Garden Rail 289

September's Garden Rail doesn't open with a layout, we kick off with building a steam engine out of Roundhouse components. Steve Howard is taking us through some of the rolling stock for his excellent Hambledon Valley Railway. Many will have seen this 16mm line operating at "normal" shows and it's truly impressive. All the locos run at scale speeds and look like proper, dirty engines.

We do have a layout, the Seahaven Railway, a simple line but the sort of thing many can find space for in their gardens. It shares it's plot with a 7 1/4 railway and some entertaining RC rock crawling track too.

Then it's back to construction with a G1 BIL, 16mm Corris brake, 3D printer Terrier and a camera wagon among other delights for readers.

Buy Garden Rail 289.

Manx Aviation and military musem

Down beside Ronaldsway airport, is the Manx Aviation and Military Museum.  

Housed in a couple of large and interconnected Nissen huts, at first glance the place doesn't look that big, but once inside, Tardis-like, there's loads to see. 

Now, I'll admit that military stuff leaves me cold. Worse, there is a lot of WW1 detail and that I really don't like. The number of memorial plaques in cabinets attests to the pointless slaughter of this conflict and all the time I'm thinking that if I'd been born a hundred years ago, that would have been me. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but admiration for those involved at the sharp end and the exhibits are well staged. It's just that I feel uncomfortable. 

Elsewhere, there is a nice civil airlines display which appealed far more as my first flight was with  Manx Airlines in the days when you got fed in the 45-minute flight. They cover other airlines that have served the island too. 

Some of the display is given over to RAF training, the north of the island carried out a lot of this as the area was considered safe from German aircraft. Not safe for the crews themselves though as the first thing you see is a map showing crash sights. I know how low the cloud can get and sadly a lot of pilots didn't find out about the mountains until the bumped into them. 

In one section there is a restored Bofors gun on its carrier and the information on its history and restoration is interesting and impressive. 

Overall, if military stuff is your bag, then this is an excellent museum and well worth a visit. It's free to go in and even has a shop selling a really wide range of aircraft plastic kits. 

Details from the Visit Isle of Man website. 

Saturday film club: Behind the scenes on Space 1999

Since I'm building a prop from Space 1999, it seemed appropriate to have a quick look to see if there was anything on YouTube covering the special effects. This first film is interesting showing how basic a the "in camera" shooting techniques were, and how effective the results.

Mind you, how long is it since you could "buy a kit for a pound"!

Interesting that there were many railway models in there. The girder bridge? Sounds Airfix to me.

There's also this film, which I've shown before, but it's worth a second look.

Social history

While my model of The Hellingly Hospital Railway might be retired from the exhibition circuit due to my lack of time to be a "proper" exhibitor, I'm still interested in the history of the line. There keep being little surprises along the way and it is a fascinating subject.

The latest "news" is that the hospital had a football team. I find this from the November 1955 issue of Lewes FC News - bought via eBay for a couple of quid.

Unsurprisingly, the hospital didn't have many people to chose from when picking a team. I'm assuming the list was limited to staff, inmates being ineligible to play.

Despite this, playing in Red and White, they beat both Burwash and Hastings Civil Service. Well done lads!

Huts and holes in BRM

It's the skills issue of BRM this month, so a couple of slightly different articles from the norm.

Soldering is one of those things that scares people and especially structural solder - that is making things rather than just joining up bits of wire.

I've tried to de-mystify the process of building an etched kit by using a simple shed from Roxey Mouldings as a test piece. At a fiver, it's disposable enough, but if you look at many sheds, the end result doesn't have to be well made to look right.

Then I look at the job of making holes. Not just holes in models, and not just with drills, although of course we cover both in the piece.

Awngate by Michael Campbell is featured and makes use of a set of photos I took a few months ago at the lancing show. Not a big layout, bagginenough interesting shots was a challenge, but I'm pleased with the results on the page. It's nice to spread my wings a little doing this sort of thing. 

Nothing on the DVD from me this month, but digital readers get an "extra" where I look at bending bars to supplement the etched article.

BRM September 2018.