Saturday Film Club: 1975: MODEL RAILWAYS - All You Need to Know

Running model trains on a carpet for the benefit of a video camera? It will never catch on...

Off to the NGRS today

 

Today, it's my time to load up a van with plants, earth and stones - take the whole lot to Stoneleigh park, and make a garden railway with it. 

Yes, it's time for the National Garden Railway show.  

Please come along, say hello, and enjoy some large-scale railway action.  

Standing behind the Berlingo, realising why I do this

 

At the last MOT, we picked up an advisory for one of the numberplate lights not working. The Berlingo has two, which is why we scraped through. But, it needed to be fixed, and last weekend was the time to do it. 

According to Haynes, you have to take the cover over the top of the plate to do this. I have replaced a bulb before now, and was sure I hadn't bothered with all this. Could I remember how? 

Half an hour of poking and prodding later, I'd extracted the holder, but it won't pull out without removing any significant parts. I started to remove the inside panel, but broke two clips, so stopped that. 

Then I looked back on this blog, and the answer is here. 

Put a small screwdriver into the hole in the side, lever the top towards the light bulb, and it pops straight out. At least it did for me, on both covers. Once I remembered that, the job took around 5 minutes, and I replaced both bulbs with nice LED versions. 

Thanks you past Phil. I should pay more attention to you.  

Warehouse Wednesday: A view from the USA

A friend is on a trip to New York, and among the pictures of the view, and Statue of Liberty, there was this cracking shot. 

At first glance, there is nothing special about it, but that's what makes it so interesting, to me at least. Everything in this photo is American. The building with exposed fire escape on the front. The USPS van - I tried to identify the make, but can't work it out. 

My point is that you can't take an American building kit and plonk it on the UK layout. You'll need to do a fair bit of work first, but then that's all part of the fun isn't it? 

Brian gets his loco

 

Now I've fitted the radio control, there was only one job left to do on this loco - fit the correct nameplates. 

As far as I can work out, this was the last loco kit, and possibly the last kit, my father, Brian, ever bought. As expected, I built it, and even managed to show him some photos, which he liked, a few days before he passed away. Obviously, there was only one name it could have. 

Boot Lane Works provided the new plates. Dad always liked them, and their products, probably why he bought this odd-looking loco. 

Anyway, knowing who they were for, Andrew added a little extra detail to the 3D printed design, and handed them over at a show. 

All I had to do was paint. No problem. Whack some brass colour enamel on. Let it dry. Splosh red over it, and wipe the faces clean. 

Which is what I did. But metalics don't behave like normal paint, they don't dry hard in the same way. So, when I wiped, most of the brass came off as well. I let the red dry, and touched in the brass. And then touched in the red. And the brass. And the red. Until I was happy. 

The old plates, which had been attached with Glue'n'glaze peeled off easily enough, but left glue marks. I got these off, mostly, with damp cotton buds and bits of wood to scrape with. I wasn't happy though. To cut a long story short, the sides of the tanks have been resprayed. 

But, the new plates are on, and look great. Little Brian has been installed on the footplate, read to pull the coaches big Brian built a few years ago.