Our next planned outing should be TINGS near Leamington Spa in early September although the show web site is curiously shy about our presence and that of another 2FS layout of this parish which I'm told will be in attendance.
There are still a few more buildings needed and some of these may appear before September but I think it's time to make a start on another aspect (get it?) of the infrastructure - the signals.
St Ruth needs a lot of signals so there is zero chance that they will be
This weekend we blew the cobwebs off St Ruth after 6 months of exhibition inactivity by taking it to one of the bigger of our local shows run by Leamington & Warwick MRC.
We haven't been completely idle during this period (almost... but not completely). The most noticeable additions being the ability for our 'sun' to gradually set allowing us to run the layout in darknes. Apart from a black cloth to keep out stray light from overhead this has entailed a lot of work putting lights (contro
Back home now after our outing to our local mega-show. After a few comments from other people beforehand I was a bit wary of exhibiting at Warley but really enjoyed it. For sure, the NEC is a huge venue and this brings with it extra aggravation particularly during setup and packing up and for sure it was stacked out with people on Saturday but there is stacks of space behind the layouts and the food is good, even if the queue was a bit long. It was also great to spend some time again with the ot
The more recent meetings of the Midland Area Group have consisted of fettling points and generally resolving faults that emerged from the running weekend at the Nottingham show.
One of the major alterations consists of altering the traversing fiddleyard so that more than one track is live with DC at a time (John can describe, along with the rest of the electronics.) Eventually with enough operators present, four loco movements should be possible at the same time. This is more impressive when
Just back from an enjoyable weekend with St Ruth at the Aldershot show organised by the Farnham and District MRC.
Getting the new sea siding crossover finished in time for the show was a bit of a struggle. We could certainly have used some more time to deal with the stickiness that always seems to happen as soon as new track is painted... and then again when it is ballasted. It managed to (mostly) make it through the weekend though.
The other new items were a new goods yard shunting sche
We got back fairly late yesterday evening from Epsom so I didn’t get chance to post any photos last night.
We had a good time at the show. There were some excellent layouts on display along with a good selection of traders. The digs and food were good and we also managed to venture into the mean streets of Epsom and track down some pints of St Austell ‘Tribute’ on Saturday evening. I’m sure that our operating on Sunday was much better for it.
Unfortunately the journey down on Friday was
The sea wall is one of the most prominent scenic features on the layout. It's also pretty long - covering almost all of the 12 foot frontage of the layout. A few weeks prior to the Expo last July it was just a blank piece of plywood and our thoughts turned to make it into something more wall-like.
Exactly how to model the sea wall was something that caused us some head-scratching. We already have some retaining walls done with embossed plasticard and the big retaining wall behind the station
Things are pretty hectic right now getting stuff that we have planned finished in time for Railex but here's a little photo taken at a recent meeting.
Those longer in the tooth may remember this loco on our old group layout 'Helsby Tumill and Haddon'. It was built from a Foxhunter kit by the late Phil Kerr, a member of the Midland Area Group, talented modeller and a very helpful chap too. I think that Phil also did the masters for the kit (he definitely did the masters for the A1 kit).
Well, 2014 seems to have arrived and after the usual last minute flurry of activity to get things finished, so did this weekend's St Albans show.
It was great to see some of our existing friends and to make some new ones. I think that all of the team had a good time although you might have got a different answer if you had asked those of us on our backs mending the point motor at the goods yard throat during the Saturday morning session.
The Sea Siding crossover also decided to develop a
Progress on St Ruth continues at its usual (ahem) pace. One of the more recent items has been the scenic treatment of the ‘grassy knoll’ (hmm… haven’t I heard that term before?).
The first thing I tried out was surgical lint grass in the Barry Norman approved manner – in this case lint from Superdrug, dyed olive green and then stuck furry side down to the brown-painted landscape. Once the glue is dry, the lint backing is peeled away, hopefully leaving something resembling grass.
Just 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 b
A few photos from the Abingdon show today. An enjoyable time was had and it was good to catch up with friends again.
A shot against the lighting. I quite like the way the light reflects from the surfaces but it's not easy to photograph with the lights shining straight into the camera.
And we were awarded a nice trophy too. Ian seems pretty happy about it.
The Hall isn't finished yet but it managed to do some useful work.
I think that a good time was had by all at the 2mm do at Kidderminster on Saturday. I certainly enjoyed myself and St Ruth performed with its revised control panel... when we weren't just nattering that is. I'm not sure how many times we got through the schedule, but I think it's far to say that the pace was more leisurely than normal. Another welcome innovation was the snazzy barstool provided by Pauline in the 'front of house' department. I also got to have a look in the new demo signal box th
I was going to find some modern marketing speak for 'digging up the track' but the language used by the real railway is now so far detached from reality that I decided against it.
As most readers will know, St Ruth is 'based on' Penzance but exactly how far that goes is rather flexible. Starting from the pre-1938 track plan, the very first departure from reality that we made was to add a headshunt to the goods yard and then continue this along the sea wall as a goods loop. This has been very
Some of you may have seen the two new signals over on the 2mm Workbench thread. Last night they were planted on the platform. Unfortunately I failed to photograph the little signal covering trailing moves over the carriage siding points before the station board was boxed up ready for Friday.
Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the bracket signal covering the same points. The shunt arm covers the move into the sidings, the 4' arm into the platform and the call-on for use if there are already
Some of the other group members now have access to post to the blog but it was decided by popular demand that I should post a progress update. We decided to dedicate our most recent meeting for a photo shoot. Surprisingly I was the only one who showed up with a camera... even though I don't rate my abilities at phtographing 2mm scale models very highly. Anyway, here are the results.
The station area with my favourite Warship waiting to depart. John Russell has been doing a lot of w
There is a bit of a theme to our lives at the moment... getting the buildings built.
We have accepted an invite to the Nottingham show in March next year so it's now all hands to the pumps to get a reasonable set of buildings into place on the layout. Most of us have little or no prior experience of doing this, but I think that everyone has produced good results.
The photos below were taken at our most recent meeting where we had most of the current crop of buildings in place on the layo
Merry Christmas to all of our readers in RMWeb-land. We hope to see some of you at St Albans in January.
A word or two about the photo… I must thank Peter W Gray for the idea and the composition. The photo is inspired by his photo (published in the Jan 2005 'Steam Days') of 5015 Kingswear Castle waiting at signals to depart from Newton Abbot in January 1962. Peter's photo is lit by the lights of the platform where he was standing. The equivalent platform at St Ruth stops rather short of
Just back from RailEx with St Ruth all packed away safely. It was a very enjoyable show and an excellent mix of layouts to look at.
St Ruth behaved itself and performed well, including the new operators (Ian and Stephen). All four signals kept working for both days which is good news given our lack of mileage with them (and particularly the servo drives). The route indicator decided not to play on Saturday but was persuaded back into action today and was fine after that. I think that the new
Some photos from our trip to Leeds this weekend. A nice show with some good content and the food was good too so our thanks to the organising team and also the catering folks.
It was perhaps inevitable that we were next to John Aldrick's lovely 2mm scale 'Ivybridge'. Couldn't see much ivy on it myself though.
Looks like my flash triggered so this photo is hopeless - sorry...
I rather liked this model of Outwell Village on the Wisbech and Upwell. I
As previously advertised, some pictures of the row of houses that John has recently finished behind the station. Now we just need to persuade John to write some words about them.
And the real thing...
The basic trunk, branches and "twigs" were built up from multicore wire as described in my previous blog entry (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1009/entry-12142-going-round-the-twist-for-st-ruth-trees-pt-1/).
Once I had finalised the shape that I wanted, I attached the base of the trunk into a piece of 5mm diameter brass tube so that the tree could eventually be planted on St Ruth. The base of the trunk was thickened up a bit with some P38 car filler (having first planted th
Today was our third Expo in a row. We did actually question whether they really wanted us again but were told that this one was the 55th Anniversary one so we could come and play again.
A good day was had by all. It was great to meet some with all of the folks at the show. Joint honours for going 'above and beyond the call' go to Steve for travelling all the
way from New Zealand and Chris who was late for the start of the show with some lame excuse about Chelford being at the end of a 36 ho
Greetings from Kernow!
The St Ruth team has just enjoyed a great weekend at the Helston show. The layout's first trip to its native country.
I really enjoyed the experience - a chance to chinwag with lots of fellow Cornwall railway geeks with a special mention to the folks on the Cornwall Railway Society stand. There was also a stand selling genuine west country ballast. The proprietor was identified as a mining geek so Chris was entertained for some time there.
We had plenty of fol
The second show in two weeks but a very enjoyable one. It's not a huge show but I can't fault the friendly reception that we were given by the organisers and it was nice to meet up again with Mr Millward.
During playtime this afternoon I managed to line up the Hall with the late Phill Kerr's model of KGV.
Plus a group shot with Ian's old stager.
We were in front of a big window so I took the opportunity for a few photos behind the scenes. Spot the flapjack!
Some of the othe
