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St Ruth

A blog by D869 in RMweb Blogs

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A Grand Two Days Out

D869

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blog-0538273001332110210.jpgJust back from St Ruth's first 'real' outing at the Nottingham show. I really enjoyed myself and I think the rest of the team did too.

 

It was really nice to be in a 2mm finescale 'ghetto' surrounded on three sides by Fencehouses, Brafferton and Annedale Town. At times the number of 2mm Association faces in attendance made me wonder if we weren't at a 2mm Expo. The quality of the whole show was well up to its usual standard - this is a show that I attend as a 'punter' pretty much every year but this was my first time on the other side of the barrier.

 

The layout behaved itself very well, in large part due to the two test days that we spent knocking the rough edges off its reliability. There were some gremlins, however - mainly in the guise of annoying derailments, vertical alignment on the baseboard joint nearest the fiddle yard and the joint onto the fiddle yard traverser being probably the worst offenders. We also had the branch junction point fail on Sunday lunchtime and had to spend the rest of the day with the point fixed in the branch direction. Happily the east crossover allowed us to bypass the problem and carry on as normal.

 

On the whole I'm just glad that the layout and stock all kept working for two days (not to mention the operators) and slightly relieved that the mad scramble to get everything ready is over. No doubt all of our better halves have a list of household activities saved up for us.

 

I didn't have time to spend on posed photos, but here are a few pics from the weekend.

 

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I'm sure there's room for a few more things in there.

 

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Serious business, this playing trains.

 

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The goods yard looking less congested than it did at some points of the day.

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bcnPete
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Well done Andy and the rest of the team.

 

Hopefully someone else will post a few more photos of the layout on the show thread...can just make out the hotel in its context in the first shot.

 

The crash barriers look to be quite far from the layout...is that the norm these days?

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D869

Hi Don and Pete.

 

Sorry, but I don't have any photos from Nottingham that show the hotel area very well. We should really have taken the time to get some better pics while the layout was up and running with full stock and lighting, but it's easy to be wise after the event. There were several other folks who took some photos with rather more fancy cameras than I have, so hopefully some of these will turn up on RMWeb soon.

 

The organisers did ask us if we wanted the barriers closer but we felt that the distance was OK in terms of achieving the right line of sight below the lighting... without the top of the backscene intruding into the view or requiring too much bending down on the part of an average height punter. The only comment that we had about the barrier distance was a favourable one, but maybe the disgruntled people just didn't say anything.

 

Regards, Andy

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andyram

Really enjoyed your layout, it looked great. The lighting was superb and really gave the impression of a sunny coastel day.

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D869

Thanks Andy - the lighting was one items that was in the last minute scramble. I think it was completed on the Sunday before the show, so there has been no time for any fine tuning of this bit... other than taking the odd bulb out. The patchy effect is accidental, but sometimes real sunshine is patchy.

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queensquare
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The layout has come on leaps and bounds since its first outing next to us at the Oxford expo. I think it looked and ran superbly and I thoroughly enjoyed getting under your feet having a good nose round the back at all your lovely early 70's diesels - even if Kim thought there was a distinct lack of steam!!

Overall I thought the whole 2mm area was terrific and made our three and a half hour drive well worth it.

 

Jerry

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D869

Thanks Jerry. It was good to see you again and I'm glad that you enjoyed the show. Obviously I need to get back to building that Castle (joking!).

 

There was a brief appearance by John's Black 5 in the last hour on Sunday... just after my Virgin Voyager appeared on scene, derailed and beat a hasty retreat but I think you had left before that.

 

Are you planning to post any of the photos you took on RMWeb or elsewhere?

 

Regards, Andy

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queensquare
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.Are you planning to post any of the photos you took on RMWeb or elsewhere?Regards, Andy

 

Thanks Andy. The camera is new to me so not fully worked out how to use it yet - not least how to download them! If any of them are any good I will certainly post them on RMWeb.

 

Cheers Jerry

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