Manx Madness

 Last week I mentioned how I was only around for the 009 50th Anniversary show for the Saturday. the reason for this was simple, a planned getaway to the Isle of Man on the Sunday. This is one of those places I've wanted to go to for years and my first trip certainly didn't disappoint.

After an unexpected short flight on the Sunday (20 minutes from Liverpool. Takes me longer to drive from my house to the nearest town!) There was just enough time to catch a tram from Douglas's Derby Castle stop to Groudle for a ride on the Groudle Glen Railway. 

To say if was the railway's annual steam Gala it was surprisingly quiet. I can only assume the wet weather earlier in the day might have put many off the ten minute walk through the glen to the station. Certainly one that I really want to get back to in the future, and hopefully for a full day!

Monday saw me undertaking the challenge of walking from Douglas to Peel along the old railway line. One that many locals who I encountered told me the Manx goverment were kicking themselves that they'd closed and partly built over. I can see why, it's a great way of exploring the ever changing countryside, and there's a surprising amount of structures left along the route, in particular the many crossing keeper's cottages. This example, modelled by yours truly, on the Glen Darragh Road (Glen Vine) seems to have found a new life as part of the Manx RSPB as a shelter!

Tuesday saw a trip on the railway down to Port St. Mary. Back during my student days I'd sketched and drawn No.3 'Pender' at the science museum in Manchester more times than I can remember, but to witness one of these unique Beyer Peacock engines in steam is quite something. No.4 'Loch' has the honours of taking us out. After an explore of St. Marys and a short (Less than a mile!) walk to the other side of the island and Port Erin, there was time for an explore of the Railway Museum in the goods shed.

One thing that really did catch my eye amongst the many exhibits was this model of Douglas locomotive sheds and workshops by Robin Winter. The itch to model something 'Manx-ish' in 009 is certainly there..

Heading back to Douglas in a slight drizzle of rain, No.11 'Maitland' was the engine. Personal preference here, but out of all the colour schemes I've seen on the IoM engines, this is the livery I like the most.

Wednesday was a day allocated for the trams, starting off with an enjoyable, albeit very slow, ride along the promenade on the horse tramway. Thankfully, horse tram services are timed to meet up with those of the electric railway. From there it was a ride in a breezy but very comfortable tram trailer to Laxey to see the big wheel, the 'Lady Isabella', the largest waterwheel in the world. 

Originally built to pump out water from the mines below, the wheel has now become one of the most instantly recognisable landmarks on the island. The old mine buildings still survive up the hill in a ruined state, but a very well laid out trail made for a very fun morning. Also, whilst in Laxey, it's worth checking out 'The Tram Junction Shop', naturally just next to the station along 'tramway close'. A shop literally filled with second hand railway books and memorabilla, and very friendly staff too!

From Laxey, there was just enough time for a quick return trip up Mt Snaefell before another quick return trip out to Ramsey and then straight back to Derby Castle. For someone like myself who has only ever known the likes of Crich, Sheffield Supertram, Nottingham NET and Blackpool trams, the steepness of the gradients and the sharpness of the curves on both tram railways is quite suprising!

Thursdays saw me using the Steam Railway again, but this time only going as far as Ballasalla, hauled by No.13 'Kissack'. From there it was a short twenty minute walk to Silverdale Glen, with an attraction that when I heard about it from a friend I knew I had to go and see...

A water-powered roundabout! As the instructions say, it is operated by a dead man's handle that opens a sluice into the water wheel in the cage. Apparently the wheel comes from the long closed mine at Foxdale, another location once served by the railway.

Yes. Yes I did ride the roundabout. It was surprisingly quite speedy!

From Silverdale I walked alongside the Silver Burn River to Castletown, stopping off at Rushen Abbey on the way to visit the ruins. After a very pleasant afternoon exploring Castle Rushen (And unexpectedly geeking out about Space:1999 with one of the tour guides!) It was time to catch the train back from Castletown station. Readers of a certain younger age like myself may instantly recognise it as 'Shining Time Station' from when the box office flop 'Thomas & the Magic Railroad' was filmed partly on the island in 1999.

An on the final day, there were no trains or trams, save for the tramcar on display in the Manx Museum. There was also just enough time to go and see the castled archway on Marine Drive, just on the cliffs south of Douglas.

Open top tramcars used to run through the archway on the right on the way to the beach at Port Soderick, a rather hair-raising ride by modern standards as the trams hugged the cliffs and crossed the wide coves via tall trestle viaducts, not for the faint hearted! At this point the wires used to come so close to those sat on the open top deck that there were large signs warning passengers not to stand up, a modern health and safety nightmare! Dismantled after the 2nd World War all that survives now is the road, archway, and Tramcar No.1 in the museum at Crich.

There is however a brilliant reconstruction of the route on Youtube for those wishing to follow the journey of an Edwardian traveller:

Overally, a fantastic week on the island. Highly recommended by myself if you ever get the chance to visit!

The OO9 50th Anniversary at Statfold Barn

Last Saturday saw me heading out into Staffordshire again for the OO9 society's 50th anniversary show. I could only make the Saturday (That's another story!) but an enjoyable day was had by all, and the weather even held out nicely. A surprising amount of time though was spent shaking hands and saying "Yes, it has been a long time, hasn't it?" with other members...

As always this is by no means a complete exhibition guide, and whilst all the layouts were fantastic, I only seemed to get time to photograph a few. Enjoy!

Sandy Shores (009) - Jamie Warne.

Glendale (009) - Chris Beadle. A compact pizza layout built on a recycled tilting coffee table!

Tren Bach (009) - Richard Johnson.

Turze Ore Mine (HOe) - Lucien Eijdems. Based on a classic design by the late Carl Arendt, this layout uses a nifty concealed sector plate to allow loaded and empty wagons to be exchanged with each other. The original track plan can be viewed over on the Small Layout Scrapbook.

Loctern Quay (009) - Michael Campbell. I've been reading Micheal's blog for years now, so read about the full construction process of this shunting puzzle layout and all the intricate details. What I wasn't prepared for however was how tiny it really is in person! An incredible layout, and the stand in operator seemed to be having great fun (And some difficulty!) with the shunting arrangements.

Slugworth & Co. (009) - Joshua Campbell. Michael's son Joshua created this layout as an entry into one of the old 'Dave Brewer Challenges' that were held at ExpoNG, in this case creating a layout in 50x35cm. Again, another fantastic layout that you'll notice more details on the more you look at it, and another that I really enjoyed reading about the building of over at Michael's blog.

I seem to be seeing an increase of double sided layouts lately. The bug is certainly there for me.

Finally, a big thank you to all the members of the society and Statfold who made today possible. A very enjoyable day out.

Steam Railcar

Every now and again (And I'm sure I'm not alone here!) I see something on a model railway Facebook group and think, "Yes, I'd like one of those...". This is one of those projects.

It all stated when I was made aware of a 009 steam railcar being sold by Narrow Minded Railworks:

 

For the price, level of detail, and the fact that body is cleaned up from the 3D printing process by the manufacturer, that seems a bargain. Order placed - One duly arrived a few days later (Very well wrapped and with a unexpected free sticker!) And now the infamous 'mind gears' are turning again...

As assembled here straight out of the box, the body has roughly the same dimensions as a Peco Glyn Valley Tram kit. The only obvious downside is that due to the thickness of the chassis plate, when it's sat on the Kato chassis it just seems a little too tall.  Which brings us nicely to the first modification challenge, getting the body to sit lower. Not by much I should add, just a mere 2mm would probably be enough to both satisfy myself and make the body not look like it was about to topple over on the tiny bogies. Rather than hack about the supplied chassis plate, I decided to set too with the 40thou styrene sheet to fashion a new one.

Nothing fancy here, just taking my time with a ruler, set square and mechanical pencil, slowly taking measurements of the motor block and measuring them out onto the sheet. Checked and double checked, the centre was cut out and tested for size. 

It was during this trial fit I found that the clips on the Kato 107 chassis sit slightly higher than those on the four wheel 103 unit. Small strips of 60thou square strip were cut and glued in place where the clips connect with the plate, making sure to glue them on top so the plate still sits low! It's not a tight fit, but it is a snug one. Given that the railcar is probably going to run the majority of the time solo, or hauling only one wagon, this isn't particularly a problem. 

A quick side by side comparison with the Glyn Tram again shows how the height has been reduced. It is still slightly taller than the tram, but it's so minimal it would only be noticeable if they were parked cab to coach. The important thing is the railcar is lower than the tram's tall funnel.

Still having a little bit of a play around as I'm sure I could get it to sit just a tad lower by making what I can only describe as a 'double skinned' chassis plate and chopping the chassis itself down a bit at the ends. It can still be dropped down another 2mm before it starts interfering with the body.

Rethinking The 'Big' Layout

I say big, but at 22"x35" (A shade under 2x3ft) this still probably still classes as small to most!

The layout itself is built on half of a pasting table. With one of the 'tops' replaced with 5.5mm plywood sheet and using one set of redundant legs as bracing, it's surprisingly sturdy. It also has the added bonus that a Gaugemaster 'M1' cased controller fits snugly inside between the halves, and the pre-fitted pasting table handle allows for easy one man transportation if the chance for exhibiting occurs.

I'd been a bit disheartened with the above layout for a while now. Partly because I seemed to have misjudged where dead sections were/weren't needed, but there was also just something I couldn't put my finger on. Having based it loosely on the design of the Rev. Awdry's MK1 Ffarquhar layout, I think I probably retained a bit too much of the standard gauge flavour about it. 

So I took the plunge, de-soldered the wiring (Surprisingly easier than expected) and took the track up. A quick sanding to the remove the worst of some of the paint job applied to the rails and on the backscenes, I was back at a (almost) blank baseboard:

From there it was a relaxed afternoon throwing ideas around with a few items of rolling stock and some place holder buildings, eventually arriving at this design:

The general idea is still the same, with the line highlighted by the blue tracksetta running between a Maurice Deane style two part backscene, making the loop less obvious. The station layout certain looks more narrow gauge here, and moving one of the sidings has also given a bay platform line. Perfect for a railcar or push/pull service. There is a slight downside in that an N gauge Setrack curved point would be needed for the station/branch divide, but with some careful ballasting and modification of the sleepers it hopefully shouldn't stand out too much...

If I'm feeling really brave I could always have a go at building one, but I think that might be a jump too far for me at the moment.

Whilst I would be happy to jump right in and relay the track to the above design I'm letting it sit for a while. Mainly so I can come back to it to make sure it's exactly what I want, but also to give me time to work out a rough electrical diagram just to make sure I know where the dead sections are needed this time!