Month: November 2024

August 2023

This month a selection of layouts from our club house and a garden railway.

Ray Hammond’s layout Thursford (M&GN) as set up in the club room. This is a pioneering layout built to S4 rather than P4 standards – so absolutely no compromise on check rail clearance and back to back. This layout is in the capable hands (and care) of Ray’s daughter Susan.

Dick has been thinking about building a garden railway since he bought his first house in 1978. There were two aborted projects at different houses, but now he has retired, he decided to get on with building an O gauge railway. He has built a 36 ft. long shed, (insulated, heated and fully plumbed), that will house a terminus station based on Bournemouth West. From there the line runs out into the garden, around a pond and returns to the shed at a lower level where there are storage roads. The track continues out of the other end of the shed around another pond and then returns the way it came to eventually arrive back at Bournemouth West. There is a link line outside that allows for continuous running. The total length of run is around 4 scale miles. At the moment the station is just track on boards and outside is bare track on concrete block walls. He is running DC control at the moment but intends to move to DCC. Running outside commenced from the beginning of August.

Evercreech New station with buildings by Allan Downes (7mm 0 Gauge). A dedicated team is now working on cladding Pecking Mill Viaduct which will be quite a feature on the layout.

St Martin’s Wharf (7mm 0 Gauge), Donated to the club by Sheila Alderman and being readied for a return to the exhibition circuit.

A view inside our spacious clubroom, Holly Junction (4mm 00 Gauge) foreground and South Junction fiddle yard right (4mm EM Gauge).

June & July 2023

Summer is finally here and there is still some modelling being shared.

Dom’s Photo plank is finished and looks superb.

Having trialled the recently cut field look on the plank, Dom has started the landscaping of the area in front of the headshunt on Coombe Town. The idea is to use a similar field look and an open fence to give an open country feel, whilst not blocking the view of the trains much further.

This is the state of play for Allan’s latest 7mm scale coach. Another Sidelines brass kit, this lovely example is a double-window all-panelled brake third.

This is the smart looking home of Wellsey – a 7mm scale model set in Edwardian times and based on the railways that served Wells, The cabin was built in around 2008. Originally it had cantilevered wooden decking outside, but this had rotted and has been removed. Running repairs have been made to the base of the cabin prior to some paving being laid and steps provided. This required some ingenuity as the exact cladding profile used originally is not available off the shelf.

Instead Dave sourced some hand machined and shaped Larch from Devon Sawmills near Taunton. It is a bit rougher finish than the original, but about four times as dense even though it is properly seasoned. He could just about pick up and move one of the 6m pieces on his own, so he repurposed an old car jack to hold it in place while he screwed it on. Dave claims that the original timber is Transylvanian Balsa and is guaranteed to live forever – at least that’s what the tall pale salesman told him as he melted into the twilight.

This is the current state of the railway inside – not much has changed in the last four years because of life’s little challenges. There is a bit more stock now, and (most importantly!) he can run trains round and round. He has painted the track on one board ready for ballasting, and installed one of the superb S4 Society lever frames to work the East Somerset yard so that’s some progress. Which reminds your editor that he has more ballast to make both for Dave and Evercreech New.

April & May 2023

April & May 2023

A quiet couple of months, part of the reason for the hiatus in blogs, but again with the benefit of considerable foresight things will improve. May is when we have a AGM, and faced with increased costs (electricity and rent) we voted for a modest increase in subscriptions. In other news, work on club and members layouts continues with much effort focused on Evercreech New and Heyno Junction.

Work on the renovation of 7mm scale St Martin’s Wharf continues, and it’s excellent news that Bob Alderman’s lovely brace of Model T railbuses was in the St. Martins Wharf stock box all along – cunningly disguised as something wrapped in bubble wrap. Dave H has fitted a DCC chip in preparation for Taunton and our postponed Open Day. Dave will be fitting the rest of this interesting loco collection with DCC chips over the coming weeks, and Peter C is trying to sort out the wayward trailing axle on the rather nice model of ‘Severn’ (I believe it is a scratchbuilt Severn & Wye prototype) so we can run that too. Most of the stock is in good condition despite its long storage.  The layout itself has been running quite happily and (you may wish to look away now) – most of the rat damage has been repaired. St Martin’s Wharf is easy to transport, interesting for us to operate, and we think people will be pleased to see it on the circuit again..

Verwood (set after the war) will need box and mineral wagons in reasonable numbers. Steve saw these on Ebay, but can’t claim them as any sort of rescue (other than from the 00 and P4 mobs) as these LMS vans were all runners and nicely weathered in BR Bauxite, although the underframes could do with more rusty goodness. From the same seller (and stable) were three superbly weathered EM gauge mineral vans that he would also have liked for Verwood, but sadly they went for what he calls ‘silly money’.

March 2023

It’s been a while since the blog has been updated, and this has not been due to a lack of activity amongst members. With the benefit of foresight, there is some very interesting and high quality modelling in this and upcoming blogs.

Peter has now nearly completed his Ruston 88S diesel shunter. Apparently, he initially fitted the cab the wrong way round, and you can absolutely see how that could happen!

Dom has made a superb job of weathering a Hornby van ‘C’ using washes, powders and a bit of Humbrol aerosol enamel paint. The whole effect is as I remember them, except this one you can tell might have been red, or perhaps maroon, whereas in the ’70s it was hard to tell if they had once been red, green or blue, as these vans never seemed to get a clean between paint jobs. The underframe has that dirty, rusty but well used look that I remember too, and reminds us just how good recent ready to run models are.

Having made the van up into a train on 00 Gauge Combe Town for a photo session, Dom realised that layouts, even ones conceived partly as photo planks are not great for photography. So in comes the latest distraction from the layout…

The picture above shows the current state of play of a double track “Photo Plank” on a raised embankment with a cattle creep and backdrop.

Jim has been busy on DIY projects since his move, but did break the bank at the London Festival of Railway Modelling (aka “Ally Pally”) and treated myself to a Farish Class 319 4-car EMU – mainly for sentimental reasons as he spent years of his life riding in them daily from Bedford to Elephant & Castle! The uninspiring Thameslink livery was also the cheapest option – still £250 though!! The four cars need the wheels replacing with 2mm finescale ones, of course, but he was impressed to see the couplings have electrical connectors so only one DCC chip is needed: