The Chronicles of Canary Sidings - Eastern Eccentricity in EM

[Herb Garden]

So precious little had been done this week as I've been away in Hannover for the Messe.


An intriguing city and a visit I very much enjoyed.

I also got my first chance to travel on Germany's rail system. Very different to our own in many ways most importantly it works superbly, almost effortlessly.


Anyway since getting home I've laid some more track.

At the front of the station board is the coal yard. And now the siding that will serve it is in place.


Also following on from the last post on this subject I've taken the decision to shorten this far end of the track plan by a wagon length. The run rounds and sidings were quite capable of holding far more stock than the time table or fiddle yard can handle. So shortening the track plan has no operational implications but it means there can be more space for scenery on the far side of the lane than originally was provided for

The morals of the story... Design your track plan around the timetable and always leave enough room for the landscape

 

[Herb Garden]

In an attempt to keep readers of this thread entertained and not bored senseless by track laying we travel back to the work bench to find out how work on the next buckjumper is going...


So now the cab and tanks have been made up as a sub assembly but are still loose in relation to the boiler barrel and foot plate

@Suffolk Dave was asking how the kit goes together. Well the chassis and footplate dropped together but this was hard work. No tabs or slots or alignment aids just flat plates and the fit isn't perfect. That said what more can you expect of a kit whose design is a year older than me! Back in 1989 this was cutting edge etched kit design and still holds it's own but doesn't have the modern features of a high level kit or similar.

That said it only took me an hour or so to do (length of podcast on the ottoman empire) once I had got into the swing... And there's still some tweaking to do.


I've added spectacle rims from my spares as the ones in the kit didn't etch properly.


And here she is with sister 151 you can see the difference in tank height. Nice that you can get different variants from the same kit

 

[Herb Garden]

Well never thought I would get sick of loco building that I would prefer going back to trackwork but here we are....


So work on the mill board has started. The land form here is a double layer of polystyrene to accommodate the depth of the river/mill race.


The locomotive shed in the pictures is the one designed for skeetsmere MK1, built for skeetsmere MK2 and will finally get used on MK3. In the design is positioned here for a couple of reasons: Firstly to hide the double slip (seen behind it), the MSLR didn't have trackwork of this complexity but to get the design to work in the space here it was required so the compromise is to hide it behind the loco shed so at least it's not obvious.


It also helps to hide or at least distract from the baseboard join.
So all I've done really is cug some polystyrene and fitted it to the frame but you get the idea with the bits of available track etc what it might look like