Tales from The Room of Doom. Dipping a toe in various bucolic backwaters.

Flaxfield

Western Thunderer
Thats a lovely play on the early BR emblem, Rob!

It is. The logo draws a lot of comment.

1000014586 (1).jpg


It was drawn up by Adrian, the Butler side of the partnership. Adrian is a very skilled artist and sculptor. His work is dotted about Cardiff and he was also the weathering side of the business, yer actual 'Dirty Boy' ( not to be confused with the pretender doing much inferior work via eBay).

However, the Dirty Boy option to weather purchases is currently not available from us.


Rob
 

AdeMoore

Western Thunderer
Just spent bits of yesterday and today catching up! Dunno what happens to my notifications on here but some threads I get every one others nowt!
But very enjoyable read from late September I think it was looking forward to seeing Owling develop further.
Cheers
Ade
 

Flaxfield

Western Thunderer
Just spent bits of yesterday and today catching up! Dunno what happens to my notifications on here but some threads I get every one others nowt!
But very enjoyable read from late September I think it was looking forward to seeing Owling develop further.
Cheers
Ade

Hi Ade.

Glad to be of service !

I'm hoping to progress Owling later today, once this morning's running around is out of the way.

Rob
 

Gilbert

Western Thunderer
Lord and Butler are very pleased to be able to reveal that Chris Hopper, aka @Gilbert will be bringing his delightful Bitley Mill micro layout along for the day. He'll be only to happy to chat about how he built this lovely little layout as well as sharing his experience of building a string of very entertaining small layouts which are often exhibited by him.
A taster...
54874517181_b5c257874a_z.jpg
 

Flaxfield

Western Thunderer
Morning all.

Yes, a week tomorrow, I'll be at Lord and Butler chucking static grass over everything. I'll also be dabbling with weathering powders, mainly in the direction of Peco trackwork.

I'd forgotten about the latter until I read the piece in Railway Modeller's February edition.

Screenshot_20260108_184142_Readly.jpg

Do pop in if you fancy it.

Rob
 

Flaxfield

Western Thunderer
And on the subject of arrivals/announcements, there has been an interesting Continental one.

Regulars hereon may recall my interest in Czechoslovakian State Railways of the '80s. Good Communist Railways.

Our local branchline in Bohemia, is the Tabor to Bechyne line. Very rural, very bendy, wonderfully scenic. It's also 1500v DC ( actually dual voltage since last year's upgrade ) and was the first electrified line in Czech, opening in 1903.

I don't really like O/H electrics but Piko are introducing something which piqued ( Piked ?) my interest.

474507_e.jpg

The E458s are the larger class from which six E426 electrics were derived from, in 1973. Examples were allocated to Tabor depot for use on the line in 1973 and three examples are still retained there and used on regular services. We've travelled behind them on quite a few occasions.

Tabor 1973
1000030029.jpg
Photo- Jan Lutrýn


Tabor 1975
1000030028.jpg
Photo-Radim Šnábl

These locos then are a bit earlier than the intended 1980s time frame, but it's an opportunity to put together a reasonably accurate representation of a train, typical of our local branchline.

Tabor 2022
20220502_134210.jpg

Rob
 
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James Spooner

Western Thunderer
And on the subject of arrivals/announcements, there has been an interesting Continental one.

Regulars hereon may recall my interest in Czechoslovakian State Railways of the '80s. Good Communist Railways.

Our local branchline in Bohemia, is the Tabor to Bechyne line. Very rural, very bendy, wonderfully scenic. It's also 1500v DC ( actually dual voltage since last year's upgrade ) and was the first electrified line in Czech, opening in 1903.

I don't really like O/H electrics but Piko are introducing something which piqued ( Piked ?) my interest.

View attachment 255942

The E458s are the larger class from which six E426 electrics were derived from, in 1973. Examples were allocated to Tabor depot for use on the line in 1973 and three examples are still retained at Tabor. We've travelled being them on quite a few occasions.

Tabor 1973
View attachment 255943
Photo- Jan Lutrýn


Tabor 1975
View attachment 255944
Photo-Radim Šnábl

These locos then are a bit earlier than the intended 1980s time from but, it's an opportunity to put together a reasonably accurate representation of a train, typical of our local branchline.

Tabor 2022
View attachment 255945

Rob
You could always pose for Modelu and make the model even more authentic…
 

Phil O

Western Thunderer
And on the subject of arrivals/announcements, there has been an interesting Continental one.

Regulars hereon may recall my interest in Czechoslovakian State Railways of the '80s. Good Communist Railways.

Our local branchline in Bohemia, is the Tabor to Bechyne line. Very rural, very bendy, wonderfully scenic. It's also 1500v DC ( actually dual voltage since last year's upgrade ) and was the first electrified line in Czech, opening in 1903.

I don't really like O/H electrics but Piko are introducing something which piqued ( Piked ?) my interest.

View attachment 255942

The E458s are the larger class from which six E426 electrics were derived from, in 1973. Examples were allocated to Tabor depot for use on the line in 1973 and three examples are still retained there and used on regular services. We've travelled behind them on quite a few occasions.

Tabor 1973
View attachment 255943
Photo- Jan Lutrýn


Tabor 1975
View attachment 255944
Photo-Radim Šnábl

These locos then are a bit earlier than the intended 1980s time frame, but it's an opportunity to put together a reasonably accurate representation of a train, typical of our local branchline.

Tabor 2022
View attachment 255945

Rob

Sheepy,

Your losing your touch, I think that's the quietest shirt I've seen you wear, does your Mrs possess a volume control?
 

Flaxfield

Western Thunderer
Morning, all.

Last Saturday saw the open day go ahead at Lord and Butler. It went well with us being pretty busy throughout the day. It was lovely to have Chris Hopper along with his quite delightful Bitley Mill micro layout.
This little gem drew lots of comment and over the last couple of days, people have mentioned his layout a number of times when revisiting the shop.


1000030495.jpg
Photo Chris Hopper


1000030397.jpg1000030402.jpg1000030400.jpg1000030398.jpg

The static grass demo from yours truly also proved popular and I was kept busy answering questions and giving out hints and tips.

55070908933_8f6e896ce8_c.jpg
Photo Chris Hopper


Rob
 

Joe's Garage

Western Thunderer
That is a very neat layout Rob, I guess it is slightly larger than a typical boxfile. As per you Chris has a knack in producing rather nice compact layouts.
As per previous comments your tee shirt s rather conservative!!
Also that is some library behind you...
Thanks for posting
Cheers Julian
 

Flaxfield

Western Thunderer
The Fireless loco has moved on to a new home. It was a bit of an impulse buy and good as it looked, it was out of place on Sheep Dip. The little chap really deserved its own bespoke layout, but there is no time at present to look into that and I didn't want it to be yet another loco in a box in a box.

Rob
 

Simon H

Western Thunderer
The Fireless loco has moved on to a new home. It was a bit of an impulse buy and good as it looked, it was out of place on Sheep Dip. The little chap really deserved its own bespoke layout, but there is no time at present to look into that and I didn't want it to be yet another loco in a box in a box.

Rob
Yep, I totally get that, Rob. I've bought many things on impulse, but unfortunately I am pretty rubbish at moving them on when I realise I'll probably never use them!

I often find that acquiring something like the little fireless, or a tram, or a building, or a book will send my overactive imagination off down yet another rabbit hole...

I'm sort of thinking along the lines of "Bitley Mill" for a little continental industrial layout to run my Lilliput fireless and a couple of other small locos on, though as there's a spare APA Box in the garage it'll probably go in that, IF I ever get around to building it. There are several packages of pipework, brick walling and other stuff in the stash and I really enjoy making buildings, so why not? Because I have another half a dozen similar "diversions" in progress, is why not...will it stop me doing it? Probably not!

Cheers,
Simon.
 
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