Lynton and Barnstaple Railway in 009

Hi Folks

I am the builder of the 009 layout County Gate which was lucky enough to get best NG at the recent Warley show. If I had not been taken aback by the affair (I was like a stunned mullet) I would like to have taken the opportunity to thank Mr Waterman for becoming involved in the Welsh Highland Project.

the County Gate website is on http://www.009.cd2.com

19 Jan

Having been frozen and snowed in, so I could not even get the barn door open to work on the railway, it followed on with a flood! I have started to check running and found three soldered rail joints fractured, which I believe is down to the -6 temperature we suffered. Still, County Gate is coming back to life again.

You may be interested to see a new video of the line when operating in Utrecht. It was done by Rhys Davies.

County Gate in Holland by Rhys Davies

Brighton Modelworld

So we are back  from the Brighton Modelworld show. We arrived at lunchtime Thursday and found ourselves at the loading bay in freezing conditions. For one who dwells in the backwoods of Herefordshire, Brighton is rather a strange place. On the streets, were men in frocks, and others, (of indeterminate gender) had trousers with the crotch well below their knees which really looked as if they had shot a load in their shorts!

The Brighton Centre is a slightly frayed building more or less on the front. The interior is a rabbit warren of halls with one large arena on the first floor. When they built this place design work stopped some place short of the loading bays. These are cramped in the extreme and totally inadequate for the size of venue. The organisers made a valiant attempt to help exhibitors unload but the architecture got the better of them for the most part. Many had to wait at some race course half way to Dover before being called to unload some hours later and there were quite a few grumps. Due to our long setup time, we were allowed in quickly and organisers kindly helped us to unload.

Light relief was afforded for exhibitors when the huge boating pool burst, dumping thousands of gallons of water across the floor.

Six hours later, we were more or less set up and retired to our hotel very cold and tired. The organisers had kindly booked a hotel on the front. On arrival, the Polish staff were more interested in getting guests to sign in multiple boxes to confirm they had read their no smoking policy (which was longer than the Maastricht Treaty), than actually making people welcome. A sort of Polish run Faulty Towers, in fact. The real problem arose when they demanded £150 in cash or credit card per person so they could fine anyone who broke the rules.

I felt that as they did not trust us not to smoke in their rooms, I was certainly not going to trust them with my money or credit card details! Eventually they gave up and let us in and we retired to comfortable rooms and began to warm up.

Upon arrival at the venue the next day, we were confronted with burnt out debris and an overwhelming smell of fire. Some idiots had tried to set fire to the building. Fortunately, Brighton’s finest were there to extinguish it in short order. Hell, this place is Dodge City in a frock!

The Brighton show is eclectic in the extreme and is a first class venue for parents and kids. There was a large Lego stand where kids could build what they liked and an area for huge model tanks which gave battle to each other. Personally, I hate war games stuff and see it as playing with large radio controlled Tonka toys and dolls.

There were boats, planes and cars galore, all being controlled by RC. The entire building must have been awash with radio frequencies and herein lay our problem.

At the beginning and end of the days, the County Gate automation worked faultlessly. As more and more frequencies fired up during the day, it attacked our system and all sorts of mistakes cropped up which had trains going into the wrong places and at times colliding with each other. Some superb large robots were also wandering around. Of note was ‘Titan the Robot’ which performed a great show. When he was around however, points even began to start changing all on their own!

Being in the main hall was certainly not the ideal for us. As we were directly underneath the loudest Tannoy system ever installed, were close to tank battles with ordnance and very noisy singing robots. We drowned in a cacophony of sound. It was impossible to hear oneself think and regular exits were in order to get one’s hearing back. The lower floor, by contrast was as peaceful as a summers meadow and I just wish that we had been down there.

The food provided by the Brighton Centre was inspirational. I had no idea that road kill could be served in so many different ways.

Despite our tribulations, the public did seem to like the layout and we were awarded gold. All in all the experience was ‘educational’ and we shall certainly avoid venues with radio control all around in future. At all times the organisers did all they could to help but for us, it was hard work to keep up a show.

My thanks to Desperado Rhys Davies who so valiantly helped out.