Time to play trains!

 Making and building models is all well and good but sometimes you need to realise that part of the fun is actually 'playing' with them! Tonight its cold with stormy weather over the UK, there is not much on TV and the news suggests that Covid may be having a fight back with us all. Now with all that doom and gloom what better therapy than to step into my man cave, ironically AKA The Room of Gloom, to run a few trains and simply enjoy watching them go round. Its therapeutic and takes your mind off the troubles of the World. In your own small World you control what goes on and how its done - Perfect!!!! Well that is until Mr.s W starts asking questions about where I am with her list of ''Must Do' jobs!

Anyway, on the tracks tonight, a selection of trains that you would never find sharing the tracks in real life but this is my railway where that well establish railway modeler's Rule One is in force! That is, 'Its my railway and I will run what I like!'. 

Looking left to right, A Bachman 6 car Western Pullman set, a ViTrains Class 37 in very early EW&S livery before it became plain EWS hauling a rake of 5 Seacows and a Shark brake van (you have to love the way that the track maintenance wagons are name - there are also such things as Trouts and Mermaids) and Tornado the new build Peppercorn A1 class hauling 5 Hornby Teak coaches.

On the outer tracks we have a Hornby 9F hauling a mixed rake of 18 various goods wagons including vans, cement wagons and mineral wagons. There is also a Hornby Class 40 hauling 6 Oxford Rail Mk 3 BR coaches.

There is a Bachmann Class 20 in Rail Freight livery hiding on the right in what will be a goods /maintenance yard as the layout build progresses. That large gap between tracks 2 and 3 will eventually be a platform unless I decide on a different track plan and with my track (no pun intended) record that is a strong possibility.

I am lucky in having three running lines with various loops so trains can be changed and alternated. On the other side of the layout in one of the loops a Bachmann Windhoff maintenance train in the old Railtrack livery awaits a turn. A very odd piece of kit but something about it that makes it almost cute!

So having had a good couple of hours just playing trains, enjoying them as they circle the layout with no purpose other than to amuse and entertain me, I am a happy bunny with a clear mind, vacant of the weather and bad news stories although that Mrs. W list of jobs is bound to come back at some point! On that note maybe I will just let the trains run for a few more minutes!

Bullseye!

Bullseye as in the darts score of 50. Yes it is the 50th post on this blog, Drum roll please. Probably the only accolade this blog will get is that it provides the ultimate cure for insomnia! Can't sleep, just read this blog for a few minutes and you are off to the land of nod quicker than Mrs. Woody can order the latest 'must have' product that has appeared in her email inbox! 

Back in the land of awake, here at WMD HQ it has been a busy few days. The Room of Gloom AKA my man cave now has shelves along the backwall where I can display my finished models or more likely my half finished models that will become Shelf Queens! I did sort out a few of those earlier this year and they featured in a few posts starting here so hopefully not too many new ones will find a restring place on these shelves.

I used some adjustable shelf supports and fixing those to the backwall was generally a trouble and swear jar free event once I had established where the hidden up rights were and the power cables. The shelves themselves are a furniture board which comes in 8 foot or for those metric buffs out there 2.4m. The backwall is 13 foot long. I decided that a bit of a gap at each end would be useful and to make best use of the boards I would make the shelves 12 foot long. This would mean no waste as one and a half boards would give me that length. For those thinking there are three shelves in the picture therefore there is half a board wasted, I will be adding a further shelf which will mean no waste! The next question was how to join them as the joint at 8 foot did not conveniently fall where there was a shelf support. As the shelves will not have to support any major weight I decided to use wooden dowels. The photos below show the process. 

In my new found older age wisdom of working smarter not harder I did make a drilling jig to avoid having to measure each board. I also used iron-on edging strip to seal the ends of the shelves and provide a sealed joint which came in useful later in this process.

The drill I used was one designed for drilling wood with a good point to it and a collar that acts as a depth gauge.

Once the holes were drilled a dowel locating peg was inserted into each hole. These have a point that when the other surface to be jointed is pressed against the peg it leaves a small hole that both marks the spot to be drilled and then provides a physical 'hole' into which the point of the drill can be precisely located into.

Once the holes in the other part of the shelf were drilled the dowels could be inserted and once the two parts were in place on the shelf supports - far easier taking an 8 foot and 4 foot shelf into a room then a one long 12 foot one - the two were pushed together.

On other fronts, the WMD HQ Deep Store where wonderous treasures bought long ago are stored out of sight of Mrs Woody, was searched to uncover a Hornby 9F Crosti. I also unearthed the TTS DCC Sound decoder that I bought at the same time. More details on the fitting of that another time but it was not a s simple as I though it was going to be! However it was successfully fitted and the 9F hauled an 18 wagon train which mesmerised me as it gracefully and with soothing sounds of steam, went around the loosely laid track on my layout. Wonderful!

Work on the Zvezda K5350 Mustang truck has also been done with progress now up to Section 33 of the plans. This means I almost have a completed bed to the load body. Luckily no mishaps after the various swear jar contributing moments that I had on the closing stages of the chassis build. Still impressed with this kit. The detail and fit of parts is superb.

Music was from two compilation cassettes, Soft Rock Classics and Sixties Summer Mix - Groovy!

Back to reality!

Well what can you say other than the England Team did us proud in the Euros! Penalty shoot outs are not my favoured way of  dealing with a draw and for what its worth a points system of some sorts might actually be better. If it included a recognition for sporting behavior it might actually discourage some of the almost rugby type activities that go on in football today. 

Enough of my thoughts and back to reality! Reality today is that back at WMD HQ we are again sticking bits of plastic together! Yes a kit is underway! I have had a growing itch for some weeks now to actually start building models again after what seems an eternity of garden and similar type activities. Looking back through the blog (which was part of the reason I started this blog in the first place so I could put dates to things and events and it works - Wow!) I see it was the end of March that I last progressed with a kit - the T85 from Miniart. I could have gone back to this kit but if you recall I had almost stalled with the tracks which have some issues. Since moving most of my modelling stuff from within the house to my man cave AKA the Room of Gloom that kit has sat in a box and to be honest I thought about starting it again, I even looked through the box but at the moment its just not doing it for me. So with another breaking of my New Years Resolution of not buying any more kits, I bought the  Zvezda Russian K5350 Mustang 3-Axle Truck in 1/35 scale. The Kamaz Мустанг (Mustang) is a family of general military utility trucks with numerous variants which is based on the 1st generation KamAZ family launched in the early 1980s. A three-person cab is standard across the Mustang range. It has a sleeping berth and tilts forward for engine access. The cab can be fitted with an add-on armour kit. I have wanted to build a Kamaz truck for a long time. They are typical Russian in that they are simple but very robust. If you have ever watched Ice Road Truckers you know that in Canada and Alaska they run trucks on ice roads in the winter. It is also the same in Russia but having watched some videos on the conditions they have to deal with I have to say they do need a really tough truck - have a look at this short You Tube Video to see or just put in Russian Ice Road Truckers into YouTubes search engine.  

First time with a Zvezda kit and looking through the box it looks stunning. Will it look as stunning once my hands have been on it or will it end up a glue bomb once completed? We'll have to wait and see! The kit itself comes in a stout cardboard box which is sleeved by an outer cover with the illustrations showing the truck in action. Inside the parts are all in plastic bags so no loose, flying off into oblivion never to be seen again as the box is opened parts. I like that! The instructions and painting guide look as though some one has actually thought about what to illustrate and hopefully will actually aid building this kit rather than becoming a cryptic set of clues which have several differing answers according to how you look at them! I like that too! Looking at the parts themselves the detail is stunning and having built a few 1/25th truck kits in my time I just wish those larger kits had this sort of level of detail. You guessed it I like that as well! So far the guys at Zvezda have struck a chord with me.

Starting the actual build the first stages centre around the engine. For something that will probably end up mostly hidden the detail is remarkable. There is also something else I like about this kit. So far all the parts for the engine are on the same sprue and amazingly just about all the parts follow on from each other. I have started with Sprue G and it starts at the bottom with part G1 and G2 is next to it and so on. There are a couple of exceptions to fit the part into the overall sprue where a part number does not follow on but its close. If you have never built a kit you may wonder why the excitement of  what probably sounds a logical way of doing things. Logical it maybe but I have never come across a sprue laid out like this. Normally you end up with the parts for something like an engine over two or more sprues and the parts are laid out randomly to minimise the number of sprues. You end up spending ages looking over the sprue trying to find the part that you want. Zvezda make it so simple to find the part. G65 is between G64 and G66! 

Moving on from my overstated joy about this kit, an hour and a half got the first three stages of the engine done.

How do I know that it took me an hour and a half to reach this stage? Well here at WMD HQ we do like our music and have done so for many, many years. Before the advent of new technology, MP 3 files,  downloading, streaming and probably a whole host of other things I don't and probably never will know about we had vinyl, cassettes and CDs. WMD HQ still has a large collection of them all and facilities in the Room of Gloom include a cassette player on which both sides ('You mean you had to physically turn it over?' will probably be the reaction of some) of a favorite cassette purchased in the early 90s was playing whilst I built the engine. Roughly 45 minutes a side which gives me 90 minutes and unlike the football yesterday I didn't go into extra time!

A great easy listening album full of fantastic music which if you are interested is: -

A1	Eagles–	One Of These Nights
A2	The Doobie Brothers–	Long Train Runnin'
A3	Fleetwood Mac–	Little Lies
A4	Hall & Oates*–	I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)
A5	Greg Kihn Band–	Jeopardy
A6	Starship (2)–	Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
A7	Christopher Cross–	Ride Like The Wind
A8	Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers*–	Breakdown
A9	The Cars–	Drive
B1	R.E.M.–	The One I Love
B2	Lynyrd Skynyrd–	Sweet Home Alabama
B3	Allman Brothers Band*–	Jessica
B4	Rickie Lee Jones–	Chuck E's In Love
B5	Joe Walsh–	Rocky Mountain Way
B6	J. J. Cale*–	Hold On Baby
B7	Timbuk 3–	The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
B8	Steve Earle–	Copperhead Road
B9	America (2)–	Horse With No Name

Bridge to Nowhere!

There has continued to be a lack of posts on this blog and its all to do with lighter evenings and summer weather! Although some may question the summer weather bit, the odds are that I will be outside doing something rather than inside in front of a computer screen as I try to make the most of the light warm (!?!?) evenings. Hence the lack of posts but there are things being done, usually with the garden, which continues to demand attention! 

However this week has seen a few days out which given the past 18 months mainly spent at home in the WMD HQ is something nice to do. For some reason we ended up in north Lincolnshire so Mrs Woody was treated to a fascinating trip across the Humber Bridge at a cost of £1.50 for the toll and a CoOp £3.50 lunch deal of sandwich, crisps and drink - other lunch deals are available! This was consumed on what remains of the Viewing Point car park on the north shore which didn't have any view of the bridge as most of the rest of it has been turned into a Covid Vaccination Centre. Having consumed the gastronomic delight, a further £1.50 secured a return trip south bound across the bridge. The Humber Bridge has always been somewhat controversial and was nick named The Bridge to Nowhere. I am not into the politics of it all, its been built, it serves a purpose but most of all it is a fantastic engineering feat and stunning to look at.

Having crossed back to the south shore we ended up parking at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust car park at Far Lings which is located in an area of ponds that were created by clay being dug out for the local clay tile factory which is now a museum. There is a path along the shore and it all looks very interesting for a longer visit. 

You can do a bit of ship spotting too!

The path passes the back of the tile works which look as though it could be an interesting visit but what really caught my eye was the boundary wall to the site made out of stacked clay tiles.

Meanwhile back at WMD HQ and specifically The Room of Gloom, some progress on My Last Great Project has been made. Slowly track is being sorted as the plans in my mind become a physical reality. However, as many railway modelers will admit, once some track is down the temptation to run some trains is overwhelming and I have to admit to doing that myself. 

A recent purchase was a Hornby Railroad Tornado with TTS sound from Bure Valley Model Railways in Norfolk. £102 bought this and it is a fantastic runner with a smooth slow running capability and a fantastic set of sounds. For the money it is simply stunning!

Something bought some time ago was this Bachmann Class66 with DCC Sound and a set of 10 Hornby Seacow wagons and a Shark break van. I have only got five of the Seacows out but the whole train looks and runs brilliantly.

I am going to have to get my mind set back into track work and you never know the layout may end up with its own Bridge to Nowhere! However, I have to admit that running the trains has been a great deal of fun and that is what a hobby is all about! 

Rain starts play!

That is right in my case - rain did start play for me. Let me explain. 

The last few weeks has been somewhat busy with other non modelling activities. At the beginning of June I had a Cataract operation which was a consequence of the treatment for my my detached retina which happened last April. My admiration and gratitude to the NHS here in the UK is overwhelming. Their care and treatment, especially at a time when covid has made things much more complex for the NHS, was superb and they saved mine as well as countless other peoples sight.

The good weather and light evenings of the last few weeks has also meant that I have spent a great deal of time continuing to landscape the garden and sort out the accumulated junk that I have horded over the past decades. Two trips to the scrap yard this week saw me take 450 kg of scrap metal to weigh in and a bewilderment as to why I had kept such junk for so long! Anyway the landscaping is done (mostly) and I now have an easier to maintain garden and hopefully something that looks better!

Hmmm! You could build a garden railway along that wall! 

Smudge the cat seems to be surveying the possibility!

One of those things that I had to do with landscaping the garden was to level off the lawn to the same level as the edging blocks that I laid. Mostly this involved lowering the lawn. If like me trying to cut a turf to a consistent depth turns out to be impossible with what emerges on the end of the spade being more cheese wedge shaped then flat bread, you will understand the problems of having to relay turfs which all have different depths to them. years ago I would have re-laid the turf and belted hell out of it with the back of the spade to get it to some resemblance of  level and then wonder why it died! As I get older such energetic activities are now beyond sensibility so with a bit of thought I created a turf cutting plank. I had an off cut of laminate flooring to which I nailed three pieces of inch and a half batten. The picture below shows it as well as the general idea of how to get consistent level turfs using an old and expendable saw riding along the top of the battens to cut off the surplus soil. You won't be using the saw for any form of woodworking again but it certainly made relaying the turfs much easier! The laminate floor is about the same width as my small spade which made cutting the turfs to the right width easy as well. Working smarter not harder as I get older! 

The good weather has now however broken and as with all UK summers the rain has arrived! This however has given me the chance to move myself into the dry of The Room of Gloom and make some progress on the Last Great Project which is my 00 gauge model railway and in effect start to play! The four segments of the baseboard are now bolted together with some M12 bolts and large penny washers to spread the load.

If I were organised or had some common sense I would have a hard copy track plan of what I was going to do. However I don't have hard copy but I do have in my mind the basic concept. As with most of my projects I know the basic concept I then work out the details as I go along. It may not be the best way but it works for me! So at the moment I have pieces of track laid out in roughly the layout I want it and it is now a case moving pieces about until the optimal layout appears. 

Apparently its going to be raining for a few days yet so rather than stop my play more progress may actually be made!

Turning my back on model making or just getting a bad back?

More about the model in the picture above in a moment. I thought I needed to start with a image of a model just to prove that this blog is mainly about model making! The model may have turned its back to me but I haven't turned my back on modelling although the back does ache! 

The lack of any posts to this blog over the last week however does mean that model making activities are on the back burner at the moment. My life at the moment appears to be centered around a major garden revamp and cycling. I am up to 1762 miles this year which is good going for me. Garden wise, its not the biggest out their but big enough for me and Mrs W's needs and still provides a shed load of work at the moment. Yesterdays escapades in involved moving 7 Yorke stone slabs about 4 foot long, one foot wide and 4 inches deep. No way of weighing them but I guess somewhere about 75 to 100 kg. Move those around for a while and no need for a gym session! The day before digging a 25 foot long, 18 inch deep trench through clay to put a power cable into the Room of Doom. There is probably another 2 to 4 weeks of work left depending on weather, what hidden problems I find and how my back stands up to it all!

Now back to the model! It is a Italeri R620 Scania Atelier that I built back in 2010. The kit was probably the start of Italeri producing various customised versions of their Scania kit. The kit is inaccurate in a number of areas including having the wrong rear hubs but as there are a lot of Scania fans in Europe it has always been a good seller despite its short comings. 

I built the kit out of the box apart from putting a couple of airlines on. The bodywork was sprayed Humbrol metallic green with silver mixed into it. The issues with the kit were that some of the decals broke up on wetting so I ended up having to make do with what stayed intact. Whilst Italeri decals are nice and thin this does mean that they are prone to breaking up when they are wetted to separate them from the backing sheet. There are solutions that you can get to cover the decal before wetting it to strengthen it but I did not expect an issue with a kit that was only a year or so old. The other issue was trying to get the pivot pins in to connect the cab to chassis. I failed! I do remember it seeming to be an impossible task and I gave up before I damaged the model. At least the cab can be lifted straight off the chassis to see the engine! 

Pictures below taking me back to 2010 when my back didn't ache as much! Oh well back to more digging but I have not turned my back on model making!