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Cumbrian charm. Always a pleasure to see. Thanks, captrees.

Glencairn

The 6:40 to Carlisle has just left the station. It's an autumn evening, after a light shower, and the passengers are mostly in the underpass, making their way out. A bus to Kendal is waiting. Most of the passengers came up from Euston, but the two that got on in Preston are going straight to the Station Inn for a pint of Younger's Bitter, or perhaps Tartan. 2 schoolboys are still on the platform, waiting to watch the incoming goods train run straight through. On platform 3 a few folk are waiting to meet passengers from the Windermere train that pulls in at 6:50. Porter Ormrod is retrieving his empty trolley from Platform 2 and is knocking off for the day now that the last main line passenger train has left. The 6:40 has only one stop at Penrith, and should get to Carlisle by 8pm. Once the Windermere train has pulled in at Oxenholme, it will stop on Platform 3 overnight and all the station staff can go home. Only a few goods trains will pass through during the night, and apart from the pigeons roosting in the eaves, the station will then be deserted.

Things have been pretty quiet of late at the East Westmorland Railway. Something to do with a new caravan, visitors, all sorts of excuses, but finally having some peace and time to myself I'll get back into it.

Firstly I put in stronger light bulbs, and what a difference that made! These photos were taken at night, without the usual gloom, and with one of those new iPhone things which seems to take better photos than the last horror.



The Caledonian is pulling into Oxenholme. Only stopping to have its photo taken, then moving on quickly.



Now winding its way through Tebay Junction.

I quickly tire of watching trains go round and round. The layout is more or less finished. Maybe a bit less than more, seeing these things can always be improved on. The attraction of our hobby, to me, seems to be the construction, and the associated imagery of an earlier distant life. There are things that I would like to build into the EWR. Perhaps a modest stately home, a river, a coal mine, and a scrapyard. (A nod here to Charlie Marston.) My wife disagrees. She thinks that I need a circus, and a ladies hairdresser. I pointed out that that would require expansion into her half of the studio, so she has withdrawn her suggestions. The idea is to expand into the middle of the layout, which is a horseshoe shape. Stay tuned.

captrees wrote: My wife disagrees. She thinks that I need a circus, and a ladies hairdresser. I pointed out that that would require expansion into her half of the studio, so she has withdrawn her suggestions.

Tut. Tut. Wrong words, captrees.

"A great idea, darling. Where do you suggest I place the circus and hairdressers?"

Great looking pictures by the way.

Glencairn

Having been pipped by Wolseley in the "And the next photo will have" thread, I am left with a choice of 3 hedgerow photos, and nowhere else to put them.








The hedgerows were made using some christmas tree stuff called chenille, which are sort of pipe cleaners.

I don't have an 0_6-2 loco to add to the other thread.

Rainy days are here, bringing more railway time, and the extensions are happening.





All good so far, until I laid a bit of track, and found that I haven't given myself enough room for both a scrapyard and a coal mine. Now I think we've had this discussion before, and we know that Westmorland doesn't have any coal mines, but surely we can have a small coal mine? Or even a very small coal mine? Good. I'm glad you are all agreed. But as I see it, there isn't enough room even for a miniscule coal mine, so I must extend the extension. Ah well. Forecast is rain for another week.

Amazing what you can get done on a rainy day.



There. Fixed it. More space for the coal mine.

I'm your 10,000 viewer.
Just thought I'd mention it. hehe

That view through the trees to the cricket pitch, so typically English.
I saw 4 games being played yesterday as I meandered around the South East.
Thanks
Edn2end

Work continues at the EWR as Hanratty's scrap yard evolves. My box of saved bits and pieces that "might be useful" has been raided to make little piles of scrapyard detritus. A defunct French loco has had a bit of rust sprayed on, and will be eventually engulfed in weeds, along with the track. There's an unused girder bridge in the background, and two wheels off a grandchilds's broken remote control motorbike. These will morph into the poppet head of the little coalmine. I'm anticipating some uninterrupted railway time soon, as her indoors is going away for a few days this week.

End2end wrote:I'm your 10,000 viewer.
Just thought I'd mention it. hehe

That view through the trees to the cricket pitch, so typically English.
I saw 4 games being played yesterday as I meandered around the South East.
Thanks
Edn2end

Looking really good!

Just on the subject of views I noticed an odd thing recently. If you sort the layouts under construction forum by views, there is one long dead project that still gets loads of views, "Wenchford", which was last updated in 2010, is still clocking up a disproportionate amount of views. Could it be the bots are searching for saucy pages on wenches

Jim

A couple of wet days, and railway building  has been resumed. I'm building an old coal mine. All recycled materials, except the corrugated roofing. The wheels came off a broken plastic motorbike. The shaft structure is an old plastic girder bridge and parts of a kitchen extractor fan filter. The cables are florists wire. It's 8" high.

Wife comes back from visiting relatives for 2 weeks tomorrow night, so trying to get the extension finished without interruption.





All it needs now is a bit of grass laying, a few little people and lots of loose coal. But I'd better clean up the house first.

captrees wrote: --- and lots of loose coal.

Very, very little coal, captrees. Coal is a premium. If any was 'spilt' it would be quickly picked up. A lot of coal dust though! Any patvches of grass would be few and far between and almost black with dust.

Great looking scenery.

Glencairn

Very nice. Coal mines need two separate shafts to let the air flow through so placing a smaller shaft somewhere will make it look real. Paint one on the backscenes if needed. That will do the job!

Lots of other equipment such as big pumps and things like that and yes. The area needs to look black. Best way is to paint the board black and sprinkle coal dust and small fragments of coal onto the paint before it dries as the paint will glue the dust onto the board. I learned this trick when I was using foam scatter for grassy areas where I needed to paint to prevent the wooden baseboard colour showing through, and I thought "Why am I waiting for paint to dry and then trying to glue scatter on top when I can do it all in one go as the scatter will stick to the paint".

Thanks all. The idea of a coalmine was started when a colleague gave me a bag of tiny coal a while back. Now there are no coal mines in East Westmorland, so there is no intent to mimic industrial wasteland. I toyed with the idea of a tunnel going under a slag heap, but it wouldn't be pretty. The adjacent scrap yard needs an overgrown look around the derelict locos and piles of junk, so there will be grass. I shall make the mine buildings dirtier, but there will be a lot of coal strewn around. Reality is no match for illusion.