Four days of playing trains, roughly about 30 hours of running.
That's quite an achievement in itself but then factor in that we were in a marquee for the first time!
So we found ourselves in the craft & modelling tent at the Abbey Hill Steam Fair, surrounded by all things steam driven (fantastic smell) pitched our caravans (first time we've camped and played trains too) and set about getting this thing to work in a tent.
The solution to the uneven ground was to use various metal and wooden shims...
Thankfully these were all expertly machined for me prior to the event and there were plenty of them, so after some considerable tweaking, including using a spirit level for the first time since the layout was built, we actually ended up with a perfectly level layout that was reliable enough to even brave the goods train on the upper loop!
I was cautious about running the older locos on the shuttle, as four days of short runs along the shuttle probably wasn't going to be a good idea. So the recently acquired Lima railcar was deployed, having added extra ballast...
The Bachmann DMU also made its first appearance. It was only brought along to see if it would run but actually ended up spending most of the four days running up and down in tandem with either the GWR railcar or the Hornby bubble car!
As for failures - there were a few, and this was to be expected. Having celebrated running for two days with only two failures, two more locos failed in short succession shortly before the end of the second day!
The blue and grey EMU failed twice, each time a broken wire was the culprit and the wiring is now so short that a complete rewire will be required. I did at least manage to get it going again.
One of the two red LMS tanks also failed, sadly the one that I restored as part of the scrapheap project. The top bearing nut came loose and the armature lifted to the point that the carbon brushes were running on the bottom edge of the commutator, knocking off one of the coil connections. Hopefully it'll just need re-soldering, if not then the armature will have to be rewound again.
My faithful black LMS tank also failed with a nice puff of expensive smoke shooting out of the driver's cab, another armature job I suspect.
The Pacer also got an outing, spending most of the time running on the upper loop without issue before it also shuddered to a halt. Hopefully just a light oiling required.
The Bachmann DMU, Hornby bubble car and Lima railcar were used throughout the weekend on the shuttle, with the SR EMU substituting the Bachmann DMU on the final afternoon. All ran really well and without incident. This combined with the Arduino shuttle control system provided a lot of interest - we were the only model railway in the exhibition so attracted people who weren't expecting to see a toy trainset!
The GWR railcar in the smaller shuttle platform at Brough. The extra ballast meant that the reverse curve and points were not an issue.
After four, hectic and full-on days of keeping all four tracks in use, I've returned home with only a handful of locomotives requiring attention. Some will need only minor servicing and possibly two will need armatures. Considering the age of the rolling stock, the extremes of temperature and moisture levels of the marquee and the uneven ground, I think we've done pretty well to come home with so few casualties after such a battering.
Sadly the final day was cut short due to the poor weather but we'll be back again next year. Our next outing in July is also in a marquee (not four days though!)
Plenty of video footage has been captured, including the Pacer running at a stupidly fast speed, this will be uploaded in the next few days.
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