To Boldly G-oo

For the last thirty years I have been happily modelling in 7mm scale. However, recently I’ve succumbed to making a couple of purchases in oo scale….

Don’t worry, there will not be a whole sale shift back to the smaller scale. These are for a project that is happening with my Father to give him somewhere to run some trains now they’ve moved to a bungalow.

At the moment, I’m building some baseboards for the project, which will be a North Eastern region branch line terminus. Whilst mostly set in his preferred 1950s / 1960s period, thanks to some of the more recent rtr developments, we should be able to backdate the layout on occasions to pre-grouping.

The layout is to feature a contractor’s railway for a dam building project in the upper valley and it is for this part of the layout that I have succumbed to purchasing two rtr locos. 

The second arrived yesterday is the exquisite Rapido L class Manning Wardle. Seen here having a test run on Wheal Ponder. The livery is exquisite, as is the tiny detail, down to representation of the inside valve gear. It is tiny however, when I opened the box my mind was thinking this was TT scale not OO!! Hats off to Rapido for such an exquisite and tiny model.

The previous purchase was one of the superb Hornby 0-4-0 Peckett locos. At some point it will receive a name and both will be weathered. The Peckett is a small loco yet seems to dwarf the MW!

And I couldn’t resist posing the MW alongside my smallest 7mm narrow gauge loco just to show how tiny these MW locos are.

Both locos happily trundled round Wheal Ponder and having been tested satisfactorily, been put back away until such a time that there is a layout for them to run on.

The development and production of excellent industrial models has piqued my interest and makes oo more interesting for me. Whilst I’m tempted to dabble, I’m too invested in 7mm scale now to be fully converted back, though who knows what small cameo I could be tempted by.