DMLR - Photo Day

[-steves-]

I thought as the weather was nice and people were putting some lovely pictures up of running days, open days etc, I thought I would add a few more to it and take some pictures of some of my loco's and rolling stock. To be fair I could not find most of the rolling stock as it is in the attic in stored boxes from when we decorated, lol.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, there will be a number of posts and pictures, some with comments.

First up is a overview of what was on the Ditton Meadow Light Railway today



Next up on the rails are the home built loco's, mainly made out of plasticard but the steam outline was built in brass in a recent build thread on here. I think a couple of the others were build threads on here too.

The home built collection, two freelance and hopefully the other two speak for themselves.



The Peckett with the LKM in the backbround




The as yet, un-named freelance 0-4-0 0-4-0 built from plasticard. May well be called Goliath as it weighs in at a little over 12lbs!





The next one is called Phil. This is named after my step father who has been a big inspiration in my home built models. This one was actually copied from a freelance loco he built called Bill, which was named after my grand father, hence the sentimental meaning on this one.





Also in this section we have the Harlech Castle which was built on an old Accucraft Baguley chassis, modified for the step etc of course and sprayed accordingly. My first attempt at a full body build, again in plasticard. Also annoyingly needs a repaint of the grill as every time I see it I think, I really need to get that done, and then promptly forget!







Finally in the section is another freelance little diesel. I built two of these at the time, this dirty one for myself and a clean version for my step father. He built both chassis and running gear from scratch and I built the bodies and sprayed them. Loosely based on Little John for inspiration.

[-steves-]

A diesel day out.

A few pictures of the diesel selection that runs on the DMLR.



Ignore the steam outline loco hiding at the back, I could say these were all the electric powered loco's, lol.




Some detailed pictures of the ones not already shown.

My Accucraft Baguley Drewery, pretty much standard apart from it's RC and has a sound module installed.





A metal bodied diesel which I believe is a Danny, this one is named Grumpy Ernest. It might be up for a respray at some point in it's life now I am not restricted to Halfords paints.





LKM and a little wooden diesel built by my step father on the right hand side of the picture. The LKM is a loco from GRS along with it's tipper wagons. The wooden built little grey loco built by my step father also has tipper wagons but these are built from wood with cardboard tippers. Sorry there are not more detailed pictures of these.

[-steves-]

Steamers get their revenge on the line. The steam outline loco's line up on the track for their moment in the sunshine too.







Accucraft Mannin and coaches. All completely standard.







Well we all started somewhere and this was my first loco of this type of scale. It has been kept as it was a gift from my wife and has sentimental value.




My first gas fired steam loco. A Ragleth from Accucraft.





The next two were purchased second hand through the 16mm Assoc Magazine for sale section. Both lovely loco's. The first is a Caradoc and the second is a Wrekin.










The Stewart Kerr loco's were out too. They were both purchased as Accucraft Leaders. ONe has been kept as that and lined by myself with waterslides and the other was done as the Premier and was painted and lined by Mat Acton some years ago now.









Finally is a kit built Katie from Roundhouse. This was a Christmas present from the wife a couple of years ago. Never tried anything like this before but the instructions were useful and I only took it to Roundhouse to do the final timing on the valve gear, it worked when I did it, but I just knew it would work so much better if they did it and I was right, lol.

[IanC]

What a fantastic collection. I like the Caradoc and the Wrekin. Thanks for sharing pictures of your collection. I have stock stored all over the place too.

[-steves-]

What a fantastic collection. I like the Caradoc and the Wrekin. Thanks for sharing pictures of your collection. I have stock stored all over the place too.

Thanks Ian. I like all the loco's and I really can't pick between them. They each have a different story behind them and each one means something different to the others so it would be impossible for me to pick a favorite. That said, The Roundhouse Katie kit, I was impressed with the overall finish that I gave it, the Mannin is certainly a very impressive detailed scale model and the home built ones always have that special place for me because of all the time and effort that went into them, but that are all lovely in their own way to me

[Peter Butler]

Phew!!!! I'm exhausted just looking through the massive collection of locos and rolling stock you have amassed, they all look superb but I am particularly impressed with your scratch-builds which are so individual and personal to the owner.
We are still suffering the after effects of the storm here so you are fortunate to have weather good enough to get outside.

[ge_rik]

Great set of pix, Steve. I don't remember having seen Phil before. What an attractive little loco.
Impressed also with your camera techniques. Have you got a fancy camera which enables you to adjust the depth of field (eg through aperture settings?) or does your camera have an auto 'large scale models' setting?

Rik

[-steves-]

Phew!!!! I'm exhausted just looking through the massive collection of locos and rolling stock you have amassed, they all look superb but I am particularly impressed with your scratch-builds which are so individual and personal to the owner.
We are still suffering the after effects of the storm here so you are fortunate to have weather good enough to get outside.

Hi Peter. I am sure if everyone got their entire stock out in one go, then they too would be quite surprised of just how much they have amassed over the years, it's actually quite frightening! Thank you for the compliments on the scratch builds, as you say, very individual and not everyone's cup of tea, but for me priceless. I am intending to build a wooden tram at some point this year as I have another couple of electric chassis to build something on. Of course that will be at the same time or before, or after the Wild Rose that is also on the cards to be built throughout this year (and possibly next too).

We have just seen the back of the windy weather, but have still been getting nice sunny moments on the odd day too,

[-steves-]

Great set of pix, Steve. I don't remember having seen Phil before. What an attractive little loco.
Impressed also with your camera techniques. Have you got a fancy camera which enables you to adjust the depth of field (eg through aperture settings?) or does your camera have an auto 'large scale models' setting?

Rik

Thanks Rik.

There was a build thread of "Phil" on here at the time, you can see it here if you want to https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... 25&t=10990

As for the camera, that comment made me laugh out loud and the wife asked what I was laughing at . I would love to say it's a setting for "large scale models", but alas I am afraid it's a Canon SLR camera. I would point out that I have absolutely no idea how to use it, I put it on auto and point and shoot, such a waste of a nice camera really. It does have all the aperture and exposure settings that you can manually change and change the focal point etc, but I would need to go on a course to learn how to use it all and when to use it, completely useless me, lol

[IanC]

Impressed also with your camera techniques. Have you got a fancy camera which enables you to adjust the depth of field (eg through aperture settings?) or does your camera have an auto 'large scale models' setting?

Rik

Rik,

The way to get a good depth of field is to use a tripod to mount the camera and choose aperture priority. Select the smallest aperture, f16 of f22 or smaller if available (the higher the number the smaller the aperture. The shutter speed might be quite slow (long) so a cable release to activate the shutter would be useful to avoid camera shake. If a cable release isn't available, use the time delay to activate the shutter to give any shake time to stop. The other alternative is a process known as 'stitching' using multiple exposures and stitching several slices of the pictures together in photoshop or similar. Sorry to hijack the thread.

[-steves-]

Impressed also with your camera techniques. Have you got a fancy camera which enables you to adjust the depth of field (eg through aperture settings?) or does your camera have an auto 'large scale models' setting?

Rik

Rik,

The way to get a good depth of field is to use a tripod to mount the camera and choose aperture priority. Select the smallest aperture, f16 of f22 or smaller if available (the higher the number the smaller the aperture. The shutter speed might be quite slow (long) so a cable release to activate the shutter would be useful to avoid camera shake. If a cable release isn't available, use the time delay to activate the shutter to give any shake time to stop. The other alternative is a process known as 'stitching' using multiple exposures and stitching several slices of the pictures together in photoshop or similar. Sorry to hijack the thread.

Useful info as I have a cable release / trigger for taking pictures and a tripod, never thought of either, also gives me idea on what a focal length actually means

[ge_rik]

The way to get a good depth of field is to use a tripod to mount the camera and choose aperture priority. Select the smallest aperture, f16 of f22 or smaller if available (the higher the number the smaller the aperture. The shutter speed might be quite slow (long) so a cable release to activate the shutter would be useful to avoid camera shake. If a cable release isn't available, use the time delay to activate the shutter to give any shake time to stop. The other alternative is a process known as 'stitching' using multiple exposures and stitching several slices of the pictures together in photoshop or similar. Sorry to hijack the thread.

Thanks Ian. Useful stuff. Not sire if my camera can be set for aperture priority - may have to resort to the handbook to find out.

Rik

[Dwayne]