roundhouse

The final items worked on before the show tomorrow have now been either stuck on the layout or put in the stock boxes. Now that we have three locos fitted with sound, the notes on the back of the layout are currently being updated. Also I am testing to see if this thin foam obtained from Hobbycraft in December will help keep the throttles in place, hoping that they don't get used for coffee / tea mugs. The layout will be loaded this afternoon ready for an early start tomorrow.

The business / cafe coach is still in the train formation but the cafe hasn't been used for quite a few years and the Business seating can be used by standard class ticket holders for no supplement these days.

Blackmoor is getting a quick check over before heading to the show this weekend. The latest (scratch built) wagon will be running on the layout.

One of next doors cats in her favourite spot on our arbor yesterday. I cleaned the arbor seat this afternoon and she's just been back on it.

Decals have been applied to one side of the container. I have used a white decal sheet and printed the dark brown around the lettering. I tried numerous times to get a shade that match ed the container but used the closest that I could get then touched in the brown. Its not quite how I would like it to be but is close for now. Its generally not going to be looked at closely as it will be on a passing wagon. The truck trailer is a Coopercraft kit that I found in my stash of kits that I decided to assemble and will be placed in the goods yard on the layout.

A school friend had a red chevette at the time Prince brought out Little Red Chevette 😎

Good morning Yes damp and miserable this morning. Hope its a bit drier when we go out for a few beers once my other half finishes WFH at 4pm. As its Valentines day, she has got me a whip for when we get back later. No no that sort of whip The sort that you can eat.

Looks like you will be building a brewery with those loco names in the first photo.

An SR open container has been put together from styrene strips. These have been photographed loaded onto one of the L and B flat cars. Its now been painted. The decals in white will be tricky unless someone already does them.

So far Banbury has just one show this year. In a few weeks time we will be taking it to the Abingdon show. After the Tonbridge show with a different layout, it will be Banburys turn to be checked over plus to fix in place these four Royal Mail vehicles into the sorting office car park.

The wagon is now complete after adding he Blackman dry rub transfers that I have had waiting o be used for many years. I has had a run on the High Line test track. A coal load has been added and is now ready to go into the stock box for its first run on the layout on Saturday at the Tonbridge show. I have also started constructing an SR container after seeing a photo of one on one of the flat cars. It will be put together tomorrow but not sure if I will be able to do he decals in time for the show.

Its a good job that you closed it🙂

I fitted them on Dobris as per the photos of the real place and don’t recall there being a set pattern to their location.

The new wagon has now been primed. The photo shows it just prior to that. I have added some rivet details on the ends of each side. There should be more but it might look overdone. I can always add more later on. Greenwich and District couplers have been added and lead weight underneath. Once painted and decals added it will probably get a coal load.

I build my layout baseboards in feet and inches yet mark out and lay track on them in metric. Its rather wet walking to and from the shed earlier. Now getting a bit more windy. I hope that it isnt too wet walking ot our local pubs this afternoon.

Last night I decided to start scratch building the one wagon that is missing from my rolling stock, the odd one that was rebuilt from a contractors wagon. It's built out of styrene with the trucks modified from American N scale Still plenty of work to do on the trucks and underfrwme before painting but it should be ready for running on Blackmoor at the Tonbridge show.

Time to review your plans over a few cakes then??

With just two weeks to go before the layout is at the Tonbridge show I decided to fi sound into the Heljan 'Lyn' using the Tramfabriek supplied Zimo 6 pin decoder and their sound file. As I don't have any milling bits I decided to grind away the chassis cab projection to form a wireway into the cab. I protected he motor and mechanism by sealing with tape and blutak. The decoder can be ordered with a 6 pin wire harness soldered in place of the pins on the decoder. Whilst I can do this fiddly work I decided to pay the extra £5 for this to be done before being posted to me. All went fine with testing the decoder in my ESU decoder tester till I then tried running the loco on the program track. The loco moved briefly in one direction hen stopped but with buzzing coming from the motor. I removed the sound decoder straight away. luckily that was fine. I removed the motor but while hand turning the motor shaft, it kept jamming. The motor is a sealed unit so no metal shaving would be able to get in. Knowing that no Heljan spares had been produced I pondered buying another loco. Rails have some for about £110 which is still a lot just for a new motor. I decided to stop for he evening after looking at replacement motors on Tramfabrieks website. Sven reckons that one of them will fit. Anyway next morning I powered he motor up obviously not using the sound decoder and after a short while i started running smoothly. I rigorously tested it for over half an hour with numerous restarts and change in direction. All's fine now so I think that the vibration during cutting the chassis must have dislodged the commutator brushes or such like. The Zimo stay alive has been fitted under the speaker housing, all held in place with Blutak. The Modelu crew have been butchered and stuck on top of the speaker baffle box with canopy glue. he baffle box is 3D printed by Tramfabriek to fit under the cab coal bunker. I do like the Devon sheep sound and the Easter egg sound, reminding me of earlier Rapido North American locos. What a relief hat the loco is now back together and working well. Just two more Manning and Wardle locos that require sound but that will be for later in the year.

Rickmansworth to Uxbridge is 110 miles, according to someone who worked in the same company as me when he filled in his car business mileage form each month. He risked being caught by accounts and the tax man but that was way over 20 years ago and the compay no longer exists so he is safe now.

I was on a Zoom meeting last night with fellow 009 modellers. At one point the Warley show with the L & B theme with the loco 'LYD' as a centrepiece came up. This was the first year that I took a layout to the NEC. Prior to that I had heard horror stories about getting in and out with layouts. I was pleasantly surprised how easy and quick it was and much the same in subsequent years. That first show the NEC security were like the Gestapo but since then the ones that we have dealt with have all been very pleasant and helpful. The last few shows I have been doing demo so we didnt even require access with our vehicle. As other have said its the chatting with visitors and other exhibitors that I will remember. I remember when we took out Czech layout that we had so many people who's partners etc were from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Often we could have done with more operators on the layouts so that we could engage with more visitors. With the demo stand sometimes we could have done with a waiting area and ticket sytem🙂.

There is a short view of the water tower in this video on Youtube at 2 mins 55 sec

Its dull damp and miserable here this morning so far. That wasnt in the forecast on my mobile phone. The plan for today was to cut down next doors bushes and burn them in her garden burner. Yesterday wasm much nicer but still cool enough that no neighbours had windows open so I had a bonfire in the brazier to clear all the garden stuff that wouldnt pass through the shredder. I used to burn stuff at the very back of the garden but one of the recent (moved in a couple of years ago) tennants in the block of flats next door dosnt like the smoke from it every time he is outside smoking (about every 20 minutes) so I now position the brazier on bricxks etc on our lawn mid garden. I also fixed our robo vacuum cleaner. I think that it was just dust in one of the microswitches under the front bumper so tested it in the shed and all is working fine plus the shed floor is nice and clean. AN L & B modelling zoom meeting htis evening so must sort out soem photos of the recenlty built items that will be in use at the Tonbridge show.

I hadn't realised that I didn't post after the Hagley Freemo meet back last Summer. The power issues that we previously had in the juice factory area didnt materialise and the layout worked fine. I just wish that I was fully working back then but was in a lot of pain after missing the bottom stair tread at home a week previous. Luckily I am Ok now. This year the layout is 30, it was started around about this time of year but wasn't completed till just after we moved into our current house in the Summer of 1994. The layout will be out again this March at the Freemo South meet so I ma now working on the CSX operation lifesaver caboose that I picked up 2nd hand in 2022. Its had a lot of modifications such as infilling windows and cutting ones in different locations on the sides. Also the end rails have been completely rebuilt out of brass wire. It jus requires a different roof stove pipe. I am currently installing a Soundtraxx Soundcar decoder hat has been sitting around in my DCC box for many years. I have also jus repaired the DT 400 throttle that had an intermittent fault. Its the usual fault that the cable breaks where it goes into the throttle. A fiddly but easy repair by opening up the throttle, cutting the cable tie then cutting the cable and resoldering newly tinned ends onto the circuit board. All working again ready for their next outing with another layout in February. Fort Myers will also be out as a sand alone layout in September.

Enjoy We really liked the show when we took Banbury there some years ago.

There is a closer photo of it in the Surrey Support Group of the L and B book ' The Lynton and Barnstaple Railway' on page 58. I will pm you.