Jump to content
 

St Ruth

A blog by D869 in RMweb Blogs

  • entries
    59
  • comments
    352
  • views
    85,343

About this blog

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

Entries in this blog

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

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

Off my Workbench

Some folks may have seen several episodes describing this under construction on the workbench thread in the 2mm forums. Last night it was planted on the layout and given a quick test.   All seems to be working OK.     Which frees up my signal building board for the next one... plenty more to do!   We also have some new buildings... must try to get my camera and the buildings to be in the same place at the same time.
D869

D869

7

Nottingham Photos on the 2mm Topic

A quick note for those who don't tune in to the 2mm topic on RMWeb to say that Nigel and Jerry have posted some nice photos from the show including St Ruth and Fencehouses. Links below...   http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/53154-photo-call-2mm-layouts-out-and-about-at-exhibitions/#entry649757 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/53154-photo-call-2mm-layouts-out-and-about-at-exhibitions/#entry670006
D869

D869

0

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

Merry Christmas

Seasons Greetings from all at the Midland Area Group of the 2mm Scale Association.   Hope to see some of you at our next outing - Railex in May, if not sooner.
D869

D869

4

Merry Christmas

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
D869

D869

8

Merry Christmas

D823 has just backed the stock for an evening stopping service into the arrivals platform and is quietly warming the coaches against the chill of the night. The other platform has been pressed into service to provide a bit more space out of the elements to handle the additional pre-christmas parcels traffic. A motley assortment of vans await loading but the staff seem to have disappeared. Maybe they are trying to find out who has stolen the barrows.     Merry Christmas and a happy 2015 to a
D869

D869

6

Maryport 2019

Quite a long journey back from Cumbria last night so the blog posting had to wait until today. Some photos from our trip to Maryport - a general model show spread across two decent sized sports halls and with some very good layout content. It definitely deserved to be better attended than it was but we still had some very knowledgable punters come and talk to us.   Our train set   Whithorn - apparently Maryport (across the Solway Firth) is the backscene for this.
D869

D869

2

Manchester 2017

This past weekend we took St Ruth up to Manchester for their Christmas exhibition. Getting into Manchester city centre on a Friday evening was inevitably a bit of a crawl but once we were there it was a good show with a friendly organising team. There was also a 12 inch to the foot layout just outside the hall which seemed to be running OK.   Some photos... Guest operators Laurie Adams and Tony Gee handling the main lines with Chris taking care of the goods yard on Saturday   We were award
D869

D869

0

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

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

Licence to Model

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).
D869

D869

10

Leeds 2019

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
D869

D869

8

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

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

Kendal 2016

Just back from an excellent weekend in Cumbria at the Kendal show - the furthest north that we've been so far. It was rather humbling to hear that some people were coming down from Scotland to see us (and hopefully the other layouts too).   For the most part the layout ran pretty smoothly. A new innovation (hidden to the public) was some pictures on the operators' display screens to help us to run the correct trains - handy when people step into less familiar jobs to cover lunch time and so on
D869

D869

2

Hotel Royale - Ready for Installation

Work continues to get the layout ready for the Nottingham show. For my own part I've finally completed work on the Hotel Royale and its neighbouring houses.     As those who know the real thing may notice, I have omitted the glazed 'sun deck' over the entrance that existed in the 1960s and 70s and backdated the building to its original form. Due to lack of photos, I have had to speculate a little on how the entrance might have looked before this was added. In particular I have assumed that
D869

D869

4

Helston 2017

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
D869

D869

7

Getting Ready for Warley

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
D869

D869

8

Geology

This photo was taken at our most recent meeting. The idea was to provide a progress update... the snag is that none of the completed buildings were in place when it was taken, so much of the progress isn't visible. Oh well... maybe the idea was more of an 'action shot' to show work going on painting the rocky beach in the foreground. There is further geological work happening out of sight at the far end plus some work on boundary walls along the road side.   One group member seems to be more a
D869

D869

3

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

Everything under Control?

It's quite some time since I posted the draft of the new signalling diagram on here. Since then we have been constantly debating over the right time to actually put the thing on the panel. It's always been easier to say 'right after the next show' but we've finally got fed up with all of the annotations, crossings out and other amendments on the panel so have got around to doing it.   Here's the middle part of the panel showing the state it had got into after four years of 'clarifications' and
D869

D869

4

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

Burton 2013

First of all an apology - no pictures this time!   Yesterday we took St Ruth to the Burton show held in the brewery museum. I spent most of the day on the fiddle yard where it is at least possible to make eye contact with the audience so was able to talk to a few people. We had some favourable comments from the audience although behind the scenes things were not entirely going according to plan.   Burton is a one day show so it was an early start, setup, do the show and pack up all in the sa
D869

D869

4
×
×
  • Create New...