Leamington Spa the Model

It is with regret that I announce that JLTRT will no longer attend O gauge guild shows. The cost of doing so does not make economical sense any longer. We will attend the ALSMR shows this year as well as the Christmas show in Reading. JLTRT will also now be changing the way it runs and will be making kits to order but won’t be not carrying stock. The cost of making the kits has risen so much. We will no longer carry all the things we have in the past but concentrate on our kit range.

At last we are putting up the last back scene boards on Leamington.

Happy New Year

Heres my Christmas box its a an Agenoria Hudswell Clarke 0-4-0ST BR 1142 this is my favorite loco I used to have my lunch in the cab every day when I worked at Wolverhampton it was withdrawn from Clee Hill and was stored at Stafford Road shed before being taken to Swindon for scraping. It was built by John Turton.

This is scratch built Castle 5006 Tregenna Castle it was rebuilt by Dave Baker with Mitchell chassis and Alan Harris wheels and painted by Alan Brackenborough.

I took the chance to buy two Scopio kits at Reading a Crocodile G and a Loriot R. I spent eight hours on Sunday building them and then Chris Louth took them away to add the buffers and the bogies. The Shays Chris’s they never ever ran on the Western!

At last 2-8-0T is ready for the shops in to black then in to service. This is a model of my own GWR 5224. 5224 is about to come to Crewe for a re tyre and a ten year overhaul it has been our star loco for over ten years never letting us down. A train load of new tractors on there way to west country new from Coventry.

As I said last blog Mike thought the telgraph poles were on the light side. One wag did say paint them darker! Any way here’s what they should like. Thanks Mike only 52 more to make.

At last the last of all the signal box’s for the layout arrived from laser craft Devon and the best yet. We had made up our mind to have a canterlever GWR box not right but works far better then the real one! I built on Saturday and painted it today Sunday there’s still a lot to do but I just wanted to see it in the place it will live. Ted bought his class 22 to run and boy did he have to work hard to make it look like this.

After two weeks of shows today Sept 10 we were back to building Leamington. Also Bob Tatman bought two new locos for us a 57xx and a Dean goods note the patch on the tender. We also started to fit telgraph poles and although they look good Mike thinks there a little light looking so its back to the work shop and another hole in the hand !

Last year you may remember I took delivery of a batch of Lionheart 16T minerals and spent the weekend with Dodgey making them look used. This weekend saw making telegraph poles and managing to put a hole in my hand and weathering a batch of Loinheart 7 plank wooden wagons. I rearly should get out more !