Our first outing of 2017 saw us back in Beaminster, which was one of our first exhibitions when we first built the layout.
The trailer made its debut as the new weapon of choice for transportation. After extensive work to install bespoke racking, every board now has its own dedicated shelf and thanks to the front and rear doors, it's now much easier and quicker to unload, setup and pack down. Pack down was achieved in about 30 minutes from the last train running to starting the car.
The new rear section of the upper loop also saw its first proper exhibition run. All four sidings working well. The straight section has had to be reinforced with angle-iron to prevent warpage. Now it's dead straight (and very heavy!)
The VEP has found a reliable new home on the upper loop
The turntable continues to work well, even after a winter rest. Here the locos are shuffled around in the sidings.
80104 & 80105 spent most of the day running to and from the sidings to the rear of the layout, while some of the recent repairs were put through their paces.
The Prototype Deltic now has two fully functional LEDs once again and plenty of pulling power.
The blue & grey EMU, complete with replacement gear worm, is also back to full, fast running.
A few electrical gremlins with the recently modified rear boards - one of the disadvantages of working on the boards individually and not being able to function test them as a set. The new patch leads worked well however, as did the isolators on the outer sidings, which now allows two trains to be parked on two of the sidings. A minor modification to the wiring is needed to ensure that the inner sidings function properly, along with the upper loop points at the far end, which also didn't quite work as planned.
Four potential booking enquiries received for this year, we won't be able to attend all of them but 2017 is shaping up to be the busiest year yet.
With thanks to the Bridport Model Railway Association for their hospitality.
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