Coalfish!

One of the things, or just in case Mrs. Woody is reading this I will rephrase that to, one of the few things that I bought at the Market Deeping Model Railway Show was a pack of three Hornby wagons. Following on from various fish references over the past couple of weeks, these are models of the MHA Coalfish wagon and these ones are in EWS livery. 

I already have several of these, all bought second hand or pre-loved according to your taste, so should now have a suitably significant rake or indeed shoal of these.

They are a comparatively modern wagon in a way as the bodies were designed to carry ballast spoil from maintenance jobs.

Built during the 1990s, they used the chassis from redundant HAA hopper wagons used on the merry go round coal deliveries to power stations.

And if you are wondering if there is a coalfish, yes there is (related to Pollock), but these Coalfish wagons were actually named that because their chassis previously carried coal hoppers! 

Not the best of days!

There are days when things just don't go right. For me the day started with putting banners out for the Spring Bank Holiday events at the Rocks By Rail Museum. IU needed to replace the banners from the last event and that usually means a straight swap. However someone had taken some of the posts that I use from two of the sites which was not a great start to the day. Eventually arriving at the Museum I needed to fit a new drive belt to the mower. I had got the belt and that was a straightforward job to fit. 

But, I also needed to fit a new pull cord to the starter. Things did not go well! To cut a long story short, the mechanism exploded into parts as I worked on it with a large spring uncoiling its way across the floor. Despite getting it all back together, it refused to work as it should. By this time it was almost time to go home so I put the mower away in disgust!

At least some things were going right for the others with more ballast being added to the track from the Trout ballast wagon - there's those fish references again! At least that did not break!

Anyway, the day is over so tomorrow will be better!

A visual record of some things!

The WMD film crew have been busy over he past few weeks keeping a bit of a record of matters related to My Last Great Project 00 gauge layout.

For your cure to insomnia, WMD presents.....

A rake or is that shoal of Turbots!

I have talked in the past about various fish names given by British Railways to their large fleet of maintenance wagons. This continues with todays private operators. I have a few fish related wagons but today I got my rake, or should that be shoal, of Turbots out in EWS livery. Very smart they look to although far to clean to be on a real railway. One day I will weather them but in the meantime here they are hauled by EWS Class 60 60042!

Glue issues!

Normally in my Man Cave I have to suffer the cold as Mrs. Woody says it costs too much to put the heater on! One of the consequences of the near refrigerator  temperatures is that glues normally take a long time to dry - especially PVA. In this weather though, the Man cave is near sauna like to the extent that the PVA glue dries before I even bring the two parts being glued together! However, I have managed to somehow glue some more parts of the hidden loops structure together.

These are the piers that hide the joint in the brick paper. It is a slow job which would be a bit faster with some air con. Wonder how Mrs. W would feel about that n the Man Cave?

Market Deeping Model Railway Club Exhibition May 2025,

It is a hot day - the Man Cave is more like a pizza oven, which reminds me about dinner choices for tonight! So, given the fact that I have not done much productive in there today lets take the opportunity to look at the Market Deeping Model railway Exhibition that Mrs. Woody insisted going to on Saturday along with getting me to make various purchases of things she never knew she needed!

First off, I have no room for a model railway is something you often hear people say. Well, if you have a bookcase you can store a box filer and inside a box file you can get a running model railway as shown here!

That was not the only one the couple responsible for the above had done either. Take a look at these!

Some of the box files are joined together so that trains run through several boxes like the above ones.

There were some built around a theme like this Halloween one.

Others were just rural in nature.

This was my favorite one.

Another interesting layout was this two level layout of the Bridge over the River Kwai. Built by a gent in his 80s who is married to a lady from Thailand and this is his last layout he is going to build and what a way to wrap up building layouts!

Certainly much to be inspired at and there were other inspiring layouts to. So I will ponder over a pizza dinner with a cool drink!

A perfect day!

It was Driver 4 a Fiver at the rocks By Rail Museum today and I was on duty welcoming prospective drivers. It was one of those days when I met a lot of great people, had a good chin wag with many and mulled over the solution to the World's problem with others such as loyal blog reader Mrs. B who came along for the day. What a perfect day and enjoyed by all I believe, especially in the glourious weather that we had. A perfect day!

Market Deeping Model Railway Club Exhibition May 2025,

As I know if you read this blog on a regular basis that Mrs. Woody likes to attend model railway shows so today I took her to the Market Deeping Show held at Stamford. You may recall that back in 2019, the Club suffered a disastrous bout of vandalism when having set the show up the night before opening a group of four teenagers broke in and trashed many of the exhibits. It hit the national media and many celebrities' such as Rod Stewart gave donations to help out. That dark past has gone and since the Pandemic the show has grown from strength to strength. Indeed it is always a show of variety with many layouts that I have never seen or heard of before.

This year was no exception and something I have never seen before was this Chinese model railway layout. 

Built by a British modeller who just likes to do things no one has done before it was certainly a big attraction. 

China was one of the last countries in the World to run mainline steam and this layout had plenty of it with many of the locos, including the diesels, being DCC sound fitted.

It certainly caught the atmosphere of the China I have seen through the media and I am told that those who have been to China to see the railways say the layout is fully authentic.

The best way to see this layout is in the flesh but here is the next best thing - a video clip!

There were lots of other great layouts and I will talk about those over the next few days. In the meantime I am resisting looking at what Chinese stock is available!

VE Day at the Rocks by Rail Museum.

It was VE Day yesterday and there were certainly things going on at the Rocks By Rail Museum to get into the spirit of things. 

One of our volunteers, Gary, is also into WW2 recreation activities and has a fascinating and large collection of memorabilia. I think he could equip a small army!

Meanwhile in the cafe, Ray, who actually lived through the day 80 years ago was busy at work but took time out to lead a sing song with Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag! Only Ray could do this!

A great day and we still managed to get some jobs done despite the cafe becoming somewhat a resting place - but that is what volunteering is about sometimes!

Back to PVA!

Having cleared my head after the glue spraying of yesterday it was time to start adding the parapet wall. Nothing special here, just a strip of card covered in the Metcalf brick papers. However I did remember to cut out an area for where the bridge will cross over the station platform.

So far I have only managed to do half the parapet as I am using PVA glue this time so need to let one section dry before adding the next. Not only that but I only had so many clamps to hand! Strange though. No headache!