TEAMYAKIMA

One of the highlights of Twickenham & District MRC's Open Day on July 27th will be our award-winning 7mm layout, ADDISON ROAD, seen here at the recent Bristol show.

ADDISON ROAD won 'Best in show' at last year's Tolworth show as voted for by the visitors and, at a recent club running session, the Tolworth exhibition manager came down to present the engraved trophy to Peter Warren, the AR team leader, and the rest of the team.

This is very sad to hear - yours is a unique layout with very high quality modelling which appeals to us modellers and with a unique concept (linking to a well-known film) which makes it instantly recognisable to a wider audience.

One unique feature of Sunday's operating session was a guest loco. It is a 1930's streamlined pacific handmade in brass by Tenshodo. Unfortunately, I never took a proper photo of it, but I have just received this from a visitor - a classic 'going away' shot! In this photo it is coupled to it's match 6 car streamlined passenger rake - albeit with the tail observation car missing. This ran around a few times and then we removed the coaches and coupled the loco to a standard type 22 rake of green coaches for the rest of the day. But this photo does also show you the trees and that dirt road more clearly.

I think it's about time I reported on our experience at last weekend's KEYMODELWORLDLIVE. Overall, it was a positive experience, but I regret that I was so busy that I didn't take any photos of BEIJIAO and so I have downloaded this from the KEYMODELWORLD thread on RMWEB. So, let me start by listing all the new positives............................. 1. In the week before the show I had a professional photo shoot and so I spent several days tweaking the scenery and, as a result, IMHO the layout looked really good at thye show - for example as you can see in the photo I went all over the layout with new static grass and it really made a difference. You can also see that I have re-worked the curvy road to look more like a dirt track rather than a tarmaced road as that makes far more sense. 2. The new trees (no photo) really enhanced the previously rather barren layout foreground. 3. The new lighting rig really made a huge improvement - here is a photo taken at the Warley show last November and you can see how the bright lights at the NEC threw awful shadows onto the layout from our pelmet and pelmet supports and the whole idea behind the new extra lighting was to eliminate those shadows. 4. The trains all worked well and we had three new smoking QJ's which were real crowd pleasers. 5. The automatic level crossing which has caused us problems since day one, worked properly 95% of the time. The only issue now is that trains have to run quite slowly on the bi-directional as the electronics which control the crossing gates need a relatively long positive pulse of electricity and if the trains run too fast they don't send a long enough signal to the electronics - other than that it works well now. Were there any problems? Yes, of course, but we worked around them and they have all been sorted now. So next stop - Aylesbury in 3 weeks.

Hello to anyone who went to the KEYMODELWORLD event last weekend - I am hoping one of you can help me. I was so busy operating my Chinese HO layout, BEIJIAO, that I had no time to take any photographs and in particular we ran a GUEST loco on Sunday which we have never run before and will probably never run again - and I don't have any photo of it 😕 It was this very rare model of a Chinese streamlined pacific - if anyone has a photo of it in action, could they please post it here - thanks. And, YES, I know that my layout is set in 2001 and, YES, I know that loco would have been in a museum long before then 😉

A recent influx of some (slightly) younger members has resulted in Twickenham & District MRC being able to announce to exciting new projects at the their Open Day on July 27th. Firstly, a relatively small OO layout designed to both engage with newcomers to the hobby teaching them the basics of building their first layout and at the same time teaching some of the club's established members about the new hi-tech world of DCC and automation - a skills learning project across the whole spectrum of layout building. Secondly, the club will be announcing plans for a new N gauge layout - DRAYTON GREEN. Having recently sold the club's well-known N gauge layout, BATTY MOOR, the club is keen to get its replacement under way ASAP. There will be EIGHT working layouts in total at our Open Day, plus the club's S/H stall and refreshments - book the date now - July 27th (10am to 4pm) - for gfull details look at the exhibition diary. Hoping to see YOU there! We will be posting more details soon.

I have been using a DS74 programmed to 151, 152, 157 and 158 At the recent NEC show point 158 suddenly stopped working. Now that I'm back home I have tested the DS74. The other three outputs work as normal, but 158 doesn't. The DS74 has three 'lights' - a green one that is permanently on as at the bottom of the three in this photo. When it receives a signal the red (middle) light flashes and the top green one does as well which I interpret as the unit sending out a pulse or that is how it is with 151, 152 and 157. When I send a command for 158 the red light flashes but the top green one doesn't. Should I try re-programming the DS74 or is that fourth output permanently now not-working? Obviously, I don't want to pay out for a new DS74 if at all possible, but I will have to if onlt three outputs are working. Thanks for any help with this.

Well, the van is on its way, the layout is stacked up in my yard, my bag is packed ......................... This is going to be a massive show for my Chinese HO layout, BEIJIAO, because ( I almost don't dare say it ) I think that after 12 years it may be, finally, finished and ready to be operated faultlessly for two days Is my optimism misplaced - ask me at 4.30pm on Sunday! If I'm crying - don't bother asking!

Well...................................... With a professional photographer coming to do a photo shoot, I have been working flat out for the last couple of weeks to deal with all sorts of 'issues' which generally go totally unnoticed at a show, but which jump out at you in a photograph. The changes have been microscopic, but the time taken to make those micro changes has been mega. As of late Sunday, there were still several things to do before the photographer was due to arrive the next day. So, I was back in the shed yesterday at 05.15 (YES!) and by 09.45 I could finally look myself in the eye and say, "That's as good as it's ever going to be - bring it on!" At 09.46 my doorbell rang 🙂 Will they be good photos? I certainly hope so - the photographer finally drove off at 19.00, So, including the time taken to set up eight photo-floodlights and then taking them down, the photo session was 9 hours and 15 minutes!!

Personally, as the owner of a viewer-friendly Chinese HO layout, I am looking forward to meeting a greeting serious modellers from other modelling sub-cultures - aircraft, boats, military - as they will look at the layout without the pre-conceived ideas that some hard-core railway modellers view things. I make no criticism of hardcore railway modellers, but some do have a limited view of our hobby and these 'other' modellers will simply look at every layout with fresh eyes.

Well, I think there are other considerations. Firstly, there are 36 layouts and Warley had 90 and already that is over one third and secondly one of those 36 layouts is 208ft long and so that has an impact on the actual number of layouts on show. Also, Keypublishing are taking a big risk to promote and nurture our hobby and I think that they should be given a chance to prove themselves - let's face it - there aren't many shows around the country that would or could accommodate Pete Waterman's 208ft of layout. If people want large ambitious exhibitions then they need to support them as and when they take place. My layout is 28ft x10ft and several two day shows have told me that it's simply too big for them to invite it. OK, I like OO9 4x2 layouts, but for me, big is better and big shows are needed in order to see big layouts.

Yes, I plan/hope to do that. The photographer is an 'old pro' with photo floods and tripods etc and I think that he is very experienced in photographing layouts and I think he is very sympathetic to us layout owners and the issues we face. However, it has got me thinking! A couple of days ago I was looking at the layout and considering what were its biggest issues - the things which would jump out at you in a photo and I concluded that it was the baseboard joins in the roadway which are right under viewers noses. So, I had an idea - as the scenic section of the layout is now set up in my shed ready for photography, I decided to fill in the gaps in the roadway baseboard joins, sand them down and paint over them. Now, not being the brightest spark in the room, I forgot to take a proper before and after set of photos, but here is the baseboard join gap plastered over. And painted it looks like this ................. Then having thought about it, I guessed that in fact the photographer could have easily photoshopped out those nasty baseboard joins and I could have saved myself the effort, But then, after more thought, it occurred to me that, at an exhibition, if we got the layout up nice and early on the Friday we could do the same and it would make a BIG difference. We would need to paint the road last thing on the Friday night and not first thing Saturday as the paint changes colour slightly as it dries, but it does make a huge difference to the appearance of the road and hence the layout.

That is so true. My layout is 'exhibition-only' and I always demand a barrier at least 18 inches away from the front of the layout (not for security, just to ensure that viewers get a better, mor natural, view of the layout) but next week I have having a professional photographer do a really professional photo shoot of the layout. He will do real close-up shots and I am really worried that all sorts of flaws which no-one sees at an exhibition will really jump out to you in a decent close-up photo.