At last nights meeting of the Midland Area Group of the 2mm Scale Association, along with working on some of the items that were started at the previous meeting we continued to identify some more of the things that we still need to add to the layout.
Obviously, like so many other layout projects there is still plenty to do. One of the things that we all feel is missing is a loading gauge in the goods yard. A quick search of t'internet for GWR loading gauges in N gauge showed that although
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
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
Those of you who frequent the workbench thread in the 2mm forum may have seen some work in progress shots of this signal. It's now been planted on the layout and is ready for service at the Swindon show this weekend.
Planted using finest grade scenic putty
Connected up and ballasted
Edit: Wigan
We had been planning to be at Wigan next month but it seems that something went awry with the emails to or from the organisers. By the time we got through by phone it was too late so
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
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).
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
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
We took St Ruth for a day out at Wycrail yesterday - actually a day and a night because we set up on the Friday evening, having previously discovered that trying to do a one day show in one day is a fairly stressful experience.
All in all a very enjoyable show although I'm puzzled why it's not a 2 day affair - it certainly justifies it on the basis of size and quality. We had Missy Julia with a demo table next to us so it was great to have a catch up. Several other folks popped in to say hel
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
So the much advertised snow didn't materialise (or rather it materialised mostly as rain) and we made it back in pretty good time from York. Maybe the promise of snow put off the usual Easter bank holiday trippers because the roads were fairly clear... of traffic if not water.
The show was an enjoyable one with us parked next to the 2mm roadshow and also the Jerry and Kim roadshow. We had a selection of guest operators on each day so thanks to all of them.
We were next to Mike and Judith
The dust has now settled after our trip to Swindon. An excellent show in the presence of some of the great products of Swindon Works. It was great that our roving reporter, Chris (MinerChris) was able to join us from Utah . I hasten to add that Swindon was not the only reason for his trip. This morning we made the rather less fun journey to Heathrow so that he could catch his plane back 'over there'
There was some disturbance from the other side of the planked wall caused by a rather rowdy
Our first show of 2018 has come and gone. Not too far from base - organised by the Syston club but actually in Sileby, not far from Rothley.
The organisers were very welcoming and we were awarded two prizes for best layout including a trophy and some bottles of wine. We will now need to organise a function to provide an opportunity to consume said wine.
We also had a play with one of those rail mounted cameras but we will need to wait for the owner to let us have the results.
Some ph
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.
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
Some photos from St Ruth's outing this weekend to deliver one of two helpings of Cornish 2FS goodness to the people of Wiltshire. A really good show with a fine selection of quality layouts. We had a great time being back to back with John Greenwood's beautiful Wadebridge. A certain amount of chinwagging may have taken place.
St Ruth behaved itself pretty well with only occasional minor annoyances.
A recent low-tech addition has helped to improve the running in the station area - a jump
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 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.
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
I finally got round to putting some finescale wheels on the Yorkshire Voyager (Dapol) that's been languishing in its box for a few years now and took it along to this week's group meeting to try out.
Actually, it isn't 100% what it seems - only two cars have finescale wheels right now because I didn't get the trailer wheels turned down. Instead I fitted 2mm Association disc wagon wheels. These have 1mm axles compared to the 1.2mm Dapol ones. Because it's an experiment, they also still have t
Closing out our 2018 outings was a trip to Wigan this weekend. Friday evening saw us finding a local hostelry where we were amongst a rather partisan bunch watching Wigan play Castleford in the Rugby League semi final. Wigan won so everyone in the pub was happy although when we got back to the hotel we found that the non model railway occupants seemed to be predominantly from Castleford and rather less happy. The meal on Saturday was entertaining. We were sat on a table with the folks from the B
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...
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
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.
A few pictures from today's afternoon outing for St Ruth. A different sort of experience from a model railway show but we still found some worthwhile purchasing opportunities.
A very enjoyable day and an appreciative audience. Thanks to Pauline for her sterling efforts organising the other stands and for the hot dogs at lunch time.
