It has been some time since my last entry.

I was going try and do an entry a week. Not for egotistical reasons, but to motivate myself into making models. For too many years I lacked the mojo for modelling. Sadly over the past few months the pressure of work over took me again and I could little more when I got home than to sit in front of a computer screen and admire other peoples work on RMweb.

As it seems the trend on other blogs, I will do a wrap up of 2011 and some thinking out loud about 2012.

Life has not been total desert from trains and in November saw myself meeting up with the rest of the local EM Gauge Area group for a visit to St. Merryn. It really is a pleasure to go and get a private viewing of this layout and to be given the control of a locomotive and told to go and play.

I would like to share a few observations about operating this layout (driving trains) that may not be apparent to viewer at exhibitions.

• On leaving the station with a departing train you have to negotiate a steep climb. One of our members had to take several runs at it before he managed to do it without the train stalling.
  
• The turntable is small. I mean it is small. The T9 only just fits on it and by that I mean there is a millimetre or so leeway before the wheel flanges catch the passing rails when turning.
  

This didn’t stop me trying to get a West Country on it though!

Here is a picture of me playing trains.

Photo Steve Carter.

In my last entry on 76009 back in October, I bemoaned the fact that despite testing everything and thinking that I had got everything right, the engine decided to get stage fright and stopped working as soon as it poked its nose out of the tunnel that exits the Fiddle Yard. I have since fitted different pickups. These are Phosphor Bronze strips made by Slater’s. These have been soldered to the PCB’s and covered with a layer of super glue to try and prevent any further delaminating. This weekend we are taking Swaynton to the Southampton Model Railway Show and 76009 has an opportunity to redeem herself.

One of the things we want to look at the Southampton Show is how to operate the goods yard. In a previous blog I asked for views on operation and was surprised that these not the same. If anyone who reads this is at the Southampton show, say hello and give us your thoughts. Our thinking is that we should run a prototypical shunt (pick up goods) but it must also be entertaining to the public. The big question is how?

Looking forward to 2012, we have an invite to Chatham. I hope it is warm and dry this year.

I have also been thinking about the new offerings from Hornby.

The Maunsell Pull-Push unit looks nice and would go well with my converted M7 30111. This is the old Hornby one that I purchased many years ago. However as Swaynton is modelled on May/June 1960 I will be pushing it (or is pull-pushing it) a bit to run these on the main line. Commissioned by this date on the south western division are sets 608,609 & 613. I figure that these would all go straight onto branch line services. Unless someone knows different?

The Bogie B Van also looks good although I have a Ratio one that is half completed.

Both of these look quite good and conversion to EM should be quite easy.

Finally as we all had a holiday from RM Web over Christmas, I present show and tell as to what I got up to.

At Scaleforum I purchased a chassis kit from Branchlines and over the holiday I opened the packets and warmed the soldering iron.

Yes I am going to have a go at 76010. My plan is to do a regular update showing the build of this. I plan (ha-ha) to have this running at Chatham. Good or bad, I will show what I do and look forward to your help and advice.

Happy New Year and happy modelling.

Andy