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Railex 2010

Will Vale

Entry posted by Will Vale

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We had a good show at the weekend, although operating Whitemarsh meant I didn't have much time to do anything else - quite a shock after showing roundy-roundy layouts the last couple of years.

 

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First of all, let me offer thanks to my dad for operating Igelfeld and Tanis, and Micky for bringing us lunch on both days, and giving me a quick break from Whitemarsh to eat it. Also thanks to Kev and Rich for making trips to the coffee room on my behalf! 

 

I was pretty panicky the week before the show, especially since I couldn't start the fiddle yard until Wednesday night owing to lack of supplies. As usual, I painted the fascias (primer + 2 coats) late at night on the Thursday so they aren't all that neat close up. They look nice in the pictures here though - the semi-gloss black definitely adds a professional touch, although it's a shame you can see the white primer on the feet-come-gusset plates under the layout.

 

The scenics came together quite well on the Friday morning and afternoon - lots of bushes, some more grass, and various bits of fairing in around things like the bridge. Some of it will have to come out again and get reworked, especially where the bridge joins the retaining wall. I tried to get things up to a similar level of finish all over, leaving off anything which didn't look ready, such as the Ipswich offices and the pretty much the entire fuelling point. This did make the right-hand end of the layout rather bare-looking, but keeping locos on one or other of the sidings on the concrete pad helped.

 

I'm really glad I bought the Turners truck too :) It filled a space where the office should be quite nicely, and added a bit of colour and verticality to an otherwise plain spot. It was also a magnet for sticky fingers which acted as a sacrificial anode to protect the rest of the layout - even my fragile depot sign survived intact.

 

Operation was simple - with a short rake of MKAs (instanter couplings) and a rake of MOAs (Sprat and Winkle) I was able to bring a train in to the yard with 60014, uncouple and head to the fuelling point or the headshunt while the 08871 took the rake into the yard proper (rear road of fiddle yard). This was then reversed, and mixed up with various light engine movements, or 37510 taking the MKAs to and from the yard by itself. The pilot is only needed for the MOAs to avoid buffer lock on the slip, but that didn't quite work out in practice and I needed to help it a bit despite inserting an OCA at the front of the rake.

 

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There weren't too many problems - electrically things were solid - no soldering iron required - but the drive pin dropped out of the tie bar on the slip putting it out of action for the last hour on Saturday. I worked around it since fixing it would have meant turning the layout over - the downside of using the supplied tables. After the show closed it was a matter of five minutes to re-insert the pin, hook the Tortoise wire back over the other end, and reprogram the decoder's address for that motor - it turned out to have lost the address, so it was really a two-fold problem. On Sunday the motors were bulletproof and I stopped checking the routes visually since they were behaving so well. So thumbs up for hands-off uncoupling and turnout motors.

 

On the loco front, 60014, 66722, 08871 and 37510 did sterling service. Great slow running, no stalls or stutters from continuity (I cleaned the track and applied a tiny smear of graphite) but the board join was a bit lumpy and occasionally the 08 would stall against it with wheels turning - I need to address this. I did have to reset the 66 (thank goodness for Howes sound decoders) to defaults on the Saturday when it got confused and did odd things like have the headlights come on at both ends!

 

The Powercab also worked well - the layout rarely drew more than half an amp, and it was great to operate with one hand. I programmed all the routes I thought I'd need as macros so it was quick to set up for moves, but the somewhat arbitrary numbering occasionally confused me (and Micky). I think next time I'll number the lines and sidings from front to back at the left and right of the board, and set up the macros such that 13 means "route from track one at the left to track three at the right" - assuming there are enough macro slots.

 

We were in a block of smaller layouts, and I didn't get time to take many pictures so they're mostly of our neighbours. I like these more anyway - the NZ club scene seems to prefer large freelance layouts which don't really do it for me. There are a couple of others I should really have got pictures of and didn't, but time was pressing. Rich and Kev did good business with Bad Horn across the aisle, and didn't make good on the promise of thrown peanuts, for which I'm suitably grateful :D

 

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I had some nice comments on the layout, and was surprised at how many people mentioned the autoballasters! I didn't know there was much interest in UK modern image here, but I guess it's more popular than I thought. I also got a chance to explain the "hairy cigar" grass to a few people who asked about it, so hopefully that'll start to get used a bit more.

 

Kids were generally OK, but a bit less parentally-restrained than the other locations Railex cycles between, with a bit more reaching and touching. No real problems though, and no damage. I did have one middle-aged father explain at length to his son about how all the feed wires and point motors worked, his finger stabbing out waaay too far into "layout airspace". I didn't feel very guilty at all when I explained that the point motors and orange pipes were actually cosmetic details and all the real wires were underneath :P

 

So... lots of jobs to do on the layout, or new layouts to build, but no pressure for a while since I didn't get any invites. I leave you with an "RMWeb special" picture of my dad's new stock on Whitemarsh:

 

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5 Comments

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Jon020

Well done Will; you completed in time! A great job, and really good write up. Shame it was too far to come to see it in operation; I just had to comprimise with a trip to the Warley show instead.

 

The operation looks great fun... I'm sure that you'll have great fun operating this, and you should feel rightly proud of the result... I'm presuming that you've trained the SWMBO to operate the layout in accordance with the correct procedures ;-)

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Tay Bridge
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Hi

Wil

lovely looking layout. Very impressive within building timescale. well done.

As for the training....never mind that Jon...how on earth did you persuade her to operate the thing in the first place Wil????

 

:huh:

 

10/10 Mate

 

Chris

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Andy Y

Nice to see a Challenge entry out and about so far away Will. I'm a big fan of the vegetation and the ditch.

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James Hilton

It looks great - I think that's the first time we've seen the whole layout in context. The main thing is you sound like you enjoyed it?!

 

The buildings on the right hand side will finish off that area - are there any plans for a backscene and 'framing' to up the realism?

 

I echo Andy's comments whole-heartedly - shame you're not in the UK, I'd love to come and have a play on the layout at something like Members Day! :)

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Will Vale

Thanks for all the kind comments!

 

I'm presuming that you've trained the SWMBO to operate the layout in accordance with the correct procedures ;-)
I started Micky off with a train and the instruction to press "DIRECTION" when it got near to either end of the board :) Obviously she got bored in about 30 seconds and wanted something more interesting to do other than hoot the horn, so she then had two trains to bring in and out on different roads. So that meant learning macro routes, dialling up loco numbers, and basic driving. Talking about it afterwards, she said that it was frustrating not to know more because if something went wrong she didn't have many options - fair point. It didn't help that her first operating experience was with the dicky slip so it was easier than it should have been to short out the track bus entering the slip the wrong way.

 

.how on earth did you persuade her to operate the thing in the first place Wil????
We talked about it before and she offered on the day - I didn't get breakfast until one o'clock on Sunday so I was glad of any help which came my way :)

 

I kind of doubt that she'll be making a habit of this, and there's only so much you can teach in two minutes (stopping over the uncouplers and doing the shuffle to release them takes a bit of practice, for example) but I'm still smiling thinking about it!

 

Nice to see a Challenge entry out and about so far away Will
Thanks Andy, I'm just sorry I didn't manage to promote the forum a bit more - I did mention it to people, but I only remembered title cards on the morning of the show and had about 2 minutes to make them. If I take it back next year I'll try and have a more coordinated presentation.

 

The main thing is you sound like you enjoyed it?!
Very much - the packing/unpacking and setup went quite smoothly after I'd managed to find a couple of tables the same height and make wedges for the rest. I got gradually better at talking while operating - some of it is possible by touch, but I have to look down to enter the loco numbers which feels rude since you have to break eye contact. Given that talking is my favourite bit I missed not being able to do more, but it was good fun to actually play trains for two whole days! The sound adds a lot, although only the 66 and 37 were easily audible over the background noise - possibly boxing the layout in would help this too?

 

It was also flattering to have several of the other exhibitors come and stand and watch quietly for a long time - I hope they enjoyed it.

 

The buildings on the right hand side will finish off that area - are there any plans for a backscene and 'framing' to up the realism?
I'm still in two minds about the backscene - I think it would work, but it would mean raising the layout to much nearer eye height to help mask problems with the flat landscape abutting it. I can look at e.g. Tanis and be perfectly happy with its lack of backscene - I like the idea that a layout is sort of a "core sample" of the miniature world and so edges are something to accept - but with Tanis it really helps that the terrain rises and provides framing by itself. I also think there's a difference between shows (where you can see everything) and posed photos (where you can control the view) - I'm not sure if a layout in a proscenium arch is more 'realistic' than one on a table but I guess I have to try it out and decide for myself!

 

One thing which would push me in the direction of backscenes is the ability to do night and day lighting a la Chittle and Hendre Lane - which would require boxing in to make it work. I already have the working streetlamps, and I'm building lighting into the fuelling point.

 

 

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