More old tosh

D2298 performed many of the Highbridge to Glastonbury goods workings serving the Clarks shoe factory at nearby Street after the end of steam. Here we see D2298, now preserved at Quainton Road clanking through Catcott with one of these trains in the late summer of 1968.

Invisible Thread

Messed about today with the telegraph wires using 'Slik Worm Invisible Elastic Thread' as recommended by Graham Muz! Highly elastic, hopefully enough to survive 'spawn of chav' and elderley women who have to finger everything when on the road. Will it survive me when I get a shunting pole hooked up? We shall see, it's vvvvveeeeerrrrryyyy elastic - boiinngg!

Water Drop

Back in the summer of '62, well known Bath based photographer Ivan Locksmith captured this unusual view of Templecombe's ex GWR 0-6-0 No. 3206, paused at Catcott Crossing picking up an empty milk churn. Few crossing keepers' cottages on 'the branch' had running water, so the churns were used to carry vital water supplies, these being delivered by the crews of passing trains.

Tribute to Trevor

The 9F, a standard issue tender driven Hornby 'Evening Star', was inherited in 2001 after the death of a good friend.

As a sort of tribute to him (he used to rebuild old cars to concourse condition, so would have appoved of the upgrade), I decided to turn the engine into a proper workhorse rather than be the rear powered bluffer the Margate factory decied it should be!

Rather than use the mint Evening Star body, at a local show I picked up a tatty 9F body and tender for a few pennies. On this one, I stripped the body and tender right back, replacing all the moulded gubbins with wire and new brass bits like handrails and brackets etc. The missing front steps were formed up from the brass sheet. The outcome looked great, but of course, being tender drive worked like a dog and jammed going thouh my bullhead pointwork on Combwich due to the Tupperware wheels on the tender drive. At the time (2002), which is before Bachmann bought out their gem, there is/was a business which performed loco drive conversions called 'Model...sumitorother' (cannot recall name) to new locos. I contacted them to see if they'd do me a conversion to an existing loco instead.

A week or two later, a fully functioning chassis came through the post. That's about it! Of course, with this progressive upgrade, in the end, none of the original loco was touched!

That Parallel Universe

What could have happened? In real life, the GWR Radstock to Bristol route closed due to a landslide in the late 1960's. Imagine though, if the landslide had happened a few years earlier which resulted in the S&DJR from Radstock to Highbridge (with a reversal at Evercreech Junction) remaining open for coal, cement and stone traffic? We can dream!

The picture. Riddles 9F 2-10-0 No. 92224 clanks through the crossing at Catcott Burtle with Cement train from Westbury to Portishead (via Frome & Radstock) on 5 September 1964. That's the fiction, in reality, the 9F started life as a Hornby 'Evening Star' which has been converted to loco drive and extensively detailed. The 'Presflo' wagons are from ancient Airfix kits.

Poles, Posts & Gauges

Catcott, the little 5 ft x 15 inch trainset has taken a backseat over the last week or two while the 59 took precedence. Back to the sort of modelling I'm far happier with.

A look through the garage and a pack of Ratio telegraph poles were located to accompany a Wills/Ratio SR style concrete loading gauge kit put together in front of the TV last night. Looking at old pics of real railways, it's amazing just how many telegraph, electricity and telephone poles there were/are all over the place. In real life engineers spend enormous amounts of time placing these things to ensure they'll mess up that master shot, I have a little more control in my world! Oh yes, the little grotty sheds next to the water tank are 'Wills Grotty Sheds', also made up in front of the TV last night.

Post op....................

OK, here we are on the other side of the operation after the front end surgery, repaint, new grills (A1 Models) and weathering . Scale couplings, cast plates (on order) and warning flashes (for front end, not sure who does those) still to be added.

Still a bit to do yet..........

Here's the shopping list so far - all from http://www.mgsharp.com  who are very quick!

A1 Models A5900 bodyside and roof grills, etched brass.
DW 117 Details West Pyle Twin Sealed Beam (white metal, for vertical markers, 2 pairs required)
DW 290 Details West Headlight Mars Twin (for the one in the middle, the base is a tad wedge shaped, a file will sort this).

Why 59005?
I have several pictures of it (it's my favourite too), redoing those tiny stars to denote another loco would have been a pain in the whatsit. Lastly, because I didn't want to repaint the sides, hopefully the Shawplan number and name plates will hide the printed ones! Representing another loco with shorter name may not cover what's there! I'm a bodger and fan of any short cuts that can be done.

For the front end repaint after the nip and tuck and grills:
Humbrol Silver 27002
Humbrol Matt 109 (blue, 95% correct, weathering masks the very slight difference). Why this colour? I just so happened to have it at home for dry brushing onto BR 'banger' Blue for that faded effect!
Humbrol Matt 120 (pale green for cab interior), why this colour? Again, it was at home! It was bought to represent faded SR green (for buildings), near enough for this job.

Weathering;
A mix in varying amounts, of black and chocolate brown matt interior household emulsion (no bespoke 'Mongolian 1956 tank grey' or such for me), simply painted on then wiped off to leave pigment in groves (add some ashing up liquid). Then, matt varnish and Precision paints 'sleeper grime' mix applied by airbrush. Top coat, my last can of Testors Dullcote matt varnish. No longer in production, it being deemed too dangerous :what

The Nip & Tuck Begins

Left: 59004 powers past Worting Junction with the 7V01 Woking to Westbury empties , 13 January 2005.

A bit of a change from my current historic Catcott project; on the modelling bench, a Hornby (ex Lima) Class 59, 59005 'Kenneth J Painter'. Hornby have used the body shell for the later 59/1 & 59/2 locomotives. The main difference being the incorrect lighting clusters.

Below; on a temporary workbench (tea break at work), the 59/1 lighting clusters have been removed and replaced with some new 59/0 style bases made up from some plastic card. A little more tidying then the white metal light units will be grafted. The 59/0 used lighting parts from the USA, MG Sharp have been able to supply me with some accessories from the US, they'll need a lit of fettling, nothing too dramatic hopefully............

Dinky Ground Frame

The little hut in this picture is based on the little ground frame at Ashcott & Mere between Glastonbury and Shapwick on the former Burnham on Sea branch of the former Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway. The model is made up from some plastic card and some thin strips of self adhesive labelling to replicate window frames. A splash of paint, a bit of weathering, and we have a box ready for Catcott Burtle, my current 'could have been' project in 4mm scale.

A bit of nip and tuck

On the modelling bench, a Hornby (ex Lima) Class 59, 59005 'Kenneth J Painter'. Hornby have sadly made a hash choosing the prototype to represent, so irritatingly, I'll need to modify the lighting clusters on the front along with other general detailing. http://nevardmedia.fotopic.net/search.php?txt=59005&t=p . Luckely I won't have to disturb the blue paintwork, getting a match for that might be tricky, silver is no problem matching in though. The baffle/plough thingy in the front will need to be fixed to the body rather than bogie too - simple enough. It's either that or going for the Hanson livery, which would be correct for the Hornby body. In the end I fear that cutting up a little plastic will be easier than trying to create Hanson paint job and sort out a Hanson transfers - so 59005 it is!

Fame (?) at last?

"Most of us would secretly quite like a model railway layout, especially when you see these attractive little scenes created by the railway photographer Chris Nevard."

The above from the Daily Telegraph Online took me a little by surprise, actually I'm quite chuffed, even though this temporary moment of glory is all about us Brits and our nutty hobbies. This of course means that I am officially a nutter. Still, I've known that for years, but now it's official!

Cheese Rolling is in the same feature too, and because that's something that no doubt makes all the wet health and safety limp wristed luny lefties twitch, this in my book is really quite cool - I'm honoured to be along side them!

The cat picture (Smudgie our human/feline clone) is purely here because I couldn't think of a picture to post.

Looks at my bush!

Bit of a bumper update for Catcott, with yesterday seeing a few trees finished off from copper wire originals.

Bend wire > solder joins > cover thicker bits in masking tape > cover in Humbrol Dry Clay (might as well use it up) > paint in thick PVA to strengthen > add a fine gossamer of Woodland Scenics microfibre > spray a mist of matt black and grey primer over whole tree > spray microfibre with photomount > dust on Anita Decor & Silvia 'tree foliage' scatter > adjust colour with 'Ford Laural Green' (Halfords) > Place under layout lighting > realize looks too emerald > adjust with diluted biege/greeny matt emusion PVA mix through an artist's diffuser > have a Westons Cider. Gottit?

Other growth (much still loose, just positioned for appraisal - only rear fixed so far), scatter coated seafoam, rubber nag's hair (what happens to the horse, is it still alive, dog food or a 'plat du jour' in Paris? Guess we'll never know, let's not think about it...) and some Heiki tree foliage. Re-coloured as per the trees. Have another cider.

Still much to do, should really sort out the gate targets, just working out how to get a really round (really round!) and clean mask when adding the white surrounds to the red centre. For the sceptics, everything you see here is 'as is', no sky photoshopperrrtrickerypoos......... It's interesting how the little Canon compact makes the backscene appear bluer over the more subtle Nikon DSLR. Of course one could match them with Photoshop, maybe when the layout is finished. Lots still to do....maybe another cider and some sleep first, there's no rush.........

Oh yes, forgot to say, added the climbing rose to the cottage.....

Want to find out more?

More hairy Bits

Catcott, 16 May 2008, added the hairy bits to the right hand side, a mix of hanging basket liner and Silfor, in turn colour adjusted with this odd greeny PVA mix I made up some years ago which has been used on both Arne Wharf and Cement Quay, stippled on with a 1 inch brush. Before setting, the fibres were brushed upwards with some L shaped tweezers. The grass was then finished off with a buff colour matt emulsion just on the tips of the blades. This way the Silfor and hanging basket liner blend quite well. Still some tidying up of stray hairs to do.

As per the real structure, there was a water butt, this is simply a tube of corrugated plasticard wrapped around 1/2" chopped off the end of a pencil after failing to find anything white metal at Expo EM today. In the event scratchbuilding only took a few minutes. One of the shots shows just how close the front of the cottage was to the running line (as was the real thing). There will be a little low fence from old sleepers in due course between the cottage and the railway and probably some other standard Exmouth Junction style sheds etc.

To replicate the very fine chicken wire on the gates, I dug out some gift wrapping ribbon (gauze with 0.5 mm holes), having decided that the supplied gauze was way to course (scale 6 inch holes, probably OK for gauge 1).

Still much to do, one of the bigger jobs being trees and some signals to protect the crossing. One will be a LSWR latice (bought today from Wizard Models at Expo EM), the other, a tall wooden S&D post maybe, like the one at Bason Bridge. The low relief shed will look better when the end has a bush there to hide the transition to backscene.

The muddy area in front of the cottage, will be a vegetable patch/allotment soon.

Radstock's Finest!

Another 24 hours, another snap, this time showing the beginnings of the grassy bits on the left hand side of the layout. There will be a bank of willow in front of the image with the telegraph pole in the distance to mask the Highbridge side of the layout's exit. The goods shed roof is still loose (and it shows too), pending that there will be some internal detail before being fixed into place. I could say that the reason for the shed's slight lilt to the right is because it's sinking into the bog, it's simply that it has not been bedded into the ground properly yet (I fix all my buildings to layouts - less things to pack up after a show and hopefully no gaps around the bases)...................

The loco is a weathered Bachmann one, renumbered to reflect one of Radstock's finest or worst, depend on your viewpoint. On the former S&DJR, these engines were mainly used as bankers, the 3 link rather than screw coupling being correct for this particular engine. They did make the odd sojourn down the Highbridge Branch from time to time.

The photographer's spanking new Austin A30 Countryman (Springside) contrasts well with wheezy LMS heap which is performing a spot of shunting (Parkside Dundas LMS CCT). The area just to the right of the car is likely to be a small coal dump.

Deepest, remotest, most rural Somerset....

The pic to the left of Catcott Crossing Halt, shows the attack of the hanging basket liner earlier today. It will be trimmed, using small scissors and a vacuum cleaner to make it stand up. It will then be sprayed (a brush will be used upder the platform) very lightly with a highly diluted PVA/yellowy/browny/greeny emulsion mix using a toothbrush. Then, with an old vacuum cleaner it will be vacuumed again whilst wet to make sure the grass is still as upright as possible. The grass under the flatform will be left messy, the grass at the rear will be trimmed more so it looks less like the mower has been emptied. The glue/paint mix ultimately sets hard and stops the shreds of hanging basket liner breaking off and going everywhere it shouldn't.

The courser ballast is sand from the Solent strained through a fine sieve, something I've been using for years (Combwich). I did a test section the other night with some Green Scenes stuff but it didn't look right, it looking like old tea leaves in colour once dry. The beach sand is tiny pebbles, being almost round, the grains literally roll into place. It also takes PVA well too, in fact alot better than granite or whatever it is that the scenery suppliers give us.

‘Anglicizing an Austrian’

'Anglicizing an Austrian’
aka ‘transforming a smart Austrian, into a rusty, old & possibly English style leaking wheezer geezer’.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the feature by in a recent 009 Socielty Newsletter on how to anglicise the Bachmann Liliput HO Zillertal Bahn 2-6-2 a couple of months ago in 009 News, I remembered that I had one of these locomotives hidden in the garage collecting dust.

It was from one of those spur of the moment purchases a couple of years before, probably because I feared it was going out of production.

Anyway, back to the conversion, I followed the instructions as in 009 News closely as possible as my spare parts box allowed, using plasticard to deepen the body and to revise the cab windows to something more British is style.

I then had to improvise, not having a suitable smokebox door, I removed the flat head from a drawing pin, this becoming the door! A hole was drilled into the middle to take and old handrail knob from a Kays kit (there must be hundreds of these dreadful kits never finished?) and a pin head to act the lever for opening it.

Further handrail knobs and bits of brass wire were used for the cabside handrails. British locos have less in the way of steam spaghetti than their foreign counterparts, so some of those bits were removed (I’m non technical, I know steam locos use coal, fire and water, that’s about it!). Some thin beading was added along the edges of the side tank tops from fine plastic strip. Then, some coal rails were added at the cab end of the tanks, after seeing a picture of the Former Welsh Highland Railway loco ‘Russell’ in a book of ‘The Railways of Purbeck’ by the late R.W. Kidner. The little loco then had a couple of ‘buffer beams’ added out of some spare girder section from a Walther’s Cornerstone building kit for that real DIY bodged repair often seen on industrial loco’s. I’ve always liked industrial grot over twee pretty engines, I think it would be true to say that it has been achieved here!

That’s just about it, the loco was then sprayed matt black from an aerosol, had brass elliptical maker’s plate from a Class 52 Western of all things! It was then weathered up in my usual fashion using matt colour washes and dry brushing, until it started to look suitably decrepit.


Whilst I’m not sure it looks totally British in style, it maybe could pass as something UK built for export to the colonies. My story is that it came back from war torn France after the Great War.

The loco, after a good couple of hours running round and round Arne Wharf (where it really looks the part I hasten to add), runs beautifully. The only problem is that due to the large overhand and my tight curves, most stock, irrespective of which way around the loco is facing, tends to get pulled off the rails on the bends! Oh well, better build another layout!

When steam goes in the wrong direction

In the good company of RPG members Mr Wright & Mr Brunt, 34067 'Tangmere' successfully hides the Queen of Scotts rake of vintage carriages, as it blasts through Walton on Thames with a private birthday charter from Weybridge to Canterbury on Saturday 19 April 2008.

Canon G9 appraisal

Canon G9 review. As long as you don't expect this camera to perform like a DSLR, for a small carry everywhere camera it's great. Saying that, with careful technique and with the right subject, shooting RAW at 80iso comes pretty close. Build quality is quite assuring with the cool metal body. The lens is the weak link I imagine, just have to look after it I suppose, after all it is an electronic item not really designed to be thrown about like a football. My fear is that I might turn the camera on whilst it’s in my pocket, Would it break? Or would it simply not extend the lens with some kind of built in protection? I’m not trying it out.

If you want to be serious with it, Adobe RAW in CS3 does a very good job removing the slight chromatic errors towards the edge of the field with high contrast subjects. The output to 400 iso is very manageable if shooting RAW, the Adobe N/R being very effective in controlling excess noise without losing too much detail. OK, it won't compare to a DSLR but a tiny sensor is never going too. The images, especially at the lower ISO settings do have a nice quality about them, with well rounded tones, colour and white balance.

The real bonus for me (I’m old school, I like total control here) is easy to use manual exposure control backed up with the live histogram so one can keep and eye on those all important highlights. If you do blow them in an important area, when shooting RAW the Adobe converter reclaims lost information quite well – better than I thought it would after reading the review on dpreview. Being able to set a custom white balance off a white sheet of paper is very useful too when shooting JPG, which offers less post production adjustment than with RAW.

Downside, well, very few as long as one understands the limits of a small camera like this (not as small as some, but on par with a compact 35mm film camera – remember them?).

The screen, wonderfully large and sharp, my only grip is that it is far too saturated and contrasty, leading one to believe that shadows might be clogged and highlights blown when in fact they aren’t. I’ve learn to rely on the histogram when reviewing images on the screen, after initially not believing it. Not the end of the world now I understand.

If shooting action or one needs high iso performance I’d be using a DSLR, there’s no argument there, it’s silly to think a camera like this is going to be anywhere close to a DSLR in this respect.

If I had the chance to wind the clock back and had the option to decide whether to purchase this camera based on user experience gained, I wouldn't think twice about buying it again!!

Streak!

Captured between rain showers, LNER A4 Class 4-6-2 no 60019 Bittern, powers away from Virginia Water with a private charter Euston-Staines-Guildford-Redhill-Victoria) on Friday 11 April 2008.

Silfor grass

This morning's work on Catcott Burtle(about 45 mins), saw the rhyne bed painted a darkish grey emulsion colour, then coated with a thick layer of PVA (first of about 4 or 5 coats). A couple of patches of Silfor were added to gauge effect. The area with the rails etc is still bare cork with the grey/red primer mix, the ground cover and ballasting yet to be done (modelling clay for general surface including siding, fine granite or such on the 'mainline'.).

PVA is just white wood working glue, I guess you can get it world wide. Some brands dry clearer than others. I use the one in the dark green bottle, either Evostick or Unibond (cannot recall, not being anywhere near the bottle at present - well the glue bottle anyway). I've often thought that that varnish is too shiny (odd thing to say I know), it showing up any dust present and being more the colour of best bitter rather than mucky water. I've never seen rich blue water either apart from in the Med, around the UK it's gerally shades of grey with hints of brown, depending on how much mud is in it (the nearby Thames the other week was the colour of tea with all the mud in it after the heavy flooding rain). Any blue, will just be the reflection of a blue sky.

Cold and wet..............

Having just crossed over from the down slow onto the down fast, Merchant Navy Class Pacific No.35028 'Clan Line' proundly displaying 'John Bellamy 1931-2007' powers away from Weybridge with 'The Southern Sunset' steam charter from Victorian to Salisbury, on a wet and bitterly cold Saturday 22 March 2008.

Shark Attack!

Posed on Cement Quay, a modified Hornby 'Shark' departmental brakevan, a recent release from the Margate company. Modifications include, door opened up (knife and glue job), weathering and the addition of a couple of Preiser orange clad railway workers.

Rural Industrial Grot

A recent shot of the new dried peat transfer shed on Catcott, my 5'00 x 15" '00' diorama/layout of Catcott Crossing which in my parallel universe turned into a halt with siding to serve the local peat works.

The End of Printed Matter?

Spurred on by a current thread on RM Web, I felt an over due ramble........

Like many, in my world, increasingly far too much time is spent in front of a screen, be it a computer, mobile device or television.

Despite this, people are frequently discussing whether the printed page will be around for much longer. For me, there's nothing like having a good read during the daily ablutions or sitting on a train from a device that doesn't need batteries - I don’t think I’m that unusual in this respect? Having a coffee with my wife whilst casually browsing through a paper magazine or newspaper, is somewhat more sociable than reading a virtual version of the same thing on a laptop.

We're all different and have differing needs I suppose, and because of this there is an increasing requirement for electronic versions of their favourite printed media for those anti social desk tied animals. So, back to the question, does this mean that printed media will die out? No, my feeling is that there'll always be a place for the printed page for a long time yet for reasons already mentioned.

To put this a different way, in the 1960’s, it was thought that we would be living under round or in ‘space age’ high rise flats, wearing space suits (the ‘shell-suit’ never did really catch on), popping food pills. Of course what happened is that people like to touch the past, they love their Victorian villas, they like organic food and nice traditional wooden furniture, olde worlde pubs, steam trains and country walks. What happened to the high rises? They’re pulling them all down and frequently replacing them with lower more traditional looking structures – well they are where we live!

However, things do change, and in the long term of course publishers will have to embrace different and newer formats to run in parallel if they're to remain in business - like it or not. Whether an electronic clone of their current publication is the only route to take is another matter, with people increasing turning to the internet for breaking news, publishers may have to consider a more topical newsy downloadable or web version of their magazines. This would leave the printed magazine for less immediate stuff like 'layout features' and 'how to do' articles etc. The biggest problem ahead will be getting people to part with cash for similar material that may be free on another web page, this I fear will be tricky, albeit impossible. Sponsorship and advertising may be the answer along with a subsidy from the printed version.

Something that could happen right now would be for publishers make back issues available electronically as a PDF (or suchlike) for download or CD for a slightly lower rate than a paper reprint. Like many no doubt, recently I had to recycle dozens of magazines simply due to lack of storage - which is such a shame.