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All three versions of the Model Rail limited edition USRA dock tank are at Warley, on ‘Shelfie’ this weekend. They are stunning models and run really well, especially for pre production models. Come and see them stand C11.
On the subject of USRA, happy thanksgiving for the US readers!
Forest of Dean
Forest of Dean Lines & the Severn Bridge
Price £30.00
ISBN 13: 9781899889 98 3 http://lightmoor.co.uk
This is Volume 2 of British Railway History in Colour from Lightmoor Press. Volume 1 dealt with the Wye Valley lines and north Gloucestershire, volume 3 as I understand it, will cover south of the River Severn. The book is hardback with 328 pages of colour illustrations of the Forest of Dean, both the Severn and Wye lines and the Forest of Dean branch. It also covers Bullo Pill the Severn Bridge and Lydney Docks also get coverage in this volume.
Neil Parkhouse has compiled and written this volume, using various sources for the illustrations. Most haven’t been seen before, very few are of poor quality but that loss of quality is made up for with the interest of the subject matter. The majority of the images are by necessity from the last few years of steam operation, colour film being relatively expensive in the 50’s and 60’s and the pages are well laid out including informative captions and some ephemera shots of tickets. The Forest lines get little coverage in passenger traffic in this volume, this has a historical twist to it in that passenger services finished before colour film was more widely adopted, so normal service shots are rare finds indeed. The passenger images in the FoD section then are primarily the enthusiast specials, but are none the worse for it. There is also coverage of the brake van specials too. These images may seem superfluous to the story of the FoD lines but there are some gems in them too. Not only are there plenty of colour shots of the autotrailers, but the brake van special shows one of the rare, (not ebay rare), LMS short wheel base fitted brake vans. I now know what that unfinished Parkside kit is going to be, it having languished on the ‘to do’ shelf since the excellent Bachmann version was released.
He real benefit of this book is the fact that its colour. Whilst that may be of a statement of the bleedin obvious, does what it says on the tin etc, there were for me some unexpected gems. The Bitumen storage tanks at Whimsey were a red oxide colour, I’d assumed they were black. Tufts Junc. Signal box was built from blue engineers brick, in black and white it has all the appearance of a standard brick build, the colour image shows an interesting variation. Both these locations being considered for the Severn and Dean scheme I want to build. The insides of coal and ballast hopper wagons are visible, as are images around Northern United Colliery, all giving valuable insight into the colour and weathering of vehicles and structures. The same goes for the buildings inside and outside of the railway fenceline.
Coverage of Lydney Docks gives an intriguing look at an area very rarely shown, the fact they are all in colour makes them all the more interesting. It also shows that if you want to consider a port environment for a layout, it doesn’t need to be massive warehouses and huge ships. The Severn Bridge chapter is well illustrated and tells a fascinating and tragic story in its own right, the book closing with the promise of coverage of the Sharpness branch and docks and the coverage of the Midland Lines in Gloucestershire.
For me, and if you like ‘off the beaten track’, subject matter, this book is invaluable for the mass of data and detail it covers. It is pretty much a colour template or palette for the Forest of Dean and Western Region branch line freight operations for the late 50’s through to the late 60’s. As I read it more frequently, I see more information, not ‘nuts and bolts’ technical stuff, but visually, the weathering on a disused signal arm, that sort of thing. If like me your interest covers this era and region it’s an invaluable source of information. It makes me want to build models, inspiration is often overused around the hobby at the moment, but this book for me, genuinely provides it in abundance.
Apart from that, it’s just a really, really nice book. Buy it.
Much frothing has taken place over the past few weeks regarding 02’s of the steam engine variety, I’ve not seen one yet, though Warley show beckons and I may catch up with one there. With the Warley show coming up and Manchester the week after I wanted to add something different to Shelfies roster. I’m quite happy using good RTR equipment but as shelfie is pretty much ‘made by me’ it’ll be nice to add a loco in the same vein.
A while ago I wanted to refresh my loco building skills and had got into stock a few etched kits from the easy end of the spectrum. In that bunch of kits was the Craftsman 02 Diesel shunter. It is a basic kit, and accurate. With the march of time, today it’s worth looking at contemporary motors and gearboxes, rather than trying to find Romford gears and an Anchoridge DS10 motor. To this end I’ve gone for a High Level double reduction gear tower, and Mashima motor, on test it runs very smoothly.
The kit due to it’s vintage has a few challenges in it, it’s not a shake the box model and it falls out made up. The bonnet is pre-formed the rest is up to you. In a strangely nerdy way there’s something quite cool seeing the assemblies form a three dimensional shape from flat etches, particularly knowing you’ve fixed and fettled them to get there. The instructions are pretty good, in their day very good compared to some others, that’s why at MRM we often suggested this very kit as a starting point. You knew that if the customer took their time, they’d end up with a nice model, tons of experience, and a huge amount of satisfaction.
One of the things I’m looking forward to is painting the model, again its been a while since I’ve painted brass. I’ll post how I get on later in the build. As you get to know your way round the model you can see where you can make life easier, the instructions assume the model superstructure will be one module, for painting I can envisage the bonnet and cab as one unit separate from the footplate, and I think I’m likely to make a few modifications to do that. That’s the beauty of a kit like this you can make these sorts of changes, which at the end of the day make life easier.
There is sometimes a mystique that etched kits are really difficult, some are, due to complexity, poor design and in some cases both! This however isn’t one of them. What it is, is a really good simple and accurate kit that can teach, or in my case refresh loco building skills at a reasonable cost. Phil Parker has commented that he hopes a ready to run model of this engine doesn’t come out, as it will effectively remove one of the best etched brass starter kits from the market very quickly, and I can see his point of view.
In the way that odd or interesting numbers sometimes appear on the car dashboard, an interesting one has appeared on the dashboard here on’t blog. That number is two hundred thousand. The number of hits the blog has achieved since I started writing it. The number reminds me of a bit written about us bloggers on a forum ..
“Shame really – if you are going to make the effort to write a blog at all, it makes sense to me to make it available to the widest possible audience. With a personal blog there is little chance of anyone other than a small, dedicated audience ever being aware of it, never mind remembering to read it.”
A quick check of their forum thread indicates they’ve managed to get 1,300 hits and 14 replies over two years, from a membership we’re regularly told of 27,000 members. This chap is clearly someone us bloggers can learn from.
I’m aware that the stats aren’t that straight forward, (see the 27,000 members above, chuckle, chuckle), but two hundred thousand hits is, ‘quite’ pleasing. A friend has his forum thread at close to five hundred thousand hits, so to reach 200k so far means I owe a huge vote of thanks to my ‘small dedicated audience’ of chancers that have passed by.
Thank you very much for taking your time out to read these posts, I genuinely appreciate it.
Paul M-P
Whilst the internet can be a useful resource, when I see books like this it really brings home just how much information is out there, both printed, and yet to come. This book from Lightmoor has all the things I want, quality images, quality text, and from respected and knowledgable authors.
The print press is not yet dead!
Bachmann 64xx 31-637
Bachmann 61-635 64xx, after conversion and repaint
You could say that the hobby at the moment is better than its ever been, new companies and new products and techniques than we have seen before. We can pick and choose what we want, because there is so much out there. This is good but, and there’s always a but isn’t there?, there is a downside. I’d suggest that too much choice can lead people onto moving onto another project before completing the last. Sometimes this is fine, a break is as good as a rest, particularly if its a new technique or material, or a complex assembly of a kit. But does this availability mean there are many who just take the easy option and opt out, binning entire projects?
The volume of new products each month is well illustrated in magazines and the interweb, so choice is not an issue, but getting better at any process is more about learning from your mistakes, rather than abandoning a project part built. So is binning it restricting your ability to learn and improve? If we were happy with our skillset and didn’t want to develop then perhaps binning a project entirely could be valid, but if not, then not persevering with a problem is actually stopping us improving.
Costs can certainly be a factor, though comparison to other pastimes I feel shows ‘modelling’ as a reasonably affordable hobby. If working to a tight budget, then binning it when things start going wrong or getting really challenging, can’t be cost effective. Where the project come can in useful is as the learning tool, to use it to try the new techniques and processes. Often you hear of people who have had problems with a new technique/process/material where its been tried ‘live’ on a brand new project or model. If you’ve got a part built kit, or layout, old stock, then try the process on that, don’t risk the new ‘thing’! Reading an article or speaking to someone can make many tasks seem easy, particularly if they are proficient at the skillset in question. But they too will have almost certainly had that disaster and sweary, potty mouthed moment along their path too! Albion Yard has given me a few of those moments, but now it works as a layout I can set up and run, and also as a test piece. The two images on this posting show a recent change. The view below shows how it was, the yard was stone sets, they looked ok, but not quite right. The head of page image shows the new yard, its now an earth yard and looks so much better for it, and allowed me to get practise of changing an established piece of scenery for the better.
The old yard surface.
So next time you’re thinking about binning a project or model that you know you’ll never finish, ask maybe what can you learn from it, make use of that shelf queen, that old baseboard, as your starting point for improving your diversity and skillsets.
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