David Holman

As always, a joy to behold.

Lovely stuff! Really like how the various scenes hang together. It is one thing to make nice buildings and structures (which they most certainly are), but assembling them into a coherent, believable whole like this really makes the layout shine. The bus outside the station and the overbridge scene already have that certain something. As others have said, more please and don't forget the track plan too.

Lovely stuff. Shame the rest of Swilly No 6 isn't still with us - or a section of the railway too for that matter!

Always good to see how different projects emerge and especially the thinking that goes into them. That track plan has a very nice flow to it.

At the very least you need a break in the rails somewhere and probably a soft switch too, so you can reverse the po!arity, like the direction.

Slow progress, but the right hand board is starting to come together. Mostly, it has been a case of more of the same: gloss paint and chinchilla dust for the road surface and the 'cess' alongside the track, plus lots of DAS [and even more scribing] for the quayside. However, the warehouse is pretty much finished and has certainly been fixed down. There has been a small addition too in the form of a 'lucam' - the hoist at the top, which enables goods to be moved up to/down from each floor. Another small adaptation has been to the mobile crane. After brooding over how the real thing might have been powered, have come up with the idea that, like the Giant's Causeway tramway, it is deemed to be electric. Somewhere out of sight is a hydro electric generator, which feeds power to the rails that the crane runs on. Workmen get a measure of protection from the wooden boards that shield these, plus of course, power is only on when the crane is working. Not entirely sure how plausible this is, but the crane is essentially just a different type of view blocker, hiding the exit along the pier, so hopefully this will do. Speaking of view blockers, a piece of plywood has been added to the front of the far right side, which, when a top pelmet is eventually added, will frame the overall scene. As for the train, it is the 1950s this time and my J19 has appeared with the fish train, the latter an eclectic mix of pre-grouping stock, including one of the MGWR four wheel hearse vans, which were later used for parcels and fish. Like the loco, it is an Alphagraphix kit, while the wagons are scratch built.

Ideally, clean wheels with solvent like meths, isopropyl, lighter fluid, using a cotton bud. I either use a couple of crocodile clips, from my old H&M Clipper, or two bare wires from a redundant wall plug transformer, pressing on the wheels. Make sure it is DC and no more than 12v though! I use Peco lubricating oil on bearings and gears, giving all locos a thorough wheel clean before a show. Also check pick ups for dirt - likewise where these bear on the wheels. Keep track clean the same way, especially as soon as running becomes hesitant. Cleanliness comes well before godliness where model railways are concerned! Reminds of the joke about the man who prayed everyday that he might win the lottery jackpot. Eventually after a particularly impassioned prayer, there was the crack of thunder and a voice from on high said 'My son, at least do me the favour of meeting half way by actually buying a ticket'. Probably why I don't win either.

Now what are Starskey and Hutch doing over here? Won't be chasing criminals in that car - however fine it looks - not if the recent Top Gear episode is true! Fire up the Quattro, Gene...

Splendid stuff, everyone!

You are never alone with a clone.

Went to the Spa Valley Railway yesterday for a birthday treat and came across this curious beastie. A strange hybrid to say the least, so double House Points if, unlike me, you know its ancestry. Not even remotely Irish of course, but begs the question of what 'might have beens' could be created on the other side of the water...? The answer to this loco's heritage is that it is a bog standard Hunslet Austerity/LNER J94 0-6-0ST. It belongs to a private owner, though before that spent time at Longmoor and also at Swindon, where after fitting Kylchap ejector and mechanical stoker was tested with a dynamometer car and produced almost 900bhp! Anyway, after time on the Bristol Suburban Railway and Dart Valley/South Devon Railway, it found its way to Mid Hants, where they removed the saddle tank and bunker before adding a Fowler 3500 gallon tender. All this to turn it into 'Douglas' from the Thomas the Tank Engine stories. Since then, it has been at the Ribble Steam Railway and is now based on the East Lancs Railway, but is at Tunbridge Wells on loan at the moment. Quite the wanderer! Anyway, thought it interesting enough to share. Given the very limited numbers of preserved Irish locos, can't think for a minute that the IRPS will want to do anything similar, but equally, found myself wondering what conversions or adaptions were proposed back in the day - after all the Great Northern certainly based some of their 4-4-0s and 0-6-0s on the same underpinnings. Will look forward to seeing both facts and fiction.

Louvres have to be one of the most awkward things to do in a building. Not seen ones made of wiggly tin before, but suspect that wear and tear would soon give an uneven finish.

Presumably, there are decent sound chips available? The Chatham Club have a big 00 layout. Wonder if anyone is interested?!? There again, we have an 0 gauge layout too. Heljan do a Deltic, I think, so couple of grand for one of these and eight Mark1s should make for a nice bit of nostalgia - or maybe not!

Not bad, but only six on and 25mph. Now imagine one with 13 coaches, over 400 tons, full throttle, around 85mph on the climb to Peascliffe Tunnel. The two tone green my favourite - worked pretty well on all the BR diesels, though steam locos, where they still existed, we're pretty filthy by then.

And worth every penny. What a stunner.

Black, see my MGWR Mail Train thread in this workshop section. At least the wheels are green.

Very much work in progress at the moment, doing the ground cover on the right hand baseboard. First up, used some DAS to bring the approach road level with the board crossing, then painted it [and the area between the track and the sea wall] with gloss black, before covering with chinchilla dust. Next came an attempt to create some steps leading down from the quayside to what will be the embarkation point for the small passenger ferries to offshore islands. As can be seen, this has been built up from wood strip & will eventually be covered [like pretty much everything else] in more DAS. Currently am building up the rest of the ground cover, as per the other board, with two layers of mounting board, which will then be given a layer of you know what, before scribing commences for setts & so on. Hopefully, you can see narrow troughs have been cut into the card to represent drainage channels. Not exactly pretty at the moment!

Green frames may be needed, JB. Hopefully not too difficult once I get round to it.

Sounds like my Wolf Dog needs some attention then...

Sutton Locomotive works too. It will be interesting to see what Model Railway Journal make of the new Deltic. Nothing if not picky, but willing to praise where it is due and you'd certainly think they should. Grew up to the sound of those Napiers on the ECML and saw them all eventually. Always looked forward to being hauled by one when going to/from college in London. Drivers seemed to enjoy the extra power over a class 47 and you always got 100mph down Stoke Bank. Best run though was on the Aberdeen Mail, which always loaded to 15 bogies or more and did Grantham to Newark (just over 14 miles) start to stop in 12 minutes 30 seconds, hauling well over 500 tons. It was dark, so couldn't get actual speed by timing the mileposts, but the demonic howl from those engines was quite something. Likewise a growing concern that we weren't going to stop at Newark, but we did, just! However, when the 125s arrived, it was another step up in speed, when I found we'd got to Grantham (105 miles from Kings Cross) in exactly an hour. Somehow not as iconic as a Deltic though... The name Deltic comes from the triangular arrangement of the cylinders. It wasn't unknown for one to much a hole in the engine casing - pretty catastrophic and known to crews as 'putting a leg out of bed'. I believe that riding in the engine compartment was not advised at speed for that very reason.

Interesting! Never been keen on the Jarvis stuff, while fine granite can look very green - but certainly not here! Still find Woodland Scenics hard to beat and use their fine ash even in 7mm. They do several colours and mixing the pale with brown can work well for newish ballast. I think the stuff is made from crushed coconut shells, so is fairly light too. A pox on my spellchecker - substituted Jewish, for newish. As if, already....

Splendid!

What Sean says about sleeper density is certainly interesting, because the big issue with Peco Code 100 is just that - it has never been right, even for 'standard' gauge. The new Code 75 looks better, even portraying 5'3, because rail size and sleeper spacing are correct for 00 track on these islands. Let's hope other manufacturers pick up on what Peco have done. In some ways, it is perhaps surprising that we don't see 3mm Irish models on 16.5 track, but on the other hand, considering the lack of anything rtr in that scale it makes more sense to do as per the wonderful Ballyconnell Road and do the right gauge in the first place. Another way of doing Irish broad and narrow is to do American 0 Gauge, which is 1:48. 32mm track is pretty close, while 18mm, EM is spot on for 3' of course and there are plenty of scenic items like figures and road vehicles available. Unfortunately, wheels are a big problem because a 36mm wheel would have fewer spokes in 7mm scale (5'2) than 1:48, where it would be about 6'. Anyway, enough of that - makes my brain hurt just thinking about it!

Yep, piece of cake next time! Perseverance and patience the watch words in our hobby. Well worth all the effort.

The trials of portable layouts! The main advantage of DAS is that it means you can scribe round corners, to avoid ugly joints when using embossed materials. However, quoins (why does my spellchecker offer Wilkins????) cover that up if you use thin card and fold it round the corner. Weight is a real issue on portable layouts though, you build a nice set of lightweight boards and then make them heavy with wiring, scenery and buildings! One way out is to use lightweight filler for scenics. Strange stuff as compared to the ordinary mix, it feels like the box/tub is empty. Much merit in filler anyway as you can mix in pva to stop it chipping and pre colour with water colour paint too. Doesn't scribe as well as DAS, which is why foamboard a good base for buildings.