expoEM Spring 2022

[johndon]

The South Pelaw group had a very enjoyable weekend operating the layout at the show.  For the vast majority of the time, the layout and rolling stock behaved themselves, probably the best show we've done so far.

[polybear]

20 hours ago, Bulwell Hall said:

P.S.  One dramatic sign of the covid effect was the absolute mountain of second hand stuff on the bring and buy stall - many members seem to have had a major clear-out during the lockdowns and there was more stuff for sale than I have ever seen before.  I too had such a clear out and did very well on the day returning home with a healthily fat wallet!   Thanks to the chaps who ran the bring and buy sales for their effort.

 

Nooooooooooooooo........😭

 

ExpoEM is a usual "must" for me, along with Railex and S4um; sadly it wasn't a good idea for me to go this year so I missed out - the B&B stand is a real haunt for me and I always come away with a stack of goodies.  Oh well, the mountain is already giving Everest a run for it's money.....

 

An ExpoEm (or any other exhibition) would seem quite "right" to me without Dave & Micky on the SEF stand being there though (Dave sold the business to Squires last year). 😢

[Jol Wilkinson]

Although many of the  "regular" traders were at Bracknell, there were several notable - and disappointing - gaps including  Wizard/MSE and SEF/Stevenson Carriages (now part of Squires of Bognor).  Carr's products (now part of the Phoenix Precision empire) weren't on sale anywhere. PPP themselves were absent, surely a missed opportunity for them as their product ranges now include many kits and bits .

[Captain Kernow]

I went yesterday together with Re6/6, 10800 and Brinkly and we all agreed, I think, that it was a wonderful show.

 

So good to catch up with so many people, including an unexpected reunion with Martin Jones (no checked shirt, though??!) up on the Bring and Buy.

 

It was the first ExpoEM that I've been to and it won't be the last. It was also the first time I've ever been able to flash my EMGS membership card at anyone, that also felt good!

 

 

[t-b-g]

I think the mountain on the second hand stall was simply because people have been saving their stuff up so there was three years worth all at one show.

 

I was very good and only bought things I had been asked to collect from the show for others. There is really no need for me to add to my own personal stash, although if a few items had been a bit lower in price upstairs in the "Member's sales" I might have weakened!

[Re6/6]

1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

I went yesterday together with Re6/6, 10800 and Brinkly and we all agreed, I think, that it was a wonderful show.

 

Indeed it was a very enjoyable day out! It was good to see and catch up with many 'old faces' after such a long time. It was my first visit and it certainly won't be the last!

[MartinWales]

On 15/05/2022 at 11:33, Bulwell Hall said:

 

P.S.  One dramatic sign of the covid effect was the absolute mountain of second hand stuff on the bring and buy stall - many members seem to have had a major clear-out during the lockdowns and there was more stuff for sale than I have ever seen before.  I too had such a clear out and did very well on the day returning home with a healthily fat wallet!   Thanks to the chaps who ran the bring and buy sales for their effort.

Gerry-that's very kind of you to appreciate the effort of the Members Sales elves who worked all weekend! 

[Galagars]

I was the individual who recalled his experience of operating “Presson”, during a break from my stewarding duties. The layout had been sold and renamed “Dunmoor” as I remember. It was shown at an exhibition organised by the Leicester Model Railway Group in about 1970. I do not recall the flangeways being any different to the BRMSB 1951 standard usual at that time, and certainly wider than those on T-B-G’s demo.

A considerable variety of stock was used, including some of my own early efforts, fitted with the wheels available at the time, i.e: Romford, K’s and Jackson. I remember a set of PC Models LNWR coaches. PC Models wheels were to a finer profile and may have been the only wheels in use that bore any resemblance to the “Manchester” profile. I recall that the layout performed well notwithstanding the different wheel profiles.

The fiddle yard consisted of a motorised sector plate with a turntable at the end. This was prone to jamming if allowed to overrun. As the youngest and most agile member of the team it fell to me to crawl underneath to free the mechanism by winding it back by hand. It is perhaps fortunate that my more recent experiences have been with layouts which lack such advanced technology!

I have acquired two GWR “Toplight” coaches. These are of wood construction and have fine profile brass wheels with a 2 mm wide tyre. These are not reprofiled “Nucro” or “Jackson” wheels. I suspect that they are the almost legendary “Zenith” coach wheels, the only wheels commercially available to the original “EMF” standard. I should have remembered to bring these coaches to expo in order to try them out on T-B-G’s demo.

I did make a few purchases at expoEM, including a “King Arthur” class nameplate from the Members' Sales.

 

Galagars

[Pacific231G]

5 hours ago, t-b-g said:

I think the mountain on the second hand stall was simply because people have been saving their stuff up so there was three years worth all at one show.

 

I was very good and only bought things I had been asked to collect from the show for others. There is really no need for me to add to my own personal stash, although if a few items had been a bit lower in price upstairs in the "Member's sales" I might have weakened!

I somehow missed seeing you yesterday Tony and I had a very good demo of resin moulding from Chris Hewiitt so couldn't have been that far away. That'll learn me to actually read the guide!

I use H0 and H0m  so ExpoEM ought not to be relevant to me but it's one of my very favourite events and, as usual, I really enjoyed it (the drive home was rather less enjoyable) I've missed it these past years.

It was good to see Plumpton Green again and I also particularly enjoyed Westcliff where Richard Butler gave me some good insights into using long cassettes while Andrew Cundick with Locthy had a good idea for a simple turntable traverser. I always seem to come away from expoEM with plenty of good ideas. 

 

One good thing is that, 18.2 and 18.83 being all wrong for me and not modelling the UK, I generally don't spend much though this time I did get a new modelling tray for just over £20 from the 2nd hand stall upstairs.

 

The good thing about ExpoEM is that people can stop and talk and, on the smaller layouts,  don't have to "keep something running" all the time. It's always a very friendly event- something that generally seems truer of the specialist events than general MREs.   

A big thankyou and congratuations are defiintely owed to Tony Sullivan and the other organisers.

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, Galagars said:

I was the individual who recalled his experience of operating “Presson”, during a break from my stewarding duties. The layout had been sold and renamed “Dunmoor” as I remember. It was shown at an exhibition organised by the Leicester Model Railway Group in about 1970. I do not recall the flangeways being any different to the BRMSB 1951 standard usual at that time, and certainly wider than those on T-B-G’s demo.

A considerable variety of stock was used, including some of my own early efforts, fitted with the wheels available at the time, i.e: Romford, K’s and Jackson. I remember a set of PC Models LNWR coaches. PC Models wheels were to a finer profile and may have been the only wheels in use that bore any resemblance to the “Manchester” profile. I recall that the layout performed well notwithstanding the different wheel profiles.

The fiddle yard consisted of a motorised sector plate with a turntable at the end. This was prone to jamming if allowed to overrun. As the youngest and most agile member of the team it fell to me to crawl underneath to free the mechanism by winding it back by hand. It is perhaps fortunate that my more recent experiences have been with layouts which lack such advanced technology!

I have acquired two GWR “Toplight” coaches. These are of wood construction and have fine profile brass wheels with a 2 mm wide tyre. These are not reprofiled “Nucro” or “Jackson” wheels. I suspect that they are the almost legendary “Zenith” coach wheels, the only wheels commercially available to the original “EMF” standard. I should have remembered to bring these coaches to expo in order to try them out on T-B-G’s demo.

I did make a few purchases at expoEM, including a “King Arthur” class nameplate from the Members' Sales.

 

Galagars

 

It was very good to speak with you and make a bit of a connection back to those pioneers. I met Sid Stubbs no more than a couple of times and to my knowledge never knowingly spoke with any of the others involved and I never saw Presson, so meeting somebody who did is the next best thing.

 

I will have to dig out the article in Railway Modeller on Presson to see if any of the track is shown clearly enough to see what the check rail clearances look like.

 

I have checked the figures and the Manchester wheel profile would indeed work with a 1mm flangeway gap on 18mm gauge and a 16.5mm back to back and a 0.5mm flange width, so your recollections of the flange gaps could well be correct. The opposite flange should just "kiss" the crossing nose but shouldn't hit it. I had no information to work with and based on their "as near the real thing as possible" philosophy on the wheel standards, assumed that they would go for a finer flangeway too but that was really just a guess.

 

I find it fascinating looking into such things and many thanks for your insight into the layout.

 

Having built the track now, I think I will keep to my 0.8mm flangeway gaps as it seems to work really well and looks a bit better too but I can now update the information I tell people when talking about the project.  

Edited May 16, 2022 by t-b-g
typo

[Grosmont Jnc]

South Pelaw now safely back home in Jarrow - all unpacked by 6pm this evening. Really enjoyed the weekend - the layout and its operators mainly behaved very well!

 

Joe

[Galagars]

I have had some further thoughts concerning my experience of operating “Presson” half a century ago. One of the locomotives in use at the Leicester exhibition was a Tri-ang 3F 0-6-0 with a scratch built Midland pattern tender. It was fitted with Romford driving wheels. My early experience with a scratch built six-coupled chassis fitted with Romford wheels was that it would not enter an 18.0 mm gauge 3-foot radius curve without derailing. “Presson” did not have such sharp curves and most of the curves on the layout were the diverging roads in turnouts. I think that there must have been a small increase in check gauge, allowing the thicker Romford flanges to pass smoothly and I wonder if this was done by constructing the turnouts with a small amount of gauge widening, perhaps 0.1 – 0.2 mm, while maintaining the width of flangeway at 1 mm?

The above is speculation on my part, but based on the observed successful operation of the layout with a variety of stock, much of which had not run on the layout prior to the exhibition.

 

Galagars

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, Galagars said:

I have had some further thoughts concerning my experience of operating “Presson” half a century ago. One of the locomotives in use at the Leicester exhibition was a Tri-ang 3F 0-6-0 with a scratch built Midland pattern tender. It was fitted with Romford driving wheels. My early experience with a scratch built six-coupled chassis fitted with Romford wheels was that it would not enter an 18.0 mm gauge 3-foot radius curve without derailing. “Presson” did not have such sharp curves and most of the curves on the layout were the diverging roads in turnouts. I think that there must have been a small increase in check gauge, allowing the thicker Romford flanges to pass smoothly and I wonder if this was done by constructing the turnouts with a small amount of gauge widening, perhaps 0.1 – 0.2 mm, while maintaining the width of flangeway at 1 mm?

The above is speculation on my part, but based on the observed successful operation of the layout with a variety of stock, much of which had not run on the layout prior to the exhibition.

 

Galagars

 

The problems with old Romford wheels binding round curves on 18mm did only start to happen when you got down to smaller radius curves. If the wheel was fairly parallel to the rail it was OK. It was only when you started turning a wheel relative to the rail that the problems happened. The tightest curve on Buckingham that I have measured is almost exactly 2ft through a curved point in the fiddle yard. To get an outside cylinder 4-6-0 around that with Romford wheels would have been absolutely impossible in 18mm and there, as in other places, there is some gauge widening.

 

I can't imagine that Romfords would have released the axles for sale without checking that they worked first but they must have tested them on either straight or very gentle curves.

 

An old Romford wheel will just go through my 0.8mm flangeways on a dead straight (although the flanges catch the tops of the chairs, which wouldn't happen on rails soldered to pins or "copperclad" construction) but have no chance as soon as any sort of curve is introduced.

 

Your thought process is pretty much a good summary of how EM ended up with a 1mm flangeway and an 18.2mm gauge.

[Captain Kernow]

The standard of layouts was very high throughout the whole exhibition. I was particularly impressed by the detail, the atmosphere and the sheer scale of South Pelaw Junction. Here are a couple of photos, I did like this muddy area:

 

Attempted panned shot:

 

[mike morley]

Has the winner of the Chairman's Challenge been announced?

[Porcy Mane]

12 minutes ago, mike morley said:

Has the winner of the Chairman's Challenge been announced?

 

West End Drift - Graham Hudson

[johndon]

A video of some moves at South Pelaw over the weekend:

 

 

[Porcy Mane]

1 hour ago, johndon said:

A video of some moves at South Pelaw over the weekend:

 

Wot! No videos of the moves around spoons on Sarada neet?

[johndon]

10 minutes ago, Porcy Mane said:

 

Wot! No videos of the moves around spoons on Sarada neet?

Not sure anyone wants to see your moves on a Saturday night 😀

[Porcy Mane]

22 minutes ago, johndon said:

Not sure anyone wants to see your moves on a Saturday night

 

They's need a SloMo camera to catch me at the lightning speed I move at.

[mozzer models]

I start coming down with a cold On Sunday at the EM Spring Show

So Today is Day 3 of Snotfest 3 covid test Done All with a neg outcome 

Today I Have be mainly coughing up Phlegm

 And have been unable to answer the phone today as I have a coughing fit when I try to talk

Nadine is also coming down with a cold 

So were going to take the week off & recover

[woodenhead]

21 minutes ago, mozzer models said:

I start coming down with a cold On Sunday at the EM Spring Show

So Today is Day 3 of Snotfest 3 covid test Done All with a neg outcome 

Today I Have be mainly coughing up Phlegm

 And have been unable to answer the phone today as I have a coughing fit when I try to talk

Nadine is also coming down with a cold 

So were going to take the week off & recover

There’s something nasty of the throat infection variety going about.  I had it last week, my voice is about back to normal today but I’m still not fully ok.  The wife now is on day 3 of it and suffering and a remote work colleague reported he was coming down with it yesterday.

 

Whatever it is, it sticks to the throat area and doesn’t block the nose or stuff up the head

[Leander]

On 16/05/2022 at 16:04, Galagars said:

I should have remembered to bring these coaches to expo in order to try them out on T-B-G’s demo.

Galagars

You may well have a further oppounity to do so at expoEM Summer to be held in Wakefield in August when all being well T-B-G will reprise his demonstration.

[Pacific231G]

On 17/05/2022 at 21:40, woodenhead said:

There’s something nasty of the throat infection variety going about.  I had it last week, my voice is about back to normal today but I’m still not fully ok.  The wife now is on day 3 of it and suffering and a remote work colleague reported he was coming down with it yesterday.

 

Whatever it is, it sticks to the throat area and doesn’t block the nose or stuff up the head

Yes. I had it for about nine days at the beginning of the month and it was very nasty. I was convinced it was Covid but three tests (of two flavours) were negative and mostly it was confined to the throat and back of the roof of my mouth. My tongue is still a bit furred up from it.  I strongly suspect that avoiding contact with everyone else for two years may have left us with lower immunity to the usual suspects our immune systems normally meet and swat all the time. I feel as if I'm sickenig for another cold today which I might have picked up at ExpoEM.

UPDATE

After my non Covid sore throat, the second wasn't another cold it is  Covid! First time I've had it. I tested strongly positive on Thursday morning and, given the timing and where else I've been or haven't been, ExpoEM is the probable source- though of course I'll never really know. so far it's been far less nasty than the throat infection and, with any luck, it'll stay that way. 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Pacific231G

[MartinWales]

On 17/05/2022 at 19:38, Porcy Mane said:

 

They's need a SloMo camera to catch me at the lightning speed I move at.

Especially to the bar when it's your round......