Friday Update: Eight Five Twenty-six…

Still under the weather and suffering somehow I’ve managed to keep the show on the road. There have been some new developments and a bit of fun on the way so grab a coffee whilst I make a Lemsip and let’s take a look at the week in the workshop…

Yesterday I made the final proof changes to the Iain Rice cameo layouts book - this means that it is heading for print, and on track (excuse the pun, I couldn’t help myself) for release in the summer. It has rightly turned into something of a labour of love for Simon and myself and our proof readers. I hope you all will appreciate the time and passion that has gone into ‘finishing it off’ - it’s a much better book for the effort, with the new chapters rounding out what I always felt was a strange ending as if we abandoned our train in a rural siding. Now, you can all step off at a country station, perhaps Butley Mills… wonderful.

The big project this week has been the assembly of the Slaters 16mm Sinplex. This has gone mostly to plan, but I had been waiting for 5 months for a missing part, so my customer has been very patient. The plan is to shoe horn some batteries and remote under the bonnet, as there isn’t much room under the chassis - I suspect some more surgery will be required, or the lovely cast brass support will need remaking in plain strip. Either way, a detailed and well thought out kit - a modern mix of technique and material but the results looks great.

This will be painted alongside the same customers trio of skips which still sit on the window sill…

Meanwhile another Kato model has been rescued from Clark Railworks. This CN SD40 will become an ex-CN SD40-3, rebuilt for use on my TerraTransport faux history. It is the first time for a long time that I’ve revisited this topic and it feels right. Like I’m coming home… the SD40 is long but should just fit on Beaverbrook. I’ve got a Kaslo CP GP38 AC conversion kit coming which will give me the correct GMD end platforms and some other useful details, I can’t wait to get green on it, but it’s not a quick project, more one to run for the rest of the year - and will eventually sport a Loksound as per many other locos in the Beaverbrook fleet.

 

At the end of the month it’s the Llangollen Railway 80s Diesel Gala - that isn’t an ‘80s diesel’ rather a mash up of events - 80s to appeal to the public and diesel to appeal to the enthusiasts. Never the less a weekend of trains for me to enjoy and what’s more, I’ve been asked to knock up the leaflet for the event (above). I hope I’ve captured some of the BR feel of the period?

Perhaps I should suggest we make this a ‘James Hilton CMR meet up’ to gather readers from across the country (world is a stretch perhaps) to ride trains and enjoy a chance to meet fellow modellers and like minded souls?

In that header image you might have noticed my Pannier circling some Kato Unitrack - I bought a set of the compact stuff from Japan. Smaller models are fine with its sharper curves, the Pannier is probably at its limit - interestingly the 08 and DG fitted tank wagons was more than happy on the same… not that I’ve got space for a permanent 420mm deep shelf… but a fact stored for future use. In the meantime it has already proven its worth in relaxing and fostering those branch line dreams…

For a few years I’ve been logging my train journeys in notes on my phone. I spent a few days with Steve a fortnight ago and we chatted about lots of ideas but I asked if it was possible to create an app or website that would allow me to do the same with some added functionality… let us introduce Journey Log…

Currently invitation only (message me your email address if you’d like to have access) it is a simple input - Date / Number / From / To (and space for extra info like time and notes). The station list is generated from the Network Rail download and we intend to add preserved railways over time.

 

 

The stats can be viewed in different ways. I love it, everything I asked for and more - thank you Steve!

Russ Moore photo.

This weeks customer model photo from Russ, is the Hudson skip I completed a fair few weeks ago - he has added transfers and weathered it to fit in with his layout. Lovely to see it once more, I always enjoy seeing models in their new homes!

We’ll wrap up this week with a photo of intent… I have finally added the angle strip and styrene deck for a lo-fi traverser that was key in making the Cwmbach concept work. With the basics in place there are no obstacles now for finishing track laying, wiring and then pushing on with the rest of the cameo box structure on this latest of N gauge adventures. I just hope this time I’ve got the balance right as it’s the same footprint as Gerald Road (1) which was lovely to play with but somehow didn’t chime with me…

I hope to get some well needed rest over the weekend so we’ll have to see what happens - but I hope you all have had a good week and can find time to enjoy this wonderful hobby of ours over the next few days. Just a gentle nudge to perhaps re-read the footer of the blog and consider even just a one off donation to my daily ramblings, I would really appreciate the support. Until next time, as always, more soon….

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