Polbrook Gurney Colliery - 16 weeks to go!

Polbrook Gurney Colliery is the latest layout, the plan being to merge the Polbrock and Mendip Colliery projects into one decent sized layout, the deadline being Railex in around 16 weeks. The photo to the right being a careful alignment of structures to hide bare baseboard, then a little sky Photoshopped in to see how it could look.
 

Above a sightly more revealing shot shows the actual state of progress, the elevated view showing all the bits hidden in previous shots.

The backscene will be a gnats under 2 ft high (mostly a clouds on a 21 x 90 inch print wrapped around back and the ends). I was going to have pale blue as with Polbrock but quite like the summery clouds as here.

Behind the pub (Pedant & Armchair) and to the right of the track will possibly be a drainage pond, a stinking polluted place with orange mud.

The colliery buildings, since these two photos are now around an inch higher than here, the only structure still needed will be a small Writhlington-esque screen. That will be an afternoon job with a bit of corrugated sheeting.

• Polbrook Gurney Colliery as with Polbrock and Brewhouse Quay and will form part of a forthcoming serial in Model Rail, in there I'll go into far more detail than here.

Technique: Quick Cobbles

Cobbled yards are quite easy to do when you know how. The delighful little loco here was loaned by Tim Maddocks, see his website at www.enginewood.co.uk

There are lots of ways to do cobbles; many use embossed plastic sheet, which is fine but cutting out sections to the correct shape to bed in neatly around curved track is far from easy and of course you have the problem of hiding joins. Others use plaster or Das modelling clay, let it set and then have the long job of handscribing  - this could take several weeks even for just to do a few square inches.

Or you can use this method which is quick, easy and ensures a degree of sanity can remain in this already loopy hobby of ours.

First add a layer of Das modelling clay; if the surface is smooth, paint on a little white glue first to help the clay adhere. Use a beer bottle (drink the contents first if you like, or save to the end as a reward) to roll the clay into place if it helps.

Fingers and a stiff brush can also be used to pummel the clay into place. Don't do too big an area in one go because the clay will set, time depending on whether you're here in the UK in a cold damp shed at the bottom of the garden or in California in a tin roofed garage. Do a test first to see what suits you and your environment.

Where the clay butts up against the track, keep it a little lower than the rail head (approx 1mm), this will make cleaning the track easier and will minimise the chance of damaging the cobbles with a track rubber.

Next use a ball point pen with the writing bit removed. Just press the tip into Das modelling clay lots of times. The area here which is around 6 by 6 inches (15cm) took around 10-15 minutes.

Then when set (overnight), spray paint black (Halfords auto spray is good) then drybrush on lighter stone coloured tones, beige, grey, cream using your favourite hobby paint.

This whole area (3ft x 18 inches) was about 3 hours work including the painting (not including the overnight Das drying time).

Open another beer.....

My Workbench

nevard_110303_brewhouse_IMG_9319, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Many people presume that I have some kind of dedicated workbench area for my various projects, but I'm not really a fan of hiding away in some little boxroom, preferring daylight and being around my nearest and dearest.

Above is the 'workbench' used for much of the construction of Brewhouse Quay, in this case being the dining room table. Being good you might notice the rug used to protect the wooden surface from scratches, but you may also notice that I was probably going to be told off for not putting a mat under the tea cup, especially seeing it appears to have slopped a little.

As always Fleur (pussy cat) like to get involved with what's going especially seiing I'd just plugged the soldering iron in to heat up - bless.

Benchvent, suppliers of hobby extractors are currently running a competition for workbench photos, this spurred the above photo to be extracted from the bowels of my photo-archive....

http://www.benchvent.com/blog/show-us-your-workspace-and-win-an-exagon-r/

View from the fiddle yard

nevard_121108_BQ_IMG_1385, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

I'm always keen to try out new angles on my layouts, and it's after exhibiting Brewhouse Quay at Wycrail last weekend became aware of this never before tried view from one of the other fiddle yard exit points on BQ when messing about at the show with a camera. In fact unless one has a really small head it's not possible to see this, but today's little high quality cameras can get into all sorts of places- ohhh errrr.....

Note how the canopy has been cut back over the years, the most recent modifications since the local take over of local line by the BR Western Region with their even bigger locos. Well, that's my story, but in reality I should have mounted the building a tad higher! Still, this osrt of thing happened in eal life!

30587 after residing at Eastleigh for a few months in 62/63 after finishing on the Wenfordbridge line, ended shunting Brewhouse Quay sidings until the late 1960's - its short wheelbase and nimble frame being ideal for this little known brewery railway network. Shortly after this photo was taken, the engine was painted green, lined out and named 'Mashtun'.

Wycrail - Jolly Good!

IMG_1212, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Well, that was Wycrail that was! As what a fun day it was too at the brand new and even dare I say slightly stylish location of the Cressex Community School on Aylesbury. The location, well the bits put aside for the show anyway had more in common with that of a modern trade show facility than a a school, which meant lots of light, high ceilings and plenty of space, a contrast to the location of previous years which has simply been outgrown due to the success of the show.

Ian Mellors, that's him by the way in the shot above, very kindly gave up his Saturday and travelled all the way down from Mansfield to help play trains. This is the third year in a row that I've been in dept to Ian for his assistance, so as soon as he gets his new O gauge layout onto the road I hope to return the favour many times over.

Brewhouse Quay, or 'BQ' as I call it behaved as it should, even the wagon turntable shunt worked most of the time, but I really must address the doors that the wagon exit through backscene (seen just to the left of Ian's hand), it's a little too tight for comfort.

Enough for now. I'm in a but of a rush, but here's to Wycrail '13, and if you want to see the wagon tuntable in action, go here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP1UA4ZxN6A&list=UUPN8LPbSP1wCVX3zr2jSf2Q&index=2&feature=plcp

Wycrail 3 Nov '12

nevard_120708_BQ_DSC_6785, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

It's exhibition time again as Brewhouse Quay hits the road for the first time since last May at Railex.

Since the last outing I have added some working DCC Concept lanterns. Whilst you wouldn't normally see them burning in the daylight hours, on model railways we always do have them lit for some reason, but of course if the new hall is dark then all the better because I'll turn the layout lights off to help the effect.

On the subject of a new hall; this year Wycrail is being held at the location below which should hopefully help with any over crowding.

Cressex Community School

Cressex Road
High Wycombe
Bucks HP12 4UD

For more information follow this link.

Tuesday's Photo

nevard_120827_polbrock_DSC_8638, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Polbrock yard, and the weekly delivery of ale from the Marriott Foster & Dent Brewery has just arrived from Bath in an old unfitted ex-GWR van, the brewery being too tight to pay for a fully fitted train.

The beers are mostly for the Armchair & Pedant pub next to the crossing, the pub which as you know is popular with socially challenged squeaky voiced middle aged men who still live at home with 'mother' (dead and kept in the wardrobe). This pub reputedly was the inspiration for the BBC's dark comedy Psychoville, the Librarian being a regular to the 'A&P' along with David Sowerbutts who was his shandy drinking train-spotting buddy.

Just above the van in front of the halt can be seen 'Harriet', who today is dressed as a lady customs official. Don't be seduced by her flowery feminity, for when not in character is in fact a 'he', the hairy top lip and Adam's apple being the giveaway, though from this distance you'll be forgiven for not spotting that. 'Harriet', also known as 'Harry' in railway circless, is a keen diesel fan and can tell you everything about the inner workings of a Brush Type 4 in great detail. Harry dresses up up as all sorts of characters, 'Harriet' being only part of his huge portfolio, another favourite being the Beast of Bodmin Moor, though his slight frame is non-too convincing with the squeaky roar being more of a meow as he runs through people's back gardens in full costume. Other days he dresses up as a cave man (like Mister Muscle) and tries to bunk engine sheds, the notorious Guildford shed not known as the friendliest being always a challenge, his nimble sparsely leopard skin clad frame being ideal for nipping past the grumpy shed forman.

Harry is now getting on a bit, and until very recently it was thought that he'd passed on to the great humpyard in the sky, but recent sightings in Essex would suggest that he's still up to his old tricks, and I'm sure I saw him as 'Harriet' at a recent model railway show.

People often comment on the wooden ales casks, saying that they look nothing like wood; here's the secret, they're not wood at all but fibre glass finished to look like wood. In principle they work just fine as long as a full one is not dropped, and they do make the beer taste a little plasticky. Occasionally they've been known to explode too, fibre glass not being ideal for the secondary fermentation which takes place in the cask.

So there you go, that was Tuesday's load of old guff, and please let it be known that some of my best friends have squeaky voices, live with mother (often dead) dress as lady customs officers, lions and that I have several Brush Type 4 diesels.

Chris' Room of Railway Modelling Chaos

120418_railway-chaos_DSC_0164, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

People often ask me where much of the railway modeling happens and to whether the layouts are set up all the time. Here's the layout room as it was a couple of months ago - the captions will say the rest, just click on the photo for a bigger view above if you can't read them. The room changes weekly, with Arne Wharf being curently set up.

Brew Moon!

nevard_120719_DSC_7298moon, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Here's a real chocolate box one (alcohol filled ones I think) of Brewhouse Quay after dark. I'm messing about with some cool LEDs as part of a feature I'm writing on lighting a layout to portray night time scenes. To the naked eye they look like moonlight, but the camera when set to a 30 second exposure records them like the below when I shoot in a totally blackened out room! This is a good example of how a camera can sometimes distort things. If I desaturate the image I'm sure I could match what the naked eye sees - but I quite like the effect!

The moon and smoke is the only computer farty stuff, but it's given me an idea to project a moon onto the 14 inch high backscene maybe - if I can work out how! The moon by the way was that 'supermoon' of a year or two ago.

Google Earth View of Brewhouse Quay

nevard_120709_DSC_6818, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Continuing the looking down from the clouds, falling from an aeroplane or going up in a hot air ballon theme, here we have Brewhouse Quay in all it's 4ft x 2ft glory. This angle hopefully shows off the trackplan which I was quite pleased with, as well as a first for me building the funny 'K' shaped trackwork the engine is just about to attack. It was the result of messing about on the back of an envelope down the local pub and at the time thought unique, but recently a 2mm scale (aka 2FS) modeller was in touch to say that he built a wharf many years ago with a similar track layout called Chapel Wharf - take a look, it's lovely. This all goes to show that somethings with limited space there are only a certain number of ways tracks can be bent and split to fill a small area I guess!

Something for the Bus Spotters

nevard_120529_Bristol-LS_DSC_5233, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

At RAILEX over the weekend an hour or so before the show ended I finally got around to having my tour of inspection and came across this rather nice diecast EFE Bristol L.S in Southern National green livery on the hosting club's secondhand stall. The clincher being the Devenish Draught advert which sadly now promotes that long gone well loved Weymouth brewery.

All starry eyed, I donned that dirty gabardine raincoat, greasy hair with comb-over, NHS specs, National Express holdall from 1970, an old bus timetable entwined in with my snotty hanky and broke into the £4 pocket money that mother had some kindly given to me along with corned beef and salad cream sandwiches - job done, and here it is posed on the nearest I have to a street scene on my various trainsets.

In the latter half of the 1970's I lived in Dorset and recall the school bus was occasionally one of these, it was very clapped out and would often stall going up a 1 in 6 hill which was part of its windy route through the hills. The stalling would usually happen during an uphill gear change, and on one occasional we all had to disembark to make the coach lighter in an attempt to help the driving get it going into second gear. With the bus finally going at walking pace we all then got back on. Of course in today's world such would almost certainly involve death of nearly all involved, sacking of the driver and a very expensive televised inquest. The two surviving school children would then go in Britain's Got Talent or the X-factor and win with a sympathy vote. The school bus route would then be disbanded because it would be deemed far to dangerous and road deaths in the area would rocket due to 4 x 4 accidents from drivers on the school run.

It's a very pretty bus though I'm sure you'll agree, and perfect for my Somerset based layouts. In due course it might become a superdetail/Workbench project, but not today because again the weather is far too nice, so a day in the garden beckons.

RAILEX 2012 – and what a show it was!

120527_railex12_DSC_5164, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

The annual Railex in Aylesbury on the weekend of 26th and 27th of May cued the beginning of summer like it so often does. I’m sat here in the garden with laptop taking advantage of the weather, our rather limp-wristed wi-fi just about giving me a signal strong enough to allow me to reflect on a fabulous weekend away from the more usual camera, sofa or modelling bench.

Railex as always is in a very well lit supersized tin shed built for some Olympic thing a couple of decades ago, and excluding my poor effort hosted some of the best talent around in the toy chuffer world without disappointment. The Princes Risborough club have this knack of packing out the floor space with all sorts of gems from both modellers displaying what if added up must be hundreds of years of workmanship along with those sought after retailers (those all important men in sheds mostly) selling wonderful goodies no longer found in high street model shops – even if you have one that is!

As an exhibitor, this was to be my 5th Railex, for some reason they wanted me to bring Brewhouse Quay http://nevardmedia.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Brewhouse%20Quay along, I’m not sure why, but I’m guessing it’s a good example of a quick ready to plop bodge in model making and how not to do it which isn’t really what the show is all about – it’s a show for better than that.

For 4 years out of 5 I have been in the corner furthest from the door, which frequently is a quadrant of 1/76 scale layouts which this year consisted of the forever growing Bron Hebrog (OO) http://bronhebog.blogspot.co.uk/ , Albion Yard (OO) http://albionyard.wordpress.com/ , Canada Road (EM) http://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/layout_canada.html , Diesels in the Duchy http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/12234-diesels-in-the-duchy-aka-st-blazey-dcc-em/ - all great company I’m sure you’ll agree!

Of course there were many other equally fantastic layouts which can be found listed here http://www.railex.org.uk/railex2012l.html with reviews popping up on the various toy chuffer forums. Best Layout deservedly went to the lovely pre-grouping Penlan http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/1432-penlan-lnwr-in-south-wales-1910-em-gauge/ - a very worthy winner all the way from Cornwall depicting a lush part of the LNWR in Wales a little north of Swansea.

Within 30 minutes of the doors opening curiously beer started to arrive, totally out of the blue some lovely Loose Canon Brewery http://www.lcbeers.co.uk/ draft ale from 7mm scale modeller and altogether top chap John Atkinson was passed over the fiddle yard. Before the smiles had faded Samuel Bennett – another altogether top chap and eager snapper I hasten to add, handed over 2 bottles of ale, one from Ascot Ales and another from the Windsor and Eton Brewery. Because I know that you chaps read my twaddle here, you be delighted to know that the *beer has now all gone* (jobsworths, please read the disclaimer at the bottom of this page) – the hot weather making it even more tasty – so CHEERS to you! The hoppy malty aroma of the ales helped the atmosphere of the brewery themed layout all too well. I might have to install handpumps next time the layout goes out!

Despite felling a little squiffy from all the ale (more likely the heat), Brewhouse Quay worked well, with only one point switch-blade parting company from the copper clad tiebar – easily fixed with a dab of the soldering iron luckily. The Caboose Hobbies manual ground throws caused interest or irritation depending on whether you’re a ‘hand of god’ type of person or not. BQ uses 3 link coupling because they look good in photos mainly, so ‘hand of god’ to operate the points is only a little more intrusion.

Thanks must go to the Railex team who as always do their best to make the show go well behind the scenes as well as ‘front of house’ ensuring a good experience for all.

Finally my BIGGEST thank you must go to Graham Muspratt who gave up his whole weekend when he could have been enjoying BBQs and such, but instead helped operate Brewhouse Quay in a far more professional manner than I ever can.

I’ve been asked about next year’s Railex but I do have a few overdue layout-operational debts to pay to other layout owners, I am also planning a modern themed 12 footer with DCC sound and actual mineral loading, but that’s another story….

* Note for jobworths: The beer was drunk at home later, being drunk in charge of a model railway in a public place would be very irresponsible of course, driving over a layout spider would not be good.We did sample two bottles in our respective meal breaks for research purposes, and placed the empty bottle on the side of the layout to help with the atmosphere.

Sunday at the Brewery

nevard_120520_BQ_IMG_3332, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Sunday morning at Brewhouse Quay, 'Radstock' and its crew are having a tea break.

The old Austin van is a recent second hand purchase by the brewery to use for carting casks around the complex. The plan is to repaint it in brewery colours, but this has yet to happen and is still displaying 'Home Dairies Limited' and in a rather sorry state . The locomotive is also second hand, it being bought from a colliery near Radstock, hence its name.

The models:

• Pocketbond "Classix" EM76605 Austin 101 J van in "Home Dairies Limited" which has been weathered. For more small cars, see my collection here.
• J94 'Austerity' named 'Radstock', a detailed, repainted and weathered Hornby release. You can read more about it here.
• The street light was built from scratch and can be read about here.
• The cobbles are very much a feature of Brewhouse Quay and can be enjoyed and read about here.
• The scene here is Brewhouse Quay.

Brewhouse Quay is going on the road, and can be seen at Railex 2012

Preparing Brewhouse Quay for Railex 2012

nevard_120517_BQ_DSC_3618, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Next weekend it's the excellent RAILEX (that's the flyer on the right by the way), an exhibition frequently being regarded as one of the best all weekend enthusiast targeted shows in the south. For some reason they wanted to invite my OO gauge Brewhouse Quay I'm guessing the reasoning being the to 'how NOT to do it' angle, so the last few days (OK about one hour) has been spent cleaning track, checking mechanics and polishing loco wheels.
Followers of this blog will probably have mostly only seen pretty low angle photos that make the layout look like it is Gauge 1 occupying an area of 40ft x 20ft, this photo will hopefully spoil the illusion in advance for any moany-hard-done-by Daily Mail reading show-goers who until now were expecting something the size of an aircraft hanger. It isn't.

But they might be interested in that recently I added a small cassette yard to the right hand side, this allowing trains to exit off set to the right, and when combined with the small fiddle yard behind the left hand side (via a sector plate) allowing short trains to run right through the layout from one side to the other if shunting gets a little boring. The working wagon turntable combined with chain shunting adds another dimension which proves popular with the younger audience - maybe I just need to add Thomas for complete approval?

• RAILEX website
• Brewhouse Quay

Rebuilding Brewhouse Quay to 7ft Gauge!

110213_GQ_IMG_9193, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

After much deliberation I've decided to rebuild Brewhouse Quay and relay the track in Brunel's 7ft gauge! The work started earlier in the week when I ripped all the cobbles up in preparation for removing the track. Here is a quick snap showing the layout just before the track was prized off.

For the new track I'm going to hand extrude the mild steel rail through a special jig to ensure the exact correct profile for GWR bridge rail from 1876. The rails will then be hand spiked to miniature Baltic pine sleepers and the of rail length joined with tiny scale flashplates, nuts and bolts. After much looking I have managed to find a manufacturer of bespoke 1/76 scale 4 sided nuts and scale length 1 inch diameter bolts.

I'm currently looking to booking this layout in for its first outing in 2021, because I'll need to build all the stock and back date the layout to the latter half of the 19th century. Then after this show I will extend it by 10 feet to allow a working recreation of Brunel's Atmospheric Railway using Sparklet CO2 bulbs to generate the 'air pressure'. At this stage I'm unsure how to recreate the not so airtight seal so beloved of rats who noshed on it.

Betty Blogsworth

nevard_110515_brewQ_IMG_9890_web, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

This is a 'reprint' from a deleted page posted last May..

Betty Blogsworth, who is sometimes known as a bit of the jobs worth at Her Majesty's Customs and Excise office at nearby Bristol Docks will shortly be marrying accountant and well known railway photographer Ivan Locksmith. Ivan as I'm sure you all know doesn't need any excuse to feature his pre-war Austin in his railway photographs, but now with his forthcoming marriage the car has to compete with Betty for exposure onto film.

As well as a new lady in his life, Ivan was keen to try out his new 135mm f4 Elmar on his Leica loaded with a roll of Kodachrome 8.

Guilding a Granny, aka updating the Dapol Grain Wagon

nevard_120224_grain_IMG_2695, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

We all start projects and then lose interest or simply get side-tracked with other projects; and some of you may remember back to September one of my many projects was to upgrade the Dapol 20 ton grain wagon? A good thing about running a blog is that it forces one ever so often to look back at ongoing or stagnant projects because somebody will always remind or ask you how it's going - there is no escape, which is probably a good thing!

This elderly ready-to-run offering dates back to Horny Dublo days, probably when the real railways still relied on steam for day to day power. It was later res erected by Wrenn and later Dapol who I believe still have this in their current catalogue, do correct me if I'm wrong though!

Out of the box, it's a nice moulding.

At a first glance it does look like what it's supposed to, a grain wagon with the distinctive hopper design and vertical strapping along the sides. This spontaneous purchase was the need for some grain wagons for Brewhouse Quay. I thought all I'd need to do would be repaint and weather the wagon, then after looking at Paul Bartlett's excellent wagon site found out just how wrong the model is, well below the waist anyway! People who know me, know that I don't get too worried if things aren't quite right, my ethos being more about atmosphere and capturing the character of a working railway. However it's good not to be too predictable, so thought I'd have a play to see if I can improve on the model little, and anyway a job like this makes a change from snapping layouts or wielding a Grasmastmer!

As already mentioned, lifting the skirt reveals the greatest area where improvements could be made, so back in autumn at Scaleforum I picked up some white metal brake gear castings. I won't go into too much detail because filing and cutting up bits of metal is hardly exciting, but the job mainly involved chopping off the Dapol brake gear and fitting on some of the bits. I didn't have a long enough brake handle, so offcuts of grass (brass) were used to fabricate new ones along with some steps.

The new base of the hopper was carved up from some laminated 3mm plastic card, 4 layers in total to get the depth more of less right.

The circular 'tap' handle or whatever it's called is from an industrial piping kit and not quite right, but can easily be replaced at a later stage with something better. The wagon is 4mm too short, but to graft in extra length would make this project to one stage beyond sanity, and after all I only bought this as a quickie!

Next will be to number and weather it up, they got into quite a state as Paul Bartlett's photos demonstrate, that bit I'll enjoy the most. I'll try to do this over the weekend.

Later.....

Merry Christmas!

nevard_111225_BQ_DSC_0545_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

When I took this photo around 0600 this morning, I quickly came to the conclusion that if a Christmas Pudding or Plum Pudding was a loco it would be a Beattie Well Tank, compact, un-athletic, well rounded, rich and oozing in character.

I hope you'll agree with me that it looks perfectly at home tootling about the sidings on Brewhouse Quay, so much so that history has been re-written, well in Nevardland anyway!

Imagine if when the delightful locomotives left Wadebridge shed for the last time in the early 1960's, that one of them at least was whisked up to Bath to operate the tight curvy brewery sidings, an ideal task for a design which spent much of its life on the windy and curvy Wenford Bridge line. The loco would not only shunt the brewery rail-network, but would also perform the occasional trip working from the brewery to Bath Green Park goods.

Merry Christmas!

Secrets of Brewhouse Quay

nevard111223_bachmann3F_DSC_0529_WEB, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr.

Bachmann Midland 3F weathered and renumbered as Templecombe's 43216. This loco was the 3F allocated to the former Somerset & Dorset line and was withdrawn in 1962.

For photographers, this was taken on a mid-1960's Nikkor-S (Ai converted) 35mm f2.8 wide angle lens on a somewhat newer Nikon D700 digital body. 2 sec, f16, Adobe RAW/CS5 using the layout's own lighting. The only digital post production apart from basic level adjustment during the RAW conversion is the addition of fake smoke.

To find out a few secrets of Brewhouse Quay, click on the above photo to take you through to another photo, then float your cursor over the image for detail notes.

Bachmann Midland 3F

The recently released Bachmann Midland 3F arrived yesterday, and I must say that first impressions are that it's rather splendid. I'm not going to dwell on accuracy and suchlike, that I'm sure will be debated for the next 25 years on model railway forums, and anyway for the real truth there's a cracking review in December 2011 Model Rail (163) by people who really know what they're writing about - so get that back-issue of you're not already a subscriber.

Instead my two pennies worth will be a few snaps to hopefully show the little beastie from from different angles to those already seen. Just click on the images below for a BIGGER view.

Looking down (the layout is Brewhouse Quay), and it's very apparent just how good the cab detail is. The coal load is cast and actually loose, so if you want to replace it with real coal and to keep the weight a strip of lead might need to go in its place, though actually if you're happy with a full load, a layer of coal sprinkled on to PVA should work.

Side view showing the compact nature which is rather like a 4F but squashed. The compact nature of this delightful loco makes it ideal for small layouts like this which normally only receive tank locos. It runs nicely too, and the wheel back to backs didn't need any tweaking to get them to run through the code 55 handbuilt finescale track here.

Another side-view, but this time from the other side showing the gubbins on the side of the boiler. I'm no rivet counter, but what's depicted does look rather good, I'm not going to count them for you though.

Flying across the rooftops, no I haven't rebuilt Brewhouse Quay, but simply placed my stock-photo-thingy on top of the wharf to take advantage of the layout's built in lighting. The eagle-eyed will notice that the cross-member has become detached from the brake hangers at the front, easily popped back in to place - the result of me being too eager to snap the engine after taking it out of the box without checking it over first.

Next I have to pluck up courage to renumber  and weather it up!