Middleton Railway Gala, end of Summer

I (Ben) have been struggling to fit-in doing railway photography recently, between family stuff, the Day Job, and commissioned work. Indeed, as a railway enthusiast I've not managed to do much of the Railway 200 Celebrations at all this year. One event I did manage was a morning at the Middleton Railway.

Always the glamorous locations...

Yeah, definitely wouldn't be walking around here at any time later than about 9.30am.

The abandoned Dartmouth Road branch.

It was a slightly gloomy morning, sadly. Usually when we go the galas at the Middleton the weather is stunning. Maybe it's because I was there on my own, the weather-Gods must smile instead on Amy or The Childs, not me.

The train service was a bit limited too, compared to normal. The Balm Road Branch, usually a highlight, is now shut because the level crossings can't be used, so services were just the same mixed train and three locomotives trundling back and forth on the main line.

Still, a few chances to get pictures of the trains as references for model projects.

One of the highlights of the Middleton are the carriages where you can see the locomotives up close, though another disappointment this year was the open-balcony coach wasn't in service. Luckily one with observation windows at the ends was in use instead.

For all those minor disappointments, however, the Middleton does have an atmosphere all of its own. Small, industrial locomotives, unusual stock, and an unfenced railway. And yet, when the line was first preserved, it was in a post-industrial hellscape, whereas today it's a little corridor of the countryside buried in suburbia. I've not come across a preserved line quite like it, and I do enjoy visiting.

I only had time for a morning there, riding the trains and a bit of linesiding, but I was able to add to my library of shots of the place (as a modeller of Micro Layouts, the Middleton crops up a lot in my articles).

 

The Turner Prize at Cartwright Hall, September 2025

A few weeks ago, we went to see the Turner Prize show at Cartwright Hall. It's not often we get an exhibition of this calibre up here, but the City of Culture Status opens doors a bit.

A nice, bright, Autumn Sunday morning saw us arriving bright and early for the show.

We started with the room showing the work by Zadi Xa. Interesting colour palette, and the reflective floor was an eyecatching feature, allowing you to appreciate the work in a very immersive fashion.

Haunting.

Also on the ground floor, Rene Matic. This was more like the sort of work we spent years viewing at galleries around the country, particularly when we were both studying at Uni. The way the pics were presented was interesting, and the selection of pics was attention-grabbing.

Mohammed Sami was my favourite of the show- huge canvasses on the walls. I kept coming back to this one, I love the way the shadows sit on the scene, and the unusual viewpoint.

Eyecatching and slightly troubling, thought-provoking too.

Nnena Kalu. There's something great about a big, colourful installation piece that fills a space.

We've done a few Turner shows over the years, Ben particularly (as he lived a little closer to London growing up, so was able to nip down on cheap day trips in the days that the shows never left the city). A good mix of work, and all four of them show the effort and creativity that's been put into the work. Definitely worth seeing.

 

Metcalfe Models Terraced Houses in British Railway Modelling

Another project in British Railway Modelling magazine for me (Ben), this time a rather fun build of the new generation of Metcalfe Models terraced houses. My commission was to construct and personalise the kits. 

This was pretty much where the 'build according to the instructions' bit ended, and the fun began...

Basic interior details, and lighting from Christmas Tree lights.

There's a painfully detailed, as ever, account of the build on the model-making blog. And in the mag of course, please buy the mag and support non-AI generated, proper hobby publications!

Personalising each house was rather fun. This one was based on ours.

Then a house for sale.

And the Dreaded Kids Birthday Party. Again, all based on where we live now, and where we lived up in Carlisle in a street not unlike this.

Quite a big diorama built for this one, because it's intended for another article early next year.

And in the mag, looking good as usual thanks to the talented design team at BRM.

 

Twilight at Pont Croeser

During the summer we ended up doing a couple of evening trips down the road to Pont Croeser Station in the evenings.

Well with a sky and sunset like this, how could we not?

The main purpose of the visit was with getting some reference pics of the Welsh Highland Railway halt here.

We're doing a build inspired by this for Garden Rail Magazine, so needed some shots of the real building.

There's a reason we love coming back to this part of the country every year...

 

Dramatic Sky over Cemaes

You really do get some awesome skies over Cemaes, in Wales, and we make no apologies for bombarding this blog over the last couple of years with sunset pics from there. Here's a selection of particularly dramatic skies from our last visit there of the summer.

Hal and Hallie welcome you to the (simulated) Children's ward

Something a little bit different, today- and a return (after quite a while) to cartoon illustration for me (Ben). I've not even done a comic for the model blog in a year, let alone anything more professional, but a chance arose to do some drawing for work.

This is Hal...

...and this is Hallie.  Which is Hal in a wig with different clothes, though it's amazing how even a Robo-Child like this can have a different personality depending on the clothes and wig.

A Robo-Child, you ask? Ah yes, medical robots, or High Fidelity Patient Simulators if you will. I work as a medical technician, and my day job is operating and maintaining these robots (and the adults, and babies, and the pregnant lady-bot, and more). Hallie is awesome, and our most advanced robot in terms of Human Factors. She blinks, cries, changes her facial expression, turns and looks by herself, tracks movements, you name it. Short of getting out of bed and wandering around, there's not a lot she can't do, and it's as like having a real child patient as you can get for training.

We regularly get called on to do big, prop-heavy children's wards and bedrooms as settings for training, however management told us we needed to downsize what we had stored. This was an issue, and we needed something that didn't take up much room but filled the space somewhat.

Inspiration struck whilst helping with a course over in the Maternity block, and this rather fun wall mural at the entrance. I reasoned I could do something inspired by this, removable for when the bed space has to be turned back into an adult ward.

Starting point was a few days drawing random, vaguely kid-related stuff.- simple line drawings in pencil, then gone over with fineliners. But it really needed something a bit more humanising.

The neonates murals had two characters which appeared throughout the pics, one boy, one girl.

As it happens, all my robots make appearances in doodles throughout my notebook. Fairly quick and crude sketches, to be fair, but I've been working on some slightly better designs as we reckon there could be some mileage with including Hallie in the comic over on the model blog.

...some experiments with how to make her look a bit more stylised (not least because technically the NHS own anything creative I do for them, so if I ever wanted to owt with the Hallie character, I needed a more distinct version of her for this).

I worked out a pencil sketch of a stylised version of Hal...

...and Hallie.

After doing some pencil sketches in different poses, I realised it worked better if the kids were in broadly similar poses each time. So I photocopied the sketches with them standing head-on...

...and inked some pics over the top. This is pre-scanning and tidying in photoshop.

I did quite a wide variety of sketches, with different activities, trying to ignore gender stereotyping too. They both do active stuff, they both have teddies (both Hal and Hallie are meant to represent kids between 3-6 years old).

One for the hospital's intenal mag (running joke for our team; the only way to get pics published is to have people standing in a line, smiling, nurses, and balloons somewhere in shot. Hallie nails two of the four).

After various experiments, I settled on a pastel colour pallette, and a slightly faded, blurred effect for the characters (more pronounced with the toys in the background). One Hal, and one Hallie, per panel.

Someone commented on how all the toys in the pics are a bit battered and broken; teddies with rips, patched inflatables, and so on. But then all the stuff we get donated as props tends to be past its best and patched back up. Plus, real kids break toys, so why not.

Enough panels were produced to wrap as a banner around one of the bed spaces, with the colours fading into one another.

We had a few days where we needed to demo and show-off the Sim Centre for visitors, so it was time to test it out before rolling it out on some courses in the Autumn.

Hallie went blonde for the occasion.

It really needs to be attached to the wall a bit better, but as a quick test, it seems to work just with a little blue tak.

The rest of the set dressing helps a bit, and show the new regime of minimising storage. The giant unicorn teddy is actually a multi-purpose prop, as it has been surgically modified to hide a microphone. The big teddy is 'hers' and lives with her on her bunk bed in the cupboard (we're soppy like that, it seemed wrong Hal/Hallie not having a favourite toy), the other soft toys are temporarily there, being disposable effectively. The balloons are re-usable and everything else stores flat apart from the flowers.

In the wider scene, it really works, and is subtle enough to not distract. Really happy with it, anyway. Just need to find a publisher now for "The Adventures of Hallie; Robot Girl From The FUTURE!".