awoodford

I was sorry to read of the demise of the AFK website. However it should be noted that at least some of the AFK pages have been captured by the Internet Archive and can still be accessed. Unfortunately it appears that the photos have not been included. Still, the words of wisdom survive, and those fans already familiar with the AFK, may be able to follow the stories by filling in the pictures with their imagination! Alan.

Quote: "Is it not working automatically from the link?" It's OK, the link points to the right place. It's just the page won't load... a local problem I assume. I get the Internet through public library computers, which are riddled with Net Nannies and Policies, so I guess there's something in there that they take exception to. Alan.

Quote: "For those who don't click on the link you are missing much of the story." Sadly I haven't been able to access the website for over a year, for some unknown reason, so I appreciate being able to catch the 'match highlights' here at least. Keep them coming. Alan.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the intention for this incarnation of Tweedale was to make it a double deck system, by stacking modules on top of others like bricks. Some progress has now been made in that direction. The Castleport and Docks Branch modules were built before the double deck idea came along, and for best viewing they needed to be at a particular height. That meant everything else had to be fitted around them. As I wanted to operate both decks from a seated position, the new deck had to be inserted beneath the old. The frames at each end of the layout are where cassettes are located for transferring trains between decks. Due to the viewing constraints, the lower modules had to be restricted in height to a mere 7 inches. That in turn has forced the track layout to be fairly simple and near to the front edge. It will also require a low horizon to the scenery when I get that far. There are two station areas here, seperated by a longish 4 feet section of (literally at the moment) empty countryside, where the trains have a brief chance of stretching their wheels. The current track plan is shown here... In order to maximise the length of run, I'm treating the lower deck as if it represents two different sections of the route, as shown in the operational diagram below. Keeping everything synchronised, so that the Poshington to Castleport trains don't clash with the Mine to Tweemoor trains, all adds to the operating challenge. Note that although the gas works is actually located at Poshington, it is considered to be on the same branch as the power station, and both industries are worked by one trip out from Tweemoor. It will probably take some time before I get around to the scenery on the bottom deck. The next section to receive scenic treatment will be the industrial area at the top left of the layout, adjoining Tweemoor Yard.... However as the cold dark days approach, I've started winding down for my usual winter break from model making, so little else is likely to be added before next year. Cheers, Alan.

Tartaruga, thanks for your comment. ian, True there is a longer walk now, but at least the short cut across the stile is still there. Unfortunately the boozy excursions have now been discontinued, due to rowdiness, and replaced by a regular and respectable passenger service. No more communal singing on the way home, by order. Irish Padre, thank you. The hills were simply painted on thin card with 2 shades of grey emulsion, then 'colour tinted' (like old Victorian postcards) with thin watercolour washes, before being cut out and stuck onto the sky. NeilHB, thanks. I'm pleased with the way its progressing at the moment, and feeling more motivated which is a good sign.

As I continue to wallow about in Tweedale's little backwater of dubious freelancedom and outdated technology, I keep getting these feelings of deja vu. It started with the reappearance of Castleport. Now Tweemoor Yard has also made a comeback. If I'd known I would be going around in circles like this I would have hung on to the original versions! Although the new scene is not an exact copy of the original Tweemoor, there is a rather creepy family resemblance. I had a couple of 'givens' for this scene before I started. In the first place I particularly wanted a marshalling yard (if that's not too grand a description) at this location. Secondly I wanted it to be rural and act as a green belt against the creeping urban-industrial ribbon development that was threatening to take over. The Slaghill Low module had worked well here in the interim and fulfilled the first of these criteria, but not the second. There are only a limited number of track arrangements that can be fitted into these small scenes, so it was pretty well inevitable that the Inglenook configuration would crop up again for the yard. For the rural scenery it made sense to re-use the leftover trees from the original Tweemoor, which had been sitting in a box for years awaiting their resurrection. Then it occurred to me that it would all come together that much quicker, and with less thinking involved, if I more or less repeated what I'd done before. Thus Tweemoor was reborn. The bridge is there, the road at the front is there, so are the buildings at the back and the Jolly Poacher pub. As far as the railway is concerned the main differences are the addition of a kick-back carriage siding, where the railbus can rest its weary wheels between trips... ...and the relocation of the station. Mr Yardley the yardmaster can be seen sitting on the steps of his 'portacabin' looking a bit dejected, as well he might. He was enticed out of retirement by the promise of a more spacious yard office, only to find it consists of a disused camping coach brought up from the coast. How it survived the journey is anyone's guess. The company admits that it is in need of refurbishment, but adds that it is ideally situated and includes living accommodation, thus allowing Mr Yardley to work from home. The smell of rotting seaweed will no doubt fade in time, and he can brush up his handyman skills while off duty. A spot of weeding might be in order too while he's about it. Speaking of which, as I was running short of ballast I decided to embed the yard tracks in crud and weeds instead. This was done by draping strips of thin toilet tissue over the sleepers. The tissue was then fixed in place by carefully soaking it with slightly thinned grey emulsion paint, using a soft brush so as not to tear the paper, which easily disintegrated when wet. Once the painted tissue was dry it formed a hard crust. The impression of the sleepers was still discernible where the paper had sagged between, and they could be enhanced by dry brushing and weathering. Any wrinkles or holes were disguised with patches of weeds. The technique seems to work quite well on plain track, but is probably not very feasible for use on points. The new section has now taken its place on the layout, next to the Docks Branch module, and is busy earning its keep. More detailing could be done, but probably won't. I might do something about that jarring caterpillar-like hedge at the front though, before moving on to something fresh. Cheers, Alan.

Thank you Edwardian for the review, which I came upon by chance while idly scrolling through the forum and being hooked in by the word Amberdale. Like others here, I remember this layout from the MRJ article, and was blown away when I saw it then. I'm not an internet shopper, but I'll certainly be scrutinizing the exhibition bookstands in hopeful anticipation of finding the book there. As an aside, an even earlier version of Mr Harvey's ECR featured as Railway of the Month in the December 1957 edition of RM, when he was no'but a teenager, if I've done my sums right. Although that layout was very much of its time it inspired me as a youngster, and the article makes for interesting reading in the light of what he was to go on to achieve. As he writes there... "Indeed even now I am thinking of my next effort - which I hope will be a distinct improvement on the present layout - but that is well in the future." Aah, bless. Be careful what you wish for...! Alan.

Mikkel, thanks for your comment. From the start of the old project I had a nagging doubt as to whether I was taking on too much, so perhaps it was already pre-doomed back then. At least I'm feeling more confident in the new direction its taking.

Last year's slow listless progress on the layout was a sure indicator that all was not well. I finally came to the conclusion that I was being over ambitious in trying to build a room sized layout. Well I'm no stranger to giving up projects part way through, and the decision has now been made to abandon the large layout and go for something more manageable. The old benchwork has already been dismantled and the timber reused to just build a straight shelf along one wall rather than spread out into the room. The height has also been lowered. The former project had the baseboards at a height of four feet, designed to be operated from a standing/walking position. The new layout is at table top height and operated seated from a rolling chair. The viewing height with respect to the model is about the same in both cases, however the lower structure is a lot less overwhelming when you walk into the room. OK, its not looking particularly tidy at the moment, with a mixture of boxed and unboxed modules on top of the framework. In due course the older open modules will be enclosed and the scenery filled out. The layout itself currently consists of four of the pre-existing modules, with a few extra bits of track hanging off precariously. This is only a temporary arrangement in order to keep the trains running. Although the modules are plugged together in a different configuration to previously, they still allow the operations to continue much the same. The sketch below shows the current setup. The new long term idea for the layout is to eventually create a double deck system, with a couple of layers of modules stacked like bricks. Cassettes would be used to swap trains between levels (simulating an off scene passing place). The double deck scheme has been tested with mock ups and seems feasible. I found that if I restrict the module heights to around 8 or 10" it should be possible to run the both layers in a visually satisfactory manner from a seated position (adjusting the seat height accordingly). The extra deck is not likely to happen this year though. It may not happen at all if this turns out to be yet another dead end! But for now it serves as something to aim for and keeps the enthusiasm going. Meanwhile construction has started on a new module, four feet long, divided into two scenes. It will replace the Slaghill module at the left, which will be used elsewhere, but more on that as things progress. Cheers, Alan.

Thanks Corbs. The blog output was pretty sparse last year. I'll try and do better this year. Mikkel, thanks for your comment. The single industry seems to work alright, though wagons do also get dropped off to the far left and right of the scene on days when there is no coal traffic.

Although I was hoping to get the Docks Branch module finished before my usual winter break from modelling, it was not to be, and I've only recently got around to completing it. Or at least as completed as its likely to get. The image above shows an overall view. Although the original intention was to have several different rail-served industries along this branch, the coal wharf seems to have hogged the scene and pushed out the other potential customers. The main feature here is undoubtedly the crane. This was based on a photo of the contraption that used to crawl along the Holyhead breakwater dropping rocks into the sea. However the resulting model only retains a superficial resemblance to the original, and I've no doubt HM Inspector of Cranes would give it the thumbs down if he ever to found his way to this backwater. The crane model was constructed from cardboard, which is probably not the most obvious choice for such a structure, but it's a material I like working with. The whole thing was sealed with a couple of coats of Humbrol matt enamel, before being weathered with washes of poster paint. Operation Although the wharf has its place in the greater scheme of the layout's coal operations, I was concerned that the module might turn out to be an under-performer, with little scope for being drawn into the scene and absorbed by the action. I mean to say, all we have here is essentially a two foot long siding. Wagons are left at the coal wharf, then some time later they are removed. It looked like what was needed was some extra make-work in order to expand the amount of time spent here. To that end, I decided to try simulating the weighing of coal wagons on the weighbridge. If we take as an example the scenario of loading empty wagons with imported coal, this is how it goes... A rake of up to three empty wagons enter from the right, propelled by the loco, and are shoved one by one over the weighbridge. This is situated at the left hand end of the wharf so that the loco itself doesn't need to cross it. As each wagon sits on the weighing machine, empty weights are jotted down on a scrap of paper. These weights are actually provided by a little pack of cards on which random weights have been listed for the different types of wagon. I suppose an alternative might be to use a magnifying glass to read the tare weights off the side of each wagon. After weighing, the wagons are pulled back beside the bunker to be loaded. The virtual train crew then abandon their loco and sneak off to the Bankside Cafe for a cup of tea. I don't really have a clue as to how long it would actually take in real life to load a wagon with a crane like this, but I've allowed a token 15 minutes (Tweedale Railway Time) for each one. That gives the crew a relaxing three quarters of an hour for their cuppa. I hope they appreciate it. In reality the crane is not a working model, so while they are away I cheat by placing dummy loads into the wagons by hand. By the time I'm ready to resume, the crew have returned and the wagons are shoved back over the weighbridge, where random full weights are jotted down from the cards. Before the train finally departs, the actual loads are calculated. As Tweedale is set in the era of tons, hundredweights and quarters there's some head scratching involved, but hey, when you get to a certain age a bit of brain exercise is no bad thing. A 'ready reckoner' table for this calculation would be more efficient, but the whole point of all this palaver is to drag out the time here. All in all it adds about an extra 10 minutes of interaction and immersion in the scene. You have to be in the right mood though! Cheers, Alan.

Hi Corbs, I've had a break away from modelling over the winter, but I'm getting back into it again now, and trying to finish off the Docks Branch module. There should be an update in the next couple of weeks. Alan.

Quote: "How many of you are attracted to the post by the pictures?" I for one appreciate the highlights from the operating sessions shown here, as my 'heritage' internet access can't cope with the full session from the website. Ok I accept that's my problem, which could be overcome by throwing money at BT and upgrading to the 21st century. In the meantime however I would be sorry to miss out altogether on the everyday story of Altonian country folk. Alan.

Hi Corbs. '...crack on with scenery'. That made me smile. I always considered myself to be quite slow. I suppose it helped that the area was quite small and stuff could be re-used from the earlier version. BlackRat, thanks for the comment.

I was rather late getting back into the swing of modelling this year. The trouble was indecision over how to proceed, which brought everything to a grinding halt early on. While I was happy with the track design and operation of the layout, the overall appearance was a disappointment. The minimal scenery idea with which I was trying to speed up construction, by ignoring anything outside the boundary fence, hadn't really come up to expectations. I still liked the idea in principle, but I don't think it worked too well with the arrangement I had here. However the main gripe was the straggling nature of the beast. I guess I'm a small-layout man at heart, and I found these long sprawling scenes just didn't sit comfortably with me. So what to do? Carry on as normal and hope for the best, or think up some other way of continuing? By May I was getting frustrated at the impasse and lack of modelling. Finally I threw up my hands and decided to just leave this area of the layout to stew in its own juices for now. Instead I moved downdale to the Castleport end of the system, starting afresh on a couple of new modules, and back into my comfort zone by building them in a more conventional fish tank style. I started with a couple of box frames, constructed using the method described in an earlier post. They each measure 23x10x10 inches. The end of June saw them in the state shown below, with lighting and sky backgrounds added. The left hand scene represents an industrial branch serving the coal wharf and dockland. The track at the rear will be hidden behind buildings, just leaving the track along the waterfront visible. The odd looking structure seen at the left is the start of a concrete bunker for the coal wharf. The right hand scene is the Castleport station and town area, with part of a waterside mill in place. During July and August work concentrated on the Castleport scene, which is now almost finished and shown in the images below. Some buildings were re-used from the old Castleport, but there was not enough space here to fit in all the original town buildings. The station is quite an elaborate affair for Tweedale. The original inspiration was St Aubyn on the Jersey Railway, but then a local chap came along offering a cheap rate on some fancy 'art doily' fretwork for the train shed and I couldn't resist. I think his enthusiasm waned somewhat when he realised how quickly he was getting through jig saw blades, but like the fellow on the telly, he felt that having started he was obliged to finish. In the end you get what you pay for, and the general feeling among the Tweedalers is that at least this monument to bad taste is unlikely to withstand the onslaught of smoke, steam and salt-laden river damps for long. The mill at the other end of the scene was cobbled together from bits of the original. I'm not entirely happy with the part at the back, which will probably get reconfigured later. Road access is through the ancient town wall, what's left of it. The local authorities have insisted on crossing gates being installed here after a councillor got a horrible fright when he came dashing through the arch on his bicycle and found the morning goods bearing down on him. The railway company are still dragging their feet on the issue while they try to work out how to squeeze the gates into the restricted space. On the whole I'm pleased with the way the scene has come together. I'll finish the adjoining module next, then assess whether to continue the rest of the layout in this style. The supporting substructure on the main section of the layout would need extending before I could connect this pair of modules to the rest. Until then they will probably sit on a shelf as static dioramas for storing spare stock, but at least they served their purpose of freeing up the modelling deadlock. Cheers Alan

Thanks Don.

Hi Don, thanks for your input. The minimal scenery was not such a smart idea in hindsight. Unfortunately it was one of the foundations of the layout concept and the main strategy for reducing the build time. In fact I've been seriously thinking of going back to windowed scenes, but it would mean a pretty drastic upheaval, if not completely restarting from scratch. Operating interest is more important to me now than the looks. That wasn't always the case, just something that has grown in recent years. Thank you mpeffers. Its always nice to plan layouts, even if you know they'll never get built. I sometimes think there ought to be a repository for all the 'brilliant' but unfulfilled layout ideas folk dream up, so even if the originator takes them no furthur, someone else may find an idea there that is worth pursuing.

Thanks Rivercider. Your comments got me thinking that seasonal variations might be easily incorporated into the scheme described above, by simply biasing the initial counter positions above or below the centre line at the start of a month - a few rows above during the winter, a few rows below in the summer. Something else to try. David, thanks for your comments. I wouldn't know where to start getting this to work on a speadsheet! As to the other, it's true I've had some lengthy breaks away from the hobby in the past, but I reckon I'm pretty well glued in place now. Thanks Mikkel. I was quite pleasantly surprised at the effect that the plain building shapes at the back had on the look. Perhaps something like that is really all it needs. The stylised look doesn't bother me, and they do give an impression of industrial surroundings, but without having to build fully detailed models!

I'm not one for doing much modelling in the cold dark days of winter, and progress on the layout is only just starting to resume after fizzling out way back in the autumn. However the trains have been running regularly during the interval, and over the past few months the layout has become a testbed for trying out a new operating scheme, which has seen the line running as a single-commodity railway for the transport of coal. I'll start by saying that it is far from being a wholly realistic simulation of coal movement, but I find it interesting to operate, and that is really all I ask of it. The sketch above shows how the coal railway operations have been overlaid on the existing track plan by simply designating convenient locations for the purpose, regardless of what is actually on the ground. The inspiration for this scheme actually came from a 1960's-era card game called Stocks & Shares. The game basically involves buying and selling shares using Monopoly-style money, the winner being the one who makes most profit. The point of relevance here is that it has a rather neat randomisation system for fluctuating the share prices, which I thought I might be able to adapt as a way of varying the supply and demand for goods on Tweedale. For testing the idea I decided to just apply it to coal traffic. Shown above is the cardboard computer that controls the traffic movements. No doubt the digitally-minded would be able to do all this on an Excel spreadsheet or something. At the heart of the adaptation is a 'Load Indicator Card' on which counters indicate the current daily traffic (in wagon loads) for each industry. There are 19 rows and the number of columns depends on the number of industries. The first 4 columns here are for the customer demands (steel works, gas works, power station and coal merchant). The 5th column shows the daily output from the coal mine. The final column records the coal stockpile at the mine. The loads in the customer columns range from zero at the bottom to a maximum value equal to that industry's siding capacity at the top. The output values for the mine range from 0 to 8 (for no particular reason). A shuffled pack of cards controls the movement of the counters up and down the columns. There are 6 cards for each industry, with values of +4,+3,+2,-2,-3,-4. For the mine and 4 customers that equates to 30 cards. The idea is that as a card is picked from the pack, the appropriate counter is moved up or down by the number of rows indicated. Tweedale Railway's No.7 (ex Mainline J72) swaps empties for fulls at the mine's exchange sidings. Due to the low capacity of the sidings, several trips may be needed during the day. Basic scenery was added to this section in the autumn, along with a grey sky background and lighting from a single strip of LEDs. While this would probably give insufficient illumination for representing a bright sunny blue-sky day, it seems to work well enough with the dull overcast here. One of the things I like about this system is the way that it evolves. The traffic flows vary over time in an almost cyclic manner, rather than being completely unpredictable from one day to the next as in some of the more unruly randomisation systems around. After a while emerging trends can be detected, which allow planning ahead to a certain extent, such as the strategic placement of wagons for the following day. To initialise the game (I can't help but think of it as a game), the counters are placed in the middle row of the indicator, and the cards are given a good shuffle. I should add that the layout is run most days for about a half hour stint, and this fits in nicely with a day's worth of coal movements. Picking, say, one card per day from the pack to update the indicator, gives about a month's worth of play before reshuffling the cards. However the evolution of the traffic flows can sometimes be rather slow. As can be seen from the indicator photo above, moving a counter doesn't necessarily mean the number of loads will change. If I'm feeling impatient at having the same wagon movements for several days in a row, I may pick more than one card to help speed things up. This siding at Slaghill Junction is standing in as the gas works for now. Low relief shapes have been dropped down the back, pending more detailed structures later. To make them less obtrusive they were painted with the same grey emulsion as the sky background. I found this resulted in a very peculiar visual effect that makes them hard to focus on, but I kind of like it - sort of ethereal, if that's the word, as if the buildings are looming out of the smog. One other thing that needs to be dealt with is when the supply and demand drift too far out of balance, which they may do once or twice during a cycle of the pack. There are a couple of rules covering such eventualities, and this is where the coal wharf comes in. Rule 1 - If demand exceeds supply and the mine's stockpile drops to zero, coal supply is switched to imported coal from the coal wharf, until the stockpile at the mine has recovered to 8 wagon loads. Rule 2 - If supply exceeds demand and the mine's stockpile increases to more than 15 wagon loads, then excess coal is exported via the coal wharf, at 3 wagons per day, until the stockpile has dropped to the 8 wagon loads threshold. On the other side of the dividing backscene, the track is in place but little else. The coal merchant, wharf and power station are merely represented by temporary placeholders. The line in the foreground, currently in use as an industrial siding, will eventually form the main line to the coast. Health & Safety inspectors are gently steered away from this area of Tweedale! At the beginning of the day the indicator is updated by the clerk at the mine. The mine's output value is added to the stockpile column. After the clerk has calculated the number of empties required, he sends his order to the yardmaster. It's then time to take on the role of train crew and get busy, moving empty and full wagons between the yard, the mine and the customers' premises. As wagons are loaded at the mine (removeable loads), the stockpile value is reduced accordingly. I'm still tinkering with the system, but I like the way its going. While it may not get applied to general goods in the greater scheme of things as the layout expands, I can see it being useful for controlling a slowly evolving background movement of bulk traffic such as coal. Cheers, Alan.

Thanks Jeff. The buildings on Tweedale tend to be built smaller than they should be, but if the standard man can (in principle) get through a door and wander around a room without cracking his head then as far as I'm concerned its fine. Thanks Northroader. I guess it's all relative. The rolling stock is restricted to short wheelbase wagons and small shunting locos, and the rest is built to a size that still seems in keeping with the stock (to my eyes at least). If I was rash enough to undertake a reality check it would soon reveal that the platform is about the length of a mark1 coach, and a class 66 by itself would probably fill one of the marshalling yard sidings. Thanks CK. It is fun, both to build and operate. I reckon the best decision I ever made in this model railway lark was to stop taking it too seriously. Thank you Neil. Other worldly I can live with. Tweedale was never intended as an exercise in miniature realism. It is very much a Rule 1 layout. I do try to build it to a consistent style, and it is operated to a set of rules, but within limits I'm happy to incorporate any quirks and whims that take my fancy.

In the past few months since the last update, the main progress on the layout has been the addition of scenery in the Slaghill area. The photo below shows the shuttle railbus for Poshington waiting at the new Slaghill station... Those of you who remember the old layout may have noticed that while the original Slaghill station was perched on a viaduct this new one is at ground level. To get around the discrepency I'm reasoning that there were two stations in Slaghill, built by rival railway companies in the olden days, before being amalgamated under the Tweedale Railway banner. To distiguish this station from the former high level one, it has been named Slaghill Low (pronounced Slaggy Lur by the locals). 　 This overall view of the layout shows that scenery has now been added to two out of the three track boards depicted in the last blog post. Due to current difficulties in getting hold of materials, some of the larger constructional jobs that I would have liked to have completed, like baseboard tops, backscenes and layout lighting, have been defered until later. No matter, there are plenty of other jobs that can be done instead, just not in the orderly manner planned. 　 Zooming in on the relevant area... The combined length of these two sections (you can see the join near the signal box) is about 4'6". The knobs along the fascia are attached to wooden dowels for operating points. In the foreground is the junction section, where the lines from Upper and Lower Tweedale converge. The loco siding, situated in the fork, is used to stable the Slaghill shunter overnight, and refresh the steam loco that brings in the goods from Lower Tweedale during the day. The track leading off-scene at the far right currently terminates in a fiddle siding but will eventually be extended to Poshington and the coast. An extra siding has been added at the back of this section to serve a factory, but for the benefit of current operations is temporarily standing in as Poshington goods yard, for which a storage shed and coal heap have been provided but not glued down. 　 Moving on... The actual station area is confind to this 2'6" long section, and consists of three sidings arranged in the Inglenook fashion. The local shunter, a Bachmann 03, can be seen pottering in the sorting yard behind the station. The bridge in the background is supposed to represent a part of the high level line mentioned earlier. 　 The water tower is reputed to have been built by Italian POWs, which perhaps explains its resemblance to the decrepit example that Google shows standing in the port of Livorno here. I ought to add that the model was actually drawn up from an image grabbed several years ago and was better lit than the current Google view. As there is a more useful water tower located at the loco siding, this one may get moved elsewhere later. 　 A backscene will hide the woodchip wallpaper in due course, and there is a little space behind the boundary wall for some low relief buildings, which I think will probably be needed to add more interest along the back. My initial ideas of confining scenery to just that concerned with the railway are being gradually eroded. 　 Here we are back at the station, and it looks like there's another soot storm approaching... In order to test out different ideas for the sky background, I painted up some boards in different shades that could be slipped along the back to try out for effect. This one is in black, which certainly makes the models 'pop', and I quite like the novelty of it, but it's probably not something I'd want to stare at for years to come. 　 The group of industrial buildings next to the station were another Google find, this time from Moscow. Sorry, I've lost the link, and life's too short to trudge around the city looking for it again. The attraction was the pleasing assortment of shapes. I have no idea of their purpose. Although the station here acts as a terminus for passenger trains, the intention is to extend the line in the foreground over a level crossing to a steel works. By the way, the character in the blue coat, red scarf and zapata moustache is Tweedale's 'standard man'. A lot of the layout's buildings are just drawn up freehand on card without measurement, and it is his job is to inspect door clearances, ceiling heights and so on for 00 accessibility. Cheers, Alan. 　

Thanks for your comments folks. Quote Corbs: "I know I bang on about RC a lot, but such an idea would be ideally suited to battery power, radio control as it would not require any track wiring." That would certainly help. The simpler the system is for connecting up the better. Quote Gordon A: "Could the baseboards be made wider to include trackside buildings such as a goods shed, warehouse, factory or other industry?" The boards I'm using here will eventually be expanded out to contain scenery. I've just temporarily attached some edging to the bare track boards here to tidy them up for the photos. Quote Northroader: "Dunno about the showmanship and pizzazz, blondes in short skirts might distract the punters too much." Personally I think there's not enough showmanship at shows, but yes within limits. Quote FraserClarke: "I would have thought there is also a family of configurations with the loop in the middle?" Yes you're right. I don't know how I missed those. It looks like they would add another 6 variations to the collection. Quote Neil: "My own taste would be to include some scenery but I know that this would make the joins between models harder to manage unless there was a standard scenic end as well as a standard track end. Maybe each section could bulge out in the middle for the sscenic bit and narrow to just the trackbed for the join?" I agree. I've not really gone into the details but there are quite a few things that would need to be considered for the flexible table-top system. As well as matching scenery at the ends (maybe just a short areas of scrub?), a more robust method of track alignment than the rail joiners I'm using here would also be advisable, also the wiring and electrical connections would need thought, if not going for the RC suggested by Corbs above. OK, as I'm just about to lose my Internet access for the duration, I'll leave you here now and wish you all good health. I'll catch up with you again whenever. Alan.

One layout scheme that has nagged me over the years has been that of a table-top modular system. That is, small scenic boards with simple track arrangements that can be plugged together in any configuration on a table top. I suppose it's just the next level up from set-track really. I've mentioned it before in an earlier post, but it didn't get much further at the time. However the idea has never completely gone away and the system of self-contained track modules that I'm currently using for Tweedale is a direct descendant, but for different reasons. Here the main purpose of the small modules is to allow easy construction on a workbench away from the layout itself. So far I have three of the boards wired up and working, but as yet without the scenery... Together they represent the line from Slaghill (background) to the Upper Tweedale exchange sidings (foreground), and provide enough scope for some simple shunting. Before adding more modules, I'll add scenery to these and experiment with different methods of lighting and presentation. 　 Now I hope you don't mind while I go off at a tangent for the rest of the post. As I had the boards lying around loose, I got to musing on the table-top system again, and wondered just how many workable combinations of these three modules I could make. As you can see, they consist basically of a small yard, a junction, and a loop. A quick calculation showed that in principle there were 72 possible ways they could be connected. However half of those were repeats (but rotated 180 degrees), while some others were unworkable as they would require additional headshunts. In the end I drew out the track plans on pieces of paper, shuffled them about, and whittled them down to 16 workable combinations... Furthermore there were also 8 workable configurations using just 2 out of the 3 modules... 　 For those who are into micro layouts and shunting puzzles, it seems to me this could form the basis for a small industrial shunting system, but with more operating flexibility than the usual micro. That is, once you get tired of the limitations of one configuration you could shuffle the modules for whole new operating experience. It must be said that some of the arrangements would be more satisfying to run than others. 　 Having got this far in my musing, the next obvious step was to consider taking such a system to an exhibition (which is unlikely but never say never). The first thing would be to pre-book a 6 foot table from the venue, then just take along a few modules, with some stock and a controller, and plonk them down in a random configuration on a dark cloth laid over the table. After a period of shunting I would then endeavour to amaze the onlookers, by taking it all apart and rearranging it into a new configuration (with a bit of showmanship and pizazz of course). Not only would it provide relief from the Small Layout Operating Boredom Syndrome, but it would also give the viewers a whole new perspective on the display. 　 Being set up on a table the viewpoint would be essentially birdseye, and I would make the most of this by giving the modules smoothly curved freeform edges, (bulging out to accomodate scenery), to give the overall display an eye-catching organic shape, as I've tried to depict in the diagrams above. To tidy it up I would also be inclined plug in rounded 'caps' with buffer stops to the truncated track ends. There would be no backscenes - the birdseye view combined with the dark tablecloth should be sufficient to frame the display. Scenically, I reckon a mine, quarry or other straggling single industry would work well. Another option might be an urban canyon, lining the tracks with factories and wharehouses, cropped at the module edges, but also with gaps between to provide interesting sight lines along the tracks for those with cameras or willing to stoop for an eye-level view. One thing that soon became obvious after playing around with these 2'6" modules, is that for the table-top system I'm describing they should ideally be shorter, say less than 2 feet. Actually the whole scheme would probably be better done in narrow gauge. Being more compact and with sharper curves, the display could then take on even weirder shapes. With enough modules it could become positively rococo. Now that certainly would have visual impact. 　 Anyway this has just been a digression into a flight of fancy. Make of it what you will. Next time I'll get back to the layout proper. 　 Cheers, Alan.

Thanks John.

Hi Ben B, thanks for your comments. I found that adding the extra contact definately improved the electrical pickup. The chassis is rather zippy though. I use a Gaugemaster feedback type of controller but it needs a gentle touch.