded the car with a dozen and spent the cold dark nights furiously cleaning them up and painting with a fairly muted, limited palette.

They seem to be still on the market for around a tenner for a pack which considering the above is probably quite reasonable.

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O gauge point

 As always there are a couple of side projects to do while the glue is going off. The first is Mr. Hill's Gauge O project. In an idle moment I grabbed a point plan (blown up some years back from the EM gauge society stash). This was stuck to a bit of  chipboard, and before I noticed I was welding up a point V. The rail is some 125 FB that I bought cheap at a Guildex last century, and which has been lurking around at the back of the cupboard ever since. There's already a built one in hand and I need five. 

This makes the third scale this week and it's only Tuesday.

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TT120 Terrier and other considerations

Image: Steve Croucher/Peco studio

 A task is to hand. 

This month's Railway Modeller contains a fairly standard BLT plan of the month. You will all have obviously bought this so no need for me to expand on the reasoning behind said plan, and again obviously I'm not going to reproduce that here. However, there have been a couple of messages appearing on my phone vis-à-vis the hints here, and drawing conclusions. The task for me is to build it, but not in a familiar scale/gauge, but the relatively new TT:120. This was a surprise on lots of levels and I have questions, but there is wood to cut and a deadline; at the outside of the magazine print-run up to the Glasgow show.

The eagle-eyed will notice that in practical terms it's a funny shape and moreover the boards are split unevenly. So the already compressed plan/idea needs tweaking further to allow practical transportation.

Removing the Southern IOW angle throws up further possibilities: The first is to forgo the Terrier and head for the new J50 or the 08. and go GNR area. I'm thinking something like Horncastle and that photo in the Bradford Barton Brach line diesels book. The IOW buildings could be adapted and you are good to go. The other is to use all the Pacifics that are available and go Pickering NYMR during preservation. It would need stretching a little and to move the goods yard sidings to top right as an MPD. 5-coach trains would be possible in the same sort of space, though the fiddle yard is naturally longer than the planned 30" length needed here. 

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Peco TT120 lineside hut

 Continuing the process of getting my eye in. This was snuck out of the RM office. It's tiny. Not N gauge tiny, but the equivalent N gauge item is six bits and a chimney pot. This is three frets and layers of 1mm wood with jigsaw location. This later characteristic worried me with the roof ridge after the struggle with the WHR station frontage. Here some careful sanding did the job. There are no gutters or downpipes. so I fashioned some waste fret to do the job. The usual acrylics to finish.

I like.

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Setting the table (top)

 It had to happen sooner or later. I'd mooted it a couple of years back, thinking that it was the new big thing, but it got a negative response. However, all Tiger-like it was bounced at me, almost forcefully. The turn point it would seem is the Hornby Terrier and some forthcoming buildings. This month's RM holds all the answers that you may need. In the meantime I'm cutting MDF. 

I really should start taking commissions...

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Wills SS48 signal box

 Just about done here. Took a fair bit longer than I'd hoped. I should know this by now; signal boxes are time thieves. Despite going down the budget/minimalist approach to the interior, this and the painting sucked up a lot of bandwidth. Pretty much as the instructions, if I had bothered to read them. The windows blocked up, which despite this being a kit option, rarely is it seen on layouts. Safety bars added to the windows. Doorknobs and a spearpoint fencing lever frame. The figure is a Dapol workman with his lunchbox removed.

Now to see if the emails get answered.

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Wills signal box - the panels

 I thought that I'd better take a look at the instructions.

And it was at this point that I did. Possibly slightly arrogant, but the though of constructing this.... and then painting it seemed; well, making life hard for myself. So a day later I have four complete sides with windows and glazing all done and not a glance at the paperwork. All done 'in the flat' and without having to get the glazing in through the roof gynaecological style. If the next bit goes to plan then I've won big time. Incidentally, the green is Humbrol 78 acrylic (which has disappeared of the shelves) and Games Workshop 'Wraithbone' for the cream. Pretty perfect for faded Southern.

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Airfix Class 31 coupling fix

The Airfix 31 has been part of the Rhiw saga since early days. Dating back to the mid 1970s, it's now half a century old.. and this shows.

For those of a certain age this will be a familiar tale. It it basically past its sell by date on lots of levels, but remains on the roster as an emergency back up. Though quite honestly this is largely emotional rather than practical. Up against the Bachman fleet, which themselves are a 20 year old design it's pretty crude and noisy. That aside, there has been a coupling issue for a while and this is its last chance. 

Above, the existing, but unhelpful, Airfix coupling was reclipped into a bed of super glue and left overnight to cure.

The new fix is that ultimate bondmaster, the Peco track pin. A hole was drilled through the coupling and mount and the pin put through and fixed with lashings of super glue, before trimming the pointy bit.

 Finally a Dapol retainer was clipped over. This apes the Airfix part, but is just a fraction smaller, so is the best, but not perfect. Super glue is again the filler in the sandwich.

All crude stuff, but it seems to have worked; for the minute at least. While under the bonnet, another repair to the main frame was carried out. Nothing will stick to this so some brutal work with a soldering iron and some Wills sheet was the only way forward. The smell was...

And so the old girl limps on for another day.

Wills signal box

 A long, long time ago in the year 2018 BT, a magazine editor warned me off using the Wills signal box kit. 'Tricky'. So I went down the Dapol route. Now is my chance to find out. TBH the first impressions are good and it looks to be typical Wills fare, and possibly designed by Our Lord Rice. So either the afore mentioned gent had it mixed up with the Ratio box which is an absolute bitch in places, or something else. This is destined for print as well, but may either end up on the expanding round the room epic of on the much mooted Hopwood Southern. A long history entails. 

Some pre-construction painting continues...

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Saturday Ramble: Getting your eye in

 The humble British standard van, and the British standard model railway scale. Fairly obvious, but to clarify: we have a kit-built Ratio van in OO, a Lima in HO, a Hornby in TT:120, and a Peco in N. This was set up to take a look at how they compare; interestingly the middle two are more or less correct to gauge, while the outer pair are not. The significant jump out to many may be the smaller two and the difference in general size. On the right the N at 2 and 1/16mm scale (1/148) and left the TT at 2.54mm scale (1:120). Nominally 2mm and 2.5mm and yet visually quite a jump. At this point any 3mm scale modellers will be screaming about treachery and I do sympathise a little, but I admit that I think the new kid on the block definitely has something about it. I'm too invested in 4mm to change, but if I was coming at it cold as a newbie I would give it serious consideration. In trainset track terms the 'ideal' 2nd radius curves roughly equates to OO gauge 1st radius and all the RTR commercial stock is designed to take these as a minimum. So in broad terms you are turning 180 degrees in a bit over 2' width.

The reasoning behind this is purely commercial, but as above, the cold newbie would find quite a bit to like about the TT. 

Goods shed

 And done. This is more or less as per the instructions with some extra structural reinforcement added. Is it good? Well taking into consideration the age of the base kit design and the material, yes. Critics will bleat on about cliches and lack of detail, but that misses the point somewhat. I drew the line at adding loads of extra detail, but that could be done and lift it quite considerably. The other is the height, but that's a whole other set of questions.

As per the last post, I am minded that it creates a vibe, and a real period feel layout could be developed using the range, the only problem being the signal box which to my eyes doesn't fit with the rest of the railway 'A' series. Well, not like the original 1960s one did. I wonder if anyone has one on a shop shelf somewhere?

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Superquick time

Haven't done one of these for  a while.

If I could pinpoint a time when I shifted from trainset to railway modelling it would probably a Superquick kit; possibly even this one, the A07 goods shed. Only it isn't. At first glance you think it's the same, but the colours are slightly different; a distinct Southern green tinge rather than a GWR brown. There are also more platform bits included which I may omit for old times sake. The roof is just plonked at the moment and there is some light upgrading to do. Other than that, it's great fun and a real Saturday afternoon project.

Anyone for a complete Superquick branchline terminus layout?

Wills coal yard

 The Wills SS15 stuffed and mounted on a piece of stray MDF with lashings of coal and a few Merit bits from the very bottom of the scrapbox. Quite a bit more work than most people would want to put into it, but altogether a fun little project.

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Wills coal office build

 Back to the smaller projects for a moment. This for Warners, is a gentle upgrade of a Wills coal yard kit. I've done a few of these now, so fairly straightforward. Here with the full chimney, open door and rainwater goods. The paint and a stuff and mount to do.

The delivery man

 And there we have it. 'Caol', AKA The Scottish, delivered in crate form to the RM office. You may have got the impression that I'm glad to get rid of it, and that would be more or less accurate. Not though because it was a bad idea, but more that it has been plagued by delays and supply issues from the get go which has cause no small amount of hair-pulling here. I would consider doing this again with the research knowledge gained. However, I would definitely drop the period back to transition or Blue-Sectorisation mostly to increase the operation. The green would be favourite with 26 and 27s, though the later period would be an easy entry with the Rhiw stock as a base. It's not going to happen though. Caol will appear in RM from the late Autumn in the now usual serial format.

Looking forward; there are discussions afoot about something new. Hold onto your hats, it could be a choppy trip....

A new/old Hornby Terrier

 I picked this Mk1 ex-Dapol Hornby-badged Terrier up a couple of months ago off of Marketplace from a chap down the road for the princely sum of £25. He assured me it ran; which it did... after a fashion. Visuals suggested that the wheels could be the culprit; or rather the muck on the wheels. I decided on a full strip-down and service. These models are dead easy to work on and I finished the job in under 30 minutes. The treads were fibre-brushed to a shine as were the front wiper pick-ups. The drive train was totally dried up; I guessed an age of around 20 years old and it had obviously never been touched, so motor bearings oiled, gears greased, chassis bearing faces cleaned, wheelsets back in and a drop of oil . 

A run without the body looked hopeful and with the whole thing back together and up to weight she purrs along. Do I need another Terrier? No really, but at that price she's a good spare chassis for the existing pair, or I may get around to a full detail.

Svanda at Bredgar

 

 Svanda appeared yesterday at what its essentially the final exhibition. This is due to there being nothing else in the book. Really friendly show within the Bredgar and Wormshill Light Railway site, and organised by Kerry and Kevin of Invicta Models.

The layouts are not the main attraction, sharing the attention with the main railway and a brace of other steam power on the day. This means that the audience is high on the family scale and quite transient. This means that you don't really get an exhibition 'buzz', but you do get to put the hobby in front of people who are just out for the day. We did this last year and I'll repeat my comment from then - it's clean. No piles of 'we'll get around to that later' scrap, and areas full of sleepers and rusty rail. This is Pro with a capital P. Well worth a visit and just off the M20 Jct 8.

Broken Creek - and American HO layout.

 A quick nip down the road to the ever sunny Littlehampton to snap a layout for CM. Broken Creek is very much where my head is on layouts in general: one man build/operate, simple track plan, lots of detail without getting silly and sensibly researched.  It's off to the Uckfield show in October, so the rush was on to get something done for the previous month's CM; which is where I came in. 

The photos and article appear in the October 2025 issue of Continental Modeller.

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Saturday Ramble

 I don't do many show these days. Not sure why this is, but they do seem to be problematic at times particularly where the bump between entertainments happens. Anyway...

Rhiw2 appeared at Eastbourne for Pevensey MRC  to great applause, 'simplicity' seemed to be the key response and if conversations over the layout were an indication, there were many people inspired to build something with a similar approach. So job done there. Also good, was the real life response to the recent 009 layout-build series in RM which seems to have gone down well. Not bad for a circle of track and a siding. 

This brings me to a general question. The overall lack of invites, and/or the ability to attend if they do, is making me reassess slightly. I've been exhibiting since the early 1990s, so for a while, though this is by no means an intense lifestyle choice unlike some people I know who engineer to be out almost every weekend. That has never been for me. Couple this with a recent passing conversation with Mr. Hill and my brain asks, is it time to gently hang up the trestles? For me, at least this century, modelling has increasingly been about publishing, either in this medium off my own back, or via the press in a very fluid professional capacity. Neither of these two things have anything to do with exhibiting, excepting the blog's rather popular show reviews. Layout building of late has very much fallen into making things for other people to play with - in many cases the result is not something that I want to get anywhere near when it's finished. Is is sensible to switch gears completely, return to here much more and run with a publish-only mindset? 

Trees

 Almost ready for delivery. It's a pretty picture.

Non comfort

This is turning out to be an interesting project. The working title is Caol which was thought of in a hurry just to tag it, though I have casually looked up the Gaelic for camel to replace it. To save you looking it is... camel. Natch. The brief is/was to incorporate three types of track - I have dodged around this a little, but it does fulfil in using Bullhead, steel sleeper and ordinaire yellow pack code 75.  All that aside it is taking a ridiculous amount of time to get this all down possibly not helped by Mrs F being unwell and off work which slows things down somewhat.  The Accurascale 66 above is an on-loan review item, and while stunning in every way is just huge. This is the test and clearance loco as it would be the biggest item to logically be used and in this instance almost fits the bang up to date period. 

Above is Steve Croucher's Mk1 plan from my 5 min sketch, though this has been stretched somewhat. As is always the case, things get slightly altered as the build progresses. The eagle eyed will have noted that once again this is a Ford Gammon End four point plan with the siding to the left simply a trap line ending only just out of shot. The operation is basic even for me and is routed in 2024 period DMUs and some engineering traffic. But the reality is that that is what is currently there.

I have 3.5 months.

 

A hurried 09 layout

 Busy, with all sorts of stuff and no time to get it on here. 

The trackwork for the latest RM epic is driving me mad and is taking way too long for such a simple plan, but at the edge of that is the above. Built to get Mrs F away for a weekend and forcing a target point, I invited myself to the Norfolk and Suffolk 009 mob's member's day with a micro 09 layout just 28" x 8" + FY. Moving quickly on from that, things took a turn that I hadn't seen coming in the form of the recently announced RM small baseboard competition. I was 'approached' by the Ed' with an impossible request, so as an alternative suggestion, this was mentioned. Being almost the same size as the comp' boards it was quickly finished and should appear in next month's RM to illustrate. A case of the worlds aligning for once. Winding back, it will still appear at Beccles on the 3rd of May as planned, though I had anticipated running up to the wire with getting it done as an occasional side project, not the frantic white knuckle ride of a magazine deadline! 

Now, back to the Bullhead...

Steyning

A day out with your mates, is how I generally describe the Steyning exhibition. Yes it is public, but for some reason there is a high proportion of what I call proper modellers. Not in some sort of elitist way, more that they make things in the traditional sense. The good Reverend pictured seated behind Drovers Brook is a good case in point with very little of his 1:32 scale layout bought in.  Beyond (in his eyeline) is Alan Monk with the HO scale Dounreay, again, much proper modelling in evidence.

Drovers Brook performed almost faultlessly, which considering that it's not designed for exhibiting and the amount of lash-up to get it there. Not to mention the return of the low trestles, not seen since the AotC went out.

Lots of interested punters and a great deal of chat. A day out with your mates.

 

Where is March going?

What feels like a return to full-time model-type things, the pressure to keep moving is on. The first on the list this month was to get Drovers Brook more or less done for the Steyning exhibition. This is not really an exhibition beast, so lots of jerry rigging of lights and curtains was needed. Above; the pre-show test. In the end all went well and I'll pop a couple of photos up later.

While not really a very recent task, the disused chapel for the Scottish is complete. In fact the last few days seem to have been to working through the Peco catalogue, or so it seems, with brake vans, signal boxes and the like. Almost done is the Arisaig station building kit; my forth laser-cut item this year. Not sure about these yet, the jury is still out. The fit for all these is just about perfect, but the detail and final finish is less than the equivalent plastic kit. I note that we used to have plastic kits in carboard boxes, now we have wood kits in plastic boxes. Just an observation.

 

Tenterden exhibition

One of those annual pilgrimages, almost compulsory. Why though? In the great scheme of things this is a quite low level show; there are no big name layouts and barely any small name ones either. It does though have a certain something about it. The accent is often (as it was yesterday) on larger scale stuff; the main hall having three O gauge, a large G gauge and a Gauge 1 with live steam. What I do like is the trade. Again, with a couple of exceptions, is on the rummage side and independent leaning. I rarely come away without a bottom of the bin bargain and most years kick myself for rejecting something on the day.

Show: 5

Catering; 6

Parking: 8

Rucksacks: 8

It's almost rude not to pop into the KESR which is a mile away, if only for a quick look around and a cup of tea. This timed nicely with the arrival of the visiting 4MT. It's hard not to like this Horwich built standard. Apparently 1953 is a vintage year.

 

Board again

 Against all sorts of natural aversion I find myself here again. Aversion as this is solid flat board land and I'm a long way past seeing this as a natural start point. However client dictates and all that lead me back to the excellent White Rose products, this time in MDF. The shift in part to the price and availability of the quality Russian and Finnish ply used.

Nothing to see here really the base line kit used go together without fuss with glue joints, though I'm tempted to add corner blocks for belt and braces. Though it won't be me moving them. two 900mm and one 1050mm all by 500mm make up the set. A bit wider than I would have liked, but never mind.

Saturday Ramble

 After having to sign in via half a dozen devices, I am waiting for the point where I can't get into here at all. If I disappear, that's probably the issue.

Most of the way through the second signal box in as many weeks. This the West Highland item from Peco. This is only the second of the new bread of laser-cut kits that I've built and I found the first, the Tan-y-bwlch station building, quite taxing, this however may have saved my opinion as it just falls together and any problems have been down to slightly curly wood rather than it not fitting.

I must admit that I have been a bit of a luddite here and this is my reasoning: My damascene conversion to Wills sheet aside, I have got very used to working in plastic - sometimes the fit can be poor, but either some filler or solvent and squidge can sort gaps and a file can reduce oversize. Laser-cut wood ain't so  forgiving; it either fits or it don't. It that respect it is like card, and card kits can go from good to utterly appalling. The jury is still out, but if this (and not the TYB station) are typical, then I could be swayed. What they definitely don't do so easily is allow for bashing, which regulars will know is a favourite approach around here. Welding extra bits on would be less easy and cutting and adding new overlay detail much harder. I threw the frets from this in the bin - I really can't start another level of scrapbox for wood bits. This one may sway, me as it is very good. We'll see how the next one goes.

Crying in the chapel.

 Working to a brief can sometimes be constricting so I try to find ways of pushing it beyond the obvious and squeeze something unusual in. The Scottish needed a 'something' in the lower left corner so a lengthy peruse of google images of the general area suggested that a non-conformist chapel. The Wills kit being the logical start point. Photos of tin chapels are plentiful, in either converted or derelict states. The later was chosen and an example at Skerray was found. This led to an idea to cut and shut two kits and go for the full last -legs look.  Here just before the windows were boarded up with plasticard plywood sheets.

prototype here

The boy on the bridge

This has became a signature cameo now and harks back to the layout that titles the web page. The 009 layout in question, built some 26 years ago,  featured the Airfix/Dapol schoolboy figure looking through the bridge railings. Since then, if there was a bridge, he stands watching the action, though there has been some inventive ways to do this as there is not always bridge railing to peer through. This is a case in point with the parapet walls and he has been shunted southwards.
 

Box bodgery

The box just about done. This has been a bit of a battle in more ways than one, but I have roughly what I was after. To recap: The top half is a Ratio GWR M&H style small box, picked up part built for a fiver, The lower section is Wills sheet and a mix of strip. The steps have been moved forward to suit the site with some jiggery pokery undertaken with the railings to compensate for this. The internals (top) are the usual bodge of scrap and some off cuts of Ratio spear-point fencing with a touch of colour to fool the eye. Behind the glass it disappears into the gloom, but fools the viewer into thinking that there is a lot more detail than there really is.

Now to deal with Mr. Hill's fencing...

 

A Kentish box.

 No section of the above is either finished or fixed, but at that point where you need to get it perched together so get an idea of how it will look. Having a kit without the setting part of a lower section to work to is not a good starting point, however, that as a) what I had, and b) where it needed to go. The lower section is the Wills clapboard sheet (one of) with a small Wills window and the curved top door from the kit, which took longer that I would have liked to get a reasonable fit.

Regardless, this is still top value for a fiver and some scraps. Moreover, it's modelling, as opposed to just assembly. Although there is a kit at the heart of all this, there is a remarkable amount of calculating and trial and error involved to get something close to what I want. 

PS. Anyone got a lump or two of house coal that I can have? After years of an open fire I never kept more that a little in the scenic box, now used up. Gas central heating produces less modelling material.