After yesterdays strange sights, today was much more on stream with the chassis of the Italeri Mercedes-Benz Actros MP4 kit coming together.
At this stage there is not a lot to show for the work put in but hopefully over the next few days things will become more visually exciting!
It was indeed a day of unusual sights!
First off the sight of a model truck chassis being constructed on the workbench!
It must be about two years since the last one of these appeared on the bench! However the chassis rails have been assembled. Strangely, each side is in two parts which makes it tricky to join them so they are straight and level However, they are now glued and the various cross members and parts that fit in between the chassis rails are coming together.
Second strange sight was seen out on a drive with Mrs. Woody. I may have posted about this some time ago but I am sure that the collection of railway memorabilia in this garden has got bigger and very impressive it is too!
Finally the third strange sight seen on the same journey as the garden above was a herd of deer which suddenly came out of a field hedge and about a dozen of them then crossed the road in front of us, jumped the ditch and headed off into the distance!
I would normally associate deer with being near some wooded areas for cover rather than in the open fields of Lincolnshire but this lot appeared unbothered about needing cover.
A magnificent sight but it was not until we looked at them on the horizon that we saw the stag with some amazing antlers.
Mrs. Woody normally complains about my 'slow' driving but had we been going a bit quicker and arrived a few seconds earlier we could well have had deer's on the bonnet of the car!
Time for a new project? Probably not as I have so many already on the go that need finishing but I have an urge to glue some plastic parts together! So this is the chosen subject that has been sat in the Man Cave for about two years which actually is not that long as most of my kits are decades old!
I was amazed by this model of Locomotion! Just look at the miniature mechanism working as it runs in this short video
The box for Locomotion is not very big compared to those that contain more modern locomotive models but very well presented and makes it clear that it is part of Hornby's 200 years of railways series. Upon opening the box I was struck by how tiny the model was. There were a few surprises as well.
There is a nice level of foam packaging, a very informative information certificate, a cast name plate for display purposes, a bag with driver and fireman to fit. The part I had never seen before was that the protective clear packing was a Perspex box which is a first to me for a model railway engine! It certainly provides a safe repostitory for such a small and fragile model.
comparing it with the Class 08 shunter in the background which is a small locomotive on todays tracks the smallness of the model really shows itself.
Out on a Christmas Day bike ride to get a better appetite for lunch, I swung by the canal to see what was going on. Nothing! It was eerily quiet with not a sole in sight,
Or was there someone in the distance?
Not sure exactly what this guy was doing highlighted by the red arrow but it does look like he was fishing! Maybe he was after his main course for Christmas lunch?
Anyway, back at WMD HQ, Mrs. Woody had dished up one of her famous lunches which stuffed me and kept me stretched out on the sofa watching Mission Impossible! Maybe I should rename my 00 gauge Last Great Project model railway Mission Impossible?
I am pleased to say Santa did bring me some gifts so I must have been good!
First off was a cycling related T shirt...
I also got a new drum kit!
However, neighbours can stop panicking as this drum kit is just a wooden model yet to be built but I'm sure I can get a beat out of it!
Last off is this wonderfully delightful model by Hornby of Locomotion.
I will delve into that a little more tomorrow as it is stunning looking model.
Well, it is Christmas Eve and in one more 'sleeps' I will know tomorrow if I have been good and get some presents! In the meantime, the WMD film crew have been out in the Man Cave with another layout update and a bit of train running which if you cannot get to sleep tonight this may be just the thing to bring about the Land of Nod!
Things that you might never have guessed about Woody! Yes, I play, or should I say bash,, drums! That is me in the picture, many years ago I hasten to add, playing a gig with a band I was in at the time. Note the half drunk pint of larger at my feet, its thirsty work playing drums, and the parker coat muffling my bass drum. Oh the happy memories! As you can probably tell I never became famous but I had a lot iof fun!
No time for model making activities at the moment but a bike ride was undertaken and as I was passing a diversion to on route to see how the canal was looking after the Summer of it just about drying out. Well, the recent rain has certainly changed things and it is now positively brimming to near the top of its banks!
I talk a lot about several model railway layouts of mine, My Last Great Project in 00 gauge, Chalkdon in 009 gauge and the USA Switching layout in H0 scale which ahs yet to be named. There are however other layouts which hardly or have never featured on this blog. One which has had mention but not a great deal, is Gailston, my 00 gauge terminus to fiddle yard layout. As with most of my projects, it is yet to be finished despite being started nearly 25 years ago but it does work and I do enjoy running passenger and freight trains in and out of the station with some shunting and run rounds being part of the process - very therapeutic especially when the Man Cave is cold!
It is 9 feet long which is the scenic part.
And another seven feet long at right angles to the scenic board and this is a five road fiddle yard.
I will come back to looking at Gailston in a bit more detail in future posts but here area few closer up images.
Probably the last day of this year that I will be at the Rocks By Rail Museum and I finished the year as I will no doubt be starting it in 2026 with more vegetational butchery in the bone yard! It may not be the most glamorous job but you never know what you may find and it is also starting to interest other volunteers who now come by to see what I have unearthed!
Todays junk treasure included this table frame....
,,,,thus ladder....
.....these point rodding parts.....
...and an assortment of metal parts that may well end up in the scrap bin!
Hopefully be March of next year just about all the bone yard will be cleared but there is much to do so the start of 2026 will be a busy one if the weather is kind!
I decided to construct the road section over the bridge/tunnel that was in the photo in yesterdays post. I had already cut the main base to size and painted it with some rattle can grey primer which is a bit darker than my usual brand but it was half the price! What I needed to do was to cut the pavements out of mounting card for either side of the carriageway. As usual, the WMD Stores had card in stock so after some measurements, head scratching and more head scratching the pavements were cut to shape. I then scribed the kerb stones at the edges which will be painted later.
The two pieces of card were then painted using the same rattle can as the road. Given that the shade of grey was far too dark for worn and weathered tarmac I used some light grey paint and airbrushed it in random patterns to give the real life effect that you see on real roads.
Once the paint dries it will look less stark. I then need to paint the kerbs and glue the pavements in place. The dark grey areas will be 'grassed' in some form!
There is much more to do but I placed one of the scenic sub-bases in place just to see how things were going towards the final scene and I think it fits in well. I need to finish that bridge/tunnel section and paint the 3D printed signal box so I have plenty of things to keep me occupied as I keep telling Mrs. Woody when she adds more jobs to her list of things for me to do!
In the meantime, I have also treated the second of the three current sub-bases to some additional 'wild' vegetation which makes it look more realistic.
All very philosophical today but there is a logic in all that which I will no doubt find out if it is an understandable logic once Mrs, Woody reads it!
The before weathering the brickwork photo...
and the after photo....
Not a missive change but enough to give that realism of the aging effects of time and weather and take away that pristine, built yesterday look that make a model look a little toy like. The weathering on the brickwork was just dilute brown paint airbrushed on in random patterns whilst the rock faces were just brush painted with dilute brown paint - all in the brown!. I'm pleased with the overall effect and even Mrs. woody who is hard to impress, made positive comments!
Having added hanging basket liner to the scenic sub-base to simulate the wild undergrowth of an unkempt area, it was time to add some additional greenery to break up the scene and add some more realism. The WMD Stores have a good stock of various scenic products and theses were put to good use.
The intention is to introduce various different greens and other vegetational colours along with suitable textures. Whether I have achieved that is down to the viewer but from a distance I think it looks realistic.
Even getting in close their is realism - it certainly looks like the WMD garden!
Next job is to weather the brickwork and paint the rock faces which will se a switch from greens to browns!
Having constructed the retaining walls for the area where the signal box is going in the scenic sub-base I needed to make some corner and end piers which would both strengthen the joint and hide the join in the brick paper. Some mounting card was cut to shape and then covered in brick paper. At the same time I also cut some strips of brown card and marked it up to represent joints in coping stone that would go on top of the retaining walls.
With that done it was time to glue all the components into place on the sub-base.
Looks OK to me and when I posed the yet to be painted signal box in position it really began to show promise!
