Warehouse Wednesday: Glasgow Plumbers

Wandering around Glasgow a few weeks ago, I spotted this interesting, and to my mind, very modelable, plumbers yard. 

None of the buildings is remarkable, but that's no bad thing. The temptation to stick lots of unusual items, be it buildings, road vehicles, or items of rolling stock, is strong for most modellers, but needs to be resisted for a realistic scene. 

Despite the ordinary outline, modelling this requires some skill in the yard area. Lots of detail is required to bring the scene to life. There's quite a bit going on on the walls too, with both pipework and wiring to add texture to the model.

At the time, it reminded me of Iain Robinsons' sketch builders yard. Still one of my favourites.

Going quackers in May's BRM

 

I do get handed some odd projects for work. This time I found a duckpond kit handed to me, with the instruction to put it together. The result looks pretty, and could find itself used as an interesting little detail in a corner of a layout. The sort of thing normal people will get excited about, ignoring all your lovely trains!

There's also a quick platelayers hut build. A nice project for a few evenings, you get a result, without too much effort. 

 And finally, my camera has been pointed at the N gauge layout "Pothole City". 

Subscrbers will also recieve a link to our videos, my contribution being a little discussion on layout backscenes. 

NGRS haul

 

I like to play a game after a show - what would I have done differently if I'd been a millionaire? 

More often than not, the answer is "Not much", and that makes me feel good. The NRS is different though, there is soooo much temptation there. I mean, who wouldn't like to come home with a Garratt under their arm? 

As it was, I had to be fairly retrained. I've pointed out many times on here that I have more than enough projects knocking around, and don't need to add to the pile for a while. 

But, there is a Timpdon steam railmotor kit. This has been on the list since I first saw one last year. I love railcars, and this will be perfect for the club G1 layout, and anwhere where we need a quick train between the chuffers.

Strictly speaking this is a Garden Rail project, and so I'll be building and writing it up in the magazine in a couple of months time. 

A personal project is the Phil Sharples Hudswell Clarke Loco kit. This is a hangover from the last NGRS. Such an ugly loco surely has a place in my fleet. The only thing that stopped me was that Phil sold out of kits last year!

I think this is a Blog project, so watch this space, but don't hold your breath!

There are a few other goodies for the magazine too, but these will appear on the page in due course. 

National Garden Railway Show 2025

Three and a half hours work, and I'd built yet another garden at the Stoneleigh 16mm Association show. An extra three feet added to our display length allowed me a bit more flexibility with the track design. At least the 32mm gauge enjoyed some straights this time!

The trains ran pretty much flawlessly all day - working on the IP engineering coach seems to have solved the problem there. In fact, all the 32mm stuff worked well. 

On the 45mm, I tried the new Porter with some Hartland Loco works wagons, and found them less than reliable. It seems having a coupling hook on each end means they can shove each other off on the R1 curves. Should I remove the hooks? After all, they work fine on the more generous curves outside on my line. And I like the idea of two hooks for each coupling, less chance of unwanted uncoupling. 

My feeling is that the show wasn't as busy as previous years. The gaps semed to be local modellers. Everyone I talked to seemed to have travelled a distance. A friend on another stand had the same exprience. Where were the locals? 

It's a pity, because otherwise it was an excellent show. There were several layouts I'd never seen before. The trade was good too, I can't think of many who weren't there. 

Our stand was pleasently busy, with some subs sold, and lots of chat. I've, hopefully, inspired a few people to write for Garden Rail, on some very interesting topics. A fuller report will be in our June issue, complete with photos.

Saturday Film Club: This is York

All being well, I'll be spending this weekend in York, eating Yum-Yums, watching buskers, and perhaps popping in to the little model railway exhibition. So, let's enjoy some classic British Transport Films action from the days of steam.