47401 Posted April 28, 2017 Share Posted April 28, 2017 Well done! Great to see something running after the dead short wobble Saturday afternoon. Roll on next weekend!!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted April 28, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 28, 2017 My word, that's a big one. Looks impressive, worth the price of admission alone! Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium GWRPhil Posted May 8, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 8, 2017 How did the derby show go? Wasn't able to get there myself. Hope it all went well. Phil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunedin Posted May 8, 2017 Share Posted May 8, 2017 (edited) Hi. Well today has been a bit like the morning after the night before. The Derby show went very well thank you - on the whole. The layout worked pretty well, all in all with the exception of a few failures. One was a point motor, which having worked on Saturday, decided to fail yesterday and the other was the loss of a feed to a piece track, which had to have a running repair made to it after the show closed on Saturday. I say the loss of a feed, but it was more a case of the complete absence of one on a section that was part of the original layout and was laid (but never wired) back in 2009, so it's a wonder that it worked for as long as it did! The other issues were with some of the stock which needs tweaking to cope with the tighter curves on the curved points and our lack of familarity as operators with the new operating sequence and with the sequence itself. We had a number of pregnant pauses which we need to (and will) overcome by running more trains on the main lines than were actually in the timetable that we are basing the operation on. I made a view video clips yesterday, towards the end of the show, when things had quietened down and posted them on You Tube. I've also set up a channel for Aberdeen Kirkhill, to which I will post further clips as time progresses. I'm hoping this link will work, but if not, I'll post it later when I get access to my laptop again! http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU9txzQBp-oaqPCsdEORz7iA Finally, a big thank you to the MMRG Committee and Club for organising the exhibition and taking the chance on giving us the chance to give the layout its first public showing. In particular, thanks to Alex Hall, MMRG Exhibition Manager. Edited May 8, 2017 by Dunedin 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium GWRPhil Posted May 21, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 21, 2017 Really great to see photos and pics of the derby show. What other shows has it been invited to? Any in the south of the country? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grimleygrid Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Excellent videos from the Derby show. The changes made which now allow trains to pass by the depot have turned what was an excellent layout to an even more impressive layout. Well done, looks great. I look forward to seeing it in the flesh. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcyg Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 That's superb. One of my favourite layouts got even better Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flood Posted June 14, 2017 Author Share Posted June 14, 2017 Thank you to everyone for all the positive comments. Whilst running the layout at Derby we had a few comments of "lovely layout but not much running" which is the problem you get when running the prototypical sequence. Trains from Glasgow to Aberdeen are every two hours so even with a day shrunk into about 7 hours that still means an average wait of 17.5 minutes in one direction. Even adding in the Edinburgh services and return trains makes an average of about 4 mins wait between each train - far too long for people watching at an exhibition. The other problem related to all this is that the depot has effectively doubled in length. The old backscenes in front of the old fiddle yard gave some reading matter for those people patient enough to stay around but the shunting now takes nearly twice as long so the main line really has to keep the public's interest going. As all the shunting still needs to be done then additional overnight freights and other non-passenger movements need to be added. We are hoping to have another shake down day in August to try to work out a sequence which keeps the public entertained and does not cause conflicts to the trains arriving and departing from the depot. The next exhibition will be at Crewe in November this year then hopefully Model Rail Scotland followed by Nottingham, both early next year. When we get any more confirmed bookings then we will keep you all informed. If anyone has any comments to make regarding the frequency of the mainline trains, or anything else, please do tell us all your thoughts. All we want to do is keep Kirkhill as interesting as we can for the majority of people. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted June 15, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 15, 2017 Thank you to everyone for all the positive comments. Whilst running the layout at Derby we had a few comments of "lovely layout but not much running" which is the problem you get when running the prototypical sequence. Trains from Glasgow to Aberdeen are every two hours so even with a day shrunk into about 7 hours that still means an average wait of 17.5 minutes in one direction. Even adding in the Edinburgh services and return trains makes an average of about 4 mins wait between each train - far too long for people watching at an exhibition. The other problem related to all this is that the depot has effectively doubled in length. The old backscenes in front of the old fiddle yard gave some reading matter for those people patient enough to stay around but the shunting now takes nearly twice as long so the main line really has to keep the public's interest going. As all the shunting still needs to be done then additional overnight freights and other non-passenger movements need to be added. We are hoping to have another shake down day in August to try to work out a sequence which keeps the public entertained and does not cause conflicts to the trains arriving and departing from the depot. The next exhibition will be at Crewe in November this year then hopefully Model Rail Scotland followed by Nottingham, both early next year. When we get any more confirmed bookings then we will keep you all informed. If anyone has any comments to make regarding the frequency of the mainline trains, or anything else, please do tell us all your thoughts. All we want to do is keep Kirkhill as interesting as we can for the majority of people. Depends who you've built it for, if people only have the attention span of a gnat then that's their problem. It's not as though there aren't any details in the buildings or structures to look at and admire. These "oh, there's nothing happening" types really p!ss me off, look at other things, engage the operators if convenient, or go and build your own big layout and whizz things round at a pace you're happy with. Nowt wrong with the layout IMHO, keep going. Mike. (Rant over). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 5BarVT Posted June 15, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 15, 2017 Any in the south of the country?Derby is!!!!Pleased you're coming to Glasgow next year. Looking forward to seeing it for real. Paul. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium GWRPhil Posted August 3, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 3, 2017 Derby is!!!! Pleased you're coming to Glasgow next year. Looking forward to seeing it for real. Paul. For a south coast softie like me derby is up north. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoovernut Posted August 10, 2017 Share Posted August 10, 2017 I too is looking forward to Glasgow. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium GWRPhil Posted October 19, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 19, 2017 Hi was wondering if there had been any updates to the layout recently or if you had any pictures/videos of any recent tuning sessions? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flood Posted December 4, 2017 Author Share Posted December 4, 2017 (edited) Just as an attempt to be polite I feel it's time I replied to some of the (not so) recent posts. We have been invited to Nottingham exhibition in March next year as well as ModelRail Scotland in February. Nottingham is a bit further south than Glasgow but obviously not south for most people. To coincide with Glasgow we should be appearing in Railway Modeller in February so we are looking forward to that. Glenn has had a chat with Andy York and hopefully he can help us in being invited to a few more venues next year. We have another shakedown due in January/early Feb where we need to test the current sequence. We sort of ran it at Crewe a month ago but as it was in black and white, my printer had run out of ink, the operators found it very difficult to follow. For those of you who don't know, virtually everyone, we have the mainline movements in black, the depot arrivals and departures in red and the depot shunting movements in green. The mainline has been heavily simplified. Day-time services consist of 2 x HSTs and 2 x push-pulls flowing north - south, south - north constantly unless there is another train that is needed on the depot, e.g. Sleeper trains, Plymouth rake, postal rake. This provides a continual flow for the public on the mainline. Over night services are Southbound: Speedlink freight, ballast train and cement train; Northbound: two Speedlink freights (one from Immingham, one from Mossend) and the parcels rake. I would like to think that the reason we haven't had any updates is because we are concentrating on the layout and this is true to a certain extent. Glenn wants to make a completely new control panel for the fiddle yard before the Glasgow exhibition and we also need to re-solder the main line on the intermediate board at the south end. One rail was not totally flat to the board and the slight rise at the rail joint caused the Postal rake, which has flanges that are not as deep as proprietary stock, to derail every time. The dowel positions in a join between two of the boards also need to be looked at. My time will be spent helping Glenn as much as possible and finishing off the freight rakes. The work that was needed is as follows: the PSA wagons now have lime loads the HEA wagons need weathering the whole cement rake needs individual wagon numbers and instanter couplings (17 wagons) the PWA fertiliser wagons need sprung buffers adding (they derailed as the buffers were too close) and strictly speaking I need to fit Gloucester fast freight bogies the VTG slurry tank needs transfers and weathering the two Propane tanks need to be finished and painted the loaded OTA timber wagons need weathering the molasses tanker needs to be made two TUA petroleum distillate wagons need to be made a TDA china clay slurry tank needs to be made and finally three BQW bogie bolster C wagons need Rumney Models brake gear, revised bolsters and six pipes per wagon Just to finish I've realised that I've not posted a photo of any of the finished PSA lime tipplers so here you are: Please keep the messages flowing. I do appreciate all your comments and I will try to reply to you all a bit more frequently in future. Edited April 4, 2022 by Flood 14 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted December 5, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 5, 2017 Gloucester FastFreight bogies now available in compensated form, join me at Risley in January in lobbying for alternatives. Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flood Posted December 5, 2017 Author Share Posted December 5, 2017 (edited) Gloucester FastFreight bogies now available in compensated form, join me at Risley in January in lobbying for alternatives. Mike. I've booked a day off work to visit DeFine in January, Mike. That shows how much I'm looking forward to going. Edited December 5, 2017 by Flood 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flood Posted December 24, 2017 Author Share Posted December 24, 2017 (edited) Merry Christmas to all our followers. Hopefully we will see some of you in the new year at either ModelRail Scotland in February or at Nottingham in March. There is also the possibility of another invite later in the year so I will give you more details if and when we have them. Just as a small teaser here are two photos of the latest wagons I have been working on: Two LPG tanks from the Bachmann TTA. Just some subtle weathering needed now. The buffer over-ride preventers were the most fiddly part of the whole conversion. The VTG slurry tank is now weathered. Nothing subtle about the grime on this one but some additional airbrush weathering is needed for the slurry spill and to hide some of the small blotches. I hope you all get large amounts of wagons and coaching stock for Christmas and please post comments as you feel fit. Edited April 4, 2022 by Flood 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunedin Posted January 7, 2018 Share Posted January 7, 2018 Happy New Year to all our followers! We have a few things to report now that we are in 2018: 1. Look out for Railway Modeller February 2018 edition - on sale from this Thursday. Aberdeen Kirkhill is Railway of the Month. We don't know quite what the final version of the article looks like, or which photos were finally chosen, but the results of the photo session with Paul Bason looked excellent when we had them for preview and captioning. 2. Over the Christmas/New Year break I finished the control panel for the fiddle yard, so we now have all points electrically operated which will save a great deal of walking and hopefully will also mean fewer mistakes when setting routes. The following photos show the new panel under construction and fitted to the fiddle yard board after completion: 3. Our next exhibitions for 2018 are Glasgow, Model Rail Scotland 23rd - 25th February and Nottingham Model Railway Exhibition 17th - 18th March. In terms of future developments, I mentioned in previous posts that implementing the signalling scheme is one of my projects for this year and to that end, my Christmas present from my wife was a Raspberry Pi 3 computer. I reckon it will be far cheaper to implement the signalling control using that than the cost of all the relays I would need to do it the way I had originally intended, plus the Pi will take up much less space. I just have to learn how to programme the thing first though, so how hard can that possibly be?? I suspect Jo hadn't quite realised just how much swearing this is going to require, when she decided to buy it for me! I'm actually quite excited about this, because I'm going to be learning a new skill and hopefully having fun into the bargain. As an even longer term project, I'm also investigating the possibility of using the Pi to control the flow of trains on the main line sequence, so that part of the layout can run either semi- or fully-automatically if we are short of operators such as during lunch breaks etc. That way, we would be able to keep some variety going, whilst one person can continue to shunt the depot and yard. For now though, that is all in the future, but it shows the depth and breadth that this hobby of ours can bring. Looking forward to seeing some of you in Glasgow and/or Nottingham and hope you enjoy the RM article. 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 8, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 8, 2018 Neat and presentable wiring there, puts my fair isle cardigan style to shame, simple colour coding too, if there's a fault it's on the red wire! Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mike Bellamy Posted January 8, 2018 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 8, 2018 . Impressive wiring - and I like the design of the new carriage washing equipment . . . . . . . . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flood Posted January 8, 2018 Author Share Posted January 8, 2018 Neat and presentable wiring there, puts my fair isle cardigan style to shame, simple colour coding too, if there's a fault it's on the red wire! Mike. I'm sure you've spotted the individual idents on each of the wires Mike. My assistance normally consists of searching for Ns and Rs in a large tray due to most of the packets having split over time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 8, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 8, 2018 I'm sure you've spotted the individual idents on each of the wires Mike. My assistance normally consists of searching for Ns and Rs in a large tray due to most of the packets having split over time. Boring!!!! Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poor Old Bruce Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 Boring!!!! ..... but necessary Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flood Posted January 11, 2018 Author Share Posted January 11, 2018 (edited) Read all about it... Edited April 3, 2022 by Flood 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted January 11, 2018 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 11, 2018 Read all about it... Feb 2018.jpg Signed copies available a week on saturday? W H Smiths a bit thin on the ground around these parts! Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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