Scale Strategy…

A while ago, Stephen over on the Fairlight Works Blog mentioned that he had a scale strategy: he builds layouts in different scales to suit the story he wants to tell. This spilled over into a discussion on the Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling forum.
If only I was that well organised, or that accurate. I have [...]

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On Being Eccentric

It has been said (Although I’m not sure where) that Geography is a subject for people fascinated with anything. I think that may be true: In the 10 years since I finished studying, I seem to have collected a mass of random images, much to the bemusement of onlookers who say things like: “Er… why [...]

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Nearly there…

Less than a week to go, but Westerooge is almost complete. The scenery is down and the track works- most of the time. It isn’t as smooth as I’d like but better than I thought I’d manage, so that’s not too bad. Even the bit that went wrong is working this time around.

The remaining jobs [...]

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DG couplings

Mechanical and Electrical things don’t usually work for me. When I was in school I could follow my technology teachers instructions (when he gave them) to the letter, and work alongside other students doing exactly the same thing, only to find that whereas everyone else had a working transistor radio, I had a water level [...]

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Dark art of the sector plate-2

After some fairly intense bodging, filing, soldering, and at least one length of mangled track, the first train on ‘Westerooge’ wobbled and lurched its way onto the sector plate this weekend. This in itself was good, but that it managed this without spilling itself onto the desk in an unpleasant mess was a real surprise.
In [...]

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Head of Steel

If I seem a bit excited today, its because a couple of nights ago night I laid the track in the scenic section of ‘Westerooge’ This is not only the first working model railway I’ve owned in the last 16 years, but also my first successful attempt at soldering in at least that time. I’ve [...]

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Unterfeuer Westerooge

While I wait for the electrical gubbins to arrive I’ve been working on the lighthouse that will hopefully set the scene and hide the fiddleyard a bit. Actually the model is not of a traditional lighthouse as much as an ‘Unterfeuer’ which I think translates as a ‘Navigation light’. An Unterfeuer tends to be smaller [...]

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Sinsheim 2008

To one used to British model railway exhibitions, the ‘Faszination Modelbau’ in Sinsheim is immense. It covers just about everything: model railways, trucks, diggers, planes, boats, racing cars, and tanks. Eldest Son and I were going to meet Alexander Rainer and see his ‘Rittigsmühle’ model, but it took 20 minutes for us to even [...]

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Stuck.

I’m stuck. It’s inevitable when working in a different country where things aren’t always the same as you are used to: Sometimes there is an annoying delay while you hunt for bits. This time, the bits in question are electrical -an area I’m not too confident in. I’ve found a shop on the internet that [...]

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The dark art of the sector plate -1

Ever since I started Westerooge I’ve had the same nagging thought at the back of my mind, namely that I hadn’t a clue how to make the offstage area, usually called the ‘fiddle yard’, which represents the rest of the Island. I knew I would have to attempt a sector plate, a sort of sliding [...]

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