006.5 where next?

They don’t take up much room, and every time I look at them it gives me a warmth to see either one or them all, but thinking about the future and which direction I want to take my various ideas I’m at a cross roads with this scale…

Their development was sparked by my good friend Tim, who introduced them to me and his intent to build a Heywood estate railway. I quickly saw the potential and picked a Decauville myself to play with, stripping it down and scratch building a Hunslet body on it, to become Eleanor. Thoughts turned to kits, a Ruston Proctor and the Avonside soon followed. Creech Grange was born, a lovely layout and a home for a scratchbuilt Heywood on a heavily modified chassis and the first rolling stock kits, the Heywood top wagons were produced. The range weaved around my interests, the Brian Clarke material led to the Taffson and Vowchurch wagons (as well as another layout). Royal Arsenal led to the bogie coach and  the Manning Wardle… more recently I went full circle and scratch built a Bagnall IST ‘Nell’ on a modified chassis…

Where next? The availability of the donor mechanisms and trackwork has not improved, and Busch have not added any more chassis to the range. Peco have not developed any suitable track, and so it feels very much a niche scale. It still holds great potential, but I’m loathed to spend any more time working with it in a commercial sense, I think the ‘full circle’ realisation will take me down a different route. I’ve wanted to do a small wintry peat works scene for some time, I’ve the track, box and models ready, perhaps that will see the light of day this winter? 

If you’ve bought one of these kits, as we’ve sold plenty, I’d love to see what you’ve done with it, you can send them via the Facebook page