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Great Central Model Event
A reprise from Oly and Chris of our trip to the Great Central Railway Model event.
Thanks to them, along with the other Chris, Pete and Mike for their assistance over the weekend!
Things are just about returning to normality here after a brilliant if exhausting 3 days spent in the company of Mark Tatlow and his P4 layout Portchullin.
Although we spent much time operating the layout, which captures perfectly the atmosphere of a small passing station on the Kyle line in 1974, enough operators were on hand to allow decent length breaks giving us the opportunity to explore the rest of the show, which took time given it was spread from Leicester North to Loughborough!
Although we did not get a chance to visit the stands at Rothley and Leicester, Loughborough got a visit where there were a couple of small layouts on display in the waiting rooms, along with a small marquee on the platform housing an LGB and live steam display, which seemed to be going down well with the families. However, as with other shows that feature stands…
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Last train to Castle Rackrent?
Last week I was able to visit Richard Chown’s house to have a play with Castle Rackrent at one of his operating sessions.
Castle Rackrent is both an individual layout and also a system; comprising a total of five stations, a harbour and a couple of fiddle yards. It is based on Irish practise, so is all hand built to 5’3″ gauge. Given that the layout is 7mm/1ft, it is pretty substantial and wraps around Richard’s basement a couple of times. This creates the situation where it is somewhat of a challenge to know what is going on in any other location on the system – this does not matter as the stations communicate with each other via bell codes (well, only one adjacent station in our case due to a fault, so we adopted a version of the telegraph system known as shouting!).
It is fair to say, even with this and possibly due to some inexperience on my part, things still get chaotic. We ended up with four of the six possible trains at our station at one point. The normal controller Mr Summers was not in attendance fortunately, otherwise I sense some firm words might have been had………… It was all good fun though and is not really a basis of operation I have experienced before, even though of course all it does is mimic the real thing.
Here are a few photographs; starting with the terminus and original station on the line, Castle Rackrent:
I spent my time (mostly successfully directed by Ian) at Moygraney, so here are rather more pictures of this station:
Immediately next to us was Mount Juliet Town):
It is worth noting the red tag on the rear of the brake van in the final picture above. This is a form of tail light and one of the jobs of the signalman at each station is to check that the full train is there by checking that each train has a tail light. The eagle eyed might also note a few coloured discs on the top of the wagons – these are a form of wagon label; each colour describing the station that the wagon is to be detached at. It all adds to the the challenge of working the line.
The final two stations I have pictures of are Salruck Junction and Lisgoole:
And the reason for the title of this post?
Fortunately, this was not the last train to Castle Rackrent; which will no doubt please the show manager of the Perth show (where the layout will appear in June 14) but it is the last to Castle Rackrent in its present form. Richard has in mind changing the arrangement of the layout and introducing another station. So it was still a historical evening.
Portchullin on Tour
Portchullin will shortly be going on tour with a double header exhibition.
This weekend, 12 & 13 April, we will be at Trainwest – http://www.trainwest.org.uk/
……and the forthcoming weekend we will be at York – http://www.yorkshow.org.uk/
I have been fettling the layout over the last weekend and sorted out the couple of issues that it had – a burnt out turnout motor and a melted servo control unit. I am hoping to have at least one additional item of stock (a DMU for specials) and one other for York (a further close 26).
Stop by and say hello if you are going to these show.
Photo with thanks to Andy York
One good turn leads to another…………
I managed to get most of another day in Tim & Julian’s joinery workshop. With the assistance of Tim, we managed to get the three boards assembled with pattern maker’s dowels; along with the beginnings of the ground profiles.
A start was also made on the last of the four boards that will form the main station area. I didn’t want an ordinary square board on the corner as the layout will be viewed both front on and from the end. Therefore, we have had to profile the corner piece around a mould.
But all this help does have a price……………………. Tim and Julian have recently acquired Benfieldside. This rather exquisite layout was built by Martin Wright and was subsequently owned by John James. If you want to see how good it is, find yourself MRJ 38 and you will see what I mean!
Over the years, the layout has suffered some damage so it is going to need to be restored. This is where the use of Tim and Julian’s joinery shop ceases to be free – there are a number of damaged signals and even more that are missing altogether. My brief is restore those that still exist and to set them up for servo operation. Here are the first three; all of which have different issues.
This one has a shattered post and is missing its access gantry/ladder. In addition, the signal arm has become detached and as the signal is slotted (ie the arm is within a slot in the post), this is going to be quite difficult to fix in situ.
This one also suffers from problems associated with the slotting – when Martin made this he only used lattice work for the front and back in order to provide a slot for the arm. This however has made the signal very weak. In addition, the gantry and ladder are missing.
One of the arms us detached from its operating arm, its ladder and finial are also missing.
Fortunately, the North Eastern used Mackenzie & Holland as their signal suppliers as well as the Highland. Therefore, I will get to use my etches! Anyway, the signals have been stripped and restoration has started; a post next week will show how they are coming along.
Wetting Your Appetite
Slightly less modelling of late; although I did manage to get a Shapeways order off for the elements of the loading crane, signals and water column and I hope to do the same with an order for etchings tomorrow.
With Christmas coming up, we have done a little travelling done to visit people and we popped down to see the old man on Saturday. He has now had all of the proofs for his next book back and they look very good. Those of you who have seen his previous books will know that there are lots of photographs, drawings and text; laid out in a logical and easy to use fashion. They are designed to be books for modellers and I think they succeed.
So this is what it looks like; the expectation remains that it will be launched at the Glasgow show in February and judging by the proofs things are on target for this:
The reason we are cracking on with doing the family is that we will not be here for the Christmas and New Year; we are off to somewhere exciting; where the trains look like this…………………….
and go through scenery like this………..
So no more posts until the new year………………………
Merry Christmas!
A week on tour – part 1; way out west
I have been on travels a bit this week, firstly work took me down to Bath so I took the opportunity of visiting the Bristol/Avon area group of the Scalefour Society. They meet weekly (I think) and tend to rotate around different venues – in this case they were at Paul Townsend’s for a visit to his layout Highbridge for a bit of a running session.
There seemed to be a preponderance of things called diesel hydraulics; not too sure what they are:
But there was some more sophisticated trains there:
Highbridge is a good layout, based on the station of that name. This was where the S&D cross the GW main line from Bristol to Exeter which it did on the level as the two lines passed under a bridge. It resulted in some rather complicated trackwork which is very model-able; even if there is some of the wrong type of green………
It is a well modelled layout as this shows:
If perhaps a bit spoilt on the night by my mo. Being done for prostrate cancer charity; so if you are feeling like this is a good cause then make a donation here
Thanks to Gordon Ashton and Tim Venton for the photos.
Portchullin at Ally Pally – 23 & 24 March
Portchullin’s next outing will be this forthcoming weekend where it will be at Alexandra Palace
It will be dirty diesels on Saturday and 1920’s steam on Sunday.
Portchullin’s Next Outing
My existing layout, Portchullin – as shown above in Andy York’s photo, has its next outing this Saturday (16th Feb) at Tonbridge. Details of the exhibition are here
After this, it will be a month’s rest and then we are out at the London Festival of Model Railways at Alexandra Palace. This is on the 23 and 24th of March and Details can be found here
After this, it will be Wigan in June an unconfirmed invite for Hartlepool in July and then Warley way off in November.
Railway Breakdown Cranes – Volume 2
The second volume of the old man’s book on Railway Breakdown Cranes was published last week.
This substantial tome is full of high resolution photographs and drawings of all the breakdown cranes built for the railways in the UK. It deals with cranes that have relieving bogies, which means mostly cranes from the mid 1930s. Volume 1 deals with the earlier cranes that did not have relieving bogies (although there was a period where both types were built).
I know I am biased, but it is a really good book. Available from Noodle Books (http://www.noodlebooks.co.uk/index.htm) and I understand that 190 were sold in the first weekend! I also understand that something like 1700 of the first volume have been sold, so there are only 300 left of this!
At the moment this will be the end of the series as the two volumes cover all of the breakdown cranes built in the UK. There is a slight chance that there will be a volume 3 on permenant way cranes though – perhaps, maybe!
