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

OMWB - New Bachmann / Rail Exclusive Class 03's

Happily running in on the excellent DCC Concepts Rolling Road are the latest arrivals for Widnes Road; a pair of the new Bachmann Class 03 Shunters - No. 03371 & 03160. Both models are a limited edition run of 500 commissioned by the erstwhile Rail Express Modeller magazine but now being delivered by the separate company 'Rail Exclusive'.

First impressions are that this is a much needed model to fill a big gap in the BR Blue Era modellers stable. Detail differences are faithfully captured and they will make good weathering projects when I have a little more time and after my modelling room has been rebuilt after the flood from earlier in the year as at present I'm limited to a test track on the dinner table. They need a good run-in before a straightforward conversion to DCC using a 6-pin direct Lenz Silver decoder in each loco.

DB ICE at London St Pancras International

In what I truly hope is a first taste of great things to come, Deutsche Bahn in a superb piece of publicity tested a pair of their ICE-3 sets through the Channel Tunnel this week, including evacuation tests to demonstrate the potential for additional services from London to Europe culminating in the display of one of the ICE-3 sets, suitably vinyled with Union Jack ICE logos and displaying ICE service No. 9970 to Frankfurt (M) Hbf via Koln and Rotterdam at London's St. Pancras International station today, the 19th October.

Widnes Towers

I managed to do some more work on the area to the rear of the depot today. Having trawled the internet I found a very useful website for backscene elements at: http://www.cgtextures.com/  from which I downloaded an excellent block of flats.

The Great Flood

Over the summer I had planned to start work on the final scenic board for Widnes Road, an extension to the left of the level crossing which splits with one road heading to a short, single platform face for DMU traffic and a through road passing under a skewed bridge to a short fiddle yard to enable through trains.

Unfortunately a burst pipe in the ceiling above my modelling room put paid to that idea, and instead the last two months have been spent repairing damage to the house and to a lesser extent, Widnes Road. Luckily the main leak missed all the layouts but there was still a bit of work required. I did manage to complete one piece of new scenery, rather than just replacement; and that was a block of flats to fill in a blank space at the rear. With the addition of some figures and vehicles I'm pleased with the result so far. I just need to add some photoshopped images to the back skypaper to fill in the gaps.

GEWR - Garden Railway Starts Running

GEWR - Major Civil Engineering Ends!

The first of these pictures was taken on the 4th April 2008; the last on the 11th July 2010. Between these two dates some 3,200 bricks, 4 tonnes of sand, half a tonne of concrete and 24 bags of cement had been used to build the structure for the GEWR (Great Epping Wall Railway).

I had originally planned only to use walls for the curves, with all the straights simply on decking planks set onto posts; but shortly after the first two curves were built we made the decision to built it on wall in its entirety. Now it is up and running I'm glad we made that decision, as other than treating the top wooden deck that the track is laid on, it requires no treatment or maintenance and should easily last twenty years plus.