Again, the mention of Swedish Death Cleaning in the last post got some reaction, not quite as much as the book ripping which got the predictable Nazis and Salman Rushdie mentions. This has got nothing to do with railways, model or otherwise, but does lead me to a question, the one at the top. I know at least two people with huge collections of magazines - whole collections in some areas. This would now be regarded as an 'old people' thing in many quarters. Not in a disparaging way, but in that we have moved on during this century. When I launched SRI a few years ago I was informed that ..read more

 This may be a quite momentous post, or one that time will reveal to be a complete waste of internet paper. And, as various internet memes are so fond of advising - don't overshare. Though as I've been doing just that here for well over a decade, it seems churlish to reverse at this juncture. Birthdays and new years are often points to reflect about what has gone before and what we hope may happen in the future. This can take many forms and I started noodling about this in a post earlier in the year, followed by the both contentious and popular post on Swedish Death Cleaning. This later ..read more

 Back through the mists of time; well 1979 to be precise, the iconic Dovey Valley appeared in RM over two issues. One of these contained a method of constructing slate waste slab fencing using plastic sheet. This has been used by 009-ers ever since with a couple of slight variations and I've tried most of these. Here on the Peco epic Trefach, 20 thou black plasticard is the material. This has been given a coat of Humbrol 29 followed by coach roof grey. The latter unmixed to give some colour variation. Alternatives are to sand the plastic to break the surface to a grey or possibly to use ..read more

 It would have been stupid to think that this was going to be a quick project, but my inability to play the game and therefore not build things at they were intended or to take the easy road has slowed things to a crawl. This has not been improved by making the decision to drift toward mid-Wales styling and incorporating some slate slab fencing. I've done this before so no prizes for forward thinking as I know how time consuming it is. As I'd finished roughly 25% of it (visible here) a morale boost was needed and I thought I'd get the first section of open land up to the buildings cover ..read more

  Another free Sunday and with the M25 closed there was no way I was going to attempt going to Ally Pally... not that I wanted to. So just a hop and a skip up the road to East Grinstead. The website didn't look promising with the traders listed first (but then this is run by a trader) and no less than six narrow gauge layouts. I'm a long term NG fan, but this looked a tad unbalanced. No need to worry though as the vibe had been retained and there was some lovely modelling and plenty to buy should you have needed anything. Though a chat with an inside source suggested that while it was bu ..read more

In a moment of madness I set Seething up  a) to give it a run, but b) to set the fiddle yard support leg which I'd forgotten to attach. This needed a couple of 6mm holes drilled which took minutes, but the ensuing testing session took a little longer and turned into a bit of a loco service trip, the way that these things often do. The quick set-up for the boards was on the floor; so not ideal, but I found myself feeling that I'd been here before. This was after running the Norwegian at the weekend so perhaps a little case of extremes, but here I was with a FY to BLT layout in 009 built ..read more

In an unusually rash bout of being organised, a few thoughts on the Steyning show. In short; excellent (no marking as I'm not hitting this from a punter angle). The general thrust is that of small personal layouts and steers away from the usual club epics and box shifters giving a very different feel. It's more about chat and ideas rather than the impressive 'don't touch sonny' that some exhibitions promote. No doubt that Mr. Campbell will provide some photos on his blog to your right in due course, as he was also showing with the gorgeous 009 Hexworthy. For me the highlights were possibly ..read more

The new goods shed for Svanda all fitted and bedded-in. This has made a remarkable difference to this end of the layout by opening it up visually. Which considering that the building is 20% larger than the old one is a surprise. There is a casual refurb underway now with new road surfaces and hopefully the addition of some new trees and newer scenic covering. This is being fitted in around the epic Peco 009 build of which more in due course. In the meantime don't forget that the above will be at the below this Sunday.   ..read more

  One of the more controversial posts here of late has been the Swedish Death Cleaning proposal. Not only has this received a sensible number of hits, but has made me and others consider what we may be doing and in some cases it has generated a bit of a backlash. I suppose my thinking is for me (and suggest to others)  to question the what's and whys of where the hobby is going. This in conjunction with considering how we deal with this on a personal level. This is all with the background chatter of the demise of Hattons and the Warley show shenanigans among other trials and tribu ..read more

  You know how I feel about this. There are two parts and a lot more behind it ..read more