David Holman

As suggested, various types will work. My personal favourite has been car body filler, from the likes of Halford's. A two part job that sets in minutes and is easily sanded/filed. It was used extensively to get the subtle curves on my SLNCR Railcar B [see David's Workbench] and works just as well when filling in gaps on etched brass or whitemetal kits.

Very interesting & a rather nice model as well. Can anybody point me in the direction of a drawing, as wouldn't mind having a go at a 7mm scale version?

It has been a while since I last contributed anything, but I have been busy coach building, with a rake of three Midland Great Western six wheelers. These will form my excursion/pilgrim train, to be hauled by the G2 2-4-0 I am about to start. One of the coaches is a Tyrconnel etched kit; the other two are scratchbuilt in plastikard, based on Alphagraphix card kits, using their brass 6 wheel chassis kits. The latter are slightly more basic than on the full coach - this has a fully sprung chassis, which though simple is very effective. I tried to be clever on the scratchbuilds and cast my own axlebox units from resin. My advice would be DON'T. It took far too much time, they are far less robust than whitemetal and there is little if any saving in money either. The photos show the finished models [i will leave you to decide which is the etched kit & which are the scratchbuilds], plus a few from the construction process. The techniques are the ones outlined by David Jenkinson in his book 'Carriage Modelling Made Easy' and essentially use a basic plastic shell upon which the outer panelling is built up. Very straightforward and satisfying - if you can mark out and use a scalpel or craft knife, coach building should not hold any fears. Also included is a shot of the new Sligo parcels van, complete with a full weathering job

Indeed! However, is anyone left alive in Midsomer? Methinks the serial killersust have got them all by now...

As it has been a while, thought I'd bring you up to date on what is happening on the layout. Much has been covered in the workbench section, but these notes will try to bring it all together. The layout is effectively complete, as far as scenery goes, so work since the summer has concentrated on stock and operation. For the latter, new LED lighting strips have been fitted, cutting power consumption down from 480 watts to 150, with [i think] sharper light too. A fair bit less heat as well! The fiddle yard bolts needed attention after the Uckfield show, so these has also been strengthened, while the cassette for the railbus in the fiddle yard has been rebuilt to enable power and alignment without any leads or clips. This simply uses screws going through the aluminium angle & 80thou plasticard base, which then sit on brass plates, which are wired to the incoming tracks. Wrote this up for the Model Railway Journal Christmas Competition in 2013 and in the last couple of weeks heard I'd come runner up. Can't be bad as this gives me two years subscription. A new project is underway, to build a 'Pilgrim's Train'. These were regular sites on both CIE and GNRI. Mine takes advantage of the new Tyrconnel G2 2-4-0 and a rake of 6 wheel coaches. One of the latter is approaching the paint shop. It is another Tyrconnel etched brass kit. The other two will be scratchbuilt from plastic, using the Alphagraphix card kits as drawings. Am hoping the full train will be available for York at Easter. Before then, the layout has another outing, this time at the Orpington show [small but very friendly & always with some very good models] on the second weekend of January. This takes place at the wonderfully named Pratts Bottom village hall, just up the road from Badger's Mount. I kid you not...

Very impressive - will join the queue following its progress! By the by, Agenora models are soon to release a kit of an Aveling & Porter geared engine [7mm scale], with full working motion, flywheel etc. Looks right up your street.

A fine array of wagons, Nelson & an interesting bit of history re the LNER opens - especially as I have a couple myself which I built for my BR, Eastern Region layout. 32mm gauge, but easily altered for wagon wheels. One constructive comment, if I may. Wagons of the quality you are producing would look even better without the ugly tension lock couplings. Can understand why folk use them, but there are alternatives, which might be worth investigating. Three links are a bit of a faff in 4mm scale, though I found I could work them if I stuck to the Smiths ones, which have fairly large links and hooks. Alternatively, Dinghams are not bad either.

Sadly, there is only enough room in the fiddle yard for two wagons and a brake van [plus coach No 9] on the mixed train. Until now, these two wagons have been a mix of whatever is available and at exhibitions, I like to keep things as simple as possible. In my experience, the paying public aren't too interested in seeing lengthy shunts, while it is not unknown [when they do occur], that the same wagons go out as come in! However, with a parcels van to add to the horse box, for home use, the mixed train now uses there two on one leg, replacing them with two from the goods shed siding. Given that both really need to go right at the end of the siding, against the stop blocks, this can call for a degree of stirring in the grey matter. The photos show an incoming train.

Well spotted D - a wee job I sorted this afternoon.

Like HF, I use the weathering powders & not just at weekends [!]. See my latest entry on the workbench section for ideas. Have never bothered to put and fixative over it. Find a light dusting of talc & then brushed with a large, soft brush afterwards seems to hold it in place, provided you don't handle the stock too much

See the workbench section for details of the new coal wagons, but here is the sequence I've devised to used them. The sliding rotating fiddle yard means hand free where trains are concerned, but had been struggling to come up with a system that enabled loaded and empty coal trains, without needing to manhandle locos & brakevans in the fiddleyard. The solution, when I finally worked it out is simple and creates another train too - a short rake of wagons carrying stores & empties to/from the mine. Hence we have a generator on an open carriage truck, another open with oil drums & petrol cans, plus a covered van with whatever inside. Guess could also include a wagon of pit props sometime too. So the sequence of photos should shows Lark arriving with the stores wagons from the mine, which are put in the goods siding. the engine then goes to the water tank to fill up. The J26 arrives next with the empties & after running round, picks up the stores wagons & brake van, before heading back to Sligo. Lark then comes off the loco siding & pushes the wagons off, up to the mine. As it is deemed there is no run round loop up there, empties have to be propelled. The reverse sequence is much the same, though this time the J26 goes to get water, while Lark brings the loaded wagons [removable loads - see the workbench section] down from the mine and then hides in the goods siding with the stores wagons. After the J26 has departed, Lark runs round its wagons & propels them back to the mine. Fairly simple & it does give the added bonus of two trains 'on scene'. However, the photos have not uploaded in the right order for some reason, so will leave for you all to work out what happens & when from the text.

With a nice new workbench, the impetus has been there to finish off a couple of projects started back in the summer. First up is an SLNCR parcels van. Did my own drawing from photos in the Coakham coaches & Sprinks Sligo albums. Mr Desmond helpfully provides livery details [faded maroon], so my usual procedure of plasticard bodywork & whitemetal underframe saw a basic model completed in fairly quick time. Painting took somewhat longer... A full weathering job meant an initial coat of brown/grey 'bare wood., then got to work with the Maskol. this is the purple patches in the photo. Maroon was then painted over this & left to dry. After, the Maskol was peeled off, leaving nice patches of bare & flaking paint. All as described [better than me] by Martyn Welch in his seminal 'The Art of Weathering' [Wild Swan]. Then got to work with fibre glass pencil, additional washes of grime & a final dusting of weathering powders & talc. Next comes a new rake of coal wagons. I'd batch built the bodies a while ago, then found they were too short for the GSR & GNRI prototypes I had in mind. However, waste not want not & devised a spurious history which sees the Arigna Mining Co ordering a mix of 4 & 6 plank opens as 'Private Owner' jobbies - rare if not unique for coal wagons in Ireland, I assume. These have been given the same weathering treatment as above & you can hopefully still see the faded lettering beneath the grime & peeling paint. The have detailed interiors, as wanted to create both loaded and empty trains, so one picture shows a removable load. The coal is the real McCoy, from Arigna itself, when I visited last year. Spotted a couple of lumps lying around, so they duly came home with me & were broken & then ground up to make a pretty authentic load - even if the wagons themselves are a bit suspect. You might notice the heftier than usual brake gear. Lark brings the loads down from the mine & the gradients are steep...

I would pay, though in my case it would be 7mm scale and a kit, rather than RTR. Guess the most numerous and far reaching locos would have the best chance of selling, so J15, A & C diesels & maybe a G?

Completion of the workshop gave me the opportunity to add some better lighting. Talking to Gordon Gravett over the summer, he told me he was experimenting with LEDs for layout lighting, so decided to have a go myself. Arigna Town was lit by 8x 6watt Clipspots, which generated a fair bit of hear [as you'd imagine] and were probably too bright for the effect I wanted. So checked out the LED Hut website and put in an order for 2x 5m, 72 watt LED strips, one in warm white, the other cool white. Also requires a 150 watt transformer. Not cheap... Have fixed the LED strips to a thin batter, which hinges like an old fashioned expanding wooden ruler. Hence can be fixed to the underside of my bookshelves, or bolted to the gallows brackets supporting the fascia at exhibitions. Now, very much appreciate that colour is in the eye of the beholder, but [to me at least], the effect is sharper and more like the bright but cloudy day I was looking for. Much closer to the fabulous pictures Andrew Burnham took for the forthcoming article in the Modeller too. However, not sure if it shows on the photos...

Only just stopped laughing... Is that a sample or it the latest product of the still? As a cocktail, could add a dash of Birchwood Casey gun blue, a smear of Vaseline and maybe a smidgen of flux paste. Light the blue touch paper and stand well back. Speaking of funny, check out the link below to RMweb. A small piece of genius in response to an MRJ article using EM profile wheels to make P4 running more reliable. The title says it all: http://captiongenerator.com/25206/Hitler-is-not-happy-with-Model-Railway-Journal-234

What you can't easily see is the bottle of meths on the shelf behind the puller drill. Medicinal purposes only, of course, track cleaning sometimes too. Goes well with Pringles....

Probably won't be long before the work top is looking untidy, as I am not the neatest when working! The hardboard and MDF sheet is on there for a reason... The Pringles tubes are very useful for storing wire and microstrip, while the lids make very good mixing pots for glue. However, there is one very well known modeller who uses the tubes from single malt whiskey for his wire and strip. Real class! No kick plates (told you the units were cheap), but hear what you say and may have to fit some. However, there is useful storage space below. The light posts, longitudinal support beams and other longer bits of timber are kept there, while the trestles, for exhibitions, fit nicely behind the units. Cunning plans, as Baldrick would say. Sadly tis a freezer not a fridge. Have to go to the kitchen for that.

By no means unique - I can remember seeing one used at Newark Northgate in my spotting days. It probably replaced a four legged 1hp version & no doubt there were many others around too. Making a working model might be interesting, though the 7mm scale layout 'End of the Line' had two R/C lorries, so presumably not impossible.

Things have been quite on the model building front recently, because my workshop has been getting a long overdue makeover. Formerly it was the integral garage to our house, but around the millennium, it was converted into the present workshop, with an internal door to the house and linked to the central heating system. It wasn't the biggest garage [less than 16x8], so has been much more useful in its present form, while also making loading layouts into the car far easier than when my modelling was done in the spare bedroom upstairs. 14+ years later and it was looking pretty scruffy. In addition, have not one, but two layouts stored/displayed in there was putting space at a real premium and it was a complete Chinese puzzle every time anything needed moving. So, bit the bullet and sold my 0 gauge layout, Eatonswell last month and was able to use the proceeds on a complete make over. This included new flooring, a repaint and the installation of new [cheap] kitchen base units to increase and tidy up storage. Around 4.3m worth of cupboards and 2m or drawers has cleared a lot of stuff from the higher shelves, so these are now mainly books and magazines. Spent a fortune on smaller storage from the 'Really Useful Box Co' which has enabled proper organisation of the myriad of bits & pieces we modellers crave and acquire, while tools are also better stored and more easily accessible. A further bonus is that I've been able to build a display cabinet to house some of my models. The pictures give an idea of what has been done and include a couple of areas given over to exhibition plaques. The ones over my workbench are the early Chatham Show ones - beautiful cast bronze affairs, made in the Dockyard foundry. Hopefully, can now get back to modelling - have a set of open wagons on the go, plus a parcels van and brake van. Will be nice to work in 7mm/ft for a change!

Agree with the others. No escaping the fact that ballasting is a chore, so best done little & often. Alternatively, what about the foam ballast strip and bases? Good for running & sound insulation, while with a bit of careful painting, can be made fairly realistic too. Beware real granite, as it can turn green with PVA glue. Woodlands Scenics the best for me, and always use a grade finer than might be suggested - so 00 for 0 gauge, N for 00 and finer still for N.

Uckfield went well, gaining runner up in the public vote for best layout. What makes the show so enjoyable is the warm welcome, excellent balance of traders and high standard of layouts. Add in a very knowledgeable audience & it makes for a fun weekend. Spoke to several people with first hand experience of Irish railways, including one who had rode the Sligo as a boy. Lots of people commented on how nice it was to see an Irish themed layout & several times found myself musing with folk about what other 7mm scale, broad gauge layouts there were. we could all name Castle Rackrent [a brief report in the new MRJ on its 40th birthday], but got stuck after that. surely there must be more? The new loco, Lark, acquitted itself well & the only problem was when Fermanagh somehow had a lead to the motor break off, stopping it rather abruptly. Otherwise things ran nicely & the only derailments were operator error. Likewise the new fiddle yard. Slightly scary when turning it, as the track table has to be pulled right out to do this, but we soon became confident in its use. Next outing not till Easter next year, at York, though have had over 20 enquiries now for other shows, mostly in the south of England.

Coakham book is indeed a gem HF. If only there was a wagon book too....

Iain Rice, in one of his many books on model railway design, came up with a 'rule' that I have always found appropriate. It is to ensure that what ever trains you have, they are able to travel at least three times their own length on your layout. Hence if you have a train one metre long, you ideally need a three metre run on your layout. Therefore, on Arigna Town, with its four, equal length baseboards, the fiddle yard of 47 inches [old money] gives loco and six wagons which does not look out of place on the scenic section. Have used this rule with several layouts and numerous plans & it really does work.

Good on yer! 21mm looks fab.

Don't think I have any info other than what is already available on the website, Des Coakham's carriage book, etc. However, would certainly be interested in your book if you can get the material. Likewise a wagon book. The latter is particularly lacking - even a broad brush generic history/review would be a help, though from what I hear many plans and records have been destroyed. Shame, because in Britain, there seems to be a book for every company, while Irish fans are forced to peer into the background of any photos, looking for snippets of information.. All power to your elbows!