Association of
Shrewsbury
Railway Modellers
What's on your workbench 07-09-2022.
The meeting was packed with 26 members and a wide range of subjects was on display.
Tim Lewis brought part of his P4 ‘Coldstream’ layout complete with NER 0-6-0. It is set in the early 50s. He used Templot to plan the track and ply sleepers and plastic
chairs with steel rail.
David Baxter showed us a 00 gauge GW 28xx loco which he was endeavouring to fit with a DCC chip. He has a spare tender and there were suggestions about raising
the coal to fit the chip under it.
Ian Perrin mentioned his layouts as described in the latest Newsletter.
Mike Wakefield had built a live steam vertical boilered tram engine in 16mm scale using various parts from different manufacturers. To the delight of the company, he
ran it on compressed air! He currently has single acting Mamod cylinders but intends fitting a new double acting steam motor.
Phil Rowe brought along one of seven Midland Railway coaches he is scratch building in Gauge 1. He has hung the sides from rails to enable him to paint and line them before fitting. The side are laminated from 1/32” plywood. He used a router to cut out the windows.
Sam Ryan is working on a 009 loco and two 00 locos for his nephew (a member of the future?). He has fitted them with sprung buffers and handrails.
Maintaining his interest in recycling and ‘making do and mending’, Graham Betts has collected some battered 00 locos from EBay and has restored them to life and fitted
DCC chips. These included a Royal Scot, 6109 ‘Royal Engineer’, LMS 4570, a 4F shedded at Normanton, an LNER ‘Shire’ class, ‘Selkirkshire’ and some LNER coaches.
Chris Kapolka takes photos for model reviews and had made a 2mm scale model of Box Middle Hill Tunnel as a diorama for photographing 2mm finescale GW locos. It
was made of card, Chris’s favoured material.
Reg Dixon brought some Parkside 0 gauge wagons he had built from kits during lockdown. He stressed the importance of weighting them so they ran well.
Roger Grizzell also models in 0 gauge and showed us a freelance goods shed he had built from scratch using thin MDF and strips of timber.
Howard Mainwaring asked for help with plans for a signal box.
Nick Coppin has recently added a terminus halt to his circular 0 gauge layout. It is built from an earlier model of Jackfield Halt on the Severn Valley line.
Michael Williams had a very fine-looking LNER ‘Hush hush’ experimental loco with two LNER teak coaches in 00.
Andrew Vaughan is pre-empting the current Challenge by building a Crewe tractor from the Great War. This could be converted from road to rail and instead of doing that, he decided to make two; a static road and a working rail version. The latter involved making etches for the chassis parts and chain guards. He used 1/20 scale cast alloy kits from the US.
Mike Bennett had a very nice church for his N gauge layout. It was made from a Scalescene kit with York Modelling self-adhesive slates for the roof. He commented on how many scalpel blades he got through and Phil suggested sharpening them with an India stone. Mike also had a very nice churchyard in 2mm. He mentioned Cyber Clean, a kind of squidge used for cleaning keyboards and suggested it could be used to clean dust from models.
Dave Gotliffe brought part of the splendid 2mm model of Wadebridge he has been building for a friend. He had the station platform, goods shed and station building with canopy. Sadly the layout is moving to the north east so someone else will have to finish Dave’s excellent work.
Dave York is building an LNWR layout in EM gauge, 9 feet long and brought some signals, locos and signal box. The signals use SG90 servos operated by Peco driver boards which he is pleased with. The locos were a LNW 2-4-2 tank, a Midland 2F and a ‘Pug’ 0-4-0 all of which were much modified. The signal box had a Springside interior converted from GW to LNW!
Peter Cox has just finished an Atlas models water tank and there was some discussion regarding sticking chain to it. Inspired by something he had seen on Ian Payne’s layout, he had made an angled building to help disguise exiting track. He used chalks to weather it, applied with a finger.
Phill Yeend is building a Southern Railway signal box in 0 gauge with a Severn Models interior. He has used some Peco brick and also laser-cut card.
Paul Langford demonstrated his 0 gauge radio controlled class 33 converted from a Lima model. He used nickel metal hydride batteries and a Deltang receiver/motor controller.
David Evans wound up the evening with an invitation for members to visit Platform 3 where they are building a 009 layout.
All-in-all a typical members’ meeting, showing off a multitude of skills and scales.
Nick Coppin