The Shankly and Gdynia Railway

[IanAlan]

Continuing my trip down memory lane...

Then 3


Now 3


Then 4


Now 4

[IanAlan]

I've only got this one last photo from January 2017. Perhaps a bit later in the year I'll upload some more to show the next phases in its evolution.

Then 5


Now 5


The old photo shows clearly a supermarket and Triang station canopy that I had in the 70s and dug out again in 2017. I remember making the supermarket when I was a boy (I made a hash of it by getting great wads of glue over some of the windows). Funnily enough, the canopy doesn't have 'Triang' on its underside, but has an advertising poster for the company on its vertical wall. At some point I'll have to have another little change around of scenery and put them on the layout again. The Triang station building that's just behind the supermarket has since been repainted in shades of grey-beige brickwork and is well worth another appearance.

[IanAlan]

A few more recent photos.

Footbridges to Shankly Sheds


Eurostar Passing Sheep


The Streets of Shankly


That first photo is rather grainy, but I like the camera angle, so it's in.

[Chops]

Charming photography.

[IanAlan]

Hi Chops,
Thank you for your positive feedback. It's amazing how two words can add a little joy to someone's life.

Here's a few photos that I took before Christmas. I don't think that I've uploaded any of them previously. Apologises if I'm wrong.

New Power, Old Power


The Golden Days of Rail

[cheshire lines]

Like the water mill!

[IanAlan]

Hi Cheshire Lines,
I'm very pleased with the water mill. I wrote a bit about it in posts 254 and 256 of this thread. As I mentioned there, it's a Wills Craftsman Kit, which means cutting out nearly everything yourself. Well, today I finally glued the chimney on and finished making the steps and handrails leading to the raised doorway. Hopefully, later this evening I'll finish painting the steps and handrail, so that tomorrow I can get a few photos taken and uploaded here. For today, I've got a reasonable photo of the footbridge that came with the kit (plus two other random photos). There isn't room on my layout to put the footbridge next to the water mill as it's supposed to be, so I've placed it elsewhere. I should say that the kit only included the two rails. All the rest I had to make (botch, actually) myself.

Footbridge


Shankly Sheds and Beyond


The Little Black Locomotive and Old Faithful

[IanAlan]

Here's the water mill with chimney and steps. As a little experiment, I used the edit feature to draw in some sky blue or rather to draw out some of the stuff behind the layout with the sky blue. The drawing is a bit wobblily in places, but like I said, it's an experiment.

I've also uploaded photos of two of the many scenic features that I've been finishing off. The Airfix signal box was started in the mid 1970s, but I never glued the roof on because I wanted to finish the interior that my late father started. Finally, it's done, as are the level crossings. I've no idea why I didn't add the big red stop circle and the lamp earlier, but the crossings have been on the layout in an unfinished state. One set of gates is an original 1970s Airfix and the other a later Dapol. I also added a curved bit of cardboard 'planking' to three of them, so that the originally straight crossings fit the curved track better.

Arkwright's Mill and Flying Scotsman


Passenger Train Passing Signal Box


The Little Blue Locomotive on a Level Crossing

[IanAlan]

Hi Everyone,
I mentioned yesterday the interior of the signal box, so here's a close up view. Interestingly, I've found that the Forum now allows me to upload photos from my SLR camera. When I tried doing this on the old MRF, it wouldn't accept them as the number of pixels per photo was too high. Presumably, the current forum has a greater data capacity than its predecessor. I'm all for progress. I hope you like the artistic (dark) effect of the photo.

Signalmen at Work

[IanAlan]

Hi Everyone,
I took a bunch of photos with my SLR camera at the weekend, so I thought that I'd upload these together as they show each of the three level crossing gates that I added cardboard curves to.

Stanton Coal


Hustle and Bustle


Flying Scotsman


Looking at the Stanton photo, I can see that I need to add my own coal to the coal load that came with the wagons. At the moment, it looks more like black sludge than coal. Luckily, I've got some imitation coal although I made my own with coffee grounds and paint for my Edinburgh wagons, and they look fine. Or at least they did when I last looked at them.

And one final comment - although I may sound like a teenager obsessed with their social media popularity - I wonder who is going to be the 50,00th viewer of this thread.