Christmas Again...

Once again, it's the last post of the year from me before taking a festive break. No big plans this year modelling wise, despite constantly refering a few projects to 'the stash'. 

Truthfully, the last couple of months has been no picnic for my mental health work wise, so this year it's a case of resting as much as possible. If I could get the roof pieces cut down for the VoR kitbash coaches and the recent 009 Society wagons painted, that'd be good in my books.

Looking back though, I'm surprised at just how many buildings/how much rolling stock I managed to build over the last twelve months. It does actually feel like I have accomplished quite a bit! Personal highlight has to be the Sentinel locomotive. Still over the moon with how that turned out, even being messaged a request from a reader to make one similar!

Now if only I could get the motivation to get CorriLlyn finished, everything would be almost perfect.

There will be a slight change in posting though come the new year, as I'm taking the decision to move to a fortnightly posting rate. As much as I'm quite pround to say that I did manage to post once a week for a whole year, there were times when it did seem like a struggle, both words and time wise. Hopefully putting the breaks on slightly allows me a bit more modelling time and also allows me to enjoy writing about it more than I have as of late.

Have a good festive period everyone, however you celebrate. And see you all in 2025!

Advent Madness

This year I had a nice surprise at the start of December: A gift of a Noch figures advent calendar.

Image from Amazon.

I'd been umming and arring about having one of these for the last few years as a bit of fun, but was always a bit put off by the fact the figures are of course HO scale. However, some of them could find uses in odd corners or at the very extreme, find use as passengers in coaches.

One thing that's interesting to note about these calendars are that the box states there are no Christmas figures included. This might put off some, but I can see the logic behind it. It's far easier to cater for almost every modeller out there this way rather than just those who want a winter/Christmas themed layout.

So what does eight days worth of Advent look like so far? Well...

In order of appearance we have a Vicar, a Doe (A deer, a female deer), a Stag, a sitting person who looks a tad miffed, a lady with her hands up in either a holding/throwing/intensely arguing pose, a swimming lady, a boy swimmer who suspiciously looks like he's running along the poolside, and lastly.... a bench.

I jest, but I am really enjoying this so far. So much so that even at this early stage I think I might have another next year. One thing that did strike me was that I was only expecting 'people' figures, so you can image my surprise on days two and three when the deer appeared. Even the bench got a laugh from me yesterday.

Yes, I can certainly agree with the no festive figures idea. But now comes the challenge...

...

Just HOW could I work those swimmers into a layout?

Repaint

Continuing the painting theme from last week, the 009 wagons from last year got a repaint at the same time. As much as I had fun putting them in 'faux Heywood' livery, there was just something about them colour-wise that I didn't like, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Taking a punt, one of them was repainted into an all over tank grey in an attempt to mimic the GWR way of painting wagons.

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

Think it might be a classic case or less is more. Old and new for comparison:

Very slowly, I seem to have a catalogue of painting rules for this fictional narrow gauge light railway I plan to build. So far it appears to be:

Locomotives - Green, red buffer beams, domes in gold/brass.
Coaching/Passenger stock/Brake Vans - Brown.
Wagons - Tank Grey.
Buildings - Cream with Brown framing.

Very handy timing wise, as the further 009 Society wagon kits I picked up at Rainford back in Septmeber have slowly began to be assembled.

It's almost like a plan is coming together...

Coaches in Basecoats

Progress on anything is relatively slow at the moment, so it's a case of finding the small jobs that can be done in an hour or two, rather than looking for all day ones. To that end, the recently cut and shut Vale of Rheidol coach set were given their first couple of coats of paint.

Using paints from the Revell 'aqua color' range, all the woodwork inside and out was given an undercoat of Earth Brown (87) with what would be metal parts undercoated in Leather Brown (84). From there the main base colours are added, using the artist's technique of starting with the lighter colours and working into the darker ones. First, frames for the drop windows on the doors were painted Africa Brown (17) followed by the rest of the body gaining an all over coat of Brown (381). The latter is a silk paint, but a colour wash later on dulls this to a more matt finish. Lastly, the frames, footboards, bogies and vac pipes are painted into Tank Grey (78).

As a comparison, here's one of the unweathered four compartments next to the older five compartment coach. Just how much difference a dark wash makes on the silk finish is quite apparent.

Coal Hole

Recently a trip to Chatsworth for the first time in roughly twenty years reacquainted myself with one of the more unusual 'railways' in the UK.

'The Coal Hole' was the starting point for a small narrow gauge track that would have been used to move said coal into the boiler room for the estate's Great Conservatory. A handy board does a much better job at describing the process than I can!

What was probably a coal office of some sort looks extremely modellable, even in this state with the very obvious window blockings.

The tunnel mouth is also interesting: Note how the rails would have run in a channel in the bottom of the hole. I can only assume that the wagon height would have been the same as floor level, allowing the coal to be simply pushed in rather than the slightly more labour intensive act of shovelling. This also means the wagons must have been in a fixed rake, there's no room for passing places either in the tunnel or at this end of the line.

Inside the tunnel it is, naturally, very dark. Interestingly though the tunnel has a never ending gentle curve to the left in the direction of the old boiler room. Whilst probably not much wider than the wagons that ran here, the tunnel is noticeably tall for the 1800s, certainly over 6ft as I could stand upright whilst walking through. Probably a good indication that a horse might have been the motive power rather than people.

Regrettably, the full route is not walkable, a new exit bringing visitors out at the bottom end of the estate's rockery, and given how well disguised all the workings of the boiler room were it's very hard to distinguish just where the line continued from the outside, let alone the location of somewhere to hide seven boilers! Taking a quick look on Google maps and assuming the line continued to curve all the way, I'm assuming the boiler room must have either been under one of the large banks that surround the present maze, or even underneath it itself. The surviving smoke exhaust pipes near the present maze seem to indicate it would be in that area.

Its an interesting prototype though, and with some modification could potentially make an interesting 'out and back' model.