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Burton Pheonix – Running Time at Home

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I have been given permission from the boss lady to have Burton Pheonix up in the dining room. As it basically fills the room up it is graciously indeed, especially with Christmas not so creaping up..

.. And even then I did not have the space to fit the fiddle board. Still it gives me a chance to run some of my OO stock and take a few photographs. Including my Bachmann Class 101 DMU in BR Green I purchased the Modal Railway Show in Liverpool earlier in the year.

The DMU also looks rather good ‘lined up’ with my Rail Buses..

Burton Pheonix and Stowey Green on Display

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Had a great day exhibiting both the Stowey Green N’ gauge layout AND Burton Phoenix my ‘OO’ end to end layout.

The event was a Craft, Tea and Cake event during the Llandudno Christmas Fayre Event.

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I have to confess, the continual running nature of Stowey Green was much easier to keep busy than manually shuttling trains (normally Thomas for the kids) up and down the layout. I wish I had the chance to take more photos, but was just kept too busy.

Nothing Happening – YET – But The Skies the Limit

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All work on the layouts has stopped as everything needed to be packed away whilst the roof on our house was being renewed (rebuilt!).

The upside of this it it gives the chance to create a much bigger space to build a layout in… In the Order of 4.6 x 3m (15 x 10ft), Quite an upgrade on the 3×2.5m I was planning for… So Velux Windows have been installed -there of lots of jobs to get done before the proper planning cab get started.. Possibly well into 2024.

Still with a basic sketch of the space I could fit in a full HST set with 9 coaches down one side….

Stowey Green Gets a Public Airing

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As Part of the Llandudno Victorian Extravaganza – I had the chance to get Stowey Green, the ‘N’ gauge layout, out of the house for a public viewing.
.. It’s very early days on the exhibiting game, but the layout was very well received. Apologies for the poor picture – so busy ‘running the layout I forgot to take better photographs… Will do better next time.

I am still Here – in more ways that one….

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After an extended gap I am back. I have rather a good excuse, as I have been recovering from a very serious bicycle accident in July that broke 5 ribs, and broke and dislocated my shoulder/collarbone. Fortunately, as I was wearing my cycle helmet and am alive to tell the tale, and 3 months later – able to keep on modelling.

That gives no real excuse to why there were no updated from January.. but there you are

As it is the end of the AirBnB season in my house I have been allowed by my Wife to set up the ‘OO’ gauge Burton Phoenix layout in the dining room.. Which has been a great opportunity to put out a number of new and untested rolling stock on display. It has been a long time since I have been able to run the ‘OO’ – some of which is new and, other than on a rolling road, untested.

First is my much awaited Hornby model of the Rocket.

And a rather unusual buy from a tiny model railway show in Borth-y-Gest, near Porthmadog – one end of the Ffestiniog railway.. a LMS Caledonian Single

The model is in amazing condition for its age, as far as I can tell it was released in 1983, and was very attractively boxed.
…And as can be seen on the price sticker, I thought it was quite a bargain

It has been great to return to the larger OO scale instead of tinkering in ‘N’.
.. Now I’m properly on the mend there is lots more to say, so maybe the next update will not take so long.

..Overdoing it at Stowey Green

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It started as legitimate test running of the N Gauge rolling stock at Stowey Green. It is wonderful to have a complete layout to run things on, and some of the rolling stock has never had proper ‘running in’ time.

However, by the end of the evening it became a discovery of ‘How much can I fit on the layout’…

I actually stopped with 3 coaches to go, as they were not part of any rakes, and 8 wagons unused when I realised my lunacy.
.. Still.. 8 Loco’s, 11 coaches, 2 Auto coaches, 2 long Siphon wagons, 10 wagons and 3 brake vans felt pretty good.

… And all of a sudden Stowey Green is complete…

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I have been taking advantage of the evenings and weekend running up to the Christmas holiday to work on the N Gauge ‘Stowey Green’ scenery. It was genuinely a surprise for me to see that during the Christmas holiday all was more or less done, and I could now actually run trains…..

.. So with just some basic tinkering to do to really finish things off I had better finish up (OK start ) detailing the story of ‘Stowey Greens’ scenery as currently ‘not detailed here -> Stowey Green – Scenery. And while I am at it I had better add some photographs…

Green and Pleasant Scenery arrives at Stowey Green

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I have been having hours of fun with my scenery scatter to finally get rid of the ‘greyness’ of the Stowey Green landscape.
.. So, Finally ‘Stowey Green’ actually is … ‘Green’…

I have also added the powder blue ‘Sky Boards’ around the side which makes for a much better photograph.

The next job is to add trees and bushes etc to cover up the gaps in the removeable sections and finish off the ‘road space, around the main railway station and ‘goods yard’ area.
…. It is actually starting to look like a proper railway layout.

Distant Scenery at Stowey Green – and another track problem.

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Now the Stowey Green ‘N’ gauge layout is properly out its time to crack on with the scenery.
.. I am in the process of working out where the road to the station will go and which cottages in my collection will be on it.

In the meantime I decided to unroll my printed scenery sheets and glue them to the back ‘sky board’ .. looking good so far

.. Once the road has been sorted out I can get on the hills and vales..

Just prior to this I decided to tackle an annoying track problem on the upper section.
After many attempts to make the track transition between the incline and the removeable upper board I could not remove a ‘step’ in the track which made either the locomotives or carriages ‘enthusiastically’ derail. So I decided that it had to go’..


I removed that ‘glued down’ section of track and added a new section of track that ‘bridged’ the gap – but ‘could’ be removed on the rare occasion I needed to remove the upper section. Now things run a LOT better.

I just need to work around it with the scenery to either hide or obscure the transition.