Last weekend I helped my friend Martin Collins exhibit his layout Llandecwyn at Alexandra Palace.  The layout depicts a Welsh narrow gauge slate railway terminus and port, Martin displays a history with maps and photos of the "route" that is so convincing it fools a surprising number of people! I didn't get any photos from the front as there was a crowd there most of the two days, so you'll have to make do with an over-the-backscene shot... Needing at least two and ideally three people to keep the sequence of operation moving at a reasonable pace to entertain, I had only a few ..read more

I mentioned that I'd been adding more details to Hexworthy as one of the multiple tasks I was working on ahead of its first show last weekend, but I'd not managed to keep on top of blogging. As well as painting passengers and loco crew, more people, animals, and some details were prepared for the layout.  On the top row are Bachmann trackworkers, given to me by my son when we dismantled his train set. I've touched up the paint in places and given them a shadow wash. The rest of the figures and animals are from the Finescale Figures batch I got in a sale a while back (it may have been a ..read more

I had promised an update on the last-minute jobs ahead of Sunday's show, these weren't critical but make life easier when exhibiting. I had discovered during testing that the arc of the "gates" at the end of the fiddle yard as they fold down meant that the last 20mm or so of each end of the tracks couldn't be used for risk of catching the stock. The L&B Manning Wardle and its 3 coaches had to be positioned accurately to fit, while the double Fairlie couldn't fit with the same coaches.  The solution was relatively easy, a new hole was drilled to move the gate pivot by 10mm meaning it ..read more

Of course this was the first time I'd loaded Hexworthy into the car, and indeed I'd changed cars since I started building it back in 2017, so I was glad it fitted - it was a bit tight! The exhibition was relatively local so getting there was easy, and unloading and set-up was stress free even though I was on my own at that point. It all went together well and everything worked too. There were a few minor snags - dodgy couplings despite the testing (and one that fell off), a loco that didn't want to run then did, and a short that couldn't be traced then went away as mysteriously as it came! T ..read more

It was time to bite the bullet, take a brave pill, and weather a whole batch of not exactly cheap Bachmann ready to run locos. The techniques are the same as described in the last post - water soluble oils and a faint misting of black from above and brown from below using the airbrush - the aim being for a clean but working preserved loco finish.  I must confess this was done a couple of weeks ago and the locos have sat around, doing test runs on the layout to check couplings etc., and now I see these photos seem to show a little dust picked up by the camera which I'd not noticed!  ..read more

I've collected several ready-to-run locos since they have started to become available in 009 and Hexworthy is an ideal place to run them. However, as with the Peco coaches, there is something about a pristine RTR loco that jars in a layout setting. They are just too clean. Now I don't want to model heavily weathered almost derelict locos, I'm modelling a preserved railway setting so locos would be kept clean, but even so a working loco will not be box-fresh pristine as soot settles from above, paint dulls due to heat, oil builds up on and near moving parts, and brake and track dirt is thrown u ..read more

I've acquired a couple of road vehicles for Hexworthy, a ubiquitous Transit van and a Land Rover Defender. Both are nicely detailed models by Oxford Diecast, with interiors, UK number plates, and rubber tyres, but they are rather too shiny and clean... So I disassembled them, which is easy as they are simply screwed together (I've drilled out many rivets under toy Hotwheels cars for my Son to customise!). Removing the wheels, glazing, and interior allows weathering as follows: Rubbed down the paintwork with very fine emery and a fibreglass pencil to tone down the shine Cut off the mounting ..read more

Ahead of its first exhibition next month I thought I should do a dry-run of setting up the layout in its exhibition format. You may remember the exhibition fiddle-yard, which was fitted to the layout for testing.  Although only completed a few months ago, I found several issues, including the track being completely dead - traced to a loose wire. Also the rails didn't line up well with the station board, maybe I didn't do a good job first time but a soldering iron soon fixed that. More seriously, the "latch-release" lever didn't release the alignment latches effectively making the travers ..read more

I've a lot of small tasks ongoing in parallel at the moment, mostly preparing stock for Hexworthy in preparation for its first exhibition next month. The first to be finished was a small but important task, making ready-to-run coaches actually ready to run. Lovely though the Peco coaches are, they have a bit of a plasticky look (particularly the roofs) and are too clean even for a preserved railway. The three Lynton and Barnstaple coaches had a number of little jobs done: The white plastic roofs were airbrushed with off-white acrylic, as much as anything to reduce the plasticky sheen and t ..read more

Over the Christmas break I visited family, and just down the road at Blakemere Village (a collection of craft shops and other attractions) Pete Waterman's "Making Tracks 3" model of Milton Keynes was on show.   The scale of the model is, of course, impressive. This is not a small station, with 6 platforms, and set against a backdrop of modern office blocks. I've only passed through Milton Keynes station on a train so can't say how accurate the model is.  Full length West-coast mainline trains are dwarfed by the layout. The multiple tracks and DCC operation allow a prototypi ..read more