Our first exhibition that wasn't part of a model railway show.
We were invited to exhibit at the Sherborne Steam & Water Mill during one of their many open days and were happy to display our layout in an attempt to drum up support for such a fantastic venue.
An old water pumping station that now comprises a fully restored and operating water mill, with a static steam-operated pump located in the adjacent building. We setup in the water mill building, to the side of the magnificent pump mechanism. My love of cogs and gears overpowering my love of toy trains as the rumble of the mill and its mechanism drowned out the noise of my old tinplate trains!
The bill for the coal to run the steam operated pump for a day is in excess of £75, as the mill runs on charity donations we were keen to attract as many visitors as possible and hopefully we've done our bit to generate additional interest.
We literally crammed ourselves into the available space, leaving very little room to manoeuvre around the layout. Mindful of this we chose to lightly stock the layout and only run the rolling stock that requires the least maintenance, ie no long goods trains, just short rakes and multiple units.
Space was indeed at a premium, when we first visited to inspect the site we realised that the layout would only fit if either the very large concrete ledge was removed, or we adapted our layout to fit.
Therefore our layout now has a "Sherborne leg" as demonstrated below. Complete with adjustable feet like the others!
I made a point of running all the recent repaints and repairs. Duchess of Atholl is now fully operational and is pictured alongside newly repainted Sir Nigel Gresley (article to follow) St Paddy also ran well, as did the repainted Bo-Bo.
The six car SR EMU set was teamed up with another three car original green set to form a nine car formation. In spite of the power difference (neither have neo magnets installed) the rake ran well with no detachments or derailments. It was however felt that the green and blue units detracted from each other and both deserve to be run separately. So we split them up and ran them alternately, along with the Brighton Belle.
Three of my first attempts at repainting, all lined up in numerical order:
The other slightly more serious issue appeared on the track to the turntable, which has developed a short somewhere between the points and the turntable itself. In such limited space it was impossible to track down or repair. The layout's next outing isn't until October and we already have a plan to remove the diamond crossover and outer loop points, this area of track is due to be lifted anyway, so the problem will be resolved.
Before we knew it, the day was over. Lots of visitors, lots of great feedback again and more potential bookings. Plus I got to indulge my love of toy trains and all things mechanical!
As we have a bespoke leg purely for use at this venue, we'll have to come here and use it again!
(even if we only demonstrate the mail train)
For more information on the Sherborne Steam & Water Mill and its other attractions, click on the link below:
http://www.sswc.co.uk/en-GB/default.aspx