Worthing Model Railway Exhibition

On Saturday I got chance to drop in on the Worthing MRC show with my little boy. It was at a new location this year, and oddly most of the exhibits and stands were in the corridor! (Albeit a wide, long corridor). The layouts were of a reasonable standard, and overall not a bad show.

One superb layout I had previously seen at EXPO-NG a couple of years back, and was pleased to see again, was Pelporro (45mm Gauge) by Brian Taylor. That backscene is amazing, and it is incredible what can be fitted into such a small space in what is normally considered a garden scale!

Another layout I liked was Cwmorgoth Copper Mining Company (O-16.5) by Jean-Luc Pineau. It was a Welsh copper mine featuring a working counterbalanced incline, and some nice internal-combustion locos, again in a very small space.

You can see more of my photos of some of the layouts here. As ever taking photos of layouts with a 2-year old in tow is tricky, especially getting good ones! However he did enjoy watching the trains, in particular a large modern-image OO layout with working colour light signals and lots of trains passing, and a G-gauge setup with Postman-Pat riding on a carriage. Well, that one was aimed at the kids I guess!

The ultimate train set?

A couple of weeks back on a fine summer's evening the Sussex Downs 009 Society area group had a special gathering, in the garden of a cottage in a pretty village deep in Sussex. We'd been invited to see the garden railway of a friend of Nick, one of our members. However this was not your usual garden railway - no, not SM32, O or G gauge, this was proper 7 1/4 and 5 inch gauge ride-on live-steam!

You might be thinking this was some huge garden of a mansion, but no it was a normal size house with a modest (well, probably slightly bigger than average but we're not talking football pitches, more tennis court sized) garden. But into it had been squeezed an oval of dual-gauge track, a station with passing loop, a turntable leading into the garage (sorry, engine shed!?) and a full-size signal box! Yes this line was fully signalled, albeit the real signals were slightly out-of-scale! The photos give some idea of the character of this amazing little line.

Here is the "MPD", with a steam loco being prepared, and a battery powered Hymek. As well as the dual-gauge track, the loco's were a mixture of standard and narrow-gauge outline.

Further down the garden, just past the station platform, was the signal box. The owner of the line had built this himself, but the lever frame was a ground-frame from Lancing carriage works. It all works too, the real signals are connected to the levers although the furthest signals and the points are operated electrically.

Nick on duty as the signal man inside the fully-equipped box, as a single line the trains have to carry the token of course! Later on Nick took control of one of the locos.

By the time Quito was ready to steam it was dark, all trains carried a tail lamp of course but those driving had to rely on those strap-on head torch thingies! So apologies for the quality of the photos.

Finally, how do you fill up a miniture steam loco with water? With a miniture water crane of course! Here it is in use, just to prove it works, note the torch to see the water level in the tank (it was pretty black by then!). Not in the picture, there was even a miniture, working, fire-devil (a kind of stove with a tall chimney, put under the water crane to prevent it freezing in the winter). Despite this a large watering can was usually used to fill the tanks, it didn't rely on stopping the train in the right place!

A Seaside Railway

Bank Holiday Monday, with kids and Grandparents, means of course a trip to the seaside. In our case it was Littlehampton, and perhaps unusually for a British Bank Holiday, the sun shone! Just behind the seafront in a park is the Littlehampton Miniture Railway, which was a great way of keeping my boy happy!

A quick Google search reveals that this is a 12 1/4 inch gauge line, 800 yards long, which originally opened in 1948 with two 4-6-4 steam locos. These days a rather unconvincing steam-outline diesel bogie loco is used (although the "whistle" was more convincing, I suspect a digital recording?). The train consisted of 2 open and 2 "closed" (well, open-sided) bogie coaches.

The line starts between a crazy-golf course and a cafe:

The station has a turntable at the end of the platform, used as the loco release. The station plan can be seen on Google Maps!

The line runs along the seafront road past a putting green, then through some trees and along the back of some houses as it runs past the leisure centre, finishing next to a boating lake. Again the station uses a turntable as the loco release.

Also at this end of the line is the engine and carriage shed, note the third turntable - without connecton! The shed has been extended to the right to make a "tunnel" (the train is just passing into it). There are doors to both ends so I guess this is used to store the train when not in use.

A line such as this is an interesting and different modelling proposition, as demonstrated by Colin Peake with his superb Shifting Sands model in "O9" (7mm scale, 9mm gauge). Steam power, and perhaps a more intensive service with two trains running would probably be necessary for operational interest! I would suggest a "U" shape layout with a station on each side, running from the seaside terminus through some trees to the boating lake. For a smaller layout, the "inland" terminus with the depot modelled in low-relief would work well, the "tunnel" making an ideal way to hide the exit. Hmm, maybe one day!

Up, up, and away!

Another off-topic post, but yesterday I took my little boy to the local airshow at Shoreham. Despite seeing and hearing planes roar and buzz overhead on their way to and from the show for the last 10 summers, I had never been, so it was great to get a chance to have a look up close and see the action. For those that are interested there are a selection of photo's below, the make a change to the usual model railway shows! But don't worry, Railway-related posts will resume shortly!

Shoreham Airshow is themed "Battle of Britain" so there is a strong WWII presence, with Spitfires, Hurricanes, Messerschmitts (they need something to pretend to shoot down!):

There were some American planes too, Mustangs and this P40 Kittyhawk:

The B17 was magnificent:

As was the Lancaster:

The highlight for many was the Vulcan bomber, even though it was clearly flying slowly at part-throttle it was quite awesome, flying amazingly low and close:

The Navy turned up too and did some crazy stunts with a pair of Lynx helicopters:

There were other displays too, including acrobatics, wing-walking, parachutists, and some WWI bi- and tri-planes (replicas). A great day out, and worth a little sunburn! My boy loved it too, though he found the Typhoon a bit too noisy on full afterburner! (Amazing what that plane can do, but the picture's weren't great). These aeroplane enthusiasts know how to put on a show.

Pen-Y-Bryn Cleanup

A couple of poor camera-phone shots of Pen-Y-Bryn after the mice have gone. I've removed some details and people and vacuumed up the mouse-droppings and polystyrene, the remaining damage is not too bad. The orange flecks on the cliffs are where the cork-bark has been nibbled, as has the bark off some of the logs. The ballast has come away in places, and the grass and shrubbery could do with freshening up.

I've decided to see if there is any interest in buying the layout, if not I'll have to think about better storage. I think I might be able to get it through the loft hatch, but not with the ladder in place! I'll have to do something soon though, my wife will tire of it sitting on top of the laundry basket ...

On another note I have come accross a couple more Blogs of interest recently, links are in the BlogRoll!

Mouse Attack

Earlier this week we noticed a funny smell in the garage - that's right, mice. So out came the traps, and this afternoon with the help of my father-in-law we did a spring-clean, checking every box and sweeping out. I guess it wasn't a surprise to find the mice had been at Pen-Y-Bryn Quarry, which was stored in the garage.

The polystyrene forming the hills had been excavated (quarried?) and carried along the track all over the model, and small black droppings littered the hillside (in O gauge they might have passed for scale sheep droppings!). The little blighters had nibbled the rock-face (cork bark), and even tried some of the people and animals (tell-tale flashes of whitemetal!), plus other people, animals, and details were strewn about, flattened by the giant rodents. I did take a picture on my phone but it didn't come out, so the one above shows how it looked before the damage!

This evening I pulled off any loose details for safety and hoovered up the polystyrene and mouse droppings. I guess it could have been worse; the foamboard structure is intact, no wiring or track or buildings are damaged, it is just scenic damage. Some touching-up of paint, and sloshing some dilute PVA around with ballast and flock should not take too long, then putting the details back. But right now I'm not sure what to do, after all I still don't have anywhere better to store it; it is too large to go through the loft-hatch and since our second child arrived there is no space in the house. A 50cm cube is pretty large when you look at it.

It looks like I need to make a secure wooden box from MDF or hardboard, that will keep the dust, spiders, and especially mice out, so I can safely keep the layout in the garage. But then I think what's the point? If it is boxed up in the garage it cannot be seen or operated, it's not that likely to come out for exhibitions, so I might as well salvage what is worth keeping and get rid of it. After all I have 2 further layouts in the loft, another part-completed (and perhaps never will be?) layout in the garage (bare MDF and track wasn't as attractive to or easiliy damaged by the mice), as well as Awnagate in the dining room! Maybe it is the end of the line for this one ...

More pictures of Awngate

I had the camera out tonight so took the oppotunity to take some more pictures of Awngate, from some unusual angles. There hasn't been any actual progress you understand ...

A close-up of the station, the porter and a solitary passenger await the next train. I had to take the platform roof off to get enough light on the platform! The noticeboard could do with some signs, the platform could use a few more trunks and luggage (but mustn't over-do-it, this isn't exactly Euston!), also the yard could do with detailing - coal and goods. The wagon is a Dundas GVT open, at just over an inch long those Microtrains couplers are still unobtrusive.

This is the rarely seen right-hand end of the layout, where eventually I will build a loco shed to hide the "hole-in-the-sky" where mainline reaches the fiddle yard! It will probably be brick-built with a water-tower on top to help hide that hole. The loco is a freelance tram inspired by the Tralee and Dingle 2-6-2's, somewhat smaller and much shorter. It runs on a Bachmann Plymouth chassis, the slot in the bufferbeam was for the DG couplers I used to use, I haven't yet tried fitting Microtrains buckeyes to this loco. Another job ...

Tea break at the factory yard. The GVT tram runs on a Halling chassis, a superb runner. This loco would go so slow it could take 5 minutes to traverse the layout!

"Lucy Ann" arrives with the evening train while the Peckett shunts the goods shed. I really must get some nameplates etched too! The coach is a Mikes Models Corris kit, I even put passengers in!