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Southgate Park, formerly Northolt International


Wolf27
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  • 3 months later...

Well we are still here, the layout has apart from brief trip out (more of that shortly) been in its crates since we returned from Statfold in April.

At Statfold we were approached by Phil Parker of BRM, a few months later at a photoshoot later, Southgate Park features in the current (Sept) issue of BRM.

On the back of this we also received our first confirmed invite of 2023 to Doncaster by Warners, two other shows are in the pipeline too just waiting on paperwork before we confirm these however another one is a high profile show.

Back to the layout, in preparation for its next outing at Stafford in September we have identified some reliability mods to the layout, autofrogs replacing the manual and constantly failure microswitches for the point frogs, point frogs on the scenic board to be wired into our DCC Concepts point decoder and a set of legs for the one corner board that was missing some which caused some issues at Statfold.

 

Stock wise, Shane is working on a refurb of his 5WES Class 442 that he built a number of years ago, new cabs and a repaint is on track for an appearance at Stafford.  

Mark

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Spent a full day getting the Wessex unit into some sort of order as Stafford will be upon us before we know it! Bottom pic is how it looked as it came out of storage. It was assembled it 1998 from Jouef Mk3’s and Hurst parts. Standards and parts have improved over the intervening 24 years!78076F92-722C-4557-8A7C-CDF8E4E080BC.jpeg.d8e40cc135cce86c5ee6ad908325af3f.jpeg8D6049CF-8B73-44F6-A075-4EA6B48FBEF5.jpeg.529ccfd88d7124b35e2ff5b0a3f5ebc2.jpeg

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  • 5 weeks later...

Evening all 

 

Over the weekend we had a pre Stafford layout test, we’ve made some reliability tweaks with some autofrogs being added instead of manual microswitches on point frogs and some general improvements to other bits too.

 

With the exception of the BRM Shoot with Andy and Phil the layout hasn’t been up in its entirety since Statfold. 
 

We were pleased that as soon as we connected up the layout there were no shorts, one dead section from a loose wire and a couple of point decoder changes were the only issues. 
 

Looking forward to a good show to close off the 2022 calendar for us and we then will look forward to a busy 2023. 


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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

We’re still here in the background at a slower pace than usual. 

We have two confirmed bookings for 2023 and one more which we’re waiting to hear back from.

The first of these is the Warners Show at Doncaster in February and we’re making some improvements to the layout ready for then.

First of the layout has been reduced in height, at Stafford we felt sorry for a chap in a wheelchair who must have really struggled to see the layout, some advice from Mick Bryan at Warley and an early December work day saw the chop being taken to all the layout legs. 

Next job which we’re doing and would have already started if not for the arctic temperatures last week is, in the station platform area there’s a bit of a ski jump due to the cork and age having some effects on the track work. 

We shall be taking the area back to the baseboards shortly for new cork, track and ballast. 

Shane’s been working hard on another Plastic Pig (Class 442) to complement the one he’s already done. 

After Donny, we will look at some other improvements, maybe including getting the LUL operational for 2023 show number two which will be DEMU Showcase. 

Mark 

 

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Monday night me and Shane took out the roller coaster track in the station area which had been causing some issues. 

By doing this it will reduce the number of joints in the track which will aide the running of the layout in that area as well as removing the bumps that had occurred from the cork lifting. 

The plan is to relay and reballast with weathering being carried out in stages to look like it’s a replacement that’s just happened, can anyone help with what Speed restriction boards (Commencement and termination) would have looked like for our timeframe? 

Mark 


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Edited by Markmiller2008
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

A Month Today is The Doncaster show Lots going on behind the scenes. 

We tackled the trackwork relay last week, which we (Shane) thought would be an easy job. New cork underlay, track down and ballasted. However when we placed new lengths of track out we could see that one board had a very obvious sag in it. In the space of around 200mm there was a 4mm difference in the levels. To put that into context, if scaled up to full size that would equal a fall of 1ft in approximately 50ft distance. 

Fortunately we had sufficient cork of various thickness so we could pack it where required. It was weighted down and given 24 hours for the glue to set fully. This gave the new track enough support.  

All ballasted just some finishing weathering and new 3rd rail to be fitted. 

Just confirmed is our third show this year in September at Redditch. 

Mark 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last week we finished off the relay, fitted the 3rd Rail and the AWS ramp on the Down line, Up Line still needs one painting and popping in place.

Hopefully there will be some additions to the LUL detailling in the next couple of weeks, Timb3D have produced new cable bridges and cable runs which will vastly improve the look of that area, hopeful to have these added by the time Doncaster comes around.

The LUL will remain trainless for another show as we just havent had the time to sort it, Showcase may well see that up and running, time will tell.

Looking forward to Donny in three weeks time with a guest operator getting us out of the doggy dos as we were looking rather low on operators.

Mark

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

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