Girder making!

Work on my bridge section for my 00 gauge layout continues but first a brief test to make sure that it fits where it should.

It does but the underside is far to sparse in detail!

I will sort that out by constructing the various girders that hold up something like this. First off, strips to make the girders were cut from a sheet of plastic card.

These were then glued into H sections.

Four of these are required and they will need to be cut to length once the glue fully hardens.

A new steam engine at the Museum!

A new steam engine at the Museum! Now that was something I had not been expecting. However, the reality of the news was a little different to my imagined scene especially as I went into the cafe to be greeted by this smiling face!

Yes, Thomas the Tank Engine has now become part of the Museum!

A very kind donation to the Museum, he is, at the moment, ironically, our only working steam loco! Feed a £1 coin into the slot in the cab and he will take you off on a ride to nowhere whilst playing the Thomas theme which should delight the cafe volunteers after the tenth time they hear that in an hour!

Walking out of the cafe to the restoration shed I was also shocked to see that things had been moved!

Steam loco Barrington has now been moved into the shed for a cosmetic repaint. Elizabeth, the next in line, is still much as she was five years ago.  After that, 1931 is still being worked on for its boiler retube.  The Southern brake van is more or less where it was before the move and Ketton No.1 is now at the back of the line or is that the front of the shed? Anyway, it is at the opposite end to where it was last week!

Things are certainly, well, tight in the shed with just enough room at each end to get round. It was noted by one volunteer that every time that you needed to get to the other side of a piece of rolling stock you had to walk round the whole shed rather than cut through between the items which was the case before they all became buffered up. My suggestion for a limbo dancing competition under the buffers did not go down well! Note to self, keep quiet in the future!

With little room left in the shed I found a group of volunteers trying to make sense of the gantry crane that was erected last week for the impending lift of the tank from 1931. Either that, or they were trying to work out how to string me up after the limbo dancing idea!

At this point I thought I had better retreat to the safety of grass cutting duties but the mower had othr ideas as it continues to taunt me! This time the linkage to the airflap in the carburetor  decided to come undone! It took a while to figure out what the issue was but a quick fix once discovered. The mower however got little use as I took action on some overhanging vegetation near the entrance with my usual vegetational butchery!

That should make it easier for any double decker buses to get in like the one at the Bank Holiday event!

Changing the plan and unfortunately proving my own point!!

It is one of those things that happens - well, to me anyway! You work out a plan of how to do something and then as you get into the project a better plan becomes apparent - usually at a point that means you have to undo some of what is already done! Well, that is the case with the bridge section I am constructing for my layout that I posted about yesterday. One side will be supported by the already constructed wall section hiding the hidden loops that I built a few weeks ago, but I really had not given much thought to the other side on the very edge of the baseboard. Having built the main box section of the bridge it became apparent that the best way to support it was to actually build it as part of the box. This meant that I had to cut the end off one end of the box so that the end support could be glued in as a structural part of the box.

Luckily, with a sharp new blade in my modelling knife, the end was sliced off fairly easily. It was then a case of constructing the support from two pieces of card covered with brick paper and gluing that in place.

Now you may notice the clamps on the box section. You may also recall that I talked about and even made a YouTube video about the issues that can be created by building a sealed box of air and how expansion in heat can burst glue joints. Well, I proved myself right in that I have not yet drilled a hole or holes into the bottom of the box. I was waiting to place some girders on the underside and wanted to see where they went so they did not cover any holes I had drilled. Whilst painting the top and bottom surfaces in grey primer I did that outside. Leaving the box to dry the sun came out and the box was in a nice sheltered sun drenched spot. After half an hour I retrieved the box to find that the joint on one side had been burst apart! My own fault but it proves a point!

Covering up modern art!

With the glue set on the braced section for my Last Great Project layout that I posted about a couple of days ago, it was time to add the top which would cover Woody's attempt at modern art! 

A simple enough task with lots of glue on the surfaces and then the precut top of mounting card was added. To ensure that everything remained level and that the various glued surfaces stayed together, a handy tub full of weighty screws was placed on top which kept everything together.

With the glue set I added a coat of grey primer to the outer surfaces to seal them.

Just need to let that dry as I contemplate the end of my Modern Art career!

Are model railways a good investment?

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week there were a number of items purchased at the Sleaford Model Railway Show that Mrs. Woody never knew she needed but if she doesn't want them then I know someone who does! Me!

Anyway, I am building up a rake of ironstone hoppers as although I volunteer at the Rocks By Rail Museum, shunt ironstone hoppers on quarry event days and have a Hornby model of the Sentinel locomotive Graham I don't actually have any model hoppers! That's changing, I got one at the Stamford show and by rummaging through the boxes under a traders stand at Sleaford I found another four plus a few other bits!

Now the two Dapol wagons in the blue boxes date from around 2010.

This Mainline one is from around the early to mid 1980s.

Finally this Dapol one is from around the mid 90s.

Now what is interesting is that the box still has the original price of 95 pence on it and the now second hand price of £7.50. Using the delights of the internet, 95 pence in 1995 is now, taking inflation into account, worth £2.33 which means that the current value of the wagon has out stripped inflation by over 300%. Now that is a good investment! However, Mrs. W fails to see sense in my foolproof plan to  invest all our money in model railways! Oh well!

Whilst rummaging in the boxes I also found some DVDs which at a £1 each were a bargain!

All in all, with a discount from the trader - thanks Chris, I walked away with all these items for £35! Now that is a good investment in my mind!

Is it modern art?

 

Yes, it may well look as though Woody has taken up some form of modern art creation but it is actually the base to a bridge section on my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout. It will span the tracks over the station area and will carry a road as well as having some sort of station building on it so it has to look as though it is substantial in construction. In essence I am creating a box and as it involves a top and bottom surfaces that have space between them then it needs bracing to support the flat surfaces hence the various diagonals! Once the glue dries the top will be glued on and the space between sealed. However you do need to allow for the expansion of the air trapped inside the box so I have drilled some small holes between the various spaces. It is all explained in this YouTube video but I doubt if this will make the World of Modern Art sit up!

Sleaford Model Railway Show 2025

Yesterday I took Mrs. Woody to a model railway show that she didn't know she wanted to go to! The Sleaford Model Railway Club have an annual day where they exhibit members layouts. It is not the biggest show but there is always something of interest to see and like the recent show at Stamford there was a genre of layout I had never seen in the flesh before which was this Australian based layout Bluegum Hill.

An N gauge layout depicting the switch back railway at Lithgow in New South Wales not as I initially thought somewhere in the USA! Google AI tells me that 'The Zig Zag Railway in Lithgow, New South Wales, is an Australian heritage railway that utilizes a switchback (or zig-zag) design to climb the western escarpment of the Blue Mountains. This railway, which was operational between 1869 and 1910, was reopened as a volunteer-run heritage railway in 1975, using the original alignment. The Zig Zag Railway allows visitors to experience a historic rail journey and enjoy the scenic views of the Blue Mountains.'

Talking with the builder it emerged that whilst the layout is based on the real location it is not a direct copy but an interpretation. The biggest problem is finding n gauge Australian rolling stock as most commercially available equipment is to H0 scale. However, the delights of 2D printing are making life easier as this railcar is created using such methods running on a commercially available chassis.

Moving up to 00gauge this rather neat and small layout based on Sandside Quarry in Cumbria caught my eye with some great detail.

Probably the layout I liked most was this 00 gauge creation called Drabford!

Its builder had created a very detailed and period specific model. This was very much based in the 1980s and the Plaza Cinema is showing Jaws 2!

Many of the shops had interiors fitted.

The trains were also very 80's - lovely!!!

As you would expect of members layouts, many were modest in size but well build including this 009 gauge layout called Porthllechen.

You just have to love what I believe to be a Clyde Chuffer!

This was probably the smallest layout at the show but well detailed.

Very slightly larger was this.

And finally this four foot long model of the stores and workshops near a colliery - very nicely done.

A pleasant few hours and lots of chatting plus I bought some things that Mrs. W never knew she needed but more on that another time!

Lack of rain!

I bike ride to the local canal revealed that the water has almost fully dried up despite the recent rain. 

Talking to a member of the Canal trust it does appear that despite the recent lane and a small leak further upstream, the lack of rain overall this year has meant that there is a shortage in the canal. Have to see how things go as the Summer arrives.

Back in the depths of the Man Cave at WMD HQ, more ballasting work has taken place. Not the quickest of jobs but very therapeutic! Wonder if I will finish it before the canal fills back up?

Brakes oiff on the brake van retsoration!

This rather natty gantry crane has appeared outside the restoration shed at the Rocks by Rail Museum,

It is going to come in very handy when the tank over the boiler of 1931, the steam engine in for retubing, has to be lifted clear and John says we are close to that point now as he uses yet another hammer to loosen some parts!

Meanwhile, following the completion of the trackwork over the Winter its brakes off for the restoration of the Southern brake van. John, Hazel, Richard and Thomas were busy with whatever is needed to make this a thing of beauty again! I think it may take a while though!

My mowing duties were plagued by yet more mower issues with a crack in the deck of the mower. To stop that spreading I drilled a hole in the end of the crack which hopefully will stop it spreading any further!

After that, it was full on vegetational butchery with both mower and hedge trimmer to try to bring back some order to nature! I think nature will eventually win though!

The before.

The after.

Whilst I was at the quarry end of the site I tried taking this photo of the drag line. I don't think it will win any prizes but I like it!

Finally, on the way home up the A1 road, there was a backlog of traffic which I thought was down to a tractor. I was wrong! Never seen one of these in the UK, but this guy was being somewhat brave in traveling along a 70mph road in a tuc tuc! Just hope he didn'y have far to go!