Hi all,
I remember back in 1999 visiting a live steam club in Essex, UK (Canvey Island), and just standing at the steaming bays, mesmerised by a 3.5" gauge loco being steamed up, and not quite able to believe that such beautiful models existed. I think it appealed to all my senses, the burning fire, the coal smoke, the oil, and the mechanical motion, and I thought at the time that such things were strictly only for the rich. I took out a £2k loan and managed to purchase a live steamer, and it's given unmeasurable pleasure, with trials and tribulations, over the years, and always on a budget!
But the live steam "ride-on" scales led indirectly to building 1:24 scale models on 45mm gauge, so nominally G scale. That started about 5 years ago, and my vague childhood memories and nostalgia directed it all to South/ Southern African types. Around that time, finances allowed me to spend more time on the hobby, and discovering the delights of 3D CAD really got me going with designs. I liked, and still do like, the pioneering nature of scratch building these prototypes in this scale, as they're all likely to be firsts in the world of modelling.
I know Facebook can be a time black hole, but it has also been absolutely peerless in sharing the interest, so all those years ago I used it as a workshop blog of sorts, and yes, it did serve to bring commissions my way, all of which then allowed me to dedicate more time to it, a virtuous cycle I think! I'm building my third garratt design now, the huge East African class 59. I have always tried to put in as much detail as possible, and for these, my goal was to improve on the Bassett-Lowke model in the Nairobi museum, albeit a different scale.
1:24 is presumably one of the many guises of the inclusive G scale, but in parallel to my efforts, several talented builders in South Africa have effectively made it a scale category in its own right, and called it Cape Gauge One (CG1). It feels like it deserves its own space, as it aims for the detail and realism of gauge one, but in the larger scale.
The EAR garratts "should" of course be the slightly larger LGB scale of 1:22.5, being metre gauge engines, so this was a slight compromise to bring them into the CG1 fold, where there is a significant choice of commercial rolling stock from the crew in SA, plus the fixed wheelbases and loading gauge on these models are already a bit of a squeeze on gauge one tracks, so I think it's a wise choice.
Anyway, I'll attach a few photos.
cheers,
Andy, Lincs UK
I remember back in 1999 visiting a live steam club in Essex, UK (Canvey Island), and just standing at the steaming bays, mesmerised by a 3.5" gauge loco being steamed up, and not quite able to believe that such beautiful models existed. I think it appealed to all my senses, the burning fire, the coal smoke, the oil, and the mechanical motion, and I thought at the time that such things were strictly only for the rich. I took out a £2k loan and managed to purchase a live steamer, and it's given unmeasurable pleasure, with trials and tribulations, over the years, and always on a budget!
But the live steam "ride-on" scales led indirectly to building 1:24 scale models on 45mm gauge, so nominally G scale. That started about 5 years ago, and my vague childhood memories and nostalgia directed it all to South/ Southern African types. Around that time, finances allowed me to spend more time on the hobby, and discovering the delights of 3D CAD really got me going with designs. I liked, and still do like, the pioneering nature of scratch building these prototypes in this scale, as they're all likely to be firsts in the world of modelling.
I know Facebook can be a time black hole, but it has also been absolutely peerless in sharing the interest, so all those years ago I used it as a workshop blog of sorts, and yes, it did serve to bring commissions my way, all of which then allowed me to dedicate more time to it, a virtuous cycle I think! I'm building my third garratt design now, the huge East African class 59. I have always tried to put in as much detail as possible, and for these, my goal was to improve on the Bassett-Lowke model in the Nairobi museum, albeit a different scale.
1:24 is presumably one of the many guises of the inclusive G scale, but in parallel to my efforts, several talented builders in South Africa have effectively made it a scale category in its own right, and called it Cape Gauge One (CG1). It feels like it deserves its own space, as it aims for the detail and realism of gauge one, but in the larger scale.
The EAR garratts "should" of course be the slightly larger LGB scale of 1:22.5, being metre gauge engines, so this was a slight compromise to bring them into the CG1 fold, where there is a significant choice of commercial rolling stock from the crew in SA, plus the fixed wheelbases and loading gauge on these models are already a bit of a squeeze on gauge one tracks, so I think it's a wise choice.
Anyway, I'll attach a few photos.
cheers,
Andy, Lincs UK
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