Coopercraft van

 Modelling is slower these days but a concerted effort has produced this unlikely beast for the Dury's Gap roster.

Originally part of the AoC stock it sustained a little damage and has been repurposed. First by scratching the lettering off with a fibre brush, then repainting. The brakes were replaced with Mortons from the bits box - unlikely that it would have lasted into the 1960s let alone with the original Dean/Churchward mechanism. Like a lot of the stock it remains on the branch for semi-internal traffic. 

Saturday Ramble - to bin or not to bin?

I'm having another sort out and reorganisation of stuff. There's a box marked GWR EX and another without the suffix in the cupboard. These contain the stock and associated bits from the Art of Compromise build and things that I did for the GWR book. I worked my way though the boxes last night to ascertain the running qualities and all was well. I'm unlikely to build the AotC again; at least not in its standard form anyway. So what to do with it all?  Here are the options:

1. Put it all in a bag, hold my nose and put it out for the bin man.
2. Flog it (I'm never very good at this).
3. Use it for something else.

Don't think that number one is not a consideration - I've done similar before much to the horror of some people. I really can't be doing with hanging on to £2k worth of modelling stuff for the sake of it like a few I know. If it's got no further use for the medium term, then I'll dump it. There are exceptions of course. I have a small stash of American stuff; enough for a small switching layout, which would be hard to replace especially at anything like the prices that I paid for it even allowing for inflation. But pannier tanks? There will always be pannier tanks. I even found myself drooling over the new Model Rail 16XX this week and making quiet enquires to its quality.

The third way is worth pondering. In total we are talking a possible half a dozen locos and about 20 wagons. Could this form a small sub-project. Most are lettered for a late 1930s period and most (but not all) could have survived in some form into the 1950s at least. Would it be worth a small undertaking of a repaint/renumber/redetail? In other words draw them into the transition period BR stock used for Dury's Gap?

 Or should I just put them out in a black bag?

Layout destruction

 The current crisis is generating much deep thought on lots of levels for everyone; what's important and what can wait.  I suppose that railway modelling is no different and I, like a lot of people, am revaluating certain things. 

I had begun a layout which was springing from the period of the GWR book (available to your right) and the AotC layout, which may still exist somewhere in Lincolnshire. The basic plotline was to look at the subject in a more 'finescaley' fashion. Me and finescale are not natural bedfellows, but some improvements could be me made by giving the idea more space and by making use of the Peco bullhead track. So far so good and the boards were built and the track went down. Then I got the request to build Hopwood and the layout was stacked neatly in a corner for a while. Then shortly after Hopwood had been shown at Warley, the O gauge project was mentioned... it remained in the corner. Now, some two-plus years later and with the room lightly flooded it ended up in the garage getting in the way.

I took it into the office and gave it a good looking at. I'd moved on. The world had moved on. Did I need another exhibition layout when there may be no exhibitions for a very long time? The answer was quite mixed: yes I do, but my head is thinking more compact and to be honest the bullhead wasn't singing to me. 

The other factor was the idea that while I quite liked Hopwood as a concept, it was a little short, too wide and waaaay too heavy. Taking the basic premise and mixing that with the previous idea for Rhiw (tabs above) and looking at a Rhiw 2 which had been on the board for a while.

This is a very long winded way of saying that I stripped the boards down for materials that could be used for this. And while not a lock-down project (yawn) the materials for this are all in stock.

Film Friday

I think that deep down we all have a hankering for a reasonable size home layout that can be operated realistically. This may be it. Once again commercial bits put together in a very convincing way. There are a few of these beasts about.
The sound's a bit weird - probably best off.

Dapol Fruit D for Hopwood

In a hypocritical moment from the last post.
As mentioned earlier there is a very slight rush to get a few items of stock ready for Hopwood's first proper outing at East Grinstead. As the root traffic is DMUs and parcels stock, a couple of things have needed to be bought and mainly s/h.
This caught my eye on the Hattons site. It looks to be a Wrenn body mould and a new underframe. The later is stunning, but then I don't buy a lot of current RTR so maybe those that do will be unimpressed. £17 + p&p brought it to my door which is the most I've spent for ages. Naturally everything else got put to one side, while I fiddled.
The usual glance though Bartlett's photos pull up a couple of blue liveried versions, so I worked from those. Slight rusting on the upper ironwork, a cruddy brown/grey underframe and silvering on the doors where the paint has worn through. Three colours and two cheap brushes got it done.

Wycrail model railway exhibition

The final Svanda outing this year. Wycrail in Bucks. Split over two floors it's quite a sizable show and the quality is generally high with a few reservations. We got the staircase unload, into the upstairs sports hall which wasn't as bad as expected. Now normally we are the 'different' layout in the room as there aren't too many Norwegian layouts about, but now there are two with Norge set up a few feet away. It has to be said that this is a very different approach to Svanda with DCC, catenary, mooing cows and pecking chickens so it gains ummm…. a different  audience. We did consider putting a sign up  saying 'can you spot the SWB Land Rover' but this failed to materialise.

Two enquires flooded in and as usual I got the full panoply of people's Scandinavian holiday snaps while Nigel got questions about the rock faces. Phil Parker rocked up and chatted for a while and it has to be said that I spent most of the day talking rather than operating. 

My favourite other exhibit was this. Compact and done just right. Bigger and it wouldn't have improved, smaller and it would be cramped. Although it underlined my previous comments on front operation with a too acute angle of vision making it hard to shunt.
Loser of the day was a Bristol Goods shed layout in BG 0. Stunning stock which would have been lovely to look at if you could see it. Pure prototype situations are good, but... if the stock is either in the fiddle yard or under  a large overall roof that you have to crouch down or look around the back to see inside, then it doesn't work as an exhibition piece.. OK if you were 3'6" high or had an L shaped neck I suppose, but a complete exhibition fail which was a real shame as the modelling work was superb. Stuff that good needs to be presented in its full glory.
Exhibition 9
Lunch 9 (Chilli spuds and gateaux very nice)
Rucksacks (family audience and a fairly low 3)

Fitting cardboard platforms

Clees Hay had taken a backseat as other things took preference, however yesterday much carboard was cut and facings were made up from Wills random stone and painted up. Once the parts were in hand it went together quite quickly.

Scenic break bridge

Every GWR branch termini needs a bridge and Clees Hay is no different. This farm occupation bridge was knocked up in fairly short order and was based on one or two pictures online. The stone abutments are the obvious Wills course stone sheet and the parapet is the left overs from the AotC. The brickwork resting on the lower lip of the (just visible) RSJ. Capping is all 40 thou plastic.
Panting took longer to do than the build as I couldn't get the effect that I wanted until the German Grey came into play and toned everything down a little. There is a danger that stonework can look a little like painting by numbers.

Luckily it's too narrow for a bus, but the small boy may make an appearance again. Possibly standing on a box to see over the parapet.

Baseboard painting

There's just enough black paint left to do the Clees Hay carcass. That's the garage door frame and three layouts out of one tin - hurrah. Also some experimenting with some spray cans ala Mr Nevard. Mixed results, but I'll persevere.

Note the late 20th century cave paintings are still in place.

Profile

With the track down and painted, the profile boards went on. Simple rough straight lines of 6mm MDF glued and clamped. Followed by screws into the wood blocks behind. This gives a very robust 12mm front to trim to shape with a padsaw giving the usual slightly dropped front edge.

GWR station building

More or less done. Maybe some detailing to add once it's on the layout. The base is a Wills small station building extended by about a third with some Wills clapboard sheet. The windows have been swapped with some from the box and horizontal bars removed and vertical bars added The bargeboards are from the kit, but drilled and attacked with an oval needle file. There is a small lean-to at the back from leftovers of a Wills chapel kit as is the small porch in this view. The timetable boards are very old w/m ones from Dart Castings complete with the prints from the header card.

Bullhead painting

With Exile on Main St. blasting out a little track painting to be done. Not my favourite job, I even prefer ballasting. If I can concentrate for more than 15 mins at a time I might get half the track done tonight  - well the base colour anyway.
Other news: Off to the Epsom show today ostensibly to do a little shopping which was mostly successful even though I managed not to spend the £200 on books that I'd have liked to have taken home. All of a sudden the S&D and Settle stuff looks appealing. Excellent show; even the first room would have been worth the trip with our lord Gravatt with Arun Quay leading the role call. A lengthy chat with Andy Jones who (when he wasn't getting a waggy finger from the other half) was showing the evocative Herstmonceux for the final time. It really is a high quality event and with my usual scoring gave:
Show 9.5
Catering 7
Rucksacks (a fairly high) 7

Back to the panting before a trip up to the smoke for a date with some panto. After all, there is nothing like a dame in April.

I hate cream paint

Most things have gone wrong at some point this week, mainly on the paint front. Coupled with the almost circular thinking with the new layout when all that was originally planned has fallen away to be replaced by something else, then... repeat. Half the problem is that as I've always said, once you step out of the cheap and easy road of freelancing, things become much more acute as 'that looks OK' doesn't cut it. The AotC was a generic GW branch terminus - the next project has to have more weight and substance than just making it up. Areas become important, shed allocations become important, stuff has to have some sort of explainable logic.

My preference would be S Wales. No good. Branch termini are non existent, they all end in a pit of some sort, plus they are mostly double tracked. So an accidental move to the West. Then you are up against Cambrian weight restrictions and Dukedogs, Cambrian 0-6-0's and at the outside a Dean Goods and a 48XX which I don't have. Back to Stourbridge shed area which means I can use all of the RTR things that are in stock. Once again no logical branches except the much projected Kinver both pre and post the electric light railway.

So it seems that something in the Hereford/ Hay area is likely with the Golden Valley as an influence and thus frustratingly back to Clees Hay, Mr. Hill's much loved root idea.
This was supposed to be a fairly quick project. It's proving anything but.

Track down

A final push this morning saw all the track down, wired and tested. Just the linking wiring to do. Looks nice and long and sinewy and will irritate all the 'you could have put another siding in there mate' merchants. After Dury's Gap it seems huge and yet still falls into the bracket of 'small' at just 7'4" long. Mrs F has named it Clatter, which was bypassed on the East-West Cambrian route. History will be conveniently re-written to suit, but here could be a couple of architectural changes. 25 weeks to go.

Great western track laying

Michael Campbell commented on his blog a couple of weeks back that I like to build layouts with an open feel. Although most have been two boards or less and fall into the 'small' bracket in the great scheme of things, I do have a reputation for a light touch with track layouts and scenic details. So it is here. The track plan went through at least three configurations before I settled on something and I'm still not 100% sure, but then who ever is. As you can probably work out, the first thing that went was the pesky fifth point. Funnily enough this did stay on Svanda though in the form of a trap (siding which is rarely used - by me anyway. Here with this plan I've returned to my old friend 'The Gammon End' after John Ahearn's small station on the Madder Valley. i.e. a loop with two opposing sidings. I've used this on a few layouts over the years, the principle benefit is that the neck for each siding (in model terms) is near on two thirds of the layout, in opposition to the sidings behind the platform in a fan shape which chucks the whole train down to the main station neck and under the scenic break for shunting which I avoid at all costs.
It also gets away from the aspect of the AotC that niggled me, that being the sidings running straight on to the running line; not prototypically impossible, but usually avoided or at lest reduced to one entry point leading into a fan rather than two separate entries. The Gammon End shape was common on the GWR notably on the Chinnor and West Somerset lines where the GWR often dumped a large goods shed over the loop. Here though it forms the run-round, not a loop siding and trap points.
What I do have is acres of spare space; which at this point in time is a little disconcerting, but then I do have a drawer or two of scenic coverings of various types to use up. Using things up is a theme these days. I have 26 weeks before Croydon... doddle.

New layout baseboards

Not as fast as some maybe, but a couple of days has seen two new baseboards appear for the new GWR layout, as yet unnamed. The usual format of 6mm MDF, 44" long x 17" wide to fit on the Svanda trestles with the old Rhiw FY bringing the whole to about 11'. The front profile boards still need to go on once I've established the road bridge height and the track is down, which should hopefully be this week.

Art of Compromise rides again

Fact: I have a pile of GWR buildings constructed for the book

Fact: AotC was an itch that I needed to scratch, but has now been passed on to one of the gentlemen in the list to your right.

Fact: There is a raw set of stock.

Stupidity: Instead of disposing of the above stock and buildings I decide to turn it into a layout and then offer it to the Croydon club for their show on the 12/13th October this year. 

Result: Yesterday a certain son-of a-carpenter turned up with MDF which was cut and I now have half the boards done. 

Result: Two simultaneous layout builds, and the first is problematic, but not unsortable.

New GWR book

This is fully out now and doing quite nicely on the Amazon ratings.
Looking at it slightly fresh after the publication gap I'm suitably pleased with it. Regulars will appreciate that it comes at the subject from a cheeky angle, much like what is here, with a definite slant toward making things yourself and shying away from the chequebook modelling style. As far as I'm concerned, the real fun is to be had from taking something and a) personalising it somewhat and b) not just paying someone else to do the modelling for you. Each to his own of course, but I do se a rapid drop in quite basic skills (blame who you wish here). I was discussing the layout's lighting on Sunday and said that I'd planed off a piece of battening at angle to get the LED strip in the right place. 'Planed?' Was the response. As though I'd gone to the dark side. Yes, did it in woodwork at school. Do they still do woodwork at school?

So yes it's out now with lots of hole drilling, sticking, and chopping of plastic. With all the bog paper and string modelling that you're used to on here.

GWR cattle creep

In not the best of circumstances myself and Mrs. F. snuck off to Cornwall for a few days with we me as the uncomfortable non-driver. Deliberately non railway after the Ffest-fest of a few weeks back, this was a kick back and walk along the beach type of break. Something magnetic happens though as on waking (having arrived in the dark) it became apparent that we were billeted in spitting distance from the GWR's Helston branch and faced this little beauty of a cattle creep under the old trackbed. Even when I don't do any research, the railway lines find me.

Great Western branch line modelling book

The cover proof appeared this morning. I'm never sure about covers. What's inside I have a degree of control over, but at this point onwards the dog is off the lead and all responsibility is handed over to someone else who is choosing what the thing will look like, and what they think is a strong enough cover to make someone pick it up. For the first time both these shots are from inside and not from the file of 'spares for cover'. The lower is Bob Vaughan's Condicote taken at the East Grinstead show a couple of years back - one of my favourites and just on the right side of twee in a very small space.