Model Rail 166

It's out, Model Rail 166 with a super feature on New Mills thanks to some fabulous photography by Chris Nevard.....who'd expect anything else! This is their pre Model Rail Scotland edition ahead of the Glasgow show on the 24th - 26th February. Now in two halls - it's sure to be even better this year and we're looking forward to participating with New Mills. See you there!

MET Jubilee coach

Himself has returned from a weekend workparty on the FR but found time to check progress on the restoration of the Metropolitan 353 'Jubilee' steam stock coach at Boston Lodge, a commision for the LT museum ahead of their 2013 celebrations. As would be expected the FR carraige team are clearly doing a superb job!

The 1892 coach body as delivered to the FR. The oldest surviving underground passenger vehicle in the world!

A rake of Jubilee stock behind an A class 4-40 tank in the early 1900s.

GT3

The undoubted star of the Model Enginnering show at Alexandra Palace over the weekend was again the scale model of GT3, the experimental gas turbine loco from the early 1960s that was trialed on our local GC line. This 5" gauge model designed and built by Tim Coles, is 'to scale' in every sense.

Every component down to the turbine and jet unit are exact working miniatures of the original. And does it work...the test runs during the show were awesome.

The model can reach 40mph on outdoor track and has huge pulling power. Worth the entrance money alone!

The real thing on the GC. Photo courtesy of Crawley Model Engineers.

And something completely different, a full scale LMS Coronation class streamlined headlamp!

D5000

D5000 at Aylesbury on a Marylebone -Nottingham train, September 3rd 1966, the last day of main line services on the GC.  Photo courtesy of RCTS

Not actually the 5,000 diesel built for British Railways but a nice pic to illustrate a minor achievement - reaching 5,000 hits on our blog! While we are some way from catching up with sites likeYouTube (8 billion hits per year) or even our sister Bron Hebog blog which has recently topped the 46,000 mark.The Guru, Sparky, Himself and the Artistic Director thank you all for following our ramblings over the past 9 months!

Brick Lane

No excuses for returning to East London which despite constant urban renewal still offers some historical gems. Over the Christmas break I ventured up Brick Lane, heading north from Whitechapel Road beyond the curry houses to view the new Overground viaduct.

Looking north up Brick Lane. Former Bishopgate Depot overbridge abutment on left with street level tramway below.

This sweeps over Commercial Road and the site of the former Shoreditch LT East London line station in Brick Lane before dropping south under the Thames. Quite impressive but despite the wholesale demolition in this area to accomodate this new railway, parts of the original GER Bishopsgate Goods Depot remain underneath!

Street level tramway entrance off Brick Lane. Presumably huge quantities of grain were delivered to the former Trumans Brewery in Brick Lane from this yard.

Peep through gaps in the wooden gates that block the lower level entrance into the depot off Brick Lane and you can still see some of the original street level tramway, originally accessed via two wagon hoists from the open yard above. I guess that as you are now standing nearer Bethnal Green rather than trendy Spitalfields, progress as they call it runs at a slower pace! 

Tramway tracks still in situ!

The north side of the former Bishopsgate Depot with new viaduct alongside.

Bolstering our bogies

Ahead of the Wigan Show in December we applied steel loads to one of our rakes of bogie bolsters. Nothing too complicated, simply lengths of Evergreen H section plastic cut to fit, sprayed initially with Halfords acrylic grey primer and then treated with the usual palette of Humbrol matt black, leather and white via an Iwata airbrush to capture that very slight weathering that new steel quickly sports when it is open to the elements. No further finishing required other than a spot of glue to secure them to the wagon cross beams. Plastic strip such as this can be fairly greasy so give it a rub down with a brush and soapy water before applying the primer. This will avoid a bubbly finish! And don't forget to trim and file down the girder ends if you have used hand cutters or a file to cut the lengths.

The end result was a business like rake of 8 bolsters for our down line freight services. A quick project but very effective.

MODEL RAIL165 February issue

The current February issue of Model Rail includes a tantalising glimpse of Chris Nevard's brilliant photoshoot of New Mills on the inside of the back cover where they herald the contents of the March issue, the annual Model Rail Scotland Exhibition special edition which includes our layout. Just 50 days to go to the show!

Happy New Year

Photo coutesy of Steve Gibbons

Happy New Year to all our followers. See you in 2012 perhaps at Model Rail Scotland (New Mills), Narrow Gauge South (Bron Hebog), RAILEX (Bron Hebog) or Manchester show (New Mills)