Countdown to Corris - 2

Well it looks like I'm back on track with something fresh for the Corris Exhibition. The push button pizza Chwarel Bach is booked to appear over the August bank holiday weekend, and as space is limited I've decided to go with an idea for an even smaller circular layout again with audience participation in mind. I'm well into the build of a Koppel overhead electric loco, and the accompanying board and track are complete aand awaiting scenery to be plonked on top. To give a rough and ready idea of progress an an insight into the future here's a mock up of how the layout should look.

Countdown to Corris - 1

Well, instead of building the Krauss I've built this.

Quite what a Crochat railcar will do on my Latin America inspired tramway I don't know, but I like the look of it and it does sit well with my colonial carriages.

Latin Tangent

Oh dear and it was all going so well; Morfa trundling steadily onwards leavened by the odd stock building escapade for the Ganllwyd Tram and then the notion that it'd be good to have a different micro layout for the Corris Model Railway and Toy Exhibition this August bank holiday. Fatally I decided to give in to some vague Cuban/Latin American leanings and started searching on the net. I started with Bolivia, then onto Cuba and ended up at Haiti. Just look at this gorgeous tramway. I've made a start on finishing off some carriages and an old Roco 0-6-0 body is being forcibly mated to Kato underparts, the aim being to get the bug out of the system promptly.

Zoom

As a man modelling the diesel and electric era, post steam, pre tops, there's much inspiration to be had in the Bradford Barton photo album series of books. Some of my favourite shots are those where the aparent length of the train is visciously forshortened by the use of a telephoto lens. I strted to wonder if it would be possible to recreate this effect using a model after noticing that one image I'd taken with a very mild dose of telephoto had echoes of the real thing. After a bit of experimentation I hit on a formula, train on a curve, rail level camera, stood well back, max tele dialled in, crop the result tight to the train. Seems to work each time, here's one of my latest taken on Morfa. It's worth clicking on the photo to get the full effect with a larger sized image.

 It'll be interesting to see if it works as well once the scenery is in place. There are a couple of snags however, one is that the camera does need to be a good way in front of the train; this shot (with minimal cropping) had the camera a good ten/twelve feet away from the train. The other is that I'm not sure that this style would suit all subjects. I could see it looking a bit weird with pre group or narrow gauge models, a clash of styles rather than any technical incompatibility.

Fashion

Though my railway tastes are pretty wide ranging I've tended to stick to buying model railway magazines rather than those dealing exclusively with the real thing. I have picked up the odd issue when there's been a feature on a particular interest of mine. Until recently I had never considered Modern railways as being worth a glance. Last year i found two large cardboard boxes of old railway magazines at the local skips. I sorted through and put the old copies of Modern Railway magazines to one side while I trawled through Steam Railway and Railway World looking for anything Cambrian. I finally got round to Modern Railways and what an absolute treasure trove those copies from the sixties and seventies are. Because their style of coverage is current news reportage, rather thn looking back, they tend to cover the mundane as well as the memorable.

 

One feature that took my eye from this 1972 issue describes the new ships for British Rail's Sealink cross channel services. There's much detail in the report but it's the illustrations that caught my eye. Here's one of the obviously posed publicity photographs; just look at the characters.

In the foreground we have long haired specky bloke chatting up the crumpet (I believe that's the correct 70's terminology), just behind the guy with the shades and tash similarly tries his luck with the blonde. they could easily be extras from Life on Mars. It's the period details like this that the other railway magazines seem to miss out, because of their focus on the railway. I wonder if today's Railway Magazine will fascinate in the same way forty years from now.

Making Tracks.

I've had a burst of enthusiasm and activity, the track on Morfa has been extended in two directions. As I build all the track from ply sleepers, individual plastic chairs and rail it takes some time to make little progress; at max chat I achieve about half a length a day. The one bonus, and it's a biggie, is that I ballast at the same time I lay the track. Here are a couple of photos showing something of what is involved.

Though it's a long winded process there's pleasure in the rythym of construction and I'm really happy with the look of the finished length.

This is the Night Mail crossing the border ....

I've been playing with the camera this morning. The layout room is rather gloomy at this time of year, for part of its length Morfa is tucked along the back wall, and the result of trying some supplementary lighting brought out this 'night time' shot. My imaginary Pwllheli - York mails would cross the border in the night hours, just not the border the well known prose reffers to.