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.

A few images from last weekends trip to Tolworth…

More available online here: http://modelrailpics.fotopic.net/c1781558_1.html

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.

For detailed show info keep checking their show website at: http://www.metropolitanrailway.co.uk/showtrain.htm

See you there!

PS – you can keep up to date of all future (and past) shows on our exhibtions page.

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.

We had a few reliability issues (the biggest being that the number of loco’s, particularly sound-equipped ones, was drawing more power than the DCC base unit and Booster could handle, meaning it kept shutting down) on the Saturday, but we’d corrected that issue by Sunday and we were pleased with the quality of running by the end of the show.

The car cards/waybill info all seemed to work okay once we’d ironed out a few kinks in the trainplan and got the cars moving in the right direction, again by Sunday it was working well and there was a lot of interest in it.

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.

As ever, images of some of what we’ve done are now online here: http://modelrailpics.fotopic.net/c735837.html

This weekend see’s us up and running in Hittisleigh Village Hall for our open house, Saturday & Sunday from 10am – if you’re in the area you would be welcome to drop by and see the layout & come and chat!

The following weekend (30th & 31st) is the annual Exe MRS show which we are also attending – at Exeter we should also have all the modules (two 45deg curves, Dale Creek, Dale Yard and Oakdale) in use as well giving a decent length branch line as well as the normal RS Tower layout – all the local traffic will be using car cards & waybills to generate movement as well so it should be an interesting learning curve for us!

Oh, if you liked the video, there are a few more online at http://www.youtube.com/Gloriousnse

And there’s more information about both shows on previous posts or on our “Exhibitions” page if you need it.

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…

Firstly – the templates (for MS Excel) I used are downloadable from Wolfgang Dudler’s rather nice Westport Terminal site, and have been modified from there to suit our needs, much credit to him for producing a nice easy to use template though.
http://www.westportterminal.de/wt.html

Apart from boxes/pockets on the layout to hold cards in-use, these are the main components of the system, each car in our switching pool (there’s not much point doing a card for a car in a through train that never gets switched) has a card, the cards show an image of the car, i’ve mostly harvested these from manufacturers websites where the car is basically just a RTR model, but one of the ones pictured uses a prototype picture and shots of the actual models are easily do-able for any custom models.

For each car working needed there is a waybill, rather than the usual “loose car” method each waybill assigns a specific car to a specific flow, for example the waybill in the lower right is for a flow of building supplies from Staging to American Hardware in RS Yard. When the car reaches it’s destination the card will get flipped to return it empty to staging for another load. This represents more modern practise where cars are more likely to be assigned to specific traffic flows than wandering “loose” about the system.

The waybill cards slot into the front of the car cards as per the corn syrup tank CCLX1150 – the waybill is held securely to it’s car card and the upper half is visible to the operators showing where it’s going and what it’s loaded with. The black stripe can be replaced by red to denote a Hazmat load with special handling characteristics.

The folder represents a “train”, just drop all the cars for a given train into the folder when it’s picked up and the train crew takes it with them…

So, my job now is to do 70-odd of these to cover the switching fleet for Exeter show!

We’ll be trying it out at the open house before Exeter as well, so if you’re at either of those please ask for more info.

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:

Click here for the location on Google Maps - Be aware there is no credible public transport to this location due to it’s rural nature.

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.