April 2020: Lightermans Yard on the Road in 2019

The Covid-19 Coronavirus lockdown has meant that we were unable to have our scheduled April meeting. The idea of looking back over the last twelve months of being 'on the road' with Lightermans Yard suggested a way of keeping our social presence. It so happens that we were showing off pretty regularly at exhibitions throughout the year, here is a reminder, if only to ourselves, of our appearances.

Our first outing of 2019 was in January to the Erith Model Railway Society exhibition. Visitors voted “The Yard” best in show for which we were the first recipients of The John Muskett Memorial Shield. To our delight the layout behaved itself, apart from the odd nudge of the tank locos. We will be prioritising stay alive units in these locos in an attempt to achieve near faultless running.

February we were showing at the Tonbridge one day show which lived up to its reputation. By the 10am opening a substantial queue had formed stretching
quite a way from the entrance.  The show was very well attended.

We all enjoyed the weekend at The Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace in March. Our position in the West Hall, Stand 142, attracted an almost constant crowd of onlookers. There are just so many pictures to be taken of the public enjoying Lightermans Yard! Some casting their expert eyes over the scene - and the operation ...

April saw us at the East Surrey N Gauge Exhibition. Usually at mixed scale shows people are heard authoritatively telling family and friends “Now this is N Gauge”. At this N Gauge Show the viewers were all aware of The Yard being 2mm finescale and gave very complementary and informed opinions. Some were heard to ask about the more technical aspects of the trackwork and point control. The operating staff from other layouts were also very friendly towards us and, again, said some very nice things about Lightermans Yard. 

In June a four man crew set off for the Tutbury 2mm Association supermeet on a very wet Friday morning with Alan, Keith and Pete K in a hire van and David in his car. Despite the miserably wet journey, upon arrival it was possible to reverse the van under a canopy so that unloading was relatively dry.

As always with Association meetings it was good to catch up with old friends and put faces to names. The show was generally thought to be a success with a lot more visitors than last year. 

In September the 2mm Association 2019 AGM was held at the Steam Museum in Swindon on 7 September - deep in GWR territory.

Although we didn't exhibit it's worth mentioning that of the competition awards, Keith won two of the 9 awards for the same entry, four BR wagons. The Dreadnought Trophy for passenger rolling stock and the Members Choice Cup.




The Saturday following our October meeting found us exhibiting at the Beckenham and West Wickenham Model Railway Club one day show.

The exhibition is held in what is normally the church with the pews set aside, a dauntingly high roof and very few visible signs of Sunday's use. Lightermans Yard was in the main church on a raised stage near the hidden alter. There was a large array of organ pipes in the wall behind our stand.

It is worth adding the first couple of months of 2020. In January Lightermans Yard was invited to show at the Southampton Model Railway Exhibition at Eastleigh. This two day event was well patronised with good layouts and some trade stands. The exhibition was set in several large spaces in the 6th form college, including the theatre and sports hall. 

 

The Yard's operating crews experienced an enjoyable and fulfilling two days, particularly overhearing the complimentary comments from 'out the front'.

March was somewhat overshadowed by the coronavirus scare, however, five braved the journey to prepare and the now familiar task of loading the cars for our next exhibition appearance at the Abingdon & District MRC (ABRAIL) on Saturday 21 March. Cancelled shortly after our preparations, and the outcome is that Lightermans Yard is still 'on the road' split between members north and south of the River. We are currently unable to return the layout to our regular meeting base and storage at the church hall in Wilmington. Meanwhile our plans are to hold virtual meetings, more on this in May.

However, this month we were pleased to see that the current Spring issue of BRM has included a ten page article on Lightermans Yard in it's London feature. The photographs were taken by BRM's Phil Parker at Alexandra Palace last year. The basic text provided by ourselves. 

Stay safe - it's an opportunity to model in this lockdown world. No place for excuses!

 Watch out for a report on our virtual May meeting around 10 May.

March 2020 Meeting

Our March meeting was somewhat overshadowed by the coronavirus scare, however, five braved the journey to prepare and the now familiar task of loading the cars for our next exhibition appearance at the Abingdon & District MRC (ABRAIL) on Saturday 21 March.

We have been experiencing a mysterious locomotive stall on the Back Yard Feed despite 'stay alive' being fitted. David and Alan checking for light showing a dip in the track.

We eventually discovered that the addition of an anchor bolt to the underside of the track board to the base frame - to solve another joining problem - was to blame. 

David produced his two diesel brake tenders now with running detail and weathered colours.

Alan showed a custom crossover with servo controlled point motors, an intended test for Evercreech Junction.

Above: Detail of the servo mount developed by Keith and Alan


Pete and Alan have the layout stowed in its now familiar in car(s) configuration. Loading is now down to a fine art! One very welcome addition is the new trolly for transporting the heaviest bit of the layout, the so called 'hernia box'.

Hopefully the next post will be an Abingdon exhibition report.

February 2020 Meeting

Big thanks to Pete King for this month's meeting report and photos.

In spite of Storm Ciara, Alan, David, Gordon, Keith and Pete K managed to make the meeting (will nothing keep these madmen away?). Once the unpacking of the cars, after Eastleigh, had created the usual pile of parts the meeting proceeded.

All present unanimously agreed to accept the offer of a place at next years’ Portsmouth show.

Keith making the “right way up” repair.

The first and most important item was to make a more permanent soldered repair to the errant wire, see the Southampton blog. Keith was happy to be soldering the right way up for a change!

Brake tenders.

David opened a box of goodies which included two diesel brake tenders, a class 37 body and a track maintenance vehicle. The class 37 had been heavily modified and 2 millisized. The resizing was achieved by reducing the length and making two cuts lengthwise either side of the roof to reduce the width. David said the ends of the bonnets should be slightly inclined so that was also part of the extensive mods.

The class 37 showing some of the mods including etched cab windows.

Some class 37 details.

Track maintenance vehicle.

Keith showed an Evercreech Junction fiddle yard crossover he had constructed this using the Templot templates provided by Pete K.

Under the crossover showing one pair of tiebar droppers.

Keith’s toolbox craving some limelight!

It was then time to face Ciara once again for the journey home.

Loco of the month; Modified Class 37!

Southampton Exhibition 25-26 January 2020

Lightermans Yard was invited to show at the Southampton Model Railway Exhibition at Eastleigh. This two day event was well patronised with good layouts and some trade stands. The exhibition was set in several large spaces in the 6th form college, including the theatre and sports hall.

Gauges from 0 to N were represented with a good showing of fine scale layouts; P4, EM, 009, 3mm and 2mm FS.

The 2mm Association Roadshow and Jerry Clifford's demonstration of modeling in 2mm FS, were busy for most of the two days.

Pete, Keith and Alan Smith ferried the layout down to Eastleigh on Friday and setup Lightermans Yard and checked that everything was running and functioning properly. Of course, the next morning one or two niggling faults appeared, one of which sent Keith underneath the track to re-attach a drifting wire! Apart from that, a point blade on the back road lost contact with loco wheels causing a stall in one direction. Later we encountered uncoupling problems on the reception road, not always the magnet's fault.

Otherwise the operating crews experienced an enjoyable and fulfilling two days, particularly overhearing the complimentary comments from 'out the front'. On Saturday the operators, working mainly in pairs, were Pete, Keith. Alan and Richard. We found we had too few locos to be able to assemble trains in the fiddle yard - added more locos on Sunday. Howard joined us on Sunday. Important 'driver experience' for Richard and Howard.

Always pleasing to see a large crowd around the front of the layout!

Pete and Keith on the operating side, and Keith's very occasional intervention to help the annoying uncoupling snag.

We ran a mixture of steam and diesel traction placing this almost in the final days of steam.

Moments from the rest of the show;

January 2020 Meeting

The first meeting of the new decade! Apart from the annual membership fee collection, our meeting consisted of ongoing business and preparing to take Lightermans Yard to the Southampton Exhibition at the end of the month.

Howard showed a servo mounting kit that he had recently bought and suggested a servo selection that he (and MERG) were considering.

DINGO SERVO MOUNT 'low profile' (www.dingoservo.co.uk) parts and built kit.

Howard has provided some information from MERG about servos (see note at the end of this blog entry).

Alan Smith showed the progress on the brass split chassis for the Peckett 0-4-0 that he is manufacturing for the 3D printed body. Richard hopes to use the completed loco on a 'Challenge' layout he is constructing.

The two parts of the chassis and the gear set and the axle buffs in place. Below; Matching the chassis to the body, the weight should help the running performance of such a small locomotive.

Lightermans Yard is stored in the loft of the church hall. We have perfected the method of getting the layout down for either working on it or running the layout at meetings. In this case we are readying it for travel the next exhibition. This involves loading the components into two cars for transportation.

Luckily most of the layout travels well in boxes and cases.

Having loaded  the cars we spent some time just talking about the past year and looking forward to the next decade!

The Lightermans Yard team. Standing from left to right; Alan Smith, Richard Doust, Howard Watkins, Gordon Reed, Alan Brasier, Pete King; Sitting David Smith - absent is Keith Gloster

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MERG's notes on Servo Selection;
Good quality servos are now available at prices that could only be dreamt of a few years ago Based upon the experience of many members, we now recommend the HobbyKing servos for model railway applications.

•    For semaphore signals, we recommend the HobbyKin9 HKSCM9-5V digital servo. This completely eliminates any tendency to twitch at power up and is completely quiet when the drive pulses cease.
•    For turnouts, we recommend the HobbyKing HK15178 analogue servo. Although this can suffer from a power-up twitch, ii is ideal where, small amount of pressure is desired to hold the switch blade against its stock rail, Again, it is completely quiet and draws no current when the drive pulses cease. If you have a stock of TowerPro SG90 or similar servos, then they will be equally suitable for turnouts.

At the time of writing, there is only a small difference in price between the two HobbyKing servos recommended above, so it makes sense to chose the most appropriate servo for the job.
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Next blog report will be from the Southampton Model Railway Exhibition 25th/26th January2020