Weymouth Model Railway Association Exhibition

Our last scheduled outing for 2016 saw us back at our home club for our annual exhibition.

Regular viewers will know that this is where it all began back in 2014 for us and this was our third appearance with I 'ad That.

This time we were promoted to the main hall and after a leisurely setup on Friday evening, and after ironing out a number of minor issues on Saturday morning (even the mail train wouldn't play nicely!) we settled in to two days of solid running.

Star of the weekend was the Prototype Deltic, which arrived earlier in the week and just in time to be included. It just looks perfect on the layout and of course, it has lights!

The Deltic saw lots of use across the two days, here it's just passing the mail train on the inner track, and the Bachmann DMU working the shuttle...

The Deltic then poses in the main station...

This time we put the two 8Fs on the mail train for a while. These are running a little slower than I would like so they're on the list for locos in need of attention through the winter downtime...

The Blue EMU performed without fault as ever...

The recent turntable works have gone un-noticed by many until pointed out. The turntable continued to work well, albeit that it still intermittently turns by itself - another job for the list...

 

The Blue & Grey EMU was put to work on the top loop (as the Deltic was used so much!) but failed on the second day with a defective gear worm. Another one to add to the list...

Twin 8Fs in the station, with 0-6-2 2274 hauling the three recently refurbished maroon coaches. 2273, it's sister loco, is also on the fix list!

I found time since the last outing to produce five more Dorchester Gas & Coke wagons (all numbered) which takes the total up to fifteen. The first five will be re-done over the winter as they were fitted with paper overlays rather than vinyl & lacquer like the rest. This will give them a much shinier and tougher finish... 

Busy outer fiddle yard, with the Deltics all seeing plenty of action... 

I also purchased a GWR push-pull coach for use on the shuttle. It came without any couplings so a HD coupling was quickly glued to one end to allow push-pull operation on the shuttle. OK so it's a Lima but it looks the part and fits in well with the GWR rail motor (even if it is a Southern station!)

Once again we were very well received and picked up more potential bookings for 2017. After what we both agreed had been two of the most enjoyable days we've had so far, it was time to pack up again and head home.

And that, for the moment at least, is it for 2016. Attentions can now be turned towards maintenance of the rolling stock and the potential replacement of the upper loop rear section, which has been planned and postponed several times this year. The electronic signal aspect control has still yet to be fitted and, once the future transportation arrangements have been finalised, there's still a possibility of a five foot extension.

Watch this space...

Fareham Railex

Having left home at an obscene time of the morning, we arrived early on Saturday morning to commence setting up for another weekend exhibition. This time we were making our first appearance at Fareham Railex.

Although the setup went reasonably well, the gremlins crept in, and came thick & fast too!

One of the problems with working on sections of the layout individually is that there is no opportunity to fully test the entire layout. The first fault of the day was no lights working in boards two & three, so a makeshift connection was made between boards one and two to rectify this.

We then discovered a number of dead siding tracks at the back, a number of points not operating and then no TPO working. This turned out to be a problem within the control panel - while adding the additional wire for the new turntable control, another had become dislodged, which wiped out the power supply to more than half of the switches within the panel. Thankfully a test meter is always carried, along with a circuit diagram and schematic. This makes fault finding easier but still tricky when all six boards are clamped together!

The newly installed turntable, having worked initially, then refused to play ball. It turned out that some ballast from the sidings had got caught within the mechanism, jamming the whole thing. After a quick strip-down and some lubrication, the turntable eventually settled into reliable operation - a huge relief, although at times it developed a mind of its own and started turning at random. I suspect that there's some electrical interference so an independent power supply may be required in future.

So Saturday morning was a bit of a nightmare but once all the gremlins were ironed out, we settled into reliable running. No breakdowns this time so nothing to fix. The turntable was undoubtedly the star of the show.

The new configuration is a lot tidier than it was previously:

Finally we're able to use all of the tracks off the turntable. The far right hand points aren't yet wired-in, so this was left as a static siding, which we parked the breakdown crane in!

Very few photos this time but lots of video footage, especially of the turntable. We also managed a triple headed rake of 0-6-2 tanks, for no other reason than we could!

Video to follow, once it's been compiled!