Chris M

To fully enjoy Allo Allo you have to have have watched secret army. It was such an obvious Micky take. I don’t know how they got away with it.

We need a “shocked” button!

Getting hold of N gauge peaks in blue is currently next to impossible. Rapido have promised to do 45 & 46 if the 44 they are working on is a success. The 44 is of no use whatsoever to me. I know Farish intended to do a re-tooled peak at some point but I imagine that has now been put on ice. Unless they decide to meet Rapido head on. in the meantime I have a P&D Marsh kit that just needs banger blue paint, windows and transfers adding. It sits on a very old Farish class 40 chassis and runs quite well since I got some new gears for it. Hopefully she will be brought into service later this year. Ok not up to today’s standards of RTR but she will look ok if I don’t screw up the top coat.

I only allow loco types that have been through the real Dawlish Warren to be used on my Dawlish Warren. Just my rule but I like it. So far as I can see there has only been one working of a blue pullman train through Dawlish Warren. A friend of mine brought his Farish pullman round which was nice but I told him he couldn't bring it again as the real thing only went through once (well it may have been four times but it was just the one special charter). I have recently started to build a new layout especially for my N gauge locos that are not allowed on Dawlish Warren. I do run railtour trains both for the 1980s and current day. I love the Princess Coronation class so here is Duchess of Hamilton which did quite a bit of main line work in the 1980s in charge of the Royal Duchy - a headboard still used on railtours through Dawlish Warren today.

A bit more 1980s

Looks like a great start. I will follow your progress with interest.

What language do they read then?

I'm glad you enjoyed your show. Hopefully you will go to other exhibitions and I will get the chance to see your layout "in the flesh". I find my 47s run very well through points and curves so long all the pick ups from the wheels are clean. I de-gunge mine before an exhibition. Others have added extra pickups but I haven't found this to be necessary. I have seen someone at our club having a derail issue with Hunt couplings. They were fine on quite a few running sessions and then one day derails started. Sorry but we have no idea why as nothing had changed. I use Hunt couplings on my HSTs, mk1s and Mk2s at home and find them to be excellent; I especially like the close coupling I get using the short shank version. I must take my mk1s up to the club and see what happens. I'm sure I have run them on that club layout before without any issues. One problem that especially applies to N gauge is that little things such as a change in temperature or maybe even a change in humidity can cause something that worked perfectly to suddenly not work so well. It doesn't take much movement of the track or even the boards for strange things to start happening.

I now have to make a decision. When the layout goes to Swindon Steam Museum exhibition in September, what stock do I run? 1963 1968 1980s or contemporary I usually run 1963 or 1968 at exhibitions but maybe a change would be good.

Railway modelling covers a broad spectrum and each one of us does our own thing. I don’t think it the least bit odd to build layouts only for exhibitions. The only aspect of the hobby I find a bit odd is the collectors who never run the locos in their collection. If that’s what makes folk happy then it’s fine. I feel quite differently to the OP about watching trains go by on my layout at home. I never seem to tire of watching a procession of different trains either rolling by or stopping at the station and then continuing. At exhibitions with the same layout I enjoy spending the whole day running trains and again watching them go by, albeit from the back rather than the front of the layout. That possibly makes me a little odd. There does seem to be a trend where maybe the middle sized exhibitions are starting to disappear. There are still plenty of very small shows but there doesn’t seem to be so many that are big enough to be worth travelling a distance to see. I seem to do ok for invites - 1 in 2021 (not long after the layout was complete) and 5 successful shows in 2022. I have two planned for later this year and 1 for 2024. Bearing in mind this layout needs a van for transport I reckon that’s not bad.it is of course unlikely to go to any of the very small shows due to the cost of hiring a van.

The individual groups decide on the liveries for their locos. For Western Courier the WLA members had a vote and blue won. I think it will be good to see all the blue for now. I expect the next round of repaints will see something different.

More recently I have lost the plot completely and gone contemporary. The semaphores and building remain firmly rooted in the 1960s. Somehow I find I can live with this.

I somehow strayed into the 1980's which is still perfectly acceptable for the buildings and signals. Here is William Cookworthy with a train of CDAs. We know that CDAs weren't seen outside of Cornwall very often but it was around this time that the new CDAs travelled down to Cornwall to replace the old clay wagons. I view these as being new wagons on their way to Cornwall and so they have had only the lightest of weathering.

Just a few more photos. The whole layout was designed around the 1960's hydraulic era and this is still my favourite. Class 22 approaching the curve at Langstone Rock Warship on an up express Western Champion on a down train. I always book a window table when I go to the Mount Pleasant Inn and have seen Champion pass by on a railtour. Afternoon milk for Kensington

Thanks for the wonderful ideas! Call me boring if you like but I will stick with the spring operated "explosion". I suspect re-assembly may not be straightforward if I was to use the above suggestion. Or when grandson does it

It does enough to make little ones jump, or laugh. A small percentage of them run away in tears so we explain it was just a bit of fun. Some adults jump as well, and then smile. It would be great to add a bang or some smoke but it would probably be going too far for our intended audience. one of my previous layouts included a good loud thunderclap. I’m not sure fellow exhibitors were overly impressed.

Thomas is the G scale version with rather spooky moving eyes. It is 10 years old, has been converted to battery powered radio control and has an added sound card. Quite a tough little unit, Thomas has survived the attentions of three grandchildren so far and another has just joined the crew. He does have a few battle scars but still runs very well. He is still very popular at exhibitions when he appears, especially when he causes the dynamite wagon to explode! That’s something else I have never seen on the real railway. Have I lost my serious modeller badge?

It’s the standard LGB coupling. I mostly use knuckle couplers.

The Union Flag on the General Lee was just a short term thing for attending a Coronation fete. It is now back to carrying the Confederate battle flag on the roof. It’s a shame that when the Dukes of Hazzard were made the confederate battle flag was just a symbol of them being rebels but now it is used by the white supremacy movement in the US. I might well add a note to the side of the layout clearly stating that we abhor everything the white supremacy does and stands for. The car is merely as it was in the TV series. I’m told there are no re-runs of the Dukes of Hazzard nowadays because of that flag.

Locos running light engine are not uncommon on the big railway but rarely seen at exhibitions. Perhaps because it kind of just looks wrong on a model.

I cannot ever recall seeing Thomas the Tank in Hazzard County.

If you can bank securely by smartphone surely it should be possible to vote securely as well.

On my G scale layout its the other way round - the barriers protect the public from the trains. You wouldn't want to be hit by one of my USA Trains bad boys at full pelt!

Sounds like a lot of running. Why not just run the last train and lift the track?

A quick google suggests there were quite a few. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=diner+from++train+car&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjUhdCD2uD-AhWunCcCHaQMC1EQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=diner+from++train+car&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIFCAAQogQyBQgAEKIEOgQIIxAnOgQIHhAKUIgQWOFxYKR5aABwAHgAgAFriAHqGZIBBDI2LjmYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=VElWZNSLOK65nsEPpJmsiAU&bih=669&biw=390&prmd=isvn