Sherborne Steam & Water Mill

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:

A few electrical gremlins crept in throughout the day, namely track shorts. One was caused by a rogue wagon that had derailed inside the tunnel - no one realised it was in there and it was only after unplugging and frantically testing all the tracks that I happened to glance into the tunnel and see it!

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

The road to Warley

I've resisted the temptation long enough I think...

We're only a couple of weeks away from the first anniversary of the completion of our masterpiece. When we first completed the layout, which was built solely with the intention of public display, there was one major goal that we set ourselves - the biggest exhibition of them all, the Daddy - Warley!

So earlier in the year, I sent an email with some information and a couple of Youtube video links, thinking that I probably wouldn't get considered. Let's face it, vintage Hornby & Hornby Dublo is already generally well represented but, low and behold, late one evening came a reply...

We've been provisionally accepted to exhibit in 2017, which is also their 50th show and 25th appearance at the NEC. I'm thrilled at the prospect of being able to exhibit at such a milestone and of course, confirmation is still a long way off, but within 12 months of finishing construction, we've got ourselves the booking we really wanted.

So we've got two and a bit years to tweak this thing to perfection. In fairness it runs well and there isn't that much work to do but it will have to be absolutely perfect by November 2017.

The clock is ticking...