Jump to content
 

St Ruth

A blog by D869 in RMweb Blogs

  • entries
    59
  • comments
    352
  • views
    85,366

About this blog

The layout of the Midland Area Group of the 2mm Scale Association

Entries in this blog

Epsom and Ewell 2014

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
D869

D869

10

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Sea Siding

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
D869

D869

9

Trees for St Ruth (Part 2) - First part in personal blog

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
Ian Smith

Ian Smith

7

Staying Grounded

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
MinerChris

MinerChris

12

St Ruth at TINGS

I was contemplating some rather lame puns for the title of this posting but I thought I would spare you all. We're just back from two days at the N Gauge Show which takes place in a barn on the Fosse Way near Leamington Spa - just down the road for us... which turned out to be just as well.   I'm glad to say that St Ruth performed well during both days with just a few minor issues appearing during opening hours. The same cannot be said for the setup day on Friday...   We had given ourselves
D869

D869

6

Warley 2014

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
D869

D869

13

Your Starter for Ten

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
D869

D869

17

The Sea Wall

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
D869

D869

10

Kidderminster and Afterwards

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
D869

D869

9

St Ruth at RailEx

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
D869

D869

8

Pontefract 2020

A quick report from our trip to Pontefract this weekend. An excellent show where the organisers made everyone feel really welcome throughout the weekend and with a bit of a 'do' after the show on Saturday evening. St Ruth also won a pot for the best scenic layout . Our congratulations also to the layouts that won the other cups including Mills Bridge which was awarded best layout. I must confess that I completely failed to take any photos whatsoever so there are no piccies to accompany this post
D869

D869

2

2mm Expo 2015

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
D869

D869

7

St Albans 2014

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
D869

D869

10

More Trees for St. Ruth (Part 3)

Having completed the Oak (which took more hours than I care to think about), my son suggested that he probably could get a couple of off-cuts of cable from work (he works for an electro-mechanical company). What he provided was about 13" of some pretty hefty stuff : Each cable within the main cable consisted of 7 twists of 72 individual (0.38mm diameter) strands which were a little thicker than the wire I'd used for the Oak.   I decided that by folding a single length double that it
Ian Smith

Ian Smith

6

Leamington 2017

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
D869

D869

15

About St Ruth

This layout is the current offering from the Midland Area group of the 2mm Scale Association. It draws heavily from Penzance station and is very much 'work in progress'.   The scenic area is 12 feet long and up to 3 feet wide, with a further 4 feet of length of a traversing fiddleyard. It is set in the 1960's, but the trackwork is based on what was there in the 1930's.   Currently, the track is operational and work has started on the scenery, buildings etc.   The layout had its first outin
D869

D869

3

Macclesfield 2015

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
D869

D869

7

Railwells 2017

Just finished our run back up the Fosse Way from Wells where an enjoyable weekend was had in spite of an annoying points failure that affected our ability to get stuff in and out of the goods yard for most of the weekend. We had the station board off after the show closed on Saturday evening (to many amusing comments of 'it's a two day show you know') and changed the point motor but after a few tests this morning the motor of the new one was found to be red hot and promptly disconnected.   The
D869

D869

6

Tolworth 2019

Some photos from Tolworth. A good show, well attended and with plenty of quality layouts.     This IoW layout, or rather three linked layouts was just across the road from us. Always a nice subject and nicely done.   Harlyn Pier was our next door neighbour. A lovely layout with a T9 - one of my favourite locos. It moved off before I got a pic but the pannier was nice too.  
D869

D869

2

A Grand Two Days Out

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
D869

D869

9

Aldershot 2013

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
D869

D869

11

AbRail 2015

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.
D869

D869

9

Working Timetables

A day off from the class 22 (and work too)…   Ever since I first decided on my chosen region and period I have been on the lookout for decent information about how the real thing was actually operated at that time. Unfortunately documents like working timetables for this period have never surfaced during my visits to places that sell these things and even now that we have the Internet they don't seem to appear very often.   With the creation of St Ruth (which is in my region and set in a v
D869

D869

6

Lutterworth 2015

Another show under our belt. On this occasion it was a very local affair - less that 10 miles from St Ruth's Wolvey home. It's not a show that I'm very familiar with... in fact the town of Lutterworth is somewhere that I have almost never been even though I live pretty close by - it's just a bit tucked away just off some major routes. Suprisingly the 2mm and 'N' stuff seemed to outnumber the rest by some margin.   It was a fairly relaxed affair and we got to spend a long time chatting to Patri
D869

D869

5

Exmoor Rail 2018

Some photos from our trip to Minehead today   The venue is an indoor skateboard park - note the rampy things against the wall.   The nextdoor neighbours seem to to be even more into their hydraulics than we are.   They had a layout to put them on too (Seven Ash)   The Gravetts were there too. Very nice!   There was a 305mm layout on the doorstep too. They do seem to have some implausible stuff though. Maybe this was the silly last half hour?   And a Weatherill wheel loader too
D869

D869

2
×
×
  • Create New...