Patrick Davey

Just catching up on this - very impressive throughout!!!

Gets better and better. Just superb. Thanks for the tutorial photos too Alan.

Just fabulous!!!! Would love to tackle BCDR goods stock like this, how did you go about this Alan?

Love the BCDR tank! Love it all!!!! Can't believe you have been keeping all this from us Alan

Finding a workable technique for creating a water scene creates a lot of discussion, and the lady in this video demonstrates an interesting one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvFurRYD6vI Video link from a recent Scale Model Scenery email. The technique uses toilet paper (maybe suitable for flush glazing too?) and PVA glue as well as a water-based gloss varnish and LOTS of drying time between the application of layers. Not using resin appeals to me because I can never get it right, too many bubbles etc. My son and I made a viking longship over mid term and to represent the sea I used DAS clay - drinking straws were used as a foundation for the waves, and blue paint was used with white streaks on the wave tops. Cotton wool was used to represent the spray. Obviously a basic colouring of the sea (too tropical for Irish waters!) but I was happy enough with the texture. Definitely interested in the toilet paper technique for future projects though.

Ha! This is a truly magnificent layout Alan - most definitely please do articles on the layout and the BCDR diesel!!!

DROOL........

Yikes that sounds scary..... It's very tempting to respray into plain black because the loco & tender wheels are already black so they wouldn't need touched.... I'll paint over some of the lining and see what it looks like - even if the raised lining is still visible, it'll hardly be noticeable under normal viewing conditions I guess.....hope.....wish.......

I think I'm worried about the UTA lining - it's slightly raised on the model so if it was painted over in black would it look odd......? Might do a small area as a test....as 'weathering'.....

Now that my OO Works UG loco is working like a dream (thanks Gareth Brennan!) my mind is turning once again to the question of having the livery changed from the current UTA lined scheme to GNR plain black. There was an extended discussion in the forum here about the UTA livery and how the ‘straw’ maybe wasn’t yellow enough but apart from that a GNR-liveried loco would be more useful to me. Grateful for thoughts!

Just revisiting this inspirational thread Alan and once again I am bowled over by the locomotive and of course that magnificent layout too!! Would love to see much more video of both!!!

So the 'open day' at Brookhall Mill last Sunday was a great event, and one of the many nice things to come out of it was to have my OO Works UG locomotive fixed!!! It had been showing a tendency to jerk and stall around turnouts and it took the keen eye of Mr. Gareth Brennan to spot that this was simply due to the rear coupling hanging too low and fouling the rails at the turnouts!!! Quickly fixed by Gareth and now the locomotive runs like a dream - here she is in a short shunting video to celebrate her restoration to full working order! UG Shunts at Brookhall Mill.mp4

Yes indeed good spot, in a tasty green livery! I’d like to think he would appreciate the informed post!

OPEN DAY AT THE MILL! It was a great pleasure to welcome some friends and mentors to Brookhall Mill today, to watch the first official running session, featuring a range of rolling stock from the GNR, UTA, NCC, BCDR, CIE and NIR. Huge thanks to everyone for coming along and for the very positive and encouraging feedback, and special thanks to Norman Close and Kieran Lagan for bringing along some of their fantastic models for a run on the layout. Charles Friel was with us and he took some superb photos and hopefully I will be able to share these shortly! A particular highlight was the amazing creations of Norman Close, including a GNR(I) 'might have been' in the form of an S3 4-6-0 locomotive! More of Norman's impressive work:

Great photos JB, Mr. Weaver would like to hire you as the official Mill Photographer! A great pleasure to have you here - thanks for dropping in and for your kind comments above.

Hoping to have the first ever official running session of the layout on Sunday afternoon, with a few friends and mentors in attendance! I have rearranged the railway room by bringing the layout forward, so I will be able to operate it from behind. Spending the next few days putting the finishing touches to a project which is approaching three years in development! IMG_0140.MOV

From the BCDR's No. 1 enthusiast....... AMAZINGGGGGGG!!!!!! This is, as many if not all would agree, the scratchbuild of the year. Simply a work of art. Baltic next....??

Lunch break tunes at the mill.

Brookhall Mill Anti-Aircraft Detachment, PART 2 Following on from the previous instalment in which Mr. Weaver discovered some dodgy diesel dudes up to no good in the disused ammo store at Brookhall..... The question of what to do with the redundant gun emplacement began to exercise Mr. Weaver’s mind, and he even considered having it demolished, until one morning in March 1956 he received a very polite phone call from one Colonel Flack, who introduced himself as the Commanding Officer of the new Anti-Aircraft Training Detachment based at the nearby former RAF aerodrome at Maghaberry. Colonel Flack had been alerted to the presence of the disused gun emplacement at Brookhall Mill, and he was expressing a willingness to return a weapon to the emplacement and make use of it on a regular basis for training purposes. Mr. Weaver was very pleased at this prospect because it would surely put an end to the dodgy dealings in the ammo store. Soon the mill was buzzing once more to the sound of jeeps and gun tractors, as dapper military chaps with shiny boots and handlebar moustaches barked out orders to terrified subordinates who snapped to attention in an instant. A retired Bofors gun was taken out of storage by Colonel Flack and installed at Brookhall, a weapon which had served in North Africa during WWII with the famous Airfix battalion. Weekly anti-aircraft weaponry training began at Brookhall in February 1956, and the regular officer in charge of the training sessions was the somewhat dogmatic Major Mindup (who was always right) and who along with the scatterbrained Captain Kayos (on secondment from the Greek army), would usually be seen scaring the life out of the fresh-faced Gunner ‘Tommy’ Gunn and Private Lane. Mr. Weaver didn’t exactly hit it off with one member of the detachment, a certain Trooper Slane who hailed from just outside Carrickfergus. Trooper Slane would deliberately antagonise Mr. Weaver by saying that the NCC had always been better than the GNR, and how he was delighted that the ‘dirty kettles’ were being consigned to history. Mr. Weaver disliked Trooper Slane but he eventually got his revenge one day when he ‘accidentally’ locked Trooper Slane in one of the railway linen vans which was just about to depart on a train for Cavan - the unfortunate trooper managed to alert staff at Lisburn to his predicament, and once he was rescued from the van he had to walk all the way back to Brookhall, to receive a stern reprimand from a rather red-faced Major Mindup for being AWOL (Mr. Weaver was very amused by this). The detachment was completed by the sharpshooting Private Eamonn Wright, and the observer, the binocular-wearing Sgt. Luke Farr, who more often than not would make his way to the top of the mill buildings to get a better view of….well….only he knew. Mr. Weaver wasn’t too impressed by this because he hadn’t consented to granting military personnel access to anywhere other than the gun emplacement, and as soon as Sgt. Farr was spotted on top of the mill, Mr. Weaver would be sprinting up the stairs to remonstrate with him. After a few weeks of investigation during the summer of 1956, it was concluded that Sgt. Farr’s appearances on top of the mill buildings happened to coincide with Mr. Weaver’s daughter Millie’s sunbathing sessions in the garden of the station house, so that brought an abrupt end to the anti-aircraft training at Brookhall Mill. The Maghaberry AA detachment marching in formation to another training session under the watchful eye of Major Mindup. Trooper Slane and Mr. Weaver having another 'discussion' about the relative merits of the GNR and NCC railways. Mr. Weaver was very suspicious about the motives behind Sgt. Luke Farr's frequent visits to the roof of the mill.

Sammy Screech and Bertie Bellows have been away on holiday and seem to have got a facelift while they were away.... looking well there lads! Thanks to Nelson @Dunluce Castle for the great paint job!

Back to normality for a while…. The surround for the fiddle yard is largely finished, it has been built up as a series of boxes which interlock and slot together for strength. The blackboard paint is excellent, it’s a bit high maintenance, but really worth the effort and I will eventually use it across the complete layout.  Yes I know, not much of a fiddle yard!

This can definitely be filed under 'Too Much Time on my Hands'..... it started off small then snowballed....and this is only Part 1....... Brookhall Mill Anti-Aircraft Detachment, PART 1 After 1945, the anti-aircraft emplacement at Brookhall Mill fell out of use. The gun, which was already obsolete at the time of installation in 1941, was simply covered in camouflage netting and all the stored ammunition removed by the army. The gun was eventually taken away for scrap in 1950. Thereafter, the emplacement became a popular viewing point for railway enthusiasts (Mr. Weaver forbade the use of the term ‘trainspotters’) but the by then empty underground ammunition store also became a favourite gathering place for those mill workers who were fond of having an ‘extended’ break. By 1956, Mr. Weaver was getting suspicious that certain members of his staff seemed to be spending an unusual amount of time down in the ammo store, so one quiet Sunday morning he made his way down into the store and upon entering, was instantly horrified by what he saw - a collection of highly questionable reading material, ‘enhanced’ by graphic illustrations. Mr. Weaver was bitterly disappointed that the high moral standards which he had always encouraged his staff to uphold were apparently being eroded by external nefarious influences. Mr. Weaver immediately had the ammunition store locked, ensuring that he, and only he, would have the key, and he issued an emergency directive advising that henceforth, any mill employee caught in possession of similar highly offensive reading material would be instantly dismissed.

I went to my local decorating shop and asked for decent quality matt black paint - the guy asked me what material I was painting so I said it was wood and he gave me blackboard paint! It covers well but jeepers is it potent.....decided to wait until tomorrow before continuing with the painting, so I can do it outside.....

I hope so too - bloody work gets in the way......

Making progress with the surround for the fiddle yard.