Harry Lime

For those of you who are of a nervous disposition, you may want to look away now...just to say that the garage was balanced 6ft above the ground, without a safety harness, whilst I sorted the electrics for James. But as the pictures James has posted show, the garage survived.

Jon, James has handed over the wiring up of the lights, so with some trepidation, this will be done tomorrow evening. Hopefully, there will be some pics to go up by the end of this week...just hope that the God of Clumsiness is looking the other way tomorrow! Chris

All I will say is that having seen the petrol station in the flesh tonight on the layout, it looks even better in real life. I am sure that those of you who intend to see it at Stafford and Salisbury this year, will find much to enjoy in that one scenario alone!

I'd better get on with the graveyard then...

Is there any further news on these?

One more TOPS 71 gone!

If Sam Seagull joins us then definitely the case!

Just to reassure Gwiwer, there are signs that the age demographic is slowly changing in Worthing... The pier has been refurbished and is promoting itself as a wedding venue and there is a new secondary school to be built in the town in the next two years. We even have members of the club under the age of fifty-five...

Morning, I'm Chris from Felpham (just on the outskirts of sunny Bognor Regis)... Like James Makin, I am also part of the Worthing Club and currently working on Loftus Road. I model OO gauge BR Blue, third rail but occasionally slipping into very early sectorisation. I like the idea of a South East Coastal Group and look forward to hearing from, and meeting, like-minded southern afficionados.

After three marriages, I decided that it was easier to mention the hobby after a (relatively short) while to my current wife. She has become more accepting of it especially as she knows some of the members of the club I belong to. She has even threatened to help out at our show one year! It also helps that I talk to her about the layout (not sure if the interest is sincere or not), but when I buy something new, she usually knows, in the same way as I remind her that Imelda Marcos is the only woman with more shoes in her collection as another empty shoe box comes my way. I suppose that you have to think about whether or not a relationship is worthwhile when you are left considering which is better: the warmth of the "matrimonial" bed or getting up early to fix part of a layout, just prior to the next exhibition...

A little more of an update on where we are so far: Pete has been wiring the front boards again, splitting the two main lines so that each as its own DCC feed, ready for the installation of the PM42 board (see post 41 above). He has also added the point motors to the new front scenic board, along with the Lenz bus wiring for the new boards. Round the back, Mark, Martin, Spanksie and others have been wiring the new fiddleyard, again in preparation for the separation of each side into two distinct DCC zones which will eventually feed into the PM42. For the curious, we will not be trying to run the Lenz bus to work with the Digitrax version, although I understand that there is a converter for doing this. In the meantime, we tried some shots of the layout in the style of Google Earth... and two more... Finally, to show that we are working, the fiddleyard has been upended for more wiring (in the background) We are aiming to test run the first locos around the layout by mid-March...ducks and runs fast after making rash public promise!

Having followed this thread from the start, I have found the discussions to be informative, if slightly polarized at times. I am not sure whether it was the intention of the OP, but it has pushed me into considering trying to make the pointwork for my home layout look slightly more prototypical. I have happily used Peco points for many years, accepting that sacrificing accuracy of pointwork for speed of building a layout is something that many of us may do in order to get trains running. However, with the arrival of a C+L kit, I hope to develop my understanding of the mechanics of a point, as well as hoping that my first attempt may not be my last. It may slow me down somewhat but that is a price that I am willing to pay, as well as the higher cost of such kits!