Thank you.

I haven't bought the ready-to-run narrow gauge coaches, but I have brass models of the Tallylyn coaches built as their RWS counterparts.  Two tends to be Skarloey's max unless he's double heading while Rheneas can manage the entire train.  I have Peter Sam but haven't run him yet.  As far as I can tell, it has to do with Skarloey's short wheel base giving him poor traction.  I've looked into products that might improve his traction but haven't committed to making any modifications yet.

I'm in the process of building my first actual layout that isn't just a loop nailed to a board and won't have a place to run trains until it's done, so I can't give any advice on what might help at the moment.  But I don't think it's just your Skarloey that has poor hauling power.

Then my two bigger projects. The first is a huge Dragon!









And it's covered in lights!



The next is a Lady who's as precious as gold. My first custom engine.

This isn't really a custom, but it's an easy and cheap way to add tarped loads to open wagons using foam and tissue paper.




After this point, I upped my face-making game by making a set of master copies out of higher quality clay. Then I made silicone molds so I can reproduce them out of resin.



I flipped some clearance open wagons into Ffarquahar quarry wagons as my first project with these.

I had noticed that the forum was gone for a while, and now it looks like it's back. But the pics of all my recent models are gone from this thread, so I thought I'd put them back here.



Classic Series Windmill



Caroline with a flatbed made from a Southern Railway Brake Van kit without a cab like the model series flatbeds.



Agnes, Ruth, and Jemima now join Lucy. Unlike when I first posted this, I have kit for Beatrice, but I haven't put her together yet.



Millicent, but I still need to make Gertrude.



This is a sort of silly Super Mario Bros. joke, but I call this one "Toadette".

The next few are some assorted Wagons I've made:

Hello. My Henry model is having an issue where his front bogie will pop off the track. This was pretty much the first time I've run him as I now have large enough curves for my larger engines like Henry and Gordan.  I've tried adjusting the tightness of the screws securing the bogie to the chassis.  I've tried adding a bit of weight to the bogie with some modelling clay (I don't want to glue anything to it before I know it might help).  Gordan has the same chassis design as Henry and runs fine on my track.  The really baffling thing is that I put Gordan's front bogie on Henry and Henry's on Gordan and both models ran fine.  I would just leave them that way if there was a way to switch the wheels.  Anyway, the only ways I can get Henry to run consistently (without parts from Gordan) is to run him with his front bogie removed or run him backwards. I'm stumped at this point, so I though I'd see if anyone had any suggestions or had dealt with this problem themselves.

Thank you, Toad. I'm happy with the way that he came out.

I just wanted to share some new pictures. The first is my take on the what the wiki calls the "LNWR Van." There seems to be some disagreement in the fandom as to whether this van had a real prototype or was a freelance design by the show's modelling team because its wiki profile changed several times between my planning the model and making it.  There are some claims it was bought second hand for use in the show. This van was around since the first season and its main features are that it is tall, but squat horizontally, has a very slight curve to its roof, a curious lack of any undercarriage detail, and a windowpane like design for the door. It also looks like it was rebuilt/refurbished several times as the detailing changes between seasons. It would have to have been at least partially rebuilt at some point as it was the van that Percy broke in Percy, James, and the Fruitful Day.





The next is of a kit of Talyllyn coach number 4 built as Lucy. I've posted some other Talyllyn rolling stock in the narrow guage thread, but I'm waiting to buy some more parts so I can make the other coaches and still felt liky showing this one.

I spent the weekend working on my first scratch built model. It's the oversized van from A Close Shave. Many will know that the model from the show was a modified large scale narrow gauge kit, which is why it towered over the other trucks. This is also why I really had no hope of finding an HO kit to build the van from, which is why I decided to scratch build him. He's built from plastic card and some parts from an underframe kit. I based the dimensions off of Bachmann's cattle truck because that is what is coupled directly to it during A Close Shave, so it was the easiest to work with when reviewing footage and pictures when planning the model. You will probably notice that the ends aren't as low as on the original, but that was to avoid having to cut a hole for the coupling like Toby, Mavis, Bill, and Ben. The only thing that I think it really loses because of this is that the face looks larger than the TV model. The TV model made the large van faces look small even though they took up nearly the entire end of other van types.  For reference, the size of the face is based on how that type of face looked on a cattle truck (not Bachmann's Troublesome Truck 3, which has a smaller square face which were used on both vans and open trucks in the show).

When reviewing the footage, I noticed that A Close Shave seemed to be filmed with two different models of the van. The beginning has a black van with a raised bufferbeam, but after crossing the viaduct, it is replaced with a brown van with a bufferbeam that nearly touches the rails.  I wonder if the black van had extra weight or something to help film the chase.






Under Construction

I haven't been on in a while, but I swung by to check the 2019 announcements.  I decided to post my models of BoCo and Bradford while I was here.  I went ahead and made BoCo because I'm fairly confident that Bachmann will never make him.  I was originally going to make a generic break van using Bradford's kit, but I decided to go ahead and make Bradford because I though he would work with my war well wagon personality wise.



The face could be better, but I'm pretty new at it.  He still needs decals, but they were out of stock last I looked.




CGI faces are even harder to use as a guide because they're so smooth, they don't really have "landmarks."  Also, working with the wire and drilling the holes to make the handrails on this kit was a nightmare.

Thanks Grandpuff, and I appreciate the advice regarding couplings.

I can't really see Bachmann putting the resources into releasing the sorts of minor characters that Hornby released because Hornby's approach to its Thomas range was to release an existing tooling with an altered livery and a face added.  I'm no expert in the range, but I believe the only unique toolings were for Percy and Toby.  A character like Dart could be released in the Hornby range because the company doesn't need to put many resources into it, and whatever the sales the model brings were pretty much just bonus on top of the investment for the original tooling.

Meanwhile, the only reused engine toolings in Bachmann's range (not counting twin engines) are 'Arry, Bert, and Paxton.  And those characters pretty much only exist in Bachmann's range because of initial demand for Diesel.  If Diesel never existed, then I can't see Bachmann making the investment to produce any of the other three.

I would buy a model of Bear, but I don't think that one will ever be made.  Bachmann does not currently produce a model of a Class 35, and there are several other large diesel engines who would be made first because they have wider appeal.

Just a bit of trivia, but it is curious that Hornby released the likes of Bear and Class 40 and not BoCo.  Hornby once produced a Class 28 model that was a dead-ringer for BoCo's RWS appearence down to having the same number.

It is pretty obvious that Daisy and Stepney or the most wanted for standard gauge in the forum.  While it seems that there is a greater preference for Stepney, I felt like taking the time to say why I would rather see Daisy released: there is no good way to represent her in HO/OO unless one is able to scratch-build the loco body.  Daisy is not true to her basis in that the class 101 DMUs were multi-car units.  So if one was to buy a class 101 and overhaul it as Daisy, the back would be wrong because of it having a corridor instead of having a back the same shape as the front.  There are single car DMUs, but those don't look much like Daisy and would have the same issue as a model such as the Hornby Edward.

One has the option of attempting an "operation" on a class 101 set by cutting the two bodies in half and gluing the fronts together (I believe that is how Awdry made his Daisy), but there is a lot of room for that to not work out well.  If the cut is not perfect then one would be out the cost of a rather expensive model with nothing to show for it.

If, for whatever reason, Bachmann decided that Stepney would never be made, there are still models of Stepney's basis available.  While that is not ideal, the diehard Stepney fan would still have a solid starting point for modeling the character.  Daisy, on the other hand, is, in her own way, the first freelance locomotive design in Thomas (sorry Lady fans).  So I find it more important for Daisy to released in a Thomas merchandise line.

As far as what I would want to see in the model, I believe I may be in a minority of the fanbase in that I prefer her model design.  The CGI render appears overly tall and too short, making it look somewhat chunky (like a Wooden Railway model).  I know the reality is that it would probably be based on the CGI render, but I would hope for at least some influence from the model series when it came to scaling.

Thanks for the compliment on Cora, grandpuff.  The kit is made by Dundas, and it was bought on the Dundas website.  I don't think it would be a problem for you, grandpuff, because of all of models that you have shown in the thread, but just as a word of caution for others who might be interested in the kit, I wouldn't recommend it as anyone's very first rolling stock kit.  What is provided for the floor and roof of the model are not particular to the kit and have to be cut to size, and obviously if the floor is not cut correctly, the model will turn out crooked.

I spent most of yesterday on my models of Ada, Jane, and Mabel.



I used the Wooden Railway models as guides for the faces, so from left to right is Ada, Jane, and then Mabel.  These were made from Penryhin Quarry Railway wokman's coach kits by Meridian Models.  The real-life versions of the Penryhin coaches that were bought by the Talyllyn Railway have been rebuilt with roofs and now resemble the green narrow gauge coaches from Thomas and Friends (so the green coaches are pretty much the T&F versions of Ada, Jane, and Mabel).  The kit is more true to the Penryhin version, and so they do not have buffer beams (like how they are illustrated in the RWS).  I may or may not modify them with buffers down the line.





And I realized Cora's buffers should be silver, so I made that adjustment.

I still need to fit the models with couplings.  I'm holding off on buying couplings until I determine all of the supplies that I need for another project so that I can get everything in one order.  I could actually use some advice if anyone has experience fitting 009 models with couplings.  The Bachmann Skarloey and Rheneas appear to have the BEMO style couplings, but those get pricy very quickly when it comes to how many models that I need to fit with couplings.  The loop style couplings by PECO seem more economical, does anyone know if they would be compatible with Skarloey and Rheneas without changing their couplings?  They look like they use the same coupling mechanism, just without the swiveling shaft of the BEMO coupling.

I can't say that I have much interest in recollecting the standard gauge characters in a smaller scale, but I do love how the Tomix Clarabel was actually made with her guard compartment rather than reusing Annie's body.

Also, my non-Thomas Stepney model arrived today.



I don't have any plans to modify him into a Thomas model, so I'm still hoping that Bachmann releases a Stepney model.  He more fits into my mini-collection of Bluebell Railway, and you can see him below with Bluebell and Primrose.





Does anyone have any insight on whether the Bluebell Railway has any say in how Stepney's image is used?  I would think that they don't and that whoever holds the rights to Thomas and Friends has the rights to Stepney the character, but I'm not sure.  I know that there is children's newsletter from the Bluebell Railway called Stepney's Club (or something like that), which would capitalize on children's familiarty with Stepney through the RWS/T&F, but I don't think it ever portrays Stepney with a face.