Planning a Film

I am currently drawing up a storyboard and shot list for a film about the Epping and Ongar railway. Sourcing old pictures of the line is another job plus I have already obtained a copy of an old Underground map with the line still on it.

Now I am actually thinking about what I need it is proving to be a harder task than simply turning up, videoing anything that moves and quite a lot that doesn't, then coming home and putting it into some sort of final cut.

I will have to contact the railway to find out if there are any places I can get lineside shots and even if I can get a lineside pass, not to sure about that one though.

General shots like an establishing shot of each station, the general area around each station and trains running into and out of the stations is easy. There are also a few public areas beside the line that I can access to get shots plus a few places where I can get panoramic vistas with the trains running through them. Hopefully this will be enough. I will be visiting the railway before it stops running for the winter to start getting shots plus I will scout out the public areas to establish good places to get shots of the trains from.

Must not forget lots of atmospheric cut scenes of birds, plants, people and general shots of buildings and paraphernalia to allow me to fill in the time between trains.

Oh well, back to the planning, hopefully I will have something ready in November.

Visiting the Epping and Ongar Railway

On Sat 30th June I finally made a visit to my closest preserved Railway, the Epping and Ongar Railway.

We took the normal service bus from my home town of Harlow to Epping Tube Station where we then caught the railways own heritage bus service to North Weald Station. The bus also serves the station at Ongar although that service starts later in the day.

Bus services to Epping and Ongar wait in North Weald
Station for their next service

This is by far the best way of doing the trip, if you are coming by car park in the LT carpark at Epping and get the bus, parking at North Weald and Ongar is limited.

North Weald station has been nicely restored with new tarmac leading up to the building and nice neat lawns around it. There is still much work being donw but it is a whole lot better than some lines I have visited.

The Coopersale Shuttle reversing into North Weald.

The building is typical of the stations on the Central Tube Line. The platforms bear all the hallmarks of having been a tube station with the signals and general fittings making any commuter feel at home. However the train that pulled in first was certainly not typical of the Central line.

The line towards Epping is run as a shuttle with no station as yet for passengers to use. The train, an ex-SR multiple unit, runs to just before the Coopersale bridge where it reverses back to North Weald. Motive power is supplied by a very tatty Class 31 locomotive.

Pitchford Hall heads into North Weald

Then, after a short wait, the main train appeared from the opposite direction hauled by  no 4953 'Pitchford Hall' with Class 37 diesel no D6729 on the rear of the train. This push-pull arrangement saves the locomotives running around and simplifies operation of the shuttle service as well.

Once on the train we had a nice ride into Ongar with a short wait just outside the station. We saw our local countryside from a different perspective as I never rode on the railway when it was still run by LT.

D6729 at Ongar Station

Ongar station has changed quite a bit with a new housing development taking place in the old railway yard however the railway still has a fair bit of room and the station has been very nicely restored. It has a small shop and the town of Ongar has several good places for eating.

The railway is certainly worth a visit and I hope to get back there sometime in the summer to take some video.

The official website for the railway is at eorailway.co.uk.

Epping and Ongar Railway

Over the weekend a new steam railway opened in Essex. The Epping to Ongar railway was a branch off the Central line on the London Underground.

It ran until September 1994 when it was closed as a loss-maker and it looked like it may be lifted and lost for good.

A private company stepped in and bought the line promising to start running trains within 5 years. This never happened and it fell to a group of enthusiasts to get the trains running again using a Epping Ongar Railway liveried DMU.

This continued till 2008 when a change of ownership occurred and the decision was made to close the line so that major works could be carried out before the line was re-opened to public running.

As well as the infrastructure work the locomotive stud was expanded to include ex-GWR Hall "Pitchford Hall", ex-GWR Large Prairie no 4141 and Diesel Class 37 no. D6729. This has pitched the railway into the front line of preserved railways in the country.

I have not yet been able to visit but hope to do so in the next few weeks but in the mean time it's worth having a look at their website eorailway.co.uk

I have also found a set of nice photo's from the weekend on Flickr 

Gardening

My daughters birthday was this weekend but next weekend we have a load of people coming for her birthday which will hopefully include an operating session on Sunday.
To prepare for it I have been tidying the garden and all the trees down the railway side have been cut back as they were overshadowing the railway. New bamboo screening is being fitted against the wire fence to replace the old reed screening plus I have removed the second platform from the railway so it currently has no station. It will be replaced with the plastic Hornby platforms as they can be picked up cheap from exhibitions and some model shops.

Hattons Garrett

Hornby Magazine have an article in their June issue about the forthcoming Garrett from Hattons and I am really glad that I pre-ordered one!

It will feature a motor for each set of driving wheels and have a DCC sound speaker under the chimney ready fitted so sourcing a sound chip suitable for this magnificent beast has to be the next step.

Currently the CAD drawings have been signed off and the metal is being cut for the first moulds to be approved sometime in July. The final release date for the model is now early 2013.

Got a bargain

Today I think I got a real bargain. Went into the local model shop looking to see if they had any more coach kits and saw a Hornby Railroad Flying Scotsman with a price tag of £39.99. I asked if that was the correct price and was told it was so it was out with the wallet and this lovely little model was mine.
Its a very neat model with wire handrails and very fine looking motion. Pickup is via the main driving wheels and the front 6 wheels on the tender so it should be a good runner. I hope to give it a run this weekend but that does depend on getting the garden finished (the railway is currently under a pile of tree branches!) and the weather holding up.

A quick update

I have put the class 24 in the diesel loco's list and I will be updating the projects pages as well as adding a new one for a Dapol coach kit that I have purchased with my birthday money.

Bloody Weather!

I have done very little on the railway since March as the weather has been very wet.

One job started is the new control panel which I am cutting out the holes for the controllers. The supports for the panel have been glued into the case and I am currently deciding on the layout for the switches.

For my birthday recently I received a couple of trucks from my friends one an open truck and the other a tanker to add to my growing collection.

Hopefully we will get some nice weather so I can get out and run something as well as doing some work on adding sockets to the wiring to make connecting the control panel easier.

I have added a new video about the first runs of the Deltic, the Class 24 and the Princess.

What a twit!

I admit, I am a twit!

I have finished painting Kestrel and after a nice coat of gloss varnish I aimed to get the decals on the loco today so that I could put the final couple of coats of semi-matt varnish over them to finish the model.

However, whilst putting the decals on I was surprised that they appeared to be far too big which is not like Fox Transfers which are always spot on. A quick search on their website showed me that their decals were dead on, trouble was I had ordered the 'O' gauge ones!

Oh well, luckily they were still wet and came off easily. Now to order the correct ones!

As I said before, What A Twit!

Playing with the airbrush

I have finally used my new airbrush and have highlighted a few things I need to do.

Most importantly I need to build a spray booth with extractor fan and lights in it as the fumes in the workshop go to nasty levels so that even using a face mask didnt help much. In the end I put a small fan in the window to suck out the fumes.

I also need some more glass jars with tops to allow me to mix up paint and then store it as at the moment any spare has to be cleaned away and its a waste and messy.

The Baby Deltic and Metrovick have both aquired the first coat of paint to their body shells with a couple more to follow plus I have now finished all the painting on Kestrel so tomorrow will see it gain a coat of gloss varnish so that I can apply the decals.

First operating session of 2012

I have 3 models that have not been run on the railway, my Dad's old Triang Princess, the Prototype Deltic and the Bachmann Class 24.

I decided to give them all a tryout so it was out with the track rubber and the old control box and they all got a good session.

The Class 24 was first. It is a brand new model purchased at the 2011 Warley Exhibition and it ran perfectly even on my half cleaned track. The lights all work nicely and it is a smooth as silk.

Next came the Deltic, a Dapol kit on a Lima Deltic chassis, and it was very reluctant to run. After a few circuits it started to run cleaner until once it had done 10 or so it was running well.

Last to run was the Princess which now has a motor from an even older Princess model, and it ran smoothly away as the controller was turned up. That was until it got to the diamond crossing where it immediately stopped. I thought it was simply a pick up problem until further investigation showed it was the front wheel set on the bogie which was out of gauge. A bit of a tweek and it was back on its way and running fine.

I then got a few coaches out and ran the Princess and Class 24 in front of them for a while.

All was recorded on video and I hope to put a new film on YouTube soon.

First curve section built

It has been a lovely sunny day and I have been out in the garden building the branch line although it has taken me far longer to build 1 simple piece than it did to build the larger baseboards used on the mainline!

This was mostly down to the fact that I have tried to make nice neat curves and also because the posts filled with concrete proved difficult to drill without the concrete cracking. In the end, as the picture below shows, I used a wooden block with a hole drilled in it to grip the post. The baseboard is then screwed onto this block.

The baseboard is made in the normal way with extra framing underneath to stop any sagging between the supports. A nice generous coat of Cuprinol clear has been applied with brown fence preserver to go on top of that tomorrow.

The wooden 'collar' used to fix down the baseboard.

The first baseboard having been coated with preservative is drying in the sun.

Supports in for first curve

Work on the branch line is well under way as the following pictures show,

The area for the first curve to be built in

rack is used to place stakes in the correct places

The support towers are then cemented in place

I now have a couple of days off so I hope to get the baseboards built and fitted and maybe even some track laid whilst the weather is good. More pics tomorrow.

The Branch Line

The next phase of the layout has begun with 4 supports in and a plan for the next few already in place. The trackwork will be made up of Hornby set track curves and flexible for the straight(ish) sections.

Hopefully I will get the baseboards started next week as I have a couple of days off so I may even get a bit of track down as well.

I have started a new website dedicated to Miniature Railways that I hope to add to as time goes by. Please visit and support your local miniature railway, they really do need it.

Building shelves and buying locos

In the last few days as well as tidying up the garden and taking rubbish down the dump I have also ordered a Beyer Garratt 2-6-0 0-6-2 no. 47992 from Hattons and built some more underbench shelving for the workshop. One will make me £200 poorer come Christmas and the other has freed up some work bench space.


I have also cleared out my other shed and removed all the railway bits which are now safely in my workshop and I also found out my old racing track set and some mecano both of which need new storage boxes.


I have also found out a large cardboard box which will be used as a spray booth until I get round to building a proper one.

The workshop is go!

The workshop is now in use, Kestrel being the first model to be worked on.

As promised the pictures are here. 

The first one shows the inside of the shed before starting. The place is a bit of a mess and it was proving impossible to get at anything plus there was a lot of junk that could easily be thrown out.

This is what it looks like now, much neater with shelves at the end for all the bits and pieces that a garden needs to keep it in shape. The wok bench is on the left with the airbrush ready for use once I build a spray booth.

 Kestrel is getting some work done on her as the first model to enter the workshop. Hopefully I will get the railway running this week so I can try her out.

Workshop Progress day 3

Ok I know that this is a fair few days since the last day working on the workshop but a little matter of earning my keep has got in the way! I have now fitted the work bench and started putting some storage shelves up. More storage will be added and the wiring put in for the mains supply.

I will get some pictures on very soon.

Workshop Progress day 2

The remaining stuff has been sorted through and either discarded or stored ready to be put back into the shed/workshop once it has been completed. The rest of the area has been painted and I hope tomorrow to get a workbench in place plus the base for my spray booth. Shelving and cupboards will then follow.

Tomorrow I will get some expanding foam filler and will use that to seal all the gaps in the eves and also fill some gaps around the door frame to minimize the draughts.

Monday will be a dump run day to get rid of the mountain of rubbish that has been created with the clearout.

Workshop progress

I have finally started to clear out the shed. The far end of it has been cleared, painted and new shelving put up. This has given me more space to put gardening equipment in a far neater way which gives me plenty of room for a workbench and storage for my modeling equipment.
More work to do tomorrow.

New Layout Project

I have not made much progress on my current projects which will happen when I finally get the shed cleared and weatherproofed so that I can get my workshop sorted out.
With this in mind I have taken a logical decision to start another project :-)
This will be a portable layout that I can use when the weather is bad and that will be a test and photographic stage, and I also hope to build it to a high enough standard to exhibit it.
The latest Railway Modeler came with a booklet describing several compact layouts one of which was a main line station that shows only the end of the platforms with the loco and 3 coaches only showing. The loco then uncouples and runs round its train, in other words it runs back into the fiddle yard. The coaches are then pulled back into the yard and a loco put back on the front for the next journey back into the station. There are through trains but these are short loco hauled services of a maximum of three coaches hauled by smaller locos or DMU's. Freight trains, again only short ones, also run through.
My plan will use all this and will include a diesel refueling point into which the loco's will be run into after they are uncoupled. Loco's will leave when a train arrives giving the illusion that this loco will haul the train out again.

I have downloaded a layout planning program called xTrkCad and I will use this to design the layout and post the results on this blog in the Projects area. 

Setting up a workshop

This weekend sees me enjoying 4 days off and to fill this void I have decided to clear out the shed, put some shelving units in and tidy away all the crap that fills the space at the moment. This should give me enough room for a small workbench and spray booth area so that I have somewhere other than the kitchen table to do some modelling. Pictures and progress will be reported on over the following weekend.

One extra thing for the workshop purchased at the St Albans show was an airbrush cleaning and storage station, basically a glass jar with a lid that has a holder fitted and a rubber gromited hole in it into which you put the business end of the airbrush and then blow cleaning fluid through it. Can't wait to give all my new goodies a try.

St Albans Model Railway Exhibition

My first railway related outing of 2012 was to the St Albans Railway Show at the Alban Arena.

General view of the show

There were plenty of good quality layouts on show with a smattering of trade stands as well. The Alban Arena is a large place with lots of smaller rooms all of which were used to display layouts.

An Irish diesel shed.

This led to a lot of moving around to make sure you didn't miss anything, not a problem in itself but a bit more signage to help visitors would be useful.

A crossing on a small American
layout

Although it was a local exhibition the number of layouts had attracted a lot of people and there we had the next problem, one of size. Although the venue is large it did seem that layouts were cramed in to get as big a show (in terms of layouts) as possible.

A steam tram loco.

Having said that I did enjoy the show but being able to get to see the layouts is important and many times, despite waiting, we could not view some of the layouts as there were other people looking who appeared to have camped out and were not planning on moving.

Would I go again? Yes but this time I would get there early to beat the crowds.

Just a quickie!

I havn't put anything on here for a while, I will be adding the new toys I got for Christmas to the site as well as describing the construction of my new workshop. Looking forward to some nice weather so I can get out and run something again.