Colin
and a 009 layout in a pizza box - that's style!
Burcroft Colliery - DCC in OO gauge modern image. They used NCE Power cabs.
Moorton Bottom Yard by Paul Windle. I've commented on this before - it's fantastic apart from the bridge to nowhere coming at you on the left hand side below. It just looks odd to me.
An N gauge layout in a suitcase - cracking stuff.
I was looking for some Larches (Like you do) - some bloke tried to sell me this, but it's just not a Larch mate.
ZTC decoders - how small can they get?
Red Rocks railroad - what a layout 10/10!
Some extremely clean ballast - they must clean it in between trains you know! This is Yarborough, great stock, nice layout but come on lads, just a little weathering on the ballast would help immensely.
The traders were pretty good, venue was central but thus expensive to park and get in. Can't comment on the food as we took our own (wells Greggs).
My ballast choice has been decided - woodland scenics grey, but a home mix of small and medium particles (more small than medium). A test piece was completed below:
Milliput was used to fill the gaps on my recent white metal Conway Castle kit. That is seriously weird stuff - two parts that you mix together into a putty - way weird!
A 2+1 seating section was made up and will now be posted to a resin moulder to create the internal seats for my FR/WHR cars.
My Lyd2 kit 'Eryri' is coming along nicely:
I finished off the random base in the far corner of the layout and painted it with acrylic burnt umber. The rising ground behind has yet to be finished.
I wasn't happy with some previous 'modrocing', so that came up and new was laid. Also I started to model the area between track and car park by adding 2 culverts and creating a 'mound' with polyfilla. No photo unfortunately, but will post again when I've done more of it.
The 3 WHR saloons are now placed on the track ready for the weekend test train.
Bachmann Dynamis: big screen, well laid out, intuitive controls, wireless and with the pro box (not yet released) you can have multiple handsets. Very nice, and it was to be the system for me, but after consulting various DCC people at recent shows and the DCC forum at http://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/ the issue is the infra red wireless. To be honest, when this system was first announced, my brother and I were dubious, and experience in the field suggests we were right - big problems when you have a 'L' shaped layout, or someone walks in front of you etc - when that happens you can't stop crashes etc - not good.
What we really need is a radio wireless system (see the ecos version below just made available on the continent, but not in the UK just yet - that's radio wireless!) or bluetooth or perhaps even wi-fi, but infra red is a no no for me.
Lenz set 100 - all the features you need, but it's like a remote control - buttons not knobs for accelerate and decelerate - not my view of a decent model railway experience!
The set 90 does have a knob but is also low on functions and the screen is very basic too.
Gaugemaster prodigy advance - super system, but very expensive at £225 for just the basic set.
Their zephyr system is much more like it, but the screen is basic and difficult to understand when programming, as it can only show 4 characters.
The roco multimouse has the best name (!) but again has a basic screen with few characters visible.
The NCE power cab is super, well priced and has a good screen/interface but the bizarre thumb wheel puts me off it.
The ZTC 511 is a super piece of kit and their is a handheld to go with it, the screen is good, controls are wonderful (like a real regulator) but it is way expensive at over £500 for what I would need. Shame. 
Colin
Using these I have been able to get a test train ready - the 3 largest cars I will operate 2043/4/5 are now ready for some testing as is the SAR brake (the tallest vehicle I reckon).
In the Cheltenham works (Dad's workbench) Merddin Emrys takes shape: more on this soon...
Colin
A Mercian 2 ton coal wagon - nightmare kit to construct as there is just too much detail for its own good and half etch lines are etched the wrong side etc etc - back in its bag until I can be bothered to sort the rest of the details out - not fun.
Much more fun is a plastic parkside quarryman's - easy.
Really pleased with this - FR iron sided bogie No 15
2 more WHR saloons - the solder needs tidying up, but they are materially complete.
and finally the curly roofed van, complete with parkside plastic FR bogies (which need the spring detail adding yet)
Colin
