A Scandanavian viewpoint

I normally dislike people that spend time doing little more than posting links to spurious "news" articles online and YouTube clips of kittens in cardboard tubes.  But in this case I chanced across something railway orientated that I felt merited sharing, particularly if you have an interest in continental prototypes.

Reading the Financial Times each day, there is actually a surprising variety of articles on different subjects.  One that caught my eye was a story of how an airline is showing a video of a train journey to lull passengers to sleep.

Link to FT article

As it's shot from the driver's cab, it makes really good viewing to see the railway infrastructure and some spectacular scenery.  The video appears to be available in full, but split down into manageable chunks for download, on YouTube. 

Link to YouTube

Finally, once I re-read the article title, it did click with me that this was the perfect headline for a journey to a Biscuit Factory ;-)

Cheers
Flymo

Only shunting planks

That's a comment, or perhaps an implied criticism, that is often thrown at P4 modelling.  Usually by someone that actually isn't a finescale modeller, because it suits their prejudices that larger layouts in 18.83mm gauge can't be made to work properly.

Well, at the Scalefour Society's AGM last Saturday, there was another layout that I hadn't seen before but is yet more proof that these statements are nothing more than myth.  A model of Wadhurst station and its surroundings was on display.  Not in a final form for exhibition, but close to it, and an excellent demonstration of high quality modelling.  It's in roundy-roundy form, and enables locomotives to really stretch their legs.

This video clip is of Society Treasurer Chris Mitton's ex-Great Eastern E4 2-4-0 locomotive running along the front scenic section, through the station.

This is also a prime example that not all locomotives in P4 are little shunting tanks - even if that is the type that appeals to me!  I have two of these locomotives to build, from kits by Alan Gibson, and if they turn out to run anything as smoothly as Chris's, I'll be very pleased indeed.

More pictures of the AGM, and Wadhurst, can be found on the Society's Facebook page at AGM on Facebook

Cheers
Flymo

Must Do Better!

Where has the time gone?

I've been up to lots of bits and pieces over the last few months, but very few of them have made it onto this blog...  As I mentioned earlier in the year, I'm making a determined effort to finish off a number of projects that I started in parallel.

The Coffee Pot is one, and the last post, back in May, covered the finishing of the "out of Shops" modelling of this.  The next step is to complete the weathering of it, and put it to one side as Finally Finished.

It was an absolute pleasure to see Paul Tasker of Prickley Pear (discussion on the Scalefour Forum here) who apart from his lovely range of esoteric kits, also had with him his own Coffee Pot and we could compare the models side by side.  His is truly lovely, and makes me realise that I need to make mine look much more careworn.  So that is a challenge.

Also I've been quietly beavering away in the background on the 5522 Models range.  

I acquired the artwork, masters and instructions over a year ago now.  At that point in time, I was cash-rich, time-poor.  Since then, a period of unemployment and a new (and very enjoyable) job means that I've changed relatively to being cash-poor(er) and time-rich(er).  So I've been doing bits and pieces.

This morning I was cutting sprues at 5.45am on a new mould that I've made for castings.

 

More on castings at a future date...

Anyway, I'll be trying harder to keep up to date!

Cheers

Flymo

 

Nervewracking...

Is balancing an etched brass numberplate on a lump of blutack, poised on the end of a cocktail stick. And even more so when as the very last touch, you're putting them in place on a completed Coffee Pot!

See what you think. *I* reckon that they're on straight, and in the middle :-)

I hope to be taking this along to CHEAG tomorrow night to show how it runs...

 

 

All that it needs now is some final weathering and a couple of crew.

Cheers

Flymo

 

It's been a while...

Gosh, where did a quarter of the year go to?

Well, the start of a new job in January put paid to a substantial amount of free time, as have lots of other commitments.  All of that doesn't mean that modelling stopped entirely.  Just the writing up of it and sharing it with friends...

There has been progress on several fronts (even if not others.  Who mentioned Standard Gauge Workbench?) and there have been occasional photos along the way.  I intend to go back and reprise the key points of these in the next few days, but in the meantime here's a first try at a spot of video.

Over the May Bank Holiday weekend, I had every intent of producing a running Coffee Pot.  It's all very fiddly, as subsequent posts will show, but with coupling rods in place, and rolling road set up, on Saturday the locomotive moved under its own power:

I hope that gives you a small sense of the immense satisfaction that I felt.

Since then, it's progressed to having cylinders and connecting rods fitted and (touches large wooden object!) it still runs :-)

Until next time!
Flymo

It's just like Christmas...

When Harry the Postman knocks on the front door and hands you a package with this return label on it:

It contained a lovely shiny sheet of brass, the very first one that I've designed myself.

Now to do some modelling and see if it works

Cheers
Flymo

The Stort Valley Railway

Well, it's the start of a new year and all that, and it's time for New Year Resolutions.

Topmost amongst my modelling resolutions must be to finish more projects that are currently littering up my desk as Work In Progress. I've made a good start on that, and hope to have more out of the way in the next couple of weeks.

So with all that done, I'll move on to my entrant for the Scalefour Society's Standard Gauge Workbench...


Link to Standard Gauge Workbench

In our current house, I don't have the space indoors for a reasonably sized layout. Ulpha Light is erected in the garage, pending restoration, so that space is taken as well. So an SGW layout that I can take out, work on, and then pack away seems the perfect idea. Ultimately though, what I'd like to produce is a series of "episodes" that describe the countryside through a series of scenes. And being in my local area, and of GER interest, I'll be producing some lesser known elements of the London to Cambridge mainline, the branches and sidings off it.

The concept will be a series of linked scenes. If you've been fortunate enough to view the "Nettlebridge Valley Railway" at an exhibition, you may have an idea of what I mean. Regrettably there are very few photos of this on the web.

So the scenes that are hazy plans in my mind include:

- the terminus of the Sawbridgeworth Town branch, after it ran just over a mile after leaving the Cambridge mainline.

- the little-documented siding and canal wharf that existed until the 1960s at Parndon Mill, south of Harlow.

And finally, and the entry to the SGW, is Crouch's Brewery, which was established in the small hamlet of Churchgate Street, where it successfully produced a range of ales until a mysterious fire caused it to close shortly after the end of the First World War.

A track plan has been chosen (read "cribbed from somewhere else"...) and the Templot has been beaten into submission.

I've promised the show organiser that I will be showing something related to the SGW at Scalefour North in April, so I'd better stop typing and crack on with those unfinished projects if I'm ever going to meet that deadline!

Cheers
Flymo