Llanastr – yet another small layout – repost

Posted on May 24, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

I realised that, having just written my post on expoEM and Llanastr, I had already blogged this little layout.  As it’s a busy week, I’ll repost this earlier screed.  It’s coming up to holiday season again, so I may well repost a few popular items.  We’ll see…..

The blogsphere is a small place and downright incestuous at times.  Two of my favourite sites Prince Street, and Andrew’s Trains  both recently featured one of my favourite small layouts, Llanastr, built to P4 (4mm/ft, and a scale 18.87mm gauge) standards.  And there’s a link to a whole site describing all aspects of Llanastr.  It seems a little unfair to post about their posts, but here goes…..

From the site:

 The idea of Llanastr was born in the early eigties when I was exiled form my native Wales and found myself in a flat too small to accommodate the layout I had been building based on the Brecon and Merthyr station at Rhymney. In order to ‘keep my hand in ‘ and to allow me to run my stock I decided to build a particularly compact layout that could be erected and dismantled in a short space of time.

In designing the track plan it became apparent to me that much of the length of the typical terminus station is taken up in the run-round loop, so in order to reduce the layout length I decided to place the scenic break in the middle of the station and use the fiddle yard sector plate to complete the run-around and facilitate shunting. One of the prime objects throughout the planning and construction of the layout so far has to avoid the cramped look that can sometimes occur with small layouts (and many larger ones).

The resultant design includes platform and runround capable of handling passenger trails comprising three 6 wheel coaches and a 4 wheel PBV and an 0-6-0 or 2-4-0 tender engine (though the B & M was a tank engine only line after the 1880s) and two sidings; one with access to a bay platform and the other to the goods shed. Both turnouts are B6 and the minimum radius is 4 feet.

The overall dimensions including fiddle yard are six feet long by fifteen inches wide. The main baseboard itself (excluding support frame, lighting, etc.) is split in the middle and hinged to form a unit which measures 3’ x 2’6” which is easily carried in one hand and was designed to fit into the boot of the Vauxhall Chevette saloon I had at the time.

ll

There’s some similarity with the USA micro-layout, I recently described, with limited visible real estate, and a run-round traverser.

Posted in Hints and tips, Inspiration, Layout design | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

expoEM Spring 2019

Posted on May 22, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

Last Saturday I drove over to Bracknell to visit the Spring expoEM.  I have never insisted on exhibitions having any ‘N’ gauge, so an excellent show like this an easy drive away was a must.  There were some very good layouts on show – of course mostly branch lines without a procession of trains, that wouldn’t please some people – and some good modelling demonstrations.  Most layouts were, of course, fine scale 4mm layouts, but expo EM always have one visiting layout and society stand from another scale.  A nice idea, that perhaps ESNG could emulate?

Portchullin (P4) perfectly captures the west coast of Scotland and the Kyle Line.  I love the sheep standing on the siding and the red and blue MacBrayne’s bus in the station yard.  Both give a real sense of place!

 

Cheddar (P4) is some ways a pretty standard BLT (branch line terminus, not the alterative, the model railway enthusiast’s standard sandwich), but it is very well modelled.  The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway is an attractive prototype, in a pretty part of the country that models rather well.

 

What can you say about LLanastr (P4)?  This little layout is only 6′ x 2′, and is now 30 years old.  It was a ground-breaking layout in the way that it replaced three points by using the fiddle yard sector plate.  So we have a tiny model of a Brecon & Merthyr Railway that seems quite spacious.  I’ve attached an aerial photograph that shows the clever track plan (devised even before Iain Rice got into cunning layout designs.)  Only catch might be that the layout is hard work to operate.  From the show guide:

Please ask questions as a little conversation is very welcome to break up the monotony of operating the same two points and three lateritious engines all day.

But for a little home layout allowing an hour’s pleasant shunting and operation, what could be better?  (OK, you can model the WCML in ‘N’…..)

   

North Ballachulish (EM) is another west coast Scottish layouts.  No trains about when I took the photograph, but the bus was in motion, driving down the road!

Horsebridge Wharf (EM) is at the other end of the country, somewhere on the PDSWJR around Plymouth and Callngton.  Locally correct steam was on show with ‘A S Harris’ 756 and an E1R class on the passenger train.  They were having typical exhibition problems as I passed by – layout worked perfectly all week, but there was a dodgy point as soon as the show opened.

I had seen Hebble Vale Goods (EM) before, but one reason for going to the show was to have another look.  A lovely shunting layout set around Halifax in the late 1970’s, with some very good industrial buildings.

 

Visiting layout was Addison Park – London Underground in 3mm scale.

 

Kitedale (P4) represents an ex-Lancashire and Yorkshire terminus in the BR steam days.

Hope-under-Dinmore (EM) is a large continuous run layout accurately representing a station on the Shrewsbury to Hereford line.  It is run jointly by the GWR and the LNWR.  I especially liked the pre-grouping locos, coaches and wagons on show.

      

Kielder Forest (EM) is a model of a station on the North British Railway.

 

And finally, Llawryglyn is a Cambrian Railways branch.  Very simple, but spacious with nice details such as the open coal wagon door.  It also featured the unique Cambrian wagon adapted for the conveyance of dragons, which has been modelled complete with a suitable load.  Sorry, but I didn’t get a shot of this!!!!

   

I had a very pleasant visit looking at some excellent modelling.  These specialist exhibitions also seem to be very friendly, and the operators are ready to chat.  I was interested that a show in the south-east had drawn all but one of its layouts from Wales, Scotland and the North – but none the worse for that.  And I didn’t have to spend any money (except for entry and the latest Model Railway Journal.)

Posted in Exhibitions, Inspiration, Out and about | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Sad, sad, news

Posted on May 20, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

Like many of the UK model railway community, I have been shocked and saddened by the news about the Market Deeping MRC show in Stamford.  As you have probably read, it had to be cancelled after four teenagers broke into the school at 4am on the Friday night and totally trashed four layouts and some traders stands, that had been set up early.  It is probably fortunate that prompt action by neighbours, caretaker, and police prevented any damage to a second hall.  Another nine layouts were due on the Saturday, and escaped damage.  These photos, from the local paper, show the shocking extent of the damage.  It was also the most read article on the BBC for a while.

 

There is little that can be said when one sees these photographs.  What could compensate financially for 20 years work on a layout, or for the locomotive above?  However, it is at least good to see the strength of our hobby.  Market Deeping club have set up a Just Giving page to with a target of £500 for their immediate expenses.  As I write on Sunday afternoon, it is already at £5,315 (and has doubled as I wrote this post!)  [Amazingly, it’s up to £31,000 when I looked at 10:00pm – modellers can be wonderful, sometimes!]

And up to £51,000, 11:30am, Monday – a wonderful response.

And 10:00pm £78,000 plus £10,000 promised by Rod Stewart, and £5,000 from Miniatur Wunderland.  So good!

This is probably an isolated incident, but it does raise some questions about our exhibitions.  These are usually very well organised, but are most definitely also run by amateurs.  My reaction as an exhibition manager is to ask:

  1. Would it be prudent to have overnight security at our venue?  But comments on our forums also suggest that some venues such as schools would not allow this, relying on the burglar alarms.
  2. What is the real insured value of our shows?  I realise both that this is very much a guess for us amateurs, and also that it would be very easy to underestimate the insured value of a show.  Even if the exhibitors send an insurance value with their layout details, I suspect many of them will be low estimates.
  3. Most worryingly, would a true insurance value price us out of the market?  And will some exhibitors not want to bring along their best work to shows, leaving us with a lower standard of model on display?

Some guidance would be helpful from the insurance business, or perhaps from the organisers of our more commercial shows such as TINGS and Ally Pally.  Perhaps at the end of the day we need to put this into perspective.  Hopefully an isolated incident, and with losses that are probably a fraction of those to flood, fire and burglary?

I can only offer my best wishes to the Market Deeping MRC, and that they will recover, stronger if scarred, in the future.

Posted in Exhibitions, Out and about | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A rival for Paul?

Posted on May 18, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

Not a bad selection…..

Some excellent models and camera angles….

And the real thing….

Posted in ESNG, Inspiration, Out and about | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

ESNG meeting – 15 May 2019

Posted on May 16, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

A rather quiet evening, with just the seven of us at club night.  We were missing both the Cha(I)rman (missing on a milk round) and the Chairman Elect (just missing), and a few others.  But we quickly set up some track and ran some trains.

I had put together a mixed rake of BR Mk 1, Bullied, Stanier and Hawksworth carriages, to make the sort of mixed rake found in early BR days.  These looked good behind first a Warship….

 

And then a Western…..

No. 1 son Michael lowered the tone slightly with some recent Ebay purchases – that all ran very well.  He also had Annie and Clarabel and some Troublesome Trucks….

 

And from the ridiculous to the sublime (or vice versa.)  Derek’s neat Hunslet diesel conversion pushing a rail-wheeled Landrover (the motor is in the Hunslet.)

Posted in ESNG, ESNG meetings | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

ESNG PlayDay – 12 May 2019

Posted on May 14, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

Another pleasant afternoon running trains at the PlayDay.  We, of course, started with a curry, and were joined by Ron celebrating his 67th birthday.  And Miles, who demolished a large number of samosas after the Ruchita accidentally double up his order.  We couldn’t persuade Ron to pay the bill, though….

Nine of us met to run trains, though there was a certain amount of checking phones for the Grand Prix and Premiership progress.  And, as usual, a lot of talking.  By the end of the afternoon, most of us were sitting around chatting.

I had managed to change the couplings on one of my PA’s, so ran my Lehigh Valley passenger train.  A couple of things need fettling, but it looked good running around the layout.  There is the inevitable difference in shades of red, but they look acceptably different – different paint batches and fading in service?

   

It was American day as both Simon and Graham had more US trains on show.

 

But there was some Swiss and Japanese freight from Paul….

And the Longmoor Military Railway from Derek….

I finally gave my latest Ebay purchase a run.  I’ve got a couple of these, but couldn’t resist another one.  My favourie Japanese tram, and they are close enough to US designs to pass muster as an interurban.

Posted in ESNG, ESNG meetings | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Dorking MRC Spring Exhibition 2019

Posted on May 12, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

Dorking MRC held their Spring Show in Redhill, so I dropped in as it was within walking distance.  A small show, but some good layouts, and I saw a number of friends to talk to.

Dorking had their new ‘N’ gauge layout based on Dorking West station in the 1960’s on show for the first time.

The West Sussex Group had brought along Lyme Regis….

And Rixtimin…..

Ian Rickman had his micro-layouts on show….

St Paddy, china clay and a Thumper….

Birch Coombe, another Dorking MRC layout, somewhere on the south coast….

Crossing the canal….

Cattle on Camlan….

Demolishing West Hoathly….

And micro-‘O’ gauge with Bridlington Quarry.

Posted in Exhibitions, Inspiration, Out and about | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway 2019

Posted on May 10, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

I was unable to join the expedition to the Bredgar and Wormshill Light Railway, down in deepest Kent, but Allan sent me some photographs.

The first Sunday in May is the first operating day of the year for the Bredgar and Wormshill Light Railway.  It was also their 2nd model railway themed day.  But its the railway we all go to see!

                 

Not sure what gauge these are, but Lucas (Sean junior) is enjoying them….

 

Posted in Exhibitions, Inspiration, Out and about, Prototype | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

On my workbench – one project complete

Posted on May 8, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

A while back I reported on me repainting Microtrains and Atlas coaches into Lehigh Valley colours.

 

These coaches are not exactly right for LV heavyweights, but they’ll do the job.  And I have finished the repaints – plus four out-of-the-box Rapido Osgood-Bradley coaches.  The reds still don’t quite match (and I think the Rapido red is too light), but they are probably no different as seen on the prototype with different pots of paint and weathering.  I now have a rake or two of coaches for my PA’s – next job, fit Microtrains couplings to the PA’s (all five of them).  Now that job has been hanging around for at least 15 years….

Posted in ESNG, Exhibitions, N Club International, On my workbench | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Loco shed layouts

Posted on May 6, 2019 by snitchthebudgie

Interesting link on https://groups.io/g/ngauge  about the design and operation of Lancashire and Yorkshire engine sheds.

http://www.lyrs.org.uk/images/uploads/Paper_-_Attock_1924_-_I.Loco.E_-_Locomotive_Shed_Layout.pdf

Posted in Out and about, Prototype | Tagged , , | Leave a comment