Ifield West Light Railway

A place for the discussion of garden railways and any garden style/scale portable and/or indoor layouts
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Matloughe
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Re: The Start of things to Come!

Post by Matloughe » Fri Jun 19, 2020 2:24 pm

Afternoon All!

Just me again here with a mini-update; having been furloughed and then off of furlough and converting my Garage in to my Home Office hasn't seen much opportunity for working on the Garden Railway - I've also been reassessing my priorities - trying to decide what it is I want in my Railway Modelling "Career" - however some progress was made today whilst on my lunch break I managed to assemble the entirety of my stock currently under construction and it looks like a good little start!!

Image

Please excuse the 'little' railway for it is one that operates small locomotives requiring power from the track and doesn't venture out side very often - but offered a nice table to pose on.
I am the first to admit that I properly made mistakes on the Lineside Hut wagons assembling them - I was annoyed at myself but I've come to look at it as okay - mistakes are good! Besides once on their wheels and painted up in red oxide they will look the part as an engineering train.
No progress on the Guards Van as of yet - its moved out here to the 'works' off of my computer tower and will get a thorough dusting and interior paint as well as fitting Vacuum Pipes and a Brake Standard whilst I ponder on what to do next with regards to lighting etc. And my first locomotive the HGLW LB1 the chassis is drying off being glued together and the body is being dry 'test' fitted together. Not much excitement going on sadly.

I hope everyone else is doing well though!
Kind Regards,
Gary

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Matloughe
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Re: The Start of things to Come!

Post by Matloughe » Thu Mar 11, 2021 9:31 am

Morning All!

I hope you're all doing well, and looking forwards to the better weather bringing the opporunities to spend time in the outdoors doing the things we love to do.

I am still lurking on here; I had some rather bad luck over the last few months - I lost my job due to COVID-19, then I took several increasingly bad part-time jobs to tide us over until I managed to land a part-time job where I feel like I am actually contributing to society in some small way by helping in the education sector. During this time I had some real lows; worries about money and life in general. Its fair enough to say that my mental health suffered but I feel like I am on the way up again - which brings me back to my Garden Railway proposals.
There is bad news, but also some good news. It would appear that over winter I have had some guests stay in the garage - some of my coal wagons have been used for a nest and the other as a latrine! So they will have to be disposed of as the wood they are made from is barely in a recogniseable shape after the gnawing and other goings on - the same can be said for my HGLW LB1 which isn't in much better condition. I will most likely retain the metal wheelsets after they have had a bath in some sort of bleach or sanitising fluid to remove any potential nasties.
My other half laughed when I said there is something in my coal wagons - rolling her eyes she said it'll be coal, until I pointed out I hadn't actually put any coal into them! Those lumps weren't coal! Needless to say there was much laughter and perhaps I will paint a new coal wagon in a PO livery 'Turdlet & Co, finest coal & coke briquettes' perhaps?

So after the bad it comes to the good news, I'm going to keep going with this hobby my new job looks secure with prospects of furthing myself which is what I want. I have squirrelled away (if you'll pardon the pun) in a different location a Phil Sharples Bow-ended open wagon - I think this will form part of a new project/railway.
I've got some old laminate flooring - I was considering making a short section of track on there to have a 'photo' plank for some practise in the bigger scale and to get a real 'feel' for it as a project.

I just wanted to say to everyone, keep up the good work! It has been really nice on bad days to spend five, ten minutes or an hour or so browsing through at so many people enjoying their hobby in so many varied ways. It has put a smile on my face.

Stay Safe.
Kindest Regards,
~ Gary

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Peter Butler
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Re: The Start of things to Come!

Post by Peter Butler » Thu Mar 11, 2021 10:02 am

Good to hear from you again, Gary. I am so sorry you have had problems due to Covid and hope you can pull yourself up again, you certainly sound positive about life now. Your stock issues have been another set-back too, but at least you can smile about that and start fresh.
We are fortunate in having our hobby to keep us sane, the posts here on the Forum are varied and interesting and inspire us to continue, despite the current situation. Please keep posting your updates, we hope to hear from you more frequently.
I wish you all the best and hope your prospects improve soon.
The best things in life are free.... so why am I doing this?

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Re: The Start of things to Come!

Post by ge_rik » Thu Mar 11, 2021 10:46 am

Welcome back, Gary - in many senses...... :lol:
Sounds like the rodent population has been having fun while your back was turned, but good news that you've got your mojo back.
Looking forward to hearing about the next update.

Rik
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philipy
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Re: The Start of things to Come!

Post by philipy » Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:00 pm

Welcome back Gary, glad to hear that you appear to be over the worst of things. Do keep us uptodate going forward, I always find that nothing is better at helping progress than writing about small progresses and plans for the future.
Philip

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Re: The Start of things to Come!

Post by Andrew » Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:36 pm

HI Gary, welcome back, and I'm really glad things are looking up for you.

Sorry to hear of your disasters with your wagons, but your plan to build a Phil Sharples kit seems a good one - I've built a few of them now, and they're great, nice and simple but with loads of potential for detail. They run beautifully too...

Do keep us posted with your progress!

All the best,

Andrew.

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Matloughe
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Re: Ifield West Light Railway

Post by Matloughe » Sun Mar 14, 2021 2:16 am

Thank you all for your kind words.

I'm going to try and post as/when I have the opportunity to show off some work that I have completed. For the moment I am doing some research for where I want to go heading forwards; looking at kits for rolling stock - what sort of proportion of stock would be needed in terms of opens/vans etc.

As I'm based in North Devon I am going to be leaning heavily on the knowledge gained from the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway - but I don't intend to build a replica of it I am just using it as a base of information and something I can go and research locally.

Stay Safe everyone!
Kind Regards,
Gary

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