Friday Update: Twenty-one Three Twenty-five…

The hazy sun is bathing the lounge in a soft but gently warming light. The dogs are snoozing whilst the house buzzes around me, the girls preparing for school and Janey for work. I’m sat pondering the week and sharing it with you all…

We’ve had one largely of fine weather - warming each day. Captured yesterday, above, it is great to see some TLC being applied to the railway in the village too, with the back siding repaired and relaid with old sleepers and rail from Deeside. This has left the old kickback isolated, but I guess that was from the old days, when you might want to recess a train in the siding? 

The workshop has been busy with commissions. This old Agenoria (now marketed by CSP) brass kit is perhaps old fashioned but has gone together well so far - the chassis rolls beautifully and combined with the ever wonderful Highlevel gearbox will give the model a reliable and powerful drive. Up top the frames and cab/firebox have come together, amazing how this all starts off as flat etch. The saddle tank is started and today I’ll be moving onto the smokebox. There are some awkward decisions to make about order of tasks needed, as the cab is soldered to the frames yet I need to paint inside it. I’ll ponder this whilst burning my fingers later on!

The large scale Ruston’s are continuing to move along and with the arrival of the battery packs I could get the wiring undertaken last week tested. Sadly I found a problem, happily it was easily resolved! The DCC control via the Fosworks handsets wasn’t latching the sound on function 1 - I tried following the instructions to no avail - a call to Steve at Fosworks explained the process a little better and we now have three noisy models waiting for primer.

These 16mm GVT wagons and van haven’t featured for a few weeks as I was waiting for a custom order of paint from Phoenix Precision - one chocolate and three red oxide wagons along with the green van. I’m letting this harden up before detail painting ahead of some gloss varnish to allow the decals to be applied. All simple steps when working in 4mm but time consuming in the senior scale!

On Tuesday I headed out to catch the cement train in the dark. I figured the lighting at Chirk might be enough to get a shot, with the industrial sites that border the railway. My photo of the 66 was blurred as she roared past doing 60 odd mph - but the stopping service from Shrewsbury to Chester was more easily captured on my aging iPhone. I love the 158s and am happy to capture these as often as possible in the swan song of their use on our North Wales rails.

The sun is becoming more obscure here as the haze builds, the house is quieter as the girls have gone on the taxi… I must take the big dog for a walk so we’ll wrap things up here. It’s been a busy week and one of the usual mental ups and downs but the weekend beckons, and the opportunity for some deeper more meaningful work on the myriad of model railways I’m building or scheming at the moment. Perhaps too, the chance to reflect on the ‘next’ book projects now that Small Layout Design Construction is well into proof reading. Until next time,  more soon…

Support my work

I love writing and creating material for the blog. If you enjoy what you read and engage with I would be appreciative of any donation, large or small, to help me keep it advert and restriction free. Alternatively, feel free to buy me a coffee.