Bulleid Restaurant/Buffet Build - Part 1 (Here we go!)

This is the Comet Models kit I'm assembling. It is an expensive but well designed and engineered kit. Assembly is not for the feint hearted. You need excellent eyesight (or in my case a magnifying glass) and manual dexterity in addition to appropriate tools. 

For the period modeller it is imperative that photographs and articles are available to check against. In particular, I found the very detailed scale drawings of the prototype in MRC Nov 1980 very helpful to correct at least one inaccuracy in the manufacturers instructions, i.e. battery box position. Or, did MRC get it wrong? 

None of the prototypes survived into preservation so there is not one to see in reality. The supplied instructions are quite good except the solebar assembly drawing is confusing causing me to fit them the wrong way around! Fortunately it is a soldered section so just sweating the joints enabled disassembly without damage. With the solebars fitted correctly the bogies then interfered with them, which was easily remedied by standing them off with extra small plates soldered to the chassis where they pivot. 

It is a heavy beast, being all metal construction, as heavy as a locomotive. It would be lighter for the pulling locomotive if the whitemetal components were manufactured as plastic mouldings. The roof, body, chassis and bogies will be disassembled for painting individually. But first, I'll build the kitchen/buffet coach for this two coach set used on the 'Atlantic Coast Express'. Oh, by the way, about 3 days solid work to get this far in the assembly.

Bulleid Restaurant/Buffet Build - Part 2

Expo EM 2010 - Bracknell

I arrived early to bag a car parking space but need not have worried. This was a relatively small, specialist exhibition organised by the EM gauge society to display and promote EM gauge railway modelling, i.e. 4mm scale, 18.2mm track gauge. The number of visitors on the first morning could best be described as 'comfortable' allowing everyone space to get close to the exhibits. The quality of layouts were on par with those you would see at any club exhibition that are open to all modelling scales. 

What sets this one apart from others is the plethora of small traders selling all manner of locomotive and rolling stock components and scenic items for the scale modelling enthusiast. It was quiet overwhelming, boxes and boxes stuffed with small pastic bags containing obscure components you never thought you needed. I felt that if I did not buy something then I may never find such things again - so I picked up some tail lamps to place on the last coach/wagon of my trains.

My main reason for visiting was to purchase from one of these traders the Comet Models Bulleid rebuilt restaurant and buffet coach kits for my 'Atlantic Coast Express' that I am putting together. The picture here is of the contents from the restaurant coach kit. Assembly is going to be quite a challenge for me. You'll be able to follow my progress through this Blog.

Backscenes at Hewish Gates

I'm a late-comer to the current practice of many who now create backscenes from photographs. In the old days I had a go at painting backscenes or using Peco art backscenes - was not too impressed, so I reverted to just sky blue paint. Nothing could have prepared me for the amazing effect of using photographs of the real location. They add atmosphere and depth to the model on a scale I did not expect.

I created a panorama of stitched photos in Photoshop. Not all the scene is from one contiguous location. The landscape is varied enough that different areas can be stitched together to blend with the foreground model landscape.

The sky was cut out of the panorama and replaced with a sky blue layer, only because I felt the cloud formations would be a distraction from the model. Brightness and Saturation levels were adjusted negatively to produce toned down colours representative of the distant landscape. The scene was then cut into A4 chunks and printed. Each A4 is stuck to the next with double sided tape and this is stuck to the backboard.