Welcome to the GVR

By Jove I think I've got it, after weeks and weeks of trying. Posting pictures that is!!!!
Keep fingers crossed and type very cautiously.I hope I have at last cracked it with the help of my wife and my daughter's
partner by doing something with a link or something. I hope it does not break the rules.


This canal scene is modelled on part of the former Grand Union Canal of lock No 8 at Long Buckby, Northamptonshire ,where I lived for 14 years. Actually the railway (WCML) was 1/4 mile to the north- east( modellers licence). I have recently added the figures.
I posted this picture and the next because someone wished to see train sets being built "warts and all"



This is an overview of Greenslade Station, nestled beneath the imposing Min Tor.
Also "warts and all", this shows a hole in the scenery where I had to burrow to retrieve a derailed train from the tunnel. I have recently built the station buidings based on Toton (Southern Railway) but is a mirror image . Some platform furniture has been added but more to come . Old Chinese proverb --- HO people sitting on OO seats never have feet on the ground!! All of the other buidings were scratch built from cardboard and are over 30 years old including a period on an exhibition layout surviving the ravages of rising damp, extremes in temperature, and humidity, and paper munching crickets. The village of Greenslade is on the branch line from Eccles Junction and is itself a junction and can be operated completely independantly from the main trainset



I have included this because I have recently added the hand rails on the bridge .Always looking out for a suitable item ( this usually means the cheapest) - I used hand rails from the Hornby turntable , still available as spares .Also because there have been a number of postings about Military Railways and war time trains I have posed an LMS Duck 8 at the head of a train carrying Tanks etc . I remember such trains during the latter stages of WW2 but of course they would have carried all similar vehicles , -mine has no two the same. This train will need a lot of mods to get it to run as the wellwagons are Tri-ang and will need better scale wheels and a lot of attention to the bogies- that is why it is "posed" . The bridge , also scratch built from card, is built across the River Goon.



There were some postings recently on other hobbies or interests relating to railways and this another one of mine. During the 1970's I made a few pencil drawings such as this, and of American and Canadian streamlined locos. Steamlined engines being favourites of mine.
I should add that GVR stands for the Goon Valley Railway, completely fictitious of course, all geographical sites etc taking names from characters in that crazy 1950s 60s Goon Show. This enables me to model any part of Britain as I wish to see it, and I dont have to pop over from New Zealand every time I need to measure a building, etc.!!!!!. I prefer limestone crags because I find them easiest to model. I also model all periods and all regions but preferring the LMS before 1947. Even British Railways , (but I have no blue diesels), Standard steam and green diesels are well catered for.
If I can really learn how this computer thing works maybe I 'll be able to post some more stories of my trainset.

Cheers Tony Overton

I am so glad you persisted at posting photos, they are worthy of the effort you put in. They show some great modeling. I am particularly impressed by the Goon river bridge.

David

I shall have one more attempt to get my pictures to work !!!!
Firstly I appologise to Expat and to any one else who couldnot see them. It must have been due to me leaving something out or making a mistake or ???//

There are some postings re motorising Airfix kits on going at the moment and also a mention of the Kitmaster Stirling 8 ft Single. I also have an unbuilt kit of this and for years have pondered on ways of making it go!
Then recently I saw Bachmann's Emily in their Thomas range and thought I must see what I can make of that.
When she arrived I was dissapointed not only because she was not a beautiful replica of a beautiful loco( in fact she was quite ugly). On checking out her vital statistics I found that there was hardly any measurement which agreed with the drawing I had. She was just too gross. Even her driving wheels scale up to 9 feet diameter.
Oddly Bachmann have motorised not only her driver but through a very complicated gear train have powered the second axle of her leading bogie . I counted 12 gears that I could see and then there is the mechanism that makes her eyes rove from side to side. This now makes her a 2-2-2-2 instead of a 4-2-2.
Here she is moving eyes and all.



I also had a built up Kitmaster and by placing them together it was obvious that a scale model could not be made from Emily .But by thinning here and shortening there a reasonably well proportioned model could be made .I discarded the tender top which looked rediculously top heavy, lowered the front footplate, and made a new cab.These are shown below - the alterations were made from white plasticard. I also had to make a new smokebox door ( from a button ,hand rail knob and two bits of wire for the dart , wire for the hingepost and two strips of postcard for the hinges)



So here is my Stirling Single not one for the purists but one which sits well on my train set . I still need to finish painting it , apply transfers and lining and replace the handrail.



I hope these pictures show up and I hope you like my version of a not too common model.
regards Tony

I also liked the bridge--photo bucket is recommended and very simple to use for posting photo's here.

Hi ,
Here is another attempt to post some pictures of the Goon Valley Railway.( This time I have used Photobucket)

I think I have said before that the intentions behind my trainset is to recreate memories of my " mis-spent" youth when I wasted a lot of time beside rail tracks and on stations or bunking around loco sheds in the late 1940s early 50s. I run trains every day so I think I have achieved this, even though the trainset is still a long way off finishing.There are many nostalgic scenes still to be re-run however. My memory was jogged this month by the excellent article in Model rail on milk tanker trains. We enjoyed train-spotting trips to the Midland main line at Kettering whenever pocket money allowed and we were told by the local lads that a milk train passing late in the afternoon was often hauled by a Patriot loco. At that time there were just two of the class shedded on the Midland and I had not seen either of them , so it was worth waiting for the milk train even though we could have missed the last bus home. Each time we waited it never turned out to be the eagerly sought after Patriot- but we caught a Crab instead. ( And we always caught the the bus!)

Here a Bachmann Crab hauls such a train having just left the Bluebottle tunnel



This is the engine we would have got excited over as Hornby Patriot crosses the River Goon on the girder bridge.


We would have been disappointed however as this not one of the Midland ' Pates'
This model has been fitted with a better chimney.( Alan Gibson)



I was interested in the news that Bachmann are to produce the Peppercorn A2. This always happens when I either make my own or modify one .
Here is my effort using Trix and Hornby parts ( Trix loco body on a Britannia chassis, slightly modified, and Hornby A3 tender drive ) LNER 525 in apple green with post war plain block gold lettering with no shading.
Loco exiting Bluebottle tunnel.



Also same modifications as before:-
60533 Happy Knight slows at Ellington before crossing the viaduct on the upper main line, with a 7 coach train of Airfix ex LMS coaches in British Railways Carmine and cream



Hope you like my pictures ( courtesy of my Wife) :

( sorry had to post twice. Lost the pictures in the first post
regards Tony

QUOTE (10001 @ 22 Jul 2008, 08:36) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi .
I'm sorry the pictures came out so small!
I posted them using Photobucket as was suggested.
So can any one tell me how I can resize them into something more respectable please?
Any help would be appreciated .
Many thanks .
Regards Tony.

What happened was that you had the address for the thumbnail sized image rather than the full image.

e.g.

instead of

e.g. http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii98/7801manor/th_AHPeppercorn.jpg[/IMG

instead of [IMG]http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii98/7801manor/AHPeppercorn.jpg[/IMG

I have removed the latter part of the bracket after each so you can see the difference in how they were written.

What was odd was that the thumbnail sized image was not a clickable thumbnail, just the image. I have sorted the photos on your original post.

The easiest way to do this is to click on img code at the bottom of the image and this will copy it for you. You then have to paste it into your post.