Nairnshire Modelling Supplies…growing all the time. Now it’s Kadees and paints.

Nairnshire Modelling Supplies is now an authorised dealer for Kadee couplers. The first stocks are on their way from the US at this time. They will be listed on the web site as soon as they arrive. We doubt they will be with us in time for this weekend’s Falkirk show which we will be attending with the stand. However, it is likely that our new to NMS range of Phoenix Precision paints and finishing products will be – if the delivery arrives on time!

Onwards and upwards with track.

Sometimes, I wish I only modelled OO gauge instead of EM gauge. Hey-ho, now I have to build and lay a great deal more track. Work has started on the Kent Coast mainline in the scenic area of the Top Deck layout and that means I cannot just slap any old thing down. The picture above shows the placing of the Down line close to the position of the back scene. The curve and curved turnouts are a compromise – the real cross over is straight. In this design, to have brought this facing cross over to the front of the layout would have to reduce the length of train stabling and turn back roads to 8 coaches instead of 10. Not an acceptable compromise in that direction. So, curved turnouts it is! This illustrates one of the points about modelling a linear structure such as a railway in oblong shaped rooms – eventually, the design has to incorporate a un-prototypical  right angle curve to avoid it hitting the wall!

Sleepers placed in the Down direction. A hefty piece of wood provides a good straight edge for this stretch of line. Remember, this layout theme is supposed to be a scenic test track for my British outline models but is fact becoming a fully scenic model! A turnout is placed where there will be a trailing cross-over.

The same turnout looking in the Up direction.

Sleepers are individually placed on the Plastozote foam track bed before the rail and fixings are added. This type of concrete sleeper is by C&L Finescale and passes muster. It’s a long winded process but the end result looks good.

In goes the first running rail composed of Code 82 flat bottom rail: heavy enough for a mainline. Fixings are trimmed Pandrol clip and base plate mouldings by Peco.

Roller gauges set the correct gauge as the second running rail is fixed into place. Wiring and testing is not far away. I am considering a different approach for the sleepers on the Up line to speed the track laying process up and to introduce a different type of concrete sleeper. After that comes the conductor rail!

Posing for the camera

It’s raining, so we don’t want to fly today…

Swallows fledge…

One of the nesting successes here this year has been the brood of swallows (family Hirundinidae) born in our wood shed. They love outbuildings like this and this is the first nest we have had since moving here exactly five years ago.  The nest is secure from our cats which have had  a dose of swallow mobbing to contend with. That won’t do them any harm.

I  sneaked quietly into the wood shed shortly before they fledged to grab a couple of pictures – I will confess to being no wild life photographer and I did not wish to disturb the young – hence the slightly fuzzy shots. They were alert and ready to fly when these pictures were taken. A day later and out they went, enjoying the warn sunshine. There are four young in total, a bit of s squeeze in that nest to which they return to from time to time.

I hope this success together with the really good supply of insects this year will encourage the nesting pair to return again next year. In the meantime, we keep our distance, monitor carefully and protect the nest as best we can. It will be left in situ throughout the winter as swallows do resuse their old nesting sites.  In the meantime, our winter supply of firewood is sitting outside getting wet instead of being stacked to dry in the wood shed! There is no way we could do any stacking whilst that nest was active and piles of firewood would put the nest at risk from predators. For more information, visit the RSPB web site at which has useful information on the legal status of swallows, how to encourage them to nest and how to rescue a broken nest should the unthinkable happen.

It was warm in Nairn too, this summer…

For some strange reason, some people in the hobby that ‘claim’ to know me think that a move to the Scottish Highlands is like moving to the North Pole. This occurred again this week. I received an email from a bod who commiserated with me at not being in a position to enjoy the hot weather experienced in the south of Britain over the last few weeks. I read that particular bit of stupidity as our weather station sensors, particularly the north facing ones were reading 28 degrees Centigrade…

Now, things across the UK have cooled down a little over the last few days; but generally, Nairn and the west end of the Moray Firth enjoys a fairly unique climate (ask the RAF at Kinloss) and many parts of the West Coast experience such mild conditions that frost tender plants and palm trees are commonplace in gardens. Why does this interest me enough to hit my blog, you may be wondering?

Railway modelling is not my primary and all-consuming interest. I cycle, do a lot of hill walking and…I love gardening. No garden railway for me but a big project to restore a two acre woodland garden located about 200 metres from the east beach in Nairn. Sarah and I are five years into the project now and our philosophy is simple: use minimal chemicals or avoid them altogether, encourage wild life, plant for insects and bees and encourage birds. This has had a fundamental impact on the choice of plants and how we look after the wilder parts of the garden. No designer hybrids here, nor decking and fancy foliage planting which do nothing for the bee population.

The garden is in a very dry location, on light sandy soil which is free draining and roughly neutral in pH. No chance of  growing the Scottish Highlands staples such as rhododendrons, azaleas, Meconopsis and other acid-loving plants. The dry, mild and sometimes warm climate here is more akin to cooler, drier and higher parts of the Vaucluse or Drome area of the South of France, certainly at times, although the summer season is so much shorter.  We have dry cold winters, warm dry summers and the climate is perfect for soft fruit growing, vegetables and my all-time favourite plant: Lavender. In fact, it grows like a weed here… We could grow grapes under glass with ease but outside….the longer although dry and cold winters would prevent this. On a note of reality, drive five miles inland and this unique coastal strip climate gives way to more typical Scottish upland weather where growing things like garlic and Lavender becomes nigh impossible. Still, on the coastal strip between Dalcross and Forres, garlic, carrots, soft fruit and other more interesting crops are grown commercially and the beaches of Nairn are usually well populated in summer.

This is Lavande Vraie (the packet says ‘Plante vivace pour massifs!); bought as seed from a garden centre near Avignon, propagated in the green house here in Nairn and thriving, much to the delight of our bee population.

These guys like it a lot! Plants like Lavender (we grow many different types of English and French Lavender and other beneficial plants) are vital for our bee population, both bumble bees and honey bees; both of which nest in the garden.

Butterflies like it too. We are keen to provide for our insects given they are so vital to the pollination of fruits and flowers. Yet I never fail to be amazed at how people regard vital pollinating insects and those that are great natural predators in the garden as undesirable. We frequently hear of people asking about pesticides for killing hover flies, bees and other harmless and beneficial insects because they have some fear of being stung, or because of their children being stung or because they know not that most insects are harmless. Bees are not going to harm you if you keep out of their way…nor do wasps…and you should not kill them, not at all. We should educate our kids that such insects are so important to us. A result of the encouraging insects is that we have swallows nesting in our wood shed for the first time since moving in, and bats turned up last summer.

This small wasp’s nest is situated 15 feet from the kitchen window… Yup, that may seem wierd and a little scary. Nonetheless, they have as much right to live here as we do. This colony consist of smaller wasps which like to strip green fly from plants as a food source, bringing a nmuch needed benefit to our garden. They don’t bother us and we leave them to it. Like any bee or wasp colony, avoid getting into flight paths and don’t disturb the nest itself.

It’s a shame that most peoples’ instinct would be to destroy such an amazing structure! Give it a few months and it will be abandoned as Autumn sets in and cooler weather returns. Those built in our porch in recent years have not caused us any harm at all.

Onions and garlic grow well in our mild conditions. We pulled our garlic and Japanese onions a few days ago. They were planted last Autumn to over-winter in the garden, providing an early crop whilst the summer onions and shallots are still growing.

Soft fruit…black currents. We also grow blue berries, raspberries, honey berries together with red and white currants – all outside. We plan to plant an asparagus bed this autumn.

Globe courgettes…usually over run by them. And cucumbers…

Also enjoying the first of the potato crop. We plant varieties such as Rocket, Sharps Express and Catriona. Lovely!

Good quality compost is vital to a garden like ours; being used to condition the sandy soil, as a weed suppressant and to lock in what little rain we get from time to time. A two acre garden gobbles up a lot of compost. This 10 ton lot is bought from a local company that deals with green wast from recycling centres. It’s heated to around 65 degrees centigrade to kill weed seeds and then used on farm land and sold to gardeners for a nominal amount.Whist it is superb compost, the amount of plastic waste in it is surprising. And that is down to people who cannot be bothered to take more care when recycling green waste; throwing bin liners of green waste in the skips instead of emptying them and recycling the plastic separately.

Anyway, that’s a brief glimse of the gradening activity here in our little corner of Nairn and the climate we enjoy here. Well, the sun is breaking through again – off to have breakfast – in the garden!

A Southern Flavour…

Anyone who knows me (many I have never met in my life claim they do!) will know that my UK-outline interests are distinctly Southern in flavour. Eastleigh 100 was not to be missed, even though the event of last weekend was over 600 miles away from my Highlands home.

It became a grand tour, starting at Grangemouth, taking in Carlisle, Oxford (side trip to Howes Models) Didcot and finally Lymington on the way down, a journey taken over two days. The Eastleigh event itself was followed by a general photting trip which ended up at Tonbridge at dusk on Sunday evening. Home again the next day.

Both my travelling companion and I met many really good people; the visitors to the works open day were generally courteous and tried hard not to spoil others’ shots;  station staff on the whole were friendly and understanding and the night photography was an experience new to me.

Here’s a handful of pictures taken during that very enjoyable and sunny weekend.

Grangemouth:
Not so Southern to start…however this intermodal had no traditional boxes on board, only tanks of various kinds.

The Lymington Branch with its 3-Cig units.
Word is that units No.s 1497 and 1498 will be withdrawn from the line later in 2009. Here’s 1498 in Southern green – and a Wight ferry.

Eastleigh Works 100:
A fantastic event given that Eastleigh was a closed-and-to-be-demolished works in 2007. Now it’s an operational railway workshop once again.

Faversham and Tonbridge Yard at dusk:

That’s it for now. By the way, the Bull Frog Snot arrived and is being tested. I will place details on the Nairnshire Modelling Supplies site when ready. All the best for now.

New at Nairnshire Modelling Supplies – signs!

New pre-cut signage for stations including posters and timetables covering various BR regions and modern era modelling are now available from Nairnshire Modelling Supplies (NMS). No need for scissors to cut these out and they are thick enough not to need mounting on styrene card. The above is an example of the NER station signs in 4mm scale.

Posters…from the 1970s.

Depot signs: they are all pre-cut and ready to use, being far better than traditional printed signs which are basically a piece of printed card.

Modern station signs.

An initial range of 17 OO gauge packs has been listed on www.nairnshire-modelling-supplies.co.uk. If they are popular, we shall expand the range online. Also new to NMS are OO gauge Peco track consumables such as rail joiners and track detailing parts.

Ignoring the snow hype…

I know it’s been pretty interesting for travel and other normal social activities in the south recently, but snow in winter really is nothing new. I am not so interested in the media hype about snow. And no wonder there’s hype when some idiot from the Met office thinks that severe weather warnings (you know, the ‘be prepared’ and ‘take action’ colour warnings for us plebs that might not understand what a severe weather warning is) are appropriate for ‘up to 10cm of accumulated snow on higher ground’ here in the Scottish Highlands. 10cm or 100mm or 4 inches, which ever way you wish to look at it, is not a lot for mountain territory – a mere sprinkling. No one complains, the council grits roads and pavements beforehand and the ski centres in the Cairngorm mountains are delighted. As an aside, it is looking very much like another good season!

Travelling to Harrogate last weekend before all the fuss started, I took the opportunity to stop by Tees Yard just to see if there was any activity. A grimy, dirty day did not show much promise, even trains were on the move. For once, weak sunlight broke through for a 20 minute period and the trains turned up at the same time too. Here’s a handful of pictures taken from the popular over bridge location at Tees.  It’s a great spot for wagon spotting and taking those all-important detail shots.

A Class 66 on HTAs: nothing special, you may point out. True, except the detail around the train IS of interest given that I am about to create scenery on Dudley Heath Yard and it will be winter scenery. The texture of the grass, road ways and so on was very useful to observe for reference.

More colour (or lack of) to observe in this shot of Class 66s in now obsolete EWS livery. If you do not have enough reference shots of this colour scheme, 2009 is the time to get them as DB Schenker will, no doubt, be at it with the paint brushes.

A train of HAA-type hopper wagons turned up and for once, not grimed with coal dust. This is 356421 which appears to be used on mineral traffic. Salt, potash or lime, it’s hard to tell from here. Makes a change from coal!

A selection of pictures of bulktainers follow. In the shot above, note the roll-past inspection as the train enters the main part of Tees Yard. Modellers using the C-Rail Intermodal kit for the 30ft. bulktainer may find the following useful for reference.

About 20 minutes is all the sunlight to be had that day and then the dank mist rolled in over the sun again. Time to go!

Model Rail – Glasgow SECC:
Three weeks…three? No, two weeks to go to this all-important event in the railway modelling diary. Nairnshire Modelling Supplies will be there and we have a great deal of new stock. Not only have we stocked up on all those important things like Mashima motors of all shapes and sizes, wheels, layout building materials and the all vital consumables like glue, flux and solder, we also have new supplies of 1.5mm and 3mm cork together with 3mm foam for track underlay (the really nice fine stuff the fine scale modellers like). There’s lots of electronic components for DCC enthusiasts and layout builders too. Two weeks to go and all that work to do…

Nonetheless, we very much look forward to seeing you at the SECC, Friday to Sunday 20th-22nd February.

Packing the cork and foam…

Freezing cold in Nairn…

…and the cats are hugging radiators. Ever popular is our large Douvre wood burning stove in the living room which really pumps the heat for the sake of a stick of fire wood or two and the cats lounge around it on a shaggy woollen rug. Here’s the foursome absorbing heat from the stove. It takes effort to prevent them from actually cooking in front of it!

Meet Miss Nibbles, our twelve year old torty tabby – very serene lady indeed. Keeps the kittens in line!

Here’s No.1 head cat, after me of course! This is Foxy, a large male British Short Hair. Laid back but very much in charge. The kittens think he’s wonderful, if a little large.

The kittens: Katie (rear) and Sophie (front) enjoying the heat from the stove. They are just over 12 months old now.

Katie again – the larger of the two sisters. Health and Safety Manager – investigates everything with caution that would put HSE staff to shame but not adverse to climbing curtains to dive bomb a papyrus plant…

Sophie in her usual position: upside down in a soft, warm radiator bed. She is the complete opposite to Katie – does not take life at all seriously. A real It -girl of the cat world.

The effects of freezing fog in our trees. Minus 5 degrees last night here in Nairn and cold today too. However, the effect is stunning.

Direct Rail Services’ Highland intermodal service

Judging by the searches made for the new DRS service to Inverness, it’s a popular subject. Quite a few visitors have surfed into my blog and found my earlier entry of October 31st. Well, there was a bit of a treat for the Aberdeen – Inverness line yesterday. The service was diverted over this route because the Highland line at Perth was closed. A dreaded engineering possession, much criticised by the media here in the UK because it causes problems for ‘commuters’ – sorry, passengers. Maintain the railways – how dare they?

Anyway, I digress. With some really fine Highland weather: frost, clear skies and a touch of mist at Delnies, the temptation for a quick trip to the line side was not to be missed. The first shot is of the train arriving at Nairn. DRS Class 66, No.66 433 was in charge.

By being quick off the mark, I was able to head west a few miles to Delnies, arriving a few seconds before the train, despite icy roads.

After examining the image above,  you may be excused into thinking that there’s another loco on the rear of the train. Yes you’re right: 66 415 brought up the rear of the service. It was included in the formation to ease shunting into the Inverness intermodal terminal on this particular occasion, even though there are run round lines in the terminal for loco release. Notably, 66 415 worked the first train at the end of October.

A final view of the train, facing the Inverness direction with 66 415 on the rear. Mist from the Moray Firth was rolling in. Otherwise, fine views of the Highlands can be seen from this location. The train was 22 units, making it one of the longest freight trains to pass over the old Inverness – Nairn railway in recent years.