The modelling workbench of James Hilton...

Welcome to another round up of what has been happening in the workshop this week.

The ‘challenge’ in modelling this latest Mosslanda based layout was inlaid track in N, especially a turnout.

Four years ago a red high hood GP9 led me down a rabbit hole that resulted in a layout design, inspired by the Johns Manville plant in Defiance, Ohio… Last weekend a sense that I was recreating the stock in N scale without realising went from casual obser…

Cwmbach is a project that has evolved without a firm ‘concept sketch’.

I’ve had a busy summer of 009 commissions - and as well as the pair of NG15s I have finished off a pair of Michael Tucker NGG16s with RT Models valve gear, the first of which is shared today… This is far from the first of these models on the bench, they’re

Night Shift was a concept album, sorry layout.

Whilst my bench is always varied the recent Canadian models have certainly made their presence felt here too.

How is it Friday already?

Yesterday good friend Michael and I used a Northern Explorer ticket to ride some trains around Manchester for the day, logging the journeys on ‘Journey Log’… The trips included some new to me trackage and some new to me single line termini, all three of w…

The impulse buy that started this latest Canadian Adventure, a Canadian National zebra striped F unit.

I have finished the last building, but not all the buildings on Beaverbrook.

I love the variety of projects that grace my workbench, and never one to turn away an interesting commission I was excited to help a customer in Australia recreate a narrow gauge Drewry shunter for his collection… The base model is an aging Bachmann split…

Yesterday was ‘business as usual’ weather wise, in North Wales.

The way a soft pencil moves over paper, smooth yet with a subtle feedback through the finger tips.

It has been a week away from the bench, as you might have gathered from various references in posts this week… I have been down visiting my Mum in Penarth with my son.

In July, at the start of this latest North American ‘distraction’, I experimented with various couplings.

So Creech Barn is finished.

There is a childlike innocence in modelling prototypes we are less familiar with - and despite my best endeavours I’m still wonderfully uninformed about so much about Canadian railways in the prairies during the late 70s and 80s… I read books and look on…

A narrow gauge model of an unusual prototype, this 00-12 model features an EDM 3D printed body, heavily modified to sit on a Hornby TT:120 chassis and has turned out to be a delightful little thing… The EDM ‘kit’ is more of a scratch-aid.

The ‘thrum thrum thrum’ overlaid on the ‘ggg the the thur ggg the the thur ggg the the thur’ is something you only notice after a few minutes of listening to HMLX 8032.

Alongside the obvious enjoyment from new purchases, research and model making that these N scale Canadian models have facilitated has been an unexpected development.

It has been a busy week here with some new commissions starting but slow progress on the existing ones mixed with GCSE results and planning for a week off next.

I knew I would have to tackle this, to address the factory fresh stainless steel finish of my Rapido RDC.

Creech Barn has never really reached its full potential.

With news that DB Cargo is for sale, the idea that ‘Modern Goods’ would depict the current rail scene is already hopelessly dashed.