Thank you to everyone who popped by over the weekend, we had a really good time at an event that was well organised and was very different to other exhibitions we’ve been to over the years. In terms of visitors we did have a couple of specials that turned up. One, courtesy of Simon Kohler at Hornby, who was genuinely pleased and surprised to see an H&M ‘Walkabout’ on the layout, a brilliant DC controller even though its now thirty years old whilst still giving excellent control. The 72XX whilst too big for Albion Yard in reality, impressed us with its capturing the appearance of these large engines. This is one of the test samples and it had got quite a few a miles under its belt, it got a few extra feet on Albion Yard too! Whilst outside my field of interest seeing this superb model crawling across the layout has sort of pushed it onto the want’s list whereas previously it wasn’t on my radar at all!
http://www.hornby.com/

The overall appearance of the layout drew many nice comments over the weekend with the backscene and trees being two items of particular interest. We noticed again a good number of returnees, which considering how crowded the venue was at times was really pleaseing. One thing that is noticeable is the number of girls and women who stop and spend a good amount of time looking at the layout. They tend to ask questions about scenery, particularly the trees and notice the ‘long view’ earlier than the male of the species!, and note the difference in the trees construction across the layout. The girls are a wonderful source of info about hair care products too and which are the best for stickiness and ‘hold’, useful for knowing which to use for scatter materials!

Speaking to C&L today they will soon have the armatures for the trees back in stock, so if you’d like to make trees similar to these get in touch with Pete, the armatures may well be in a lighter color to aid painting and will be supplied as previously in a multipack format.
http://www.finescale.org.uk/

Two of the tasks I did prior to Model Rail was to add a further siding and make a train of Berry Wiggins Bitumen tankers, These ran to Whimsey in the Forest of Dean just north of Cinderford. I wanted to make one of these trains, to help set the scene, similar to Pete Kirmonds Anhydryte train used on Blea Moor. This is the new area of the layout, new cottages, the new siding is on the far right, and one of the Panniers is taking the Bitumen tanks away form the yard.

The prototype Berry Wiggins Bitumen tankers can be seen in these images:
http://www.sungreen.co.uk/Cinderford/Cinderford_Rail.html
The train is a rough representation of the tanks, comprised of a mix of Bachmann and Peco 14t tank weagons, the decals came from Model Masters, their sheet number 4826. http://www.modelmasterdecals.com/

I was asked by quite a few people what will happen to the layout after the September RM article and a recent t’interweb posting. The layout has a few more shows to do next year, and then I’ll decide how to dispose of it. Anyone who has contacted me directly will get a reply in the next week or so with more details. Fortunately this time on the way home I remembered to close the rear doors of the van properly …

Again many thanks for the interest in the layout over the weekend and it was a real pleasure to meet people and talk about this layout with them. One of the oddest in a nice was was being asked for my autograph! I’d have safely bet a significant amount of money that’d never happen in my lifetime, the young lad had got quite a collection of signatures on his magazine too, hopefully small things like that will encourage youngsters like him to take the hobby up in the future.

As a postscript, today Postman Pat put a parcel through the door, with a nice little kit for review in, more in the next day or two on that!

http://www.hornby.com/
http://www.finescale.org.uk/
http://www.modelmasterdecals.com/