TEAMYAKIMA

This is very welcome news, but if we want it to succeed then WE have to put our money where our mouth is - and GO! I have put my cards on the table some time ago - my hobby is exhibiting my model railway, in other words I build a model railway in order to exhibit it. Consequently, I need exhibitions to continue and in order to continue they need to thrive and so, I'll be going!

Thanks, Yes, with less background noise and with the low ceiling the banked train really sounded good. And it's actually a 19 car passenger train - not unusual in China!

OK, back to the real world............................. We had a very good session at the recent Alton exhibition with several new ideas tried out with great success. 1. We tried out some new lights (in addition to the existing light strips in the pelmet) which have a choice of three different colour balances - harsh white, orange and a 50/50 mix. We had a team vote and we unanimously chose the orange setting. This was just a trial, now I will be buying more for future exhibitions. 2. We have several new operating protocols - one of which was a great success. We now stop all mainline operation when a banked train is ready to go up-hill as having main line trains 'out front' tends to over-shadow the banked train move on the industrial. In fact, the exhibition hall which we were in was quite small and consequently there was relatively little background noise and so the banked train with three sound fitted 2-8-2's was very impressive and the low ceiling only helped to boost the effect. 3. I had managed to adjust the CV's of the USA 0-6-0t so that it could, for the first time, play a full part on the industrial system. 4. After one relatively minor track tweak, the industrial system worked virtually 100% reliably all weekend. Photos to be posted shortly

We had a great time exhibiting BEIJIAO at the Alton show last weekend, but we were so busy running trains that we didn't take any photos of the layout - does anyone reading this have any? Thanks

As someone who has accepted the invitation, allow me to explain - lunches and teas and coffees will be provided as at a normal show. Hotels - TBH my team are quite happy about the way this is being done (at least one club show is also adopting this approach). The issue is that we are normally allocated an hotel - this is often miles from a decent pub - this way we can choose our hotel and our location.

I think every exhibition should (wherever possible) have a good mix and whilst I certainly agree that small layouts are more likely to inspire a beginner in the sense of "I could make something like that in my one bedroom flat", I do think that big layouts with lots of movement and long trains do have a certain "WOW!" factor and maybe appeal to a slightly different audience with a slightly different agenda i.e. they come to shows to see and experience layouts which they couldn't build in their one bedroom flat.

Tony Are you sure about that? I have exhibited at three Warners shows and never been offered expenses for evening meals.

I am very pleased to announce that my Chinese HO layout, BEIJIAO, has been invited to this NEC event and I was delighted to accept.

I am really surprised that, in the current climate, more people haven't posted about the new KEYMODELWORLD LIVE event at the NEC. Here is a link to some of the layouts attending ............. https://www.keymodelworld.com/model-world-live/layouts I hope that this is seen as a big positive after recent events :-)

With less than a week to go now before the Alton show I have told my team to make sure that everything is in tip top shape before we head off next Friday. Here is a photo of one of my team cleaning one of our ground signals .......................😉

Any idea when that was made?

Just out of interest - what exhibitions in the UK did Hattons support, either by direct sponsorship or by simply having a stand?

Next time I contact Bernie I'll send him that photo. :-)

As regular readers of this thread will know, I am always trying to balance two slightly contradictory concepts - 1. Being accurate to my theme - China in 2001 2. Making the layout 'more interesting' by bending the rules as regards what's authentic. One issue which I have highlighted is that if I am to be prototypical them most trains should be hauled by a DF4 variant, whereas I try to show as much variety as possible - if a certain class of loco might have hauled that train in 2001 then that's OK with me - more variety equals more interesting trains. However, I am taking that concept way beyond that now - for several years I have owned a model of the experimental gas combustion system QJ2 0001. I think the real loco was built in 1985 and ran some tests, but was converted to a conventional QJ in 1988 and eventually scrapped way before 2001. Consequently, I bought it purely as a showcase model, but one day something bad happened to it - I'm not prepared t6o say what happened, suffice to say that soon afterwards I fitted a lock to my showcase! Needless to say, there was more damage that you can't see in that photo, but after several hours work and a lot of expert help from Peter Morgan, it's 99% back to normal - and it runs nicely! Having done so much work on it to enable it to rune, it seems daft to just put in back in the (now locked) showcase and consequently I plan to run it occasionally at future shows - I'll just have to change the layout description from "all you see on the layout is authentic for China in 2001" to "most of what you see on the layout is authentic for China in 2001" :-) Will make an interesting topic of conversation with visitors to shows.

"Those were the days my friend..............." I'll leave it to the rest of you to finish that line..

I will admit that I am not aware of such extreme behaviour and I think that it would help your case if you would provide links to the kind of thing you're referring to.

Thanks to Al Turner our hotel has a new sign on the roof - there is one small 'typo' that needs correcting but otherwise it's just perfect and really shouts 'China!'.

I totally agree and that's why I always try to have someone outside the layout to engage with visitors. However, none of my existing team are particularly good at attracting the degree of attention I would like. And so in an attempt to make my layout more popular at shows, I was thinking of hiring Amanda Holden to be a dedicated 'front-of-house' team member.

As the the person who posted the OP, I should have known that I was opening a can of worms 🙂 In fact I nearly deleted it within 30 minutes, but by then someone had replied. As others have said, each of us will have our own definition of 'real' steam and I accept that there is a sliding scale between the Sandaoling open cast mine railway and the Bluebell with the Snowdon Mountain Railway somewhere in between.

Iain Thanks as usual. I travelled over to my friend (who does all my DCC sound installations) yesterday. He spent over 2 hours dealing with various problems I had. He uses a Z21 system. By the end, all the locos performed well on his system. When I tried the same locos today on Digitrax system some reverted to their original problems and one had developed a new problem. I have no idea what a snifferpoint does but I gather it might make solving my problem easier - may7be allowing him to communicate with my system?

Ok, let me start by saying that I am not a DCC expert/enthusiast - I know virtually nothing about DCC. I use a DIGITRAX DCS 210 I have a DCC problem and a friend who lives some distance from me has asked me if my system has a sniffport. Can someone answer that for me please? Thanks Paul

Good point - I hadn't considered that 'option'. This only goes to show that the definition of 'real steam' is very subjective. TBH I sort of agree and at the same time disagree with the concept of that being 'real steam;.

Yes, I travelled the whole line back when it very first opened. I don't think the original plan to run container trains never came about. Just tourist charters ever ran AFAIK.

I now have two steam locos with smoke - and very dramatic they are! I have so far used SEUTHE smoke oil to good effect zand I only run the locos occasionally within a sequence and only at shows so always in a relatively large open space. I have read that SEUTHE leaves a nasty oily residue - thoughts? I have heard that ESU smoke oil is better from that point of view - thoughts? Which give better effects - thoughts?

Well .............. To a great extent Wolsztyn was only made possible by the support of enthusiasts whereas Sandaoling was a genuine case of steam doing a commercial job. I have also heard that they now only have one steam loco passed for main line use and that certificate will run out soon - I think it's to do with loco tyre wear.