jayvid

Hi everyone I have finally got around to doing the Glenngary Tramway update No9.This one has news and a look at the “train room” where it all happens Gary

This year’s Scarborough and District Railway Modellers Annual show proved to be very busy for Dianne and I on the Glenngary Tramway Stand. The number of “ I drove the trams “ cards issued rising from around 150 last year to just over 200 this time . As usual the Pork and apple pies provided by the catering team were in great demand!! A video of this year’s event is now available below The photo shoot we did with Chris Nevard last year has now appeared in print and an extra bonus is that it will be current until the next issue is published in spring 2017. Gary

With 2 weeks to go to the Scarborough and district modellers annual show preparations are well under way. Details of layouts attending are being posted by the clubs chairman in the exhibitions tab on this site. We shall be in our usual position in the entrance foyer of the venue, please come up and say hello. Work on Dianne’s new layout (Evan Quarry) has continued with some key decisions being made. The layout is in 009 scale and following testing will be DCC controlled, initially using the Hornby select system as we have one spare. One overriding factor of the layout is the weight when complete – to solve this we have being experimenting in how to represent slate without actually using real slate. Initial experimentations have proved realistic in their appearance so feel we are on the correct path. The picture below is a mock-up of the first loco and some lightly loaded wagons with the scenery behind partially complete. Two new videos have been uploaded, the first being a trip to Beamish and the second features the North Bay railways new steam loco “Georgina”. That’s all for now - Gary

Following yet another bad chest infection resulting in a 2am trip to A&E, the outcome of which was a short high dose of steroids that worked wonders and the cough that I had endured for 2 years disappeared overnight. BUT ,coming off the steroids produced the mother of all hang overs lasting 3 days. Dizziness being the main problem so we had no option but to pull out of this weekend’s SDRM mini exhibition at Pickering Station. This is the first event that we have failed to attend and the decision was not taken lightly. So our next outing will be the SDRMs annual show in August details of which the clubs chairman will be posting shortly in the exhibitions tab of RM web. Work on Dianne’s slate quarry layout (Evan Quarry) continues, I have taken some pictures but have yet to persuade her to let me post them. The video viewing figures continue to improve so we will look at some new venues to visit in the near future. That’s all for now Gary (cough free for now)

Over the last couple of weekends we have had the opportunity to visit two very different railways, Both manned almost entirely by bands of dedicated volunteers . The first is west Yorkshires Shipley Glen cable Tramway back up and running following trackbed damage from the extensive floods at the end of 2015. The second is The Bowes Railway situated in the Durham coalfield. This listed site is a fascinating mix of railway and coal mining and tells the story of how the coal that had been extracted from deep underground was moved from high in the hills to the river Tyne via a series of cable hauled inclines. The venue has struggled for funding over the years but the small band of volunteers keep this important part of our industrial heritage alive.

With the first of this year’s SDRM mini shows held at the North Yorkshire moors railway now behind us, the rebranded Spring Steam Gala became the Scottish Branch Line Gala. Held over two consecutive 3 Day weekends attendance was on the whole good but with quieter interludes between train arrivals . The modifications done to permit us to change the tramcars more easily proved a success and we ran different sets of cars each day, the display lighting being adjusted to compliment the cars on duty. During a quieter moment a timer circuit was tested which controls the 12volt supply to the smoke unit . Instead of the smoke unit running all the time (if switched on) it now turns on as the cars start to move and stops as the cars reach the creep point on approach to the stations , the result is the smoke slowly diminishes as the cars slowly pull into the stations. The effect is much more realistic . The Gala shows were filmed with the intension of it forming the Glenngary tramway Update 9 but a change of plans has seen it uploaded under the SDRM banner. Update 9 will appear in due course . The second video is of the Central tramway here in Scarborough. That’s all for now Gary

The Trams have been retrieved from storage and we have spent the day servicing and testing them for their first outing of the season. The top station mounting has been modified to enable us to run different tramcars on consecutive days at shows, this has previously been impractical due to the time it took to set up the micro switches etc. A complete set of new batteries were required for the tramcar lighting and other effects ,only £20 ….Sob. And that’s on top of the £70 for cards and flyers and we haven’t turned a wheel yet! We kick off with two consecutive weekends (6 – 8 & 13 – 15 May 2016) at the NYMR in Pickering North Yorkshire for their Scottish Branch line Gala, this replaces the advertised Steam Gala cancelled due to the visiting locomotives becoming unavailable for reasons beyond the NYMRs control. Two new videos are now available on the Youtube channel ,viewing figures have been low so no need to queue. Gary

Our programme of events for the coming season has now been confirmed and is as follows 6/7/8 May North Yorkshire Moors Railway. late Spring steam Gala week 1 13/14/15 May North Yorkshire Moors Railway. late Spring steam week 2 9/10 July North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Classic Vehicles Weekend 20/21 August Scarborough and District Railway Modellers annual show. Pickering Memorial hall. 1/2 October North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Autumn Steam Gala 8/9 October Hornby Great Electric Train show. Gaydon As Dianne and I still work this program of events fit in nicely with our other commitments. The trams will shortly be brought out of storage and given a full shakedown test at home before the first outing. A few weeks ago Dianne was on a visit to Essex and took time out to film the Southend Cliff lift . This has now been edited and is available below. I have finally got round to doing Update 7 this one deals with the evolution of tramcars “Gemma” and “Dianne”. Previous updates are available on my Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/glenngarytramway Gary

The trams continue there winter slumber as we eagerly await our first outing of the year in May. Club nights see us working on Diannes 009 gauge quarry layout (a big test of the eyesight going from gauge 1 of the trams to 009 of the new project). We know the dates of the proposed outings for later in the year but getting confirmation is proving frustratingily illusive but as soon as we get it we will let you know. Two videos are now available the first is a re-edit of the trams pictorial walkthrough brought right up to date. The second is the Llechwedd slate quarry deep mine funicular

27/02/2016 We now have a clearer idea of the events we will be attending during 2016. Sarborough and District railway modellers club have been asked again by the North Yorkshire Moors Railway to provide a selection of layouts for display in the education centre at Pickering Station on a number of Gala weekends. We will be kicking off proceedings with two consecutive 3 day weekends on May 6,7,8 and May 14,15,16. (Late spring steam gala ). Further dates will be added in due course. The trams will start the new season pretty much as they finished 2015 as the last batch of upgrades weren't implemented until towards the end of the year. I have made a short Glenngary tramway Promo video for exhibition managers and included it with our details in the Exhibition layout database on this site ( an excellent resource ). A second video is of the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway Porthmadog Station

The first post of 2016 brings mixed news, due to reasons beyond our control we have been unable to confirm any additional outings for the trams for the coming season. This leaves us at present with only two outings this year, The SDRM annual show in August and The Great Electric Train show in October. On a more positive note we can confirm that we will be at the Lincoln show in 2017, the conversation for this started in late 2014 so it just goes to show how far ahead some exhibition managers are working. We at the SDRM club are working hard on our 2016 show but 2017 and 2018 are also being planned as well.The clubs exhibition manager has indicated he would like us to attend right through to 2018 which will be the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Scarborough And District Railway Modellers Club. We will continue to try and find some work for the trams but this may prove to be a rather quiet year for us but time will tell !!! The last video I posted, The Talyllyn Railway, does not appear to work on all viewing devices this is down to copywrite limitations on the audio track .sorry about that but Pc and laptops should be ok. A new video which will work on all platforms is posted below it took forever to put together I hope you enjoy it. Gary

13 December 2015 End of term report. Can it really be a year since the last report ! 2015 has seen us attend six events with fourteen exhibiting days plus setup days. The system has covered around 12,000 metres during the year. We have had two parts fail this year one major and one minor. The major componant was the combined motor and gearbox which slowly ground to a halt over the course of an afternoon but was diagnosed and replaced after close of business ready for the next day. The minor item was a newly fitted smoke unit not crucial to operations. During the course of the year the trams have undergone the biggest upgrade to date with the addition of the rear cliff face, This addition has prompted a lot of interest from exhibition managers for possible future invites . Dianne and I still both work so any invites to shows have to be juggled with work commitments and we can soon use up our holiday days ( roll on retirement ). 2016 has two confirmed dates in the diary with others still to be sorted. The Glenngary Tramway website continues to be updated as does the facebook page and the Rmweb blog has now passed the 5500 hits mark. The you tube channel has been slowly growing with some videos doing better than others, relevant ones are posted on Rmweb but the others have to rely on people stumbling on them amongst the thousands posted daily. The tramway update videos have received no feeback whatsoever and considering the time they take to produce them it remains to be seen whether i will continue with them. Those of you who have seen update 5 will know of the new layout we are building. the baseboard has been made and legs attached.The track layout is in the process of being worked out. The latest visit video is available below Thats about it for 2015 we hope to be back in 2016 and would like to wish you all the compliments of the season Gary and Dianne

Last weekend (7th /8th November) we attended our final exhibition of 2015 courtesy of the Barnsley Model railway club. This was a perfect way to round off our show commitments for this year ,with our hosts making us most welcome. We were kept busy most of the time but when I got the chance Dianne manned the stand so I could record some of the sights and sounds the show had to offer. The first of the videos from our recent visit to Wales is now available and is of the Centre for Alternative technology (CAT) Funicular railway. This system is water balanced and one of the steepest in the world. The trams will now receive a good service and touch up where required. Next years program of events will be posted in the exhibitions tab on the Glenngary tramway website as and when they are confirmed. http://www.glenngarytramway.co.uk/#Homepage Gary

Hi Out and about in Wales prior to our last exhibition of 2015 .Plus a surprise sighting at the end Gary

Video Update No4 is now available Gary

Hi everyone I am sat at home laid low with the bad chest and cough most of Yorkshire seems to have at the moment , so video update 4 is on hold until i can string more than a dozen words together without a 2 minute coughing fit ! . The first three videos have been available for a week or two but it has been difficult to know how they have been received as there has been no feedback good or bad. YouTube have a number of views counter but for some reason on some videos it under reports as i have been present at viewings on 3rd party computers that have not been counted,so this does not give an accurate picture. Each video takes about six hours to produce which I enjoy doing ( slow going as I am still learning to use the video editing software) but if members don't like them in this form then I can go back to doing them as before . We have now passed the 5000 views milestone on this thread so its seems people are still interested in the topic and for that i am truly grateful. Following our our return from the last of this years Pickering Station mini shows the only maintenance job to be done is to rectify a broken wire on the led string around the top station roof. One problem we have encountered since the fitting of the back scene is that when we are sat at the back of the layout we cannot see if anyone is stood at the front. It was hoped that the drivers eye view camera would have sufficient field of view to serve both purposes,but this is not the case. To allow us to monitor the output from the drivers eye camera at the rear of the layout a small video screen was employed, fortunately this has the ability to accept two video inputs so a second camera has been ordered and will be mounted in the motor/ winding room with a view out of the window. The angles are such that the camera can be set to one side and not be obvious when looking at the winding gear from outside. For those who are interested videos of SDRM layouts and "Visits " are also available on my YouTube channel . www.youtube.com/channel/UCMbJDe21MJLy3YuR7SFfROQ Gary

3rd video update.This time we pay our last visit of 2015 to Pickering Station with the SDRM club. Gary

Second video Update is now available Gary

A new Tramway update in video format. This is my first attempt at a video style update so please bear this in mind. comments good or bad would be welcome Gary https://youtu.be/ti-ggc7a-eQ

Back home following the SDRM annual show at Pickering. Three words sum up this years event Friendly,Busy and hot ! It was nice to see old faces again and meet many new ones. Attendance was high again with the stands kept busy for most of the weekend.Saturday was a very warm and humid day and the catering team handed out well in excess of 100 bottles of chilled water to traders and exhibitors on that afternoon alone,and much appreciated they were too ! Sunday had a nice breeze blowing through the venue so much so that the flags on the tramways flagpoles stared moving quite realistically. The trams ran faultlessly all weekend despite the high temperatures with just a couple of minor maintenance tasks to do before the next outing. We chose to run the green cars ( Carli and June) as it would have been June Normans 81st birthday during the week . The recent changes made to the overall look of the trams seems to have prompted no less than four possible invites to other shows plus the club have booked us again for next years event. Gary

Day to day living has continued to preclude any chance of modeling and with the SDRM clubs annual show fast approaching Dianne and I managed to attend a club night last week. Once we got the usual banter on the lines of " Would you like to fill in a membership form and meet rest of the team" out of the way it was catch up time. With 2 weeks to go to the annual show all the planning undertaken by the event committee starts to come together and club members get to know there individual roles. The publicity team have been hard at it for the past few weeks visiting retail outlets, holiday parks and the odd pub or three spreading he word. Last years show exceeded all expectations so this year the exhibition manager has pulled out all the stops to do even better ! The club chairman has started a thread on the show over in the Exhibitions tab on this site. On there you will find all the details you may require about the venue and layouts attending etc. ​As a club member and layout owner inclusion in the annual show is never guaranteed or expected so to be invited for our sixth year is extremely satisfying. The small footprint of the tramway probably works in our favor in this respect. ​Each new season we take the trams out we try to have something new to see, so with the addition of the backdrop we come to this years show with our biggest transformation to date. If you are visiting the SDRM show at the Pickering Memorial hall on the 22/23 August don't forget to come and have a chat and a drive on the up and downy thingy in the foyer. Enjoy the show Gary

Its been a very busy three weeks in the Norman household so sorry for the delay in this update but here goes. The Diesel Gala at the NYMR proved to be a very quiet affair due to the Saturday clashing with the Armed forces day spectacular in near by Scarborough and a forecast of wind and rain for the Sunday. The new back scene seems to have transformed the model dramatically and was well received by those who had seen it before and after. For sometime the SDRM club members had been saying the model would benefit from some form of backdrop but I was unsure how it would look or be achieved. It just goes to show that sometimes you can be too close to the subject yet not see what others can ! The new rear mounted video screen was ideally placed and proved its worth during the weekend as we can be singly manned but still take the opportunity to sit and rest tired feet whilst still keeping watch on proceedings out front. The only problem of the weekend was the new smoke unit in the top station decided to take the healthy option and quite smoking so a new one is on order.to be fitted before the next outing. Two new videos are available on my YouTube channel. The first is a SDRM club visit to the North Bay Railway in Scarborough with club members having the opportunity to drive the loco. And the second a visit to a nice little narrow gauge line at the Wolds Way Lavender Farm near Malton North Yorkshire Gary

Here are some pictures of the revised display as promised.

This weekend (27th and 28th June ) sees us return to the N.Y.M.R. Awesome Seventies and Diesel Gala at Pickering Station. This event is two gala's combined so has the potential to be very busy. This is the first outing for the trams since the completion of the most extensive modification and additions since they where converted for exhibition use. what works in the club room does not always perform as anticipated in a show environment so thing could be interesting to say the least. If time allows I will take some photos of the new display to post later. We have passed 4,000 views of these ramblings and I hope people still find them of interest. Last week Dianne and Gemma attended a show at the Spa complex here in Scarborough and as the parking near the venue is always a nightmare we parked at the top of the cliff on the esplanade and made use of the Spa cliff lift. Whilst the girls watched the show I took the opportunity to film the lift in action. It was a dull evening with drizzle in the air but it does not look to bad film wise. https://youtu.be/cdOp3ky5ZWI

Having decided to retain the cliff face backscene and extend it beyond both the bottom station and up above the top one has presented a lot of challenges to be overcome. When the system was rebuilt for indoor use no provision was made to mount a backscene onto so fixings and support points have had to be fabricated. A major concern has been the weight of the main body as Dianne has to assist in lifting it in and out of the car. with this in mind the llightest of materials have been used and the extension pieces simply clip on and are transported separately. To extend the cliff down the front of the incline required the careful removal of the exhibitions attended plaques and stickers for reuse elsewhere. The led light strip which illuminated this area was also moved lower down to just above the name board. To allow the operator to see the cars in operation the drivers eye video camera and screen system has been upgraded to give a video feed to a second display screen mounted at the rear control panel. Other work done includes the relocation of the chimney on the top station. This was required as a smoke unit could not be fitted in the old position due to clearance issues with the drive motor. The old poly-carbonate cover which provided protection during transport and storage no longer fitted due to the modifications so it has been scrapped in favor of a waterproof cover of the type used for outside barbecues. With all this work done a complete setup and test session was done in our dining room, Not easy as it only just fits! During this session I dug out the camera to take some low light shots but was severely limited by the lack of space for the tripod. A few pictures are below with more in the Galleries tab on the Glenngary website .http://www.glenngarytramway.co.uk/