Alexandra Palace 23-24 March 2019

We all enjoyed the weekend at Alexandra Palace. 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 ...

 

... for others the simple enjoyment of discovering the secrets in the detail.

The 'Yard's' regular operating team - Pete K, Keith, Alan, David with Richard and Howard in support were joined by Pete Townsend, who's city-scape buildings do so much to draw in the public. We all had a great time only slightly troubled late in the day by temperamental coupling and uncoupling! 

 

Operator's view of the layout and an 'over the heads' look at the the West Hall. Saturday was very busy, Sunday less so.

 For some more unusual views of the exhibition...

 Pete Townsend and Pete King enjoy a quiet moment before the hordes!

 

 

The splendor of the main hall (there really were lots of people, the fish eye lens pushed them back
from the foreground, and it was taken towards the end of day 2) 

Next exhibition 6 April 2019 - East Surrey N Gauge and N Gauge Forum.

Next meeting 14 April (back to base)

 

March 2019 Meeting

Back to base again without the layout which is in transit to our next exhibition appearance at the London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace on 23 and 24 March. Keith and Alan took the opportunity to check the baseboards for their Somerset and Dorset layout. As this has a large footprint (see December 2018 blog entry), the large flat area of the church hall floor is ideal for checking it all fits together. We also discussed improvements to the DG couplings on Lightermans Yard rolling stock, and ways to improve making the units and the reliability of the un-coupling magnets throughout the layout.

Pete K's T-shirt perfectly summed up our thoughts.

Keith and Alan assembling the baseboard units.

Both ends of the layout connected to the fiddle yard.

Not yet built, the baseboards for scenic part of the layout will join across the front of the two circles and fiddle yard from the wide shape in the foreground - linking to the mirror shape on the opposite side.

Below an experiment for the fiddle yard point work, soldering flat-bottom track to PCB board and electrically separating as necessary. 

The meeting continued with a discussion on standardising DG couplings. Alan S demonstrated a loop making jig to manufacture identical elements of the couplers. The manufactured loop on a van.

From David Smith, nine goods wagons and vans to join Lightermans stock

Locomotive of the month is progress on David Smith's scratch built South Eastern Railway 0-6-0 R1. When finished it will join the shunting roster on Lightermans Yard.

Watch the video of R1 in action

See you at Ally Pally