A few achievements today...

...helped by having no broadband, and having to be in home for the solar heating engineers.

I’ve removed the original Bachmann “G W R” lettering from the tank sides of my 56xx, with a cotton bud, some enamel thinners and the end of a cocktail stick, and replaced it with HRMS Pressfix “GREAT WESTERN” lettering. For a moment or two it looked as if one side was going to read “GREA|- WESTERN” due to not pressing down on ALL the letters!

I also took delivery of a MicroScale ‘Truck Tuner’ from wizardmodels.co.uk, which is a very handy little widget (pointed out to me by the folks on RMWeb) for opening out wheel bearings on (in my case) Lima wagons, which tend to have horribly out of scale (and in at least one case out of round) wheels.

Also did a lot of thinking and planning, and I think the current aim is to:

• settle on a track plan for James’ 8’x4’ board, and use that as practice for track laying, ballast and scenery. I suspect this is going to wind up as a derivative of one of CJF’s ‘double track junction plus high level branch’ plans from 60 Plans For Small Locations, and will make James’ happy ‘cause it’ll have a tunnel! This will, I think be ‘Onnybrook Junction’ and I might try and squeeze Longville’s track plan in as the upper level station. What I do hope to do, though, is try and avoid CJF’s penchant for retaining walls, perhaps by adopting the approach from the Peco Settrack plans book of having a double sided scenic break.


• slowly start building baseboards for Much Wenlock. It looks like this is 3 4’x2’ board plus a 4’x1’ fiddle yard either end. The interesting gotchas are that the whole thing isn’t flat, and there’s at least one road that has to go from over to under the railway in about 7’. I think I understand how, though.

New arrivals and a track plan

Today’s post brought James’ Bachmann 4575 small Prairie, which went straight to Trains4U for chipping - nice purchase, seems to be pretty much brand new except for a missing set of cabside steps, which doesn’t look as if it should be beyond me to knock up in plasticard. It also brought a couple of books from Transport Diversions, specifically the Country Railway Routes book on the Wenlock branch and the District Controller’s View series book on the Severn Valley Railway (also covering the Wenlock branch in passing).

I’m now even more desperate to find my Wenlock Branch book! Some very nice photos of several of the stations on the Wenlock branch, especially Longville (which benefits from the station building being still intact and well photographed).

Starting to be very tempted by Longville on a 6’x18” or so board with a pair of 3’ fiddle yards either end - it’d be pretty simple to build and allow me to concentrate on scenery etc.

My only wonder is whether James would object to something that’s not a roundy-roundy and has a very simple track plan.

A brief aside on eBay

To James' great delight, we managed to score a Bachman 4575 Prairie in Great Western livery yesterday morning. For £15 or so less than the average eBay price.

Why? I strongly suspect because no-one's up and actively using eBay at 11am on a Sunday. Sunday evening is generally held to be the best time to sell stuff, as most folks are active. Sunday morning? Bit daft if you ask me.

And as to how I won that auction while sat behind a sound desk in church? AuctionSniper.com :D Well recommended, and your first three snipes are free* - after that it's 1% of the final value with a minimum of $0.25. Well worth it in my book for nabbing things you'd otherwise miss.

Me? I have a couple of old computers to eBay - I foresee more stock in the near future.

* in the interests of full disclosure: I get three free snipes if you sign up from that link.

More arrivals

Keeping the postman busy this week :D

• The Mogul, and the rest of the Hornby clerestory and Mainline LMS coaches arrived
• A bulk lot of a Mainline Patriot in red, some wagons and a couple more coaches (as well as a rebuilt Royal Scot in ugly lined black, which is going back on eBay)
• Several wagons
• Bachman Coaler set (57xx, couple of wagons, oval of track) - nice cheap way of getting a pannier tank, though it does need re-liverying to pre-'35 from "GWR"
• Copper cap to replace the missing one on my 2721
• RA Cooke GWR track plans section 63 (covering Craven Arms)
• one set HMRS GWR Pressfix transfers.

Still to come are a few more wagons, and I have my eyes on an LMS Jinty (probably the Hornby Railroad one rather than the Bachmann) and a small Prairie.

Loco wishlist

Just, mostly, to get it down somewhere:

• Jinty (Onnybrook station pilot)
• G2 0-8-0 (South Wales line coal trains)
• 45xx small Prairie (Wenlock branch)
• 28xx 2-8-0 (Heavy goods traffic)
• Dean Goods and/or a 2251
• Fowler 4F (goods)
• Deeley 3F (this'll probably have to be a kit, since the Triang one is just... ick.)
• Compound 4-4-0 (suburban passenger)
• Hall (express passenger/goods)
• County 4-4-0 (the Hawksworth 4-6-0 is well out of period!)
• One or more of Jubilee, Patriot, Black 5, 8F 2-8-0, parallel boiler Royal Scot -erm, I seem to have bought a Patriot in a bulk lot of stuff on eBay...

Time to hit eBay

This is, of course, entirely separate from James' shopping :D

Aviva very kindly dropped a rebate cheque in my lap last week, so I've been trawling eBay for stuff to add to my collection, which can (of course) magically appear later (good job James' doesn't read my blog).

First arrivals today:

• one DCC-fitted Hornby Fowler 2-6-4T in LMS lined black. Lovely model, marred only by the plastic holder on the underside of the coal bunker for the bush for the body-fixing screw having cracked, and thus the body being loose. After five minutes or so of figuring out which bit was supposed to be connected to which, some careful application of superglue seems to have fixed the problem. Note to self - need to check my LMS livery history to see if this requires a repaint.
• a pair of Hornby GWR clerestory coaches (one composite, one brake). Yes, I know they're not entirely prototypical, but they're so damn pretty.
• one DCC-fitted Bachman 56xx 0-6-2T (obligingly reset to the default 03 DCC id by the seller). This is in post-'42 unlined green with the G W R lettering, so I foresee a quick repaint and some HMRS transfers in the offing.

Coming soon:

• one Mainline 43xx Mogul in lovely pre-'35 unlined Brunswick Green with Great Western lettering. This'll need a trip to Trains4U for chipping, along with my 2721 once I've found it a new chimney cap.
• another pair of Hornby clerestory composites.
• a pair of Mainline panelled LMS coaches.

There's a bunch of stuff still on watch, so we'll see what ensues - I have my eye on a Bachmann Jinty or 57xx, possibly both, as well as a bunch of wagons. Further down the line I'm after a Bachmnan LMS G2, a Fowler 4F and 2P, a 28xx 2-8-0 and maybe a Patriot or a parellel-boiler Scot, along with some Colllett GWR coaches and a B-set. Oh, and LOTS of vans and coal wagons.

Christmas Shopping

Some browsing on what my friend Rick calls the 'electric interweb' suggested that what would be ideal was the Hornby GWR Western Pullman DCC set with a Castle and a pannier. Sadly, this seems to be out of stock everywhere, so I went for the next best option - the Cornish Pullman set.

I should at this point probably add that I'm a Great Western fan - always have been. So James was always going to get something in Brunswick Green - gotta start 'em early.

Off to Trains4U, and some discussion later, I came away somewhat poorer. The Cornish Pullman set and a Bachmann Dynamis controller will be ready on Saturday once the (legendary) Gareth has DCC-ed the loco - all at a price that 'er indoors approves of, too. Also (and on MY card) a couple of s/h Airfix wagons, and a couple of catalogues!