Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all visitors and friends and family alike, a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year for 2016.

Remembrance

Gordon

Gordon is one of our regular visitors to HLR and is always turned out smart in regimental tie, jacket and cavalry twills.

Gordon is from the Modeltown range of Standing Figures (No. F202).

New Homestyal Halt station building

In preparation for a new platform and facilities at Homestyal Halt, a new building for the station has been built.

Purchased from Modeltown, the building is a relative easy model to make.

The building incorporates a seating area, Station Master and Ticket office.

Not included in the kit are the fascia boards, working lamp, signage and timetable.

The building was primed and painted with Humbrol acrylic paint and finished with a coat of matt varnish.

Brookwood and the early morning goods train.

Crossing Brookwood Bridge with the early morning delivery.

Just around the corner.

Pulling into sleepy Brookwood.

Strange passengers hanging around the station.

All's quiet at Brookwood.

W&LLR The Earl No.822

The Earl, No.822 departing Welshpool with her three Pickering coaches during the Steam Gala weekend, 6th September 2015.

Fairbourne & Barmouth Steam Railway

The railway runs from Fairbourne village to the mouth of the Mawddach estuary connecting with the ferry to Barmouth. Started as a 2 foot gauge horse drawn tramway it was reduced to a 15 inch gauge in 1916 and later in 1984 to 12.25 inch gauge.

Russell preparing for her first departure of the day at Fairbourne.

Penrhyn Point.

Yeo resting in the engine shed at Fairbourne.

Turntable to the engine shed at Fairbourne.

The Barmouth Ferry at Penrhyn Point.

Russell steaming up at Penrhyn Point ready for her return to Fairbourne.

Token exchange.

Florence's new coaches.

Slowly crossing "the door to nowhere" enroute to Buddleia Pond.

Proudly displaying her new coaches.

Steaming along.

Summer Coach - Pt.2

After spending some time in the body shop, the Summer Coach was ready to enter into service.

The entire model was sprayed with Humbrol acrylic gloss varnish before any paintwork was picked out and applied.

The chassis and buffers were hand painted with Humbrol acrylic RC401 black.

The end panels were hand painted with Humbrol acrylic British Racing green before the HLR decals were applied. Finally each panel was sealed with Klear varnish.

The seat supports were also painted with British Racing green.

And finally after masking the coach the roof was primed with Valspar white primer and finished with a couple of coats of Valspar white satin.

Part 1

A lazy hazy summer day with Silver Lady.

Tank Wagon Kit - Pt.3

Straight form the body shop here's the completed milk tanker for HLR. The chassis was primed with Humbrol grey spray acrylic primer and finished off in Humbrol black spray acrylic satin (85).

The tank was primed with Valspar white spray primer and finished off in Valspar blue spray satin  (December Solstice). The tank lid/opening was hand painted with Tamiya chrome silver acrylic (X-11).

HLR lettering was applied using self adhesive vinyl letters (15mm, Arial Bold Black, White). 

Part 2
Part 1

Company Lettering

Most of my latest wagons and box cars are from the Accucraft W&L data only range as I wanted to add my own company markings. So after scouring the internet and in particular ebay, I found the perfect solution.

Pre-cut self adhesive 15mm vinyl letters.

I had a choice of font and colour and chose Arial Black Bold in White.

Summer Coach - Pt.1

After witnessing a demonstration of kit building at this years 16mm NGM National show, I was quite impressed with the quality and ease of build of a Houstoun Gate Locomotive Works wagon.

Upon my return home I subsequently gave HGLW a call and ordered a Summer Coach from their range.

After less than a couple of hours I had most of the model built.

All of this model, bar the roof, is made from precision cut MDF.

There wasn't much need to file down any retaining tabs and all throughout assembly was perfectly square.

The chassis's were in two identical sections which slotted into the underneath of the coach perfectly.








Part 2

Harlech Castle

The fourth and latest engine to arrive from Roundhouse is this powerful workhorse, Harlech Castle. Built by Baguley-Drewry this locomotive was originally intended for Mozambique but the order was cancelled and subsequently she found her way to Ffestiniog Railway in 1988.

The model measures 27.5cm x 11.0cm x 15.0cm and weighs a whopping 2.92kgs!

An optional sound system featuring engine and horn sounds is fitted to this model.

The FR livery (Vinyl Transfer) is also an optional extra.

Waiting for her operating crew at Brookwood Station, she purrs in the early evening sunlight.

The real thing.

Attention!

With the help of my son and his modelling skills I was able to but together a troop of clone army personnel. The initial model was sculpted from plasticine before being set in a latex rubber mould.

 

High quality Polycraft SG2000 Liquid Casting Resin was poured into the mould to create each figure.

There were a few air bubbles but not too bad for a first attempt. Once cleaned up the figures were primed with Humbrol grey primer.

They were all painted the same and individualised with rank markings before being coated in matt varnish.

Little John finds his voice!

Thanks to Locoworks, my Roundhouse "Little John" has found his big voice! The sound card has a realistic horn, start-up and shut-down procedure and speed related running sound.

Mallard visits HLR

There were no trains running today because of fowl play at Homestyal Halt! As soon as the line becomes clear, normal service is expected to recommence.

Mrs. M

In preparation for the new season, HLR staff started work today but before doing so, they each had to have their photograph taken for security purposes. Here's the new cleaner, affectionately called, Mrs. M.

Mrs. M is from the Modeltown range of Station Figures (No. F301)

Spring is here!

Time to clear off the cobwebs and clear the line, Spring is here, it took it's time.