We achieved a lot this week.  The week started with the sky and lights being removed from The Summit (TS) ready for the Weds session. Today the front scenic part of TS was removed and stored in stillages.  Two of the new base boards for Evercreech New (EN) were then brought down from their construction site and joined to the left hand end of TS’s fiddle yard.  Five boards of EN were then joined to the new boards before the other new boards were inserted to complete the circuit.  The featured image shows the end result.  We’ve already joined the two smaller new boards to make one and now need strengthening with deeper sides.  Once that is done work can recommence baseboard construction on Heyno Junction while EN’s track bed is being sorted.

Gary’s layout Haldon Road was moved to somewhere much drier than before.  The Junior layouts and Ratcliffe Street moved into the space vacated leaving a gap where the water comes in.  Haldon Road can be glimpsed in its new position next to South Junction which is being re-erected after a successful visit to SedgeRail 2018.

Next up is the tender chassis for Bob A’s 0 Gauge GT3 loco. Yes, it’s made out of laser cut MDF.  It’s a trial for the process to see if it works. The loco chassis is next so watch this space.

 

Gas Works will be at the WSR Autumn Gala on 28-30th September, so please come along to Bishops Lydeard and say hello.

Thanks to everybody in CS2 on Weds for helping with the moves.  A true club atmosphere – long may it continue.  There’s lots still to do in CS2 and the modelling season is upon us so don’t be shy in coming forward to get stuck in.

This is the first update in a while, not because nothing has been happening, but because no great leaps forward were made on any Wednesday in the last few months, just steady progress – perhaps because it was just too hot!   Well, we did get some stuff done on Wednesday and reached that critical tipping point where a website update was needed.

We will be at Sedgerail 2018 at Burnham-on-Sea with South Junction (SJ) in just over a week.  The lighting rig for SJ was therefore removed ready for packing the rest of SJ and stock into its stillages this coming Wednesday.  Picture shows the removed lighting rig.

 

 

 

 

 

On the subject of lighting, GasWorks (GW) has had its lights changed.  The incandescent lights and controls have been retired after at least 20 years of use and extreme heat generation not least in the main plug.

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The new lights are programmable LEDs.  The first slide shows the installation of the LEDs onto the original lighting rig.  Once attached and connected up, Tim used his phone and showed some of the colours available – as seen in the next three slides.  It seems that the green hue will be used when we simulate the aurora borealis.  The final two slides show the effect of the red and blue hues with the super cool new lighting rig fitted on the layout.   We just need to program several set colours into phone control to set various scenes on GW during exhibitions.  We could even program in lightning effects which would also work well on The Summit – perhaps to be followed by rain effects?

The new Pecking Mill end baseboards of Evercreech New (EN) were joined up to enable dowels to be positioned.  Discussions also took place as to transporting of the two large new baseboards – a caravan chassis was mooted.  Hopefully the track-beds will be cut and ready for installation next Wednesday – but South Junction takes priority.  We will need to take the front of The Summit (TS) down early in September to get EN attached to TS’s fiddle yard.   Once that is done work on Heyno Junction can start again.

So lots of assistance needed in the next 2 weeks and lots of jobs to do!  Please don’t be shy in coming forward to help.

It looked a bit like quite a bit got done while our Chairman was on vacation in the Silly Isles, and now he thinks he should stay away for longer periods.  As if…  🙂

Anyway, Gary’s layout, Halsdon Road, has its extension now with track laying planned for next Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

 

Holly Junction has been joined up and scenery is progressing

 

 

Evercreech New (EN) has its two new 4′ boards ready to join to the new curved boards.  Some of the curved board track bed has been cut by water jet. Very clean cuts from large sheets and no ragged edges.  We’ll use these cut pieces as templates for cutting the bases under the viaduct and bridge.

EN needs to be moved very slightly to enable the Pecking Mill boards to be joined to EN and the ‘The Summit’ fiddle yard.  All hands to help do that please when asked.

 

 

We had a full committee meeting this week. I’m sure the minutes will circulated soon. But here is a short heads up of what was discussed.  General tidying and cleaning will start on Weds.  Hoovers will be looked at to ensure they are serviceable i.e. they have “not full” bags in them.  It’s best to hoover up the dust etc rather than use a brush that only spreads the dust over the layouts. The brambles need to be moved from the side of CS2.   As members may have read in an email, grouting of the floor level concrete blocks has had an effect.  The flood has not re-appeared – result!

 

 

The visit of the The Summit to St Neots was most enjoyable, and we received a lot of appreciate commentsfrom stewards and visitors alike, though no silverware for the first time with this layout.  We also had a most interesting (and at least sort of appropriate) guest loco on the Sunday morning, which oddly considering the lack of catenary also ran extremely well on its own!

Setting up such a large layout on an earth floor was certainly a challenge with a great deal of packing being required for the build.

As planned after St Neots and prior to our visit to Aylesbury Rail-Ex only the fiddle yard for The Summit has been re-erected and the new Evercreech New (EN) boards were moved into their relative positions next to the EN old boards now on their new steel legs. From the pictures you can see the relative heights of the large boards to the EN station boards – this being to  cater for the full height of the eleven arch Prestleigh Viaduct.  The gaps between the fiddle yard and the new EN boards will be filled with plain 4ft base boards at each side though they could eventually represent Cannards Grave cutting at one end and the short cutting with the three arch stone bridge just before Evercreech Junction at the other.

This a model of the area around Prestleigh. The heights are exaggerated on the model.  Knowing the area well there is much to commend the selected route of the S&D Bath extension in very difficult terrain!  Once the current baseboard of Heyno Junction is completed we will concentrate our efforts on Evercreech New.

 

Radcliffe Street (RS) was exhibited at the Yeovil Model Show at Bucklers Mead School Yeovil on Saturday (24th March).  Robin and Dave S arrived at about 9am with RS, closely followed by Nigel, and we set up the layout quite quickly – small layout you see.   Apart from plugging a wire from the router into the Z21 in the wrong hole – soon corrected – we were up and running well before opening time at 10am. The operators, Nigel, Bob O, Simon W and Dave S were soon operating the layout from the other side of the room and outside the window as well as close by to RS.   There were some problems with points and loco settings, but as it was RS’s first outing it did OK.   Nigel has a snags list that we will need to work through.   We were the only ‘railway related’ exhibitors at the show.  Lots of planes and boats and Star Wars models and figures and plastic kits galore and paint. The standard of modelling was high.  There was interest from Joe Public in RS but whether we get any inquiries about visiting CS2 remains to be seen.  By about 4:30pm, after dropping RS off at CS2, we were at home.  Ahh, the advantages of a small layout but not the spectacle of a large one.

It looks like Tim, is up for taking Gasworks to the Gaugemaster’s open days (1/2 Sept) with support from Bob O.  Another two operators and the trip is a goer.  Dave S will be going in the other direction to Telford with St. Martin’s Wharf.