Well I missed a post for December and it's half way through January already :-( Currently railway modelling in the Rogers' house has taken on more of a OO English outline. GWR specifically, although I have yet to narrow down the time period.
Why English in OO? Probably Thomas and Friends. Having been looking into the real life trains behind the world's most popular blue steam train has evoked fascination and nostalgia.
Fascination because England at one time had many little branch lines with stops not big enough for a station so they were called "halts". These branch lines make for great modelling opportunities because of their size. I love the idea of Chicago in the United States back when the stock yards were in operation and there were was a ridiculous number of railroads that stopped or went through the city, but modelling even a small part of that would require a huge indoor space. Modelling a significant part of an English branch line on the other hand is not such a big problem, if one compresses the distance between railway features like stations, crossings and halts.
Nostalgia because English outline OO was how my modelling years just prior to my move to N Scale were spent. At that time modelling in a new scale meant changing scales as finance was at a premium at that time, so for N scale to come, OO had to go. The thing I now miss most from that collection is the Collet 0-4-2T 14XX as done by Airfix all those years ago. Ubiquitous on GWR branch lines as a sturdy little engine, it would seem any GWR modeller must have at least one of these in their collection but all the models that were made of them are no longer in production. Airfix, Dapol, Mainline & Hornby (both as the prototype and as the loco "Oliver" from the Thomas series) have all tried their hand at making them but they are no longer producing them.
A Birthday purchase though (set to arrive quite soon from a reliable dealer in the United Kingdom) is another GWR branchline must have: the 0-6-0PT Pannier Tank locomotive as made currently by Bachmann Branchline. By all accounts a great performer and once she has arrived, photos will soon follow. And the Thomas connection? On the island of Sodor, the pannier tank loco's name was "Duck".
Christmas layout improvements have been so extensive as to point out issues with rolling stock rather than the layout: running is now much improved with reliability to the point were trains could be set to run unsupervised for a time. If that statement seems ridiculous, you have either never modelled in N scale or done a much better job with track laying than I. I now have a list of things I wish to do to the rolling stock and so on given the layout itself is running so well. Not that it is finished in any way of course, what would be the point?
Hopefully that is enough for now, I better get back to watching a HD trip along the Bergen Line in Norway. And for the geeks out there, one of the stations (Finse) is Hoth!
And what's a post without a picture? Latest project on the go, a Dapol un-motorised locomotive: Evening Star. English yes but BR so post-GWR days but she is painted GWR's trademark Brunswick Green
