Mocking Up

Site clearance has started at the top end of Awngate station! Two trees have been felled, bushes cleared, and the embankment near the water crane cut back, exposing some strange white spongy soil ...

I've always intended there to be an engine shed at this end of the layout to act as view-break, as well as some foreground interest. However the site is quite cramped, so to ensure the structure will fit and look right, I've used some cereal packet card to mock up the size and shape. This saves spending time building a structure only to wish I'd done it differently ...

Actually I've had three goes here! From left to right the shed has got 5mm shorter in length and 5mm wider with each iteration, and the height has varied too. In the foreground are some N-scale factory windows which I think will work well for this building.

This is the third iteration roughly in place on the layout, the railcar shows there is ample clearance to the "main" line, while the shed appears wide enough for maintenance to happen on the loco inside. From this angle the exit hole in the backscene can still be seen, but from a more normal viewing angle the shed hides it nicely. The shed is quite short, but long enough for the typical locos used on the layout, and anyway most of the building is hidden behind the "wing" that hides the end of the backscene so the length is not apparent. For that matter, I might not bother with the window to the right ...

The question now is what materials to build it from. I was thinking brick walls with a corrugated roof, for a reasonably substantial structure to match the station, a slate roof might give an older appearance. But perhaps a wooden structure with a corrugated roof, or a completely corrugated structure, would add a little variety. After all there is plenty of brickwork on the layout. I've also been looking for prototype inspiration, and considering putting a water tank on the roof for interest. Any thoughts?

Happy New Year!

Since this is the first post of 2012, may I wish a Happy New Year to all readers. I know we are already a week in to this "Olympic" year (does anyone else think they will be bored of the Olympics before they even start?), but I have contracted my usual post-Christmas cold, leaving me with little energy for picking up the modelling of an evening. And anyway, the way I am coughing now, holding a scalpel would be dangerous! Fortunately for you the common cold is not a virus that can be spread via the internet.

Last year proved a busy one for my modelling, as I couldn't resist entering the EXPO-NG Dave Brewer Challenge, and a year ago I was hacking about a box-file and building track for the first time. The whole project took me in new directions and was great fun, and the result  Landswood Park even won the competition! While I was building that I also had an invitation for Awngate to be shown at EXPO-NG too, which as one of the biggest NG shows in the UK, was a great honour. So I also spent some time upgrading and completing some of the scenics, and finishing some stock, and of course the day of the show was rather busy! The concentrated effort to have both layouts ready resulted in a lot to report on this blog, with my busiest year yet averaging 5 posts per month.

So what will 2012 bring? Well probably not quite so much modelling activity, but Awngate is booked to appear at Narrow Gauge South at Winchester in April (another of the big NG shows!), and I have a few jobs I'd like to do by then. There is the possibility of further shows later too. I have some ideas for locos and rolling stock to build, although that will probably be as I fancy, as there is already sufficient stock to run the layout.

Landswood Park may have no further purpose as the competition that it was built for has passed, but it is a fun little layout and I have enjoyed working in 014, so more wagons may appear. And a couple of months back I took delivery of a new project:

The photo above shows the prototype for the kit, an O&K RLc1 now at the Amberley Museum, not far from me, which I think it would be entirely suitable for a farm railway.

Christmas Decorations

It is the season of goodwill and of course delightfully tacky decorations. Walking around a garden centre yesterday and looking at the range of Christmas decorations on sale, it struck me how many featured trains. Now this seems a little odd to me, after all we all know that Mary had to make do with a donkey, and I doubt the wise men came from the East by the Starlight Express. And as for Santa, Rudolph is a reinder not a steam locomotive. So why are there so many decorations of Santa riding a train, or trains running through a snowy village?

My in-laws even had a fantastic decorative tree with a Flying Scotsman running around the base, and various other famous trains working their way up the "slopes", including a Festiniog Double-Fairlie and a Snowdon Mountain Railway train. Sadly it seems to be suffering the wrong kind of snow and no longer works. Anyway here are a few typical railway-themed decorations spotted recently:







Perhaps the reason is that everyone likes a Christmas-themed train, and toy trains are associated with Christmas (at least as much as Mary Poppins and those big round tins of sweets you never seem to see the rest of the year!). I've often thought of building a proper Christmas-themed model railway as a decoration, it's been done before and 009 is an ideal scale for it, but I've built enough layouts this year so perhaps another year!

May I wish all readers a happy Christmas time, and may the new year bring many happy hours of making models!

Changing Rooms

Here is the reason for the lack of updates recently - the installation of a new kitchen:

When we bought the house we knew the kitchen needed replacing, but there were other more urgent priorities. Now nine years later we finally have a nice kitchen! I must point out that I didn't fit it myself - my DIY skills are nowhere near that good - but even so the installation has been disruptive. It is a kitchen-diner, which meant not just clearing out the kitchen units but my layout(s), bookshelves, and tools have been packed away for a few weeks. And that when the obvious storage space - the garage - was full of new kitchen, so the whole house seems to have been taken over with boxes. I've also been busy decorating the room, and laying the new laminate flooring.

While things are gradually returning to normal there are still a number of jobs I need to do (fitting curtains and blinds, planing doors, floor joiner strips...) in addition to the usual family preparations for Christmas, so it is unlikely I'll get any modelling done until the new year. Still, after several months of intense activity on two layouts it is nice to have a bit of a break ... and plan the projects to pick up in January!

Landswood Park - More photos and it's own page

Landswood Park now has it's own page, which you can find from the links on the right. While I am at it here are some more photos which have come out rather well.

You probably won't be surprised that after such intense activity in preparing two layouts for EXPO, I'm enjoying a rest from modelling. However there is another reason too, we're having a new kitchen fitted and suffering the upheaval that goes with that, not least that both layouts are in storage! And while I am not fitting the kitchen myself, there are plenty of associated DIY jobs to keep me busy...

The Boxfile Challenge

Finally I have got around to uploading the pictures of the Box-file layouts from the David Brewer Memorial Challenge at Expo. There were 11 entrants that made it to the show, a good turnout, and as always a variety of different ideas and scales. Most of them were finished too, which in itself is a challenge as it is easy to forget how much work is involved even in a layout as small as this! You can see pictures of all 11 here, but here are some of my favourites.

Eastlight (009) by Samual Eveleigh was awared a runner up prize, and I can see why as the scene is very convincing. Samual just 13 years old, but the quality of this model shows he has real skill and I'm sure he'll be producing superb "proper" layouts soon ...! He was also making a loco from tinplate, and making a good job of it.

Schrödinger's Cat (09) by Matt Wildsmith, also awarded a runner up prize. The name is a reference to a philosophical question, but being an Engineer I didn't get the point of the question! However I do see the point Matt was aiming for with the colouring, after all most pictures of old railways are in black and white aren't they? (yes, this is a COLOUR photograph!). The effect is better in the photograph than in reality, but it is very cleverly done.

Nine Wells Watercress Line (009) by Daniel Figg. Another young entrant, demonstrating the value of these sorts of competitions to encourage newcomers and youngsters into the hobby. Purists may scoff but the limitation of a container or size means that anyone can have a go, without the need for large budget, space, or time investment, and results (hopefully) in encouraging the builder on to greater things. Anyway, back to this model, the location and purpose of this line was obvious to anyone who has seen photos of the narrow gauge lines serving the watercress beds in Dorset, and that is an achievement in such a small space. A more suitable (small i/c) loco would have been nice, but they are very challenging in 009, even for an experienced modeller. The track plan is not the most exciting, but Daniel had it running on a shuttle module, I guess that saved him from going insane!

Little Hope Mine (009) by Trevor Street was nicely modelled and presented. Portraying a small mine working it is quite convincing, as small operations did indeed look as simple as this. I like the use of different levels to the scenery, and the spacious feel that demonstrates how much more the same space is worth in 4mm/ft against my own model in 7mm/ft!

Temple of Pfalocos (09) by Christopher Dack. Inspired by a photo of tracks used for moving stone blocks for the restoration of the Acropolis in Athens, this is another old ruin being restored with the help of a narrow gauge line. The idea was that a wagon would ascend and descend in the lift, with a loco to collect it at the bottom and a man pushing at the top. Sadly the lift refused to work smoothly! Still I love the concept and it was nicely finished, this being one of two models that used the box file in the vertical orientation.

I hope all the other entrants had as much fun building their box file layouts as I did building Landswood Park. And if that has got you thinking about building a small layout of your own, the challenge for next year has been announced on the EXPONG website, which will be for "pizza" layouts (circles) of up to 60cm diameter. If you decide to go for it, all the best - but I won't be doing another challenge. Have I said that before? Twice? Oh well...!

EXPO-NG: The other layouts

I did manage a little time to look around the show, and as always there were so many superb and inspiring layouts it is difficult to pick out favourites. However here are a selection of my better photos, for the full set click here. EXPO-NG is also the place to find all the specialist traders for narrow-gauge modelling, but I didn't have so much time for shopping!

Charlie Insley's St Etienne-en-Caux is definitely a favourite of mine, even though French narrow-gauge is not something I take much interest in the quality and detail of the layout draws you in, and the interesting rolling stock adds to the character of the setting.

Garreg Wen (009, Matthew & Helen Kean) won one of the awards (The Reinier Hendriksen Trophy IIRC) and it is easy to see why, it looks so "right" for a moment I was wondering where in Wales the prototype was! Better lighting would have helped it though. The other award (David Lloyd Memorial) was won by Corris 1930 (009, Rod Allcock), another superb layout that was hidden by crowds much of the day - that and the fact that I have seen it twice recently meant I didn't get any photos.

Grossbierdorf was an 014 layout by the Group Escradrille St Michelle, set in East Germany just before the fall of the wall it had just the right care-worn appearance of an industrial line, while avoiding the overly-decrepit look. It was well detailed and ran well too.

I had been looking forward to seeing The Loop (0 and 0-16.5) by Giles Favell, after seeing photos on the NGRM forum. It is the careful attention to colours and textures - especially the ground cover and details - that make this layout feel so real when viewed close-up.

I has also been looking forward to seeing Peter Kazer's latest model, of Boot on the "Owd Ratty", in 1/4in scale, and as expected it was finely detailed and of the highest standard. However there was so little modelled beyond the boundary fence that it seemed to lack a sense of place, a little more depth of scenery would have made a lot of difference. Now I know this is being picky, and it was a great model - but for me Peter's model of Corris a few years back was the most inspiring of his work. Nonetheless, Peter shows that standards of Narrow Gauge Modelling can be as high as any, and it is great to see a serious model of an attractive but obscure prototype.