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About this blog

2mmFS - circa 1980

Entries in this blog

Kyle - St Neots

Evening all,   Kyle was invited to the one day St Neots show yesterday. Jackie and I had been trying to find a date when there were no clashes after a few email exchanges and 2023 was when the planets aligned!   Set up the layout Friday night to test run and very glad I did as two roads in the FY were dead - turned out to be dry joints after some detective work. Soldering iron administered with the England footie game on in the background 🫣   Once sorted, car loaded

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bcnPete in General

Kyle Railex 2023

Just an update on the back of this weekend's superb RailEX 2023 in Aylesbury. Great show with nice mix of quality layouts and trade - honoured to be amongst the line up and to have made the front cover of the show guide.   Thanks to Tim, David and all the team for hosting and looking after us all weekend.   Thank you for all the kind comments and it was great to finally meet some people who have either been following my diatribes on here and/or saw the layout in Model Rail ma

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bcnPete in General

RAILEX…virtually…

Hi all,   As we ease ourself into a BH weekend just to let you know that Kyle will be attending the RAILEX virtual show tomorrow Saturday 29th May 2021.   The layout was lined up to attend the original show but will appear at a date to be confirmed when some sense of normality returns. Meantime, I was honoured to be asked to be part of the virtual show and details can be found here:     http://www.railex.org.uk/index.php       On my layout

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bcnPete in General

Kyle be back...

Evening all,   Quick update to say Kyle appeared at the Wycrail one day show yesterday.   As always, a very nice show and very friendly and helpful exhibition team.    Good to see some familiar faces for a catch up and also meet some new peeps. Received some very nice comments and overall the layout performed well.   I really do need to sit down and work my way through the list of small things such as replacing knuckle couplings on coaches, corridor connectio

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bcnPete

Kyle @ Mid Essex...and next steps...

Evening all,   Quick update from the Mid Essex one day show held yesterday. A nice small show with a selection of quality layouts and good traders. Was a nice surprise to see Ian Futers there, having met him some years ago - bit of a modelling legend for me as his P4 Lochside layout was so instrumental when we were growing up...also was an inspiration for Kyle.   The layout performed well overall with just a loose wire in the Fiddleyard noticed prior to the start of the show.

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Kyle - More Tutbury tractors...

Evening all,    As per Andy’s blog update, there was a 2mmFS Supermeet in Tutbury yesterday. I have posted a few thoughts and photos from the day on the exhibition thread so here’s an update on Kyle as part of the show.   Took the day off Friday to run some tests and check my two 37’s ran ok as had just received them back from Coastal DCC - Kevin had done a great job hard wiring the lights and also introducing a stay alive to them. In trying to reduce the amount of ‘stuff’ I

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Kyle - Steyning show 2019

Morning all,   A quick update from Kyle’s appearance at the one day Steyning show last Sunday.   Whilst not actually a Model Railway Club, the Wielden Railway Group have a one day show each year attended by members layouts and those they choose to invite. Andrew Knights kindly invited me when we met at the Essex show last year. Seeing as how Steyning is only half an hour away from my folks, it seemed a good opportunity to visit them and throw the layout in the back of the car

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Kyle - Stafford show 2019...

Evening all,   A debrief from the excellent Stafford show of last weekend. I did draft up the post last week but as I was getting used to the new software I managed to delete the entry just as I was about to post it   Start again, fresh eyes...   As previous entries have described, I decided to replace the two turnouts to try and improve running as they were built almost 10 years ago. This turned out to include other remedials and more than I had anticipated in the last few m

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Kyle - The Sky(e’s) the limit...

Evening all and a very Happy Christmas to you,   Have been chipping away at progress and almost ready to start scenic repairs again.   The second turnout was installed in position yesterday having first gapped it, cleaned with Vim and then sprayed with a coat of primer...as before sky blue was all I had at hand   One thing you will note is the backscene and also the ramp/bridge have been removed now. This was twofold, firstly the bridge railing was getting damaged and secondly the tie bar

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Kyle - Further update...

Evening all,   Following on from the last entry I have since managed to simplify the wiring and the new turnout is in place and trains run through it - a couple of locos need a check on their Back to Backs before I start tweaking the frogs...which was a downfall of the previous ones I think.   With this in mind I decided to build the second replacement turnout under the road bridge as the layout has quite a few shows over 2019/2020. I started this yesterday afternoon before bad light stopped

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Kyle - Up the (Spaghetti) Junction...

Evening all,   Viewers alerted by wiring nightmares should avert their eyes now... As per usual with my blog entries they are a mix of positive and negative experiences but it’s all about the process and how we get there, right?   This weekend I looked to test the turnout in situ before spraying and glueing in place. The loco ran smoothly up to the turnout and onto the frog area then kept shorting out...I swopped over wires and checked for gaps on the PCB...then it occurred to me that I had

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Kyle - further PW progress...

Evening all,   The trip to Wycrail yesterday allowed me to make a few purchases and undertake some further work today on the new track insert(s) - A set of Xuron track cutters, new soldering iron 2mm chisel bit and a soldering iron cleaner were ticked off the shopping list.   First thing today I finished the tie bar started with Mark the other week. This was first drilled to allow for the wire in tube mechanism. Once installed it allowed me to trim the frog ends of the turnout to match the e

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kyle - makeover III...

Evening all,   Something I mentioned in my last blog update was that I wanted to replace the turnout(s) which had intermittent faults. The more troublesome being the turnout in the station having power issues as well as the odd derailment when running around. The other suffers the occaisional derailments when reversing wagons.   Mark Fielder of this parish kindly offered to help me as viewers of my blogs know my track building skills need improvement Seeing as how I took this week off for 1

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Kyle @ Billericay...and next steps...

Afternoon all,   An update from the Billericay show yesterday. A nice small friendly show set in 3 buildings joined by a garden...the Mayor arrived for a scheduled 30 minute visit...and ended up staying 2 hours! His driver was well impressed by the sounds from the 37’s just as he remembered them.   Overall, the layout behaved although some stock has been withdrawn to have a look at on the workbench - my once reliable 37/4 seems to suffer from cut out of the lights and sound regularly - might

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Kyle goes to TOWIE...

Evening all - smashing weather the last few days   Last year I accepted an invite to the Billericay Model Railway Group one day show on 5th May 2018, so Kyle is Essex bound.   It’s a small one day show which is my preference at the moment juggling the hobby with work and family commitments as many of us do.   I wanted to try and do some work on the rolling stock for the show, having now got two class 24’s sound fitted. My priority was to try and get 37025 (purchased from TMC as 37035) als

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Oxted debrief...

Evening peeps,   Back from the one day show at Oxted School today. Nice little show with a mix of layouts although as my youngest son couldn't attend today I didn't get to see much. Nice Spanish HO/009 layout San Maria Gandia.   Overall the layout behaved itself and as always a couple of little things for the 'to do' list prior to the next show (DG couplings and tweaking one of the turnouts)   The layout was primarily run with the 24/0 and 37/4 sound chipped locos and a 26 and 27. The 24/

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upon inspection...and Oxted...

Good evening,   It's been a while since I posted on this blog as I have been developing Thurso as an entry to the MRJ Cameo layout competition.   Back at the Tonbridge show, I was invited by Dakota Dibben, to a one day show he is organising next Sunday 9 July 2017 in Oxted. Details as below:   http://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/other/events_detail.php?eid=15071   Hopefully there will be a few new things on show. First up, Kevin of Coastal DCC has sound chipped my 24/0 so now there are two sou

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bcnPete

24124...and down to business...

Evening all,   In between work deadlines, I have been trying to finish my 24/0 conversion to a 24/1, in this case 24124. This is essentially the Farish 24 with Alan's (etched pixels) nice set of etches allowing a 24/1 or 25/0 conversion.   24/1's were a staple of Kyle and more regular than the 24/0 so it really needed doing. It didn't quite make the last show but it is now almost ready to be weathered and represent a nice grubby version using the pic I have seen of 24124 at Kyle. It may well

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bcnPete

reflecting on a day in kent...

Morning all,   Yesterday was the one day show at Tonbridge with the layout operating to the paying public for the first time on dcc and with the sound chipped 37/4.   Nigel Ashton and I were flying the 2mmFS flag at the show, each with a corner slot although I think Nigel faired a tad better in his location in one of the main halls Fair play to the exhibition manager who came to check everyone an hour before doors opened and realised his floor plan had been a little ambitious given we were

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now I get what dcc ready means...

Good morning,   Just a quick plug to say KoL will be appearing next Saturday at the 1 day exhibition in Tonbridge, Saturday 18 February 2017.   This will be the first time (other than a preview at the 2mmFS AGM) that the layout appears in DCC mode and since then 37414 has been sound chipped. Have been testing the fleet and big thanks to Pixie who managed to breathe life back into two of the locos   Due to work commitments I haven't been able to finish 24124, 37025 and 26040 but they are c

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bcnPete

37/4 and 24/1 - sound + vision...

Afternoon all,   After the AGM the other week, 2mmFS mojo has been topped up and it was time to start looking at the rolling stock for KoL. I had always had the intention to have a class 24/1 as they were more frequent on the line than the 24/0 and the Etched Pixels etches were getting a little fidgety in the gloat box.   Following some filing away to the front cabs to remove door hinges etc. some filler has been added to create the distinctive smooth fronts. The roof fan has been drilled ou

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bcnPete

(nearly) been there, done that, got the t-shirt...

Good morning,   An update on the 2mmFS AGM yesterday and KoL's appearance.   Whilst presenting at exhibitions is still a relatively new thing for me, putting your work on show to your fellow 2mmFS peers with a common interest is a somewhat slightly nerve racking experience This was my first attendance at an AGM, mainly due to AWOL in BCN but it was Mick Simpson who suggested at Warley last year that I bring the layout along. Set up was pretty smooth and this was the first outing with the la

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bcnPete

dcc arrives in kyle...

Good evening,   The layout is due to appear at the 2mmFS AGM tomorrow...in fact it's the first AGM I have ever managed to attend having joined the Association just before departing for BCN.   Having made the break to DCC at the end of last year, chipped a few locos, then got distracted by the senior scale, it was time to try and get it working....and this seemed a good milestone. A few extra wires to solve some dodgy track connections and things seem to be running...albeit no sound. One step

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bcnPete

kyle 2016: a new hope...

Afternoon all,   Firstly, many thanks for the kind comments received on the Model Rail article this month. I was really pleased with it and it was good to meet the MR team at Warley last weekend...although CJL was always busy when I tried to speak with him in the short time I was there. I have also picked up a couple of show invites on the back of the article which was nice.   I think I mentioned in my new Thurso blog that I would be making the break to DCC with that layout and with this in

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bcnPete

kyle 2015 - exhibition post mortem and way forward...

Good afternoon,   A quick update on last weekend and decisions going forward.   Really enjoyed to exhibit at the Uckfield show last week, the first two day show for KoL...must admit I was knackered at work on Monday - might be better to take the Monday off in future rather than the Friday.   Overall it didn't perform too badly and it received some nice comments from peopleseemingly fascinated by the fiddle yard and back scene...and the compactness. Saturday it performed better than the Sun

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