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An apt title in more ways than one.  Much focus in the last month has been on home decorating, the recently split-into-two bedroom and nursery are now painted after a couple of marathon sessions and several days of follow-up.  At present I am painting interior doors in what will be the nursery (I get in trouble for calling it my "temporary paintshop"!).

But the other reason it is an apt title currently sits in the corner of that same room....

It's 'Shifting Sands', back from 'Rails to the Sands' at Cleethorpes, bringing along with it a little souvenir of the exhibition in the form of it's interpretation card!  Changes are afoot for the exhibition at Cleethorpes and there may be developments to report in the new year.  For the layout I will be carrying out an electrical testing session soon to ensure all is well (some may call it playing trains...)

Today was the last regular operating day of the 2011 season at Cleethorpes and despite a damp start, the day turned out sunny and not too cold, warm enough to enjoy a ride in a Sutton Miniature Railway open coach behind 'Sutton Belle'.

Elsewhere on the railway work is underway on locos and rolling stock ready for the santa specials in December and the 2012 season, which will mark the 21st year of operation by Chris Shaw and the present company.

Minimum and Miniature at the NRM

Another day out?!  Well, this was a trip with a purpose, as my visit to the National Railway Museum in York was for a meeting of the Miniature Railway Museum Trust.  Formalities didn't take that long so there was plenty of time to look around and see the recently altered displays, plus the added attraction of it being the 'LMS Weekend' with many visiting standard gauge locomotives in steam.

Taking pride of place in the recently extended (and in my opinion much improved) entrance hall is 18" gauge Horwich works locomotive 'Wren'.

Sadly 'Wren' goes un-noticed by many, but it is good to see minimum gauge equipment in such a prominent position. There is plenty of space in that foyer, perhaps Bassett-Lowke no. 10 'Little Giant', tucked in her usual (badly lit) corner of the Great Hall might fit?

Outside, in the South yard, there have been improvements on the 7 1/4" gauge line, where run-around loops have been added at either end (and an extension at the far end) and a new Mardyke Deltic delivered, named after the NRM's own 55002 'Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry'.

A Bouquet of Steam (or 'Black Prince' in't North...)

A welcome break from the tedium of "having the builders in" was a trip to the Kirklees Light Railway's annual steam gala on Sunday 11th September.  Over the past few years the Kirklees supporters group has managed to pull together a star-studded line up of locomotives from many other 15" gauge lines, such as Cleethorpes, Windmill Farm, Rhyl, Ravenglass, Evesham and New Romney.  Last year the RH&DR's 'The Bug' made the trip from Kent and left several people wondering whether the holy grail of 15" gauge visitors, a Romney Pacific, would be next... after all, Cleethorpes borrowed 'Typhoon'....

I was informed some time ago that 'Black Prince' was the most likely candidate due to the slightly more tolerant wheelbase this machine has, being built for the German exhibition railways of the 1930s rather than the Romney main line.  Around the exhibition theme the Kirklees gala grew to include two examples of the pioneering 'Cagney' American 4-4-0 locomotives and the rather unusual (and something of a first) inclusion of the two RH&DR permanent way internal combustion locos.

The star attraction - RH&DR no. 11 'Black Prince'

'Black Prince' is a much rebuilt machine, one of three built by Krupp, Essen, in 1937.  Krupp only built these three 15" gauge locomotives, others for the German exhibition circuit being built by rivals Krauss, an example of which has yet to visit the UK.  By contrast all three Krupp locomotives are in the UK and the other two can be found at Bressingham steam museum.  Imported in 1976, here is a view of 'Black Prince' in the early 1980s to show just how much the loco has changed.

'Black Prince' at Hythe in the early 1980s. (C) Richard Peake

Although both of the 'Cagney' visitors, no. 44 from Rhyl and the "Peruvian Cagney", privately owned, had made trips to the far end of the line, we had to be content with a "Cagney Cannonball Express" shuttle as far as Cuckoo's Nest, which on a sunny day has a pleasant feel far away from the madding crowd, reminiscent of another age, perhaps a 15" gauge Surrey Border and Camberley?

Cagneys at Cuckoo's Nest.

Cagneys running around.

'Redgauntlet' and the 'Scooter' were busily occupied at the Shelley end of the line operating a shuttle service 'top and tailed' with resident loco 'Badger'.  Both of these vintage machines have a tale to tell and we will revisit them in detail in future blog entries, especially as both form the basis to kits in the MG Models range.

Redgauntlet and the Scooter at Shelley.

'Black Prince' is the largest loco to have visited the Kirklees line, so large in fact that an event usually reserved for visits to the Ravenglass and Eskdale was recreated in West Yorkshire.... the splitting of a Romney loco for turning.

Black Prince being turned at Shelley.

Driving without the tender!

I've only ever been to a Kirklees gala on a Saturday before,which despite the attraction of the 'late night' departure and return in the dark, has stopped me from travelling on the legendary "Shelley or Bust" 5.00pm train with all available motive power.  Although only featuring four machines this year (there were fears of a flattened 'Cagney' in front of 'Black Prince'!) this was certainly worth the wait.  On the return the two RH&DR internal combustion machines were added to the back, adding to the cacophony of sound in the tunnel, 'Redgauntlet' has at least five horns...

"Shelley or Bust" awaits return departure.

All in all a very entertaining day in the company of fellow miniature railway enthusiasts.  A huge 'well done' to the Kirklees staff and volunteers!

and it's good night from him....

Sherwood Forest Railway - An O9 Modeller Trip Out

Due to various factors trips out to miniature railways have limited been in their number this year, so the chance to pop along to our local line was greeted with open arms yesterday.  First opened in 2000 as an added attraction within the Sherwood Forest Farm Park, the railways owners, the Colley family, were faced with a challenging situation late in 2010 when the farm park owners decided to close to the public to concentrate on farming.  Having decided to go ahead as a stand-alone attraction, the railway has carried as many passengers in 2011 as last season, and plans are afoot to develop the attraction over future years.

Motive power is largely provided by the two Keith Hardy built 0-4-0STs 'Smokey Joe' and 'Pet', the latter of which was in service on our visit.  Both should be running on August bank holiday weekend.

Yours Truly after a trip on the footplate of 'Pet'

 One of the fascinations of the railway for me is the continued use and restoration of the coaching stock built by 'Minirail' for the Longleat Railway in the 1960s.  This stock was certainly a product of it's time, but has proven to be solid and comfortable at many homes, the operational fleet at Sherwood Forest has come via Rhyl/Tal-y-Cafyn and Brocklands in Devon.  Four more sets of components, recovered from and donated by the Lappa Valley Railway are stored awaiting future use.  O9 Modeller is proud to have played a small part in their discovery and a general interest in their wellbeing from the Colleys!

The latest Minirail restoration at the SFR

With a charming rural location and friendly reception, the Sherwood Forest Railway makes a wonderful trip out, as well as the railway there are children's play areas, picnic tables and hot and cold drinks, ice creams etc served from the ticket office.  For more details of running times please see the railway website and for all the latest information the railway's Facebook page.

Rural charm at the SFR

From an O9 Modeller point of view, our friend Pioneer was spotted at the end of the line, apparently she has had a run this season and a small amount of

work done to the mechanics...

Misterton Fen Tramway - Really the End...

I've mentioned the Misterton Fen Tramway before - here in fact.  This micro O9 layout got started but never hit the mark, and today saw the demise of it's second incarnation as a end-to-end version.

As the rails were soldered at the joiners I had to carefully heat these up to remove the plain track from the turnout, but before I did a quick photo was in order:

After a short while, with all joints unsoldered, track started to be lifted, no doubt due to be recovered on a seaside miniature railway somewhere!  All electrics, switches, plugs etc have also been recovered for re-use.  In fact the board itself is now stored back in the same place it had been, with thoughts of how it might be used in the future (the distant future I hasten to add!).

Although theoretically part of my great sort out to enable use of the railway cupboard as a workbench location, it hasn't actually made any more space but gave a strange satisfaction I had done something, just as I achieved a few days ago when I stuck new axleboxes to a 4mm scale kit-built van prior to sale!

Finding what can be disposed of and sold is a tricky one.  I have to remind myself it is about the space not the money (useful though that is).  Interestingly I have found that most of the things that are going belong to a period some time ago, or have been bought very recently during my indecisive years.  Not a lot of 7mm scale material has been identified yet, however I have had to make a decision that O14 will have to wait for a long time so I have put up for sale a job lot of parts I had stashed away, in the form of a track starter kit, turnout levers, built skip wagon and a bonus of a Phoenix figure.

Edit in response to Skylon's question.... it would have looked something like this:

Secrets of the Railway Cupboard Part 2 - The Big Secret!

Two months ago I let readers of the blog into my railway cupboard, which quite frankly, despite all my hard work painting it, looked more than a little untidy once refilled.  However, two months ago now seems like a very long time ago... Life has changed.

A fortnight ago my wife announced that there will be a new arrival in the Peake household in the first quarter of 2012 (and no, not from Hornby).  Yes, we are expecting a baby!  Due to this there has to be a major re-organisation of our "living quarters" and the original, mark 1 plans for a railway room/study have been dusted off, typex applied and 'Nursery' added instead.  Of course this has a major impact on my intended scheme for an alcove based desk and possible test track above.  Indeed, the alcove itself will be no more as the chimney breast will have give way to make more space in the bedroom.

And it will be a bedroom only, no space really for model trains.  Or will there...?

Plans are afoot to re-organise the Railway Cupboard to provide some additional shelving (white) and a built-in but lift-out workbench (yellow).  Granted, there will have to be some ruthless clearing out of the "someday and maybe" projects, and all those things on the shelves that shouldn't be will have to go elsewhere, but there is a chance it could work.  Things have to change whatever happens, time and pennies will be in short supply in the months/years to come so a carefully planned approach is required.  I'm still working on that...

The ones that got away... No. 4 'Pandora' (Mk1)

Now where were we?  I'm not sure where the last month has gone, so my apologies for the lack of blog entries. Some big changes are afoot which I won't go into yet, but watch this space...

Fourth in my series of locos that never quite made it is, quite frankly, scraping the barrel somewhat, but I came across this picture this afternoon and thought I might as well share it.  Before 'Pandora', the 2-6-2T loco that runs on 'Shifting Sands', was built, the same chassis was to have been host to a steam outline locomotive based very loosely on the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway rebuilds of Severn-Lamb 'Rio Grande' locomotives.  These tall, thin, low boilered machines were used in the early years of the CCLR operation between 1991 and 1995.

Rebuilding a Bachmann US 0-6-0 body got me this far:

The idea was to complete the locomotive as a 2-6-0 with large rear overhang, which would just about pass on a steam outline machine with no boiler/firebox to worry about.  I have dug into my archives to find a drawing of the whole loco:

Maybe it is an idea I might revisit one day?