I'm nearly through the Manx photos, but had to use this one taken in the little museum (I think) beside Laxey station.
Information is a bit sparse, but I assume this is a tiny shelter from the Manx Electric Railway. The post box is a fairly typical Manx feature - there is one at Groudle Station, which I always try to remember to send a postcard from.
Both are very modelable, although that shelter looks a bit small for anything other than three people!
Of course, I never did. On my garden line, the main feature was cost, or at least lack of it. I built very basic wagons that didn't look that much like those in the book. Probably the nearest I got was building a set of wagons from Saltford Models kits, and they aren't much like those on "proper" narrow-gauge railways.
This didn't matter; those plans inspired me to have a go. I've always collected drawings and now have several boxfiles of the things. All dreams to be realised one day.
Someone is doubtless wondering why if I love plans so much, they aren't a bigger feature in modern magazines. The first, is simple. No mag can afford to pay what drawing a plan up should cost. Look at each of these. Measuring up a wagon and then creating a drawing is a couple of days work. A couple of days which should be paid at a skilled rate. There are over two weeks in the photo above.
The other reason is a bit sadder - I might look at these and dream of building a model, most people look at them and dream of buying RTR. Nothing wrong with that, but the only person who needs a plan is the one sat in front of a computer full of CAD. I did once ask someone if he'd be out with the tin snips if we published a plan for a Duchess, "Oh yes", he said. I was not convinced. Nowadays, a plan would be pored over, but only so people could find errors, real or imaginary, and pronounce on them online.
Anyway, back to the book. I've occasionally looked at copies, but the other day, one popped up on Instagram being sold by Oxfam. The price was good, as is the cause. A couple of days later it was in my hand.
Perhaps I'll get around to reading it now!
If I'm honest, Smallspace was a lot about resisting temptation this year.Even I have worked out I really don't need any more plastic kit right now. Not Space: 1999 Eagle & Hawk War Games Edition 1:72 Scale Model. Not V.I.N.cent from the Black Hole. Nor the Visible V8 kit I've wanted to build since seeing it in Model Maker magazine back in the 1980s. Although that one has been superseded by the VW Engine I built a few years ago,
Of course, I managed to add to the stash a little. Some very cheap paints from ranges I'm not that familiar with. I like trying different materials, and when they are 50p to £1 a pot, it would be daft not to experiment.
For the model boats in the future, a few 1:12 scale figures are handy. They look like characters from the TV series Dr Who, you say? Just a coincidence.
And I've not really built a vinyl figure kit, but I remember reading about them in Model Mart magazine. For a fiver, I quite fancy having a go at a 1/6th scale Dr Jones senior.
Check me out! I am full qualified to dock a Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS!
OK, a few caveats. I docked it on a simulator provided by the British Interplanetary Society. I bounced off the first time, and the controls, and the level I was working at, only allowed me to line up on the target using up/down left/right forward and back thrusters. No yaw control, that's for more advanced pilots. Mind you, I did this after 2 minutes of tuition, and only bounced off once. And that wasn't catastrophic. Not bad then, and fascinating.
Smallspace was it's usual friendly mix of modelmaking, original props and replicas, along with slightly more trade than normal. All this in a village hall.
Obviously, the car park was home to some Daleks.
"There's no railways here.", said a chap from Milton Keynes model club, but we enjoyed a good chat with one of the exhibitors over the best sci-fi spacecraft (Eagle transporters obvs) and how the genre holds a mirror up to current affairs.
Anyway, enough of this. Go and look at my photos over on Flickr.
A quick look at the Tin Bath racing that I saw on my visit, along with the skateboard racing I missed because Groudle was calling.
