Having just returned from Warley where I spent part of the weekend helping with Aberbeeg (see above), I realised four things, I can tell the time using a watch, some people speak Dutch, I can do blue diesel haze on snaps without software, and Max Stafford has broken out of ‘solitary’ and is now roaming the wide open space of the interweb writing about stuff ‘up north’.
His blog is http://maxstafford/, Daves well observed and subtle weathering is always good to see and he has a sharp sense of humour. One to watch, welcome to the jungle matey!
In this week for initial review is the new GWR Signal box kit from Ratio,
Initial thoughts are that it goes together well really capturing the look of a hip roofed standard GWR signal box. Well worth investing in, it’ll give a much finer focussed look than the resin equivalent model currently available. The detail is exceptional, as is the fit of components, I’ve had virtually no cleaning up to do, not quite ‘shake the box’ but close to it.
I’ve also started to get rid of shed loads of ‘stuff’ accumulated over the years, Airfix kits etc etc. I keep an eye on whats happening in other modelling genres, as there is always something to learn. Out now is this handbook, which is a compilation of previously published simple techniques showing how to get the best from some of the older basic Airfix Kits. If you’ve not bought the magazines as they came out, then like me you’ll find this a simple and handy guide for some clever little dodges.
Theres a lot to learn from this bookazine, a good deal would transfer directly to anyone taking some of the older railway kits and ready to run items to improve them. Many of the kits I bought and built in my youth, this shows just how well they can turn out with a bit of imagination and skill. One problem is that one of the kits destined for ebay got held back, and I now intend to build it, so the mag has worked, Max’ll be pleased its a silver one too …
Tempting though it was to tear open the new Ratio GWR brick built signal box kit thats arrived for review, today I’ve spent an hour or so re-glasing a Hornby GWR Autocoach. Like some of the kits I’m disposing of the basic molding of this coach is very good. The tooling for the Shawplan laserglaze kit was tested on an Airfix body which indicates 1977 on the underside. So its been around the block a bit, but the basic model is still sound for most modellers needs, and in particular, mine.
Apart from the pain in the backside of getting the original windows out the Hornby paint job is really very good and whilst its a bit of a ‘mashup’ as the yoofs say between two diagrams, its a good starting point. Underneath this one there’ll be a Dart Castings detailing kit in due course, and some work on the interior. When its finished I’m confident that it’ll stand well enough on its own compared to the Hornby Southern Push Pull set, and both will be interesting to feature in a book thats underway with Paul Lunn.
If you fancy some of this glasing for your Autotrailer contact Shawplan, it makes a huge difference! http://shawplan.wordpress.com/
The kit now departing is one of a batch of models of various scales and genres that simply put I won’t get around to building. Not only do I have a number of railway kits that come into that category I’ve assorted aircraft boats and cars too. The kit above is a simple Ford Transit kit in resin. The outline is excellent as is the detail, and its about ten years old. It does show how much further other modelling genres are in using resin, there are very few UK railway resin kits that are comparable to the quality of even some of the basic car, and aircraft detail kits that are available for their respective modellers. This Tranny kit too has been superseded in a way as you can now buy a pretty good 1/43 scale die-cast model for less than the original cost of the kit. This too has crossed over to the model railway field, the Thompson coaches in an earlier post have duplicated etched kits of the same diagram of coach. This is of course nice for our convenience, not so good for the kit manufacturer though, such is life.
On the subject of the previous post, it has been resolved to my satisfaction. However, I’m still amazed at the number of people who think that copyright doesn’t apply to them, or just make up their own version of copyright legislation in their heads and think that their rules apply to other people.
Google says this on the matter; Using our Services does not give you ownership of any intellectual property rights in our Services or the content that you access. You may not use content from our Services unless you obtain permission from its owner or are otherwise permitted by law.
Just because you find it on Google, doesn’t mean you can use it. If you have copyright concerns then take legal advice on it, not listen to ‘some bloke down the pub/on a forum’. Most of the time they’ll be talking out of their arse.
Yes folks it’s that old favourite of ours, the internet’s free, take what you want and don’t pay for it! Copyright theft, hey, no one gets hurt, it’s a victimless crime. Overcharging!, hey, no one gets hurt, it’s a victimless crime.
Today a good friend advised me he’d been made aware that a trader was using an image of his without requesting or paying for its use. Just like here the copyright is easily seen and understood to be his own, and if you want to use them, ask. Well it seems too that the same trader ‘likes’ my images too. So much so that he appears to have deleted my copyright logo from the image, and added one of his own.
He’s now in receipt of an invoice and an instruction to remove the image immediately. I have learnt to start that way, it focusses attention. For any interested readers thinking of purchasing Parkside kits, please buy them from people who don’t actually over charge you like this trader does. So not only does he steal from photographers, he then takes the piss out of his customers, (poor sods), by charging them more than the list price for a stock item.
The very nice chaps at Parkside are here: http://www.parksidedundas.co.uk/ And they will supply their kits at their list prices, which is better than wide boys who charge in excess of these prices with postage on top. So at the very least look at the prices on Parksides website first, save yourself some money and don’t put it in the pocket of a shark.
Realistically it probably won’t be the last. Hopefully the invoice when he pays it, or if he’s stupid enough to contest it the legal costs too, will be a stark reminder that the web isn’t ‘free’. This is a lesson in life, and commercial reality, especially if you’re thick enough to steal an image marked ‘copyright’ or from a site where copyright is enforced.
He’s got my details, so let’s see what the reply is, I’m sure theres a simple reasonable excuse …
The train now arriving is unusual for me, because its come out of red boxes, rather than blue. Today the Thompson Suburban coaches made by Hornby are hitting the doormats, and the example here is one of the first that I’ll be using. Initial thoughts are these are as good as the earlier Gresley panelled suburban coaches, the only thing that lets them down for me is the prismatic effect of the window surrounds, though these are an improvement on window sections we’ve had in the past. The paint finish is excellent and matches the earlier Gresley coaches too.
Hornby Thompson Suburban R4576
Whilst looking at the coach the Bachmann BR suburban coach I had on the bench caught my eye, and I thought it’d be interesting to do a quick compare and contrast on the overall effect of the respective coaches. Both models capture their prototype well, however, the execution of that capture are two very different approaches, which are also separated by a good few years of development. The Bachmann model is a recent release, the paint finish on this example is far superior to earlier releases.
Without being unfair to the Bachmann model it is more of a characature of the MK1 suburban coach when you compare it to either the Thompson or Gresley suburban models. Hornby chooses to have many individual components, the roof ventilators, door grab handles etc whereas the earlier Bachman model has them all integrally molded. The Bachmann coach has deeply recessed glasing, the window being a strip of clear plastic inside the coach body. The biggest difference is noticable below the solebar of the coaches. The Bachmann chassis has solid sections where the framework should be open, and the Hornby chassis is prototypical in the sections used for the framework, which gives an open appearance underneath the coach. Lamp irons on the Hornby model whilst molded to the body end, are finer than the Bachmann irons, giving the appearance that they are separate components.
All the above doesn’t mean the Bachmann model is a bad one, but it does underline how good the Hornby product is. The Bachmann coach can be improved with Shawplan’s laser cut glasing http://shawplan.laserglaze/ and etched underframe components from various aftermarket sources. The prices between the two models do however reflect their respective quality and production costs. Simply put the Hornby model in this instance will be be more expensive, theres more bits just for starters. This means of course that they are more fragile than the Bachmann equivalent shown here, so the Hornby coaches wont be suitable for those that like to model wearing welding goggles and boxing gloves.
Hornby Thompson Suburban R4576
Hornby Thompson Suburban R4576
The Hornby coaches come packed in the standard red box and vaccuum formed carrying tray. My coach has managed to come from China to Blighty with no bits coming off, and none look like they are about to either.
Hornby Thompson Suburban R4576
If Hornby keep making products like this, I’ll keep buying them.
This week I’ve had both Albion Yard and Bawdsey up for a digital meejah project. It’s been interesting doing a compare and contrast between the two layouts and styles. They have similar footprint dimensions but have a very different execution to the theme of railway modelling I could have a model railway exhibition in my own garage. It has given me a few ideas for the next layout, which is already underway. Having the two layouts side by side I did a bit of cheeky swapping of locos and stock, Bawdsey has some excellent scenes on it, and it’d have been a shame to waste the snapping opportunity when it was there, so I transferred a few of Albion Yards loco’s across and took a good selection of images for ‘stock’.
Tonight both Albion Yard, and my mate Paul Lunn are on telly, ‘Steam on TV’ to be precise. It looks to be an interesting venture, and at short notice they filmed us at Model Rail Live at Barrow Hill. There may even be a glimpse of the Hornby 72XX moving as that was on the train set at the time. We also announced our book project which is well underway, of which more at a later date!
Well, its not a post about Canada Post but its a post about Canada. I’ve spent a bit of time on and off in Canada and its one of my favourite countries. Canada has always been deeply etched into the fabric of the family. After the second world war many Canadians as well as Kiwi’s and Ozzies either stayed to learn medicine or came across to learn, and thats where the connection was first made. Our parents knew many expats who went overseas, as well as colonials who came to learn and stay. My brother and I used to get boxes of huge juicy Canadian apples sent from the Golden Horseshoe, regular books and calenders all showing the beautiful scenery of the rockies, Niagara on the Lake, The Falls etc etc. The thing that really got me going were the pictures of Canadian National or Canadian Pacific ‘F’ series diesels, observation cars all in the iconic 60’s and early 70’s liveries. One day I knew I was going to go there. Well, I did. In the early eighties to start, firstly a six month road trip, Greyhounding, hitching rides and working my way in the fruit farms below the Niagara escarpment. Later it was grabbing rides on delivery flights on the jumpseat of brand new BAe146’s, and then hitching my way from wherever I got dropped off back to Grimsby, (no, not the one that stinks of fish, the one in Ontario)
One thing that struck me about the Canucks is they have in many ways a similar sense of humour to the British. In toy train terms this can be no better exemplified than these offerings from Rapido, which may hold some lessons for our home grown talent …
Most of the time I spent in ‘The Near North’, so called because the landscape is just like the ‘True North’, only closer and a bit warmer. It does make a difference to how you think about life to a degree, the nearest town to us was 60km away, so if you forget that pack of screws when you’re in Wallmart, it’s a long way back. Small child was instructed, rather than advised, to not fall off the swings, or get bitten by anything or anyone she didn’t recognise.
Returning from the near north was a six hour drive, to stay in the Grimsby area, whilst there I found a hobby shop about ten minutes drive away. From the outside it just looks like a small roadside store, on the day I arrived it was closed, but a squint through the window had me spying a Rapido ‘Canadian’ box on the shelf. Clearly with one of those in stock they were likely to be a good bet for a serious shop. On the last day I managed to drop in for a few minutes, and for my credit cards sanity that was just as well. It is one of the best little hobby stores I’ve ever been to, with a wide range of quality products and a very welcoming attitude from Peter, the stores owner. I managed to not buy the Rapido (see above vids) ‘Canadian’ set he had in store, though I dearly would have liked to, it was just the sort of train that we used to see on the calendars and pictures sent across many years ago in my childhood. If you’re doing Canada on holiday especially going between Toronto and Niagara Falls then drop in, it’ll be well worth your trouble http://www.justtraincrazy.ca/index.php http://www.rapidotrains.com/canadian.html
Steve Jones on electricnose used to put the occaisional music review up, and I’m going to nick a leaf out of his book and briefly do the same here. Being a fan of live music we took time out to go to the 2012 Hamilton Festival of Friends. The B52’s were the headline act this year, but on the accoustic stage I saw a couple of girls that I think may just make the big time. They have a unique sound to them, the harmonies in their voices are almost unbelieveable, as clear as ice melt water etc etc, (I know I take the piss, seriously though, have a listen), they look cool, even I know that as a dad of one teenager and her apprentice, and these girls are serious musicians. The comparison between them and the dirge of this weeks X-Factor Rylan Clark, vote for me I’m not safe (and thats not even the crap singing), is chalk and cheese.
Many people say yeah, go and see so and so blah, blah, blah, but this band/duo/popular beat combo, or however you’d like to categorise them are different, in a good way. They write their own stuff which is definitely in the indie folk genre, which does sound a bit ‘Radio 2, Tuesday Evening’. However, watch their Facetube vid below of the Simon and Garfunkle ‘Cecilia’ cover, I’m led to believe it’s ‘awesome’ or ‘sick’ in yoof speak. What I do know is, it’s worth watching.
If they get big, (I don’t mean in a pie eating kind of way), and I hope they do, remember you saw them on a train geek site first! Some of us actually know cool stuff when we see it and hear it …
By 7:15pm today the Northlander will have completed its last run, and the ‘Near North’ will have lost another community link to be replaced by bus services.
Albion Yard 
You must be logged in to post a comment.