OOn3

This is almost an aide memoir for me.

I think I've got an OOn3 plan in my head that works. Based, on all things, on a tramway plan that appeared in Voie Libre a few years ago. It should fit perfectly on top of an Ikea Kallax unit. It is reminiscent of the Clun Valley Tramway but a lot simpler. In particular I don't think it will require much stock. I'm thinking two working locos, one static one, a railcar, three coaches and a handful of wagons. I've worked out sources for all of them.

As for the fictional location, I'm returning to one of my early OO9 layouts.

This was Hales. I was rather fond of it. I built a static OOn3 version a couple of years later that I never photographed.  The concept is a general carrier 3ft line with aspirations to link Market Drayton with Shrewsbury that ended up only getting as far as Hodnet, but later extended to a quarry at Hales as a mineral extension.

I might even repurpose some of the Apa Valley buildings.

If anyone recognizes the station building I used on Hales I would be very grateful. I think it was an HO kit. I could use the wills kit but it is both too wide and too recognisable.

The beginnings of a plan. I slipped in the double slip in homage to Iain Rice, but it overcomplicates it.

The line in the foreground that run off the on-scene turntable are the loco and railcar sheds. I might or might not extend one into the fiddle yard to provide a "virtual" shed larger than the one modeled.

The middle road would be a carriage shed, again possibly running into the fiddle yard to solve an operational problem I came across at 3am this morning...

On the other hand, I want the passenger facilities to cause a bit of an operational problem, to make the operation more interesting and to add a touch of the Schull & Skibbereen atmosphere, with passengers unable to leave or board the train until a shunt has taken place. 

That leaves the goods facilities. I envisaged the goods shed to be on the headshunt, but now I'm thinking that it is a case of choosing between the goods shed or a carriage shed.

Stalled

 I'm writing this whilst supposedly packing up the office and studio before the house move. Ideally, of course, I would have been at Warley this weekend.

I say supposedly because I'm running out of boxes and places to store them. The multitude of cats and dogs isn't helping. Another cat has just arrived through the window as I typed that. Yesterday she tried to come in via the door.

It also doesn't help that I keep coming across things that I'd forgotten I owned, many of which are relics of past projects that stalled because of home office moves.

There is no doubt that, with less space to play with in the new home, I have to do some thinking.  The plus side is that the new house will need less in the way of outdoor tools and equipment. The ride-on mower can be replaced by a small robot one, and I hope never to have to start another cheap two-stroke garden tool.

I've also made room by moving Tug and the coach offsite, into the care of Steve Purves and his There and Back Light Railway. They now reside on the Stapleford Park estate, and Tug is destined to a rebuild to 10 1/4" gauge. Not to run at Stapleford, though that would be amazing, but to be available for semi-commercial work. At the same time, Teddy has finally come to the end of its overhaul and should be returning to me soon. And rather splendid it looks as well, thanks to CDM Engineering's protracted overhaul. 

The future ELR will use lightweight temporary track, but I've decided to keep hold of the current PNP track for now.

The garden railways will adhere to my belief in simplicity, a simple L shaped 45mm 7/8ths line hidden in what is now the flower bed, and a slightly raised 32mm circuit in an island bed for Grandchildren to run robust 16mm stock, and me to run a couple of my 18" gauge 7/8ths models.

So we come back to the indoor projects...

My plan, if we weren't moving, had been to move to 7mm in the long term, with a GVT based line and a simple interchange with a very simple standard gauge line. The whole office/studio was built with housing that in mind.

The good news is that the original Roy Link GVT plan that was based on will still fit in the new house once I retire. For now, though, 7mm is a non-starter.

I really want to try out TT120, but not for a big project. I think I can fit something onto one of the existing TAoC baseboards. TAoC itself looks like being the other major victim of the move. There is one possible location for it, but it would need to be hidden away when not in use. 

Looking at a map, the Tanat Valley will almost be within cycling distance. It will be a very low priority, but I'm wondering about a 2mm version of the original Apa. 

The Cadeby and Flemish Wharf micros will continue to sit in their existing bookcases. I have half an idea for a very simple Penhryn-inspired OO9 layout as a home for some of the recent RTR products. 

So what will be my main focus? Well, I still have a lot of W&U tram locos, and I love the Rapido W&U coaches. So I think I'll carry on with that plan, but with two significant changes.  I'm going to drop the Inglenook aspect and abandon the White Swan Yard second baseboard. I'm also going to move it to a more generic East Coast LNER location and add in some North Sunderland aspects to widen the options for stock. Whilst exhibiting has never appealed to me, I suspect I might build this layout with that in mind.

And the overall winner? We need to move in first, but I think it might be a relatively old-fashioned OOn3 layout set in the Welsh borders, and using a corner cameo location. As much diorama as layout., where nothing much happens and most of the stock will never move again. 

Spalding '22

 My first model railway show for what feels like ages.

And yes it was good. 

But...

I'll get on to the buts later.

The Spalding Model Railway Exhibition is always worth a visit if you are within reasonable travelling distance. Every year there are a few layouts that justify the admission price by themselves. I must admit I never feel that I'm the target audience. Having said which it always gives me something to think about, even though I rarely spend more than 90 minutes visiting it. 

So this year's observations. a bit scattergun, I'm afraid.

The 2mm layouts were, overall, the most impressive. Some were generic N gauge layouts you could see anywhere, but others were superb. If anything let them down it was the ground textures. Less is sometimes more. 

I found those layouts using sound less jarring than in previous years, but I still have a thing about stupidly bright lights. Dim them down a little, especially in daylight scenes.

On the subject of lights, as at Warley I found those layouts with built in lighting hardest to photograph. Partly it is because they seem to use very warm lighting, but I also wonder if it is about the spectrum of the lighting.

There are layouts that I like whilst "not being for me." Copper Wort was a prime example this year. I loved it, there was a lot to see, but I wouldn't want to emulate it in any way.

Operations on some layouts hinted at how long it is since the exhibition circuit was in full swing. I noticed a lot of hand of god, but mostly it was silly things like forgetting how to set the right path for a train. Not a big issue, and I'm sure won't be noticeable this time next year. You can forget that some layouts only get erected for exhibitions.

A real plus point is I saw a lot of engaged conversations between operators and viewers.

Sprat & Winkle and Kadees still seem good choices for couplings. Unobtrusive and effective.

People still like trade stands. They all seemed very busy. Was money changing hands? Harder to say.

Highlights?

I've always loved Bewdley, not least because it is a location I know well, but it also seems to capture that location so well. I suspect for the period being modelled things should be a little more dilapidated, but I don't care too much.

St Ruth is exquisite, again a layout I could watch for hours.

A lot of layouts featured point rodding. My photos don't do them justice. To my mind, it makes a real difference.

The atmosphere.

Before we come on to the photos I have to address the buts.

It was incredibly crowded. A good thing in some ways. Trade stand opposite layouts often meant those looking at layouts could only stand one deep. Living in the area I wasn't surprised that the number of people with accesibility issues also caused problems with flow. I'm a massive believer that if we make things better for those with access issues we make it better for everyone.

What I'm less understanding of is the number of people who stopped dead in the middle of a congested aisle to have a conversation with a family member behind them.

I long ago gave up any hope of getting into the cafe area, the queue was snaking along a corridor.

Trade stands didn't seem very focused on box shifters. That probably comes back to me not being the target audience.

Every available seat was taken, with an elderly demographic that needs addressing. In fact most of the issues come down to the show being a victim of its own success. I feel it has outgrown the venue.

Finally, there was the show guide. It was glossy and in colour, but it felt dreadfully dated, and more to the point, wasn't a lot of use in the show or afterwards trying to recall layouts. A lot of effort has clearly gone into it, but it could do with a design overhaul.

If all that sounds negative it doesn't take away from what a deservedly successful show it was.

Before the photos a quick note.

I decided to try out the Q2M  even though I, correctly, suspected it wouldn't be ideal. My biggest issue was layouts were so crowded I couldn't get into viewpoints to exploit the things it is good at. I wasn't that upset because we spent the rest of the day in Hunstanton where it came into its own.

I was more disappointed with my Google Pixel 7 Pro.

My previous pixel 6 Pro was really good in this sort of situation. But this one seemed inconsistent in when it would open the camera app, proved hard to get the right zoom level, and worst of all sometimes refused to focus. I suspect the latter might have been a humidity issue. So, by some margin, these are the worst photos I've ever taken at an exhibition.

Modern TT

 With the house move now in prospect, I'm beginning to give serious consideration 120th scale. 

But in my heart, I feel it is going to fail commercially. And sadder still, I think the reasons lie at the heart of our hobby.

I joined one of the first 120th groups on Facebook set up after the Peco announcements. Like the swamps of RMweb it feels like half the membership represents the worst aspect of our hobby. You would almost think that some are diehard 3mm modellers who want the scale to fail.

You also get a vague feeling of "not invented here" as if a well-established scale gauge combination in other geographies is somehow totally new.

And then you have the people who make pronouncements about it who are clearly yet to model anything in the scale but are already "experts" which, being frank, I have to put up with quite enough in my professional life.

Then there is the trade.

Is it me or are PECO and Hornby pulling in very different directions? Now I could be wrong, that could even be a strength. Hornby's focus on the trainset world could lead people into Peco's more grown up approach aimed at modellers. To some degree that is what happened originally with TT, the failed trainset product turned into a rather good eco-system for 3mm scale modellers. I'll always have a soft spot for a 3mm scale layout, not least because TTn3 is a lovely combination.

I can't help thinking that for it to succeed we need a joined-up approach, whereas at the moment we have a scattergun one. Choose your era and part of the country and you'll find about 10% of the available products that fit, which represent about 2% of the period and era.

Take Minories, the classic CJF design, originally envisaged to exploit TT. I'm very, very tempted to try it out. I can use Peco track, the Hornby suburban coaches and.... an 08? A HST at a push?