February '26 update part II

I know what you are thinking - you wait ages for an update, then two come at once. So to explain, I thought it might be better to split the update as it became clear it was turning into a very long post!

So to continue, I mentioned in the previous post about new narrow gauge wagon chassis. Visitors at the Trent Valley Group's modelling day in Mickleover may have noticed a small collection of wagons on the stall with the sign 'Under development'. Here's a quick summary of what was on show:

First up, two of the long wheelbase 4-wheel wagons; NG09 covered van and NG25 3-plank drop side open with curved ends.

Test builds of NG09 & NG25 with revised chassis.

The covered van has a new cast floor which accommodates 3D printed underframes with leaf springs as are used in the 4-wheel coach kits but with the addition of long brake levers and single brake shoe each side. The 3-plank features the popular one piece cast body which will be supplied with the usual cast head-stocks and end stanchions, but will now include new 3D printed underframes featuring coil springs. These are similar in style to those used on some WHR stock and some more recent RNAD vehicles, many of the latter entering preservation. It is intended that all the revised wagon kits will be supplied with brass bearings and spoked metal wheels as standard.

Also receiving attention have been the NG01 2-plank open and NG28 1-plank open, both of which have only been available as bodies for some time.

NG28 1-plank wagon.

These have a shorter wheelbase chassis, also with coil springs, single either side brake and brake lever. The chassis assembles separately which is then fitted to the remastered body castings. In many ways they are new kits.

Finally the steel open. This wagon has been on the periphery for some time, a few were available on eBay and at shows while I tinkered around with the design.

Steel Open wagon.

The steel open again has a one piece cast body and shares the same chassis as the 1&2 plank opens. I hope in this latest form it will prove a popular addition to the wagon fleet.

Hopefully the first of the new kits will be available from the web shop in the next few weeks, suppliers permitting!

When time allows the cattle wagon, ventilated van and tool van will also be given new chassis.

Moving now to some scenic accessories, following requests for stone wall capping to be used with the stone building sheets, I have developed a flat style of capping to represent riven / split stone, typical of slate walling. The photo below shows a test piece used in conjunction with a strip of wall cut from the BC23 slate wall building sheet.

Riven stone / slate wall capping.

The second form of capping depicts slanted stones, a style commonly used in dry stone walling. The test piece shown below uses a strip from the BC21 rough stone walling sheet.

Slanted dry stone wall style capping.

Currently the wall cappings are only available at shows. As they are still a very new product I'm keen to canvass customer views before committing them to the product list.

Whilst on the subject of the building sheets, the B32 weatherboard planking sheet is now available. Sometimes known as lap board on account of its horizontal overlapping planks, or clapboard siding, it is a classic feature of many lightly constructed railway buildings. The building below was constructed to illustrate a possible use.

Scratch-built office building constructed using BC32 weatherboard sheet for the walls.

I often get asked about the best way to cut resin sheets. In the past my preferred method has been to 'score and snap' using a couple of passes with a heavy craft, then snapping along the score line. Recently however a customer suggested the Tamiya scriber II tool. I tried it out when making the model above. This cuts using a hooked blade. When pulled lightly towards the user it easily cuts into the resin, removing a satisfying curl of resin swarf in the process. A few passes are needed to get through the sheet, but the end result is a very clean cut. If you've not used one before, they take a little getting used to at first, but do give very good results. Probably best done on an old cutting mat, as a new blade is very keen and will go through the surface of the cutting mat before you have realised!

Our next show dates are in March, with Narrow Gauge North on the 14th in Pudsey and then Howden show on the 21st where the narrow gauge stock will be swapped for the standard gauge items. Hope to see you soon.

February 2026 News

Hello and welcome to the February '26 news update. This was supposed to be the Christmas / New Year round-up, but with a very busy Christmas period and 3 successive weekends of show commitments from mid-January to early February, there has been very little opportunity to draw breath. We had an excellent weekend at the Normanton and Pontefract show, displaying the buildings range together with the O Gauge rolling stock. The following weekend saw the annual trip down to Mickleover with the 7mm Narrow Gauge products for the modelling day held by the Trent Valley area group of the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association. Finally, the Festival of Railway Modelling in Doncaster required all hands to the pump to get our club layout, Invermire, over to Doncaster Racecourse for what must have been one of the best attended shows of recent years.

As far as product news is concerned, the focus for the latter part of 2025 was on revising and updating a number of kits. Regular visitors to our webshop may have noticed that certain 422 products seemed to disappear from the listings. This is part of the ongoing review of the overall product range since acquiring the additional Port Wynnstay kits. Many of the absent 422 kits will reappear in due course as improvements are made; the NG rolling stock in particular is being worked on to bring it up to a similar specification as the Port Wynnstay NG kits, with improved chassis and wheels being included as standard.

One of the building kits to have received some attention is the BK25 stone river bridge kit. This is designed to carry a single track Standard Gauge line, but could comfortably accommodate some of the larger Narrow Gauge prototypes. The updated version of the kit now comes with wing walls, complete with short end pillars and capping, as shown in the photo of the display model below.

BK25 Stone River Bridge Kit with new wing walls.

The origins of this kit came from the requirement for a multi-arch stone bridge for the club layout Invermire. Whilst Invermire was set up at Doncaster I managed to get a few quick photos. Expertly constructed by our Club Chairman Mike, the stone road bridge is unfortunately not so easy to see from the front as it runs immediately behind the main girder viaduct.

The three bridges of Invermire, Road, Rail and Foot.

The bridge had to be designed in modular form to allow it to be built on a curve. As a modular structure, the BK25 kit can therefore be built either as a single arch bridge or easily extended to form a multi arch viaduct.

View of Invermire road bridge from the back of the layout. The semi-circular buttresses were created using spare castings from the rail viaduct piers.

Anyone wanting additional arches, just drop me a line to discuss your requirements.

Whilst Invermire was set up, the opportunity was also taken to get a few photos of the Harbour-side cottages which again started off as a club project and became the 'Rural Cottage kit' BK09.

Once again beautifully constructed by Mike, built in low relief in combinations of doubles and singles, they are mounted on their own narrow base boards which act as scenic extensions to the main layout boards combined with the photo back scene.

Finally, in Narrow Gauge rolling stock news, the bogie saloon brake has returned to the product list. It has a new one piece floor casting and new bogies which are supplied with bearings and metal wheels for 16.5mm gauge.

The model also has new 3D printed vacuum pipes and revised roof lamp holders and underframe trusses.

Thanks for dropping by, hopefully back with some more news soon.

October '25 update

Hello again. A much overdue update and I’m pleased to say there is some good news on the new products front.

Firstly, I’m delighted to finally report some success with the Port Wynnstay O gauge kits. PW 706, the LNER / ex Great North of Scotland 10-ton van is now available again.

PW706 in early LNER livery.

This distinctive and characterful van has undergone a little redesign work and is now supplied with 3D-printed axle guards. These have been produced in collaboration with Alex at GLR Bespoke Services. They are printed in tough ABS-style resin and require very little cleaning up. A hole for standard O gauge wheel bearings is provided and test builds using the new axle guards proved to be very straightforward compared to previous experiences with white metal units. These vans were produced shortly before grouping, with many lasting right through the LNER period and into BR ownership. Photographs reveal that they frequently ventured far from their home turf so could justifiably turn up on pretty much any layout set between WW1 and the early 1950s.

Also available again from the Port Wynnstay range is the small platelayer’s trolley, PW783. These were a very simple push-along trolley, provided to the local track gangs for getting tools and materials to site for routine maintenance work such as measured shovel packing or fishplate oiling. They would be lifted onto the track, loaded up and pushed along to the work site, then unloaded and lifted off to clear the track.

PW783 Platelayer's trolley kit

Intended as a static model, it provides an interesting addition to the lineside scene and would be quite at home set alongside a suitable platelayer’s hut or grounded van body. Whilst on the subject of grounded vans, kit BK14 has been revised and now makes use of the GNoS van body. This was previously available as a grounded body through the Port Wynnstay range, combined with a cast resin sleeper base. In kit BK14 it is now accompanied by a collection of scenic clutter, as tended to accrue around van bodies used as stores or workshops.

Also moving up the queue in the PW O gauge range are the three Caledonian vans: the 4-Wheel fish & fowl van, 6-Wheel milk van and the 15-ton 6-wheel van. Whilst doing a little background reading into the 15-ton van, it transpires that there were two similar diagrams: dia 80 and the longer 30’ dia115. The original kit appears to have been something of a hybrid between the two. The body is correct for the dia 115 with the ‘stretched’ centre section, but the running gear and roof detail appears to be from the earlier dia 80. The main difference being that the dia 115 was built on carriage-style axle guards with long springs carried on ‘J’ hangers, the dia 80 having the conventional smaller wagon axle guards. Given this, it is likely that the kit will get new 3D-printed axle guards and also therefore require some re-working underneath before it is re-released.

Turning now to the Port Wynnstay Narrow Gauge range, all the type 3 quarryman’s coaches have new 3D-printed chassis, as does the Welsh Highland Railway 4-ton coal wagon which is now in production again. A new chassis has also been produced for the Ffestiniog Railway Ashbury coaches, which I hope to be working towards re-release in the not-too-distant future.

Turning now to the 422 Modelmaking range, part of the 3D-printed chassis project with GLR has also included providing new units for the 4-wheel coaches. These have been only available as body kits for some years now, and as such, I am pleased that they will be back to full kits with chassis including metal wheels and brass bearings. Test builds of the new chassis have gone very well and they are proving to be easy to assemble and very sweet running. It is hoped that the chassis project will be extended next to the wagon and van fleet.

Finally, some news on the building range. The latest (and last?) bridge kit is now available, which depicts an occupation bridge.

Occupation Bridge display model

Developed primarily as an over-bridge for narrow gauge carrying a farm track or lane across the railway, the upper deck is also sufficiently wide for a single-track standard gauge line.

Work on the station buildings range has resulted in trio of stone station structures now available to complement the BK10 stone station building kit.

Firstly, the existing stone waiting room kit BK20 has been reworked with narrower ends, which will hopefully make it more suited to modellers with limited space on their platforms. Along with this, there is a parcels office / platform store, BK33, together with a reworked BK21 kit, which now depicts an open waiting shelter with wooden benching and a small ticket office on the side.

Waiting shelter area from kit BK21

Each of these kits can be used on their own or can be used as extensions to the stone station building by means of a modified end wall casting, which is available on request with BK10 as a free alternative part.

That’s it for news for now, our next outing with the stall is to 'Narrow Gauge Now' at Mansfield at the end of October. As the name implies, it is a narrow gauge focused show, so we will have all the latest products from both the 422 Modelmaking and Port Wynnstay narrow gauge rolling stock ranges, together with display models of the latest 7mm scale building kits to help with layout inspiration. Hope to see some of you there!