Progress

Not mine, which is as glacial as ever, but progess in the world of 16mm narrow gauge railways.

Here is my first new 16mm live steam loco for over thirty years. An Accurcaft GVT loco commisioned in conjunction with Anything Narrow Gauge and made in China.

I haven't steamed it yet, and my out of the box impression is that is rather nice, apart from the usual abomination of having a hard to ignore pressure gauge facing forward in the cab. At least being a tram loco forwards actually means backwards when running. The lining is a little OTT as well.

Here, in total contrast, is my very first 16mm loco, a Merlin/Beck Midas  hauling a GVT coach buit from the old Association GVT coach "kit" on a Mamod chassis.

Possibly a fairer comparison is with the Gosling GVT loco that I lusted after as a schoolboy.

Treemendous

Trees are funny things. Except when they are a little bit scary or spooky. 

Or Ents. I can't imagine an Ent telling a  joke, and if they did the punchline would be a long time coming.

This twisted example is to be found high up on the Burren and I took the photo on a particularly brutal day off from cycling around County Clare and missing evidence of the West Clare.

What has really made me think about trees is first of all the recent excellent BBC documentary on a year in the life of an oak tree  This includes some incredible statistics and should be a must see for anyone contemplating realistic trees. DId you know they have 700,000 leaves?

The other thing is watching our new garden as Autumn approaches. There is a point where we seem to lose the ability to look at individual trees. One tree, two trees... four trees, five trees....lots of trees.

I actually still haven't counted how many trees we now have under our care, but as they begin to change colour I'm finding it easier to pick out individual specimens,  I could stand and look at them for hours,

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

There was a time in my life when I moved house on a regular basis and took it in my stride. So I've been bit taken a back by how stressful I've found this latest move, particularly since the move itself went without a hitch and we both adore living here.  Sometimes though even good changes generate stress. That is especially the case when one change sets in motion a domino effect in many aspects of life, which is what seems to be happening now.

To give just two apparently trivial examples, having moved somewhere flat I've exchanged one of my bikes, an old and much loved 21 gear hybrid, for a single-speed bike in a rather fetching shade of electric blue. It is radically altering my how approach to cycling and I'm loving every minute I spend riding it. The catch is that because of all the other pulls on my time I'm struggling to find the time to put in the miles I want to.

The same applies to photography. To be honest I've never been the most successful landscape photographer but even so I've been really struggling to get to grips with Fenland. It isn't that the scenery is unattractive and boring, far from it, but somehow I can't yet capture the images  that my mind is seeing.

On the bright side I get to practice  taking lots of sunset photos whilst leaning on the garden fence, and there are some great agricultural buildings around.

Meanwhile on the railway front I'm still focussed on the garden but after over tens years with hardly any garden at all I'm struggling to work out how to fit things in. I've worked out a location for the 16mm test track but it isn't a long term solution.

The 7 1/4" gauge line also needs a lot of thought, trying to balance avoiding it being too public or intruding on the garden too much whilst also doing a useful job of work.

New Beginnings

So the house move is completed. The dogs are having the time of their lives, as is one of the cats, though the other one is less certain, and the cycling is a dream.

And track laying has begun.....

End of the Line

So the long awaited house move is finally happening on Monday. 

The upside is obviously the prospect of a 7 1/4" gauge line at long last.

The downside is the short-term lack of space until I get a workshop built, and that means a hard decision had to be made.

Apa is no more 

Typically it was only after consigning it to the bin that I realised the last train photo was taken with the Sentinel's body sat skewiff. 

I did strip the layout of all the reusable things I could beforehand, although I'm not confident they will survive the move and an extended time in storage.

It had served the purpose for which it was built, and I'm looking forward to the next iteration

 

Modelling Narrow Gauge Railways in Small Scales

I got home from a rather wet day gricing Listers and their like at Lamport Hall  to discover my Amazon pre-order of Chris Ford's new book had arrived.

That's quite impressive considering Amazon aren't even showing it as being released yet.

So far I've only had a chance to skim through it but first impressions are of an excellent guide that takes you through pretty much everything you need to know to build your first OO9 layout, or, for that matter, your first layout in most scales, I particularly liked how balanced the content seemed with no undue emphasis on any one aspect. and also how it dives straight in to projects that presume the reader is going to build things for themselves.

I could see a definite opening for a similar approach to a book on finescale standard gauge modelling.

Well worth a more detailed read..

A Lucky Find

With the house move on the horizon I decided it was time to visit some of the local museums that I've not got around to going to nearly ten years.

The first, and most relevant here, is the Electric Railway Museum.

I never have worked out why it is located next to Coventry Airport rather than somewhere with strong historic links to electric railway. It also only opens sporadically, but fortunately last Saturday was one of their access days.

If this sounds familiar it is because Phil Parker, another local, also only fairly recently managed to make the same visit.

So there isn't much I can add to his observations. Except that in the on board shop I found an October 1959 Railway Modeller.

And in the back of it was this advert for my father's old shop.

Not only that but it also had a fascinating article by P.D. Hancock on building the trams for Craig, and by Doris Stokes on shop window displays.

More photos here and since it was only next door I also popped into the Midlands Air Museum.