Autumn Thoughts

 It has been an odd Summer, hasn't it? What has struck me is how busy I seem to have been despite lockdown. so much so that when I took a couple of weeks off at the end of September I more or less collapsed in a heap for the first seven days, before filling the second half of the "holiday" with some of the much need chores around the garden. One of the biggest was getting round to painting the outside of the studio. At some distant point in time this is scheduled to be the terminus of the ELR, so painting it a decidedly none railway colour was a big decision. Other factors swayed the choice, and it has certainly done a good job of visually shrinking the building so it is less obtrusive.

Being unobtrusive is also one of the aims of the initial 7/8ths line. I'm sufficiently happy with the proof of concept that I'll be bedding it in as a semi-permanent line over the rest of Autumn. I've nothing specific in mind but I'm also allowing for potential extensions at either end.  I was hoping to finish off the 7/8ths rolling stock whilst I was off work, but with the black dog yapping at my heels it was as much as I could do to get the roof on the gunpowder wagon. Again massive thanks to Bole Lasercraft for providing the replacement roof. It really is a lovely kit.

You might have noticed the slightly smaller rolling stock in front of it. It is one of several key purchases that I bought last year but have only recently been delivered. It is a Busch HOf set, destined to have a Narrow Planet 6point5 body on the loco.  I've three possible layouts in mind for it. The original intention was to provide the railway element of the Scalescenes wharfside boxfile layout, and that is still top priority. The second is a variation on a well known 009 rabbit warren layout which I think could work really well given the magnet aided adhesion and the possibility of hiding an absurd gradient in a tunnel. The third option is another variation on the Cadeby theme but modelled in  TTn2.

That would, of course, mean scratch-building or 3d printing some stock. And oddly that brings me to another recent delivery of something bought last year... but more of that in a later post.