ian

carry without managing

had already eaten

And guess what arrived this morning? My new Seep point motor. Public thanks to DCC Supplies for their speedy service.

which immediately caused

penguin to become

If you are upset by ranting, look away now! I have made a decision. In future, unless I happen to be going past the door of a suitable retailer or attending an exhibition, I shall obtain my modelling supplies by post. Let me explain. This weekend's project was to complete the wiring of the point motors on Hatton so that it would be possible to operate it from the control panel, rather than moving from end to end to switch points. Working on the centre board which has two crossovers I found that one of the points didn't want to respond. The 'oomph' comes from a MasterSwitch - one for each pair of points - so should have been capable of moving the two Peco point motors on each crossover. Checking the wiring back everything was OK and one point of the pair worked OK so I unclipped the motor from the bottom of the point and tried it 'free'. Both motors now worked happily so I examined the point, Peco Code 55, and found that it had an over-zealous over-centre spring. Attempting to ease the spring pressure in place resulted in a point without an over-centre spring . Retreating to the stores I looked for a Peco adaptor base with the spring in place to retrieve the situation. No joy. However I found an old Seep point motor that would do the job - unfortunately once it was mounted on something to cover the Peco point motor hole, the trimmed arm wasn't long enough to reach the tiebar. Never fear, it was Saturday afternoon and I had two possible solutions that could be provided by any half-way decent model shop. There are two model shops within twenty minutes drive of me, albeit in opposite directions. One caters to the plastic kit, locomotive collector and train set brigade and I knew that they wouldn't have either of the items I needed. The other did, at one time, have a good variety of stock but has, of late, been going downhill. In the past year I have tried, and failed, to buy various items that I have needed from rail joiners (in both N and OO), backscenes and a Peco low-current point motor to a newly released Dapol Fruit D - without success. None the less I have usually purchased something just to encourage them to keep going. So twenty minutes later I roll up at the shop. Saturday afternoon and apart from the proprietor for the duration of my visit I was the only customer. I examined the stock of Peco sundries - no adaptor bases. I examined the other electrical items. No Seep point motors. I examined the secondhand stock (getting desperate here, but there might be an old H&M or something that I could use...) - no joy. With a sinking feeling I surveyed the stock in the emporium looking for inspiratiion. Then I looked more closely at the stock and played a little game. What if I had vast amounts of money to spend here and now? What would I buy? Bearing in mind that I have my OO blue diesel Redhill layout, the two purely proprietary OO Shake-the-Box layouts, Hatton Parkway in N plus another couple of 'possibly one-day' projects I was astounded to find that the answer was NOTHING. By and large the stock looked exactly the same as the last time that I had tried, and failed, to buy something there. Having wasted an hour of my time and a couple of pounds worth of petrol I came to the conclusion that it was easier and cheaper to order on-line. It took less than ten minutes to order the Seep point motor (and a DCC variant of the MasterSwitch for experimentation) - despite the model shop proprietor claiming that they were unobtainable at the moment. Whilst I was at it I ordered a Dapol DB Schenker Class 66 (I'd got that down as an 'If I see it at the model shop, I'll have one') that was being offered at a good price, post free. Whilst I was on a roll I found someone who would supply the three dozen 3mm LED clips that I need for the control panel without an eye-watering postal charge or minimum order. In less time than it took to not get what I wanted at the model shop everything was ordered and should turn up during the coming week. As that meerkat says, "Simples".

bucket tipped over

in the dark

closed on Tuesdays

Whilst I fully accept that in the UK space is at a premium (and yes - I spent years drolling over some of the layouts featured in US magazines) but lack of space and 'system' operation are not mutually exclusive. Whilst I exclude the minimum space layouts from this, even a small space will allow for operations. My Shake-the-box layout, Walton, is a case in point. Whilst I have only built the terminus it was designed as part of a larger system that allows you to operate a full branch line. The full scheme is envisaged to occupy 15' x 2' along a garage wall - or an equivalent 'L' or 'U' space. In 'N' you'd have an 8' x 1' shelf - that would go just about anywhere. Mind you, a BIG UK operating layout would be a joy to behold .

Whilst I am putting in yet more wires on Hatton Parkway to get all the point motors working I thought that I'd take time out to do some musing (they can't touch you for it, you know). Back in the days of yore there were model railways that put the emphasis on the railways rather than the model. This is something that is still big in the US - models of large sections of railway systems rather than a single station, or part of one. Currently the UK hobby seems to be concentrated on producing rather nice models of a specific location (be it real or imagined) rather than portraying how a chunk of the rail network works and interacts. Those of you of a certain age, or more, will remember layouts like Jack Ray's Crewchester, Norman Eagles' Sherwood Section and Peter Denny's Buckingham - all of which were models of railway systems where trains went from place to place, in some cases with intermediate stops or alternative routes. Whilst the models were all individually built, rather than taken out of a box, none the less they weren't the stars of the show, instead they were just actors in the show that was operating the layout like the real thing. Many people hold up John Ahern's Madder Valley, now preserved at Pendon Museum, as the first true scenic layout but overlook the fact that it was designed to be interesting to operate as well. The various industries gave a purpose to the freight movements and the various modelled communities gave a reason for the passenger operations. The 'grand-daddy' of UK 4mm operations was Edward Beal. During the 50s and 60s he published a stream of articles and books about building 4mm models and how to use them to portray real operations. If you come across a copy of his book WEST MIDLAND: A Railway in Miniature I'd strongly advise sitting down with it. It is a fascinating read and whilst much of its content is dated it still provides much food for thought. Today we are fortunate in that we can sit at a computer screen and order finely-detailed locomotives that run smoothly, accurate coaches and freight wagons to a constant scale and scale miles of track at the wave of a plastic card. We can add virtually any type of scenic embellishment we like, all without raising a sweat if we so choose. So where are the operating empires of today? Where are the layouts with four or five stations with freight terminals, branches and visibly different types of traffic? Maybe it is just me, but the layouts I remember reading about in my youth that left the biggest impression were not the large 'railway in a landscape' single (or no) station scenic spectaculars, but the ones that replicated a significant slice of railway. Good narrow gauge does this - after all you can model a whole line and often get the spectacular scenery thrown in, US outline layouts (in the US) have it down to a fine art. Perhaps it is time for a few more of us in the UK to think about using the current crop of ready-to-play products to create models railways rather than model stations? Now, where did I put my tin hat?

After a long pause I have been able to resume work on Hatton Parkway and have got the last of the power wires connected up - so it's time to play trains! This Farish XC Voyager is a replacement for a Dapol Virgin one. The Farish uses the same type of coupling as the Bachmann OO one - nowhere near as easy to use as Dapol's magnetic version. A Chiltern Railways unit from Marylebone on its way to Birmingham. I'm not sure what the Arriva unit is doing - deputising for a London Midland unit away for repaint perhaps? An unusual working for a Bardon liveried 66. Another loco that needs replacing with something more suitable. And finally, that coal train. It seems to appear regularly. The 57 needs replacing too!

Hatton Parkway is another project layout. This time, for a change, it is 'N' and contemporary operations. The idea is to move on from the 'Shake-the-Box' style layout and use flexible track, some kit-built structures and more advanced electrics. The thread on the old forum can be found here. The layout was originally named Kingsbury Parkway. Kingsbury is situated just outside the West Midlands conurbation, not too far from Tamworth. By amending history a little it could serve as a suitable location for a park and ride service into Birmingham (instead of the real one at Coleshill). However I have amended the location (for reasons that may, or may not, be revealed later ) to Hatton on the old GW line between Leamington Spa and Birmingham Moor Street/Snow Hill. This is the trackplan, to help make sense of the photos. The scenic treatment has changed a bit with respect to the car park and industrial estate area. The fiddle yard has two 'clockwise' roads (top), two ;anti-clockwise roads (bottom) and two bi-directional roads (middle) for multiple units. The bi-directional roads are both split in two electrically as are one of each of the clockwise and anti-clockwise roads giving a maximum capacity of 10 trains. Park and ride DMUs (one or two 2-car sets) will run from a centre road anti-clockwise, over the crossover and into the bay. In the bay it will be possible to add or remove a 2-car set for stabling in the headshunt. Return to Birmingham will be from the bay, clockwise to a centre road. Other passenger services, DMU & Voyager will run both clockwise and anti-clockwise from the centre roads round the layout, stopping or not at the mainline platforms. Freight services will be run by fixed rakes which will run either clockwise, from the top roads, or anti-clockwise from the bottom roads. The layout is 9'x2' and the grid squares are 6". Town planning in progress - the buildings are all from Hornby's Lyddle End range. This is the bridge that will go over the station providing a scenic break. It is a Scalescenes kit.