After 8

Time for my 8th annual review of last years model making and blogging activity. Looking back at last year's posting, I see that the 3mm scale Class 25 has spent yet another year in its box making it 2 years hidden away. The shame.

Kicking off with the stats:

• 365 posts - Yay, one a day!
• 377 visitors a day with most looking at more than one page it seems, an average 602 viewed per day.
• Returning visitors have hit 100 a day over the year, we've been running at over this figure since September. That's a lot of people pleased to find regular new content.
• That makes a total of roughly 140,000 visits or 220,000 pages viewed.
• Most readers are from the UK, followed by the USA, Australia, Canada and Germany.

One highlight of the year was when I quit the exhibition circuit. That didn't go quite as planned, I still attended another 5 events as an exhibitor and will continue to do so it appears. Please stop telling me I promised to stay outside the barriers. It ain't going to happen it seems.

Looking at the projects, we start with the good news that after at least 2 years gestation, I built the Brede Lifeboat!

Well, sort of. I mean I built enough of it to appear in print but there's still quite a bit of detailing to go. Looks good on the water though.

Most of the year seems to have been taken up with O gauge modelling in the form of Clayhanger Yard.

This minimum space 7mm layout was based on the idea that we'd soon all be owners of a Dapol 08 shunter and looking for somewhere suitable to run it. The layout was built but there's still no sign of the shunter...

Not to worry, I built an LNER Y6 tram loco and am very pleased with it. At least this one hasn't appeared as a RTR model yet, unlike my still unfinished Fowler diesel now available from Ixion models, albeit in copper-capped GWR form rather than the superior LMS variant I'm building.

The Garratts still haven't progressed - something both embarrassing and annoying to me. Hopefully this year...

Of course the big change has been my move from Hornby Magazine to British Railway Modelling. This has resulted in an increase in modelling output, although not all of it blogable. Currently, the new OO layout "Edgeworth" is occupying much of my time and modelling space and since this is the topic of a series of suplements to the magazine, I won't bore you with it here as well. Well, maybe occasionally.

I've popped out a good few interesting projects over the last year for print, starter locos kits, beach scenes, Clyde Puffers, far too many to list. Being able to earn a living doing something that I enjoy is a privilege although perhaps not always the panacea it might appear. After all, sometimes things don't go as planned and that seems to be when the deadlines are tightest!

In addition, my latest bookazine, "Modelling British Railway Diesel Locomotives" hit the shelves in October and is still available if you haven't got a copy yet. As a freelance worker, it's a good idea to try and spread your portfolio just in case one of the publications disappears - not something likely to happen to any of those I've worked for for a long while but better safe than sorry.

So, 2014 - well, there are still Garratts to build, a RTR Garratt to await. I'll be appearing at the BRM shows and possibly one or two more far-flung events too. Can't say much about this until everything is confirmed but it's a goodie.

There will be more publishing. My flatplans run into the March and April issues of magazine and I have a few other projects on the go to take up my time. You won't be short of readable Phil stuff assuming all goes according to plan!

My own modelling will hopefully include some boat and railway stuff. I've already got one project on the go that was a Phil/blog job and became a magazine piece. I'll be digging out a few goodies from the kit stash though as I need a little break from things with deadlines. A Christmas present canal tugboat should make a nice model ideal for casual sailing.

So the plan is - more of the same. Hopefully you've enjoyed my blogging from the last 12 months. Sorry that it hasn't always been full of exciting etched brass wrangling or hard-edged high-end model making. I'm going to try to carry on the daily posts, so please come back and see what I've been up to. Thanks for reading.