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Loco Sand Wagons BR(E)

Kelvin Barnes Uncategorized ,

This is a tale of two Loco 7T Sand Wagons in O gauge. The first one was purchased as a kit at an O Gauge ‘meet up’ at Bury St Eds. last year. I duly passed it to Graham for assembly. It has now arrived back for me to finish, it will become number 600023 a Ipswich wagon that lasted until about 1962, and was used to top up Diesel Loco’s as well as the earlier Steam Loco’s.

I saw the second wagon on the Steamline Website for sale and purchased it as it was again a locally based wagon at Yarmouth Vauxhall. Both Wagons were made from Connoisseur Kits by Jim McGeown.

Busy Weekend

Kelvin Barnes Uncategorized

We attended two Exhibitions this past weekend, Dereham and Needham Market. here are a few photos taken by my wife on her new phone/camera. The layout was Grubb Lane on Sunday and 4000 Yards Area 5 on Saturday – The group photo is the original founder members. This is the first time we have all met up at an Exhibition for nine months – we have had a very traumatic time recently and are all looking forward to a better year at Exhibitions this year.

Hornby Dublo Layout

Kelvin Barnes Uncategorized ,

Our Group has another new member, Peter Willis is a well known Exhibition Manager and Exhibitor in East Anglia. Peters first layout available within the group is a Hornby Dublo demonstration layout. It represents Meccano Products made in the 1940’s and 50’s.

Please see the list of Exhibition Layouts on this site to book this layout for your Exhibition.

Two O Gauge Pugs

Kelvin Barnes Uncategorized ,

Here are two Kit Built Sevenscale Pugs, one BR and the other LMS. The BR Pug was built to a very high standard and only a few tweaks and a light weathering were asked for by their owner Ollie. The second Pug I believe was an Ebay purchase and required a lot more work as it was built to a lesser standard, had a few bits missing. It was also in the wrong LMS livery for Ollie, so a partial repaint and new number and transfers required, it also has been given a light weathering.

Warning Mould Attack

Kelvin Barnes Uncategorized

I have some layouts part finished in my shed. I last looked at the contents just before Xmas and all was OK, on looking yesterday the layouts have been attacked by mould. Those that were painted were less affected than those in raw wood, the ones with MDF were by far the worse affected, although other woods did suffer a bit,

I got one layout outside this morning and tried some Mould Remover that I purchased. It seems to work OK, but to be on the safe side I will leave it a couple of days and check that the patch I did is still free of contamination.

This has set me back on a year that I had hoped to finish all the unfinished Layouts. I think I will wait until the better weather before full refurbishment commences and at the moment I estimate at least two – three weeks work if everything goes well.

I have been told that MDF is very prone to mould during the winter – but in 30 years of using it I have never had trouble before – but all the affected layouts use the same batch of MDF purchased three years ago.

Class 26 in O Gauge weathered

Kelvin Barnes Uncategorized ,

This loco is not one of the current batch, but one of three I purchased in the first batch several years ago. Of the three this is the only one that currently works as the other two have the traditional Heljan gear slip problems – I will seek help and get them replaced before I weather them. I have sprayed the full yellow warning panel on the loco to have something a bit different. This loco has received a medium weathering.

Class 30 (31) Weathered

Kelvin Barnes Uncategorized ,

This is a Class 31 that I purchased when the first batch came out several years ago. Only now have I got around to weathering it. I have not changed the exhaust ports to the original engine variety as I may well still do it as a English Electric at a later date. This is a light to medium weathering as it represents a loco not long in service, but still living with steam engines.