The Storm

Saturday bonus shot! I was going to keep it until tomorrow, but it's more topical today in the aftermath of storm Eunice. In the rose-tinted land of the inch high, the little people are tiding up after the storm. As is the norm, there is much discussion but not much actual doing. All the usual suspects have appeared to dish out 'advice'. It's likely they'll all give up shortly and have a strategy meeting in the nearby pub.

 

Angela Flatbottom

Saturday morning. Somewhere in the Polden Hills, the daily mixed Edington Jct to Bridgwater Nth service is watched by Barry Bullhead, the time and motion man from the ministry. Barry is in a good mood, having recently asked Angela Flatbottom for her hand in marriage. Part of the agreement is that Barry has to learn to drive a tractor, Angela being a farmer’s daughter and all that. Meanwhile down on the track, Doug and Digger Dave are examining some strange ghost like lettering hovering over the track. Curiously things can pass right through it. Click to enlarge…..

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Moonlight Encounter

 Moonlight rendezvous…… I got up early this morning in anticipation of the much hyped Zombie Apocalypse Doom predicted by the Met Office. So, with one eye out of the window, I thought I’d put this one together in anticipation of having to chase our dustbin down the road.  Click to enlarge. 

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Eunice & Dud

Thursday at the colliery. Hubert the Horse continues to teach Barry Bullhead conversational Latin. Edwin, Eunice & Dudley have a stormy conversation about point levers & whether Seep or Cobalt point motors are the best. It soon blew over, with them deciding on wire in tube.

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The Loo

4571 simmers on Combwich shed, these ex-GWR locos were often used on the Bridgwater service. The crew are nowhere to be seen, but it’s likely that Driver Norman is on the loo just visible to the left enjoying Razz, Routemaster Monthly or the recently released Psycho novel. Oh, mother will be impressed. 

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End of Shift

Tuesday evening deep in the Forest. For Bill & Ted it’s almost the end of their shift. The evening mist rises, the light in the public bar of The Miners is on. Just one wagon to go, then they’ll be off for a snifter or two, or three, or four, or five. Fireman Reggie grumbles, “keep one for me”. Poor Reggie.

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Monochrome Monday

 Monochrome Monday 

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Romp in the Grass

Serene Sunday. Catcott Crossing sometime in the mid-1950s. Driver Gary and Fireman Baldy bring their train over the crossing. They’ll briefly stop to drop a little coal off for Cindy Swift the crossing keeper in exchange for some rough cider. Parked on the bridge is Beryl’s old heap, she is nowhere to be seen, though yesterday she was spotted with Comical Ned (with the funny shaped head) down on Bridgwater Docks - so it’s quite possible they’re having a romp in the nearby tall grass. Ah, those rose-tinted goggles of olden times. Click to enlarge if you want to see if you can find Beryl. 

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Moonshine

It’s another Saturday down by the canal. Doug, Colin & Barry are dealing bottles of illicit booze as Andrew & Barclay trundle past. Pete & Dud are waiting for Archibald to fix the water tank stopcock. Shortly Archibald will discover that the water tank has been repurposed as an undercover moonshine production plant. Running water and plenty of nearby coal to heat the mash and still within make it ideal. 

In the distance, outside the pickled winkle factory, Comical Ned (with the funny shaped head) tries to capture the attention of Beryl who has just arrived in her Austin 7. Ned has had a crush on Beryl for years, he likes the mature ladies. Beryl however is after an engine driver, or any man who knows how to use a big spanner and is a dab hand with a grease gun - her car is unreliable and her joints regularly need attention to loosen them up.

Click to enlarge….

New Wave

A wet chilly February Friday In 1968. Somewhere a little north of Preston, a Black Five 4-6-0 speeds past our intrepid photographer (there with permission I hasten to add). His Rolleiflex loaded with uprated Ilford HP4 b&w film capturing this gritty image inspired by celebrated ‘new wave’ photographer Colin Gifford. Click to enlarge …

Tunnel View

Shortly before the photographer was flatten by the engine, he took this snap from his folding step ladder. Within the tunnel on Cement Quay. Such are popular with steam rail tour photographers, as they all line up in a row taking identical shots whist comparing ladders and the biggest f2.8 pro spec zoom. Click to enlarge. 

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Mulder & Scully

Before Mulder & Scully were celebrity UFO & alien hunters, they were cops on the beat seeking bodies in dumped cars. But their inner passion for trainspotting always delayed findings, getting those numbers always held more attraction than 10 day old rotting flesh. This of course worked in their favour career wise, being semi useless ensured speedy promotion out of harms way. Click to enlarge…

Piggyback Style

 Tidy Tuesday. Ivo’s Bentley looking rather tidy, posed in the tiny goods yard at Catcott. A narrow gauge steamer has just arrived piggyback style for the nearby narrow gauge peat railway recently taken over by preservationists . A Poole bound goods thunders through right on cue.

Platinum Jubbly

Platinum Jubbly Day! Liz & Margo and Liz’s stunt double Albert alight the special train to meet Henry the Horse. Henry, as we all know, is the only horse on the planet fluent in conversational Latin. Young Tony, the horse whisperer is in complete awe, kneeling down as instructed. Hopefully Nasal Nigel, temporary custodian of Henry the Horse has his mac firmly buttoned up, raw winkles are not on the menu at such a royal event. Luvvelly Jubbly! Click to enlarge…. 

Digital Capture of B&W Negative Film Using DSLR or Mirrorless Camera

I have 1000s of negatives, digitization using a traditional scanner would be a very long drawn out process unless you have super expensive bulk scanning gear. The result of this method appears to give a good results for my needs, the workflow in my case probably 10 times faster than traditional scanning with the gear I have. The resulting quality is easily good enough for a double page spread in a magazine or at least A3 print. I’m presuming you are confident shooting RAW and have basic Photoshop skills, plenty of stuff online if not. Click on the images below to enlarge if need be  

Sholing Railway station. Summer 1982. Kodak Plus X negative, ‘scanned’ using a DSLR, a tripod mounted Nikon D5200 in this case with a 55mm Micro Nikkor set at F11 (a sweet spot aperture wise and enough depth of field should the negative have a slight bow). I used an iPad with a plain white image as a makeshift light box, and a 35mm film holder from an old scanner.

 

After taking the photo of the film negative and transferring the file to your computer, In Photoshop Adobe RAW, open your camera RAW file as you would normally, crop, straighten etc. Now the clever bit. Select ‘Curves’, then select the ‘Linear’ drop down. What we want to do is turn the negative image in to a positive. Note the diagonal line, that will be the attention of the next image.

Tick the dot in the red circle. Then drag each end the diagonal line up/down to mirror the previous image. Bingo! You have a positive image!

 

Adjust the curve to increase contrast to suit. If you’re familiar with Adobe RAW you’ll discover that the curve controls are back to front. Not an issue. Not shown here, but then use the other controls like lens correction, noise reduction, sharpening and so on as you would normally. Once happy, it’s worth exporting the profile as an XMD file, next time all you’ll have to do is load that. Export resulting image in to Photoshop proper to finish off your edit.

FOMO

Saturday morning down by the canal. Doug, Colin, Pete and Dud are suspicious of Barry Bullhead who is charming them with a crate of illicit hooch. This is most unusual, for Mr Bullhead is a time and motion man from the Ministry of Misery. Reg and Comical Ned (with the funny shaped head) peer over from the platform, suffering marginal FOMO. Nasal Nigel, eager to try out his new flasher mac pops up from the undergrowth like a meerkat “Oh, mother won’t be impressed, booze in the workplace, whatever next? I’d better go and investigate”. 

Front and Rear Ends

 #frontandrearendfriday - it’s a new thing don’t you know… deep down in Cornwall (which oddly looks just like Combwich), the final section of the Atlantic Coast Express arrives. Beattie the tank engine wiggles with joy “it’s my racy friend all the way from that there London 🥰”. Click to enlarge …

Booze Runners

More rose-tinted Hornby sized nonsense from the inch high stars of little England. Here we see rare colour film production still from the 1958 Ealing Comedy ‘Whisky No More’. On the right, Mr Barry Bullhead and Shamus O’Bellboy from the Ministry of Misery arrive to investigate the dodgy goings on, whilst Pete & Dud pretend check over the loco to buy time.  Meanwhile Derek & Clive on the left quietly retrieve the milk churns of illicit moonshine from the cab. Click to enlarge …..

Pickled Winkles

It's Wednesday, and the 9.05am Highbridge Wharf to Evercreech goods rumbles through Catcott Burtle. A good mixed load this morning, coal, pickled winkles, canned guff, frozen fried egg sandwiches, jellyfish in aspic, full-sized fibreglass cows and Belgian chocolate teapots. Click to enlarge

 

The Summer of '59

A classic West Country branchline scene from the summer of ‘59. It’s almost as if all the little people and train are posed for the camera. That rose-tinted parallel universe is such a great place to be. And of course they all went to the nearby pub as soon as the train passed. Click to enlarge.

Neath Riverside - A Slice of 1960s South Wales

Scale OO / 1:76

Click on images for a bigger view..

I've been working on this layout commission for much of the year alongside other projects. It’s a new build supported with some wonderful secondhand buildings salvaged from a layout by ace model maker Iain Robertson. The station area seen here is housed in a 6ft x 18 inch diorama case. It is the first of several scenes that link together.

The railway room that this destined to live in has grown significantly since taking on the commission, so a colliery and further rural scene are under currently construction. These will extend the layout by around 300%.... more to follow..

A watery scene - the tide is out, so probably a smelly location. No supermarket trolleys, they're more a feature of modern times!

A Western Region Stanier 2-8-0 trundles through Neath Riverside past a few coal bins. The trackplan is based on an Iain Rice design from the 1980s.

Looking towards the twin tunnel portals - this is in fact a junction - the Class 22 coming off a military line with a van train.

Shunting the river side yard. Extensive use has been made of the recent Peco Bullhead range, which creates that hand-built look with ease.

July 2020 Model Rail magazine features the first of a 2 part series on Neath Riverside explaining the construction in greater detail https://www.greatmagazines.co.uk/model-rail-july-2020

Sunday Ukulele Strummalong - Putting on the Style

Sunday Strummalong in the spring garden avoiding flying drones - Putting on the Style by the great Lonnie Donegan

Hotchpotch Rd & Little Smoke Junction

Back in the summer I built this little customer layout to fit in 3 of those popular plastic storage crates that are a little under 3 feet long and around 10 inches wide and deep.

I was supplied with detailed plans of what should go where by my customer stipulating buildings and track required. Due to his excellent planning it all worked a treat, as well as being great fun to build. I tip my hat to you sir if you read this post.

The build time of this fun little layout was 87 hours spread over a month or so.

A run around loop allows for a short train and small tender loco, the loco here being a Hornby J15. Much use was made of ready made items, this can be a more affordable option than scratch or kit-building for those on a limited budget.
Photo copyright Chris Nevard.

Looking through to the terminus - Hotchpotch Road.
Photo copyright Chris Nevard.

Both scenic boards - the scene here is around 5 feet long split over two boards.
Photo copyright Chris Nevard.

'The Smoke Junction' - the recent run of exciting ready to run smaller locomotives being ideal for a layout like this.
Photo copyright Chris Nevard. 

'Hotchpotch Road' - the buildings are from PECO and Ratio kits, the track is PECO set track. The wonderful laser cut sign on the signal box is from www.scalemodelscenery.co.uk
Photo copyright Chris Nevard. 

The layout can be stored in 3 boxes, the left hand box being used for the fiddle yard and storage.
Photo copyright Chris Nevard.

Polite Notice!
All photography copyright Chris Nevard. Unauthorized use may incur legal action. Apologies for posting this, but frequently I find my photography on third party and often commercial pages without prior consent. If you need to use an image, drop me a line - I don't bite, unless of course you don't ask.

Trainset!

On the pick-up goods, Guildford shed's No. 33019 simmers in the goods yard at Porth Emmet Railway Station - click to enlarge.

Recently I was commissioned to build a traditional 5 x 4 foot trainset. I've wanted to build such for some time, so this build was going to be even more fun than usual. I have a feeling that even the most serious diehards of the hobby secretly crave a traditional trainset, though they might not mention it to their peers!

5 x 4 feet of roundy-roundy trainset joy. Operation is surprisingly fun, with much of the charm being to simply let a train run round and round and round and round and round and round.... Click to enlarge.

Design wise, seeing what could be shoe horned on to a dining room sized board without cramping things was going to be fun. With the sharp set track curves, I could have packed a lot more track in, but then I fear any lean towards 'realism' would have been compromised.

Part of the brief in addition to the set track, was to use as many pre-made items as possible, partially to keep the cost down (because I wouldn't need to charge for scratch building), but also to achieve a speedy build if to demonstrate that model railways don't have to take years. However, whilst all the tricks of the trade were embraced for rapid result, I wanted the scenic treatment to be at the same level as my more serious model railway builds.

The layout took just 11 working days, spread over a two week period. This layout will be on permanent public display at Kernow Model Centre's new Guildford store from May 2019.

Day 2 in to the build, two 5 x 2 foot boards allow the layout to be split down the middle for ease of transit. 5 x 4 feet is quite a big area to cart about as one piece. The laser cut baseboards were supplied by www.timhorn.co.uk