Railex - Taunton - Debrief...
Morning all,
Just back from a fabulous weekend at Railex Taunton. Firstly many thanks to Rob @NHY 581 for putting me in touch with the Railex team and a big thank you to Steve Pike and all the Railex team for a great weekend. An extremely friendly and helpful team, great banter and catering too. First exhibition I have ever had a Roast and a Crumble! Almost needed a sleep under the layout before the drive back to the smoke!
Just to rewind a little. Had a bit of a wobble a month ago as the turnout in the station developed an intermittent electrical fault at the 31A show. This had first appeared at the excellent RMWeb SWAG event but appeared to correct itself. After the 31A show I was determined to resolve it as it was bugging me and the paying punters deserve better.
I set out a month ago with the soldering iron to try and correct the frog as it seemed to be a dry joint. Trying to get the soldering iron into the area with the fascia in place was no mean feat...and unfortunately the whole frog collapsed. Rather than bodge a repair, I decided to bite the bullet and chop the turnout out and start again 😳 Looking back on my blog I had already undertaken this on both turnouts 7 years ago 😳😳 That time I had removed the fascia so was easier to get amongst it.
The weekend after I set about making the new turnout in PCB as I could not wait for the 2mm shop order as had a limited weekend to get cracking. Regular viewers will know my track building skills are not great so following 7 hours on a Saturday, the air in Putney was blue and the turnout almost took flight across the living room 😩 Time to walk away! The next day, after doing something non railway related I returned to it at 5pm and after a couple of hours we were back on track 😉I had pondered on the Saturday contacting Steve to see if I could postpone however I don't like letting people down, especially having been part of an exhibition organisation team for a few years.
The following weekend the turnout was inserted and tweaked into place and wired. First loco ran in, hit the turnout and short circuited...only then did I realise the switch polarity was the wrong direction 😅It appeared to run ok so a coat of grey primer was applied following masking of the scenics. The following weekend was sprayed with sleeper grime and then ballasted that afternoon. Nothing like a deadline to spur you on!
I left Putney the Friday at 12:30pm for the 3+1/2 hour drive down (plus 1 hr for EV charge) and progress to Bristol was great...until I hit the M5. The lorry fire had closed 3 lanes to 1 and I was stuck in traffic. Rob was just ahead of me and was reporting back it was no better for him. Long story short it took 5 hours to cover less than 20 miles and I arrived at the School at 9:45pm to drop off the layout 😳Again, thanks to Steve and his team for extending the hours due to others also experiencing similar traffic woes.
Layout was set up first thing Saturday morning and all was good for the 10:00am kick off. Thanks to Mark Branson @46444for helping out on Saturday afternoon to allow me to grab lunch and Jerry Clifford @queensquare for helping yesterday lunchtime to allow me to grab the excellent lunch offering.
Overall it was a great show with a fabulous collection of layouts of different scales and eras. I shall definitely put in my calendar to attend as a punter in future years. The layout received some very nice comments and it was great to have various chats and hear stories of Kyle and also different leads to photos that I may not have discovered yet.
The layout will be 15 years old next year so after the Portsmouth show next month I was thinking to retire it...but I did receive some potential invites for the next two years at the weekend, so it may have some further life left in it. Like an ageing rock band doing the 'top up the pension' tour 😉
Below a few photos showing the turnout situation and from the show. Nice to speak to lots of people and meet new people. The comments do really make the journey worth it despite the outbound. Thankfully the journey home was smoother.
The scene of devastation…
A New Hope…
Inserted in place…
A coat of primer…
A coat of sleeper grime…
Ballasted and breathe…
Ready to go…
@46444 at the helm…
@queensquare at the helm…What’s that green kettle that has appeared!
Fabulous work from John Greenwood and Jerry…
That’s all folks!
As always, comments welcome…
Pete
Edited by bcnPete
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