Ballast Train

 0-4-0 saddle tank 'Nesta' with a ballast train passing Hadarford wood. 😊

Keith

New Quarryman's Brake van

 With 'Linda' and Blanche' delivering the new quarryman's brake van to the paint-shed yesterday, and a sterling effort by the painters overnight, it has joined and now completes the quarryman's train and is immediately behind 6wDM diesel ‘Becky’. 😊

Keith

Test Run

 After a morning of checks and firing up for the 1st time, 2-4-0 Hunslet 'Blanche' is out for her test run with 0-4-0 Hunslet 'Linda' as back-up, just in case, with a new guard's van in tow, also under trial. 😊

keith

New Arrival

 0-4-0 Hunslet 'Linda' has safely delivered new arrival 2-4-0 Hunslet 'Blanche' to Hadarford's maintenance yard to take on coal and water ready to be fired up for the 1st time tomorrow. 😊

Keith

Getting to grips with PhotoShop Editing

Today I have been playing with Photoshop to improve the backgrounds of my photos.

Because of the low proximity of the guttering and the shadow it creates, it is difficult to take good photos as in this photo.

0-4-0 'Prince' with a small mixed traffic train passing Hadarford lock. 😊

It is a painstaking process taking a couple of hours to complete. I have at present a choice of 14 cloudy sky pictures to choose from. I copy and paste one of them onto a transparent blank the same size at the intended photo and position the cloudy sky at the top of the blank.

Then the time consuming part where I 1st open the intended photo and paste it onto a transparent blank, then very slowly cut the unwanted background bit by bit, until all the unwanted background has gone.

I then copy and paste this photo onto the blank page with the cloudy sky at the top. I position it to give the best view. As I have always done previously I then black out the underside of the layout.

This is the final result

Oh look, a rainbow 🌈

Keith