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BEIJIAO - a large Chinese HO exhibition layout set in the 21st century


TEAMYAKIMA
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In the two weeks since Tolworth, the whole team have had a chance to review the situation and make plans for the future.

 

There were a lot of positives at Tolworth. The great efforts of my operating team really paid off with the viewing public. There are two videos of the Tolworth show on YOUTUBE. Bear in mind that there were 20 layouts at the show, one video on YOUTUBE only features 5 layouts and the other only 3 - and we are in both!

 

Here is the video with 3 layouts and we were chosen as the 'cover shot'. It was shot on the Saturday when we did have some issues in the fiddle yard and so you do see the same trains more than I would like, but it also features a great shot of the only time we ever tried to run the Faller system - which resulted in a crash at the level crossing!

 

 

 

Edited by TEAMYAKIMA
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Hello Bill 

 

Nice to hear from you. 

 

Barriers, yes they have always been a problem. I had done loads of work to make them work properly and automatically, coming down about 10 seconds before a train approaches and going back up as soon as the last item has passed and after hours and hours of work it all worked perfectly - in my shed!

 

But it didn't work perfectly at Tolworth and, in part at least, it was my fault this time. I had a knee problem and was told to avoid kneeling and so I was unable to check that all the jumper plugs were in place and as we discovered on the Sunday - they weren't! Once we plugged the missing jumper in the barriers worked perfectly with trains travelling left to right as looked at as in the video. We didn't get to grips with trains running right to left, but it may again have been a missing jumper. 

 

On advice from an electronics engineer we are using 4 pin plugs and sockets. The main power buses require three jumpers (12 wires) per board join but all the other (relatively unimportant) electronics require two or more jumpers in some cases and I think it was simply a case of an inexperienced team member not noticing some of these 'extra' jumpers - not the person's fault, my fault for not giving clear instructions. 

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On 05/12/2021 at 13:16, Al. said:

Beijiao's new fiddle yard...?

 

image.png.8e86963efa1969b1646bae87cb6cd6e0.png

 

Presumably, Tom Cruise (suspended from the ceiling) is one of the fiddle yard operators?  Dialogue; "Train #25 won't move". "Which one is that?".  "The Silver one".  "Which Silver one?". "The Silver one that's not moving!"  "None of them are moving!!" "Damm, the problem's worse than I thought".

 

Steve N

 

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55 minutes ago, steveNCB7754 said:

 

Presumably, Tom Cruise (suspended from the ceiling) is one of the fiddle yard operators?  Dialogue; "Train #25 won't move". "Which one is that?".  "The Silver one".  "Which Silver one?". "The Silver one that's not moving!"  "None of them are moving!!" "Damm, the problem's worse than I thought".

 

Steve N

 

 Were you listening to us at Tolworth?! :) We had several similar conversations...

 

Luke

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21 hours ago, steveNCB7754 said:

 

Presumably, Tom Cruise (suspended from the ceiling) is one of the fiddle yard operators?  Dialogue; "Train #25 won't move". "Which one is that?".  "The Silver one".  "Which Silver one?". "The Silver one that's not moving!"  "None of them are moving!!" "Damm, the problem's worse than I thought".

 

Steve N

 

 

20 hours ago, luke_stevens said:

 Were you listening to us at Tolworth?! :) We had several similar conversations...

 

Luke

Indeed, I was thinking the first post there should say "Paul", not Tom Cruise. :mosking:

I'd happily pay to see BEIJIAO if the fiddleyard was operated like that!! :sarcastic:

 

(not that I wouldn't be happy to pay to see it anyway, but the added entertainment of an overhead suspended fiddleyard operator would be a bonus!! ;) )

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1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

 

Indeed, I was thinking the first post there should say "Paul", not Tom Cruise. :mosking:

I'd happily pay to see BEIJIAO if the fiddleyard was operated like that!! :sarcastic:

 

(not that I wouldn't be happy to pay to see it anyway, but the added entertainment of an overhead suspended fiddleyard operator would be a bonus!! ;) )

There is no chance of that in the Great Hall at Ally Pally, but if we're in the West Hall, then we'll see what we can do!

 

L

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5 hours ago, luke_stevens said:

There is no chance of that in the Great Hall at Ally Pally, but if we're in the West Hall, then we'll see what we can do!

 

L

Last time I was in the Great Hall at Ally Pally was to see Led Zeppelin at Christmas 1972.

Edited by St Enodoc
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18 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Last time I was in the Great Hall at Ally Pally was to see Led Zeppelin at Christmas 1972.

 

Ah yes, walking up all those steps to get into the London Model Railway Exhibition, was indeed a 'Stairway To Heaven'.  Will we ever be doing that again?  :unsure:

 

Steve N

 

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1 hour ago, steveNCB7754 said:

 

Ah yes, walking up all those steps to get into the London Model Railway Exhibition, was indeed a 'Stairway To Heaven'.  Will we ever be doing that again?  :unsure:

 

 

Well, they have started selling tickets for it, and I am booked to attend with "Freshwater", so we live in hope...

 

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On 07/12/2021 at 19:44, F-UnitMad said:

 

Indeed, I was thinking the first post there should say "Paul", not Tom Cruise. :mosking:

I'd happily pay to see BEIJIAO if the fiddleyard was operated like that!! :sarcastic:

 

(not that I wouldn't be happy to pay to see it anyway, but the added entertainment of an overhead suspended fiddleyard operator would be a bonus!! ;) )

Bad luck, Al.

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21 hours ago, Ian Morgan said:

 

Well, they have started selling tickets for it, and I am booked to attend with "Freshwater", so we live in hope...

 

 

Interesting.  Just checked the website and pleased to see (though, perhaps, just a little surprised) that they don't seem to be operating an 'Advance Tickets Only' entrance requirement (for Covid 'reasons').  My decision to go to such things is usually made at the last minute and so I don't normally buy advance tickets.  Ironically, the only two times I have ever done so (once for the Thornbury/Bristol Show and once for the Bristol O Gauge Show), I was ill on both occasions and couldn't go.  We'll have to see how the world is, come March 2022.

 

Steve N

 

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Most of my time since Tolworth has been spent making changes to make life simpler, easier and quicker at the next show. Once again the issue of not being able to set the layout up regularly is a big drawback. We cannot experiment with different ways of doing things when setting up or taking down at a show - let's face it, this is a 'club-sized' layout, with a 'club-sized' team needed to set it up, take it down and operate it, and if we had regular club nights in a large clubroom we could practice these things until we got really slick - but we can't. However, we have learnt lessons from Tolworth and we now have a dedicated team member to organise things when we go to shows, leaving me free to get on with the modelling - take a bow, Al.

 

One thing which has come to light is the need for at least one more spare industrial loco in case of loco problems at a show. The industrial relies on SY's and JS's and at Tolworth we only had one spare loco and two loco failures! So. I have been getting a 'showcase only' loco ready for use at the next show - SY 1183 - and it turned out to develop into a bigger job than I had planned for - I suggest you go and get a cup of something, this next bit is going to take a while.

 

 

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1183 had already been sent off to MadMcCann for weathering, but as it hadn't been sounded it wasn't taken to Tolworth. I was about to send it off to my sound guy, Peter Morgan, when I began to realise that something wasn't quite right with the model.

 

The real loco had a distinctive and prominent plate on the tender .....................

 

IMG_20211124_085114.jpg.3ce395d17b6cb8c8690ad5f95e309c8e.jpg

 

 

Bachmann's version was a very disappointing printed version ..................

 

IMG_20211208_163519.jpg.1ea3348acc87a53b13a411151c6000ed.jpg

 

 

If anything, the light weathering made it even less 'stand out' than before and I was pondering what to do and then I realised that a previous Bachmann QJ had come fitted with a proper 3D plate - number 6732.

 

IMG_20211211_082641.jpg.01599309eb417e6e92ca16f72e716bfc.jpg

 

 

 

I thought ...... I wonder if that is a separate part and if it is, can it be removed?

 

As you can see it looked very good head on

 

IMG_20211211_093011.jpg.98aec0e90179c5f07ec8bbb1bc7968ec.jpg

 

At that time, I was just thinking of removing (if it was possible) one of the plates and fitting it to 1183, after all, with my layout the public will only ever see one side of any given loco and so what would it matter if two locos only had a plate on one side? So, I took a craft knife and tried my luck................

 

IMG_20211209_105852.jpg.68813b8bc00b7be4f7e633a8dfc70e79.jpg

 

 

The answer was 'YES' the plates are removeable! So, now I had another problem - a big hole like that isn't exactly enhance its resale value - time for more thinking. Yet another problem was that from the side on you can see that the plate is grossly overscale.

 

IMG_20211209_105825.jpg.5270594b81099194924529bf5f0f8104.jpg

 

More later.

 

 

 

 

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Ok, pretty much finished now

 

Trust me, this looks better on the track, unless you're deliberately looking for the remnants of the hole you won't see it.

 

IMG_20211211_141246.jpg.9f337d89d2afe7e84c0fbd989f925040.jpg

 

Both sides of the QJ tender now 'sorted' and both plates now on 1183, having been considerably thinned down.

 

IMG_20211211_155852.jpg.d3ca6b65baf8cec0420525edbf3b9837.jpg

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On 11/12/2021 at 16:11, TEAMYAKIMA said:

Ok, pretty much finished now

 

Both sides of the QJ tender now 'sorted' and both plates now on 1183, having been considerably thinned down.

 

 

 

Well done.  Err, so is this a bad time to point out that #1183's cabside numbers, etc., are actually raised letters, seemingly stood-off the actual cabside (...runs for cover)?   :scared:

 

Steve N

 

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1 hour ago, steveNCB7754 said:

 

Well done.  Err, so is this a bad time to point out that #1183's cabside numbers, etc., are actually raised letters, seemingly stood-off the actual cabside (...runs for cover)?   :scared:

 

Steve N

 

Um... Are they separate numbers applied to the cab side or separate letters applied to a plate then applied to the cab side? If it is the latter they could be etched. If t is the former then they would have to be 3d resin printed. Both are possible...

 

Luke

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I have been doing odd jobs on the layout.

 

Finishing off the new replacement carrying frame ................. this time with nice strong carrying handles.

 

IMG_20211214_190030.jpg.e6c836478fed622b015aa2310e21988d.jpg

 

IMG_20211214_190046.jpg.f9c5320722d307b86d2f8f5461143e89.jpg

 

As you can see, I had removed the backscene on this board. This was so that I could work on the damaged tenement block...................

 

IMG_20211214_183216.jpg.e0de014fef547670a5201046021a1e76.jpg

 

Let's see how I get on ................ we'll see tomorrow!

 

 

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3 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

The Chinese have building regs..??!! :scratchhead: :dontknow:  :jester:

 

"...it is a custom, more honor'd in the breach than the observance" - Hamlet act 1, scene 4

 

I'm sure they do but money will be used to ensure they don't get in the way of construction / profit / graft.

 

Luke

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