The BMB, a British Modular Layout in Holland

[3737]

Maybe we should have posted a little earlier about our Dutch British modular 00 layout, but how much would a layout like ours add to the British model railway scene?

That's how we felt about it.

 

However, since the past weekend I think it's getting about time we make ourselves a bit known.

We call ourselves "BMB", which stands for "Britse Module Baan", "British Modular layout". In the UK there are probably a lot of those but here in Holland we're still the only one.

In our country railway modelling is very much about German and post-war Dutch railways. Not many people model British, although some, like Ted Polet and Guillaume Veenhuis, featured in the modelling press over the years.

 

When you create a modular layout together with other people, it's not just about modelling, but a lot of other things get involved. Therefore it may not be anyone's cup of tea.

Nevertheless, since we first started playing our trains in 2015 , our group has evolved into quite a close bunch and at this moment counts 16 members. We are able to adapt our layout to almost any venue and the maximum length of track we have sofar been able to set up is 82 meters (272 ft), approx. 41 meters (136 ft) of layout. Our layout features a 6,3 meters (21 ft) long 8-track fiddle yard, which, together with a real Fat Controller of flesh and blood, forms the heart of the operation. Only British and Irish trains are allowed.

 

But, now back to this weekend, which was the absolute highlight in the BMB existence. The weekend from 9 - 11 March featured the highly rated yearly finescale show "Modeltrein Expo on traXS!" in our National Railway Museum and, although not finescale, we had, most surprisingly, been invited to bring our BMB-layout to the show, which we felt as quite an honour. We brought in about 34 meters (113 ft) of layout with 69 meters (230 ft) of track length, including 8 scenic modules.

 

Thursday evening after 5.00 P.M. we pitched up the entire layout in 4 - 5 hours in the "Waiting Room 3rd Class", a beautiful, stylish location that one could only dream of. This time we managed first time to end up with a nice flat trackbed without any major humps. During the following 3 days everything performed almost flawlessly. There were only a few minor issues to deal with.

 

All of the time our crew consisted of 11 - 13 members and, even though the bar was not in operation, we had a great time together, which is not entirely unimportant when you run a modular layout with so many others.

I would gladly like to start this topic with a photographic report of our experience in Utrecht.

 

Impression of the "BMB Square" in Utrecht. On the foreground you see 2 tables for our public. The fiddle yard is behind the modules at the left side of the picture:

 

Our tables, without sunshades, but with some literature about British Railways:

 

The tables were well patronized:

 

One of our reverse loops:

 

The right side of the layout:

 

The left side of the layout:

 

The fiddle yard, situated behind the modules, from where one of the first trains departs on Friday morning:

 

The crowd on Friday:

 

 

 

The signposts, you almost couldn't miss it. Still many did , because after all, this wasn't the main venue:

 

 

 

 

A4 "Wild Swan" with 10 Mk1's on:

 

Fleetwood (LMS):

 

Medway Valley Line (SR)

 

Our Fat Controllers:

 

They're always thirsty. One of them at the bar:

 

Having lunch:

 

Trains are operated wirelessly by Roco WLAN mouse or, alternatively, by Android smartphone. Here you see John drive his train:

 

Cor sees his Peppercorn A1 through the reverse loop:

 

The kids also enjoyed our British trains:

 

 

 

 

Most of our Sunday crew:

 

An impression of the show's main venue, before the show started on Friday morning:

 

 

And, finally, this is where we come from. This was our 41 meter long layout in June 2017:

 

Leen.

Edited February 3, 2019 by 3737

[mdjr78]

Let's start with introducing one of the modules.

 

 

This is Ollerbrook Booth. It is set somewhere in the Peak District, with the Hope Valley line near Edale as the main inspiration. The aim was to get the feel of the dales on the module. I hoped to capture the tranquillity of the area.

 

 

I've started the build of this module about two months prior to our first big outing on Eurospoor 2017 in Utrecht. I opted to use some ready-made structures and scenery to get it done in time. The bridge and barn are from Hornby, trees and bushes from MBR Model and the background is from ID Backscenes. Although the module now has attended at two shows, there is still a lot of scenery work to do. Mainly work on the grass and greenery, the water in the brook, some more fencing and further detailing.

 

 

One of the features I wanted to incorporate in the module were working semaphores that reacted to the trains passing. The signals I've used are Ratio kits. They are driven by a servo connected to an Arduino board. Train detection is done by an IR-receiver just behind the signal. A few seconds after the end of a train has been detected, the signal will turn to 'danger'. After 12 seconds, the signal will turn to the 'off' position again. If a second train passes the signal at 'danger' a relay will switch off the current from the track. The film below shows the working signal in the distance after a GWR AEC Railcar has passed.

 

Ollerbrook Booth by Werner Bastiaanse, on Flickr

 

Further pictures will be posted in the future.

Meanwhile I'm also working on another module (Cysgod-y-Fedwen) with two clubmates. You will find it here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/118309-cysgod-y-fedwen/

 

Regards,

Werner

Edited March 14, 2018 by mdjr78

[Allegheny1600]

Hello Werner,

As a former native of Derbyshire, can I say that you have made a very good job of capturing the look of the Peak district, your module looks great.

This is a most impressive project, you have a lot of potential there, very few layouts in the UK run to such a size.

May I ask, what module standards do you use?

Also, do you use continental type close couplings on the coach rakes? I used to use Fleischmann Profi couplers on my Hornby coaches and they worked really well.

Cheers,

John.

[Taigatrommel]

Hi Werner,

 

I met you on Sunday along with my brother in law (Dagworth on this forum).  We were the long haired brits talking about Gloucester.  Nice to come across you on RMWeb!

 

Cheers

 

Rich

[mdjr78]

@John,

 

Thanks for the compliment. We use the module standard from a Dutch railway forum (beneluxspoor.net). It uses 60 cm black boxes between the individual modules. This way the modules can differ in location, company and even time (although the trains will cross all of them).

 

The couplings on the coaches of the HST are made by myself (lasercut). It's just a simple bar with two loops bolted to shortened Hornby couplings. The Mk1 rake is owned by Leen (3737). I thought he used slightly modified Hornby close couplings.

 

@Rich,

Ah, from the Chinese take-away.   It was nice talking to you guys.

 

Werner

Edited March 14, 2018 by mdjr78

[jburgt]

So Werner told already, we use the standards of the Dutch Beneluxspoor.net forum. It's the Dutch sister of the RMweb.

 

Herebye two pictures:

 

 

See for an animation: BNLS Modular system

 

Gr, Hans

Edited March 14, 2018 by jburgt

[Joe MCMLXI]

Werner, as someone who lives just up the road from Edale & the Hope Valley, I think you have made an excellent module that certainly captures the 'atmosphere and look' of the area, congratulations to you and the BMB team.

Joe

[mdjr78]

Thanks, Joe

[3737]

This post is not of very much interest,   it's only about how our BMB group started en how things subsequently developed. 

There are aspects about the concept, the environment, the technical aspects, and there is always the human factor.

 

The Dutch Beneluxspoor.net model railway forum, or in short BNLS, is where most of our BMB members met. Whereas most threads on BNLS are about continental modelling, a new topic was started back in 2011 aimed at British modelling. We were trying to attract people that would like to post or read about British railway modelling, which is virtually unknown over here. We called it "Litter Bin for British Railways and British Modelling Projects". People talked about their modelling and their trips to the UK. Since 2011 we filled almost 900 pages and it has been read over a million times. Regulars call themselves "Litter Binners" and in 2015 we organised a "Litter Bin Day" with some 15 guests present! To some it may even look as if there is some kind of a small British modelling community.

 

In November 2011 (on page 41) we started talking about a British themed modular layout, and three months after that seven potential participants were present at our first meeting, four of whom are still involved. There was even a written concept, based on the connection of several individual layouts, which had kindly been given to us by the OHMB-group (Old Dutch Model Railway), a group interested in pre-war Dutch railways. We all agreed this was the way to go: each member would create his own preferred theme and era on his module and the modules would somehow be connected by so-called black boxes. Of course this meant that prototypical running would be virtually impossible, but running sessions within a certain timescale, e.g. Big Four or early BR, would be feasible. We talked about the concept, the modules, and finally one of us proposed he would professionally design the module legs. But too bad!  The leg designer vanished, and the project stalled. And that was it, for over three years.

 

However things started to move elsewhere. In 2013 on BNLS the old idea of a modular forum-layout suddenly revived and, in spite of all obstacles and objections, materialized within a few months. This was mainly due to two or three experienced modellers, who had taken up the challenge. Not only did they succeed in designing a tolerant concept without too many decrees, but, maybe more importantly, one of them managed to design an easy-to-build, inexpensive kit for a module. We call our module a box. It was being made commercially available and dozens of kits were sold. In case one preferred to build one's own box from scratch, all dimensions were published on BNLS.

 

The concept was first and foremost intended to make railway modelling more easily accessible to beginners. It was meant to prove that anyone could build a small layout, and there would be experienced modellers available for help. There was to be an H0/00 layout and one in N gauge to start with. The modeller had total freedom of theme and era, only the dimensions concerning track were determined. H0/00 or N trains from anywhere in the world were allowed, they had to be two-rail DC and chipped. They were to be driven by the affordable Roco Multimouse system.

 

The main objective was to be present for the first time at Eurospoor 2014. Eurospoor is the Dutch equivalent of Warley, our largest annual model railway show in the railwaycity of Utrecht. And indeed, at Eurospoor 2014 the good-looking almost 30 meters long Forum layout featured eight participants, two of whom are now BMB members. There were four British themed modules - one of which was a beautiful Scottish Highlands themed scenic layout complete with distillery - and it was a great experience indeed!

BNLS Layout at Eurospoor 2014, before the black curtains had been attached to hide the naked legs from view.

 

After Eurospoor some improvements had to be made, but alas, a disagreement developed about the failing plastic track alignment boards on baseboard crossings, that had caused many a derailment. We split up in April 2015 and revived the BMB. Previously there had been a number of people that for various reasons didn't like the idea behind the BNLS layout, e.g. running their British trains through Dutch scenery or seeing someone's American trains run on their British layout. Some of those soon joined the BMB and it wasn't long before we had 9 members and building days were organised to build BMB-modules:

 

 

 

A great milestone was our first BMB Running Day on 29th August 2015. We had 4 bare modules in an oval. There was no scenery, no curtains, just track. The trains ran faultlessly, even some notorious derailers. It was great fun (someone complained it was boring because nothing happened ) and the pub was just around the corner.

 

 

 

To be continued.

Edited May 10, 2018 by 3737

[3737]

@John,

 

................The Mk1 rake is owned by Leen (3737). I thought he used slightly modified Hornby close couplings.

 

I use Hornby R8220 couplings on my Bachmann Mk1's. In my rake there are also three Hornby Mk1's plus a Gresley coach. For those I use the shorter Roco 40270 coupling wherever I can, but because of a derailment in a curve I had to replace one or two with the longer Hornby coupling.

 

To overcome the difference in height between the NEM-sockets in Hornby and Bachmann, I have tinkered the Hornby coupling into a cranked version:

 

The difference between it and the Hornby R8220 is obvious:

 

It consists of the NEM part from a Bachmann cranked wagon coupling, glued to a Hornby R8220 with cut off NEM plug.

The joint has been reinforced by a glued-in 0.3mm wire in a drilled hole.

 

Leen.

Edited March 20, 2018 by 3737

[jburgt]

Medway Valley Line

 

The second modular lay-out is based on the Medway Valley Line, a branche line between Strood and Paddock Wood.

Especially the track between Wateringbury and Beltring is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

 

  

 

To build the prototypical scene of Beltring & Branbridges Halt on a very small surface of only 560 x 120mm isn’t easy. 

As reference I used two small black and white pictures. Typical issues: the short wooden platforms, the two shelters, the guard house, the one semaphore signal and the old style level crossing.

 

 

Beltring & Banbridges Halt came into use on 1st September 1909 on the Medway Valley Line, being situated just under two miles north of Paddock Wood.
Small halts such as this were, under SE&CR tenure, served by a dedicated railmotor service, which featured a small tank engine permanently attached to a single carriage. By the end of the SE&CR era, such a system had been superseded by more conventional rolling stock, and throughout Southern Railway and BR(S) days, a slow service usually formed of two or three Maunsell-designed carriages, fronted by an SECR H Class 0-4-4 tank engine, served Beltring.

 

I made the buildings and other items from scratch, using my own parts cut with a lasercutter. I drew each part with Onshape – a free online CAD system.

 

  

 

As Backscene I used the ID 203A Photo Backscene from Peter’s Spares (15″high, Village, 10ft long OO Gauge).
It’s a photo representative for the beautiful Medway Valley Region.

 

 

At the left side I made a tunnelportal from lasercut MDF and home-made acrylic surfaces.
For weathering I used a bit of baby-powder.

 

 

 

 

Gr, Hans

[3737]

In post #9 we left the reader, celebrating the successful First BMB Running Day, which had been held in friend René's garage. The flawless running at full speed of unmodified Hornby 4-4-0's and the LMS Fowler tank was something of a pleasant surprise, but it hadn't all come entirely by itself.

 

The success of this first running session was the result of some “important” decisions made from the start. These were necessary to provide the BMB with a solid base. Most, but not all decisions were technical.

At module joints we still had to find a solution for a smooth crossing. OK, the baseboards were provided with holes for M8 bolts and could easily be aligned, but our experiences with track alignment by means of baseboard alignment had been quite disappointing. We knew about engineer’s dowels, but somehow it didn’t feel right.

At last the push joiner was invented: the simple solution that enables the easy moving by hand of ordinary railjoiners on track at aligned baseboard joints. The group decided to give it a try and we still use it..

 

 

But getting started in 2015 wasn’t all plain sailing.

In the beginning, our idea was that an oval layout would be the easiest and cheapest solution to get started. Our experience in that configuration had been extremely positive, it was reliable and required only two 180 degrees curves to make it possible. We talked about shape and size (diameter about 2 meters), and three members were prepared to invest in these curved baseboards.

They were soon ordered but when they arrived the 12 baseboards turned out to have an outside diameter of 3 meters (10 ft.), which was much larger than foreseen. The excuse was that the curve would look extremely pleasing, which indeed it did, but for now we couldn't use them in René’s garage.

The large curve is just visible on the image. Here we use it on 12th November 2016 with a straight module in the middle. Rob (l) and Werner ® are having a chat while Thijs is making up his train.

 

 

This was our layout on 12th November 2016. It was over 35 meters (117 ft) long.

 

 

Up till now the large bends have served us only three times. They are good looking but are too large for our ordinary cars. We are thinking about ways to make better use of them.

The solution to fit the layout in our cars was to quickly construct smaller curves. We screwed track on four flat 90 degrees curved 8 mm ply shelves, made from old bits, and put them on four of the new curved baseboards.

The first incarnation of our smaller bends.

 

The inside track had 24 inches radius (61 cm), the outside track 6 cm more. The baseboard's outside diameter was approx. 1m 45 (4 ft. 9 in). We still use our small bends a lot and others have copied them.

 

Having a layout together with other people is quite different from running one on your own. We made up a simple document that describes the responsibilities of individual members in relation to the group, the layout and the process of decision making. This is always the boring bit, but it has to be done.

All members are equal and when becoming a member they have to either commit to this document or come up with the desired improvements. Anyone can come up with ideas or proposals or even make things e.g. to solve a problem, but ultimately the BMB Group of Members has to approve and/or make the final decisions. This has all been done to protect the group from “Big Egos”. After all, the mission is to have as much fun as possible running the BMB-layout together.

Also at the start the decision was made that we would be just a bunch of free individual modellers, and not an establishment. This implies that nothing could be owned by the BMB as a club, so each layout component was to have an owner of flesh and blood. Consequently the question at the time was, if individuals would be prepared to invest in collective components like reverse loops or bends. In practice we have since managed to realise our requirements at minimal cost without sponsors.

 

We want the BMB to be easily accessible. Anyone with an interest in British railway modelling can join, whether he or she is a good modeller or not. That means that our modules show different levels of modelling skills, of which we are proud and not ashamed. The aim is to slowly improve by help and experience.

When a potential new member shows interest we first invite that person to attend a running day. You never know if they are going to like the regulars, but this approach seems to work well.

A new member is supposed to realise a technically working module (without scenery) within 6 months with or without help.

 

Preferences for region, company and era differ. As a new member you will get your three DCC loco addresses and you can run your own preferred trains, as long as there are no duplicates, e.g. two Cock O’The Norths, running at the same time. Our trains are the well known ready-to-run models, nothing special, but here in Holland most are unknown, maybe with the exception of A3 “Flying Scotsman”. It is possible to run long trains like 10 coach rakes.

 

A tired "Cock O'the North". These things happen from time to time. Since then the track layout has been improved. Yes, we know about the front bogie.

 

We now have 16 members, the majority is aged over 50 and four are younger. Our members live in different parts of the country, and two even live abroad.

Hans, Werner and three others live near Eindhoven in the South. They are members of the local model railway club, the EMV. On Saturday 24th October 2015 we were invited by Hans to come to Eindhoven for our second Running Day. There we had an oval with six modules and got acquainted with the EMV-people. It is important for our group to have such a positive relationship, because we have mutually supported each other ever since.

Local EMV-members are curious to know what it's all about. Thijs (l) and Ray ® explain.

 

Very important: the After-Party of the Second BMB-Running Day in Eindhoven. It was good to meet new people.

 

Running trains in an oval is not the most exciting running experience. On the 26th October, two days after our second running day in Eindhoven, Werner came up with the idea to create a fiddle yard. Of course a discussion arose and of course it would be too expensive. Three months later we ended up with an eight-track fiddle yard of 4 modules of 90 cm (3 ft) each, constructed for the most part from plywood that had been salvaged from skips. The fiddle yard was payed for by 4 owners, one module each. That way a difficult and complicated project could be realised and a big step taken. It cost us about £400, roughly £100 each, and marked an important milestone, opening the door to more possibities and more fun. Today our fiddle yard has 7 modules and we couldn’t be without it.

The fiddle yard at its first outing on our Fourth Running Day 16th April 2016 in De Meern near Utrecht.

 

Running in De Meern required reverse loops, since the available room was quite narrow. We constructed these from bits of scrap wood that had been lying around.

Testing our brand new reverse loop.

 

In february 2016 the BMB group members, almost unanimously, came up with the idea that they would like to attend at Eurospoor 2017, a year and a half later. In the meantime until Eurospoor we held ten more running days at various locations, and not until September 2017 in Eindhoven was there anything else to be seen than bare wooden modules with track, only two of which included scenery.

At Eurospoor, which actually was our thirteenth running session, we were located at the BNLS-Forum stand next to the BNLS Forum Layout. We had 6 modules and the layout’s total length was 27 meters. It was the first time we presented a well dressed-up layout. It was complete with curtains, nameplates, lighting etc. and fortunately everything went according to plan, which was way better than expected. We were proud of the result, got compliments and had a great weekend.

Our presentation at Eurospoor 2017.

 

The crowds. Never before had we got so much interest.

 

Werner at the fiddle yard, situated behind the other modules.

 

Eurospoor was the first time we were fully dressed-up and we enjoyed every minute of it.

A month after Eurospoor we were, most surprisingly, invited for the "Modeltrein Expo On Traxs" exhibition in our NRM in Utrecht (see post #1).

 

Leen.

Edited May 24, 2018 by 3737

[3737]

Four BMB members are now heading for York.

We will have a few drinks on the ferry tonight, be at the NYMR tomorrow, and be at the York MRS on Saturday.

 

Leen.

[mdjr78]

A visitor has made a video of our layout at the "ModelspoorExpo-Ontraxs" show at Utrecht (see first post). A very nice video with some splendid views. Enjoy:

 

Werner

[Wintonian]

Thanks for sharing pictures of your layouts and exhibition modules and your enthusiasm for British style modelling

[3737]

And thanks for the kind comment.

 

It's been silent for some time now, but that doesn't mean nothing happens.

For some weeks we have been discussing plans to make our track layout much more interesting, of which more anon, and, of course, the transport issue is ever present.

 

Our modules have been designed with an ordinary car in mind, in order that a standard sized module of 1m20 together with black boxes, legs, roof etc. fits in even a small car. However most of the times that leaves little room in the car for necessary equipment like the fiddle yard, reverse loops, bends etc.

 

Our fiddle yard consists of 6 modules of 90 x 45 x 15 cm each (approx. 35.5 x 17.8 x 6 in). They are as small as we could possibly design them, but in the car they are still quite huge, especially when one's own module is already in the car.

More often than not the car looks like this:

 

This is a Toyota Verso, but most of us have smaller cars.

We have also discovered that a large fiddle yard has many advantages over a smaller one, so it would be nice if..... 

However, transport is prohibitive, and even as it is now we cannot always be sure if we'll be able to accommodate all our equipment in our cars to the next venue, which could be virtually anywhere in Holland.

There are not many ways to clear this situation without resorting to expensive measures like the rent of vans or trailers.

 

A solution is of course to make small modules, so a few months ago we decided to make two modules like this one:

 

 

During transport they can be sandwiched together and that way the volume for two boards is less than a third of a single fiddle yard module.

The sandwich-boards, as we call them, can be suspended from the other modules by means of two of these brackets (here still without holes):

 

 

Here you can see one sandwich board in use, while the Station Master waves the green flag:

 

This photograph was taken on 28th April during our latest Running Day in Eindhoven.

 

The sandwich board performed as expected and the risk of not being able to take essential fiddle yard modules to running days has now decreased considerably.

 

Leen.

Edited May 25, 2018 by 3737

[00Gauge]

Here is an impression of an informall meeting that  we are having this weekend. 

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by 00Gauge

[3737]

As the previous post shows, the BMB held another running meet this weekend, in fact this one was the fifth one of 2018 and the 18th altogether.
This time it lasted for a whole weekend instead of just one day. Because the location in Vredepeel was pretty much out of the way for the majority of our members, we wanted to enjoy more running time than the 3 or 4 hours we had there in 2016. Fortunately it could all be arranged. The location is a sports hall in Vredepeel, situated on an army airforce base.

Due to health problems and a defective car, "only" 13 BMB participants and 8 modules left their homes early on the Saturday morning. Four of our participants unfortunately could only be present on the Saturday.
We arrived at around 9.30 A.M. and around 10.00 we could start setting up the layout. Running could begin at 1.00 P.M. The mainline consisted of 18 meters (60 ft) of menbers modules, 12 meters (40 ft) of reversing loops, 6m30 (21 ft) of fiddle yard, and 4 (13 ft) meters of bridge, branchline junction and a curve, altogether some 40 meters of board. The branchline was 5m50 (18 (ft 4 in) long. The total track length was therefore about 80 meters (265 ft) .
The utilitarian modules like those for the reversing loops, fiddle yard etc. all have to be transported by our members cars. This is always a puzzle, since there is usually not too much room left in the various cars alongside our own modules. Besides we live scattered over a large part of the country and the modules are at two or three locations. This is also the reason that on running days like this we leave at home as much as we can, e.g. all the attributes to beautify our presentation like at the Ontraxs exhibition in post #1. That's why the presentation on the photos is not at the same level as at our exhibitions. Fortunately, this time, our members John and Servé helped to ensure that our transport problems were fairly easily resolved, for which we are grateful.

When the modules were finally connected around 1.00, almost everything went right first time. With the exception of some small issues, we had no technical problems at all. As always, the trains were momentarily interrupted due to the incorrect positioning of our electrofrog points, but only very occasionally. Maybe we should try to find a solution for that. We also discovered that Werner had two locos, who did not "speak" well with one of the boosters (you can see that in our video), but after replacing the booster with another one, the problem was solved. Probably it concerns a decoder problem with the used cheap decoders, but that still needs further investigation.

At the end of our Saturday running session we drove 20 km (13 miles) to Helenaveen, where we had a drink and dinner together, on the terrace outside the restaurant. At Sunday morning 10.00 A.M. we came back to run our trains again  and after 3.00 P.M. disassembly of the layout was cautiously started, because at 5.00 we were supposed to have left the hall. Cautiously, because some were still running trains. After having charged our lorries, we first drove to Eindhoven, where we left some of the modules and then went to a Chinese restaurant, still with seven BMB-members. After dinner we each went our way.
The atmosphere on both days was once again excellent as usual.

 

And now my photos. Setting up the job:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Members running their trains:

 

 

 

 

The branchline and the token:
It is not entirely without pride that we can report that for the first time we had a concept version of a branch line of approx. 5m50 (18 ft 4 in), with - thanks to participant Servé - a token. The branchline has been a desire of a few participants for some time and, as is often the case with new things, everything had to be thoroughly discussed. The intention of this concept version of our branchline is to first learn how to handle it and thereby get the right ideas to come to a nice BMB branch line. The ultimate goal is to achieve, for some, a more prototypical operation than "just" running roundies on a dog bone:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our trains are fun, but not always entirely prototypical. Here are some of them

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having a cuppa:

 

Bringing out a toast to Jan, our Ireland department, who was at the Leuven (Belgium)  Exhibition:

 

Before having dinner together after the Saturday running session:

 

Waiting for the food to arrive:

 

We are most grateful to Ed and his colleagues who made this weekend possible.

 

 

Leen.

Edited December 5, 2018 by 3737

[3737]

After October the BMB didn't cease to exist, no, there were even two more running meets to report. Firstly we were invited to Dordrecht on the occasion of the Open Day of the local Model Railway Club on Saturday 17th November. This time it was no sports hall but we had to fit our layout in the available space. We chose to use only 4 of our scenic modules plus the fiddle yard instead of 6 modules.

 

 

Friday we were able to install most of our layout and Saturday we were running our trains all day long. Next time we will visually hide the backs of our modules with a windscreen or similar:

 

 

 

Our hosts showed great hospitality and hopefully they will invite us again. This time we won't show you in which restaurant we completed our day.

 

In the meantime there has been progress to make our more or less problematic large curves more transportabe. They have been divided in two, so now we have both large and medium curves:

 

These are now our large curved modules (approx. 1m 30 - 4 ft 3 in radius) in a different setting than curves, which I intend to develop:

 

And this is now our new medium curve (approx. 1.05 m - 3ft 6 in radius) , which we will probably mostly use as corner modules:

 

This is how we transport the curves. Left you see the six medium curved modules with two straight modules on top, and on the right the big pile of six large curved ones. I found a way to slide two modules one into each other, so now two modules only need half the space.

 

And this is how we make a Christmas tree with them:

 

Last week, on 2nd February, we had our twentieth running meet in Rijen, near Breda. The location was an archers club with a large club room. This was thanks to Michel, one of our new members, and his dad.

This is my car on the Saturday morning before I left. It was completely packed with curves, reverse loops, fiddle yard modules, my own module and lots more:

 

We spent the morning building up our large undecorated layout of 37 m (123 ft), using the new medium curves:

 

 

Of course we spent the afternoon playing our trains:

 

The new medium curves:

 

This one used to be a Dutch module themed of where the owner, Gerard, lives:

 

 

One of our modules (under construction) has a Flemish owner and an Irish subject:

 

And yes, when finished we went to a restaurant again....

 

The next time running will be on 23rd March when we will be at a small exhibition in my home town.

In the mean time work progresses.....

 

Leen.

Edited February 14, 2019 by 3737

[00Gauge]

Last saturday we had a our 21st meet in Schoonhoven.

Here is a short video of the event.

 

 

http://youtu.be/wy_qR9hbTXc

Edited April 3, 2019 by 00Gauge

[3737]

Saturday 23rd March the BMB participated in the exhibition "Carmeliet op Stoom" in Schoonhoven, near Gouda. This show has been organized for the 11th time by true hobbyists in the field of steam, who also participate themselves. Three of our members have been living in or near Schoonhoven for years. Although this modelmakers show is not as well-known a model railway event as Eurospoor in Utrecht, we were offered the generous space of a theatre stage on which we were able to allocate a layout that was almost as large as the one at Eurospoor 2017. From the beginning, we have taken into account how we could do justice to the layout from the perspective of the public, the exhibition hall and ourselves. This is the layout plan with our “BMB-square” and our 25 m (83 ft) long layout:

 

 

 

 

On Friday afternoon we started work at around 2.00 P.M.. First all fourteen modules and the reverse loops were set up and then they were connected one by one. Werner had the bright idea to hang our large BMB emblem on the front of our fiddle yard from where it would clearly be visible to the entire exhibition. Around 6.00 the track was technically ready and it was possible to run trains. A few things still needed to be decorated, but we left that for the next morning. On Saturday morning we were present around 7.30 to finish the decoration. There were two Union Jacks, that came from the organization, and primarily served to cover the (ugly) rear sides of the modules visible to the public. But because we only had one module there, we hung the other one at the entrance of our “BMB-square”, next to Thijs' module:

 

 

This way it would be clear to the public where the British Modular Layout was to be found, not entirely unimportant. (y) It looks quite patriotic with the Union Jacks, but in terms of railways, this is what we are. Once the show started, almost everything went well. For us BMB-ers, an exhibition is just another running meet and this was a very nice and special one. Since everything worked well, it was a relaxing day for us. Some of our participants even went to assist other exhibitors for a good part of the day, simply because it was possible and because there was also something to experience there. (y) Quite a lot of people came to see us on the stage, including people we know, which is pretty special. Sometimes it was really crowded and then you know you don't do it for nothing. These are the photos I made. Saturday morning before the show:

[3737]

On Saturday 23rd March the BMB participated in the exhibition "Carmeliet op Stoom" in Schoonhoven, near Gouda. This show has been organized for the 11th time by true hobbyists in the field of steam, who also participate themselves. Three of our members have been living in or near Schoonhoven for years. Although this modelmakers show is not as well-known a model railway event as Eurospoor in Utrecht, we were offered the generous space of a theatre stage on which we were able to allocate a layout that was almost as large as the one at Eurospoor 2017. From the beginning, we have taken into account how we could do justice to the layout from the perspective of the public, the exhibition hall and ourselves. This is the layout plan with our “BMB-square” and our 25 m (83 ft) long layout:

 

 

 

On Friday afternoon we started work at around 2.00 P.M.. First all fourteen modules and the reverse loops were set up and then they were connected one by one. Werner had the bright idea to hang our large BMB shield on the front of our fiddle yard from where it would clearly be visible to the entire exhibition. Around 6.00 the track was technically ready and it was possible to run trains. A few things still needed to be decorated, but we left that for the next morning. On Saturday morning we were present around 7.30 to finish the decoration. There were two Union Jacks, that came from the organization, and primarily served to cover the (ugly) rear sides of the modules visible to the public. But because we only had one module there, we hung the other one at the entrance of our “BMB-square”, next to Thijs' module:

 

 

This way it would be clear to the public where the British Modular Layout was to be found, not entirely unimportant.  It looks quite patriotic with the Union Jacks, but in terms of railways, this is what we are. Once the show started, almost everything went well. For us BMB members, an exhibition is just another running meet and this was a very nice and special one. Since everything worked well, it was a relaxing day for us. Some of our participants even went to assist other exhibitors for a good part of the day, simply because it was possible and because there was also something to experience there.   Quite a lot of people came to see us on the stage, including people we know, which is pretty special. Sometimes it was really crowded and then you know you don't do it for nothing. These are the photos I made.

 

Saturday morning before the show:

 

The large BMB-shield:

 

Cees' module:

 

Our layout seen from the public:

 

Bacon Hill, Henks new module:

 

The public:

 

 

They served nice orange juice at the show:

 

Our view from  the stage:

 

Our next show will be in Utrecht on 13th and 14th April.

 

Leen.

Edited April 15, 2019 by 3737

[3737]

.....And this weekend we were indeed in Utrecht at the huge Collectors Fair (5 halls) at the Jaarbeurs, the Dutch version of NEC and the same venue as Eurospoor. It is a completely different experience from model railway shows like Eurospoor or Ontraxs, where you only find model railways and model railways enthusiasts. Here there's a much different audience and to us it is actually quite a special experience. We were surrounded by hobbyists, by trucks, boats and planes and were the only model railway layout in sight. OK, a bit further on there was an N-gauge layout. Next to us a model airplane club was busy with a kind of flight ballet with all kinds of planes big and small,  dancing in the air, sometimes even to music! A bit further on there were stalls of antiques and collectors items and there was also a complete hall with CD's and vinyl records.

 

As BMB we can once again look back on a successful event in a good atmosphere. This time it wasn't technically the most perfect layout we ever had, but with 4 untested new modules this is almost unavoidable. Yesterday we calculated how long our layout actually was and that turned out to be about 47.50 meters (157 ft) , unfortunately just under 50 meters, which I had hoped for. But with 95 meters (315 ft) of track on the mainline, it was enough for us to have a good time and to have fun which is what we had. This also was the first time we could present our 4-track mainline of almost 9 meters (29 ft) length.

 

Our layout:

 

 

The fiddle yard:

 

The 4-track mainline:

 

 

The Dukedog on Bacon Hill:

 

St John's Grove:

 

Wateringbury:

 

Views from the track. St, John's Grove

 

Ollerbrook Booth:

 

With Thomas:

 

Radipole Halt:

 

Backwater Goods Yard:

 

Our neighbours:

 

 

Leen.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2019 by 3737

[00Gauge]

And here is the cab ride of this event: