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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.

Narrow Gauge Testing with the ‘Emma’ Locomotive using the N Gauge Layout

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I have packed away the Burton Phoenix layout so I can continue working on the scenery for the N Gauge ‘Stowey Green’ Layout.

This has given me the opportunity to do a few test runs of the3D Printed Narrow Gauge (OO9) ‘Emma’ Locomotive and stock on the ‘open’ sections of the N Gauge track.

Note… I still have not sorted out a coupling system for the rolling stock. My current thinking is to use ‘chain links’ to simulate 3 link couplings.

Here is a video showing my current ‘complete’ slate train.

So… as the wagons are not coupled together – to do the above video I cheated by getting ‘Emma’ the loco to push the wagons, and reversed the video…..
Which is why some of the wagons are a bit ‘rucked up’..
… And here is the Passenger train using the same ‘video reversed’ trickery.

Extended OO and N Gauge Rolling Road

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As promised in an earlier post, I have upgraded my rolling road so I can work in ‘OO’ and ‘N’ gauge.
.. Mostly to save space.

Here I am working with an old ‘OO’ Triang Hornby Class 37 and an ‘N’ GWR Pannier tank

Breathing new life into a broken Terrier

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I have finally been able to catch up on a number of pending jobs on the ‘OO’ gage layout.
.. The first of these is some repair work on one of my locomotives.
My pretty little Weston Clevedon and Portishead Light railway Terrier loco has been behaving a bit too realistically of late giving out smoke after a minute or so running, and when it was running it was nowhere as sprightly as it should be

So – I have managed to get a replacement motor and had a go fitting it. The trickiest job was carefully stripping and re-soldering the very fine wire power feeds – 6 in total – 3 for each side

.. It was also a chance to try out my budget Rolling Road.
I am really impressed with it – not bad for £35

.. In fact I am so impressed I have ordered rollers so I can also use it on my ‘N’ gauge loco’s.

Meet ‘Emma’ the OO9 Locomotive

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The final (dodgy) paint job for the narrow gauge rolling stock is to finish up ‘Emma’, The little quarry pannier tank engine to pull the slate wagons.

Or even the occasional passenger work.

It is not perfect – but will do the job until I get my Cad skills ‘upgraded’ so I can work on a De Winton locomotive.
.. As Detailed HERE

Dabbling in Narrow Gauge

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As has been covered in the ‘Whats New’ blog I have been busy tinkering a bit with OO9 Narrow gauge over the summer.
.. For all sorts of reasons work on Burton Pheonix and Stowey Green has slowed, so it has been good to have something to keep me busy.

Up here in North Wales we are close to the famous ‘Little Trains of North Wales’ that were built for quarry work – particularly slate.

This has become particularity relevant for me as we have friends that are now living within the new Word Heritage Site that covers the North Wales Slate industry. In fact the path of the Gorseddau Tramway, which served the Gorseddau Slate Quarry, ran through their garden.

Using the 3D Printer, and so far inadequete relearnt skills in painting… I have been able to create some OO9 rolling stock.
.. So far I have a little locomotive ‘Emma’, powered by a Kato chassis, along with a good variety of Slate and general support wagons. I have even made a few passenger carriages.


.. The ‘final’ intention, egged on by my friend, is eventually to create one (or more?) De Winton vertical boiler locomotives.
These locomotives were nick named ‘Coffee Pots’ – as can be seen below …
DeWinton
These locomotives were locally built in Caernarfon especially for use on the North Wales slate mines.
I have some interesting drawings which hopefully mean that when I get up to speed in CAD I ‘can’ produce a 3D model that can be printed..

DeWinton Drawing
A proper winters evening project I think.
.. Especially since Peco, due the stresses of the current pandemic, are still to release the medium radius bullhead points that will be a key component of the new Burton Crumpnold layout.. So plenty to get involved with in the meantime….

Even more Narrow Gauge Wagons

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Even though I may not have been spending too much time on the layout the past couple of months I have been keeping the 3D Printer busy turning out more OO9 Slate wagons with slate loads. Here is my current stock all 3d printed.

OO9 Slate TrainIn fact my current problem is a shortage of wheels for the wagons…

Here is a closer look at the wagons with their loads of cut slate:

Stale Wagons

Currently the locomotive is a Hunslet Quarry Pannier Tank engine using a little Kato 4 wheel N Gauge chassis.

The dream is to have a DeWinton vertical boiler locomotive, which was commonly used in the North Wales slate quarries.
It is rather a quaint looking locomotive, which because of the vertical boiler were often nicknamed ‘coffee pot’s’..

DeWinton
It seems that I will have to get properly up to speed on 3D design as it looks like no current ready to run or 3D models exist..
I do have a technical drawing for a larger scale model to use.. but first I need to get way better in 3D Design – probably using Fusion360…

DeWinton Drawing


More Beatles at Burton

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Whilst enjoying a very long overdue and hugely enjoyable visit to my family in Northampton I was able to visit my childhood model shop which I am pleased to see is still very much thriving. ( https://themodelshop-northampton.co.uk )

In my youth it was usually a weekly trek for Model aeroplane kits and balsa wood..
… Now I am able to enjoy it for Model Railways.
Amongst other bits and pieces such as OO9 points and track I left with these rather colourful Hornby ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Sgt Pepper’ Beatles wagons.

Hornby Centenary Peckett – Belated first run

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I am planning to resume work on the N Gauge ‘Stowey Green’ layout in a few weeks, so, in the meantime I thought I had better ‘Finish Off’ my pending ‘OO’ tasks.

One of these was getting out our Hornby Peckett which was bought as a birthday present all the way back in January…
.. The Loco really is a beauty..

With a LOT of details especially in the cab.

A new HST at Burton Phoenix

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The HST is probably my favourite ‘Modern’ locomotive, both as a modeller and as a traveller.
After over a year of searching I have finally have an HST with the running numbers to match my Mk3 Coaches (43002 & 43003). Although I have travelled on HST’s all across the country, I have a particular affection from travelling on them between London and Weston-Super-Mare soon after they were introduced.

.. I missed out on the amazing Super Detailed Limited Edition ’40th Anniversary’ version from a few years back. So I had hoped to get the updated, good value and well reviewed ‘Railroad’ version from a year or so ago. This has also been hard to find at a sensible price – until this weekend where typically I ended up with a choice of ‘As New’ models. One was in a collectables shop and another on EBay.
I went for the one in the shop as it was the same price – and I could give it a proper look over first.

It looks Great and runs well – SO much better than the older ‘Pancake’ motor versions.

It is unlikely to see much action on Burton Phoenix – for even in a fairly ‘Minimum’ configuration – 1st class, 2nd Class and Buffet .. the train is almost twice the length of the station..

.. It will be a while before I can run a train with my current rake of 7 Coaches…