009- not a bus but a Manning Wardle on a bridge!

A river will pass under the bridges, one on the main line and the other leading to the Engine shed.

The plan is to have a watermill between the bridges to which end I have received a water wheel and sluice gate from Derails amongst other things.

The resin cast bridges were purchased at the Alton show earlier this year and will be mounted as shown.

At least my initial plan has worked in that Wizard and Witch will both negotiate the main line and run round loop. They won't however work the canal siding, that being the reserve of Tram loco's.

009 new layout deciding on scenics.

I have reached the point of having to decide on what scenes will be shown on the new layout.

I really want this to be Cornish based so a large portion of modellers licence will be needed.

Firstly the front drop board will have a canal loading dock. The canal barge looks huge in comparison but the other example looks far to small , probably nearer 3mm scale. (Maybe that's what I bought it for- can't remember!)

The station building which I had already built in my opinion doesn't really fit in and should be of stone construction.

 I have considered adapting the Wills Village Forge but at the time couldn't source one with an existing order.

Postage really adds to the price for an individual item!

Still, more to show next time.

009 Norfolk Heath drop front board.

This area will eventually become a loading area for canal boats.

The track has been glued down and Wills rough stone cut as the wharf reinforcing.

I am not yet decided how deep the wall will extend so I must recover the barges to measure their height from waterline to deck.

OO Gauge SDJR Brake Van.

The Midland Railway supplied a few brake vans to the SDJR which were virtually identical to their standard van.

This one is a resprayed Bachmann Midland van which was originally brown.

OK, so the lettering should be white but my excuse is that no picture is known of the prototype so who can say?

00 Gauge SDJR Peckett.

Another Peckett!

This one is:-

Port of London Authority, Peckett W4 Class, 0-4-0ST.

 The colour and lining lend it to conversion to a Somerset and Dorset engine. Transfers are Pressfix from HRMS.

Makes a lovely companion to the 7F.

009 Heljan Lynton and Barnstable twins.

This pair were originally both LEW and were from different batches of Heljan production. Wizard is from the first batch with Witch from the second. Both have run perfectly from new but they have both run on radii in excess of 14 inches. This layout has one curve at 12 inch radius leading to what will be the loco shed, this has yet to be laid but it is doubtful that either will visit 

They will eventually be joined by Warlock when the L&B Baldwin arrives.

009 New Layout, Tracklaying progress.

The new layout , whilst basically a Tramway, will have to accomodate the Lynton and Barnstable locos.

To this end I have used the PECO largest radius turnouts with live frogs.

The Heljan loco's negotiate the points precisely without the need for modification.  Extensive testing was carried out whilst laying the track to make sure the loco's ran smoothly. In fact, this is probably the longest it has taken me to lay,what is really, a simple track layout.

This shows the canal basin board and one of the fiddle yards. The great thing is that extra boards can be added as time and space allow.It is very time consuming cutting numerous copper clad paxolin for securing the track at board joints.