My 7mm scale 1950s workbench

[David Holman]

Splendid and as you say, fiendishly difficult. A coach is a box (albeit with many add ons), a steam loco is a box with a boiler (ok, sweeping generalisations for both), but a railbus is another level in terms of all the complex curves and glazing. Road vehicles likewise, which is why we don't see many scratchbuilds of such things. 

 Seriously multimedia and great to see a whole host of techniques brought together. Very neat on the trailer too and will have to look into the idea of a capacitor for my 2b. Shame they never ran the two back to back, Colonel Stephens style - it would solve the problem of turntables!

[Galteemore]

3 hours ago, David Holman said:

Splendid and as you say, fiendishly difficult. A coach is a box (albeit with many add ons), a steam loco is a box with a boiler (ok, sweeping generalisations for both), but a railbus is another level in terms of all the complex curves and glazing. Road vehicles likewise, which is why we don't see many scratchbuilds of such things. 

 Seriously multimedia and great to see a whole host of techniques brought together. Very neat on the trailer too and will have to look into the idea of a capacitor for my 2b. Shame they never ran the two back to back, Colonel Stephens style - it would solve the problem of turntables!

Thanks David. As you’ll see it fits quite well ….think it’s a 35/470 one that’s recommended. Key issue is that it’s not polarised, given that current flow will regularly reverse. 

Edited January 2 by Galteemore

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

That's a lovely model, I think you've captured the look brilliantly.

[Northroader]

You’re right, it’s all the curves in the bodywork. Buried in all the boxes somewhere there’s a few pieces for the NCC one. Will I ever do it? will I ever find it? Yours is an inspirational job.

[Galteemore]

Back in east Antrim more times than usual this year, sadly due to my father in law’s final illness and death. As a lad, he and his brother used the 3’ gauge yard at Larne as a playground / shunting trucks by hand! Spending a fair amount of time around Larne this year rekindled my childhood interest in the east Antrim 3’. Reading some of @Patrick Davey’s musings on scale  inspired me to make a little 5.5mm scale diorama on a wargaming base. It allows very cheap and easy sources of material - 16.5mm track and components being easily found…thus standard Hornby train set track duly butchered here to produce 3’ panels. So here’s Kilwaughter siding during lifting c1954, based on a photo kindly supplied by @airfixfan complete with an IoM wagon for now - NCC stuff is in progress! This will be a sideshow to my main projects but may eventually come to something. I have at least 1 loco chassis in stock…..spot the large blade of grass when I tried taking pics in back garden!! Some of the other pics were taken within 20 yards of the GW main line near Swindon- hopefully some day I will find a suitable spot in the Vale of the White Horse to take backdrop pics! 

Edited September 21 by Galteemore

[David Holman]

Lovely diorama - only goes to show there is always room for a model railway. Thought you were going garden railway at first, but using the great outdoors for the photos works a treat.

[Patrick Davey]

Nice David!  The earthworks for that siding are still clearly visible on Google Earth.  Am a big fan of outdoor photography for model railways, and I am reminded of this shot I took of Capecastle:

 

[airfixfan]

Great stuff digging out more photos of the Ballymena and Larne for another project. Showed some of these photos to galteemore senior recently

Edited September 22 by airfixfan

[Galteemore]

Earlier this year I decided to try building another Alphagraphix loco kit, for myself, as I have sold all the ones I’ve built. Roger doesn’t do any Sligo locos but GN locos did venture into the SLNC yard at Enniskillen for shunting, so I can justify a JT - I think! @Richard EH mentioned the Alphagraphix JT recently as a 4mm proposition, so this may of interest to those wondering about Roger’s kits.

As @leslie10646knows, I was brought up to love the elderly black locos of the GN out in the wilds of Fermanagh and Cavan even more than the main line bluebirds. So here’s no 92, with a few build photos. I have very few modelling rules but one is that black engines must be weathered, or the details won’t show. This weathering is based on extensive photo study and has been an interesting exercise in its own right. The appearance of dusty smears on the tanks is very evident on 1950s colour pics of GN tanks. If the vid works, you’ll see that she does work….kit is more or less as supplied; new buffers and chimney are main changes, plus adding rivets and such fripperies as sandbox lids. Much fettling was required to build it to scale 5’3” and extensive grinding of the interior parts with a Dremel was the only way to allow the rods to rotate. Even then the bolts on the coupling rods had to be trimmed right down. The wheels are extensively padded with washers to ensure that everything stays lined up under the footplate!! 

Edited October 26 by Galteemore

[David Holman]

That looks great - subtle weathering and very much at home on Enniskillen.

[Tullygrainey]

Fine job David. You’re right about the weathering and No92 looks convincingly work-worn. 

[Northroader]

Interesting that you changed the chimney, the Alphagraphix one looks a bit slender? Lovely little engine now it’s done.

[Galteemore]

8 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Interesting that you changed the chimney, the Alphagraphix one looks a bit slender? Lovely little engine now it’s done.

Thanks Bob - that’s right. I had actually finished it off with Roger’s chimney - and showed a picture to my dad, who can actually remember seeing a JT working - no 91. First thing he said was - the chimney’s wrong! So a quick chat with Laurie Griffin and a J88 alternative appeared. Thankfully I hadn’t mixed the epoxy very well so it was quite easy to remove version 1.
The whistle is also a buy-in, as the provided casting was a little bulky in the wrong places. 

Edited October 27 by Galteemore