Tornado Tastic!

nevard_090214_lyne_tornado_DSC_3605_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia.

I've never seen so many people out for a steam special ever in all my years of snapping train - which is about 30 years. Maybe the end of steam in 1968 bought out more people?

No. 60163 'Tornado', the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust's brand new steam locomotive, is captured here blasting up the grade at Lyne near Virginia Water with Steam Dreams 'Valentine's Day Special' circular tour from Waterloo Victoria on a beautiful crisp Saturday 14 February 2009.

The 'tech' for those that like that sort of thing:

Nikon D200, Nikkor 85mm f2 Ais. 1/800 @ f4. 100 iso captured in RAW.

Bath's Finest 5

Bath Green Park's 45440 propels a short rake of Dogfish ballast hoppers into the siding at Catcott in preparation for engineering work at the weekend.

Here's the Black Five renumbered as Bath Shed's 45440 - it needs proper weathering (So far it's only had an inital airbrush of matt varnish mixed with browny grey, further detail to follow) and a proper close coupling (the one that comes with the loco has simply been uncrewed for these quick grabbed snaps). Lights, crew? In due course. The driver and fireman are swinging off the far side running board looking for the missing lamps - well, that's my excuse for the time being. Clever that snapper, for three of these shots he managed to get three differing angles of the consist all at the same time

Pond Life

To try to give the water in the drain that runs along the front of Catcott Burtle that more static look of an old canal, a dash of paint here and there has been applied to give the effect of water lilys. Pictures of the old Glastonbury Canal, drains and nearby rhynes show these little green floating platforms favoured by sunbathing toads (well, in childrens' stories anyway) to be prolific on the Somerset Levels.

To achieve the effect here, first the canal bed was painted a greyish brown colour (any old paint will do). Next, 2 layers of PVA white glue, then when set the lilys were painted on with acrylic using 3 different shades. To finish off, the whole lot was given a thin layer of clear gloss varnish.

Things Go Lafarge at the Burtle

nevard_090201_catcott_20168_IMG_3838_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia.

With Driver P Harvey in charge, La Farge's resident Hope Cement Works based Class 20, No 168 on the 21st of August 2112 is captured here during a rare run out onto the mainline with a Moorswater to Hope working as it passes through the 'heritage' Catcott Crossing. This little known halt was converted back to its 1958 condition as a result of a recent RM Web member's lottery win

The obese generation - do they treat their 'hobbies' the same?

On RM Web there's a thread running which is querying the cost of ready to run items from a well known British model railway manufacturer. It sadly very much reflects in my opinion they way the hobby has evolved in recent times, with people not wanting to make anything, but acting simply like that spoilt, greedy, obese child on Christmas day. All they want to do is buy, buy, buy and have one of everything - I thought the hobby was about making things, not a stock buying marathon? Then, they moan that it is an expensive hobby!

This hobby can be a very cheap one if we take an old fashioned creative approach - you know, the unfashionable one which means it might not happen immediatly because we have to make it without 'F' functions, a mouse and a keyboard - and heaven forbid no CRTL Z if you mess it up!

Trains are however only a tiny part of the railway scene, buildings and lineside details etc, can with some easily learnt skills and patience be built for pennies. The most important bit is imagination and creativity - and hey, guess what - that bit's free!

Something which from Scaledale or such which may cost £20-30 can frequently be scratchbuilt built for well under a fiver using plastic sheet, cardboard and such. I have nothing against this new bread of 'ready to run buildings', they do have their place (I have plans to incorporate one into a new project), but increasingly people forget that they're not the only option in this 'I want it now pay later' society.

The old pub here was made entirely from junkmail leaflets, cornflake packets etc. The planking was printer paper, the stove pipe is a length of plastic sprue from an old kit and the chimney pots from rolled up paper. I did splash out on some micro strip for the windows, though to be honest self adhesive paper labels stuck onto some clear packaging would be just as effective - if not better. Total cost? A guess about £2.00! Oh yes, research was free, that was from the local history section of the local library!

OK, back to the all important trains; as for the cost of modern RTR, in real terms they're a fraction of the cost of what would have been similar items 20 or 30 years ago. We should stick some of these moaners into a time machine and send them back in time, they'd soon really have something to moan about with the then low quality (compared to now) and high price which was the downside of pre Chinese manufacturing. They'd probably have to 'save up' their money too, for in those super high interest days, credit cards were only for the idle rich and business users who'd pay them off fully at the end of the month.

On the Road!

nevard_090117_cement_ASTOLAT_IMG_3791_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia.

Well, Cement Quay's 5th outing on the road, this time to the Astolat Model Railway Club's excellent yearly show on Saturday 17 Jan 2009 went very well in indeed. This was mainly due to a posse of railways modellers on RM Web who kindly offered their services to help play trains on the day. This meant that time could be given over to chatting to exhibition goers in addition to playing bouncer to deter the occasional person that decided that the layout would make a good prop to swing off!

Looking at the shot above, I wonder what drug the person who selected the curtain material was on? One to be avoided methinks!

Any old iron! Any old iron!

nevard_090114_cement_scrap_IMG_3739_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia.

Today's little project; what to do with all those bits left over from a Walthers Cornerstone kits (and others)? Scrap of course!

The barge is from an Artitec resin kit. The load is removeable - you can see the card base around the edges - to the eye it isn't too obvious.

Cement Quay - some mooring ropes & a few more reeds

nevard_090110_cement_37422_IMG_3704c_web, originally uploaded by nevardmedia.

I had some spare dyed plumber's hemp left over from Catcott, so before the cat decided to play with it, the remainder got stuck into place with PVA to replicate more rushes and reeds. Some spare embroidery thread was pinched from my wife's sewing box to create the missing mooring ropes. The mast on the barge looks a tad clumsy, time to dig out out the magician's invisible thread when I have time.

It's unlikely in this day and age than such a worn out and overgrown place would exist in real life - 'rule number one' of course!

See Cement Quay in Guildford

Cement Quay will be at the Astolat Model Railway Circle's Annual Exhibition on Saturday 17 Jan. This will be the layout's first outing in a year.

Location:

Methodist Church Hall, Woodbridge Road, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4RB



Times:

09.30 - 17.00

Prices:

Adults £3
Concession £2
Kids £1.50

Features:

Several layouts including a 'G' scale layout that can be operated by visitors, societies, trade support and refreshment.

Video test using a Canon G9

090106cement-quay_clip, originally uploaded by nevardmedia.

08630 departs from a rather run down Cement Quay with a short rake of PCA cement wagons.

Fotopic - back from the brink!

Just when we though the game was over, Fotopic has risen from the grave! The 3 day outage supposedly was caused by their link to the outside work going down - tut, you should always allow for redundancy with something so important!

This element of my website is now back in action - click on the link below if you wonder what all the fuss is a about:
http://nevardmedia5.fotopic.net/

I will however keep the new Flickr accound running in parallel as much as possible - just in case it all goes belly up again. And anyway, I rather like the interactivity of Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/collections/

Fotopic - game over?

At around 09.30 on Friday 2 January, the much loved Fotopic transport enthusiast online gallery disappeared from our computer screens. There's much speculation, mostly unsubstantiated ranging from liquidation through to server problems. Whatever the issue, 24 hours on, and our screens are still blank.

I,like many thousands of transport nutters, are starting to look at other options. So, for the time being at least, you can enjoy some of my Model Railway imagery here instead:

http://flickr.com/photos/22561588@N03/collections/

Carter's Siding - a bit MORE armchair pontification!

Before I totally write this one off, a 3D sketch of Carter's Siding (yup, using pencil and paper!). This is not at all to scale or in proportion (the loading dock is too high - in model form I'd like it to be around 2"), but does help me in trying to visualise things. The bridge would have to have quite a hump too so as to clear the trains - hence the narrow gauge line darting off towards the backscene. It will probably never happen......

Carter's Siding - bit of armchair pontification?

Just a bit of messing about to see what could be plonked on a sheet of 3'00" x 1'00". 'Carters' Siding was a clay pit off the truncated Corfe Mullen to Wimborne line on the former S&D, the route being severed in 1933.

The remaining 1 mile long siding from Corfe Mullen Junction served the clay pits until 1959, and then wagon storage until 1965 - the rails finally being lifted in 1968.

This quicky was knocked up in MS Paint, in reality it will be on a curve (which is rather beyond MS Paint). The truncated line ends on the left. The bridge on the right could be double track width with a new extra portal for the siding. The narrow gauge will be around 3 inches higher than the standard gauge siding on the ofreground.

In reality AFIK there was no loop, the loop here is just to jazz it up a tad. As I say, this is only a bit of armchair pontification (but so was Catcott)!

Update: Wednesday 31 Dec

Through photography eyes, the main gripe I have with this one is the double track +1 (for the siding which will be an additional 'later' portal) is that the cassette yard will be too visible through the bridge on the right. This common problem is noticed when photographing layouts - mirrors can take care of that for snaps but tend to get in the way of moving trains!

Since toying about yesterday, this has come to fruition of Carter's Siding (proper name was Corfe Mullen Siding) courtesy of that Google thing...http://www.trainweb.org/railwest/railco/sdjr/cmj.html#CMS
The siding was only long enough for 5 wagons which is great for us, but sadly no loop. If I wanted an accurate rendition, because the end of the line was to the left, trains had to run past, then shunt back into the siding - this means I'd need around 4 to 5 feet length which defeats the object of this project.

The sketch book is out again for some more armchair pontification, with this morning's below....

Another thought is a 3 foot module to join up to Catcott's right hand side (or stand alone using Catcott's fiddle yards) allowing trains to run right through, this time featuring the 'Eclipse Peat Works'. This could be interesting in that the narrow gauge feeder ran over the standard gauge http://www.sdjr.net/locations/ashcott.html , then over the canal which by this stage was on the opposite side of the line from Catcott over to a series of corrugated huts for the peat works. Narrow gauge wagons went up some kind of rickety wooden structure to load their content into wagons on the single standard gauge siding. Modelling something like this would be interesting too http://www.british-history.ac.uk/image.aspx?compid=15115&filename=fig57.gif&pubid=62

Whatever happens (if ever) presentation with be the usual black box 'house style' with built in lighting and curved backscene so as to blend in with existing projects...

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

To all the readers and viewers who have passed on support and nice comments over the last year about my miniature bodgings and meddlings.

May next year push the boundaries and that all important fun factor one stage further!

Chris

Noch! Noch! - Enter the Gras Master!

Furthering Cement Quay's look before its show in Guildford on the 17th Jan 2009, the other day saw the purchase of the highly acclaimed Noch Gras Master from the excellent Gaugemaster at Ford near Arundel.

The Gras Master is a useful tool for applying static grasses to model layouts and dioramas, the 'static' feature making the 'grass' fibres stand upright as they land onto the surface of the layout.

Tests so far have proven very effective, as hopefully the pictures here will demonstrate with the Noch fibres blending in very well with the existing Silfor grass matting.

I think the days of ground foam scatter replicating grass rather badly from that well known manufacturer beginning with 'W' and others are truly past their sell by date on the realism stakes.

However this new found realism does come at a price, with the recently introduced Gras Master 2 coming in at just over a ton. To put it into proper perspective though, it's only the price of a couple of new locos and most of us have too many of those anyway, so I consider it money well spent - it doing far more for your layout than those new locomotives.

Free Scenics!

In preparation for what will be Cement Quay's first outing in a year at the Guildford Show on Saturday 17 Jan 2009, a little time yesterday afternoon was spent upgrading things a little.

A rummage on our lawn sourced some moss which I felt had some scenic potential. After few hours in the airing cupboard overnight to dry out, little bunches of the stuff were stuck down then sprayed with a PVA/paint and water mix to strengthen, preserve and darken the colour a little. The tips are then painted mauve to look a little Budliah/Rose Bay Willow Herby using some cheap acrylic from Tesco.

Some of that modelling is very wonky from this angle - ah, it's all just slipping into the Severn, well that's my excuse anyway.....

Layer stacking in Photoshop CS3 for increased depth of field

I had a bit of spare time overnight, so read up on the rumour that similar effects to Combine ZM for bodging an increased depth of field can in fact be done in Photoshop CS3.

You need the 'extended version', and you might find this link useful
http://wiki.panotools.org/Image_Stacking

The link above mentions 'Smart Objects", which for my tests were quite the opposite (though I'm sure everybody else will do better).......

The below worked for me and tests so far have proven to work well for for images where you only have two layers (which to be honest is fine for many pictures, more will work I'm sure, but will of course increase the amount of selective layer deleting needed). It also had the advantage in that CS3 lined up slightly misaligned images (ie when a bean bag was used rather than a tripod which can result in rotational errors) somewhat better than Combine ZM. You do have to manually delete the out of focus bits from the top layer using the eraser, this does mean that you don't end up with those odd looking blurred areas where Combine ZM didn't know what to do (Combine ZM does the whole caboodle, but for me has been a little hit and miss depending on shot).

1/ >File
2/ >Scripts
3/ >Load Files into Stack
4/ >Browse and choose images
5/ >Tick the align by comparion check box (not the Smart objects one).

Leave to chunter away for a minute or so, you then get a multi layered file which can be saved as a PSD or layered TIFF.
With the eraser tool (E), ideally with a soft edge delete the out of focus bits from the top layer (this is actually quite quick).

Save as PSD or flatten and save for the web or whatever.

Unlike with Combine ZM you don't lose EXIF, colour space and an end up with an odd 96 dpi screen res (300 would be a better default) which you might need to add again. It also works in 16 bit and straight from the camera RAW files (which 'ZM won't do) which a bonus too.

The shot above taken on a Canon G9, was combined from two shots (one focussed on the foreground and one one the engine) with the camera resting on a bean bag, which in turn was resting on some stock boxes. Previous attempts with Combine ZM created some odd misregistration results on the left hand side, however, using CS3 as above worked perfectly, the stack creation twisting one of the images slightly to solve the previous problem. The whole fiddling about from RAW file selection, through grading and selective deleting of out of focus bits right through to resizing for web took around 10 minutes.

Back to the Future with 35mm Film!

Late last week, in this world of 'only digital will do' I was starting to feel rather sorry for my old much film starved Nikon FM 35mm film SLR gathering dust on the office shelf. A day or two later, & much to my surprise I was still able to buy a roll of B&W film called Ilford XP2 - which can be processed down the local 'Kwikkysnaps' on their C41 processing line.

In the 'old days' I'd have processed my own film at home, but of course in this brave new world we live in, like many ex darkroomers, my redundant processing gear is likely to be lining some landfill site in India or other foreign clime - illegally dumped courtesy of our law abiding councils - or so we are led to believe if we take notice of the popular press!

OK, back to the all important film, the camera back opening almost by magic as the hungry outmoded technology grabbed the 35mm canister off me. The lucky subject of the old girl's attentions would be Catcott Burtle, my new layout/diorama. Soon I was snapping away with the reassuring rasp of the manual frame wind on and unmistakable ker-thunk of the shutter going off - 38 times in total, remembering of course that you can always squeeze on a couple of extra shots onto a roll of 36!

The following day the roll of film was dropped in at the local lab and after a coffee at Starbucks I ventured home with some strips of processed negatives for the princely sum of £3.50.

Rather than being totally analogue, I decided to merge this 'old tech' with 'the new' and digitise the files with a scanner and 'process' them in Photoshop, of course the simpler option would have been for the lab to make me up a CD! That's just too easy!

In the 'olden days', after wet processing the resulting prints, it's likely you'd have used Indian ink to retouch the odd white spot or scratch, now of course we simply use the various retouching tools in Photoshop with great effect and speed. We can then prints them off at home on the ink jet or post them to the internet. Of course, the other option would be just to get prints made at the time of processing - dust specks and all! Nah, that's just not me, that’s far too easy!

Tech: Nikon FM, Nikkor 18-35 IFED, 4 sec @ f22. Ilford XP2 b&w film scanned to digital via and Epson 4870 @ 3200 dpi (resized for web here).

Made in the Isle of Wight

Resting in the siding at Catcott and fresh off the modelling bench, is this delighful resin based kit from the Isle of Wight based 'Smallbrook Studio' depicting a 10 ton LSWR brake van.

I'll be covering the contruction of this in a future edition of Hornby Magazine.

Rosebay Willow Herb

With Rosebay Willow Herb blowing in the summer breeze by drain at Catcott, Mickey Mouse tank No. 41248 trundles past the crossing with an empty perishables train from Templecombe to Bason Bridge.......

Cinnabar Red

Here we go - after a couple of days blasting around the country snapping trainsets and a few beers with mates in the northwest, this afternoon at home, the Ian Kirk 51' LNER full brake received a coat of 'Carmine' (British Leyland MG Metro Cinnabar Red), some numbers, weathering (dry brush and washes - not too much for this) and a top coat 'Krylon Matte Finish' via aerosol (Search Ebay for a good supplier). To be added: vacuum pipes, scratch built fom some brass wire wound with a single fine strand of stripped layout electrical wire are drying on the workbench after their top coat of matt black. That will just leave screw couplings to source next time I find a proper model railway shop.

Building a 1970's style kit.........

OK, moving on, in my quest to improve, introduce and upgrade some of my steam era stock before Catcott Burtle' s next outing at RAILEX next May......

Here we have coffee table job (note the hot pepper sauce for the boy and handcream for her indoors on the left) bought last weekend at WycRail, an Ian Kirk, aka Coopercraft LNER 51' 1-1/2" Full Brake is now on the modelling bench. This item of stock will form part of a milk and or perishables consist.

The basic body, roof and ends are great! The underframe, bogies and such are very flaky misaligned tired mouldings sadly in black (grrr, so they're tricky to tidy and assemble 'cos they're difficult to see the relief on - 'grey is the only way' don't you know?) and needed a bit of beefing up here and there to ensure they'll last more than 3 minutes.

Here we are so far awaiting a few more additional bits in the neither regions. The lower detailing was all a bit of guesswork, the instructions being more like a secret quiz that only the writer/designer understands. Anyway, got there in the end even, if I did replace the battery boxes with something more useable (block of foamboard)! The body will be lined maroon (Halfords British Leyland Damask). Sourcing pics has been a tad tricky despite looking all over the place (bar actually buying the recommended book 'LNER Gresley Carriages' which is unlikley to see much further use).
Numbers indicated on the paperwork suggest various from 70070 up to 70564 depending on versions. I guess for BR days one would put an 'E' on either end of this?

The Art of Illusion Without Photoshop

I have a job next week to photograph 60 or so OO gauge locos. So, rather than use a length of Peco like everybody else on a bit curled up white paper, I used a sheet or two of foamboard, a length of C&L and some spare Silfor grass matting, carpet underlay, hanging basket liner and various dyed sawdusts. This all combined has hopefully resulted in a niftly display photo platform which also gave me the chance to mess about testing out some autumnal looking scenics.

Here you see the result of about 6 hours work. Oh yes, the print is one of my skies run off to 20x30 inches at Photobox online lab, which means no need to mess about with jiggery pokery adding skies and such 'cos everything can be done in camera - result?