Wimrail 2015 & pictures

Our third outing for the layout and first opportunity to fully test the new fiddle yard.

After a leisurely two hour setup on Friday evening (1 hour to put the layout together and 1 hour to put out the stock) we agreed that Friday evening setups are far easier than trying to do it all on the day of the show. Especially with the older stock and infrastructure that we run, the extra time is very valuable and cuts down the stress levels no end!

Both Saturday and Sunday were reasonably busy. Again plenty of interest from people of all ages, lots of HRCA members this time and the usual amount of folks who either had HD as a child, or still have some tucked away in the roof!

Only only casualty - after repairing several over the weekend only one of the new repaints requires further work, possibly an armature fault as it became very slow and was drawing well over half an amp without a load attached. A couple of locos required minor oiling (which is to be expected) and Deltic Crepello shed two of its tyres so these were replaced on the day.

Lots of opportunities to run all of the stock, rotate the loco usage and try more double-heading. All of my recent DIY repaints were put in with only the aforementioned loco failing.

Another potential booking received and after two solid days of continuous running it was all over. Show ended at 4.30pm and by 5.15 we were loaded and away. Home before 6pm with plenty of time and daylight to unload the car!

Once again we were very well received, even the Bachmann CEP seemed to go down well with most people!

Next show in May.

Pictures below...

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Repaints in action

Today's open day at the Weymouth model Railway Assocation gave me an opportunity to test the layout fully prior to next weekend's two day exhibition in Wimborne. It also gave me the chance to test my home-made restorations.

Testing on these had been limited to running on the bench with wires across the pickups and wheels, hence two of them ran in reverse, this was swiftly resolved by turning the magnets. However I manged to forget to refit the handrails to 80054 completely, so this ran without for the duration of the day and are unlikely to be refitted before next weekend.

Four restored 2-6-4 locos, all formerly 80054 standard tanks

80104 & 80105

80053 & 80054 (minus handrails)

69568 & 69569 on the shuttle - these were very similarly matched for power and ran well together 

69567 waiting in the shuttle siding, this one was sent out on the main loop later in the day

69568 hauling the local goods train

69569 on the passenger shuttle

80104 rounds the corner on the upper loop hauling Pullman coaches

69569 waiting at Brough for the goods train to return

69568 & 69569 together

80104 waits in the upper rear siding

80054 & 80105 await their turns in the turntable sidings

All performed really well, some welcome additions and a bit of variety.

Not bad for someone with very little artistic experience!

Three locos for under 50 quid!

£46.77 to be exact.

After some moderate success with my home-made transfers, I decided I needed more tank engines to experiment on.

For the 0-6-2 locos, I've already revisited my first ever loco repaint and replaced the running numbers and boiler transfers - the originals were quite dull and the numbers hard to read because the transfers were paper based and I used too much lacquer when finishing the loco body. This has been numbered 69567 to replace my existing 69567 loco.

The Southern 408 green body has been removed from its loco chassis and replaced with another repainted body, this one has become 69569. Finally the chassis that's spent the last few months masquerading as Train Cam finally received a shiny repainted body and renumbered 69568. My original 69567 will come off the layout at the end of tomorrow's run and will probably end up in a British Railways plain livery.

loco formerly known as Train Cam finally gets a new body!

For £16.05 I netted this 0-6-2 loco...

Haven't tested it yet but needed a front coupling for the ex-Train Cam chassis, I also snapped a rear coupling on the ex-Southern loco and lost one of the brush springs, so I know these three items will need sorting before I get to the rest. It will be restored and not used as a source of spares. Most likely I will restore this chassis, refit the Southern green body and sell the loco. The Southern body is in excellent condition so it will be interesting to see what it's worth - if it fetches more than £16.05 then I'm in profit!

As for 2-6-4 locos, I find that the GWR green 4mt loco spends most, if not all of its time sat in the sidings (if it comes out of the box at all) nothing wrong with the loco, just don't use it, so time for a body swap. The other two of the locos purchased were 80054 2-6-4 locos, one arrived in an original box, only cost me £16.00 and actually ran surprisingly well, even before the usual rework treatment and even with a carbon brush that had split horizontally in two.

The other loco was sold as a non-runner and looked like this:

Now these are the projects I love! - You know exactly what you're going to get and all for £14.26!

I've been caught out several times at toy fairs and on Ebay with locos sold as being in full working order that don't run. The most expensive example was Sir Nigel Gresley, which cost me over £70 to buy, and a lot more on top to make it run properly.

My first ever repair was an 80054 and I love the simple mechanics of these locos. This one was sold as a non-runner / spares or repairs and the seller stated that it didn't move when power was applied.

When I applied power, all I got was a nice big puff of smoke out of the cab. My first thoughts were that the armature was probably toast. There are some out there who would just strip this of its salvageable parts and file the rest straight into the bin. Not me though.

After performing the usual checks on the brush tube insulation and a good clean up, all that was wrong here was a build up of carbon between the commutator segments. A quick clean with lighter fluid and a buff of the commutator segments with a com stick, plus a new magnet and lube and I had equal resistance across all three armature segments and a fully operational chassis.

The body will be stripped in due course but as previously stated, I have a load of spare bodies and had reworked some 2-6-4 bodies ready for swapping. This one has now become 80053 after also straightening out both couplings.

I ended up with four home-made 2-6-4 bodies, three of which were stripped and repainted, the other I cheated and just applied new decals as the paintwork was already mint. Along with 80053, I've also produced 80104 and 80105, the real versions of these survive today in preservation and one is based at Swanage, which is my nearest preserved railway so is a little homage!

Finally, I realised that it was time to revisit my first ever repair again. Now my £13 80054 that I bought all that time ago has been running quite happily since that first strip down and I've resisted replacing it, even when better examples have turned up but with its new, shiny 80053 running mate it really was time to do something cosmetic and I really wanted these to match, so the last of the new repaints was done as 80054 and the bodies swapped over.

All of these will get their first proper outings at the Weymouth open day tomorrow, in time for our next major exhibition in Wimborne next week.

Pictures to follow...