Friday 29 December 2017

Exhibition Time...

As guests of The Astolat Model Railway Circle, we will be exhibiting our Cliddesden Station N gauge model railway, at their annual show:

Sunday January 21st 2018
from 10.00 a.m. 'til 5.00 p.m

at
The Surrey Sports Park, University of Surrey,
Richard Meyjes Road, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7AD
.



Cliddesden at BNHMRS (2015)

Come and see this rarely seen, award winning layout...

We look forward to seeing you!

Ed

Sunday 17 December 2017

Expo. Prep. of Cliddesden Pt. 3

Scenic repairs were undertaken. New rows of turnips are growing well, Cabbages growing in Station Master's garden and fallen wheat stooks up righted.

Electrics

Power controller and turnout motor control survived storage without fault and the layout is operational.

Running Lines

The weak link is the connections between the scenic section and the two outer boards that hold the return track curves. The power between boards is conveyed by copper strips soldered to the rails. These strips touch each other when the boards are locked together. At the join broken solder joints and track out of alignment are recurring problems. These were corrected but may well manifest again. Our method of track connection across board is not ideal and a more reliable method might be devised in future.

Our LSWR M7 tank engine runs satisfactorily. All we need to do now is run train sequences and resolve any other operational problems that might arise before the show.

We'll announce the show venue after Christmas.

David


Thursday 14 December 2017

Expo. Prep. of Cliddesden Pt. 2

Damage Assessment - non electrics

The first obvious sign of damage was our famous Lunchbox Controller. The plastic box seems to have gone brittle; has been dropped at some point causing the plastic to fracture and break away in a few places. Don't know yet if the electrics still work. We will probably live with the box damage as it is not too severe and its a big job to change the base unit as the style has changed at Sainsbury, where it was bought, so the entire box would need changing and control panel in the lid rebuilt.

The best way to check for scenic damage is to vacuum the layout to remove dust as this forces the eye to look at every square millimetre. I used the home vacuum cleaner on a low vacuum setting and brushed the scenery with a soft artist brush. It was not too dusty as the layout was covered in storage

There seems to have had an infestation of rabbits as the turnip field has been decimated of its crop and the Station Master's cauliflower patch also gone. We will need to grow new crops.

Some of the wheat field stooks have blown over and need replacing.

The buildings are in very good shape with only a couple of minor repairs required.

David

Tuesday 12 December 2017

Expo. Prep. of Cliddesden Pt. 1

Cliddesden has been in storage since 2015. On Sunday we retrieved it from store to prepare it for an exhibition in January 2018 (details to follow).

At this point we don't know what, if any, repairs are needed.

This will either be a short series of postings or longer depending on what we find.

David