Nearly ready for the Autumn exhibitions

A few pictures of the extension to Widnes Road which has been taking shape over the summer. The new scenic board with sandstone hills are based on Runcorn Hill, with a slightly geographically repositioned pub, The Prospect also from Runcorn, forming part of a small hamlet on top. The electrified track which passes through the new scene is the line which diverges from the main line at Runcorn station and serves Folly Lane.

The concrete hardstanding to the foreground is a place-holder until I can find a suitable kit for a chlorine plant, the front two tracks will eventually serve the chemical works.

Widnes Road - Update

As of mid-July, the 2 new boards are built, the track has been constructed of a mix of standard ABS plastic and Timber-tracks track panels with C&L railchairs with code 83 flat-bottom rail.

After the track is laid on Tillig track base to give super-elevation Stage 2 is to airbrush the track with various shades of track dirt and rust, followed by picking out all the railchairs with Railmatch Dark or Light Rust as appropriate. Stage 3 is the usual ballasting operation using Woodland Scenics Fine ballast, sprayed 1st with a dilluted water / washing up liquid mixture then PVA coloured with Burnt Sienna acrylic paint.

Back from a rail trip round Germany and Belgium

I've posted another few highlights from a week long trip round Germany and Belgium, taking in Munich, Nuremberg, Berlin, Cologne, Brussels and Charleroi, and there is a link to my flickr site with far more for those who are interested here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/widnes_road/

SNCB / NMBS - A couple of days in sunny Belgium

An impending change of job has given me some time off to relax before beginning at my new company later in the summer. Given this unexpected free time I though a couple of days in sunny Belgium, split between Brussels and Antwerp would be just the ticket to begin with.

I have posted below a few edited highlights, but I will post more at my main flickr page shortly.

1st Garden Railway Running Session

A beautiful late Spring day, and the opportunity to get out into the garden and get the garden railway up and running. Some light pruning and track cleaning later and 47 484 makes a spirited run on a rake of HBA coal hoppers. This is a Heljan class 47 which has been fitted with an Extreme Etchings headcode box conversion kit and etched nameplates. Next is the soon to arrive fan and grill set from Extreme Etchings and bogie detailing kit from Modern Motive Power.

Timber Tracks - Turnout Construction

I'm busy building the various turnouts needed for the extension to Widnes Road; and I had a need for a curved left hand 1:6. Having read about the new Timber Tracks sleeper bases available from C&L, I thought I'd give them a try.

Now I have I'm never going back to plastic, the wooden bases are so much better to work with and don't melt if you're too liberal with the Butanone.

As well as being far more pleasing to work with they also enable more natural looking track formations to be made, as well as allowing standard turnouts to be gently curved to fit track plans.

The best description comes from their own website: "Timber Tracks mark a radical new departure in track construction. For years we have been saying that model railway trackwork should ‘flow’ and be designed as a whole, rather than as turnouts ‘stitched’ together by lengths of plain track. Instead of individual sleepers and turnout timbers, the system is based on laser cut turnout bases and track panels. Each panel is flexible, so you can create sweeping curved turnouts and track." And it does exactly what it says on the tin!

Widnes Road - Western Extension

Having completed fiddle yard V.1.4, I can finally start on the interesting bit, the extension to the western, scenic end of the layout. This will include a chemical works / tanker unloading depot, consisting of two sidings, the second of which will have a loco shunt release via a double slip onto the through line. The images alongside show the first piece of trackwork I have completed, a conjoined pair of B6 r/hand turnouts, constructed as a single track panel over the last few weeks.
The next track panel to be contructed slots onto the furthest right road in this picture (the through line) and will consist of a trailing curved l/hand leading back toward the camera. this will serve as a cripple sideing for a couple of wagons, plus storage for the shunter which will stable this side of the level crossing and serve the chemical works traffic.
The final track panel will consist of a double slip, joining roads 2 and 3 and divering into a single road heading to a hidden fiddle yard, and a headshunt.

Widnes Road - Fiddle Yard Mk.IV

Work has been continuing apace on Widnes Road now there is a break in the exhibition programme. The first task was the (re-)building of the main fiddle yard, to produce the 4th version. The original was three roads wide and only long enough to stable three locos. This, hopefully the final iteration of the eastern fiddle yard is now able to accommodate fairly long trains, as the images show. Once the second fiddle yard is built, which will be behind the operators, accessed by a hidden curve from the western end of the layout, the operational potential of Widnes Road will improve dramatically.

The high level road seen at the rear of the yard is now wired, and can be used as both a programme track and a test track during exhibitions, when running a loco on the layout only for it to die after three feet can prove embarrassing.

Widnes Road - A short picture update and Exhibition Dates

Photos courtesy of Tim Reynolds (Cambridge MRC)

Widnes Road - Exhibition Dates - Autumn 2011

10 & 11 September - Worthing MRC Durrington High School, The Boulevard, Worthing, West Sussex

1st & 2nd October - Folkestone MRC Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone

5th & 6th November - Alsager Railway Association, Crewe Alsager - Civic Centre, Stoke

19th & 20th November - Warley National Model Railway Exhibition - NEC, Birmingham

After attending three exhibitions in the early Spring, both Widnes Road and its operators are taking a break from the circuit for a five month period. The next dates are given above, a fairly intense set of two day shows, also getting to parts of the country where we can meet new faces, and also get to see layouts that never make it to the depths of Essex and Kent, our usual 'patch'.

The next five months will be a phase of fairly intense work on the layout, as the final stage on converting Widnes Road from a simple fiddle yard to depot layout as originally built six years ago into a full end-to-end railway capable of running through trains takes place.

This has partly come about from the explosion of excellent 'depot' layouts over the last few years, and partly because after more than 20 exhibitions in its current form, I need to keep things interesting both for me and the layouts operators and audience.

The first stage of the works has already taken place, the existing 5-road traverser has been completely rebuilt, now measuring 5'5" in length, the maximum that will fit across the inside of a Transit van. Once the second fiddle yard is finished, this will allow reasonably long rakes of stock to pass through the scenic section of Widnes Road, adding visual interest between the usual loco moves and shunting of the yard.

As well as being dictated by the width of a Transit, I'm keen to run the occasional through parcels rake, or perhaps a diverted inter-regional passenger as well as the ubiquitous DMU, so the fiddle yard is capable of accommodating a Class 45 Peak and 5 of Bachmann's MkII's or a similar number of GUVs.

The next focus is getting the pointwork built for the third and final scenic board in time for testing in the summer, and being complete with scenery by Warley at the end of November.

New Film Scanner = Nostalgia Time...

I've just treated myself to a new high-definition film scanner, as I really needed to get round to digitising my pre-2000 railway images. It just makes it easier to search for a particular shot or subject if they are all in one electronic filling system. Its a daunting task though; some 15 years of photography before I purchased my first digital camera in 2000. Considering in the last 10 years I've taken something like 15,000 photos, there are a fair few to scan from the previous years.

Here is a sample of the first two rolls of films I've scanned; from July 1989. the first two are taken at Carlisle on 3rd July, the second pair at Glasgow Queen Street later that week.

The final shot is from a random selection taken early in 1990, just outside Old Oak Common. I have no idea what each film contains until I  see the scanner preview. I'm wallowing in nostalgia...

The start of spring = large scale models outdoors

Spring is in the air, and that means the chance to get outdoors to have fun with the larger scales. The plan for this Spring is to complete an outer loop of G-scale track outside the existing O-Gauge inner loop. I've placed an order for 24 metres of Accucraft flexitrack from the excellent Kent Garden Railways, to suppliment the 8 metres I've been using as a test track.

Hopefully that should arrive in the next week or so and the Class 66 Malcolm and I picked up for a bargain £140 in the Autumn can finally stretch its legs.

Newly arrived today is one of the Bachmann / Aristocraft twin intermodal wagon sets, which makes for an impressive model. Another three or so will make up a very nice rake. The Epping Larger Scale Modellers have also acquired a few second hand wagons to convert into beer wagons. These will be insprired by the ones I saw at a Brno pub last summer. Called Vytopna this friendly pub and restaurant was a rail enthusiasts paradise, but also seemed to attract a surprisingly broad mix of people.

'Trainspo' - Peer Reviewed Railway Photos

In an effort to fill the void in my life (well bored tea-break shaped void anyway) that has been left by the demise of Fotopic, I've been dabbling in other photo hosting websites, including various groups on Flickr. It was through this that I came across Trainspo.com which seemed to have a far higher standard of photography that simply hundreds of similar shots dumped to an enormous folder online. Their mission statement of sorts is:
"we would like for you to only upload high quality photos. It is better to upload just a few, yet high-quality, photos than a lot of mediocre ones."

Which I think is a laudable aim. to help enforce this, upload slots are restricted to a maximum of 5, and are only renewed if photos are considered by peer review to be of a sufficient interest and quality.

I hope I've managed to upload some interesting shots, and they are located here: http://trainspo.com/Widnes.Road/gallery/ The best part was having to carefully sift through the last ten years or so of photos to pick ones I felt were interesting or of use to modellers rather than dumping 100+ images at a go online.

As for a replacement for fotopic's incredible usefulness when looking for a particular detail shot for railway modelling, it's not perfect. I'm still looking for something as infinitely searchable for such delights as different headcode / disc combos on early 80's Class 40's and other delights...

My favourite shot I've uploaded to trainspo so far is the one below, not because it is particularly well shot, the lighting on the loco front is unfortunately out, but because of the setting and memory of watching kilometre long coal trains snaking through the Australian countryside. Fantastic.

The demise of fotopic... a chance to reflect

As has been sporadically picked up on various railway blogs over the last week or two, the photo-sharing website fotopic has ceased to be. Having gone through various death throws over the last year or so it would appear to have finally expired at the start of March.

This is a pain for a number of reasons; not least of which is the sheer efffort required to move everything to another image hosting website, not to mention the loss of the ability to search millions of railway images for a particular detail shot for model railway projects.

However it does mean now that I have started a flickr site, Widnes Road Flickr Site I will be far more selective on what I upload, due to a 300Mb / month limit. This does have the advantage of making me thing rather more carefully about which images I want to put online, and not simply batch load 300 at a time, half of which are just a slightly different angle or zoom. Less is, as they say, more. Todays selection is Hungarian Railways (MAV) V43 class electric V43 1108 taken at Budapest station on 3rd August 2010.

A short trip to Cornwall

A quick picture update