Rhiw FY running

 Until I pick up some scraps of track from a well known West Sussex scrap box, the FY is essentially complete with running from both the off roads from Rhiw2. A bit of a departure having a running layout up in the house. This does have a slight temporary feel to it though it would be easy enough to beef up the woodwork and make it suitable for exhibition use. It is of course shorter than the usual yard, but then I'm not running long NSB coaches and Di3s, so no matter. My mind wanders to further layouts that would fit, but for the moment this is where it's at. 

I bought a copy of BRM today... again. 

Some FY track

Striking while the iron was hot... literally. Time to get at least a couple of bits of track down. No outlandish methods here, all classic stuff. The board were lined up and bits of sleeper-width thin card stuck in place, followed by pairs of EM copper-clad sleepers. These had been pre-gapped and the ends pre-drilled 0.7mm. This combo making up the depth of a Peco sleeper. 

With the last two sleepers removed it was just a case of lining everything up and hitting it with some solder. At this juncture a couple of things were pushed over the new joint to test. All appeared well. Just the wiring and the remaining track to go down. There is something intrinsically comfortable about working with code 100, despite all that it has going against it in terms of scale and fine-ness. It just works with no fuss and is almost bomb-proof. 

 

A new fiddle yard for Rhiw

Further to the last missive; a little work today, dancing between other things, on a quick baseboard build for the new short FY for the home running of Rhiw. A ferret around in the huge pile of old baseboards and MDF off-cuts in the garage turned up enough for a 12" x 38.75" board. It didn't need to be up to exhibition robustness so, at least for the time being, I did without pins and corner blocks, relying on glued joints only. 

Determined not to cut any new sheet, I could only generate one full length side piece, so a bodge with a short infill piece and a brace. As is standard, the height of these is 3" to match the layout.

In place with bolt holes drilled and some track dumped on it. The clearance is tight at the back, as it is with the exhibition FY, just need a bit more code 100 to finish it off. The next stage maybe to face it with some hardboard front and back with a small lip to keep things off the floor.

The rear two roads will cope with a two car DMU, the front of the three will hold a loco and two coaches... just. There will also be a plain road at the very front for the second 'off'. This is quite the departure as aside from building other people's layouts, I've not had one of my own in a running state for quite a while. Dury's Gap has a short temporary fiddle stick, but never ran at home with the exhibition yard. This a new world.

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Plan B .2

And back to reality. Despite a lot of trial set-ups and having trestles everywhere, not to mention a phonecall with AWK discussing Summer Springs, I haven't really managed to crack the nut in the way that I wanted to. This is not the end of the world and I am reverting to plan B (which is actually plan A if you are following this and where it gets a little theoretical). Surprisingly this does all loosely tie together in my head, though I am expecting a possible curveball from the west anytime now.

The upshot is that the temporary baseboards are down and Rhiw 2 is back up. There is 39" before the next wall (or just a fag end under) so a short FY is mooted, one that will comfortably take any of the Rhiw stock, but not the Svanda stuff which is not relevant anyway.  A redundant bit of MDF has been cut and some odds and ends of Code 100 that were in the drawer have been fished out and this will work. Not quite the round the room epic I had in my head, but never mind. This means that Plan A .1 may be returned to.

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Trefach

Photo Craig Tiley/Peco studio

A missive from the Ed. rolled in yesterday informing me that photos of the 009 Trefach had been taken and enclosing the above shot. The layout will be appearing later this year in RM as a 3-4 part build similar to the previous commissions. The building of it took way longer than I'd anticipated, mainly as unlike the previous layouts, this wasn't some straight track on a flat commercial baseboard. However looking at this, and with the advantage of some sensible photography, it was worth the effort. I've come to the conclusion that I like building layouts for other people, not myself!

Rumours for an appearance at Warley (Statfold) have been quashed, but it will be headed for the SEC in Glasgow on the Peco stand in 2025.
 

Experiments in room circling

 

Once upon a time a small boy was given a train set (this is almost like editing RM again) the small boy was me, and the set was the ex Tri-ang, now Hornby, freight set with three wagons and a Brush Type 2 as they insisted on calling it. My fascination for 31s has remained since. This was the first and last time that I went around in circles in 4mm standard gauge though there have been a couple of 009s. For a while there has been the seed of an idea floating around and a couple of experiments have been carried out with mixed results.  The trial corner section above is a rough carcass of a baseboard designed to carry two semicircles (rad 3 and 2) with a supporting cast of cutting type scenery.  In itself this is perfectly fine, but the sections joining this and further corners may not be quite long enough to satisfy the thing in my head...but it keeps coming back. That coupled with the earlier comment about exhibitions, or lack thereof, keeps driving my head back to what would be a very no-geographical specific piece of line which would run around part of the room with 25% being FY loops. This is much influenced by AWK's Summer Springs. This isn't particularly ground-breaking, stuff, but it is a bit of a departure for me and I need to get my head around it, simple though it is. There is a plan B, though this doesn't step away from the exhibition BLT quite enough, though I'm not discounting it at this stage.

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 The great clear out continues; well maybe great is a bit ambitious, but there is a definite movement. Much of this is via Ebay and some things that I thought were important to me have now been moved on. Notably any of the pair of narrow gauge titles to your right are now gone, but I am left with a few copies of the Southern and GWR which are going for around £13. The current items in the dispatch bay are here  

Much of this thinking has been discussed here in earlier posts and there is a major change underway. I'm taking a break from layout building for a bit and am seriously considering calling it a day on exhibitions (with the exception of a couple of mate's ones) post Uckfield. As I explained to someone yesterday, I hate the early starts, operating, and getting pinned by some droning twat that I can't escape from (e.g. the lorry driver on Sunday who was absolutely determined to tell me that Class 58s were still in mainline use and were still often seen at Portsmouth. Without an internet signal I couldn't prove otherwise.) No wonder we as a social group get such a bad rap. I have also closed the rail-angled FB account in case anyone on there thinks I'm being anti-social. I'm now concentrating on the work FB/insta accounts and anything rail-ish will happen here.

The above is now finished and with the chaps at Peco. Rumour has it that it will be going to Warley (Statfold) and the SEC, though not with me. 

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Bredgar and Wormshill model show

 

Rhiw 2's second outing this weekend at the Bredgar model show. Unusual these days, although I did exhibit at the almost equivalent Amberley Museum weekend for quite a number of years. The exhibition takes place in the engine shed which throws up issues that you don't normally encounter, but this being my first visit here, I was pretty impressed. Very friendly and the whole site was very well ordered and clean. None of the piles of tat that often surround such operations. 

Rhiw behaved almost faultlessly with only a minor coupling problem on the 08. It fills my front room on testing, but disappears in the shed amongst the resting locomotives. The essential trip down the line is more than entertaining with some very convoluted run-rounds and engine swaps which give the impression that the crews are having way too much fun. I'd recommend the place for a visit, but check the website for opening. It looks as though something Norwegian my be going next year.