trains12

Hi All Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. All the very best Peter

Hi Marcus Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Must try and get over to see you in the new year sometime health permitting. All the very best Peter

Hi Alan Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. All the very best Peter

Hi Mike Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Must try and get over to see you in the new year sometime health permitting. All the very best Peter

Hi Jinty In the Nov. issue of Backtrack there is two phptos in colour of Talyllyn Junction. Peter

Hi all Andy P came down and spent most of last Friday with us tinkering on the layout and managed to sort out the sound on my Class 37. Had a very enjoyable day talking trains and model railways. Then onTuesday night Jinty and Muddys-blues both came down to see the layouts GTD and BoM so had another good night talking models. Taken the boredom out of being by myself at night. Peter

Hi Jinty and Muddys-blues Very nice meeting you Jinty and enjoyed talking with you both. Anytime you want to come down and, as Wendy says, play toy trains just give us a ring or pm, you are most welcome. It gets rather lonely up here by myself at nights. Thanks again for coming Peter

Happy birthday Allan Peter

I know am looking forward to your trip to me because I need a good jolt as well to get me moving again. Peter

Hi All Well we have put up The Bridge of Muir down at the unit to day after a visit to the doc's again. Andy P is coming down on Friday for a visit and I am hoping that he will help me ajust the sound on my class 37 that I have had chipped at the Hartlepool show.. It will also give me a chance to correct the kink in the trackwork leading on to the bridge at the station end In the mean time work will start in ernest on the conversation of Glen Gillie to DCC This has to be completed by feb next year. Peter

Hi All Well here are a few shots of a new engine that I obtained at the Hartlepool shoh. It is not really suited to the West highland lines but I could not resisit as the 9Fs are one of my most loved class of locos. It was weathered by Pete Dawson at the show and he has made a great job of it. It will be used on Great Tunsley Dale. but at present I am suffering from Wendy for buying it. Will take a few shots of it on GTD in the next week or so and post them on GTD thread. Peter

Hi All Here are the last of the photos that I took at the show. Enjoy Peter

Hi All Here are a few more shots taken at the show. Peter

Hi Guys We rectified it by adding extra glue but not on every girder underneath and this seemed to have held it, but about lunch time on Sunday it lifted about 5mm off the deck but didn't cause us any problems. At present we have no firm commitments for shows with the layout till late next year so we are going to lift the track from the end of the bridge to the first point at the station and relay it to take out the kink and to get it more level. We are going to make an expansion joint at the bridge end by soldering on each side of the rails some microbore tube and at the opposite side of the joint some fine wire that will slide into the tubes to keep alignment and electrical contact and leave a fair gap between the rails and also glue the track bed on the bridge down with stronger glue. Peter

Hi All Well here are a few shots that I took of the layout at Hartlepool over the weekend. Enjoy and please comment. Thanks Peter

Hi All Here is a quick shot of the two awards that the layout won at the Hartlepool show. Peter

Hi All Arrived back at 16 20 today after a 7.2 hour drive with major hold ups on the M62 M56 and the A55. Anyway home now. As Wendy has said I have won a further two trophies for Bridge of Miur at the Hartlepool show. The Diane Leigh Memorial Trophy for the best layou in the show as voted by the public, and the Model Tree shop Trophy for the best Scenic Layout. At present they are still packed away in the van. When I get them out tomorrow will take a few shots of them. In the mean time a big thank you to Richard and Norman for all the help at the show. Also to the Hartlepool lads for having us again at the show. As for the layout on the whole it was working well but we do have a small problem on the DCC contol in that at present we can only use one unit , there seams to be a short on the system when two are connected. Any way a big thank you to Simon Howard fior all his help on the DCC and for fitting a sound chip into my Class 37. Will post some photos but for now its bed. Cheers Peter

Well he's done it again so I believe. 2 trophies won this weekend at Hartlepool. No doubt when he's back tomorrow he will elaborate, must get the saw out to widen the doorways!! Wendy

Hi all Just a quick update. Layout all ready for packing into the van on Thursday to take up to the Hartlepool show (they have promised either a new van or one less than 12 mionths old so fingers crossed it won't break down). All the minor damage, trees broken, people unglued etc has been repaired so hopefully everything will be ok for the show. Hope to see some of you at the show so please make yourselves known. You might even be roped into operating. See you Peter

Hi Giles Sorry Alan if I'm pinching your thread but I thought you might like to see this model of the inn that is used on Great Tunsley Dale layout. It was originally built in 1989 for a small to be exhibition layout which was not finished. It was then used on the exhibition layout Buxworth Sidings in 1992 and finally reused here in north Wales on GTD in 2007. It is made from a balsa wood frame then coated in pva and allowed to dry and finally covered in Keen fire cement. Todate it is 26 years old and is still as sound as when it was first made. The only thing that I have done to it is repaint it when it was installed on GTD. There has never been any deterioration in the fire cement. .As far as I am aware Keen is no longer available so for many of my later models I have been using Daz. Hope this is of some use. Peter PS The coating I put on was about 3mm thick.

Just an update. It would appear that the AA office staff and the hire company were at loggerheads over taking the van to the show where the hire people could have got another van to us over the weekend. It seems that the van hire agreement with the AA is ONLY return to base. They (AA) were wanting £2.50 per mile plus vat to take the van to Gaydon. Anyway have managed to get a full refund on the hire of the van and they are now trying to sort out the fuel costs as we filled it right up. The hire firm have promised a new van which is due in or a 2014 van for Hartlepool. The small bits of damage will be started on tomorrow ready for the next show. Thanks to everyone for their support on both this thread and the show thread. Peter

Hi all I should be down at the show but am sat here in north Wales! We set off great and at 12.15 after doing 131 of the 207 miles just as gone on M54 near Telford the engine went. After hanging around on motorway for 2.5 hours the AA arrived and that is when the real problems started. The van hire firm had told the AA to return us to their base on Anglesey. They would not send a spare van out to us, would not pay the AA for a second relay to enable us to go to Gaydon and then back from there on Monday. Also we wouldn't have got back to their base until after they closed and would have to left the van with all the layout in an unsecured car park. So we brought the van back to the unit here in Nantlle and now they reckon it is our responsibility to deliver the van back to them!! To crown it all I tripped over the cat on the stairs and have now hurt my side. So it was not a very good day. It is the first time in 30 odd years of exhibiting that have had to back out of a show and I feel terrible about letting people down and the public who will be visiting the show to see the layout and also Mike Wild and the Hornby team. After the van had beenloaded on 2 of the flatbed lorries and even the AA drivers being so careful knowing what was inside the van, when we came to unload it last night and this morning there has been some minor damage due to the swaying of the van up in the air. Most is trees snapped, vehicles and people unglued, should be able to get it all rectified before Hartlepool in a fortnight. (That is if we have a van) Very big sorry to everybody, but hope to see some of you at Hartlepool. Peter

Hi All Well Bridge of Muir is all packed up in the van ready for the trip tomorrow to the Hornby show at Gaydon , Hope to see a lot of you there so please let on who you are. See you Peter

Hi Andy By Sneezing. Bring your tool box with you next week and we can get that b............... control panel working with the LED.s. Seriously looking forward to seeing you. Are you staying over, if so where are you staying? Peter

Hi All Well the layout is packed ready for its next show at The Great Electric Train show at Gayden next weekend. Still have nort sorted the points control panel out with the LED,s so have left it till after the next two shows then I hope someone will call and give me a hand with it. Now that the nights are drawing in it gets very loneley with Wendy out at work till 10.00pm so I have been drawing up some new layout ideas together with som new buildings that I want to build. At present dont have my modelling hat on so little has been done on the likes of the boat beam engine or the 7mm wagons. I need a kick up the back side to get me going. The show might just do it. Cheers Peter