Sheet NMS-3 and brass small diameter hard brass wire.

Our latest sheet has arrived from Microscale and is available from the Nairnshire Modelling Supplies web site ate £3.95 plus P&P. We are pleased with it and it offers a wide variety of numbers and symbols for BR blue/grey coaching stock and multiple units of various types and liveries. As always, we have included as much as we can on the sheet to make it as good value as possible. Perfect for renumbering projects in 4mm scale.

Handrail wire:
Some careful research has located a new supply of 0.3mm and 0.45mm diameter hard brass handrail wire which we can offer at £2.20 per pack of ten pieces of 12 inches length together with bulk purchasing options which offer further discounts. The lower price is due to bulk purchasing and the savings we made are passed on to the customer!

Sheet NMS-4 is not far off…

Whilst Sheet NMS-3 (BR Blue Grey Coaching Stock and Multiple Units) sits in UK Customs, we have received the proofs for Sheet NMS-4, a renumber pack for BR Large Logo Blue livery locomotives we hope to release soon. A sneaky preview is shown above and once we have seen a hard copy of the proofs, approval for printing will be given. Once again, we are keeping to the Nairnshire Modelling Supplies policy of adding as much to the sheet as possible so that you get the best possible value for money at £3.95 per sheet. The sheet will have the larger numbers, two styles of electrification warning notice, data panels and some large logos so the repaint enthusiasts will be able to use the sheet too.

If you are wondering about the Class 40 numbers included on this sheet, remember that there is a Class 40 currently painted in this livery, even though it is a heritage fictitious scheme: 40 145! Here’s afew shots of it on the Kyle line taken this April.

Blyth & District MRS Exhibition:
Nairnshire Modelling Supplies will be attending the Blyth & District Model Railway Society model railway exhibition this weekend: 28th & 29th August 2010.
At the Parks Sport Centre, North Shields, which is located close to the Royal Quays Shopping Centre on the A187, five minutes drive from the Tyne Tunnel.

Opening times:
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

We will have a good stock of Kadees, Phoenix Paints, Woodland Scenics, Springside lamps, S-kits, scale couplings from Smiths and Romford, solder, flux, tools, gear boxes, electronics, LEDs, transfers, adhesives, fillers, switches, BA screws, layout building materials, underlay foam, loco detailing parts, rolling stock detailing parts including 28 types of buffer from LMS and 9 types of sprung buffer from Markits – you get the picture – about 1000 product lines on one stand for modellers of all sizes, ages and tastes.

We also have a brand new GPRS terminal, so we will be able to accept credit and debit card transactions for the very first time at a show. As part of the same development, we are working on an e-terminal for the website too, which should be complete and active in a couple of weeks. This will offer an alternative payment method to PayPal. In the meantime, see you in North Shields!

Crash-landed bumble bees.

International Rescue! In the form of Thunderbird 5: one teaspoon and some honey.

Not the expensive local Nairn honey, mind you! No, they seem to prefer the cheap squeezy stuff!

Bumble bees crash land when they run out of energy and we are usually on alert for them during inclement weather. They struggle in strong winds and cooler than normal weather while doing their thing around the flowers; eventually finding themselves caught out without any way of resupplying their critical energy reserves. Yesterday, following two days of unusually windy but very warm weather due to a deep weather depression passing just to the north west of Scotland, Sarah found this one: cold, tired and probably about at the end.

Sarah made the rescue and, following a brief objection in the form of a waved middle leg (as aggressive as it gets), it sat on her fingers, lapping up honey for about ten minutes before lifting off and heading for the flowers. For when one becomes exhausted, it matters not how many flowers you have in the garden. They are too tired to forage for pollen and nectar and a few feet of space may be as far as five miles to them.

So, if you find a struggling bumble on your patio, gently pick it up on a piece of paper or your finger (they are intelligent enough to know not to sting unless really threatened) and fetch some honey. The majority of them will refuel and thank you for it.

Planting trees…

A forest of sea foam trees is growing on the Top deck. I grabbed a quick picture half way through the planting of around 80 trees for this corner of the layout, partly for an update and partly to see how photographs would turn out. Nothing is running at the moment, the masking tape engineers have been at it again! Matte medium is my preferred medium for gluing down scenery products, and some is still visible in this shot. It dries clear and is great for applying the shrubs and bushes to the front of this stand of weed trees. The idea is to achieve that ‘wall of trees’ effect, seen on so much of the former BR Southern Region, where trees grow almost up to the line and in some areas, have been known to brush against the side of trains. For me, this provides the perfect scenic break in a location on my layout where there is no tunnel or over-bridge to take advantage of.

This late 1980s shot of hybrid 4-Vep No.3169 taken at Dover shows the back ground hill colour on a shaded sunlight day. No more tree planting will be done until I have made a slight colour adjustment to the back scene based on photographs taken in the area. A light wash of green is needed to tone down the distant chalk hillside behind the trees and I may add in a little more relief too. I have plenty of opportunity to practice this because the rest of the layout remains to be treated!

Top Deck Layout – some scenery.

The Top Deck Layout is absorbing a lot of scenery materials, especially at the west end where the line runs in the ‘Ashford’ direction. This is the view as of yesterday evening, with the scenic ‘disguise’ hiding the back ground tracks leading into one of the two fiddle yards. This area of the layout was always to be a challenge to scenic convincingly, especially given the narrow shelf layout design. However, progress looks good and there’s around 80 trees to plant in this area, all made from a mixture of sea foam and Woodland Scenics Fine Leaf Foliage. Stuck together with dilute matte medium.

It’s interesting to compare the scene above with the state of affairs just a few months ago:

Amazing what some backdrop and landscaping work can achieve. Referring to the top image, the Tortoise point motor and throat to the ‘Dover’ fiddle yard is now hidden and the scenic unit doing that job is removable, just in case. It will feature the tops of trees or ‘canopy’ so there is no hillside feature on that side of the line.

I have to admit, painting details on that back drop was a challenge, something I have never tackled before…

Simply Superb Swans

It’s summer once again, if a little damp this year, and attention in Nairn always turns to its river and bird population. Particularly the River Nairn Swans of which we are all particularly fond. I do not keep an on-line record of goings-on around the river and harbour because that is done by another Nairn resident. A retired gentleman who is far better at it than I could be and has devoted a great deal of time and money to the welfare of the river residents. His web site and daily blog can be read at: Simply Superb Swans. A local hero indeed.

Track cleaning in 4mm scale…

Ah…the big black art of track cleaning again…I described the Lanarkshire Models & Supplies track cleaning attachment designed to fit the Hornby ex-Airfix LMS 20t brake van in an earlier post in this ‘ere blog of mine.  The Lanarkshire Models & Supplies device is a clever piece of kit which both adds the ballast box fitted to the full-size LMS brake vans (missing from the Hornby model) as part of the cleaning roller box, making the attachment as inconspicuous as possible. The converted model may then be dressed and weathered as suits the modeller and run like any other wagon on the layout.

Even though the full size former LMS 20t brake vans survived (in ever dwindling numbers) on BR until around 1989, not every one wants one as part of their wagon fleet, not even as a ‘service’ vehicle. With this in mind, I looked to see if the kit could be built into other wagons to suit the needs of modellers interested in BR from the 1970s until privatisation. I started with a BR 20t brake van, a much more universal vehicle for BR era modellers. A Bachmann 46t TTA and wagons derived from that basic underframe are next. Here’s the 20t van conversion:

The Bachmann 20t BR brake van and the etched cleaning attachment roller box. Can I get it to fit?
The van dismantles easily to reveal a floor for the cabin structure. The weight was removed, cut in half and glued to the inside of the roof, which does not need to be removed, unlike the Hornby LMS van conversion.A quick test fit of the assembled cleaning roller box before any surgery to the model. The BR van has the same wheelbase as the LMS one, so this looks hopeful! As it happens, the BR van has a floor lower in relation to the rail, so it could not be used as the attachment point for the roller box. If it is, the roller sits too low and the van’s wheels do not touch the rails!

There are no instructions in the kit describing how to install in a BR van, so I adapted and made it up as I went along. The first hole followed the kit instructions with the aim of attaching the attachment to the underframe floor. This did not work, so the hole was made larger to accommodate the entire roller box. The van cabin floor was used as the fixing point instead. Before opening up the hole further, I glued the brake shoes in place.
The enlarged hole which allows the attachment roller box to sit on the cabin floor instead. This means the box and roller has room to fit in the can and have all the wheels sitting on the track! About 1mm of plastic was pared away from the inside of the sole bars to ensure a snug fit.
The corresponding hole in the van body floor to accept the attachment. The remaining floor parts are glued to the body before the mounting holes are drilled ready to fit the attachment. When this is complete, the body is reassembled to the sole bar, fixed with a spot of glue because the retaining clips are lost in this conversion. I found that the box sat a little high into the body when finished when compared to the LMS van conversion. However, this did not affect operations. I added some packing between the underside of the van body floor and the attachments to adjust the height and this made for a successful conversion.
Job done, and I think it is an easier conversion to do than the Hornby LMS van. For starters, the roof does not need to be removed to gain access to the ballast weight or body to underframe clips. The sides of the roller box can be seen behind the sole bars, but painting and weathering will lessen its impact if that matters. Operationally speaking, the conversion works brilliantly and now I have a cleaner for the Up line and one for the Down line on the Top Deck layout.

Cleared for Printing: The third renumber pack transfer sheet from NMS.

It has taken a little research and development to produce this sheet of OO gauge (4mm scale) renumbering transfers which will become NMS-3: BR era coaching stock and multiple units. It has finally gone for printing, is expected any day now and will be of the same high quality as the first two sheets which are proving to be very popular. It is intended to help those modellers who wish to renumber models with otherwise great paint finishes such as the Bachmann Mk.1 and Mk.2 coaches for example; but can also be used by repainting enthusiasts and those building and finishing kits. The number style is BR Rail Alphabet which will suit BR blue era and many ‘sectorisation’ and privately operated vehicles. Small black numbers are provided for EMU front end numbers too. Note the ample supply of prefix letters and a ‘number jumble’ from which groups of numbers can be taken to simplify the task of applying vehicle numbers. This is our most ambitious sheet to date and offers a great deal of options. At £3.95 per sheet, it’s great value for money, as always from Nairnshire Modelling Supplies.

The fourth sheet is now being type set which will be a renumbering pack for BR Large Logo BR blue locomotives including Class 37, 47, 50, 56 and 73.

Top Deck layout – a back scene and a turnout…

Slow progress on the Top Deck layout of late; the garden has taken over for the time being. However, there are some tasks which take a great deal of time and attention, none more than building turnouts and finishing the back scene. Well-built turnouts are critical for reliable operation and a properly finished back scene is critical to the finish of a layout. So both have been carefully constructed and finished recently before any work can commence on the train roads at the front of the layout together with new baseboards and track for the branch. All of the embankments, tunnel structure and hill side behind the mainline will be built before the train roads are installed and the mess carefully controlled with dust sheets and a powerful vacuum cleaner. This is important because below, on the two lower decks is my Montana Rail Link layout.

Looking in the opposite direction: the track at the real Folkestone East location does tighten up for Martello Tunnel. The train adjacent to the location of the signal box. My black pen scribbles are being replaced with correctly marked in track centres so I can place the foam underlay correctly. 1:6 turnouts and a 1:6 diamond crossing have been constructed for this location which will be a cross between the post 2000 track formation and the previous one.  Space and the need to reconcile a straight railway into a square room means some shortening of the junction into the train roads. I had to reclaim some space to make it fit!

The turnout leading from the main line into the train roads is placed at last, a 1:7 built on a Timbertracks turnout base using Peco track fixings and flat bottom rail. The cross-over from Down to Up line is curved were it is straight on the real location. I could have placed it on the straight, but this would have moved the junction down by several feet, shortening the train roads from 10-car to less than 8-car capacity between buffer stops and the start signal gantry. Compromise and pragmatic layout design is what it is all about and the model is an adaptation, not a scale model. Hence, some careful scenic work will be required to disguise the entrance to one of the fiddle yards seen in the back ground.

This pictures shows the finishing work to the back scene – the last of the filler needed to hide the joins and make it as seamless as possible. The layout is quite narrow, concentrating on modelling the railway and little beyond the boundary fence. After all, it is *supposed* to be a scenic test track! The land will be built up behind the track and planted with medium sized trees, using Woodland Scenics fine leaf foliage. Regarding the choice of stock, more on that soon – I have some work to do on the fleet so I can run trains representing the early 1980s to present day. Hence the creation of a hybrid track plan based on the post and pre-2000 formation. Makes operation much more interesting!

A welcome return of the swallows and an electricity bill…

In fact, the swallows have been with us for a fair few weeks, but only recently took an interest in the wood shed once again and we now have chicks in the same nest for the second year running:

Looking slightly comical with tufts of fluff and big beaks, we have counted three in our very brief glances into the wood shed. I think they think we are a dead loss…

No food? Okay, we are not available for photographs then… The sheer number of adult swallows in the area this year, from what we can tell,  is encouraging. We are seeing them every where we look over the fields in this area east of Nairn and around Nairn itself, especially along the river. perhaps not surprising as the area is very beautiful and a lovely environment for birds of all kinds. Insect life is pretty diverse and in good numbers, making it a good place for insect eating birds to survive.

Whilst on environmental stuff, we recently received our electricity account for the six months to June 17th. Oh-oh, always a nervous moment for many households given the high energy costs nowadays. The statement covered that particularly cold winter spell at the beginning of 2010 here on the Moray Firth (and the rest of Europe by all accounts) when we experienced temperatures down to minus 12 to minus 15 degrees centigrade at night and struggling to around minus 3 to plus 3 degrees during the day for what seemed like weeks at a time; followed by a chilly spring. This was always going to be a real test for our air-to-water heat source pump which relies on air temperature for heating the house. Admittedly, we do keep a check on our power usage and PV panel generation by taking meter readings every week, so the result was no surprise.

The heat source pump, our only heating and hot water source, was commissioned in March 2009, making last winter its first full cold spell and what a cold one it was too. The electricity result was even more remarkable, even allowing for increases in insulation in the house, an ongoing project and critical to making the best of energy efficient devices. According to the bill summary, we used an average of 50 units a day for the period compared to 72.5 units for the corresponding period the year before. A significant drop since the heat source pump was installed compared to the old electric central heating system and one which has dropped our costs dramatically. With further fine tuning and completion of our liquid insulation project using Nansulate, we hope to see that reduced further this coming winter. With a bit of luck, we will not see a return to the severe temperatures of last winter – even a few degrees warmer during the day compared to last winter would see a significant fall in energy usage during the winter months. If the weather and temperatures this winter passed had been the same for the winter of 2008-9 instead of being significantly colder, I wonder what the average usage per day would have been?

The pump heated the house to around 18 to 20 degrees centigrade constantly without the usual heat and decay cycles of more traditional systems. It is clear to me that the combination of the Danfos heat source pump and Nansulate insulation has reduced our power consumption dramatically bearing in mind we have made no other changes to electrical demand in the house (we are pretty careful with lights and not leaving things on stand-by).  We are now applying Nansulate to internal walls where we hope this will stop heat loss through the gap between stud walls and the external stone walls of the house.

The real problem with buying energy efficient equipment is finding the initial lump of capital to pay for the kit and installation. However, someone told me they had decided to buy a heat source pump to replace an oil central heating system because a simple calculation demonstrated that with current very low interest rates, the savings in power bills is a better return on the investment than is possible by placing the money in a saving account or even a high interest bond or similar investment vehicle. It makes sense and you cannot be taxed on the savings you make on using less energy either. Factor in government incentive schemes to help pay for such installations and it might not be as expensive as it initially appears to be.