RS Tower is located in a small midwestern town, and controls the crossing of two main lines. The busiest of these is a CTC controlled main line that goes from single to double track at the interlocking, the quieter consists of a single track that winds its way through town. There are local industries on both routes, served from a small yard that is served by both companies.
This blog should now be linked in to www.rmweb.co.uk and viewable from there – a great set of forums and well worth a look. I previously had a workbench thread on a previous incarnation (which is visible at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24051 if you want to look back at the archives) but the new system should allow updates to link across from here to there.
So, hello there to all the RMWebbers!
Right, admin-ish stuff out of the way, proper content to follow.
Justa quick reminder time is whizzing by and it will soon be time for Tolworth show, which will take place on the 14th and 15th November - Tolworth is in the South West suburbs of London & easily reachable by public transport (bus links from Surbiton station) or by car from the nearby A3.
The show website is at: http://www.metropolitanrailway.co.uk/showtrain.htm and as you can see there looks to be a good spread of layouts and traders – there’s even some specialist US outline traders which is always nice.
Era and railroad-wise we’re majoring on Union Pacific and Soo line options circa 1995-1999 at this show, expect all the usual variety of stock and operations – a Union Pacific excursion may even bring big steam to the area during the course of the show.
We should have the car cards in use here as well so please come and ask if you have questions.
Don’t forget to keep checking our exhibitions page for more info on upcoming shows, we are now due to be back in London at the Alexandra Palace show in March and we’ll have more shows to add soon!
We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be attending the Cranleigh Festival of Model Railways on the 5th September only - click on the link to open the Cranleigh Rotary club website with details of opening times and admission prices.
Poster for Cranleigh Festival of Model Railways 2009
The show is in Cranleigh village hall, Cranleigh is just south of Guildford - the show is in aid of the Chase Childrens Hospice.
If i’ve read their show plan correctly we’ll be set up in the Girl Guides HQ behind the village hall (no jokes please).
We’ll be running our 60’s/70’s outline for this show, and Santa Fe, Rock Island and Soo Line power of the era should be dominant – come and say hi if you’re in the area!
We are pleased to announce that we will be attending Tolworth Showtrain 2009 exhibition, at Tolworth Leisure Centre, Fullers Way North, Tolworth, Surrey, KT6 7LQ on November 14th and 15th 2009.
After some great feedback on our chosen method of modular railroading, both with RS Tower at Exeter and operating as a “standalone” switching layout at Gillingham, a separate sister blog for the RS Tower modules has been launched at http://rstowerfreemo.wordpress.com/
Neil Rogers will be handling updates on that side of things – expect some changes on both sites over the coming weeks as we try and make them complement each other more effectively!
It already carries some images & video from Gillingham, and some thoughts on future module design as well…
Well the Exeter show has been and gone, the only “proper” exhibition outing in 2009 (we hope to have more for 2010 to tell you about soon!) – although we are considering doing another “open house” later in the year to keep our hand in – i’m interested in feedback on that, anyone want to come play trains for the weekend??
Here’s a quick vid to give an overview of the setup we used, for the first time we were able to have the Freemo-esque modules attached to form a decent length branch line at the show which was a nice way of adding a section of layout with a slower pace than the big mainline action.
Modules used were Dale Yard, Oakdale and two curves created and owned by Neil Rogers and Dale Creek created and owned by Liam Rogers.
Don’t forget that the modules on their own without the main RS Tower layout will be appearing at the Shaftesbury & Gillingham show in Gillingham (Dorset) this weekend.
Yes, another one of my horribly infrequent updates! The layout is up and running again – here’s a bit of proof…
That has allowed us to do a few bits more on scenery, the kinds of things that are hard to finish off when the layout is in 4′ chunks but are a relative breeze when you can work on the thing as a whole. Read more »
A while back in a thread on operation on RM-Web the use of car cards and waybills came up, and that kicked off a thought process about how best to use them on an exhibition layout. Talking to the guys in the group and whilst some of us were okay moving given cars to an industry and then routing them back using just a bit of knowledge and concentration, others of us would benefit from something a bit more formal, we also have at least one guest operator at Exeter this summer who makes a very enthusiastic switch crew but probably doesn’t know an airslide from an autorack…so here goes…
Saturday 23rd/Sunday 24th May (the weekend before we attend Exeter show) we will be holding an open-house at Hittisleigh village hall – Hittisleigh is located just a short distance from the A30, part way between Exeter and Okehampton:
The venue will be open from 10.00AM until 4.30PM (or maybe even longer if we’re having fun!)
Admission is FREE! But donations to the upkeep of the hall are welcome.
The local village ladies will be selling tea’s, coffee’s and cakes – and if you’re dragging along a partner who isn’t into trains then there is a craft display a short walk to the North at the village church.
We have made a few adjustments to the corners. The issue we had is with a 3ft radius and a 2 inch track center there is insurfishant clearance for 89′ cars and large steam loco’s etc. so we decided the track center on multiple tracks on curves should be at least 2-1/4 inches. but module end is [...]
Over the last few weeks some progress has been make with a couple new modules. Please click here for the latest construction photo of Dale Yard. also I’ve been building a new end of scene board, It was originally designed to be a head shunt for Dale Yard but can be used anywhere as an end of scene [...]
I’ve been doing a lot of musing over the past week or so after a conversation with Mel at our work session last week, the module standard we’re using has vast potential beyond either branches off our main RS Tower layout or small modular switching layouts, the possibilities are pretty much endless. So time to kick [...]
