Count Down to Wycrail!

nevard_111016_catcott_IMG_1527_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

The excellent Wycrail in High Wycombe is in just under 3 weeks on Saturday 5 November, and this year I've been invited to take Catcott Burtle along for the day.



Metal chewing cats helping to wire up a layout, maybe they
 should have been  callled Jaws and Fang?



'CB' is all ready to go, so there's no midnight oil to burn, which will make a nice break fom the norm, but I do need to finish repairing an ex-LSWR lattice signal post that one of the cats chewed the top off. I don't know why, white metal and brass hardly makes a tasty snack even for cats I wouldn't have thought, but I'm no cat so what do I know? Still, I've managed to get the signal into the right shape again and it now works, it just needs the replacement finial fitting in place, ably supplied by the excellent Wizard Models at the recent Scaleforum.

'What's with the class 121 bubble car?' you might ask, well I imagine most are fed up seeing the usual steam trains in photos of the layout, so I dug out this conversion of a Lima 2 car unit I performed back in the early 1980's when the real thing was still running (actually it still is on the Colne Valley Railway). W55033 portrayed, was a regular on the Bridport branch in the line's latter years and was probably my reason for choosing that number seeing we lived in the area for a short time in the 1970's.

Click for more about Wycrail

It actually looks the part, but of course the Highbridge - Evercreech line shut in March 1966, but imagine if the line had remained open to Glastonbury to serve the Clarks shoe factory and to transport revellers to Glastonbury Festival in June?  

• Find out more about Wycrail
• Find out more about Catcott Burtle