The EWR.

[captrees]

Hi captrees,

You certainly get the dirty effects right, no rose tinted glasses
for you !!


Geoff T.

Dad-1 beat me to it! I was just about to post that I love the air of industrial neglect that you've created.

I reckon on a quiet day you can hear the iron rusting.

Its the memories. Perhaps its all a bit tidier now than it was in the '60s. In spite of the pretty countryside of my youth, railways were dirty things. Lots of industrial wasteland nearby. Dirty puddles, weeds, rusting car bodies, and the grime from coal and smoke. I'd be on a train to Euston, and the inbound bit from Hemel Hempstead perhaps, the train seemed to speed up as if it didn't want anyone to look at the back yards of dirty houses, all the grimey wires and cables and pipes and short black tunnels.

Of course we can romanticise it in our modelling, and ignore the reality. But I rather like industrial archaeology. I'd like to reproduce a lot of graffiti too, but it was not as colourful in the 1960's.

[Lofty]

railways were dirty things…industrial wasteland…Dirty puddles, weeds, rusting car bodies… grime from coal and smoke…back yards of dirty houses… wires, cables, pipes…short black tunnels.

We are singing from the same song sheet.

[Dad-1]

Hey, that sepia look works well !

Even in full colour the old steam railways looked so grimy.

Geoff T.

[captrees]

I have just finished rebuilding my veranda, and have enough timber left over to construct an extension to the East Westmorland Railway. It might not happen overnight, but the imagination is running riot. Carnforth, Arnside Viaduct, Farleton Knott, the Lancaster-Kendal canal.

Charley, the Chief Railway Dog, is asking the question. "What are you waiting for, Dad?"



This is the railway end of the studio....



And this is "her" end. I have helped convert a gazebo into a studio for her, and she is moving her stuff out. Potentially that gives me about 65% more space.



I thought if I posted this here it would motivate me to get going. I get reminded that one of these rapidly passing years we will downsize the house. I don't see that as a deal breaker, more an incentive not to procrastinate.

[glencairn]

The first picture looks a 'tad over 00 scale'.

Seriously: It is looking good. well done.

Glencairn

[captrees]

Finally, it is happening. I have scrounged together the timber, and started screwing pieces together. However being a shed in the garden that is basically his and hers studio/storeroom/too hard basket, the accumulated mess has to be worked around. There is nowhere else to put it. Construction is therefore mostly on the verandah while stuff gets moved around, eventually to be stowed under the railway. Or that's the plan. Except today I have visitors from the UK who have decided they want to inspect the EWR and so I'll have to tidy it all up. Oh woe.

Here are the "before" pictures....

[captrees]

The plot thickens. I'm moving the conversation re my Hornby Dublo coaches away from the "Anyone currently buying thread.

So the little HD coaches, those that have plastic wheels, are great runners. While they are moving they are not noticeably 'tin' and look the part as much as plastic ones.

So how are we going to make them run on two rail track? Plastic 2 rail Hornby wheels don't work without putting brass bearings in. Too fiddly.

Swap the complete bogies? That way I'd have the correct couplings too. Fail. The H and HD bogies are incompatible to switch. Different sizes, etc.

Swap the entire chassis? Well maybe. but they don't measure up. The HD coaches are an inch shorter than the later plastic ones. Still, this is achievable, by chopping an inch out of the plastic chassis, and I've got a couple of plastic coaches I could sacrifice. But no more than a couple. I'd like to get a rake of 8 mobile. 8 is the number of coaches that the WCML expresses used to run.

I tried a mix of 4 HD and 4 plastic coaches together. I ran the longer plastic coaches first. Fail. Before long the heavier tin coaches had pulled a plastic coach over on a 3rd radius bend. I haven't tried running the longer coaches last. The different couplings aren't a dilemma.

So it's back to the drawing board. Then I saw these on the local marketplace site.

The axles look right, but wrong gauge. Anyway, I have people scouring their spare parts bins as we speak.......

[Jaz]

Nice layout, off side comment love the Turkish lamp also.

[captrees]

Snow on Shap Fell!



Most unexpected, and not on the weather forecast. The little Ivatt is on his way through Tebay junction on its way north to Penrith with some cows that may now get cold on the way. Its passing another local from Shap that will take some road granite to Carnforth and drop off some empty tar wagons that will go back to Workington.

So where did all the unexpected snow come from? I was trying to adjust the colour to get a sepia photo, and this came up. Makes me want to shiver.

It was supposed to ;look more like this.



The Ivatt is passing Hanratty's yard. That's the banker's shed in the background. The Ivatt has been excused banking duties today to run the cows to Penrith. As you can see, it got a good wash in Carnforth first.

[Phred]

I do like an Ivatt. A proper no-nonsense working loco.

[captrees]

After all the mayhem running passenger trains to sort out those tin Hornby Dublo coaches, I'm running goods trains only for a while. Its quarter to seven on a Wednesday morning. How do I know? Well Wednesday is dustbin day in Oxenholme, and the clock on the ticket office says quarter to seven. OK, its always quarter to seven on a Wednesday morning on the East Westmorland Railway, unless I get a new clock, or move the dustbin truck. I've never asked the cricketers the other side of the station about how they feel starting their game so early.



Its busy at Oxenholme. Two goods trains have decided to pass each other, to the excitement of the schoolboys on Platform 2. The only thing missing is all the smoke and steam. But of course everything is stationary so I could take the photo. I'd prefer to think that the driver turned it all off so that he wouldn't asphyxiate those people on the footbridge.



There won't be many more pics like this. That great bend in the track at the station will soon be straightened out a bit as the expansion takes place. That rather large and ugly covered section of the station will be removed too. In another life it was a wooden box that contained 3 bottles of French wine. (A fine early example of recycling in the early 1960's. The wine was awful, as I remember.)

[Phred]

captrees wrote:
I've never asked the cricketers the other side of the station about how they feel starting their game so early.

Better to start early before the heat gets up.

[captrees]

captrees wrote:
I've never asked the cricketers the other side of the station about how they feel starting their game so early.

Better to start early before the heat gets up.

HoHo. That might be true in Perth atm, but Oxenholme? More likely trying to beat the rain.

[Phred]

captrees wrote:
HoHo. That might be true in Perth atm, but Oxenholme? More likely trying to beat the rain.

Aah! My Australian mindset. I sometimes forget there are places that don't get hot enough to melt bitumen.