Oh oh ohhhh fuck it...

Yes, Christmas, a time of year which I'm ambivalent about for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I never know whether to be happy I've received gifts, or guilty because I'm fortunate enough to have present bought for me when there's homeless people on the streets and children in Africa drying poisonous water for charity adverts.

People say be mindful and grateful, but all I see it as IS "Feel guilty you fortunate fuck, you got DVD's!"

I don't want to feel guilty thank you very much, I have enough going through my head that I try to appreciate the joys in life witohut resorting to the inevitable guilt of knowing people I don't know so really shouldn't care about are having a hard time.

In the end, I've made a conscious decision to care about my friends and family. Anyone else I'll make a decision on when I meet them. Bollocks to the rest of humanity...

I also really enjoyed Doctor Who, I know alot of people don't share that sentiment and think it's a pile of shite. We again, fuck you, I like it and I liked this episode. I'm not say it was perfect and I did see areas that if I was a writer would change. But, I'm not, and so where as my love for the sci-fi show runs deeper than just as a piece of light entertainment, if I really wanted to make a difference in the show, I would have aimed to be a writer for it. But I'm not, instead I'm sat on my arse with my feet up typing this blog.

I shed a tear for the passing of Matt, you can tell he warmed to the show and embraced the ideology as well as the fans and that makes it even more heartwarming that he's gone. But things change, he has a career to look after and  I hope him every success in the future. Now for some Capaldi to start mixing things up.

I;m feeling a little drained at the moment, after events recently have taken an odd turn so my modelling blog so on the modelling front, just a short one.

The brake van has now been weather with humbrol paints with some LNER & BR tail lamps added to the read. To give the wagon a run down look I used humbrol 98 & 33 in a 2:1 ratio. Applied a sa thinned wash before wiping away with cotton buds. The chassis frame was dry brushed with humbrol 133 with the springs and brake dry brushed with humbrol 62.

Finally i have completed the sulphate wagons, adding a tissue paper/newpaper cladding as the tarpaulin. They were painting NATO black which makes them look green, washed with a mix of flat black and NATO black and finally dry brushed with a mixture of revell 85, 6, 75.

The lettering was a gen pen and the strapping was model ship rigging but I suspect sewing thread would work just as well.

As I have mentioned before, I have no real idea how accurate this train is and I highly suspect it isn;t. But this is as close as I think it could be.

ave a Merry Christmas, if you can't then... don't....

Wine, Women and Cops...

It's been one of those days... you know. A day which is intrinsically annoying.

Well, this week has been mildly weird.Take last night for instance, all me and my friend wanted for a nice quite meal, a couple of drink but for not much to happen. So what initially started out as a quiet night turned into a woman being arrested in front of us, a man in a Klan hood walking past the pub and for me to almost feel the long arm of the law by sticking my fingers up at Ronnie Biggs on the news... As a policeman walked past it. He  finally realised, after a particularly intimate body search... I joke.

Haha...oh bugger it.

I also lost a contact lens today too. After I put it in my eye... how does one do that.... magic.



But so far, I survived another day, which is a good thing and now four days off from purgatory! Wooo! Currently , I'm spending my holiday gawping at pictures of Gina McKee... really fancy her.

but the reason why I have brought you here is trains.

nothing much to say, except that I have been weathering and I'm quite impressed with the results. I honestly have no idea how these wagons looked and can't find anything on these wagons, so yeah, playing it by ear. :S

As these wagons we apparently sheeted, I've decided to give this a pop using cling films, newspaper/tissue paper and a shit load of VA/Water mix.

and here's the brake van.

Still more to do but for the time being...Gina McKee :D

Blindness and exasperation...

EHwoh!

I'm back... I bet you'd never thought you hear that again! I am though, one year older and slightly more jaded that when you last met me, and let's be frank, I was quite jaded before hand.

I reached 27 and for a week I was okay, totally fine. Then it hit me, literally a week afterward, waiting at the bus station. I was older, physically, if not mentally. I hate that feeling. Especially considering I'm more atheist than agnostic. The pit in your stomach when you realise that you have about 70 more years on this planet, I'm 27 years in already and life's getting faster, God damn it!

This is one cruel game!

However, it's not all bad. Doctor Who was fifty the other week and I fankwanked myself silly with it all. Especially the Day of the Doctor and An Adventure in Space and Time.

An Adventure in Space and Time was beautiful and I'm not weak enough to hide the fact that I literally cried laughing and cried crying in the last five minutes of the show. It was a most beautiful moment which I was happily moved by the acknowledgement for the longest continuous running sci-fi in history.

This lead me to a site call Goodread where I've been reviewing books and adding short stories and talking to some cool people. Please visit and join in, it's pretty good. Goodreads

I've also taking to jabbing the living fuck out of my eyes with some contact lenses. What fun I'm having also causing myself to go blind by trying to make it easier for me to see.

Also what happened was a jolly little visit to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway... which was both, enjoyable and bloody weird. Oxenhope, what is there, what the actual fuck is there? I found half a park and nothing else!!!! But it was nice to see the WD in action. Lovely engine, if a little loud.

Although there was a creepy moment between a train spotter and his Thai Bride, which made me question everything I hold dear.

On top of that, my local town has found out it has the world's shittest Christmas Tree, well England's shittest Christmas Tree. In fact it's not even a Christmas Tree at all... so it's a bit of misnomer really...

Bad tree

Anyway I'm digressing, we're hear to see me build trains and shit aren't we?

So, trying to combat lethargy, I have been pushing myself to work on the painting and decal side of this.

I managed to get so far with the brake van, I think all this I need now is to weather it, which a relief as it looked the hardest thing to make.

It isn't completely finished and is still prone to fall apart but it's good enough at the moment. The same goes for the Sulphate wagons below. The "Sulphate" decals were a little awkward but just some careful handling made short work of them.

As you can see with the wooden doors, I have added variations to the planking which will hopefully tone down with weathering.

Anyway, I must be off to repair my coat and sleep before *shudders* work tomorrow.

Awh and Doctor Who has finished on the DVD player whilst I've been typing this up... sod you all!

I hope I don't die of old age just yet...

I write this new blog entry thing literally a week before I turn 27.

I'm slowly becoming more freaked out about how old I am and how little I wish to remove myself from the kindly bosom of my parents. Am I really going to end up like a 45 year old undesirable bachelor? Will I die not fulfilling any potential at all!

Tune in next week, Same Twat Time, Same Twat Channel!

But modelling wise, things are happily coming along.

The main superstructure for the break van is now complete including adding updated it to make it more LNER. A lot of which was detailed in my last blog but something which I hadn't done before that entry was the double lamp irons common to LNER brake vans. there was simple being just a slice of "L" shaped plastic strut and some micro strip about a 1mm wide.

Over all the rest of it was simple enough to do until I came to the brass wire which I know I've messed up with but hopefully it won't look to bad once painted and weathered.

also whilst I've been at it, I've began painting the Sulphate wagons with some Railmatch enamels I bought from my local shop. The thing about these wagons is that the main body was made up of steel sheeting and the doors where wooden. I suspect the wooden doors would fade at a quicker rate to the nature of wood and the frequent handling of the doors.

To replicate this I painted the body the general early BR grey colour where as the doors I painted with LNER grey. I know, Grey is grey but as that sex starved dildo wielding writer lady state (incorrectly) there was 50 different shades. Actually, love, petal, sugar tits, you might find in the model railway fraternity there are far more than just 50.

I'm hoping that after some weathering they turn out okay, what this space....

Anyway, I'm off to try and see the Great Gathering again on my birthday :D then afterwards get smashed with some friends and try and find a way out of an uncomfortably interested cactus.

For more information on the recent gathering at York here's the link.

http://www.nrm.org.uk/planavisit/events/mallard75.aspx

A goods train, A Goods Train, A GOODS TRAIN!

.... said Gordon, grunting like an impotent executive trying in vein to enjoy his "business" trip in Bangkok.

Hello, it's me, Sylvian, welcome back to my irreverent look at model railways. As you may have guessed, I'm watching Thomas the Tank Engine. Mere weeks before I turn 27, I feel like  a dad who took divorce quite badly. I've even took to comfort eating... This life will be the death of me. 

But as I waft, limply into oblivion I continue with my modelling. I last left you with a rake of Ammonia Sulphate wagon, and I'm pleased to say I've done literally fuck all with them since. 

Instead I've been slowly but surely working on modifying a Dapol Brake Van to turn it into some more Ex-LNER. With the help of a scalpel, some squadron putty and a modelling by Martin Welch I commandeered from the library, I set to work. 

So far I've really just done the chassis but this is where I expect most of the work would have gone with it, the rest looks a little simple... apart from the railing. (Actually I've just realised I still need to do them...bollocks)

                                      

One of the main bits on the body I've reworked was inner wall way which lost it's original planking after a good seeing to with sandpaper to removed those ruddy moulding marks. The planking is just some 2mm microstrip.

The ballast blocks on LNER brake vans ran right up to the verandas so this was amended on the model with some thick plastic strip which was filed down when the glue has thoroughly dry. (I say thoroughly dry, I did risk it and it paid off)  

                                         

Once of this was finished, the squadron putty came out to make the little problems disappear , like what the CIA does to people. That is what they do, right?

                                         

 Further details were eventually added to the under frame including the bracing made from "L" strip.

And we see the eventual evolution of the brake gear given a basic mod to single clasp ( as per NER prototype), I couldn't be arsed looking around for some. I am told however ABS do some. They'll look alright once painted and weathered, from a distance, to a blind man.

So here is the overall outcome of the chassis bit, brake gear has been added along with brake loops made from staples and some whitemetal brake pipes from 51L models I bought at York about a year ago. As some of you more observant may have seen, the foot boards have been cut down by about 10mm from the left end and rejoined with some new hole made let them fit. 

Its been fun but I do fear I may suffer from a general unhappy lethargy which makes these projects protract. 

Sod it, I'm joining Fathers fro Justice! 

Never type Ammonia Sulphate into a search engine

...especially after googling the IRA. MI6 probably now have me by the knackers.

Yeay!

I've spend about 8 months of my life shackled to 16mm scale which was fun but I've had a few set back with that, namely my dehumidifier decide it had better things to do than actually work! So I have very little water to successful play real trains at the moment.

The real pain in the arse is I sat bolt upright one night and realised that we have less than a year before Hartburn Junction, our new and upcoming, 4mm finescale layout is due to show at Middlesbrough Model Railway Exhibition. It was one of those moments where when you say "I shit myself" and don't understand if you mean't it figuratively or literally. Luckily, it was figuratively.

So I have decided along time ago to make about twenty thousand trains to run on it and I have managed to complete four. So it would be rude not to...

So I had decided to set myself the task of making a Sulphate Ammonia train which ran out of Haverton Hill near where I reside and went somewhere. As to where I can't remember. Now this is the funny bit, because, I know fuck all about these trains and, it appears, so does everyone else. So I'm relying on some pretty good judgment on my part. My friends will tell you that I have no good judgement, I have been the cause of many a tragic accident due to my infamous lack of judgement.

Anyway, I'm digressing... so Sulphate Wagons. I did a very strange thing and followed the instructions. And it worked! For a while. The bodies were pretty straight forward. Just a bit of filing and weight added.

The weight was a combination of 10 g balance weights and liquid gravity held in place with some "l" shaped plastruct and sealed in with cynoglue whilst I watched Arnold Schwarzenegger kill people in the name of futuristic entertainment. The wagons will be given a tarpaulin sheet so the interior won't be viewed. 

The bogies were a slightly different story. Some of the kits came with some odd brass bearings and wheels which I used noticed the fitting was a little skewed once they had died. It took some rearranging of the part and filling with some plastic offshoots to give the wheels a proper fit but I got there in the end. 

The wagons will be a block rake so I decided to only fit tension locks to the outer two bogies whilst the rest got there european style hoop couples which I bought fir a different project which didn't go ahead. 

So yeah.... I'm going to sod off and watch the kick arse battle in Star Trek: The Unidscovered Country. Adios!

Kind regards

SG

New day, new blog

Hello young men and women of the model railway world (or just plainly, of the world).

As you may or may not know, I am Sylvian, poet, actor and modeller. I'm also a few other things such as a Goth and generally awkward bastard. But mainly for the purposes of this blog, I'll be a railway modeller. Although some of the other things (especially that bastard one, may creep into the blog from time to time).

So I'm generally a modeller of 4mm scale, 009 gauge and 16mm scale models and you'll hopefully get to see them as time goes on.

Here a just a few samples of what I've done to give you an impression of what's to come.

 This was the first loco I had ever updated and represents am local engines which I'm led to believe was based in Stockton for a short spell.

Another Stocktonian this time, the former 120 quid KWVR special edition which I was a bit of a mad twat to update. But I did :D

here is a small selection of wagons I've completed including the pain in the hoop tankers which took about two years  to completely finish!

 Oh a 009 tram which I've managed to find some coaches for!

Ah some commissions of mine which I am pretty proud of :D

Finally, or last but not least

is the little live steamer. 16mm scale using a round house Lady Anne and some kit built (and modified IP engineer kits). But hey, hello! Keep an eye out for future potential projects!


Kind regards

SG

Edit: I've just relapsed I typed this up as I was falling asleep... it really shows in the last sentence.