Hello everyone,
Just joined your club after sitting on the fence for some time!

My main interest is in the railways of East Anglia, specifically the Great Eastern main line out of Liverpool Street to Colchester and beyond, although I do have a soft spot for the LNER Pacifics. Timescale 1950's/early 1960's, not that I can remember such a time, not being born until after steam ended on BR - my personal memories are of EMU's and Class 47's on the Norwich trains.

I did have a fairly large layout in the loft of the family home when I was a child, built and wired by my Dad (about 18' x 10'), but a move left us with nowhere to build a new layout and consequently no experience of wiring. I did continue with the hobby in the meantime, learning the skills of building plastic wagons and carriages before attempting my first locomotive kit, of which I have now completed three, this being the latest:


Now I have a room that I can develop into a OO gauge layout but I need to learn wiring, so I have also branched out into OO9 with a small fiddle yard to terminus layout to learn the basics. (I've just thought I could have done a small shunting layout and saved the cost of a different gauge!) The layout of this is a sort of mirror image of Tywyn Wharf, but with a canal basin for traffic transhipment.

I will be sticking with DC as some of my stock is incompatible for taking DCC chips, and besides, I don't much like the idea of computerising everything - I want to use isolating switches and so on.

Hello Alan, Welcome and I hope you fell off the fence on something soft!
I too am a DC modeller for much the same reasons plus my fingers are too podgy for tiny buttons, even my mobile phone is nearly last centuries with nice chunky buttons  :)

Hi and  :Welcome aboard Alan, good to have you wilth us  :). Thats a nice looking Loco. Plenty of friendly help and advice on here about most topics including wiring so don't be afraid to ask. Nothing wrong with being new to it and you will find that just about every mistake possible has been made by at least one member here, so better to ask and save yourself the  grief 
Shout out if theres anything Forum wise your not sure about  :thumbs

Once again welcome aboard

Cheers

Matt

Welcome Alan from another Eastern & DC fan - there are not enough of us about  

Nice little loco - J15 perhaps? - nice kit, well built.

Barry

  Hi and welcome Alan,
 
Always good to see a man with some get up and go, as you settle back into modelling and master new skills. I’m impressed with you tackling loco building, a subject I’ve dabbled with, but have put it on hold until I’ve attended a chassis building course this year, pandemic restrictions permitting of course.
 
Like you, I’m also currently learning wiring, which so far is fine, but I’ve yet to tackle point motors, signals and the control panel, but so long as you research, prepare and plan to tackle the individual tasks in a logical order, you should be fine.
 
Looking forward to hearing more of your plans and you’ll find plenty of help and advice here from experienced modellers, so ask as many questions as you need and enjoy the build.
 
Best,
 
Bill

Hello Alan and welcome to the club.  Very nice loco you have built.  I used to frequent Liverpool Street Station as a young lad in the 1950's / early 1960's as it was within walking distance of home in the East End of London.
Terry

Hi Alan,

Add in my greetings; welcome to our friendly little corner of the world of modelling.
 One good thing here is help is generously shared, as I found on my recent journey up the learning curve of Active Braking.
 
regards,

Hi Barry,
Thank you.

Nope, that's an ex GER J17, somewhat larger than the J15. Built from the PDK kit.

Here's my J15!


This is a whitemetal kit from Nu-Cast.

I've got two more ex GER 0-6-0's to build, both PDK kits - the J19 and J20.

Alan

Thanks everyone for your welcomes

Welcome to the club Alan. :Welcome

Welcome, Alan. Look forward to read about your model railway. 

Welcome aboard Alan.

 It's been a while since I was connected professionally with what was then the Jazz Cafe at Liverpool Street station (I was a duty manager at one time) and I just missed GE steam on the main line making my first trip to Clacton in a brand-new electric rather than behind a "Brit".  But it's still the "Jazz" to me pulling up the bank to Bethnal Green amid a plethora of other trains.  

:hi :cheers :Welcome

Welcome Alan,
I'll be particularly interested in this thread because I'm still learning about LNER and their loco types as I've only just begun to run them on my layout, albeit in n gauge, where there is much less in the way of both RTR AND kit-built LNER stuff.(given my 1930s period choice.. :roll:) 
Watching with interest,particularly your loco building, bring it on!

Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

Thanks Rick,
Would the jazz cafe be the one on the footbridge above platforms 1-6? I remember having various snacks, etc. in it. I think Liverpool Street lost a lot of character in its rebuilding, but accept that the commuters probably appreciate the new layout better.

Ultimately I want to do a model of Clacton - I can legitimately run "Brits" with 6 on! Dad moved to Walton and commuted daily to London just as they introduced the 309's. In the first week or so of commuting they laid out leaflets about the new units and services on the trains for the commuters - but he never kept a copy!!!!

Thanks John,
I've got a fair knowledge of LNER locomotives, especially in East Anglia, and feel fairly well served by RTR in OO gauge - who would have thought we would have D16 4-4-0's and J15 0-6-0's RTR (after I built my J15 of course!)

My learning curve is going to be on building a model layout, from carpentry through wiring to ballasting and scenics - hence the small starter layout in OO9, which I will start a new thread on shortly.

[user=2220]Alan W[/user] wrote:

Thanks Rick,
Would the jazz cafe be the one on the footbridge above platforms 1-6? I remember having various snacks, etc. in it. I think Liverpool Street lost a lot of character in its rebuilding, but accept that the commuters probably appreciate the new layout better.

Ultimately I want to do a model of Clacton - I can legitimately run "Brits" with 6 on! Dad moved to Walton and commuted daily to London just as they introduced the 309's. In the first week or so of commuting they laid out leaflets about the new units and services on the trains for the commuters - but he never kept a copy!!!!

You're thinking of the Bistro.  The Jazz was in the same area but at concourse level.

Welcome Alan, wishing you all the best as you settle back into layouts again.  I have to say that your model building skills look really impressive - well done. Really looking forward to watching your layout take shape.

Cheers Andrew
 :cheers

Welcome aboard Alan, 
Lovely modelling. The loco's look great. 

Starting with a small test layout is the way to go. Learn the skills, make the mistakes, scenic it and finish it and then move on to the bigger version. 

I found it a useful tool when negotiating for floor space… "see (insert honorific, endearment or name of significant other here), how pretty is this, worth making a bigger one isn't it?!!"

My test version is here:

http://yourmodelrailway.net/view_topic.php?id=1661&forum_id=52&page=1

I wish that I had put in one wired up point and a signal with a mini-panel but other than that it proved my capabilities. 

I'll be following your journey.

Welcome along Alan.
As you can see by my profile pic, I too am from the eastern area.
Good luck with your build and endeavours.

Welcome Alan.  What fine model locos!  There is plenty of helpful advice here about getting everything started, including that tricky wiring.  Look forward to seeing your progress and some advice about building and finishing those lovely loco kits you have shown us.
Michael