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Andrew

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Everything posted by Andrew

  1. A bluebell railway Pictures from yesterday's running session. First, the Black 5 on Foxdale Bank: The same stretch of track, here with a Jubilee and 10 bogies: Scene at Throstlebeck (note Powercab): and Sycamore Curve in late sunshine:
  2. Talking of weight, I spent Tuesday evening in an intricate attempt to insert lead inside the boiler of a Hornby Black 5 loco to improve its adhesion. As this is often referred to, I'd assumed this would be easy. But of course few jobs are as straightforward as you hope. The boiler space above the driving wheels turned out to be mostly taken up by the motor. There was some limited space above the front driving axle, and I decided not to put anything forward of that to avoid any risk of unbalancing the loco. It was also hard to gauge the height of the space available, as getting the body on and off the chassis is tricky, always with risk of damage to fittings. If I'd had blu-tac, I could have used that as a height indicator and also to wedge lead into the boiler, but there wasn't any around. My lead was a small folded strip that had literally fallen off our roof, probably 2mm thick, which was just the job. By cutting layers and putting them in place iteratively it was possible to build a lead sandwich at the right point on the chassis. This was finally held down (I hope) by the pressure between the bodyshell and the chassis. Altogether it was a lot of effort for little extra weight installed, but the following day the loco did seem more surefooted and managed to haul ten bogies without slipping, so that's good enough. Some attention to my ageing wood track base might also help, getting rid of awkward twists and unplanned gradients.
  3. That all looks and sounds superb, Mick. Love those close-coupled coaches. And the 37 and Black 5 both look the business. Glad you had a good day in the sun.
  4. Great video, Mick. The garden railway is looking in pretty good shape (to the uninitiated, anyway) and the spring flowers are nice. The video shows off your viaduct very well - it's good to be able to follow trains all along it. And I particularly like the tunnel mouth on the indoor section, where the trains disappear into the blackness without any visible daylight showing behind. All very effective, as a result of lots of hard work.
  5. Hello Tony. It's good to see your layout finally taking shape. It must be very useful to have that dry run mock-up so you can start to see what it will look like. And it should be pretty good! One question: I'm just wondering why on the right hand side of your garden does the line go away from the fence at an angle? Most people seem to go along the fence. Maybe you are going to make a garden feature in that corner so the railway has to go in front to miss it, rather than following the fence. Hoe your project goes well!
  6. Very nice. Thanks for that. And the container train going across the viaduct looks great too.
  7. All looking impressive, Chris. Good to see a glimpse of that Grand Central HST; maybe one day you'll get a shot of it on the main line...
  8. Somewhere in Scotland? I can't now remember whether these scenes from long ago were taken on the West Highland Line or the route to the Kyle of Lochalsh (or maybe even the Central Wales line). Still, the Black 5's crew are handling the long train well - and not a hint of feathering from the safety valves! Maybe this version looks more authentic:
  9. From the album: Dorking Garden Railway

    Black 5 in Scotland
  10. That's a really impressive layout, Stephen. Thanks for posting all those photos. I hope you feel that the superb sight of full length trains running around makes all the effort worthwhile. It looks as though you've built the layout without any points so far, and that will make setting up and looking after it much easier. Still, you may eventually want to take the plunge, just in terms of operational interest. As for storing rolling stock accessibly, I'm often surprised that many people keep things in their individual boxes - which as Mick says makes setting up and putting away much harder. I find large boxes and bubblewrap are a good way of keeping matching sets together. Anyway, keep up the good work, and enjoy giving your trains the sunshine, fresh air and long runs that they deserve! Furthermore, this obviously isn't a "layout in the planning stage" any more, so Mick may be able to graduate the thread to the Members Garden Railways section...
  11. Thanks for those nice comments, gentlemen. Various things happened today, but I'll begin with this photo of Thomas taking Annie and Clarabel out on an early morning train, passing Sycamore Cottage:
  12. A Bulleid Pacific in action There's a 2 minute video here:
  13. That looks great, Noel, having a double track circuit that size. No wonder you need smartphone controllers to get the greatest benefit. Looking forward to more photos and videos.
  14. Looks like good work going on there, Mick, so I hope you get it done soon and can get on to the main game. Best wishes!
  15. It turned out that yesterday wasn't the best for weather, but it was fine for a running day and I managed to capture some sunshine shots in between the overcast phases. Here is the Hornby Dublo 2-6-4T on a stopping train at various points on the layout. As many ageing stars know, bright light can be cruel, but I still think we get some nice atmosphere:
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