Something special?

When Mrs. Woody and me went to Stapleford Park on Saturday I casually mentioned the trade stand selling model railway stuff and how some of that came home with me. Well I must admit Mrs. Woody choose one item which I may have perhaps dismissed but she obviously has an eye for the unusual and interesting and for a bargain price. 

It is obvious from the condition of the box and the packaging around the loco that this model has been kept in its box. Getting it out revealed it is more mint than a family packet of tictacs!

It is painted in a royal purple and carries the crown so obviously is not a model of a real locomotive. A bit of internet research finds it a Hornby Collector Club model and was issued in 2006 to celebrate the Queen's 80th birthday. I have no doubt that it has spent much of the last 16 years in its box but I will be getting round to run it soon. It is not particularly special as a model or sought after by model railway collectors but I like it and if Mrs. Woody likes it as well that makes it all the more special to me!

Stapleford Park Miniature Railway Miniatures and Models Weekend June 2022 Part 2

Having gone through the model side of the displays it was time for a ride on the train. The Park has a long history but in recent times it was a rival to Longleat with Lions kept in the grounds! You can read the history here. 

It also had an episode of the Avengers filmed there in the 1960s when Emma Peel was tied to the tracks to be driven over by a loco but Steed managed to rescue her in time. Don't believe it? Here is the proof.... 

or if you want to watch the episode click here and the train bit is at about 46 minutes in.

Lots of trains running and as one came in the next went out. About a 15 minute ride for £3 - great value! The driver really opened up the regulator as well so it felt like a high speed train with sitting so low!

Although mainly steam locos there are some diesels.

I could put a load of photos taken along the route but what better than a bit of video to give a better idea of this wonderful line....

Stapleford Park Miniature Railway Miniatures and Models Weekend June 2022 Part 1

Somewhere that I have not been to since 2008 but longed to see again is Stapleford Park Miniature Railway and this weekend it is their Miniatures and Models Weekend. I had a great time and Mrs. Woody did as well I think, as she got an ice cream, although due to my deep pockets and short arms she did have to pay for it although no doubt I will pay in the long run!

I will talk about the railway tomorrow as there was a lot to see. You knew it was going to be interesting as we got out of the car and this went by....

There was a marque with some fantastic models in it which must have taken the builders hours and hours to make.

Outside there were plenty of miniature steam and traction engines and even a tractor or two, some with registration plates so road legal although you would not get anywhere fast and it would take a few hours to steam up just to go to the shops! However just imagine the fun it would be.

There was even a brass band playing!

In addition to all of the above and the railway which I will talk about tomorrow there were trade stalls and unfortunately one of them had some interesting  model railway items some of which I now have! Oh dear! Something else I will be paying for now!

Alternative ways of doing things.

Sometimes you need an alternative way of doing things. In my case the Egyptian T34 tank kit is still causing me grief with all of its photo etched brass parts. At the moment I am attaching the various grab and tie down handles which all are in etched brass and tiny. They are testing both my eyesight and actually handle them is a test of tweezer manipulation. I was attaching one of the tie down handles for the snow cleats that are fastened to the tracks when the tank operates in winter conditions. Quiet why an Egyptian tank would carry these in a desert terrain is something I will need to research but in the meantime I am assuming even if they did not carry the cleats the tie down handles would still be in place. Anyway, whilst attaching the second tie down handle is shot out of the grip of the tweezers and disappeared without trace. There are no spares so I had to resort to an alternative way of doing things. I did try bending some very small plastic rod into a handle shape but the rod was too fragile to bend and broke. Luckily I had some thin brass wire so that was my alternative way of doing this. With the aid of pliers a near replacement was bent up and as it was somewhat easier to manipulate than the etched brass version I made the further four required. They don't look pretty (and I am not doing a close in photo for that reason!) but neither do the etched brass versions. What I have to remember is at the moment they stand out as they are in brass and once painted they will look better. Also in real life a 20 year old tank would not been in pristine condition and things like grab and tie down handles would be bent and misshapen from years of use and lack of maintenance. That is my excuse anyway!

It's been chipped!

About 7 or 8 years ago I was at the Spalding Model Railway Exhibition and bought a second hand Lima Class 37 in Railfreight livery for no other reasons than I like Class 37s, I liked the livery and it was £27.50! It ran but as with most Lima models of the era it benefitted from some additional pickups that I fitted. It ran OK but has never been brilliant.

It has not seen much action recently so I thought that I would DCC chip it with a second hand DCC decoder I bought last year and see if it improved running.

I unsoldered the existing wiring to the motor.

It was then time to solder in new wiring and the decoder. I did need to reacquaint myself with the various colour coding of the wiring and its eventual location but all seemed to go well. I did also remember to install heat shrink over the joints to stop any short circuits that would probably blow the DCC chip. I tend to use the shank of the soldering iron to heat the heat shrink which gives it enough heat to shrink rather than potentially burning through it if you use the tip of the iron.

The spare wires on the decoder which can control lights were wrapped with insulation tape to stop them shorting out.

Before finalising the wiring I tested the decoder which thankfully worked!

Wiring was then tidied up.

On the track it was soon hauling a freight train and ran reasonably well - certainly better than before - Result!!! Not had for £27.50 and £20 for the DCC chip!

Just needs some weathering - a job for another time.

Its happened!

I have over the last few months taken note of the price of fuel at a local service station whilst out on my bike rides. Back on the 7th March I posted my first blog (available here ) featuring the price totem and the picture showing it was this one.  

Wind forward three months almost to the day and the same totem shows the price today including the 5p per liter duty tax cut as....

The £2 per litre has now happened! For those of a certain age petrol is now about £9 a gallon! Good job my bike runs on human pedal power! I couldn't afford to fuel my daily ride out at these prices!

Lots of visitors and x plus one!

My arrival at Rocks by Rail this morning saw me shocked by the 20 plus cars in the car park at just after 10am.

Once in the site I found out that the local U3A were visiting us. When I first heard my mother in law was joining the U3A I thought it was some strange cult or group but in fact I need not have worried as it is the University of the 3rd Age. They enjoyed their visit and the cafe did good business in bacon cobs, drinks and cake. My food intake however had to wait until lunchtime and to while away the hours to that I walked about 6  miles with the mower ahead of me - yes more grass cutting. Will it ever stop growing!

As I settled into a post lunch further grass cut a local bike building company, J Laverack, arrived to take some publicity photos using the museum as a backdrop. As a long time ex racer and still cyclist I had to have a chat with the guys and bore them to death with my tales of years ago! Anyway I was impressed by the bike they brought to photograph and if you are interested in their products they have a website here. and the photos from today will be on their Facebook page available here. 

Wonder what Mrs. Woody would say to a new arrival to the fleet - as the old saying goes the ideal number of bikes to have is x plus one where x is the current number of bikes owned! Does look nice!

Well after finishing all that grass cutting I was shattered and glad to get home where Mrs. Woody was aleready home and cooked dinner - Nice! 

A strapping time!

As I highlighted in yesterdays post I suspected I would be in for more eye testing times with mounting the external fuel tanks to the cradles on the hull of the Egyptian T34 tank. I was right with that! Not often I am right according to Mrs. Woody but in this case I was. I had to construct the straps from two parts of etched brass parts.

The small rectangle is bent around the triangular part giving a reinforcing part to the strap. Once this was done the strap has to be glued to the cradle and then the external fuel tank put in place.

Once everything is set in place the straps are then bent around the fuel tank and glued to the top of the cradle. Simple if it all goes well and to be fair it went reasonably well for me - most unusual!

It all looks very impressive and there is one more tank to do on the other side so that will probably be my next job. In the meantime I will rest my eyes!

Eye sight test!

What a wet, cold and miserable day despite the Jubilee! A day for curling up and watching TV under a blanket. However I did find enough get up and go to extract myself from the comfort of the sofa and made a little more progress on the Egyptian T34 tank. The rest of the main wheels are finished and the eye sight test job of more photo etched parts on the external fuel tanks complete. This involved bending up carrying handles. Talk about eye sigh strain! 

Well I must be getting better at this sort of thing as all six handles for the three tanks were done in under an hour with no swear jar contributions having to be made and using just some tweezers to hold and fold the parts. 

I guess the next stage will be to mount them to the cradles which I know involves more photo etched parts - nice! I will look forward to further eye sight testing capers in the near future but in the meantime a little more progress.

Flaming June!

Well one of the worst weather wise starts to the supposed warm period - that is Flaming June for you! Very cold on this mornings bike ride and looking at the forecast for tomorrow looks like a somewhat cold and wet day that will preclude any bike ride! In fact it was that cold today Mrs. Woody even put the heating on for a while and we both ended up watching a few films on TV. 

I did however manage to extract myself from the sofa long enough to put together a few wheels for the Egyptian T34 tank. I really like the detail on these and they do look good - although I need to clean off the plastic dust created when I sanded the parts smooth. That is the problem of digital photography - it shows all the detail including that which you do not want to see!